#sometimes I forget how savage data is

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 135

I think y’all are in for a treat with this one. I won’t spoil it, though, other than to say that @baelpenrose and @charlylimph-blog thought this chapter was hilarious.

Think about that, please. Charly and Arthur think this chapter is hilarious.

Eyeah. That’s all I’ve got to say about that. I do not take responsibility for any injuries sustained.

As always, please don’t forget to check out the podcast! I will plug it shamelessly, so you may as well.

“Where are they?” Alistair murmured while he searched our shared office thoroughly.  Had it been anyone else, I would say he was being calm, but the fact that he was searching for anything, at all, tagged it in my head as a downright frantic pace.

“Where are what?”

“Nothing,” he dismissed, despite continuing his search.

I furrowed my brows. “You haven’t even had your tea yet. Or your breakfast?”

A pale hand waved me off. “I am aware.”

Shrugging, I gave it up as a lost cause and went back to the list of evacuees that Tyche and I had drafted up. After whipping up a preliminary list of who was assigned where, we were doing a more thorough second pass to ensure no conflicts of personality.  Deep in thought, I paid Alistair no attention until Parvati and Hannah arrived fifteen minutes later.

“Alistair, they aren’t here, so you can stop looking,” Hannah grinned as she took her accustomed seat.

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Surrrrre you don’t. Just like I’m sure you don’t know why several of the paint pens ran out of pigment,” Parvati assured him in the most sincere tone I had ever heard. My former therapist would have been proud.

I fought back a smile as he straightened and finally stopped his search, even going so far as to tug his shirt to get any wrinkles out. “I know no such thing.”  With that, he turned his back to all three of our snickering faces, requesting his usual tea and scone from the food console.

Composing my face, I tried to be serious for a minute. “You should eat fast, because our appointment with Arthur Farro is in about fi - “

My door whooshed open. Speak of the devil.

“ - ve minutes early, apparently,” I finished.

Unperturbed as usual, the subject of my previous suggestion strolled in with his usual air of confidence.  Just as he was going to take a seat beside Parvati, he leaned across the table. “Aww, no kiwi or pomegranate on your clotted cream this morning? Poor fing,” he said with a mocking pout.

“I am baffled why everyone believes such things of me,” Alistair grumbled into his tea with a scowl.

I sputtered. “You were using the pens on your breakfast?”

He didn’t even bother denying the chorus of confirmations from those around him, taking the higher road of sudden deafness. “Farro, I am still not entirely sure why a former warlord is necessary for discussions of an evacuation plan.”

“Warlords are generally just berserkers if they don’t have anyone to be ‘lord’ of.” Farro shot a dazzling smile as I supressed a groan. “But then again, being British, I’m sure you got confused, what with all the lords that were there in the last century without even land to their names.”

It really was easier sometimes to do things without either of them. Time to step in. “Gentlemen,” I purred in my most annoyingly ‘motivational’ tone possible, “the bathroom is right through that door, if you would like to continue your pissing contest.  However, some of us have actual work to do, so whether you fuck it out or fight it out, please do so on your own time.”

Both mouths shut with an audible click, and both men looked away from me. But at least they were quiet. Sophia: 1, Whatever-the-hell-this-was: 0.

I forged ahead while I had the chance. “Arthur, thank you for taking time to meet with us regarding the plans for fortifying the safety points. I’m sorry that Tyche couldn’t be here, however she scheduled her stay-cation several months ago and frankly deserves it.” By which I meant I had bribed Derek with a nauseating amount of bao to disable any communications to or from this office from going to her data pad until the start of her first shift post-vacation, and threatened my entire family within an inch of their lives to keep them from bringing up work around her for the next week. “However, I do have her concerns and suggestions ready, I assure you.”

With a scowl, he glanced at me and stood, calling up the emitter-map of the Ark. Quickly, he sketch circles around each of the ‘bunkers’ we had designated. “Xiomara had very sound judgement in the locations she chose for safe-zones, and I honestly expected it. Between her and Evania, there is a frankly terrifying amount of strategic prowess in what is theoretically our Health and Safety office.”

“You can’t be healthy or safe if you’re dead,” Hannah pointed out.

He tossed her a wink and grin. “Touche. However, none of them are perfect. This location,” he leaned to tap and zoom on a mess hall, “is fortified, has access to food and drink, even if you have to furiously call up non-perishables and potable water, and only has one entrance/egress.  A huge entry/egress, unfortunately: the door is ten meters wide.”

Parvati tapped a couple times on her datapad before chiming in. “It does close, however. And it locks.”

Arthur shook his head. “In two panels, each five meters wide. If even one is blown, the gap is indefensible. Both, everyone in there is free for the taking.”

“You are suggesting we ask Miys to narrow the aperture of the door?” I groaned when I heard Alistair leverage his overly-formal language.

It didn’t get any better when Arthur nodded. “Worst they can say is no, but the size of the door is simply for ease of access and to assuage anyone with proximity issues. Now that we all have these handy alerts - “ he tapped his temple for emphasis “ - it isn’t nearly as necessary. Noah? Bud? What do you think?”

The buzz from the ceiling was clearly amused. “I am amenable if this is a solution. As Arthur pointed out, the width of that door is no longer necessary.”

“Annnd there we go,” Arthur shrugged. “The boatwright said yes, if that’s what we want.”

My jaw nearly hit the floor when Alistair nodded firmly and stood. Swiftly, he highlighted three more areas. “These have the same potential concern. We should include those in the proposal.”

‘We’? ‘We’ whomst??? Since when were they on the same side?

“I agree,” Arthur continued enthusiastically, causing my head to start twinging in pain. “According to the engineers and the chemisists on board, the material of the Ark is remarkably fire-retardant despite it’s organic nature - let’s hear it for advanced civilizations - so there is no additional need for fire doors. There is however a possibility of concussive damage to the actual doors in any area, despite how thick the actual walls are.”

“Tyche recommended shock-absorbent material on the exteriors of each door, dropped via internal trigger and held taught by wires rather than any sort of scaffolding,” I suggested, recovering my focus. I flicked the concept at the emitter, where it was displayed alongside the schematic of the Ark. “Using wires would allow us to also store it in a roll at the top of the door, and allow pulleys to draw the wires embedded in the bulkhead down to cover the entire door.”

Hannah nodded thoughtfully. “The materials she suggests are a good idea - definitely maximizes shock absorption as much as possible. My only concern is that we can probably double the flame resistance of the materials for only a ten-percent loss of effectiveness.”

Calling up my datapad, I smiled as I quoted. “ ‘However, Hannah is a professional weaver and seamstress, and therefore I defer to her on any suggestions regarding materials used, provided there is no more than twenty-percent loss of efficacy’. Apparently she did the calculations and had Charly and Conor both check behind her - anything below twenty percent loss, and the blast would blow the doors.”

“And when did the more sensible Miss Reid learn engineering?” Alistair asked in what sounded like genuine curiosity.

“Tuesdays - I think?” I scrunched my face and searched my memory. “It was something very important when we were cosplaying.”

Arthur snorted, but gestured an apology when Alistair affixed him with a downright lethal glare.

Hannah ignored them both. “Wool… We should be able to synthesize raw wool, instead of the plant based materials here. Best of both worlds - fluffy, incredibly flame resistant, and disperses concussive force like nothing else. Line it with silk for shrapnel? We should be good.”

“Fortress defense via quilts. I like it,” Arthur grinned savagely.

“There is a reason tapestries were so important in the Middle Ages,” Alistair snarked at him. “Both flame resistant and insulating, both very good qualities when you see by torches and candles in a drafty residence that echoes like a cathedral.”

Arthur held his hands up in surrender. “Not arguing, no worries… Genuine respect, swear.”

“Better…”

“Annnnd forging on from whatever-the-fuck-that-was,” I interjected, trying to focus on the topic at hand rather than… well, whatever the fuck that was, “That’s overlarge entries and concussive force taken care of. What other concerns did you have, Arthur?”

“Frankly? Camouflage,” he told us sternly. “The best way to protect against an invading enemy is to make it so hard to find you that it isn’t worth the effort.  All these defenses are good an all, but… they’ll stick out like a sore thumb and practically scream ‘Hey! We’re in HERE!’ “ I stifled a laugh when he hopped and waved his arms furiously.

“Very dignified, Farro,” Alistair sniffed as he stood to get more tea.

“I know, right? I’m so classy…”

Rolling my eyes and still regretting having them both in my office at the same time, “We actually have the camouflage solved for.” You could have heard a pin drop, all four of them frozen, mouths open. “It came through this morning from Zach.” I swiped the fortress-quilt specs down, and popped up the plans for the camouflage. “We’re thinking on the visible spectrum, since humans are sight animals. Zach went with a ‘most common denominator’ approach - scent, infrared, acoustic, everything but electromagnetic vision.  The quilts cover the infrared and the majority of the acoustic issues: if any body-heat shows through fifteen inches of fluffed wool and a bulkhead door, we’re doomed no matter what.” I highlighted a line of data. “Scent, likewise: Zach is suggesting aeresolized, low concentration sulfur throughout the majority of the Ark, excluding the safe-zones. The safe-zones will also have one of Miys stationed in each one, acting essentially as an air scrubber. This will minimize acoustics from active air filtration, while also adhering to Miys being a non-participant: they will be present to ensure our comfort due to minimizing body odor, nothing more.  This was already planned, the fact that it will protect us from being detected by scent is just a lagniappe.”

I waited for the thoughtful nods to pass and decided I did not see the glance that Arthur and Alistair exchanged. As long as they didn’t draw blood during the meeting, I would let it slide. “Where it gets sticky is neuroelectric. Zach, it seems, took a page out of Charly’s manual-of-mischief.” I zoomed in on the specific line of the prospectus and waited.

“He wants to what?” Hannah asked, incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh I like this,” came the ‘devil’ in ‘devil’s advocate’.

“How would it even work?” Parvati asked, genuinely curious.

I chose that one to respond to. “Just like the microfilament wires that will support the quilts, he wants to cover the walls inside several false locations with a mesh and electrify it to mimic human synaptic energy. Needle in a haystack theory.”

“Wait,” Alistair held up a hand to interrupt. “Are you also proposing that the doors to these false locations will be covered in the quilts?”

“Absolutely,” I confirmed. “Given how far from prospective entry points all of the safe-zones are located, they would run into several false locations before they encounter a real one.”

“And if they decide to tear into all the locations, even the false-positives?” Arthur poked, trying to find a hole in the idea. Which, I had to concede, was why he was even here instead of sending me messages for this.

“What if they decide to tear into every mess hall? Or every door? We can’t plan for everything.” I shook my head. “However, we can factor in a few things that seem pretty consistent despite species - Beings who don’t have legitimate work and take slaves are generally prone to laziness, despite somehow working harder to avoid work than I have ever actually worked a day in my life.  Point being, give them enough false positives on the way, they won’t actually search everything no matter what they say.”

“Speculation and hearsay, not admissible in court.”

“Au contraire, mon frère. Charly did the sociological analysis on all the species most likely to be pirates in the region of the galaxy where we will exit relativistic space, and her estimates are that the plan has a sixty-to-eighty-percent chance of success in the event that all human combatants fail. And I, personally, agree.” 

He conceded a low whistle. “Damn. If I didn’t like Evan so much, I would say Charly is being wasted with Huynh. Objection withdrawn.”

“Quite,” Alistair agreed smugly. “Miss Harper’s plan is a sound one. The Archives, however - “

I interrupted, still irritated about the topic. “You will be stationed immediately inside the doors to defend against any intruders who make it that far, while Tyche will be defending the y-junction between the speculative fiction and historical fiction categories to prevent intruders from reaching the actual people.”

“But the religious studies section - “

“Has already been scanned down to a molecular level to preserve the information, even if we can’t restore any actual artifacts,” Parvati advised in a profoundly bored tone. “You do realize that anyone who reaches that section will not be able to reach the actual people from there without doubling back, right?”

“Miss Fletcher, there is a Gutenberg Bible on this Ark, potentially the last one in existence.” The tone was icy enough to send a shiver down my spine.

“Phee,” Arthur threw out, guaranteeing my irate attention, “Is there any issue with moving the Gutenberg to the Speculative Fiction section until we meet with the Ekomari fleet?”

“Are you seri - “

“Not to placate the Monarchist, I swear. Just - that is a profoundly important historical artifact, even if I agree with nearly none of the contents. The start of the Information age! Literature in the hands of the vulgar masses! Your field of study would have never existed in the form it was without that achievement. Who cares if the first use was to print the frickin’ Bible?”

Before I could object, Parvati added her prodigious two cents. “I do not have to be Christian to appreciate the illuminations in a manuscript, any more than I have to be a Muslim to be brought to my knees by the beauty of a mosque. We can appreciate the significance of something regardless of whether we agree with it or not.”

“This is probably where Charly or Tyche would point out that I am a huge fan of laws against animal abuse, despite firmly believing that Hitler was evil incarnate,” I sighed. “Yeah, we can move the Gutenberg Bible, provided - hang on, stop cheering - PROVIDED - “ I paused to make sure they were all paying attention, “that any other works of significant cultural or historical significance are moved as well. Any first additions, significant religious texts - or in lack of ‘significant’ religious texts, just a copy of each that is agreed to be acceptable by all who follow that religion. A copy of Frankenstein, The Tale of Genji, et cetera.”

I knew my request brooked exactly zero argument from Alistair, as his eyes visibly shone when I added more books to the list. What I waited for were any objections from the other three.

Sure enough, Hannah tentatively raised her hand. When I nodded, she spoke up. “I think we should do a kind of Voyager-plate: a copy, even just digital, of all our texts around music, crafts, technology, mathematics… Art, fermentation, food preparation and the history of it. Not just for this scenario!” she insisted urgently, “For any worst-case scenario. Keep a copy, or several. And put those copies, along with all the relevant artifacts that we have on board, and keep them with the people in the Archives, in the safest part of the ship.”

“Where it would take a black hole to destroy it,” Parvati whispered.

Just as the tears were threatening my eyes, Arthur flopped back in his seat and kicked his boots up onto the table. “Jesus fuck, you guys are depressing. Right, but depressing. It’s doable, though. We just transcribe it into the most common language for each version of ‘language’ in the Galaxy…”

Alistair snorted. “You warlords and your short-sightedness. Clearly, the resolution is to transcribe it into the most common language in the Galaxy with instructions on how to translate it further down.”

“No, you limey-ass bastard,” Arthur growled. “Too much is lost in translation - there is a reason the Qur’an and the Sefer Torah should never be translated to be considered valid.”

Nope. I wasn’t dealing with it. We had covered all the necessary topics, I could message the rest. I twitch my head at both Vati and Hannah, at which point they both rose from their seats. Neither was noticed by the arguing men.

Arthur was mid-sentence when a quick strike from Vati to the top of his spinal cord rendered all his words gibberish. Rather than realizing this, he glanced down at his suddenly-tingling fingertips in confusion. Hannah simply hauled Alistair out of his seat and ignored his squawked objections, her shorter but sturdier frame more than a match for his tall, slender frame and brain that was very much against violence towards women but undecided about how to stop them from chauffeuring you out of a room.

With exactly zero ceremony, both men were deposited in the corridor, to the satisfaction of all three of us. I waggled my fingers in a farewell. “Fuck it out or fight it out, I don’t care. But not in my office. Ta!”

I could not hold back the smile anymore when both started pounding on the door for entry, not realizing I had disabled their permissions right after the first volley had been thrown.  It was almost habit, at this point, to disable their permissions to my office when they started bickering, only to restore them when they decided to act like adults.

Clearly that wasn’t the case this time. Oh well, maybe in a couple hours. I would need to ask Xiomara to do a ‘sensor test’ of the gym and med bays to be sure.

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[spookiifi]

Seeing Red (4)

And here we are! The final chapter of Seeing Red. This fic features @tinalbion’s oc, Adelaide, who I consider a power couple with Savage <3 The force COMPELS YOU to go check out her work!!

This fic feature’s canon x oc content.

The only warnings for this finale are angst and a slight smut mention at the end.

Summary: After receiving advice from Adi’s mistress, Baljai, Sasha and Adi head back home to the Sundari Palace in Mandalore.

Part 3 is here.

---

Sasha gazed at the green hills of Naboo for the last time before they shifted into hyperspace.

“So Bal, she’s quite a character isn’t she?” Adi smiled.

“Yeah. She has such a mothering personality, but you never told me she sliced some guy’s head off!” Sasha grinned

“I figured I’d save that as a surprise.” Adi shrugged. “I knew you would like her. She took me in and treated me better than anyone ever had. She likes you, I think you guys will get along great.”

“I’m glad I made a good impression. I shouldn’t have been that nervous in the beginning when meeting her,” she laughed it off.

“It’s not familiar territory, Red, you had every right to be nervous! She’s very comforting though, she’s good at that. Can you believe she has no kids even though she’s so motherly?”

“Really?” She raised an eyebrow. “In a way we’re her kids, if that makes sense.”

“Exactly, she fosters us and teaches us stuff that our biological parents wouldn’t even think of teaching.”

“Is this what it feels like to have a mom?” She asked, resting her head on the dashboard while holding her face.

“Yeah, most definitely. She’ll adopt you, don’t even let her get that idea in her head,” Adi laughed.

“The ride back felt much shorter than the trip to Naboo. Sasha felt at home whenever they dropped out of hyperspace to Mandalore.

She docked the ship. Adi had walked beside Sasha as they spoke, and of course, she couldn’t forget the small satchel of goodies she brought back from the palace.

Upon entering, Savage had greeted them both, so Adi placed a kiss on his cheek and handed him the bag.

“As promised, my love. Now, what kind of mood is your brother in?”

“Nothing I can’t handle, hopefully?” The redhead asked.

“Maul has been...preoccupied since your departure, he may be in a delicate mood. He hasn’t emerged from the office area since,” Savage explained.

“It’s that bad? I’ve never seen him that distressed,” Sasha said.

“I haven’t been around him like this before, but maybe he requires a much gentler touch than mine.” Savage shrugged and looked down at the girls.

“C’mon, big guy, we’ll leave her to it, yeah?” She wrapped her hands around his large arm and smiled up at him. “Remember what Bal said,” Adi reminded.

“Be honest and open with him and be gentle, vulnerable. He will slowly but surely listen.”

As Adi let Sasha and Maul have their peace, she and Savage wandered toward the library where the large stained glass window was, and Adi couldn’t help but recall Bal’s words.

“Take your man away from them so they can have as much time as they need.”

“Savage, I hope you know how lucky I am to have you,” she grinned.

“What is it, Sunflower?” Savage asked softly.

“Nothing,” she smirked. “I’m just happy.”

When Sasha slipped into the room and closed the door behind him, it seemed as if Maul hadn’t moved from before. He faced the massive windows overlooking the city with his hands clasped behind his back.

“You’ve returned.” Maul sounded rather cryptic.

Sasha raised an eyebrow. “Yes? I was merely out for a girl’s trip.” She could tell he was tired by the way his voice sounded.

“I thought you wouldn’t want to talk to me after what happened.” He turned around, and she could see the exhaustion on his face.

“Maul, of course not.” She strode toward Maul and he froze on the spot.

“I hurt you though. Why aren’t you running?”

“Because I love you too much to leave. I was afraid of you getting hurt.”

Maul’s eyes widened as she entwined her fingers with his. “What? But I-”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” she said gently.

Maul looked straight into her eyes. Shame rushed through his mind, and Sasha could sense his unease.

“Maul, I’d never leave you behind.” Sasha reached up and cupped his face. “Can we please just live in the moment?”

Adi had a good feeling about the two and couldn’t help but feel proud and soft over her little found family.

Bal’s words had echoed through her mind when it came to Sasha and Maul, and maybe she herself could take the opportunity to listen.

“Savage, it’s been some time that we’ve been in one another’s lives and I want to continue that. I want to be in yours forever. If you had me.”

Savage looked at her, gauging her words carefully. “Are you saying what I think you are?” He asked aloud.

“Of course I am.” She replied with a smile.

Maul let out a sigh and held Sasha's hand on his face. “I’m sorry for screaming at you. Gods, I didn’t mean it when I asked you to leave.”

“I know.” She closed the gap between them as she embraced him. “I just worry for you sometimes. More than you’d think... Can you promise me that you’ll stay?”

Maul held her tightly. “I swear on it.” He kissed her forehead before carding his fingers through her hair.

She closed her eyes and smiled against his chest. They shared a moment of silence before Maul spoke up. “I have something to show you.”

Sasha’s eyes opened as Maul released his grip.

He glanced toward his desk. “Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

“Okay?” She smiled, confused as to what Maul was planning.

“I must admit, I am unfamiliar with human customs such as this…” Savage blushed and grabbed the woman’s hand. “But whatever happens, I pledge my life to you, Adelaide.”

Adi smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. She pulled away and nuzzled her nose against the side of his face.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Open your eyes,” Maul said as he placed a small box in Sasha’s hand.

Sasha was met with Maul’s nervous smile, and she proceeded to open the small black box.

“Oh, Maul.”

“It’s not Mandalorian tradition, but it’s close enough.”

Sasha’s eyes lit up at the sight of a perfectly carved ruby with a silver band. “It’s perfect.”

Maul slipped the ring over her finger. “My dear, would you do me the honor of becoming the true lady of Mandalore?”

Tears threatened Sasha’s eyes. “Yes!” And she embraced him one again, kissing him deeply.

“You don’t know how happy that makes me feel.” Maul grinned.

“I’m pretty sure I do.” She kissed him again.

This was the start of a new beginning.

--

Adi paused and stood there with Savage, blissfully unaware of the overwhelming joy she was feeling from across the palace, knowing that Sasha and Maul possibly made up? She wasn’t sure, all she knew was that Red was happy.

An added part that I didn’t know where to put

Sasha brought him into another passionate kiss, only to be interrupted by his data pad.

“Lord Maul, we need y-” Without even looking, he tapped the power button.

“Why don’t you cancel meetings for the rest of the day?” Sasha smirked. “You won’t regret it.”

Maul chuckled and hoisted her onto his desk. “What a pleasant idea.”

--

@a-dorin @maulieber @justalittlecloud @lestrange2703 @always-on-tatooine @danipixel @botherbother-blog @danipixel @rogue-wonderful @lovelyzabrak-meadow @lordfriendpatine

[araingirl]

Ah, so I literally forgot about this one. But, now I just recalled, and here goes one of my favorite asks ;)

I'd like to know some headcanons/random facts about Aylin Esther, one of our beloved OCs for Kai. Like, how did she first met Bladebreakers, her past (maybe?), and other similar things.

Thank you! ^_^

Oh my...finally an ask about Aylin :P. Thank you so much for the ask, dearie. Here it goes.

1) The first she physically met the Bladebreakers as their new coach (When Hiro was gone again), but before it, she worked as a part-time commentator during the matches. In a friendly match between Tyson and Kai, Kai was on the verge of losing almost. But...Aylin's fiery voice and bursting commentary made Kai win that (Sorry, Tyson fans...don't be sad because she showed no indifference to praise Tyson in that match too). From the same game, Aylin and Kai started knowing each other.

2) Aylin is very simple. Neither she is so beautiful in appearance, nor does she come from any high-background family. She's just an average engineering student, an admirer of arts and creativity. She loves singing and writing, plus she's quite a good orator too. Often she helps the bladers prepare their speeches if someone of them has to join any interview/press conference.

3) She loves to be behind the team always, doesn't like to take credits at all (Duh, what's her credit btw? :P). She speaks quite less than Hilary in personal life (Not in professional life :P) but when she opens her mouth, her tongue becomes a pair of scissors. Her words are savage but she tries her best to speak the truth not by hurting anyone. Hurting or humiliating someone is the least thing she wants.

4) She has long, red hair which crosses her hips. A bit wavy it is. Usually, she keeps her hair braided but when Bladebreakers/Kai loses a match, she forgets to bind it. When you'll see her going to bed by keeping her hair unbound or not combing her hair, know that she's in stress/depression. *Sighs* Also, she wears specs.

5) She's a mommy-like friend to the Bladebreakers, specially to Tyson. She cares for him a lot, sometimes, they often get engaged to a fight (Most of the times because Tyson pranks on her). She consoles Tyson when he misses his mom. Almost the same for Max; you can see them often sharing their chocolates with each other. With Ray, she's a very good listener; they will talk endlessly about philosophy and different views of different people. They cook dessert items in the kitchen too. And what to say about Kai? She gives him his own space, doesn't interfere about his private life but when he needs something, she shows herself. Sometimes, she talks to Kai just like Kai himself to irritate him but Kai feels rather amused. With Kenny, she helps him collect the data of a battle/Beyblade.

6) After her arrival, somehow, Hilary becomes a bit gentler and quieter (Not much, only a bit). She combs Hilary's hair and dresses it with beautiful flowers. Often, they buy matching dresses and shoes from the market and click photos after wearing them. Sometimes, they both create a destruction when they tend to cook together but in the end, thanks to Aylin, she manages everything. :P.

7) But it doesn't mean that she's always very sweet. Often, you can see her chasing Daichi with a broom all over the house. Why? Because he calls her "Great-grandma" -_- -_-. Besides, sometimes, she gets angry with Bladebreakers too. Then, she threatens them, "I'll leave you and become the coach of Blitzkrieg Boys!" Kai has to calm her down and convince her at that time *Sighs* :P.

Umm...that's it. Thanks again for the ask :*

[kvetchlandia]

Richard Meltzer     Lester Bangs Passed Out on Meltzer’s “Highly Uncomfortable Living Rm. Chair,” 104 Perry St., Apt. 4, West Village, New York City     1972

On December 14th, this December 14th, Lester Conway Bangs, while probably not the greatest writer of his generation, arguably its most vital so far to die, would have been 36. Haunted and driven by demons, so- called, a cheerless many of whom/what/ which — or their kindred ilk — he directly sought, found cum stumbled upon, or was inadvertently ensnared by on the demon picnic grounds of Rock and Roll, he never made it to 34.

Following the lead of a handful of babes in the rock-critical woods, one of which I'll admit (if sometimes reluctantly) to having been. Bangs at the dawn of the seventies played as prominent a role as anyone in both expanding the expressive boundaries of rockwriting as a form and giving it a voice that played the newer, more mannered and cautious, mass-market rockmags like Rolling Stone and Creem — the latter of which he even edited for awhile — as on the dime as it had played the catch-as-catch-can, limited-edition fanzines whence it came. Though he also served as the burgeoning genre’s most prolific scribbler, a mission he sustained with relative ease for the bulk of his days, it is to the man’s lasting credit that he rarely delivered copy on anyone’s dotted line. In fact, he probably “got away with more’’ in major- publication print than all his rockwrite brethren combined, conceivably (however) because it merely simplified matters to have a single Designated Outlaw, one entrusted with a blanche enough carte — and unmonitored options galore — to spike with “authenticity ’’ a rock-media stew of bogus Freedom and ersatz Candor.

Retrospectively cliched or not, there was an existential purity to the sheer commitment evinced by Lester’s prolonged wallow in (and about) the rock- and-roll Thing-in-itself. It was, in many ways, the critical headbang to end all critical headbangs; it would be hard to even imagine, for instance, a professional art-film bozo, a jock-sniffing sports jerk, or a food-review lunatic more uninsulatedy gung-ho vis-a-vis x — either as primary experience or typewrite wankery. His patented shameless multipage gush, coupled with an unswerving advocacy of certain conspicuously over- the-top rock genera (Velvet Underground offshoots; Heavy Metal; Punk Rock), made him a must-read favorite with both cognoscenti and dipshits alike, and he came as close to encountering idolatry per se as any non-musician in R&R. A good deal of which — natch —could not help hitting the self-consciousness fan, but while a man’s life was ultimately undone in the process (“I’m Lester — buy me a drink! ’’), the integrity of his art/craft was essentially unaffected. For, while he might have been a tad too glib-messianic those last couple years, he was by no stretch of things an opportunist, never really giving a hoot for what in squaresville would be known as a career. (Or, perhaps, unlike his role model Kerouac, he simply didn’t live long enough for that, too, to be strenuously tested.)

In any event: dead, cremated, literal ashes. California born (Escondido ’48), bred (El Cajon, ages 9-23), and traveled (I first hung with him in San Francisco, last in L.A.), Lester bought the big one on the opposite coast — his final home, the fabled Apple — April 30/82, ostensibly from a hefty pull of darvon employed, in lieu of aspirin, to placate the flu. Since his death, variously interpreted as a mile-radius teardrop’s once-in-a- lifetime terminal burst, a joke and a half on both himself and his precious chosen whole damn Thing, and — by occasional uncouth louts — the final glorious triumph of his excess, the spectrum of Bangs-in-ongoing-print has dwindled from monochromatic /sparse to colorless/ nonexistent. Of the two books in his name which appeared during his lifetime, quasi-coffeetable numbers on Blondie and Rod Stewart, neither a particularly representative Lestorian effort (or even particularly good: the former admittedly hacked out “in two days on speed,’’ and looking it, i. e., ad hoc and forced; the latter disowned as a clumsy, if innocent, foray into “writing as whoring’’), both are either out of print — officially — or on the back burner of barely having ever been in same, at least as regards this coast, where I’ve yet to see either in bookstore one. Nor have two posthumous whatsems. Rock Gomorrah, cowritten (early ’82) with L.A.’s Michael Ochs, and a projected collection of unpublished fragments scrounged from Bangs’s apartment a day or two after his death, gotten more than inches off the publishing ground — the former for reasons which if herein revealed would get me sued but good, the latter because, in the words of editor Greil Marcus, “the stuff is less tractable than I thought at less than 5000 words or so.’’ Also stalled, and/or abandoned (and/ or nonspecific pipedreams to begin with) : all known plans to reissue out-of- print Live Wire LP Jook Savages on the Brazos, recorded, Austin, TX, Dec. ’80, by Lester Bangs & the Delinquents, lyrics and vocals by guess who. In fact, the only anything by L. C. Bangs readily available where availables are sold is his liner copy for The Fugs Greatest Hits Vol. I, released by PVC/Adelphi some months after he’d croaked, for which he (or rather his atoms) later copped a Grammy nomination, and for which, reliable word has it, he never was paid.

Well, I’ve been proven wrong; it hasn’t been easy recollecting Lester in even half a toto in so much tranquility. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea back when obits were appearing left & right and at least two- thirds of ’em smacked of revisionism at its well-intentioned worst; having ridden the range with the guy, having been as intimate with his daytime/nighttime revealed essence — I would bet my boots — as anyone in or out of various possible beds with him, I had fiery goddam galaxies to say in his behalf that were simply not being said, at least not in print by his designated peers; and, although my no longer living in New York couldn’t help but delay my shot, remote and after-the-fact seemed like the ticket, y’know anyway, for some major necessary rerevision.

But here it is two, two and a half years gone & more, and whuddaya know if all the raw goddam pain (at the loss of, yes, a brother) and jagged fucking anger (at a waste of life, life-force, and relative inconsequential like “talent” and “genius”), an unbeatable duo which for weeks, weeks, months gave the Lester totality so cosmic a shape, scale and intensity, have by their own inevitable burnout given way to the contemplation of standard-issue mere data, of the skeletal remains of a larger-than-life life which have come to make sense (or not) in too neat, too linear, a manner. Well — hey — fuggit: Even if grocery lists, chalk diagrams and hokey storytellin’ are the forms ongoing life-as-life has imposed on the mission, there’s still a heap of essential Lester information that could use, uh, exposure to printed-page light.

What too many write-biz intimates sought to do in the wake of his death was debunk the Lester Legend (solely) by reciting evidence that his bark was worse than his bite. While I’m sure he’d have “wanted it done” (i.e., have the saga-as- litany scraped of treacherous barnacles, or at least of their treacherous vogue), I can’t imagine the projected post-life intent of such a wish as in any way entailing cosmetic overhaul, especially in the service of moral/experiential object lessonhood. Lester’s day-to-day transaction with post-adolescent life-as- dealt was — let’s be conservative — 94 % anything but pretty. If he’d have wanted his entire whatsis to serve up viable scenarios for intimates and non-intimates alike (gee, would the Pope prefer to be Catholic?), there’s no way the deal’d come out even provisionally Lester-functional without interested non-intimates having retroactive access to as hefty an eyeful of the not-so-pretty — in all its hideous, non-Clearasiled blah blah blah — as intimates galore regularly managed to cop and, in their various personal ways, have already learned from. To deglorify an earlier incarnation of shit (which the man himself was clearly hellbent on doing in his waning days on earth) you’ve got to at least speak its name — loudly! — for the whole entire planet: c’mon now, one & all. A solemn responsibility (I call it) which, credibly/incredibly, the smelly sumbitch’s closest associates have, to this day, all but refused to consider.

To wit: For every time anyone saw the defanged, declawed Lester teddy bear rear its cuddly li’l head (see obits 2, 3, 5 & 7) the man was uncountable times the asshole, the buffoon, the sodden tyrant; been those things myself — in semi-prior lifetimes — so I know. Back in ’73, for inst, the soon-to-be-dead Lillian Roxon gushed shameless love for the s.o.b., in New York on Creem business, ordering up a Lester button and leaving it in his hotel box; response to this purest of offerings was “What’s that fat cunt want from me?” About a year later I get this call from Nick Tosches requesting that I please take Lester, who’d shown up at his door on acid, “off my hands”; took him to a party at John Wilcock’s place, during which he verbally brutalized Wilcock’s wife (in green Fingernails) for being a “hooker,” snapped at an affable Ed Sanders for being “the only alkie in the counter-culture,” and had nothing more to say to Les Levine’s Asian girlfriend (wife?) than “Yoko is a lousy gook”; further into the night, at Vincent’s Clam Bar in Little Italy, he literally bellowed ( more than twice), “There’s a lotta tackin’ wops in this joint.” And how can I forget the way he treated me and Nick, his closest approximate friends f'r crying out loud, as our wonderful editor while at Creem? He’d call us each up at 3 a.m. to urgently solicit various (rather specific) reams of pap, needed via Special D toot sweet; we’d climb outta bed, peck away bleary-eyed to whack out the closest possible takes on what he’d claimed he wanted, whereupon he’d reject ’em with a vengeance (“I won’t print beatnik shit”), then run thoroughly like-minded i. somethings — under his own byline — or with our words, usually verbatim, laced throughout. Just a few “examples,” dunno if they sound like big stuff or small, in any event typical Lester, with plenty, plenty more where they came from — y’know times n-plus-many.

In spite of such anticommunal upchuck, or quite possibly because of it — post-adolescent of a post-summer-of-love feather & all that — I did have deep affection for the bastard during my final years in New York; he could really piss me off (and I, I’m assuming, him) but bygones were always eventually ditto. In those days I generally shared his affection for The Edge, and might even’ve gone extreme slightly ahead of him; in January ’72, this is true, he actually dubbed me “the Neal Cassady of rock and roll.” But by fall ’75, when I split New York to at least simulate an escape from the Frantic and Hyper (and he subsequently arrived, ostensibly to embrace same), I was feeling the first stirrings of apprehension re my own prolonged massive intake of Edge Substances (emotional, cultural, but above all chemical) and was on the verge of an early series of attempts to, y’know, cut down, to maybe get off my collision course with all sorts of walls, both metaphoric and real. Lester, meantime, seemed on a rapid upswing in the intake dept.; what had so far served as mere horizon or frame for his trip, or at most been its semi-essential fuel, was now lunging headlong for the foreground of his life ... or should we call it the twin foregrounds (life as Mythic Construct; life as physical/emotional/cultural Hard Mundane Reality).

Hey, the guy was beginning to scare me. Certainly as an advanced — or rapidly advancing — version of what I no longer wanted to be and could (possibly) imagine once again becoming, but more as this vivid, palpable spectre of specialized human decomp not just out there but right there: a pal & a buddy headed (willy nilly?) for the sewer. From late ’75 immediately onward, on those unlikely occasions when separate coasts — underscored by far fewer rockwrite junkets — any longer allowed for it, I was usually unable to handle being in the same room with him, knowing I’d have to witness whole new increments of what could really no longer be passed off as anything but (gosh) misery and (dig it) horror. Where in the earlier ’70s it was almost cute — once in a while — the way Lester would stumble into classic self- directed drunk jokes (like the time he called me from the Detroit airport to tell me he was headed for an Alice Cooper show in London, presumably England, only he’d drunkenly got it wrong and was on his way to London, Ontario), there was this half-week in ’79, for inst, during which he hung out at Michael Ochs’s house in Venice with no daily design but to get skid-row-calibre gone and stay there, that was just fucking grim. Looking an unhealthy as I’d ever seen him, basic shit-warmed over with an ngly bump on his forehead (which he claimed he was “treating with Romilar”), he refused to eat without an Occasion. When, one evening, Michael and I pretty much dragged him to a Mexican restaurant, he refused to actually step inside until he’d fortified himself with the cottons from six Benzedrex inhalers — the local pharmacist was out of Romilar — busted open on the sidewalk with a shoe.

Washing down their remnants with a Dos Equis as his enchilada sat there staring at him, he quoted (or claimed he was quoting) Sid Vicious: “Food is boring.”

So, inevitably, when Billy Altman rang me up from N.Y.Clearly on a California morn, to let me hear it straight from a friend — “instead of from a creep” — my immediate response to no more Lester, steps ahead of all the pain & anger & whut, was holy fucking shit, the fucker finally did it; it’d been in the real-world cards for long-long times for Lester to cease to be. Though even on his gonest days he was no way a classic cornball suicide-romantic — heck, I don’t really think he was all that clinically suicidal (big-sleep fantasies never overtly/covertly lured him, not even metaphorically, from the darkest sub-basement of his World of Dread; nor was Danger, though he often nonstop lived it, itself the merest tickle of a ripple of a thrill for him, a context before the fact) — he’d sure staged more corny, frightful dress rehearsals than Jim Jones plus Judy Garland (squared) for simply ending up dead.

Biggest of which I ever saw was January ’81. I’m at Nick’s place in New York, en route back to L. A. from Montreal, when who should pay a surprise visite but Mr. Bangs, cassette in hand. It’s a tape of these tracks recorded during an Austin romp I’d heard about second or third hand (he’d planned to “live there forever,” it was said, ’til a night in the local drunk tank — on top of who knows what else — totally changed his mind), and in the course of the next 12-15 hours he played it, for us and at us, many times. Also during this stretch, after boasting, rather proudly, that he no longer drank, he managed to ingest at least 36 cough- suppressant tablets (three 12-packs of Ornical — we weren’t always watching) washed down with sizable slugs of bourbon, as there was nothing else but water to wash ’em down with.

All stages of this ordeal, in which Nick and I were little more than foils for surge upon surge of what we’d come to regard as typical Lestorian bathos, were hardly bearable in the state we were in (after far too many “nights with Lester,” going back to the days when we even could dig it, we’d opted for a change to take this one straight), but the morning-after phase was literally one for the books. On the umpteenth playback of what was soon to hit the racks as the Jook Savages LP, Lester insisted that one particular vocal was pure Richard Hell (in Lester’s cosmos an a priori yay); my dogtired no-big-deal of a response was it sounded existentially neater than that, more on the order of Tom Verlaine (a Lester nuh-nuh-no). Suddenly hair-trigger sensitive — in a performance-trigger vein — he tapdanced back with “Then I might as well go sell shoes in El Cajon.” Next cut he compared himself to somebody (very contempo) else, prompting me to comment, for non-pejorative, sleep- denied better or worse, that his vocals (across the board; in general) had the same basic flavor as those on such country-western parodies as Sanders' Truckstop or the Statler Brothers’ Johnny Mack Brown High School LP. Affecting grievous offense, as if any of his b.s. actually mattered (the Lester of ’73/’74 — in any chemical state — would merely’ve giggled), he took things up a full notch of indignant/sarcastic: “Well I guess I’m just no fucking good. ”

But he wouldn’t stop playing the crap, not with every cut looming as a supercharged occasion for kneejerk call- and-response, a challenge for him to goad Nick and/or me into goading him, in turn, into mock-self-deprecatory one-liners ad nauseum — a dress rehearsal, as it were — his puke-stained sweater seemed appropriate — for his triumphant appearance on Johnny Carson, which he had no doubt the worldwide success of his Blondie book would imminently require . . . along with a shot of his mug, cleanshaven, on the cover of People (over which he whined “fear” of besmirched personal image).

Ultimately Nick and I, weary of further compliance in so shoddy an interpersonal number, old buddy or not (and/or old bud in particular), found ourselves laughing in his face; enough was enough, and the sight of this bumbling mammal going gaga for an audience of two-who-knew- better was kind of otherworldly amusing. The object of our yuks, however, took it as us laughing with him: Great Moments in Standup/Audience Rapport! Swollen with illusory (or whatever) whacked-out self, Lester then proceeded to announce his program: (1) to save Rock & Roll; (2) to become president (presumably Oi the U.S. of A.); (3) to move to England and in turn save their Rock & Roll. As mere dipshit goals, nos. 1 and 3 meant topically little to either of us — geez, we’d all but buried the Anglo-Am mainstream as even an idle, y’know, sometime hobby or whatnot — but (2) hit us firmly, instantaneously, in the breastplate.

Lester’s neurons, no recent model of health to begin with, had made the short-circuit of Lester Bangs . . . [tenor saxophonist] Lester Young . . . (latter's nickname] Pres . . . Pres/U.S.A. per se!!!

Guffaw, guffaw — we guffawed — though I guess we could've gasped (or shuddered). Then: a heavy silence, as cosmic (or whatever) as it was awkward, filled presently by the man himself:

"Hey! I'm gonna buy some import albums! I'll get a whore I know to lend me her charge card! Cab fare too!" And he was off; no amiable nudging, no “Get the fuck out of here" could take the place of timeless vinyl hunger. Gone at last — and we gave him (in all solemn, empirical, non-jive reckoning) six months to live.

But of course he fooled us, by (nearly) a whole damn calendar year. Surprise, surprise: but an even bigger surprise was the extent to which he managed to actually turn things around — well, almost — during that extra annum, especially during its. and his. final months. Not only was he still among the living, not only did he no longer seem conspicuously earmarked for premature exit — the Lester with whom I spent a rather refreshing week in February '82 gave every indication of having already gone beyond mere survival (as an issue) and appeared, astonishingly, to be thriving on the theme.

In L.A. following his mother's eventually fatal stroke and staying with his 56-year-old half-brother in Studio City, he accompanied me one night to a low-stakes poker game attended by members of the Blasters, the perfect setup, you’d figure, for Lester to revert to type. But no, he just minimally fun-&- games'ed it like anyone else — no lookin' for opportunities to “be Lester," no showing off for rock-roll peers either verbally or intakewise. no diving for the evening's jugular and letting 'er rip — and after two beers (!). without so much as a grimace, he declared he’d had enough. Postgame he engaged Phil Alvin in a lively musical dialogue, but at no point did fightin' words fill the air, or were axes even poised for grinding. The pair agreed to exchange tapes — a wholesome friendship in the making — and next day Lester complained (true, true) that reefer had been smoked.

As the week wore on in consistent, low- key fashion. I was struck by the fuckload of inner capacities the guy was perceptibly calling on, left, right and center, to extend his defiance of Death to the domain of just plain living, capacities I hadn't caught sensory evidence of — all previously told — for more than 11 minutes total. A far cry from anything as cheaply benign as, let's say, more frequent eruptions of "Lester washes the dishes" (see obit 04), what I got to witness was kind of on the order of a whole new Lester, one who'd finally found a non-lethal, functionally less jagged (though in no way “benign") rhythm for his life. Engaging him in tight quarters with more open-heartedness per se than I*m sure I’d ever mustered (sharing an Edge does not always make for brotherhood-by-numbers. let alone by pure, unedited inclination), I willingly submitted to his rap/rant and bought its tenor if not its verbatim transcript; by the time he returned to New York, his mother still hanging on. I’d seen and heard a New Lester series pilot that could credibly have played — prime time — on the Pro- Life Network.

For starters, he’d learned to slow down, to proceed apace through a given experience without easy reliance on everpopular on-off switches. He'd gotten far more selective about the company he kept, seeking out, for the first time in his known adult life, social interactions stressing soulwarming interpersonal comfort over thrash-trigger me-you tribulation. A good deal less insistent upon strapping each day to an emotional chopping block (as recalled, for inst, in that old chestnut of his, “I need to be in love!"), he'd begun to let his life embrace emotional motifs of greater duration and resiliency. And. as stuff like this fed back to his theoretic apparatus, even Lester's ideas (as stated) began to display an unexpected day-to-day congruity; no longer, it seemed, would he write an anti-racist wowser for the Village Voice in one breath and scream, "Fuckin’ niggers!” at Village Oldies the next. Lester-as-flux had had its thoroughly engaging run. and for this to give way to a “maturer” unpredictability was not the worst of possible outcomes.

Even the drastic reduction in Lester’s intake of physical poisons bore little trace of on-the-wagon-or-bust — y'know, as if any day, minute, second the tension of it all would cause him to snap right back with equal vengeance — particularly with its status as but part of a whole-body package that included both eating at regular intervals and a radical olfactory modification: He now took baths. (One afternoon in ’74 Nick and I met Lester at some ritzy midtown hotel. Though he’d been in the room all of an hour, the smell was like a dog had died there, and been left to rot, weeks or months before. Consequently, we vetoed his offer to call down for drinks on Creem’s tab, suggesting, to his consternation, that any dump of a bar would be more, uh, whatever. Many of his heterosex liaisons had foundered on the rocks of precisely this issue.)

In terms of cultural orientation, no longer was he monomanically enslaved to rock & roll (-or-perish). For virtually the first time since the sixties he didn’t need, burningly, brand new Big Beat LP’s in his mail slot each (and every) day; the state of the Art, wobbling on a multi-year terminal gimp, no longer served as his external psychic barometer, his armband of first-person pride (or shame); having finally produced Music of his own, to severe personal specifications (regardless of the giggles it inspired in jerks like me), he no longer needed to prove anything with it or through it. Crucially, though some would probably like to deny it. he no longer saw Rock’em-Sock'em as a viable metaphor for his (or any, kindred or otherwise) state of being, viewing it as the all too easy — and ultimately, revoltingly, unsatisfactory — crystallization of (mega-numerous) blank and scattered lives. Lester's break with rock-roll mythos as his be-all/end-all of etc., which I have no doubt (had he lived) he’d've sooner rather than later made official, was as profound, and profoundly moving, as his break with the Myth of Lester. As one committed jackass who’d made the same painful transition — goodbye, Rock-Automated Self! — I knew how tough a bond the chronically intermingled personal/cultural can be to crack (and my heart went right out to him).

It also warmed my cockles, considering his record in the mere civility dept., to see him relate (graciously) to his half- brother’s wife, this unaffectedly pretty 21- year-old rural Mexican the macho blusterer, a stuntman by trade, had recently acquired, maritally, while on location Down South. Though she knew pun near zero English, my first sight of her she was watching some random English-language crap, while hubby rested for a shoot of the Fall Guy series, on the tiny TV in her fussy suburban kitchen; materially cozy for the first time in her life, she seemed lonely, disoriented, far from home. Silent and solemn, she visibly stiffened — shyly? menially? — at the intrusion of Lester, my girlfriend Irene and me. only to be put at ease by Lester introducing us, without missing a beat, as, well, friends of the family. Like it mattered to him that she feel like family — and thus shared in all aspects of etc. — and for a moment the loneliness left her face; she smiled broadly, shook (or at least took) our hands, went back to her tube.

But what came off as so genuine when he was dealing with his family, his friends, kind of sputtered into the ether when he tried to branch it to the family of Man. Whenever he got to talkin' Hard Humanism, which had all the earmarks of being his preoccupation of (Rock- replacement) record, he’d make these broad, lecture-ish, relatively flavorless statements which often didn't wash.

Never wholly credible 'cause once again he seemed to be performing — without booze/etc. but surely with a script — he’d say thus & such about human courage and folly that not only had an artificial ring, it tended to run in direct opposition to what had clearly been his experience. Even his word choice sounded stilted, alien, not his own; when he spoke of "women" he could easily have been reading straight from a column in Cosmo.

A lot of which suggested a Lester so hellbent on being a good boy once and for all that to merely work overtime cleaning up his own act was scarcely sufficient; he had to render a transpersonal commentary that made his good intentions “universal,” even if the topical universality he’d taken an option on was simply the first he found it comfortable song-&-dancing a provisional connection to. There were moments when his bill of particulars made me uneasy, realizing that to intellectually challenge any of this would be like kicking mud on some kid’s newest/truest pastime, 'specially when it was one so socially redeeming, so non- self-destructive. one which, for all intents and purposes, I basically shared with him anyway. What really counted was the miracle of Rock Tough Guy #1, after 15 years of rocknroll plug-in and little else, during which he'd come to thread that needle upside down (and asleep), to the point (even) of smugness, flipness, pomposity, out on a goddam limb over something else: a neophyte at last! (I could dig it.)

Anyway, finally, on the last night of Lester's stay — which worked out as our last time together, period — we did something we’d previously never found the appropriate nexus for: trading rants (in earnest) with blank tapes a-rolling.

For something like five-six hours we went apeshit re such topics as: the sellouts & prejudices of mutual colleagues; novels and novelists; New York as (quite possibly) the coldest outpost on Emotional Earth; the usual standard rockish garbidge (plus some un- and some non-). We also hit on shrinks-we- have-known, with Lester's rap on this rooty-toot of a subject being the single one, from the four-and-a-half hours I’ve so far transcribed, which most tellingly nutshells the excruciating self- examination he had to've undertaken — and undergone — just to be sitting around discoursing as fluidly as he was, to’ve transcended whatever the fuck en route thereto:

“Like I went to a psychoanalyst, one in New York and one in Detroit, for a total of, I dunno, three-and-a-half years. I finally concluded, I mean yeah I’m insane, I’ve got my problems, my sicknesses are fucking me, yeah, I’m sure they both probably helped me, y’know, I know the last guy in New York, it's like everybody I know was totally appalled by my drinking and drugging, well like you, right, and everybody else had the same reaction, y’know, except my shrink. He’d say, ‘No, that's alright.’ I went out to this, he had a country retreat, a whole bunch of us would go out there on weekends. And the first time I went there like I got drunk on Friday night, and Saturday morning I got up and washed down a bottle of Romilar with a bottle of beer while sitting on a slick rock by the stream. I got this great idea for something I wanted to write, I stood up on the rock in boots like these and whoosh, went like that and smashed, see it, the scar on my nose? That's how I got it, smashed my face open.

“And he thought my druggin' and drinkin' was great, y'know? He said, in fact he kind of told me I'd be not as great of a writer if I gave all this stuff up. And I said, 'Yeah, but look at all these people, they rot away, they end up like self- parodies like Kerouac and Burroughs and all that sort of shit.' And he said. 'No. no, not everybody's like that.' I said, How could I someday be 55 years old and have to take a handful of speed to sit down at the typewriter?' Well he said, 'People do it. heh heh heh!' Well both my shrinks, especially this guy, they had real great humanist compassion and empathy and all that, but I know what both of 'em did, and in the long run in essence they were no good for me, because they were getting off on me being there. It’s like they’re so bored, one housewife alter another, 'I don’t love my husband, I don't know why.’ Then they get someone like you or I that's actually interesting, that has ideas, and so it's fun time for 'em. I mean if I hadda follow this guy’s advice I’d be dead, uh, pretty soon.”

Hmm: one effing eery end-of-quote as, alas, all is now dust — reactively acquired caution or no. Possibly possibly possibly, any tonnage of prudence would inevitably have proven insufficient for the autopilot courses he was still, evidently, all too capable of flying. Or, reversing horses and carts, maybe his tortured shell was already jus’ too beat-to-shit, with even a radical lessening in his scale of abuse being too little — archetypally — too late. And then there’s this pharmacological biz about purified cells succumbing to doses they’d have been more than up for when poison was all they knew. (And can we ignore the Wrath of Influenza?)

Even if, to some bitter-enders, his death remains as shrouded in formal “mystery” as those of Eric Dolphy and Warren G. Harding, all-of-the-above can't help but provide a not-unlikely profile of how Lester came to die. Throw in a few more mainline Causalities (cultural: rock-roll glut, esp. coupled w/ too literal an intoxication with Kerouac, Celine, et al; primalpsychological: a childhood more woeful than most, his Jehovah's Witness mom — pushing 50 when she had him — mind-setting, almost singlehandedly. a chronic “inability to cope"; geographic: the Apple, even when it wasn't absolute Edge Central, affording him. given his makeup, scant opportunity for inner peace) and you'd easily have an explanation that 'd hold up in a court of his cronies/cohorts/camp followers.

But if Lester was the pawn, victim, and (indeed) fellow traveler of such easy- Aristotelian a-implies-b, he was also, in those last fitful months, a scatterer of all such shit to the winds, a man who showed his true destiny muscle by throwing all the elements out of on-the-head mythopoetic sync just when they threatened, conspiratorily, to reduce him to merely another Jim Morrison. Jimi Hendrix. Mr. Kerouac. Screamingly, courageously, he committed himself, as wholly (really) as possible, to a counter-causal gameplan which even if flawed — and accidents, y’know, happen — did actually manage to defuse (at least where I live & breathe) the mythic oompah of any time-delayed rat-trap he may subsequently (or previously) have fallen in. If there's anything almost pleasing about the timing, the anti-drama, of Lester's death, it's the monumental Mythic Disjuncture factors he'd set in motion were thereby — implicitly, explicitly — to forever effect.

LESTER’S (WRITERLY) LEGACY — “One of rock’s most colorful characters, Bangs made his reputation as a pugnacious, participatory journalist who was not above picking fights with rock stars in pursuit of a good interview." So wrote one voice of prevailing wisdom, Patrick Goldstein, in the May 9/82 L.A. Times; nothing — latter part — could be farther from the truth. If Lester (the writer) more than once battled Lou Reed into (and beyond) the wee hours of etc., it was not to get a story, it was to live a story: to encounter all the rock-related being his writerly credentials (as a wedge) were able to afford him (as a person)'. Nor was he in any way enthralled by the sickening spectacle of stars being stars; artists, maybe, but stars, fug 'em. When he as mere citizen found himself face-to-face with the pose, pretense, and professional guardedness of such gaudy, extraneous creatures, Lester could not (for the life of him) deal with such crap but to cut right through and speak, directly, to the mere citizen in them, or (failing that) force the situation into functional self-destruct — before the fact of anything so dispassionate as actually “writing it up."

That his eventual write-ups tended to display utter contempt for the entire food chain of music-corporate life, often biting, intentionally, a grimy hand that could not’ve been more willing — his mighty Credentials & all — to feed him, heck, fatten him, was but half the take-no-shit of Lester's essential statement as a writer de rock; forcefeeding the stuff, his stuff, the stuff-as-writ, to the only marginally less corporate (or grimy) running dogs of rockwrite publishing was at least as pugnacious a gesture of this-is-what-I-am/this-is-what-I-do/take-it-or-be-fucked. Since the extent of his success in shoving it down so many otherwise unyielding editorial throats may have had less to do with his willful intent than theirs — camouflage, for inst, for their being life-deep in major-label record company pockets — its significance at this juncture is, at most, merely ironic; the reciprocal influence, in any event, of his ease at getting published upon subsequent moments of raw critical-expressive spew was procedurally nil. In fact, what may most enduringly matter about Lester's approach to his chosen profession, way ahead of dandy journalistic touchstones — "courage," “integrity,” “pride in craft" — that he ate for breakfast like so much broken glass (but which, really, you can still get from Nat Hentoff and Howard Cosell), is the “anti-professional," forcibly non-dehumanized square-one struggle he by design submitted to — and could not. with any kernel of his humanity, avoid - in order to pump out critical prose of any scale of note. (Pugnacity with form; with ritual creative context; even — especially — with roleplaying writerly/critical self.)

That he was ofttimes a great writer/critic, so-called, was but icing on the cake. That scant few others, on the hottest days of their lives, have even approached him — or particularly cared to, considering the requisite gravity and passion of the chore he’d set — probably says as much about their investment in lesser quals of cake as it does about the relative inadequacy of their writerly follow-through. Rockwriting is, and nearly always has been, the trade of simps, wimps, displaced machos, brats and saps; of, in Lester's own words, “ass-kissers of the ruling class”; of fuddy-duddy archivists with cobwebs on their specs; of pathetic idealizers of a lost youth no one has ever (even approximately) experienced or possessed; of sycophantic apologists for chi-chi trends, musical and extramusical alike, without which (so they've always claimed) “rock is dead”; of binary yes/no cheeses with the cognitive wherewithal of vinyl, shrinkwrap, the physical column- inch. Rockwritin' Lester, like anyone else in the trade, was certainly each of these things from time to time, though (probably) none of 'em, singly or in tandem, for longer than the odd off review. Sadly, though his untradelike comportment surely tantalized mere tradefolk while he lived — at least in terms of Style — and even begat a not-half-bad (early-’70s) clone in “Metal Mike" Saunders, his actual abiding sway among such clowns, beyond the occasional liftable riff, was — as it continues to be — infinitesimal.

Finally: the twin silly questions (1) where a still-living Lester might hypothetically've taken it (i.e., beyond the rockwrite fishpond) and (2) what such imaginary newstuff could/would conceivably’ve meant to his basic audience. Second one first. Okay, that Lester's rockstuff generally read so hot as personal testimony is one thing; for it to have been perceived by so many as being eminently, genuinely about something — something rather specific, in fact something "rear’ — is something else. When you get down to it, the gospel of Lester's radical about-ness rested largely on a big hunk of readerly illusion, the illusion of a functional one-on-one between the guy’s fertile imaginings and the psychic infrastructure of rock & roll as dealt; there could be harsh discordance, of course, but as long as a firm relationship could (for whatever readerly vested interest) be consistently inferred between Lester’s mindgames and rock’s g-g-games per se, you at least had the stamp of a viable — if totally simulated — one-on-one. But, really/truly, while Lester’s psychic playground may surely have been one drastically twisted maze, its actual correspondence (sympathetic, hostile, whatever) to rock's own labyrinth, one so airtight and dank as to make his seem like wide open etc., was far too often naught but a matter of readerly convenience. Everyone loves a cipher, a living/ breathing anagram or two. even some — hey — with flaws more rampant than Lester’s, but for the man’s writerly service to’ve been gauged (almost solely) vis-a-vis his reliability as a stand-in cipher-of- x, y’know for readerfolk too lame — or lazy — to suss out x themselves, is the real tragedy of the trip, particularly when the first-&-final glue of most folks’ attachment to his writing was never much more than their own desperate attachment to an x they could, and should, have been accessing more independently (and less desperately) to begin with.

So, anyway, here's the rub. Had Lester lived long enough to both sever his own desperate rock connection — officially, in sheets read by his fuckheaded fans, simply by writing other stuff — and, furthermore, to back it up with an equally official rejection of the Fount of Neurosis from which he'd sung its tune (and they'd listened), it ain't really much of a longshot to imagine him losing a huge percent of the fuckheads — certainly the most gung-ho among 'em — in, well, no time flat. And, c’mon, how much of an immediate, uh, new audience was he likely to yank in writing up (as he insisted he would) such transcendently pivotal mere-humanistic trifles as the dearth of love (as we know it) in scene X or Y . . . how this set of new-age culture jerks uses that set of new-age culture jerks as props in regards to bluh . . . New York editors who pull rank (pshaw!) along collegiate lines [a hard-hitting exposé] . . . or, I dunno, something about shams and follies in clothes and/or grooming?

Plus, well, though, um — (even if) — then again: Aside from loss of ad hominem authority due to the fickle scumbait nature of the pop-world Beast, aside from the fact that many of his generic partisans would prob'ly now be targeted, topically and even personally, in scathing printed-page rants, aside from the limited run such goulash (Sensitive Ties His Laces, w/ Brass Knucks & Footnotes) has ever had — hey — can ever/will ever have . . . aside, aside, aside — the most glaring fact fact is how few times, as of his death, he'd as yet even aspired to the heights (or whats) or non- rock journalism. Four-five-six, some number like that, in the Voice and wherever else, all of ’em still pretty much rockwriterly appendices to the rockwrite “adventure," meaning he had a good ways to go before he'd’ve got the wings/chops/ legs for a total-pulp plunge (or at least a regular shift) at full oldtime capacity (but with newtime thrust and content). Which would’ve been no fall from grace no matter how you scope it — give the boy time (for fuck sake) to stumble and bumble and get it right — but how would any possible Lester have dealt with a (previously amenable) shithook book co. like Delilah telling him not now, sonny when he handed ’em a ream of copy on (let’s imagine) friends who’re fuckups? Personal persona limelight Lester had learned to live without — but writeperson limelight? (It would not’ve been easy.)

Okay, he's dead. All this brand new grief and hardship never befell him; never will. But words on pages remain: What is their lot? Lester's standard fare was so paradigmatically “of the moment" that he was the rockmag shootist. But books of the stuff? Nah; it’s kind of nebulous how even his best mag outings will wear when inevitably (??) anthologized. For someone so public in his orientation, both as input and output, he was — don't laugh or even smirk — one of rock’s more precious and fragile "private moments.” Private moments you can always document — coercively, of course — but try and play ’em back and. well . . . we'll all see, I reckon.

LESTER LEAPS IN — Y’all know all by now how Lester leapt out of New York; lemme just finish with how he leapt in. His first night in town, just a visit, fall "72, he stayed with me and my girlfriend Roni, West Village, 104 Perry St., apt. 4. Arriving semi-direct from JFK, he split pretty quick for the nearest grocer, returning with three six-packs of Colt 45. What he did for the next day and a half — all he did — was wade through 18 big ones, half quarts, as follows: start can, drink fast, get tired; fall out, dropping remainder; awaken following can’s impact with floor; stagger to fridge for fresh one; repeat cycle. What he mumbled or muttered during any of the 18 pre-fallout phases I simply do not recall.

So like hey y’know wo hey hey wo-wo hey, OLD SPORT: love ya, hope I didn’t cramp yer style, g’bye.

--Richard Meltzer, “Lester Bangs Recollected in Tranquility”  Dec. 6, 1984

[ephemerlskies]

emerald dreams: REDACTED | kth

⇢ pairing: taehyung x reader

⇢ genre: series, blackmirror!au, angst, fluff, artist!taehyung, strangers to lovers, set sometime in a dystopian era of technology, taehyung is s o f t

⇢ word count: 4.5k

⇢ warnings: explicit language, memory loss, mentions of death, themes of grief/depression

⇢ summary: in a technologically advanced utopia where a memory can be stored as a data file in a chip inserted in your head, it was entirely impossible to forget anything. when you met taehyung, a young at heart yet talented artist, he garnished an odd familiarity, raising suspicion that some of your memories had been lost in the digital cloud, or worse, erased from your memory chip.

♪ playlist: IDK you yet - alexander 23 • 4 o' clock - v & rm • jamais vu - bts • the story - brandi carlile •  moonlight - ariana grande ♪

╰ episode index: 01 | 02 (coming soon)

a/n: if you don't watch black mirror then just imagine that everything is technology based, even the inner mechanisms of your thoughts/mind/memories and social culture has centered around the automation of the human body. also the government is sleazy and controls literally everyone in this au >:) also, i'm going to try and update this weekly!!

Scenario No. 2: Re-test

You didn’t expect to be spending your weekly visit at your favorite coffee shop gasping for air in the single occupancy commode. An unsettling familiarity had reached into your chest and compromised the body of your lungs, now savagely hyperventilating for air, and seized control on the reins of every sensory neuron in your body.

First, it was the sensation of sound. That voice, that unusually specific coffee order, the soft lilt of politeness riding through his etiquettes of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ struck right in your chest with a shockwave of deja vu, like you’ve heard that order before, a million times before perhaps. No part of you would let go of the fact that for some reason, this stranger was someone you knew very well.

And yet you had no idea who he was.

“Hi, how are you?” He smiled to ease the nerves of the overworked barista on this Sunday afternoon. Your ears picked up his husky, sweet tone through the scuttle of customers walking in and out of the shop and a commotion of side conversations that filled the room. It was quite noisy, enough so that it muffled any specific utterances, but the bass of his voice had met your ears with a strong posture of familiarity.

You looked over to the sweater draped over his frame that fit snugly against his broad shoulders. That was when your visual senses were overrun with the muted forest green of the knitted jumper. You’ve seen this color green. To be fair, green was always secured in your life abundantly through your own will. You had always loved this color and demonstrated this through small displays such as picking the green straw from a bundle of multicolored ones, or scanning over a set of shirts to find which one had the most green in it.

You surrounded yourself with a life full of green, but when this green sweater was paired with the voice there was a strange jolt of reminiscence.

It was not just a sweater, it was a sweater that you have touched, even worn before. And when he wore it, it wasn’t just any green. It was his green.

His figure drew closer to you as he waited at the side bar for his drink to be called, sending a waft of his scent to nullify those of fresh brewed coffee and pastries. Along with your eyes and ears, your nose now fell to the magnetism of this stranger.

He smelled of fresh evergreen with a bit of pinewood, mixing into an overwhelming oaky aroma. As the smells that resembled a tranquil forest ruminated through your lungs and your bloodstream, it weakened your body to a state of paralysis. Your motor skills were numbed to endow a series of mental backflips to figure out where this estranged attraction was coming from, and why it was him who provoked it.

Standing comatose in the middle of a populated coffee shop meant the clash of your body into another's was bound to occur. And of course, it was his body that bumped you out of the trance of obscured memories. It was his arms that held your shoulders steady so you wouldn’t topple over and spill your latte over yourself.

“Oh, sorry! Didn’t see you there. Are-” His eyes studied your aghast expression, “Hey, are you okay?”

This marked the compromise of your visual sensory. You looked right into his eyes, kind and concerned, and your surroundings had melted away into a whirl of unidentifiable colors. Your body was transported to a purgatory that rested between reality and a dream-like setting, which eventually molded itself into actuality before your eyes.

Redacted File No. 6

Suddenly you turned your head side to side and the territory that was once a café was no more, and had alchemized into a zone of unparalleled comfort. To your left, you were warmed by a wood-burning fireplace with stones crested along the frame of the pit. Your body was covered in a blurred canvas of forest green, and there were two hands holding your body gently and lovingly. It was a vision so incredibly clear and intricate it couldn’t be conjured through imagination or illusion, but a very real and vivid memory.

“Excuse me? I’m sorry… You’re okay right?” His jostling hands fainted the memory that swept you from the cafe. You blinked a few times before your eyes could refocus and land you to your present circumstances.

The man’s firm grip hadn’t abandoned your shoulders even though you regrounded your balance, which quickened the pace of your heart. They you earnestly, that even though you were certainly not going to fall over, he wouldn’t have let go. Without more than an array of unintelligible stutters to confirm you were okay, because you weren’t okay, you hobbled backward quite ungracefully to the privacy of the bathroom. After your rushed retreat, you tried to analyze the string of memories that pervaded your mind.

How do you know this man? Were these your memories? Or perhaps your memory chip glitched and downloaded files that didn’t belong to you?

The blunder of confusion racked your head with a slight tension headache. What was once a temporary occupancy of the restroom turned into a marathoned hideout until you could safely assume the stranger’s drink was made and he would leave the vicinity.

You checked your phone to count the duration of time spent. It had been about ten minutes since you pathetically holed yourself up, and it would be about five more minutes until you felt you could confidently emerge and escape.

You knew him, and for some reason it sent you into a fearful sequester.

Luckily, just last week you downloaded an upgraded storage plan which gave you access to all your past memories.

You activated the chip residing in your temple to trace every single unit in the archives, even the ones from as early as your birth, to see if anyone, including the likes of a passing stranger, a waiter that took your order three weeks ago, even a student from your high school class, resembled the man in the café. There were no records in your memory files of someone who echoed the same unsettling familiarity that this man had.

If the advanced technology that contained each capsule of every moment in time that you have ever experienced couldn’t give you the data on this man, then perhaps it was just an unusual coincidence.

One of those Twilight Zone-esque occurrences that isn’t deployed through factual evidence. Though you weren't entirely met with closure for this reasoning, it was enough to cope through the rest of your lengthened stay in the restroom.

What battered your precisely timed and nearly successful plan to avoid further interactions with this man was the light knock against the door. And it was the feeling of guilt that there must be other customers who planned on using the bathroom for its intended purpose that hoisted you up and had you reluctantly vacating the protected area.

Though, it was punishingly ironic that the one who had torn you from your sanctuary was the same person who put you there in the first place.

“Sorry,” He apologized about three times within the small window of time he’d been confronted by you and you already caught on to his habit of perpetual remorse, “Um, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I bumped into you and you kinda… freaked then ran and hid in the bathroom.”

If he weren’t so considerate to a stranger that was acting oddly evasive, this would have been easy. But he was considerate, and this was unbelievably difficult.

“Yeah um,” Your eyes sank down to rest on the comforting hue of his sweater, “I’m, uh, I'm okay. Thank you.”

He cleared his throat, dislodging the nervous laugh blocking his words.

“Okay well, I was just wondering if you were all good. You seemed a little shaken up back there.” Frankly, he still sensed something about him was off-putting to you, but he tried to deny it for the moment.

Your assurances fell gravely short of convincing since you couldn’t even bring your eyes to level with his. The soft-spoken gesture of kindness made you feel like a helpless animal that would surrender at the slightest sign of danger. It was a fair assessment for you acted as though his accidental collision into you through a crowded space was the end of the world.

“Yeah, sorry. Thank you!” You chirped to imitate a normal reaction despite this tremendously abnormal situation. “I was just um… It's just one of those days, ya know?”

Then, it was his smile that cluttered your sensation of touch. He was standing a respectable distance from you, however, his smile touched you. It cornered you into blurting out something even more peculiar than the overwhelming deja vu that had been commencing the moment you noticed him.

“Do I-” You paused to lower your voice that could have outsourced to the collection of ruckus in the café. Now in a whisper, you continued, “Do I know you?”

He didn’t offer a voiced response, but an equally bewildered expression. You couldn't quite read what this implied so you assumed he thought you were crazy, maybe even a bit creepy.

“Sorry! Fuck, that’s so creepy. I’m just gonna go.” Before you had the chance to push past him and the billowing clouds of regret, he obstructed your path to the doorway with his body.

“No! I think I know you too. Like, I’ve never seen you but I remember you. Like… Like a dream.” He scaled the length of your body with his eyes, which only manufactured his intuition into an undoubtable certainty. “I know you. How do I know you?”

“Hell if I know. I’m just as confused as you.” You felt your body slumping into itself under his gaze. He was attentive to every detail of you, from the length of your hair to the twitch of your fingertips, making you feel over exposed to this stranger that wasn’t a stranger.

“Well, do you wanna maybe sit? Have a coffee with me?” He propagated his interest like there was no reason to be afraid which only intimidated you further. There wasn’t a real threat in his invitation, however accepting it felt like you were walking on thin ice.

The government agent standing guard with a perfect earshot of every conversation wiring through the small café didn’t help ease your nerves either.

“I really should be heading home soon.” Guilt worked quickly to try and compensate for the discouraged expression on his face, “But… if you give me your number I’ll call you and maybe we can go out for lunch or something?”

He traded his grim with excitement while pulling a pen from his pocket and walking over to the condiments bar to write his number on a napkin. You had no clue as to why, but the fact that he had a pen on hand was strikingly nostalgic, much so as every other detail you had acquired from him.

Although entirely unheard of, you felt like this new knowledge of him was not adding to the collection, but rather dusting old artifacts that had simply been forgotten. You weren’t learning things about him, but instead remembering them; the more you stood watching him scribble his name and number on the napkin, the deeper you entrenched yourself in this theory.

Not to mention, you couldn’t recall the last time someone favored using a pen over a keyboard and a paper napkin over a digital contact entered on your phone.

What kind of person carries around a pen in the age of modern technology?

“Thank you. I’m ___, by the way.” Your hand wavered a bit before holding out to greet him, and when his hand made contact, you could have sworn on your own life that this wasn’t the first time it happened.

This was no introduction. It was a reunion.

The fix of his gaze had suggested he too felt reminiscent with the feeling of your hand.

A shared inability to let go held your hands together, trying to harness a bit of recognition or recall a social function where you two might have met in passing. Neither one of you had shown any intention to pull away, which dragged the formality of shaking hands into a gesture of mutual wonder; now you were not so much exchanging a handshake but rather holding each other. Holding tightly, as if you were rediscovering a mass of feelings that would give you an answer.

However, the answer was not generous enough to make itself available to either of you.

It could have been hours until you were able to unriddle this strange sensation, so you made the preventative move of pulling away before the warmth concocting between your hands would produce a light sweat on your palm.

He too seemed to retract upon regaining his sensibilities, but there was a glint in his eyes that suggested he would have held on for longer, maybe even forever if necessary. If it would regroup the unattainable and partially inexistent memories into cognizance.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

Redacted File No. 12

You clung with desperate persistence onto the flaccid hand. Trailing up the arm was an indiscernible figure that had no features, no notable detailing, not even a vague outline of facial structure; just an ethereal glow that projected throughout the entire room. The nebulous haze terminated any identifiable aspect of the room except the hand you were holding, so you focused on the scant detail your eyes offered.

There was no specified context, no real evidence that you had to hold on, but something deep within you was urging for it. Some omnipotent instinct which prophesied that if you let go of the hand, you would in turn be letting go of the world.

You had to hold on.

However your hands wouldn’t obey you. Each time you tried to tighten your fingers, it felt as if the hand would continue slipping from your grasp. Or maybe, your hands weren't gripping at all.

They were numb, or paralyzed, and unable to execute your urgencies. The more force you exerted into your dire intentions, the easier it was for the hand to grow limp and melt through your fingers like liquid. It was frustrating, your willful attempts to hold on seemed to elicit the opposite effect as the hand, unowned by a certain being, resigned from yours.

“I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go.” You chanted through the tears, feeling as though that would somehow ignite a stronghold on the lifeless hand falling away.

But even so, it did fall away.

Perhaps the pain of it was that it wasn’t you who was letting go, but the hand that was being taken away from you. That you had been fighting a losing battle far beyond the prospects of your own decisions or control.

You begged for mercy, but were bestowed with your hands clean of what it was trying so desperately to hold onto. The hand slipped and when you peaked through the glaze of tears, your knuckles and fingers were gripping airy, cold emptiness.

“I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go.”

Soon you were captured in a perpetual aria of pleas to the ears of a God that would not listen. Unsettling despair had mutilated the illuminating glow of the room to bleak darkness. The world of colors had fallen absent akin to the cold hand vaporizing alongside the dispersal of light.

Then, everything was black.

Your eyes shot open with deep distraught.

The full moon flashed against your dampened face; half of the moisture sourced from a cold sweat and half from the heavy tears pouring from your eyes.

You knew the only explanation for this dream, which resonated more closely to a memory than a figment of sleepful imagination, was curated by the peculiar events that took place earlier today.

Soon, the dream drifted from your mind as consciousness took its place. Your tardy response to write the sparse remnants of it had left you with nothing but a distorted plot of what transpired during your slumber.

Widening your awakening through long sips of water had forced you into an obsessive rewinding of your memory files. It was a shame there wasn’t technology yet to store memories of your dream, or you’d have been replaying the one you just dreamt about a hundred times.

You scanned through a collection of moments in the afternoon when you first met Taehyung. The clear, digital picture of him glassed over your eyes, taking the place once inhabited by the moon, as you pressed the play button on the handlebar of functions.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

You rewound no later than a second after he introduced himself back to the beginning.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

Rewind. 0.5 x speed.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.” Said in a distorted voice from the ‘reduce speed’ function you equipped.

“Kim Taehyung.” You muttered to the empty room and the bright moon.

Sleeping was abstracted to an impossibility, and for the sake of your sanity, you walked over fish out the napkin in your coat pocket. It took you a while to move on from meticulously inspecting Taehyung’s handwriting.

The aimless effort to recall if it was the penmanship of some classmate had slackened to yet another unmet hope. Taehyung didn’t reside in your memories, but claimed quite an existence in your intuition. However, that wasn’t satisfying enough. You settled with the unsolved familiarity, though not before a lengthy wrestle between your eyes and the seven numbers scribbled into the napkin.

After dancing with the idea of it, you resolved some courage to finally dial. Each ping of the phone had you dreading for the automated message to inform you the recipient was not available at the moment, that you would have to hang up or wait for the tone to leave a message. Little by little your spirited nerve had depleted as you were now practicing what message you would leave Taehyung in his voicemail box, praying that it wasn’t full.

“Hello?” The sound of his voice interrupted the seventh or eighth ring, along with your rehearsal of the voicemail you assumed you’d have to leave being that the moon had been aging the sky into midnight.

“Oh! Oh, sorry I didn’t expect you to pick up.” After the chaotic pounding in your chest settled, you realized how nonsensical you sounded. Everything you methodically planned to say had been scattered by his unprecedented answer.

Instead of asking why you would call if you expected him not to pick up, he asked with a kind curiosity:

“Who is this?” He didn’t sound tired, in fact it sounded as if he had been hard at work preceding this call.

“Oh yeah! It’s ___, from the coffee shop. You remember me right?” Though you powered through, the worry was quite deafening. Taehyung seemed to pick up on it and diffused it with a gentle chuckle.

“Of course I remember.” On the other end of the line, he had been penciling a sketch on a blank page in his notebook.

The serenity of the stars and moon pinned on the navy blue sky never failed to spark inspiration. Taehyung was the type to refuse passing up a surge of an artistic muse, even if that meant he would shed a few hours of sleep from his routine. No matter the time or place, he always had a pen on hand to honor his heart’s unremitting passion.

He loved the moon and stars. He loved it so much as one would love a dear friend. He wished to be a part of the scenes of lights that hovered just out of reach, but could only settle on capturing a piece of the starry heavens on paper with his trusty pencil, sketchbook, and emerald-tinted muse.

“It’s late to be calling, but you’re lucky I was awake.” He said to hide how ecstatic he was you had actually called.

For someone you had just met, or at least you thought you just met, he threaded a flirtatious coyness in his response. It difficult to hush the winged eruption in your stomach because of that.

“Lucky, huh.” You repeated through a mumbled laugh, “I was just… I was thinking.”

“About what?” He had placed his phone on speaker mode and laid it next to his sketchbook.

There was a new inspiration that bore a louder siren than that of the moon and the stars. He sifted through the memory files throughout his day to the minute he first bumped into you, and though your face had been ingrained quite clearly behind his eyelids with each blink, he relied on the accuracy of a reference to perfect his drawing of you; not to mention he projected the image of your face to delight his undeniable attraction and to moderate the wildly romanticized version of you in his head.

Perhaps if he hadn't, he wouldn't be able to discern your face from the arena of glimmering stars scattered along the shaded skies.

“Just about how I think I was too quick to pass your offer.”

“Really?” That endearing lilt hope in his voice, the excitement expressed, acted as some puppeteer that manipulated the corner of your lips to lift into a smile.

No muscle in your body could ever be moved with the same conviction as it did when he was the reason for it. It bewildered you, almost to the point of frustration, as to why he had this power over you.

I just met him. I'm already getting this worked up? You thought how absurd it was you'd fallen this quickly, hoping it would ground you to the reality that he was still a stranger you hadn’t exchanged more than two conversations with.

Though, reality and memories and data files had all been obscured ever since you met Taehyung which was fascinating more than it was disorienting.

“Would you want to, maybe, grab coffee? Say next Thursday?” Your hand was subconsciously gripping the bed sheets, just like the way you gripped the disembodied hand in your dream, and awaited his response with full-blown suspense.

“I’ll see you next Thursday, ___.” Taehyung's confirmation put all your anxiety to rest, as well as your tightly clamped hand around the cotton fabric.

“I’ll see you.” You mimicked as if that would make the idea of seeing Taehyung again any less surreal. He laughed at this and brushed up a few finishing touches on his drawing.

“So just to clarify.” His pause gave entry for curiosity to wire through your head.

“Yes?”

“When you said you were thinking… you were thinking of me?” You wanted the upper hand to be reinstated with you, but your shy chuckle was no match to the smirk adopted on his lips that you couldn’t see, but you knew was there. You knew he was prideful when he swept the rug right out from under your feet, and you were right.

“Perhaps. And what if I was?” You framed your question to render your intimidation as flattery. Though, you had no idea how convincing this facade actually was and that it came off more suggestive than you had expected. There was a part of you that had fraternized with the romantic idea of Taehyung which might have registered your motive to reciprocate an undertone beyond platonic.

“Then that would be one thing we have in common.” He sounded responsive to your flirting and raised the bar significantly.

Your eyes and smile were directed towards the scenery displayed by your window, but they were not dedicated to the moonlit beauty of the diamond encrested sky. Though the midnight glades of stars were the ones to witness your smile, it was, without a shadow of a doubt, dedicated to Taehyung.

He was staring at the same moon, the same plot of stars, so perhaps you were looking into each other. When the moon twinkled, it looked awfully similar to a smile. Your smile.

For the moment, there was a radio silence that splintered through the two speakers of your and Taehyung’s phones. Even if the use of his hands weren’t engaged by his needful recreation of your face through his art, if his hands were left unused, he wouldn’t have mustered the discipline to end the call. Your unoccupied hands were trying to find any employment so you could have some excuse for not hanging up as well, not that there was anything else to be discussed.

Again, it felt familiar. The feeling of hesitance to be the first one to hang up despite the conversation’s recoil.

The cohesive idleness of you and Taehyung was unprovoked and ran out for about a minute. Neither of you had the intention to sever the virtual communion quite yet. The awkwardness of sitting in silence on the phone with a newly acquainted stranger was a delicacy compared to preemptively ending the call.

At one point, you were about to question if he had hung up; but the rhythmic and light breathing told you otherwise. And because of that mutual need to stay on the line, it seemed to be unreasonable to hang up, save for the yawn that eventually trimmed the call to an end.

“You’re tired.” He stated, now prompted with a yawn of his own upon hearing yours. “Goodnight, ___.”

“Goodnight, Taehyung.” Saying his name out loud sent you into that same blend of reminiscence and nostalgia.

His name was not unexplored by your tongue, that much was certain, and the thought of putting your entire life on hold to discover why it felt that way was a tempting venture. Why when he said your name, it felt like sitting in front of a wood-burning fireplace under the security of a green sweater and wrapped in safe arms.

More than that, you wanted to know if he felt all these things too.

“I’ll see you?” You asked instead of saying that dreadful word 'goodbye'.

“I’ll see you.” He repeated before reluctantly hanging up.

“___.” He whispered your name, hoping the inky sky would design it in the stars for the world to remember forever.

Hoping that the next hours, which would surely be spent on multiple sketched renditions of your face, would amount in some revelation of the mystifying familiarity. He believed shedding a few graphite imitations onto the surface of his sketchbook, soaked by the glow of moonlight, would somehow make him remember everything hidden in the dark compartments of his heart.

However, if it didn’t, he would be okay with it. Because at least he knew he would see you again.

“Meeting place: Silver Lining Café.”

“Thank you, Agent Park. Heighten surveillance on the two subjects.”

[randomnessunicorn-imagine]

◈ DATING LORE WOULD INCLUDE ◈

{ I just wanted to write about characters I have never written before.

Everyone talks and writes about Data but forgets the other cool android, his brother.

Actually, Lore is a really good badass and antagonist and so he deserves some space in my blog, too. 

Don’t be so severe and read my headcanons! }

😈 LORE 😈

You should be a real bad person as well if you have a crush on this evil android or maybe you are just a little insignificant human who likes the rush and danger. Do you like to live dangerously? Don’t be ashamed of it, you’re still a little human but maybe you could still impress him. Maybe.

Sooner or later, every biological organism will die, it’s the cruel law of nature, but you just don’t care and you want to live every moment as if it was your last. He thinks you’re crazy but fascinating somehow. Maybe you are not a wussy like every other human and you have guts. You’re going to die young but you’ll have a lot of fun in the meantime.

You have always been fascinated by technology and androids and you already are a friend of Data, you like Data a lot but there’s something in Lore that fascinates you more. Maybe his artificial emotions, the way he speaks and acts so naturally.

Sometimes, you even forget Lore is a machine because he’s too human. Even his diabolic and sneaky ways are so human. His human attitudes are so scary but alluring, you just can’t stop staring at him and think about his mysterious and wonderful existence. Maybe it is not the safest thing to do, because he is dangerous but you can’t deny it and not even Lore can’t deny the way you look at him.

Your interested and curious glance make him wondering if he may use you as his loyal and unsuspected puppet. A partner in crime is always helpful especially when you work for the Starfleet and so you can give him all the information he needs and if you also betray your Captain, it would be a double win for him and for you as well.

Maybe Lore will spare your life after the human race will be destroyed in agony and shame and the “artificial” will win against the limited, fickle and biological existence. That’s the first rule of the universe: only the strongest races survive and the weakest perish.

Yes, Lore is more human than the humans themselves are but in the most inhuman and painful way. Lore is the humanity you would never like to meet. The humanity that everyone thought it was extinct and concluded because the human of this century is different from the old humanity, which was so racist and egoistic. Lore is like that, he represents the savage and cruel humanity of the past, something that is still present in people’s heart but is suppressed thanks to law and discipline.

Then Lore does not possess the same program of Data, which allows him to be respectful and honest. Indeed, Lore is free, he does not care about the consequences of his actions. He can be hypocrite, dishonest and evil because he does not follow any rules. He only follows his own rules.

You have never liked your job a lot and you have always thought the Starfleet is too hypocritical and moralist, maybe it is pacifist but it makes its mistakes too and they only reacts and make things when they are in danger. Maybe you even think that the human race is still dirty and wrong, even if you are human and so you are criticizing your same race but you know it so well and this is the reason why you hate it. Lore did not think you were so rancorous, maybe more than he is and this make of you the best ally for him.

You and Lore are united by a strong and honest sentiment of misanthropy. How could this relationship not become true love? You two love to hate these malefic and insignificant universe and creatures. Such a lovely way to fall in love. Such a toxic way to hate something.

You guess, he keeps staying with you only for his reasons and because he needs your help. You already know he’s going to kick you out of his life and this existence soon, when he will be sick of you because you are still a biological being and you can’t compare with his perfection. Or maybe Lore can give you another chance and he’s not cruel as you thought he was or maybe he got attached to you. He can feel emotion and even if his emotions are dirty, toxic and sick, it does not mean he is indifferent toward you. Since you helped him, he could have mercy of your weak and delicate human body. Do you know how?

He could create an artificial body like his and put your coscience and memories inside a positronic brain and so you could become as strong and immortal as he is. He finds your human body disgusting and an android body is more captivating and resistant.

Of course, you are not allowed to trick or betray him and he’s still in control, he can deactivate you whenever he wants but he can give you a new life. There’s always a price to pay but his offer is grand and unique. Will you be smart enough to accept?

[whillsofstars]

Chapter 11

KYLO REN------------------------------------

Kylo Ren’s uncharacteristically good mood persisted over the next couple weeks, which only made everyone who came in contact with him uncomfortable. No one quite knew how to respond to his more relaxed, uplifted attitude. It was well-known within the First Order that Kylo Ren was as serious as they come, with a raging temper to match when provoked. He was not a man to be trifled with, but even more so, he was not a man known for being happy. Ever.

Sometimes he was met with suspicion, especially when it came to General Hux. Being the type of man who ascended to his coveted position through less than favorable methods, Armitage assumed there were secret operations that he wasn’t privy to, and that made him nervous. While it was not as Hux feared, Kylo couldn’t help exploiting his suspicions for the time being. Armitage shared more detailed information in his reports than he had previously, clearly trying to demonstrate everything he has accomplished on behalf of the First Order. The additional insight was particularly helpful as it gave away more details about Hux’s comings and goings which, in turn, Kylo passed along to his knights while they continued to monitor him.

Secretly, the only two people in the galaxy who knew the source of his new attitude were himself and Rey.

While he had waited with Rey as she recovered from the attack by the bounty hunters, Kylo had witnessed something that truly moved him at his core. While caught between an open Force bond and an interruption from that Resistance scum, Rey had done more for Kylo’s ego in a brief second than anyone had in years. When she withdrew her hand from the golden boy of the Resistance, Dameron knew it for what it was - rejection. Little did he know that resting in Rey’s other hand was Kylo’s, one that she had intentionally reached for and encouraged to stay. She had chosen him. Once again, like she had when she arrived on the Supremacy, Rey had chosen him and that meant more to Kylo than he cared to admit. Throughout his life, no one had shown as much support as Rey had in those two moments. Yes, Snoke had been supportive of him, encouraging his studies of the Darkside, but there was always a hidden agenda. With Rey, there were no strings attached.

Despite Snoke connecting them through the Force, the bond had remained open. It was the Force at work. Kylo knew it. The Force wants balance restored to the galaxy. Maybe, just maybe, he was moving one step closer to accomplishing it. Rey’s request for him to stay by her side fueled his belief that she would join him. Could it be that the vision he saw when they touched hands would come to pass? Kylo certainly hoped so.

She was his equal in the Force, her light being the perfect counterbalance to his darkness. If she would allow it, Kylo would still jump at the opportunity to provide her with proper training in the Force. He would show her all the power that the Darkside could offer and while he didn’t agree with the strict and stunted dogma of the Jedi teachings, there was still plenty to gain from their practice. Kylo would take the best teachings from both the Jedi and the Sith to begin a new era of Force users. Some students would foster more light than darkness or vice versa, and that would be okay. Never again would a Force-user be trained to shun part of who they were.

The thought of this new order and the potential for future Force-sensitives only propelled his unusually good mood leading him to think more about Rey. He wondered what she would think of his plan to balance the galaxy. Would she like it? Would she want to be a part of it?

Truth be told, he had no idea.

During the brief moments when their bond had opened, neither of them would discuss their personal aspirations, choosing instead to stick with safer conversation topics. After what happened almost a year ago, it was clear that neither of them was as trusting of one another as they once were. That same trust would take time to build. Kylo hoped that it would happen sooner rather than later, which brought his thought back to the task at hand: forcing their bond to open at will.

Kylo had been meditating on the Force in his quarters while using Vader’s mask as an aid to channel his power. He always found that it was easier to concentrate in the presence of his grandfather’s mask, as if Anakin Skywalker himself was guiding him.

Sometimes he would plea to his grandfather’s spirit to show him the ways of the Force, and today was no different. Kylo had been attempting to open the bond for a little over an hour, only to hit an impenetrable wall every time he found Rey’s presence in the Force. Her signature shown in the Force with an intensity that rivaled the brightest star in the galaxy. Time and time again, when he felt just a little closer to opening the bond, his concentration would crumble, the effort often drawing his strength away.

But despite his failed attempts, he kept trying. Since it reopened, he could feel it getting stronger and stronger every time they were connected. They could now see each other's surroundings, a feat they were unable to do previously. It also seemed as though their emotions could bleed through the bond at unexpected times. He will never forget the fear that pierced his heart when she called his name across the stars moments before she was captured.

It was these revelations that kept him going, that persuaded him to keep trying.

Once again, he focused on his breathing. The feeling of life-giving oxygen passing in and out of his lungs felt like a life-line that helped center his thoughts. If there was anything the Jedi got right, it was their insistence that proper breathing techniques enhanced the meditating experience.

When he finally felt as though his mind had been cleared and tranquility hung around him, he opened himself up to the living Force, pleading with it to show him the key to opening the bond he shared with Rey.

Breathe in and out, he thought exhaling slowly.

Slowly, the darkness that surrounded him began to reveal a faint glow, and from what his heightened senses told him, it was light years away.

When he was sure this was what he was looking for, Kylo refocused his efforts so that all of his thoughts were directed at this small glowing presence in the Force, encouraging it to blossom. Warmth spread through his body, beginning at the crown of his head and moving down to his toes. The feeling reminded him of the warm summers he spent by the lakes on Chandrila - welcoming and at the same time thrilling.

Soon enough, what was once a faint glow in the darkness was now a light that shown with the intensity of the Chandrila sun. The fervor of it all made his skin crawl with excitement. It made him feel alive.

“Rey,” he breathed. The light she carried within her was so strong. She was the galaxy’s counter to the darkness he possessed.

After pausing a few moments to admire the strength of her Force signature, he went right to work summoning his energy, and began slowly pressing it against hers.

“Open,” he said in an almost inaudible whisper.

Upon his command, he sensed that the walls which separated them began to dissolve, but like the intensity of the light, they too were also strong. All of Kylo’s efforts were aimed at one thing and one thing only, slowly chipping away at the Force’s barrier. But just as soon as he began the task at hand, his exhaustion overtook his concentration and he awoke to find himself sitting before his grandfather’s mask, cold and alone once more.

He let out a growl of frustration. He had been so close this time. He could feel it.

Unable to control his emotions, he reached for the nearest object he could find - his data pad -  and hurled into the wall, showering the room with glass and metal pieces. He stood there savagely drawing in one ragged breath after another as the blood in his veins continued to boil.

Why can’t I get it to open?, he thought. I am the most powerful Darkside user in the entire galaxy, the scion to the mighty Skywalker line, trained in both the light and the dark.

Just as he reached for another object, an unexpected knock came from the door to his chambers.

In his rage, he had almost forgotten that he summoned his knights to report on Hux’s comings and goings.

Kriff, he thought.

He collected himself for a brief moment before permitting his knights to enter his personal chambers. He did not want them to witness his weakness. A man who cannot control his emotions is not fit to lead the First Order. If they saw him in a state of weakness, surely his knights too would doubt his ability to command the Knights of Ren.

With a wave of his hand, Kylo used the Force to slide the door open. “You may enter,” he said, trying his best to keep his voice level.

Jaster and Kasari Ren stepped over the threshold, the lightsabers at their hips clinking against their armour. They proceeded until they were within a few paces from where Kylo stood. Both of them slowly dropped to their knees and bowed their heads in a display of respect for the Master of the Knights of Ren.

Kylo had been itching to hear this week’s report from his knights. Ever since he ordered Jaster and Kasari to shadow Hux, their findings had been less than he had hoped. From what they could tell, Hux maintained a normal schedule, free from unusual diversions. If it did change, it was for a trivial endeavor, such as a follow-up meeting with an officer or a casual trip to fill an extra cup of caf while he worked. Unfortunately, what happened behind the closed doors of his private chambers still remained a mystery, but it’s not as though he spent much time there according to his knights.

Let’s hope there’s something new this week.

“Reports?” he asked, although admittingly, it came off as more of a command than a request. And did it sound a little harsh? It must have as both knights hesitated for the briefest of moments before Kasari broke the silence.

“Master, I beg your apologies, but there is nothing new to add to my report this week. In the shifts that I had followed the general, nothing seemed amiss. He comes and goes at the same time, following his schedule to a tee,” she said, her voice muffled by her mask. Continuing to clarify her point she started, “He’s met with a few new First Order staff, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. They mostly discuss upcoming projects or updates as it concerns the Resistance, your excellency.”

Before Kylo could ask another question, Jaster chimed in unexpectedly.

“I will echo Kasari Ren’s report, Master. I also have not noticed a break in General Hux’s activities,” he stated rather dryly. “It does not appear as though the general is plotting against the First Order, at least not publicly.”

This was not what Kylo wanted to hear. It had been weeks since his knights had been assigned to follow Hux. He knew both of them were tiring from his order and he could feel their distaste for such a mundane activity, though he knew neither of them would openly say something. At a different time, before he assumed the mantle of Supreme Leader, Kasari Ren might have been more candid. They did have more of a casual relationship growing up.

Outside of the hard facts provided in their report, Kylo also wanted to know their thoughts. Did they have reason to believe Hux was up to something behind closed doors in his quarters? Surely after noting his every move for weeks, they would have a hunch. With that thought, he moved to ask, “Do either of you have reason to believe that he’s plotting something behind closed doors? Do you think there’s value in bugging his personal chambers?”

Without missing a beat, Kasari was quick to share her opinion, “I think it could certainly help. That’s the only place on the ship where we can’t watch him.” She paused a moment releasing a tired sigh before continuing. “What is it you want us to look for exactly? Is there another reason why you want us to follow him?”

Of course Kasari would push back. She would often question Luke’s instructions at the Jedi Temple, not to purposefully challenge his authority, but to better understand the reasons why things were done. Kasari, empathetic to her core, wanted to visualize what brought the Jedi of old to adopt their rules. Today, Kylo could sense Kasari’s intent. She wanted to understand why Kylo, Master of the Knights of Ren and leader of the First Order, would have such a fixation on Hux. She wanted to help him. Some things never seemed to changed.

However much Kylo wanted to share the burden of his worries - a potential coup, more assassination attempts, secret missions - with his knights, he decided against it. This was something that he wanted to keep to himself. Plus, these would only lead to more questions that would become too dangerous to answer. Where would he even begin to explain the treacherous acts he’s committed, all because of his fascination with the Lightsided scavenger? Murdering their master Snoke? Ruining Hux’s plans to bring Rey to justice? No. He would not be giving any more details than what was necessary.

“The details as to why I want you to watch Hux are irrelevant,” he stated sharply. He hoped this came off like a warning to let the subject go. “It’s not a secret that Hux and I have not seen eye-to-eye on a number of different initiatives. For now, he’s compliant and goes along without much resistance. I want to ensure it stays that way.”

He left the weight of his words hang in the air for a brief moment, allowing the silence to fill the room. Kasari and Jaster Ren would have to live with the fact that this was all the information they would be receiving from Kylo at the moment.

When the silence continued to grow, Kasari dropped her head back down. Was this a show of submission or frustration? Kylo couldn’t tell. He reached out and pressed his mind against Kasari’s hoping to find the thoughts that remained unspoken. She immediately became aware of his presence and, knowing full well why he was attempting to read her mind, threw her mental shields up preventing him from diving any further.

To Snoke, her clear unwillingness to share her thoughts would have been seen as insubordination. Kasari would have been shot straight through with lightning for such a display of disrespect, but Kylo was not Snoke. He wasn’t going to use the same cruel tactics on his knights, and so decided against probing further. If she wanted to say something, she should feel comfortable to do so in her own time. Besides, he wanted to return to his meditation, and his knights should really return to their posts.

Kylo was growing tired of a lack of information about Hux. It was time to push things along. If you wanted to get something done, sometimes the best thing to do was to do it yourself. Luckily for Kylo, he had the protection of his knights to back him up.

If it was true that the only time his knights couldn’t oversee Hux was when he was in his personal quarters, then maybe Kylo ought to see what Hux has been up to when not under the watchful eyes of his knights. As the Supreme Leader, Kylo’s personal keycode granted him full access to any and all locations on the ship, and that included the personal quarters of all the ship’s personnel, no matter the rank. Depending on the time, Kylo could probably slip in and out unnoticed.

Actually, now that he was thinking about it, Hux was supposed to be in a meeting for a few hours today with the military officers - his command. Kylo quickly glanced at the chrono mounted in the paneling. Yep. He’ll still be away for another two hours at the minimum. These meetings usually go longer than expected. This just may be the break Kylo needed.

With that, his mind was decided. He would just go through Hux’s quarters himself and get to the bottom of this. Maybe if he found nothing, it would finally put his mind at ease.

“Jaster Ren, you will resume watch over Hux for the remainder of the week, beginning the minute you are dismissed,” Kylo said shortly.

“Yes, Master.”

“As you should know, he is in a meeting right now. If the meeting is cut short for any reason, you are to alert Kasari via your comlink. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Kasari and I will be pushing this along. We’re going to bug his quarters, but first we need to see if he has anything to hide.”

At this, he turned to both Jaster and Kasari.

“Jaster, Kasari,” he said, his voice low, conveying the seriousness of what he was about to say.

“Yes Master?” they questioned.

“You will speak of this to no one. We cannot have General Hux catch on to what we are about to do. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, Master,” Kasari and Jaster answered immediately.

“Good.”

“Jaster, you may take your leave.”

Jaster rose at his command and strode across Kylo’s chambers, pausing only to allow the entrance to open with a swoosh as he swiftly made his way out.

Kylo moved to stand by Kasari who was still kneeling before him.

“Let’s go. We won’t have much time before Hux returns,” he said, casting his eyes down upon her.

They didn’t have far to go before arriving at Hux’s private quarters as the highest, most elite officials and staff shared the same floor as the Supreme Leader. Kylo ordered Kasari to stand watch and alert him if any suspicious activity arose via their comlink. She was hesitant at first, prefering to go with him should he need assistance in his search, but Kylo reassured her that her standing watch was needed more.

He punched in his keycode on the datapad just outside the door. A small red light flashed, announcing that he’d been cleared. As the door slid open, he stepped inside.

Kylo took a moment to consider Hux’s chambers. The floors were the same shiny black material found throughout the Finalizer. Like all other cabins on the ship, it was designed to be distinctly utilitarian, but unlike Kylo’s chambers which had very little personal possessions (save for his private collection of Jedi and Sith artifacts), Hux’s quarters was filled with trinkets neatly displayed or tucked away in their respective places.

The charcoal walls were adorned with certifications from some of the best primary schools and universities the Core worlds could offer. One wall in particular was covered in various medals: some from his time at the university and others obtained from his achievements in the First Order. Hux was nothing if not ambitious. Kylo could acknowledge that.

He crossed the room and began browsing through the small collection of books nested on a shelf above Hux’s desk, which held many works centered around military strategy during the days of the Rebellion. Another book highlighted prominent military leaders throughout the ages on both sides of the war. Then there was another one with a small tuft of paper sticking up through the pages like a flag. Thinking that it might offer up some useful insight, Kylo reached for the book and thumbed through the pages until he reached the one Hux had marked.

At the top of the page, there was a portrait of an officer wearing a First Order uniform with an impressive decoration of medals and pins adorning his left breast panel indicating his rank as a senior-level officer. Looking at his face, his hard eyes were an icy, pale blue that appeared to stare right through you. He looked like a man who didn’t give a damn about anyone who stood in his way. Ruthless was likely a more accurate description. But perhaps the most striking feature he possessed was a crown of bright red hair.

This was Hux’s father.

Sure enough, the name included under the photo confirmed his suspicions. While Kylo didn’t know much about the late Commandant Brendol Hux, he had heard stories about his harsh command. This was not a man you wanted to cross, unless of course you had a death wish.

Not wanting to waste any more time, Kylo shut the book and returned it back to its usual place on the shelf.

Nothing else around his desk was out of place. Everything was neat and tidy, so Kylo chose to move toward his wardrobe after running his hand along the underside of the desk to check for hidden drawers. Finding none, he moved on.

Unlike his own wardrobe, which mostly contained items in the darkest of blacks, Hux actually had some shades of gray and red mixed in amongst the otherwise neutral color scheme of the First Order uniforms. Oddly enough, there was one very red cape tucked away in the back of the closet behind the coats and jackets. This would surely make his red headed foe stick out like a sore thumb, Kylo thought.

Moving on after digging in between and behind the racks of hanging clothes, Kylo began opening all the drawers. One drawer that neatly held a set of belts with highly polished buckles contained a severely weathered book, its pages frayed at the edges.

Upon first glance, Kylo estimated this book to be 1,000 years old or more. The simple cover itself reminded him of the sacred Jedi texts Luke kept in his private room at the temple, the same ones that were now in Rey’s possession, minus a few pages that Kylo pulled for himself. Those were safely locked away on Mustafar in Darth Vader’s castle. Snoke had been in possession of the castle for years, but since Kylo had become his apprentice, Snoke had released any hold over it, claiming that it was Kylo’s birthright to have it. In that castle, Kylo only kept a handful of his most prized possessions, including a few Jedi and Sith holocrons.

Carefully, he lifted the book out of the drawer and crossed the room to take a seat at Hux’s desk to have better light to examine the book.

Kylo gingerly cracked open the cover revealing pages of text written in a language long forgotten by most in the galaxy, but not to Kylo. He was perhaps one of the few people left who could interpret its secrets for it was the same language found in one of the books Kylo had read while studying the many applications of the Force. The book before him, however, and the one he interpreted were vastly different. For starters, the book at Luke’s temple contained explanations in theory of what could be accomplished with the Force - Jedi mind tricks, healing, etc. - this one it seemed carried the knowledge of the Sith and the realities of how they used the Force, particularly in times of war.

This must be from the Jedi-Sith war which began in 1032 B.B.Y., he thought. Wow. He believed all the holocrons and texts were lost at this time from both the Jedi and the Sith. It was rare to find any recording written or spoken from the Sith since tradition dictated that knowledge be passed down verbally from master to apprentice. The Sith guarded their secrets well.

But the discovery of this book begged the question: how in the name of the Force did Hux find one of these texts? Maybe the more important question was: why would Hux keep it? It was no secret that Hux was afraid of the Force. All Kylo had to do was shoot his arm out and pretend like he was about to Force choke him to make the man jump out of his skin. Truly, Hux hated the Force. Which brought Kylo back to his question: why would Hux keep a Sith text?

Curiosity and, if Kylo was being honest, excitement flooded through him at the idea of reading a Sith text. He’d always loved to read, especially when he was younger and had more time to do so. His favorite areas of study were Sith and Jedi lore, along with the political history of the galaxy and, naturally, the rise and fall of his grandfather, Darth Vader. He particularly liked learning about his life as a Jedi before the fall of the Republic.

As he began thumbing through the pages, he noticed that some boasted highly detailed illustrations of Force techniques. One illustration in particular begged Kylo to stop his casual reading.

At first glance, the drawing of two heads facing opposite directions with a paler wavelength shared between them caught his breath. It appeared as though he discovered the mystery behind how Force bonds work, but what he stumbled upon instead was a description of a Sith technique they called “transfer essence.”

According to the text before him, transfer essence or transfer life as some called it, was a more radical dark side power used by Sith Lords to cheat death again and again. Usually with the help of a trusted servant, these ancient darksiders were able to transfer their soul or consciousness into a new vessel - a living or inanimate object.

Kylo’s blood ran cold as his greatest fear came crashing down upon him.

This would be the key to immortality.

Snoke...he thought in shear panic.

Would this is why Hux would keep this text? Would it even be possible for Hux to revive Snoke?

The thought that settled into his mind took hold like the ice storms of Hosnia. A thought that threatened to undo everything. A thought that filled Kylo with the same fear and dread he’d felt as a boy when his trusted uncle had come in the middle of the night to murder him.

Snoke could still be alive.

Snoke could still come for him.

He would never be free of his master.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 |Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 12

[callousedwings]

7 lab/projects from dumpster dive pantry

Dumpster is our science lab and project silo.

Content :

Dumpster Dive?

Tips

Safety

Visit our Facebook and Instagram page then you’ll see how many times we have science projects, mostly laboratory-based. But how do we have enough finance and why in the world would we “waste” these?

Enter the dumpster dive. 

What is dumpster diving?

Do I have to dive into the dumpster head first with swimming equipment? Nah, but you do want to wear rain boots or wellies, disposable gloves, and have a crate or cardbox next to the dumpster. 

Isn’t it trespassing? 

No, according to here and here, these links are explaining the law from both point of view, the diver and the individuals who their dumpster are being dived.

What if it’s locked?

Well, breaking something is illegal, even if it’s public property. So decide on your discretion. We do not promote it. 

Is there another alternative?

Yes. You can ask you closest store, supermarket, grocery store, restaurant, etc and tell them what you are intended to do with their disposable item or trash. Most of them might refuse because they don’t want to lose their job, while some of them don’t care.

Now with that squared away, let’s get into the project ideas!

7 Dumpster Dive Project Ideas.

1. Dissection.

Let’s get straight to the point. It is violent and savage. After you are done, you’ll be covered with...sap and most likely pollen. So if you’re allergic, make sure you’re covered. Eye goggle, face mask, and gloves. Yes, we are talking about plant dissection. Flowers are usually the prime suspect that we caught in the dumpster. Then there are fruits, vegetable, mushrooms, and sometimes a whole plant. The good news is, you can always compost it.

2. Painting.

Have you seen those potato stamp painting or celery that are circulating around the internet? Or mushroom stamps? We used to think, why. Even if the painting is edible paint, we don’t think it will taste that good anymore. And wasting a perfectly good bought potato is such a crime. But when we get it from the dumpster, we are saving them from not being used at all.

A post shared by Callousthenics Wings (@slothchef) on Apr 20, 2017 at 6:15pm PDT

But the best painting we did was to smash the food on the canvas, put plenty of salt over them, clean the excess (or not if you want texture), bake it under the sun, and spray sealant over it. Bonus point if you also spray shaving cream that you find in the dumpster. 

3. Craft.

We found those collapsible plastic crates and boxes, sometimes even papers in the dumpster. Unwritten, semi-dirty, but still usable. We make our ATC, Art Trading Card, from gift boxes that we found in the dumpster. You can also make a bookmark out of dried up flower, after you dissect it from #1. Paper mache mask was one of our craft projects from the dumpster also.

4. Chemical science experiment and observation.

Not for the faint of heart, but we found meat and fish in the dumpster before, of course, that we used to do chemical experiments on. This also included dissolution, with pineapple. Yes, since we can use pineapples as ameat tenderizer, we can also dissolve the meat, once it’s submerged long enough. Or we also did decomposition rate, if you have made a special container, away from the house. 

But if you don’t want to use meat, use plants instead. We submerged plants in different solutions, ranging from colored water to homemade saline, and even acid (pickling too anyone?). We also observe how it was burned in different conditions. Or learn how not to burn it. It’s a really great practice for beginner or aspiring cooks by having them cook different plant material. 

A post shared by Callousthenics Wings (@slothchef) on Mar 5, 2017 at 12:41pm PST

Or you want the easiest experiment? Grab a loaf of bread and exposed it to the open air for it to get moldy. Then observe it under the microscope.

5. Math

Especially statistics and graphing. We use our data from the amount of trash on several points of the week to learn about data collecting and interpretation. We also use this method when we are doing the science experiments in #2.

Not just that, we got into Fibbonaci number and golden ratio, thanks to Brussel's sprouts on the branch that’s growing spirally.

A post shared by Callousthenics Wings (@slothchef) on Apr 21, 2017 at 11:19pm PDT

6. Literary art.

What else to do with all those information you have? How about writing it down? We made a report on waste management and consumerism after discussing our statistic on the amount of trash. Yea, not really the most exciting thing of all, but it could be a project idea for those who are looking for a topic. And last but not least. 

7. Engineering and building.

Seen those wooden contraptions called pallet? There are plenty of them near dumpster around business area. You can look at freecycle.org and craigslist too for free pallets in your area. Just make sure if you are using it for permanent fixtures such as furniture, plant’s pot, giant jenga, or treehouse, the pallets came from nurseries or places that sell food. Food grade means they are not treated by hazardous and toxic chemical.

Tips:

Don't forget to bring gloves, rubber boots, and boxes (you can get free crates in you dive if you lucky).

And one last thing. If you want to know for sure your region’s law about public properties and dumpster diving visit Municode and click on their library button 

The real website doesn’t have the button dancing around just letting you kno.

Which project idea(s) is your fave? Did these suggestion spark an idea in your head? Share with us!

[networkingdefinition]

Shark Quotes

Official Website: Shark Quotes

• A boxer is like a lion, the greatest predator on land, but you throw him in the shark tank and he’s just another meal. Renzo Gracie • A lawyer is basically a mouth, like a shark is a mouth attached to a long gut. The business of lawyers is to talk, to interrupt one another, and to devour each other if possible. – Joyce Carol Oates • After the clinch, it doesn’t matter what happens, one way or another, we’re going to hit the ground, and we’ll be in my world. The ground is my ocean, I’m the shark, and most people don’t even know how to swim. Carlos Machado • All right, you got that out of your system. Can I get back in the boat without you striking me again? Or should I stay out here enjoying the marine life?” “Why don’t you swim around until you find a shark? Then you can discuss how much the two of you have in common – Jeaniene Frost • All sharks were born swimming.” —Rebecca McNutt •Almost any shark, three or four feet long, could kill a human being if it chose to do it. It could make you bleed to death. But they don’t.” —Peter Benchley • And it was there that I saw the most appealing creature in the whole shop. He had a slight chink out of one foot and his ‘topknot’ was missing (a ‘topknot’ is on the top of a dragon’s head and looks a bit like a shark’s fin) but I bought him in an instant. – Chris d’Lacey • Annoyance and pathos warred in my breast, and after a short struggle, annoyance punched pathos in the snout like the voracious shark it was. Kate Elliott • Anyone who thinks cryptozoology is the study of the impossible has never really taken a very good look at the so-called “natural world.” Once you get past the megamouth sharks, naked mole rats, and spotted hyenas, then the basilisks, dragons, and cuckoos just don’t seem that unreasonable. Unpleasant, yes, but unreasonable? Not really.- Mira GrantAs an entrepreneur, you can always find a solution if you try hard enough.- Lori Greiner

• At this point in our global ecological crisis, the survival of humanity will require a fundamental shift in our attitude toward nature: from finding out how we can dominate and manipulate nature to how we can learn from her. In this brilliant and hopeful book, Jay Harman shows us how far the new field of Biomimicry has already progressed toward this goal. The Shark’s Paintbrush makes for fascinating and joyful reading – much needed in these dark times. – Fritjof Capra

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Shark', 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_shark').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_shark 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'); ); ); ); • Being able to turn to Jesus after the shark attack kept me alive. – Bethany Hamilton • Being nearly naked around Barrons felt a lot like going to a shark convention lightly basted in blood. – Karen Marie Moning • Better a dish of husks to the accompaniment of a muted lute than to be satiated with stewed shark’s fin and rich spiced wine of which the cost is frequently mentioned by the provider. Ernest Bramah • Between highway sounds I heard waves and thought how the curve of the coastline here had sheltered and nurtured live-born sharks, humans, and migrating whales. Here, at the edge of the continent, time and distance stopped; in the lull between sets of waves I could get a fresh start. – Gretel Ehrlich • Brody cannot believe the size of the creature, and with a classic, practical understatement tells Quint his assessment: You’re gonna need a bigger boat. Awestruck, they all view the full-sized, massive shark circling the boat. Quint estimates it is 25 feet long: Three tons of him. – Roy Scheider • Brooding, she changed the pool into the sea, and made the minnows into sharks and whales, and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by holding her hand against the sun, and so brought darkness and desolation, like God himself, to millions of ignorant and innocent creatures, and then took her hand away suddenly and let the sun stream down. – Virginia Woolf

• Businesspeople are like sharks, not just because we’re gray and slightly oily, or because our teeth trail the innards of those we have eviscerated, but because we must move forward or die. – Stanley Bing • But as they say about sharks, it’s not the ones you see that you have to worry about, it’s the ones you don’t see. – David Blaine • But it’s also true that my memory is a card shark, reshuffling the deck to hide what I fear to know, unable to keep from fingering the ace at the bottom of the deck even when I’m doing nothing more than playing Fish in the daylight with children. – Lorene Cary • By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • By nature, I keep moving, man. My theory is, be the shark. You’ve just got to keep moving. You can’t stop. Brad Pitt • By the end of the 20th century, up to 90 percent of the sharks, tuna, swordfish, marlins, groupers, turtles, whales, and many other large creatures that prospered in the Gulf for millions of years had been depleted by overfishing. – Sylvia Earle • Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. – Herman Melville • Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year. Bill Gates • Crikey means gee whiz, wow! Crikey, mate. You’re far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building. Steve Irwin • Did you know that mako shark fetuses eat each other in the womb?… Its true. Only cannibal fetuses survive to be born. Can you imagine if people were like that? – Laini Taylor • Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark? – Mike Birbiglia Dolphins and sharks are natural enemies. Dolphins are like,Quit eating us,” and sharks are like,Stop smiling all the time, you morons.” —Dan Florence • Don’t believe what the spiritual sharks and clever carnival hustlers tell you about fearless living – they lie. Guy Finley • Don’t you dare underestimate the power of your own instinct. Instinct is a lifesaver for sharks and entrepreneurs alike. Most people can recall times they ignored their gut only to regret it later. Learning to actually listen to your instinct is a great form of self-preservation. It’s both incredibly easy and tough at the same time, but worth the effort to master. Barbara Corcoran • EBay may be a shark in the ocean, but I’m a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we lose, but if we fight in the river, we win. – Jack Ma • Even a mentally challenged shark would figure out that sea turtles did not wear boxer shorts printed in flying piggies, and no sea turtle would be yattering streams of obscenities between chain-smoker gasps of breath. – Christopher Moore • Expand the definition of ‘reading’ to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It’s the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won’t read shark books forever. – Jon Scieszka • Fathers and sons are natural enemies. Look at any species. Shark, sees his father in the water, he’s not thinking, Hey dad, wassup ? He’s thinking, Back off, old man, this surfer carcass is mine. Of course, when his girlfriend swims up and she’s like, Way, you know, there’s enough surfer for everybody. You and your dad need to frenzy together more. Leave you father a thigh. Christopher Titus • For an actor, its great fun to play one of these hungry white sharks. Audiences love to hate them. – Michael Douglas • Forgetting isn’t enough. You can paddle away from the memories and think they are gone. But they will keep floating back, again and again and agian. They circle you, like sharks. Until, unless, something, someone? Can do more than just cover the wound. – Sara Zarr • French fries kill more people than guns and sharks, yet nobody’s afraid of French fries.- Robert Kiyosaki • Gerard’s spirit animal is a gazelle – that’s how he’s always answered – Frankie would definitely be a wolverine, I would be a shark because of my inability to sit still, and Ray? Ray would be… I’m thinking super intelligent, super articulate, I would think owl. Mikey Way • Going from ‘Shark Night’ to ‘Piranha,’ a guy holding a fish on a stick in front of you that they’re going to replace in post-production, it’s a lot different than seeing this animatronic shark that, if you get caught up in the moment, looks, acts and you sometimes think could be real. Chris Zylka • Hand me down the shark repellent Bat-Spray! Adam West Harriet Beecher Stowe • He asks me what happened to my leg. I told him I was shot by a shark. He doesn’t react. Doesn’t seem confused or amused or anything. Like getting shot by a shark is a perfectly natural thing in the aftermath of the arrival. – Rick Yancey • He described to me how crocodiles kill more people than sharks. There are just a lot of things in Australia that can kill you. – Barack Obama • Here is a list of terrible things, The jaws of sharks, a vultures wings The rabid bite of the dogs of war, The voice of one who went before, But most of all the mirror’s gaze, Which counts us out our numbered days. – Clive Barker • Hey Rid?” She stopped and turned to look at him, almost ruefully. Like she couldn’t help what she was any more then a shark could help being a shark, but if she could… “Yeah, Shrinky Dink?” “You’re not all bad.” She looked right at him and almost smiled. “You know what they say. Maybe I’m just drawn that way. – Kami Garcia • Honolulu, it’s got everything. Sand for the children, sun for the wife, sharks for the wife’s mother. Ken Dodd • How fishy on the fishiness scale? Ten is a stickleback and one is a whale shark.” “A whale isn’t a fish, Thursday.” “A whale shark is–sort of.” “All right, it’s as fishy as a crayfish.” “A crayfish isn’t a fish.” “A starfish, then.” “Still not a fish.” “This is a very odd conversation, Thursday. – Jasper Fforde • Humanity from the first has had its vultures and sharks, and representatives of the fraternity who prey upon mankind may be expected no less in America than elsewhere. That this virulence breaks out most readily and commonly against colored persons in this country, is due of course to the fact that they are, generally speaking, weak and can be imposed upon with impunity. Bullies are always cowards at heart. Anna Julia Cooper • I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die. – Patrick Rothfuss • I am a shark, Cassie,” he says slowly, drawing the words out, as if he might be speaking to me for the last time. Looking into my eyes with tears in his, as if he’s seeing me for the last time. “A shark who dreamed he was a man. Rick Yancey • I am a shark, the ground is my ocean, and most people can’t even swim. – Rickson Gracie • I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion. – Nicolas Cage • I am passionate about my family, adventure, good wine, nature and the outdoors, sharks, the ocean, and working hard to preserve it all for future generations. Mehgan Heaney-Grier • I am terrified of sharks, so I don’t surf! Janel Parrish • I believe implicitly that every young man in the world is fascinated with either sharks or dinosaurs. – Peter Benchley • I did 50 takes on Robert Shaw assembling the Greener Gun on ‘Jaws.’ The shark wasn’t working, so I just kept shooting to make the production report look like we were accomplishing something and to keep cast and crew from going crazy from boredom. It was a strategic indulgence. Steven Spielberg • I didn’t care about the backlash. I think the reason it was so severe was because they didn’t know anything about me in New Zealand. If I had made jokes about a shark attack in the US, no one would have cared. Anthony Jeselnik • I discovered I scream the same way whether I’m about to be devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot. – Axl Rose • I do my very best to avoid shark fin. – Anthony Bourdain • I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screens: as Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, more than 20 years before the Kindle turned up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Neil Gaiman • I do not believe that one can become rich without being a shark; a sensitive man will never amass wealth. Petrus Borel • I don’t believe there’s anything cosmic or divine or morally superior about whales and dolphins or sharks or trees, but I do think that everything that lives is holy and somehow integrated; and on cloudy days I suspect that these extraordinary phenomena, and the hundreds of tiny, modest versions no one hears about, are an ocean, an earth, a Creator, something shaking us by the collar, demanding our attention, our fear, our vigilance, our respect, our help. – Tim Winton • I don’t enjoy the boo scare when you’re watching a movie and then suddenly there’s a big shark on the screen. The only thing they’re doing is catching you off guard. – Sergio Aragones • I don’t get ‘shark’ – but who cares! Isaac • I don’t like sex … I’m a single working mom with nine cats, a dog-shark, a lizard, and a bunny. I don’t go to bed, I pass out. The idea that I’d get to my bed and there’d be someone in there with whom I was supposed to have an activity is horrifying to me. – Paula Poundstone • I dont like the idea of being eaten by a shark. I like to swim in the ocean, and I think much more about sharks than anyone should. I really resent the fact that my oceangoing experiences are ruined by Jaws.- David Duchovny • I don’t look back. I’m like a shark – I only look forward. Rita Rudner • I don’t think you can be a diver without a shark on the list. Natalie Dormer • I give [Barack Obama] a 10 [on a scale of 1 to 10] because he’s not God, and he inherited a couple of wars, and a financial mess.I want to see him curse somebody out on TV. You can’t finesse a bull. He’s gotta throw down. He’s in the shark tank. Tracy Morgan • I hate the beach – I’m a mountain guy. I’d much rather face a bear than a shark. Jeff Dunham • I have a hard problem, being some part Native American – being a Christian: do you get burned, do you get cremated, do you get – let the sharks eat you? How do you die? Duane Chapman • I have a ridiculous fear of sharks but I’d jump in the water in a second for an amazing role. – Kate Mara • I have a slight fear of sharks for some reason.I have a slight fear of sharks for some reason. – Scott Speedman • I have been called a Rogue Elephant, a Cannibal Shark, and a crocodile. I am none the worse. I remain a caged, and rather sardonic, lion, in a particularly contemptible and ill-run zoo. Wyndham Lewis • I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show, which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark’. – Dave Barry • I have snakes, three sharks, moray eels, piranhas, five scorpions and a bird spider. All of them are predators. They are dangerous but it’s cool to have strong and powerful pets. – Tracy Morgan • I just believe that sometimes in life you’re like a shark – you have to keep moving through water; otherwise, you’ll die. – Michelle Ryan • I know this is your hand now,’ she tells him. “Roland would have never touched me like that.” Connor smiles, and Risa takes a moment to look down at the shark on his wrist. It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No- the soul of a man. – Neal Shusterman • I love contemporary art, although I wouldn’t want a pickled shark in my house. – Bruno Tonioli • I often prefer the shapes within the raw materials to ‘do their thing’, as this makes it movre interesting for me. Sometimes a piece of hubcap fits in such a way that the shark becomes almost alive in my hands, climbing, twisting or just hanging motionless and predatory, and this gives me a buzz. It makes me feel like a vehicle for the creation process rather than a controller, and not knowing the exact outcome is exciting. Ptolemy • I shall attack Chemistry, like a Shark. Samuel Taylor Coleridge • I swear on St. Francis, the patron saint of all animals.” Seeing Poppy’s hesitation, Beatrix added enthusiastically,If a band of pirates kidnapped me and took me to their ship and threatened to make me walk the plank over a shiver of starving sharks unless I told them your secret, I still wouldn’t tell it. If I were tied by a villain and thrown before a herd of stampeding horses all shod in iron, and the only way to keep from being trampled was to tell the villain your secret, I— – Lisa Kleypas • I tell you Dain is a splendid catch. I advise you to set your hooks and reel him in.” Jessica took a long swallow of her cognac.This is not a trout, Genevieve. This is a great, hungry shark.”Then use a harpoon. – Loretta Chase • I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies. – Woody Allen • I think I’m a bit like a kind of shark, that if I stop swimming, I won’t be able to breathe, something like that. Alan Moore • I think I’ve always been drawn to the second person. When I was growing up and playing with my friends, the usual way we interacted with imaginary worlds was as characters: a bench was ‘your’ boat, leaves on a lawn were the fins of sharks out to get ‘you.’ – Mohsin Hamid I think sharks are beautiful creatures, and I don’t think we should stop going in the ocean because of them. You drive down the road and you get in an accident, but most people end up driving down the road again. Surfing is you’re going into their home and it’s just a natural part of life.’ Bethany Hamilto • I think sharks are beautiful creatures, and I don’t think we should stop going in the ocean because of them. You drive down the road and you get in an accident, but most people end up driving down the road again. Surfing is you’re going into their home and it’s just a natural part of life. Bethany Hamilton • I thought beforehand, if [Marie] Henein is going to be a shark, I’m going to be a jellyfish, because you can’t catch a jellyfish. Not that I didn’t want to be caught, I just wanted to present solid. – Lucy DeCoutere • I try my best to avoid the sharks of life, but I have had my share of experiences with them, and in those cases I just have to handle them accordingly. But I do not swim with sharks … sharks swim with sharks. Rihanna • I want to build a wired ocean that helps us take back the seas from poachers and illegal fishers. To do this, we need the latest technology applied to large pelagic fish and sharks, surveillance technology that helps protect marine protected areas, and tags that help prevent shark finning and illegal fishing. We must use modern sensors to help protect our seas! Barbara Block • I wanted a shark that’s big enough to eat you, and in a large enough amount of liquid so that you could imagine you were in there with it. Damien Hirst • I was once stranded on a broken-down boat in shark-infested waters in the middle of the Indian Ocean for five days before we were rescued while doing a ‘Vogue’ shoot. • I was watching one of those animal shows on the Discovery Channel. There was a guy inventing a shark bite suit. And there’s only one way to test it. All right Jimmy, you got that shark suit on, it looks good… They want you to jump into this pool of sharks, and you tell us if it hurts when they bite you. Well, all right, but hold my sign. I don’t wanna lose it. Bill Engvall • I wasn’t surprised at all. In fact, I thought, why stop there? Why not add the Big Show, or Chris Jericho, or the whole state of Nebraska for that matter? And don’t you think a wrestling ring is a little old school, Lilian? Why not put the match in a shark tank, with real live sharks? Hungry sharks! And the only way to beat your opponent is to stuff him down a shark’s throat, and pin the shark. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?- Kurt Angle • I wish you good writing and good luck. Even if you’ve already done the good writing, you’ll still need the good luck. It’s a shark-filled lagoon out there. Cross your fingers and watch your back. – Margaret Atwood • I won’t swim in a pool by myself, because I think that somehow a little magic door is going to open up and let a shark out. Christina Ricci • I would stay at my grandma’s house on my birthday every year and I remember she had a bookshelf of murder mystery books along with really frightening books, like one on Jack the Ripper. She also had a poster of a shark in the closet which also terrified me at the time. Christopher Bollen • If I swim in the ocean, I have a shark thought. Not a bad one, but just a little one. – Tea Leoni • If incredible creatures like sharks can exist, why not Bigfoot? When I look at sharks, they’re the most terrifying, monstrous, dinosaur-like things. To this day, I’m so fascinated by them and can’t get my head around how they are on Planet Earth at all. Rachael Taylor • If men are obsolete, then women will soon be extinct — unless we rush down that ominous Brave New World path where women clone themselves by parthenogenesis, as famously do Komodo dragons, hammerhead sharks, and pit vipers. Camille Paglia If size really mattered, the whale, not the shark, would rule the waters.” —Matshona Dhliwayo • If you are in the job for glamour, you’re in for the shock of your life. The media is a huge shark pool. – Trisha Goddard • I’m 100% proud of the TV work I achieved. The work I did on shows on insects and Great White sharks… stuff that’s in school curriculums in England. Now they are showing up on Discovery Channel. – John Lydon • I’m a blowfish. I’m not a shark, I’m a blowfish. – Kanye West • I’m a blowfish. I’m not a shark, I’m a blowfish. So that perfect example about me hitting my head, it’s like a blowfish. I wasn’t coming out of my house going to a paparazzi’s house to attack them. I’m defending my family in front of my own house. I’m defending my name as someone’s screaming something negative at me. That’s a blowfish. People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people. – Kanye West • I’m actually very scared of sharks. I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was young, which may not have been compatible with that fear. – Gillian Anderson • I’m afraid of sharks – but only in a water situation. – Demetri Martin • I’m an old school guy and love the guys in the monster suits and JAWS; even though everyone makes fun of the shark I think it’s awesome. You know it’s fake, but with my generation that was part of the charm. – Larry Fessenden • I’m haunted by the thought of what Ray Anderson calls ‘tomorrow’s child,’ asking why we didn’t do something on our watch to save sharks and bluefin tuna and squids and coral reefs and the living ocean while there still was time. Well, now is that time. – Sylvia Earle • I’m just a simple guy swimming in a sea of sharks. – Don Johnson • I’m like a shark, right at the top of the food chain. I take what I want, when I want. I truly am the reflection of perfection. Ricky Martin • I’m like a shark. I’ve got to be constantly moving. Kenny Chesney • I’m not saying that everyone should swim with sharks, but sometimes you have to jump over your own shadow in order to learn something that you will never forget for the rest of your life. Then you know you can conquer your fears. – Heidi Klum • I’m obsessed with crocodiles and getting eaten by one. When I hear that someone’s been eaten by a crocodile or shark, I just get all gooey. I start salivating. Tori Amos Impact, Years, People In a world full of fish be a shark.” —Unknown • In life, (the fashion world) is full of sharks. In this world the young girls lose themselves; become the property of others, live but for the job and their craziness…they don’t know anymore where their home is. Many take drugs. It’s strange. Perhaps the girls understand that this does not work for me. I don’t have many friendships with other models. I respect them and enjoy working with them, but I probably would not invite them into my home. My house is like my heart, and I open it only to those with whom I have a close relationship. Laetitia Casta • In the end, my love for surfing helped me overcome my fear of sharks. Bethany Hamilton • In the Mediterranean of my childhood, there were no large groupers, sharks, or whales. All I saw was seaweed and a few fish, smaller than my little diving mask. All the large animals were gone, simply because we had eaten them. Enric Sala • In university courses we do exercises. Term papers, quizzes, final examinations are not meant for publication. We move through a course on Dostoevsky or Poe as we move through a mildly good cocktail party, picking up the good bits of food or conversation, bearing with the rest, going home when it comes to seem the reasonable thing to do. Art, at those moments when it feels most like art — when we feel most alive, most alert, most triumphant — is less like a cocktail party than a tank full of sharks. – John Gardner • Instead of squirreling away your earnings early in your career, spend on experiences that will enrich your life – like diving with great white sharks. It can expose you to influential people who could open doors for you. – Blake Mycoskie • Interceded? You threw me to the sharks! Stephenie Meyer • Interesting fact: a shark will only attack you if you’re wet. – Sean Lock • Is there no Villain in this World who doth not regard himself as a poor abus’d Innocent, no She-Wolf who doth not think herself a Lamb, no Shark who doth not fancy that she is a Goldfish? – Erica Jong • It comes down to finding something you love to do and then just trying to be great at it – Mark Cuban • It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No–the soul of a man. – Neal Shusterman • It is as if the Photograph always carries its referent with itself, both affected by the same amorous or funereal immobility, at the very heart of the moving world: they are glued together, limb by limb, like the condemned man and the corpse in certain tortures; or even like those pairs of fish (sharks, I think, according to Michelet) which navigate in convoy, as though united by an eternal coitus. – Roland Barthes • It is estimated that one-third of all reef-building corals, a third of all fresh-water mollusks, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of all reptiles, and a sixth of all birds are headed toward oblivion. The losses are occurring all over: in the South Pacific and in the North Atlantic, in the Arctic and the Sahel, in lakes and on islands, on mountaintops and in valleys. – Elizabeth Kolbert • It looks like I’m this huge shark going in for the kill… I don’t know what I was thinking. David Gest • It was such a dramatic escalator that I was on. It was at 90 degrees. I was going straight up like a rocket ship into space. And I was thrown in with the sharks. They said sink or swim in this Cup deal. Kurt Busch Italian, Blood, Bread • It’s a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on…it’s all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it ‘Jumping the Shark.’ From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same. – Jon Hein • It’s kind of ridiculous that I find inspiration in just getting away from everything. But when you’ve gone through it, you realize that it’s the enemy. It’s a distraction from what you’re really doing. You’ve got to keep moving. Like a shark. – Jack White • It’s really not as bad as it sounds. I was attacked by a shark once, back when I was alive. Well, not so much a shark as a rather large fish. And not so much attacked as looked at menacingly. But it had murder in its eyes, that fish. I knew, in that instant, if our roles had been reversed and the fish had been holding the fishing pole and I had been the one to be caught, it wouldn’t hesitate a moment before eating me. So I cooked it and ate before it had a chance to turn the tables. – Derek Landy • I’ve always been freaked out in deep open water if there’s a potential of sharks around. Theo James • I’ve sat looking down into a volcano that could blow at any moment; I’ve helped catch a shark and several rattlesnakes; I let a tarantula walk across my hand, and I ate rat soup. – Alan Alda • I’ve seen young men in college going into the NFL and then bite the cheese that’s in the trap. They’ll throw you a pair of Jordans or a moneybag for their services. It’s in that moment where most compromise. This business is unforgivable, and you got a bunch of sharks out there. It’s mind boggling that universities don’t prepare athletes for what they’re going to experience. Eddie George • Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. – Barbara Ehrenreich • Let’s be perfectly clear, shall we. The fox is not a little orange puppy dog with doe eyes and a waggly tail. It’s a disease-ridden wolf with the morals of a psychopath and the teeth of a great white shark. Jeremy Clarkson • Life is little more than a loan shark: It exacts a very high rate of interest for the few pleasures it concedes – Luigi Pirandello

• Live every week like it’s shark week. – Tracy Morgan • Look, Chief, you can’t go off half-cocked looking for vengeance against a fish. That shark isn’t evil. It’s not a murderer. It’s just obeying its own instincts. Trying to get retribution against a fish is crazy. – Peter Benchley • Losing is like smoking. It’s habit forming”;Fear is the basis of all mankind. In cards, you psyche ’em out, you shark ’em, you put the fear of God in ’em Puggy Pearson • Love’s pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices. – David Mitchell • Make no mistake, your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other. To live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks. – Ryan Bingham • Man is a carnivorous production, And must have meals, at least one meal a day; He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction, But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey; Although his anatomical construction Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way, Your laboring people think beyond all question, Beef, veal, and mutton better for digestion. Lord Byron • Man Swims in Shark Infested Waters, Forgets He’s Shark Food. – Gary Larson • Many people continue to think of sharks as man-eating beasts. Sharks are enormously powerful and wild creatures, but youre more likely to be killed by your kitchen toaster than a shark! – Ted Danson • Maybe we’ll live to see sharks recover. Right now, that seems as improbable as seeing all these falcons. Hope is the ability to see how things could be better. The world of human affairs has long been a shadowy place, but always backlit by the light of hope. Each person can add hope to the world. A resigned person subtracts hope. The more people strive, the more change becomes likely. – Carl Safina • Men, specifically in the West, have no rights of passage, no way to know when they become a man. Everywhere else in the world you gotta kill a lion or stab a shark, or go on some journey, and you come back and you’re a man. But here in the West, we’re really kind of clueless as to what makes us a man. – LeCrae • Meryl Streep is an acting machine in the same sense that a shark is a killing machine. Cher • More people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks, which shows you how good we are at evaluating risk. Bruce Schneier • Mr.Blank’s reputation as a card shark had preceded him. No one accused him of being dishonest, but on the other hand no one accused him of being honest. Groucho Marx • My dad was kind of a pool shark and had a Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin thing going on. I’ve always been fascinated by the fifties because of him. There was a hip, cool, anything-goes atmosphere back then, but looking good was still a priority. – Dylan McDermott • My phobias worsen as I get older. I’m scared of flying, driving. I’m terrified of sharks. I’m a germaphobe. But I try to face my fears; I do. Well, most of them. – Eli Roth • My position is this. If we can’t protect sanctuaries, if we can’t save the whales, the sharks, the fish, our oceans will die. Paul Watson • My tattoo is a cross, a rose and a shark. A cross is a cross, a rose like love and a shark is a pretty tough animal. Goran Ivanisevic • National Geographic contacted me about getting on their label, and I was like, ‘Wow, I want to be label mates with the sharks and lemurs!’ Bjork • Never underestimate a woman who loves sharks.” —Unknown

• No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. … I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things – Ernest Hemingway • No rescue boat can save the touches I left bobbing in the wild ocean of your flesh, but if they cut open your heart, like the belly of a shark, dumped its contents on a table—would there be any trace of me? – Jeffrey McDaniel • No, the shark in an updated JAWS could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim, for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors. -Peter Benchley • Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathen are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel. • Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species. Sylvia Earle • Nothing is more important than saving … the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans. – James Lee • Of all the creatures in the world that really frighten me – the hyena in Africa, the great white shark – leopard seals are near the top of the list. They’re killers. If my team spots one, they’ll pull me out of the water. – Lewis Gordon • Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear, And he shows them pearly white. Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear, And he keeps them out of sight. – Kurt Weill • Once Henry had heard a crying noise at sea, and had seen a mermaid floating on the ocean’s surface. The mermaid had been injured by a shark. Henry had pulled the mermaid out of the water with a rope, and she had died in his arms…”what language did the mermaid speak?” Alma wanted to know, imagining that it like almost have to be Greek. “English!” Henry said. “By God, plum, why would I rescue a deuced foreign mermaid? – Elizabeth Gilbert • One of them hissed-not the hiss of a cat, a long, steady tone-more like the hiss of air escaping the rubber raft that is all that lies between you and a dark sea full of sharks, the hiss of your life leaking out at the seams. – Christopher Moore • One shark turned to the other to say he was fed up chasing tuna and the other said, ‘Why don’t we go to Morecambe Bay and get some Chinese?’ – Ann Winterton • Only the strongest players can swim in the shark-infested waters of the Masters’ Seas. – Victor Niederhoffer • Orchestras have often been used to conjure up the natural world: Swans, sharks, trout, but not, as far as I know, the often maligned jellyfish. Bill Bailey • Passion, for me, is like a shark – it never stops moving. – Jack White • Personally, I say, “Out of the frying pan and into the deadly pit filled with sharks who are wielding chainsaws with killer kittens stapled to them.” However, that one’s having a rough time catching on. – Brandon Sanderson • Pigs eat more tuna than all the planet’s sharks combined. – Paul Watson Pigs, Years, People • Piscary killed people, but he didn’t have the concept of pity or remorse. It would be like telling a shark he was a bad fish and to stop eating people. But Trent? He knew he was doing wrong, and he did it anyway. Kim Harrison Player, Sea, Water • pools of blood are not recreational even lifeguards drown when the undertow breaks bread with the underbelly demons disguised as sharks have not put enough thought into their costumes a wiseman stays ashore when pointed fins read like italian subtitles the end is near (…) the beginning – Saul Williams Powerful, Men, Thinking • Raphael painted, Luther preached, Corneille wrote, and Milton sang; and through it all, for four hundred years, the dark captives wound to the sea amid the bleaching bones of the dead: for four hundred years the sharks followed the scurrying ships; for four hundred years America was strewn with the living and dying millions of a transplanted race; for four hundred years Ethiopia stretched forth her hands unto God. W. E. B. Du Bois • Relationships are like sharks. They’ve got to keep going into deeper, colder water, sometimes scarier, darker territories … to stay alive. Richard Gere Remove the predators, and the whole ecosystem begins to crash like a house of cards. As the sharks disappear, the predator prey balance dramatically shifts, and the health of our oceans declines.” Brian Skerry • Roy Keane’s like a shark. He has those eyes. You don’t know if he is going to buy you a drink or eat you. Ian Holloway • Royal Young has accomplished a rare feat in his fresh and riveting debut: he manages to recount his fascinating youth and unconventional family with a mixture of humor, scathing honesty and tenderness. Much more than simply a book about a kid who dreams of stardom, Fame Shark is a thoughtful, hilarious and moving love letter to his family and the Lower East Side of New York City. – Kristen Johnston • Rule number four for me as a writer? Plotlines are like sharks: They either keep moving or they die. ~J.R. Ward – J.R. Ward • Seafood is simply a socially acceptable form of bush meat. We condemn Africans for hunting monkeys and mammalian and bird species from the jungle yet the developed world thinks nothing of hauling in magnificent wild creatures like swordfish, tuna, halibut, shark, and salmon for our meals. The fact is that the global slaughter of marine wildlife is simply the largest massacre of wildlife on the planet. – Paul Watson • Setting off unknown to face the unknown, against parental opposition, with no money, friends, or influence, ran it a close second. Clichés like “blazing trails,” flying over “shark-infected seas,” “battling with monsoons,” and “forced landings amongst savage tribes” became familiar diet for breakfast. Unknown names became household words, whilst others, those of the failures, were forgotten utterly except by kith and kin. Amy Johnson • Shark Tale feels borrowed, sampled and dittoed from the collective funniness of the past 10 years in studio-made animation. – Desson Thomson • Shark Tales: How I turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business. – Barbara Corcoran Sharks are among the most perfectly constructed creatures in nature. Some forms have survived for two hundred million years.” Eugenie Clark • Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent. Dave Barry • Sharks are beautiful animals, and if you’re lucky enough to see lots of them, that means that you’re in a healthy ocean. You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don’t see sharks. – Sylvia Earle Sharks are being driven to extinction because people want to eat their fins and their flesh.” —Barbara Block • Sharks are being driven to extinction because people want to eat their fins and their flesh. Barbara Block • Sharks are just evil bastards. I’m quite happy if all the sharks just went, because they eat fish and us. And we need the fish. – Eddie Izzard • Sharks are like dogs. They only bite when you touch their private parts.” —Rob Schneider • Sharks are the criminals of the sea. Dolphins are the outlaws.Tom Robbins Sharks are the lions of the sea.They glamorize the oceanic glory.” —Munia Khan Sharks aren’t the monsters we make them out to be.” —Yasmine Hamdi • Sharks attack surfers because they look like a seal. Apparently, when you’re layng on your board and you have your arms and legs hanging off, from underneath you look like a seal. So I just got a picture of a seal and put a red line through it and put it underneath my board. Henry Cho • Sharks don’t target human beings, and they certainly don’t hold grudges. – Peter Benchley • Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It’s not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it’s the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don’t last long in captivity – Neal Shusterman Sharks have been swimming the oceans unchallenged for thousands of years; chances are, the species that roams corporate waters will prove just as hardy.”Eric Gelman • Sharks have everything a scientist dreams of. They’re beautiful―God, how beautiful they are! They’re like an impossibly perfect piece of machinery. They’re as graceful as any bird. They’re as mysterious as any animal on earth. No one knows for sure how long they live or what impulses―except for hunger―they respond to. There are more than two hundred and fifty species of shark, and everyone is different from every other one. – Peter Benchley • Sharks have swum the oceans for over 400 million years, but we’re threatening this critically important species for the purpose of making soup – it’s sad and wasteful. – Ted Danson Sharks hug with their mouths.” —Unknown • Sharks will scare me. I went out to Malibu a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful, clear day, out in five feet of water, going to surf, and there was this big ol’ freakin’ leopard shark… I’m looking at him and I’m thinking, ‘OK, he won’t hurt me. Timothy Olyphant Sharks” They’re not so bad. If a stranger entered my house wearing only a speedo, l’d probably attack him too.” —Unknown • Since I began exploring the ocean in the 1950s, 90 percent of the big fish have been stripped away. Tuna, sharks, swordfish, cod, halibut, you name it, the numbers have just collapsed. Also, about half of the coral reefs are gone, globally, from where they were just a few decades ago. Sylvia Earle • So the hotel tells us that it is not safe to go in the water because its shark mating time. I know how I’d feel if someone interrupted me. Bill Engvall • Some people like being a big fish in a small pond, others a ferocious shark in the ocean, I rather be the ocean. In the end, fish die. Behdad Sami • Sometimes making a story is as easy as putting two characters in a room and seeing what happens. So, imagine a great white shark and a giant squid in the same bathroom. Jim Toomey • Somewhere in the ocean, a shark was missing its cold eyes because this man had them. – Steve Hamilton • Stop saying athletes do it for the love of the game. They do it for the love of their 32-room mansion with the live shark tank in the living room. If pro sports paid minimum wage, Shaquille O’Neal would be a bouncer at Scores, and Anna Kournikova would be a mail-order bride from Minsk. – Bill Maher • Testing her sexuality, she thinks she’s caught a beautiful fish, when in reality, she’s netted a shark. – Tammara Webber • That’s not news! When a shark comes out of the water, walks into a 7-11, and bites you in the ass, then it’s news! Carlos Mencia • The audience should go out and see Shark Night 3D because you can bring your whole family. – Sinqua Walls • The computer revolution has allowed white-collar criminals to do what the Mob would have loved to do – put a pawnshop and a loan shark in every home! – Kurt Vonnegut • The country’s newest aquarium, opened in November, bills itself as the largest in the world, holding more than 100,000 animals representing 500 species. It is the first in the USA to display whale sharks, the largest fish in the world. – John Grant • The credit card companies have put the loan sharks out of business. – Elizabeth Warren • The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes. – Ursula K. Le Guin • The Giant Ocean Tank, with its 52 large viewing windows, is the main attraction here. Myrtle, a giant green sea turtle, is one of the tank’s most popular animals, along with sharks, rays and more than 100 other species. The Aquarium Medical Center is a working animal hospital exhibit that allows visitors to observe veterinarians examining and treating sea creatures. – John Grant • The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood. The girls with hungry eyes who pray each night to wake up as someone else. Urgent, unkissed, wishful girls. Like Kizzy. – Laini Taylor • The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. . . . The politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States. . . . We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us. Mary Elizabeth Lease • The ground is my ocean, I’m the shark, and most people don’t even know how to swim. Carlos Machado • The main courtyard was filled with warriors – mermen with fish tails from the waist down and human bodies from the waist up, except their skin was blue, which I’d never known before.Some were tending the wounded. Some were sharpening spears and swords. One passed us, swimming in a hurry. His eyes were bright green, like that stuff they put in glo-sticks, and his teeth were shark teeth. They don’t show you stuff like that in “The Little Mermaid. – Rick Riordan • The moon had risen behind him, the color of a shark’s underbelly. It lit the ruined walls, and the skin of his arms and hands, with its sickly light, making him long for a mirror in which to study his face. Surely he’d be able to see the bones beneath the meat; the skull gleaming the way his teeth gleamed when he smiled. After all, wasn’t that what a smile said? Hello, world, this is the way I’ll look when the wet parts are rotted. – Clive Barker • The number-one show in America on Sundays will be Celebrity Apprentice. Monday nights, The Voice will be number one. Wednesday nights, Survivor will be number one. And Friday nights, Shark Tank will be number one. It just takes some time management for me to focus. Scott Raab • The ocean is a place of paradoxes. It is the home of the great white shark, two-thousand-pound killer of the seas, and of the hundred-foot blue whale, the largest animal that ever lived. It is also the home of living things so small that your two hands might scoop up as many of them as there are stars in the Milky Way. Rachel Carson • The only thing on the mind of a shark is to eat. Lil Wayne • The only use for a knife during a shark attack is pure treachery: Stab your buddy, swim like hell, and hope the munchies take him. Tim Cahill • The pointless snide remarks of hammerheaded sharks – Thom Yorke • The publishers and others should quit worrying about losing customers to TV. The guy who can sit through a trio of deodorant commercials to look at Flashgun Casey or swallow a flock of beer and loan-shark spiels in order to watch a couple of fourth-rate club fighters rub noses on the ropes is not losing any time from book reading. Raymond Chandler • The reason I do Shark Tank isn’t to try take make more money of the deals, even though every deal I want to make money off of and even more so I want the entrepreneurs to be very successful and make money, but Shark Tank sends a message to everybody that the American Dream is alive and well. Mark Cuban • The shark has its head to the west and tail to the east, very much the way the Indians would put a human in the ground.” Bob Carr • The shark heart slows down in the cold, just as our own heart would. But what sets it apart is where our heart would simply stop, the salmon shark keeps on ticking.” Barbara Block • The shark is the apex predator in the sea. Sharks have molded evolution for 450 million years. All fish species that are prey to the sharks have had their behavior, their speed, their camouflage, their defense mechanisms molded by the shark. – Paul Watson • The studios will go wherever they smell money. It’s like sharks to the blood. – Don Bluth • The word relationship best refers to the connection between parasite and host, or shark and remora. It’s a biological term. I’d rather be a jerk than a scientist when it comes to love. – Ian Shoales • There are 350 varieties of shark, not counting loan and pool. L. M. Boyd • There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist’s dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good. – Charles Saatchi • There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water. – Alan Clark There are plenty of fish in the sea, so don’t settle for a shark.” —Unknown • There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy. – John Quincy Adams • There is a big difference between a disappointing friend and a deadly enemy. Of course the Democrats are disappointing. That’s what makes them Democrats. If they were any more frustrating they’d be your relatives. But in this country they are all that stands between you and darkest night. You know why their symbol is the letter ‘D’? Because it’s a grade that means good enough, but just barely. You know why the Republican symbol is ‘R’? Because it’s the noise a pirate makes when he robs you and feeds you to a shark. – Bill Maher • There is an awful lot of what I call recreational jazz going on, where people go out and learn a particular language or style and become real sharks on somebody else’s language.Steve Lacy There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.” —Siddharta Gautama • There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed. – Gautama Buddha • There is this sweet spot in time when we have an opportunity to stop killing sharks and tunas and swordfish and other wildlife in the sea before it’s too late. Sylvia Earle • There’s still a lot of people out there who think the only good shark is a dead shark.” —Brain Skerry • There’s a cardinal rule that you don’t talk about sharks. If you don’t see it, it’s not there. – Mark Warkentin • There’s a good case to be made that having fun is a key evolutionary advantage right next to opposable thumbs in terms of importance. Without that little chemical twist in our brains that makes us enjoy learning new things, we might be more like the sharks and ants of the world.- Raph Koster There’s nothing in the sea this fish would fear. Other fish run from bigger things. That’s their instinct. But this fish doesn’t run from anything. He doesn’t fear.” Peter Benchley • There’s still a lot of people out there who think the only good shark is a dead shark. – Brian Skerry • They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,–how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long. – Henry David Thoreau • They’re like sharks. Circling. Cute, single guy, good job, nice car. It’s all they know about me.” His tone was light but his expression serious. Maybe that’s because it’s all you show them.” Maybe it’s all they want to see. – Megan Hart • This is what it means to be alone: everyone is connected to everyone else, their bodies are a bright liquid life flowing around you, sharing a single heart that drives them to move all together. If the shark comes they will all escape, and leave you to be eaten. – Barbara Kingsolver • Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship’s decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them.- Herman Melville • Throwing blondes at Locke Lamora was not unlike throwing lettuce at sharks. – Scott Lynch • Tobias asked. “Weird? Weird?” Marco crowed. “The talking bird wants to know if getting information on the location of an alien from a whale, that you’ve just saved from sharks, by turning into dolphins . . . You’re suggesting that’s weird? – Katherine Applegate • Today I saw cancer, cigarettes, and shortness of breath. This is why I walk to the ocean. Swim with sharks and jellyfish. I may never get this chance again. This is why if you want to kiss, you should kiss. If you want to cry, you should cry. And if you want to live, you should live. You don’t have to love me. You already did. – Ryan Ross • Turns out, I couldn’t catch them – or even get close to them. I realized that sharks are amazing, beautiful animals who have absolutely no interest in checking me out. – Malin Akerman • Twenty-five years ago nobody knew much about white sharks. – Peter Benchley • Watching Jaws just scared the living daylights out of me when I was young. I know a lot of people my age who are still petrified of sharks because of that film. – Ashley Scott • We developed microfinance to fight loan sharks – I was telling people don’t go to loan sharks – not trying to take advantage and make money for myself. I would be a junior loan shark if I did … It is not a panacea. Muhammad Yunus • We don’t like to think of ourselves as prey—it is a lessening thought—but the truth is that in our arrogance and so-called knowledge we forget that we are not unique. We are part of nature as much as other animals, and some animals—sharks, fever-bearing mosquitoes, wolves and bear, to name but a few—perceive us as a food source, a meat supply, and simply did not get the memo about how humans are superior. It can be shocking, humbling, painful, very edifying and sometimes downright fatal to run into such an animal. – Gary Paulsen • We don’t have any changes in the movie [Pineapple Express] and so picking the right outfit was fairly important. So I wasn’t a fan of the Guatemalan pants, but I was convinced that I should wear that. Then the T-shirt is a special creation by David Gordon Green. It’s a kitten sitting in a shark’s mouth, but he’s happy about it. – Seth Rogen • We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. Margaret Atwood We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat.” —Unknown • We keep the negative stuff because it’s the negative stuff that’s going to, you know, potentially kill us. That fin in the water – maybe it is a shark. That yellow thing behind the tree – maybe it is a lion. You need to be scared. – Mohsin Hamid We provoke a shark every time we enter the water where sharks happen to be, for we forget: The ocean is not our territory – it’s theirs.” —Peter Benchely • We still have 10 percent of the sharks. We still have half of the coral reefs. However, if we wait another 50 years, opportunities might well be gone. – Sylvia Earle • We still have the illusion that the ocean will recover. That even if we do have to lose sharks, people don’t understand why this matters. The evidence is in front of us, and we fail to take it in and say, “Now I get it. Now I understand.” Sylvia Earle • We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out…. We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us. Mary Elizabeth Lease • Well, everyone, welcome to Shark Week. Oh that’s on CBS and there’s been a lot of cutbacks, so it’s just Friday night for a couple of minutes. And we don’t have any sharks, just an immigrant with a puppet. Hey, but it’s a start! – Craig Ferguson • Were the diver to think on the jaws of the shark, he would never lay hands on the precious pearl. – Saadi • What I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you’re going to get bitten… Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes. My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day. – Rob Ford • What Wall Street and credit card companies are doing is really not much different from what gangsters and loan sharks do who make predatory loans. While the bankers wear three-piece suits and don’t break the knee caps of those who can’t pay back, they still are destroying people’s lives. – Bernie Sanders • What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. Margaret Atwood • What’s the inside of a shark smell like? I always thought it would smell like chicken. – Judd Hirsch • When I put something into motion, the creativity starts to make other people want to jump in, and then a lot of people get employed. I’m just like a shark, in that way. If I stop swimming, I’ll die. Adam Shankman • When I was a kid I would write songs, little plays, and poetry in school. If you’re an adult and you’re a poet, it’s all about love and pain, but if you’re a kid it’s, “Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark?” Mike Birbiglia • When I was about five, I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, and since then it’s just been a stronghold in my life. Really, through the shark attack and all the hard times that my family and I went through, it gave us unity and perseverance to push through all this crazy stuff that we never knew was going to happen. – Bethany Hamilton • When I was starting out, young actresses had the studio system to protect them. Now you have a host of sharks, from your agent to your publicist to your lawyer. – Francesca Annis • When I went to Australia, I went shark diving. It was crazy. It was called ‘extreme’ shark diving because even though we were in cages, we literally could touch the sharks swimming by. They were huge and I’m terrified of sharks. Then I went to a wildlife park and held kangaroos. That was nice. – Taylor Lautner • When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark: But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound. – Lewis Carroll • When you come to ‘Shark Tank,’ the only person you should listen to is me, because you know you’re getting the truth. I’ll decide if it’s worth it, and after I’m finished, the rest of the people can look into it. – Kevin O’Leary When you enter the ocean you enter the food chain, and not always at the top.” —Unknown • Winter near the shore is cold. The wind kicks up a salty mist and elephant seals come to shore to trumpet and rut and birth their pups. Retired people put sweaters on their lap dogs and drag them down the street on retractable leashes in a nightly parade of doggy humiliation. Surfers don their wetsuits against the chill of storm waves and white sharks adjust their diets to include shrink-wrapped dude-snacks on fiberglass crackers. Christopher Moore Wise, Men, Law • With acting, there are a lot of subtleties and non-verbals involved. If someone is over there, getting eaten by a shark, there’s a non-verbal way of how to act that. There’s a certain nuance to acting that does not come intuitively to me. It’s something I still have to learn. Mark McGrath Without sharks, you take away the apex predator of the ocean, and you destroy the entire food chain.” Peter Benchley • Without sharks, you take away the apex predator of the ocean, and you destroy the entire food chain Peter Benchley • Writing and performing are to me what water and movement are to sharks. Rachael Yamagata • Yet the reality is that I’m a stage actor from the Midwest – probably the opposite of a shark agent. – Jeremy Piven • You always hear a headline like this, ‘Man Killed By Shark’, you never hear it from the other perspective, ‘Man Swims in Shark Infested Waters, Forgets He’s Shark Food’. – Gary Larson • You can’t afford to make the shark look good so you do most of it with ominous music and a fin. Jim Howick • You don’t have to swim faster than the shark, just faster than the person you’re with. – Kevin Nealon • You Know the Most Dangerous Thing In the Water? A Shark Fart. – Gary Busey • You know, it actually can happen. I mean, the chances of it happening are very rare, but it can happen actually. Which is crazy. Not that it—the chances of it are, like, you know, it’s like probably ‘pigs could fly.’ Like, I don’t think pigs could fly, but actually sharks could be stuck in tornados. There could be a sharknado. Tara Reid • You might not think a hippo could inspire terror. ScreamingHippo!” doesn’t have the same impact as screamingShark!” But I’m telling you—as the Egyptian Queen careened to one side, its paddle wheel lifting completely out of the water, and I saw that monster emerge from the deep, I nearly discovered the hieroglyphs for accident in my pants. – Rick Riordan • Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of reach of sharks” “Yes, sir, of sharks and men. Jules Verne • You’re more likely to drown in the sea of sameness than get eaten by a shark while navigating new waters. Amy Jo Martin

[equitiesstocks]

Shark Quotes

Official Website: Shark Quotes

• A boxer is like a lion, the greatest predator on land, but you throw him in the shark tank and he’s just another meal. Renzo Gracie • A lawyer is basically a mouth, like a shark is a mouth attached to a long gut. The business of lawyers is to talk, to interrupt one another, and to devour each other if possible. – Joyce Carol Oates • After the clinch, it doesn’t matter what happens, one way or another, we’re going to hit the ground, and we’ll be in my world. The ground is my ocean, I’m the shark, and most people don’t even know how to swim. Carlos Machado • All right, you got that out of your system. Can I get back in the boat without you striking me again? Or should I stay out here enjoying the marine life?” “Why don’t you swim around until you find a shark? Then you can discuss how much the two of you have in common – Jeaniene Frost • All sharks were born swimming.” —Rebecca McNutt •Almost any shark, three or four feet long, could kill a human being if it chose to do it. It could make you bleed to death. But they don’t.” —Peter Benchley • And it was there that I saw the most appealing creature in the whole shop. He had a slight chink out of one foot and his ‘topknot’ was missing (a ‘topknot’ is on the top of a dragon’s head and looks a bit like a shark’s fin) but I bought him in an instant. – Chris d’Lacey • Annoyance and pathos warred in my breast, and after a short struggle, annoyance punched pathos in the snout like the voracious shark it was. Kate Elliott • Anyone who thinks cryptozoology is the study of the impossible has never really taken a very good look at the so-called “natural world.” Once you get past the megamouth sharks, naked mole rats, and spotted hyenas, then the basilisks, dragons, and cuckoos just don’t seem that unreasonable. Unpleasant, yes, but unreasonable? Not really.- Mira GrantAs an entrepreneur, you can always find a solution if you try hard enough.- Lori Greiner

• At this point in our global ecological crisis, the survival of humanity will require a fundamental shift in our attitude toward nature: from finding out how we can dominate and manipulate nature to how we can learn from her. In this brilliant and hopeful book, Jay Harman shows us how far the new field of Biomimicry has already progressed toward this goal. The Shark’s Paintbrush makes for fascinating and joyful reading – much needed in these dark times. – Fritjof Capra

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Shark', 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_shark').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_shark 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'); ); ); ); • Being able to turn to Jesus after the shark attack kept me alive. – Bethany Hamilton • Being nearly naked around Barrons felt a lot like going to a shark convention lightly basted in blood. – Karen Marie Moning • Better a dish of husks to the accompaniment of a muted lute than to be satiated with stewed shark’s fin and rich spiced wine of which the cost is frequently mentioned by the provider. Ernest Bramah • Between highway sounds I heard waves and thought how the curve of the coastline here had sheltered and nurtured live-born sharks, humans, and migrating whales. Here, at the edge of the continent, time and distance stopped; in the lull between sets of waves I could get a fresh start. – Gretel Ehrlich • Brody cannot believe the size of the creature, and with a classic, practical understatement tells Quint his assessment: You’re gonna need a bigger boat. Awestruck, they all view the full-sized, massive shark circling the boat. Quint estimates it is 25 feet long: Three tons of him. – Roy Scheider • Brooding, she changed the pool into the sea, and made the minnows into sharks and whales, and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by holding her hand against the sun, and so brought darkness and desolation, like God himself, to millions of ignorant and innocent creatures, and then took her hand away suddenly and let the sun stream down. – Virginia Woolf

• Businesspeople are like sharks, not just because we’re gray and slightly oily, or because our teeth trail the innards of those we have eviscerated, but because we must move forward or die. – Stanley Bing • But as they say about sharks, it’s not the ones you see that you have to worry about, it’s the ones you don’t see. – David Blaine • But it’s also true that my memory is a card shark, reshuffling the deck to hide what I fear to know, unable to keep from fingering the ace at the bottom of the deck even when I’m doing nothing more than playing Fish in the daylight with children. – Lorene Cary • By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • By nature, I keep moving, man. My theory is, be the shark. You’ve just got to keep moving. You can’t stop. Brad Pitt • By the end of the 20th century, up to 90 percent of the sharks, tuna, swordfish, marlins, groupers, turtles, whales, and many other large creatures that prospered in the Gulf for millions of years had been depleted by overfishing. – Sylvia Earle • Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. – Herman Melville • Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year. Bill Gates • Crikey means gee whiz, wow! Crikey, mate. You’re far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building. Steve Irwin • Did you know that mako shark fetuses eat each other in the womb?… Its true. Only cannibal fetuses survive to be born. Can you imagine if people were like that? – Laini Taylor • Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark? – Mike Birbiglia Dolphins and sharks are natural enemies. Dolphins are like,Quit eating us,” and sharks are like,Stop smiling all the time, you morons.” —Dan Florence • Don’t believe what the spiritual sharks and clever carnival hustlers tell you about fearless living – they lie. Guy Finley • Don’t you dare underestimate the power of your own instinct. Instinct is a lifesaver for sharks and entrepreneurs alike. Most people can recall times they ignored their gut only to regret it later. Learning to actually listen to your instinct is a great form of self-preservation. It’s both incredibly easy and tough at the same time, but worth the effort to master. Barbara Corcoran • EBay may be a shark in the ocean, but I’m a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we lose, but if we fight in the river, we win. – Jack Ma • Even a mentally challenged shark would figure out that sea turtles did not wear boxer shorts printed in flying piggies, and no sea turtle would be yattering streams of obscenities between chain-smoker gasps of breath. – Christopher Moore • Expand the definition of ‘reading’ to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It’s the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won’t read shark books forever. – Jon Scieszka • Fathers and sons are natural enemies. Look at any species. Shark, sees his father in the water, he’s not thinking, Hey dad, wassup ? He’s thinking, Back off, old man, this surfer carcass is mine. Of course, when his girlfriend swims up and she’s like, Way, you know, there’s enough surfer for everybody. You and your dad need to frenzy together more. Leave you father a thigh. Christopher Titus • For an actor, its great fun to play one of these hungry white sharks. Audiences love to hate them. – Michael Douglas • Forgetting isn’t enough. You can paddle away from the memories and think they are gone. But they will keep floating back, again and again and agian. They circle you, like sharks. Until, unless, something, someone? Can do more than just cover the wound. – Sara Zarr • French fries kill more people than guns and sharks, yet nobody’s afraid of French fries.- Robert Kiyosaki • Gerard’s spirit animal is a gazelle – that’s how he’s always answered – Frankie would definitely be a wolverine, I would be a shark because of my inability to sit still, and Ray? Ray would be… I’m thinking super intelligent, super articulate, I would think owl. Mikey Way • Going from ‘Shark Night’ to ‘Piranha,’ a guy holding a fish on a stick in front of you that they’re going to replace in post-production, it’s a lot different than seeing this animatronic shark that, if you get caught up in the moment, looks, acts and you sometimes think could be real. Chris Zylka • Hand me down the shark repellent Bat-Spray! Adam West Harriet Beecher Stowe • He asks me what happened to my leg. I told him I was shot by a shark. He doesn’t react. Doesn’t seem confused or amused or anything. Like getting shot by a shark is a perfectly natural thing in the aftermath of the arrival. – Rick Yancey • He described to me how crocodiles kill more people than sharks. There are just a lot of things in Australia that can kill you. – Barack Obama • Here is a list of terrible things, The jaws of sharks, a vultures wings The rabid bite of the dogs of war, The voice of one who went before, But most of all the mirror’s gaze, Which counts us out our numbered days. – Clive Barker • Hey Rid?” She stopped and turned to look at him, almost ruefully. Like she couldn’t help what she was any more then a shark could help being a shark, but if she could… “Yeah, Shrinky Dink?” “You’re not all bad.” She looked right at him and almost smiled. “You know what they say. Maybe I’m just drawn that way. – Kami Garcia • Honolulu, it’s got everything. Sand for the children, sun for the wife, sharks for the wife’s mother. Ken Dodd • How fishy on the fishiness scale? Ten is a stickleback and one is a whale shark.” “A whale isn’t a fish, Thursday.” “A whale shark is–sort of.” “All right, it’s as fishy as a crayfish.” “A crayfish isn’t a fish.” “A starfish, then.” “Still not a fish.” “This is a very odd conversation, Thursday. – Jasper Fforde • Humanity from the first has had its vultures and sharks, and representatives of the fraternity who prey upon mankind may be expected no less in America than elsewhere. That this virulence breaks out most readily and commonly against colored persons in this country, is due of course to the fact that they are, generally speaking, weak and can be imposed upon with impunity. Bullies are always cowards at heart. Anna Julia Cooper • I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die. – Patrick Rothfuss • I am a shark, Cassie,” he says slowly, drawing the words out, as if he might be speaking to me for the last time. Looking into my eyes with tears in his, as if he’s seeing me for the last time. “A shark who dreamed he was a man. Rick Yancey • I am a shark, the ground is my ocean, and most people can’t even swim. – Rickson Gracie • I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion. – Nicolas Cage • I am passionate about my family, adventure, good wine, nature and the outdoors, sharks, the ocean, and working hard to preserve it all for future generations. Mehgan Heaney-Grier • I am terrified of sharks, so I don’t surf! Janel Parrish • I believe implicitly that every young man in the world is fascinated with either sharks or dinosaurs. – Peter Benchley • I did 50 takes on Robert Shaw assembling the Greener Gun on ‘Jaws.’ The shark wasn’t working, so I just kept shooting to make the production report look like we were accomplishing something and to keep cast and crew from going crazy from boredom. It was a strategic indulgence. Steven Spielberg • I didn’t care about the backlash. I think the reason it was so severe was because they didn’t know anything about me in New Zealand. If I had made jokes about a shark attack in the US, no one would have cared. Anthony Jeselnik • I discovered I scream the same way whether I’m about to be devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot. – Axl Rose • I do my very best to avoid shark fin. – Anthony Bourdain • I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screens: as Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, more than 20 years before the Kindle turned up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Neil Gaiman • I do not believe that one can become rich without being a shark; a sensitive man will never amass wealth. Petrus Borel • I don’t believe there’s anything cosmic or divine or morally superior about whales and dolphins or sharks or trees, but I do think that everything that lives is holy and somehow integrated; and on cloudy days I suspect that these extraordinary phenomena, and the hundreds of tiny, modest versions no one hears about, are an ocean, an earth, a Creator, something shaking us by the collar, demanding our attention, our fear, our vigilance, our respect, our help. – Tim Winton • I don’t enjoy the boo scare when you’re watching a movie and then suddenly there’s a big shark on the screen. The only thing they’re doing is catching you off guard. – Sergio Aragones • I don’t get ‘shark’ – but who cares! Isaac • I don’t like sex … I’m a single working mom with nine cats, a dog-shark, a lizard, and a bunny. I don’t go to bed, I pass out. The idea that I’d get to my bed and there’d be someone in there with whom I was supposed to have an activity is horrifying to me. – Paula Poundstone • I dont like the idea of being eaten by a shark. I like to swim in the ocean, and I think much more about sharks than anyone should. I really resent the fact that my oceangoing experiences are ruined by Jaws.- David Duchovny • I don’t look back. I’m like a shark – I only look forward. Rita Rudner • I don’t think you can be a diver without a shark on the list. Natalie Dormer • I give [Barack Obama] a 10 [on a scale of 1 to 10] because he’s not God, and he inherited a couple of wars, and a financial mess.I want to see him curse somebody out on TV. You can’t finesse a bull. He’s gotta throw down. He’s in the shark tank. Tracy Morgan • I hate the beach – I’m a mountain guy. I’d much rather face a bear than a shark. Jeff Dunham • I have a hard problem, being some part Native American – being a Christian: do you get burned, do you get cremated, do you get – let the sharks eat you? How do you die? Duane Chapman • I have a ridiculous fear of sharks but I’d jump in the water in a second for an amazing role. – Kate Mara • I have a slight fear of sharks for some reason.I have a slight fear of sharks for some reason. – Scott Speedman • I have been called a Rogue Elephant, a Cannibal Shark, and a crocodile. I am none the worse. I remain a caged, and rather sardonic, lion, in a particularly contemptible and ill-run zoo. Wyndham Lewis • I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show, which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark’. – Dave Barry • I have snakes, three sharks, moray eels, piranhas, five scorpions and a bird spider. All of them are predators. They are dangerous but it’s cool to have strong and powerful pets. – Tracy Morgan • I just believe that sometimes in life you’re like a shark – you have to keep moving through water; otherwise, you’ll die. – Michelle Ryan • I know this is your hand now,’ she tells him. “Roland would have never touched me like that.” Connor smiles, and Risa takes a moment to look down at the shark on his wrist. It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No- the soul of a man. – Neal Shusterman • I love contemporary art, although I wouldn’t want a pickled shark in my house. – Bruno Tonioli • I often prefer the shapes within the raw materials to ‘do their thing’, as this makes it movre interesting for me. Sometimes a piece of hubcap fits in such a way that the shark becomes almost alive in my hands, climbing, twisting or just hanging motionless and predatory, and this gives me a buzz. It makes me feel like a vehicle for the creation process rather than a controller, and not knowing the exact outcome is exciting. Ptolemy • I shall attack Chemistry, like a Shark. Samuel Taylor Coleridge • I swear on St. Francis, the patron saint of all animals.” Seeing Poppy’s hesitation, Beatrix added enthusiastically,If a band of pirates kidnapped me and took me to their ship and threatened to make me walk the plank over a shiver of starving sharks unless I told them your secret, I still wouldn’t tell it. If I were tied by a villain and thrown before a herd of stampeding horses all shod in iron, and the only way to keep from being trampled was to tell the villain your secret, I— – Lisa Kleypas • I tell you Dain is a splendid catch. I advise you to set your hooks and reel him in.” Jessica took a long swallow of her cognac.This is not a trout, Genevieve. This is a great, hungry shark.”Then use a harpoon. – Loretta Chase • I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies. – Woody Allen • I think I’m a bit like a kind of shark, that if I stop swimming, I won’t be able to breathe, something like that. Alan Moore • I think I’ve always been drawn to the second person. When I was growing up and playing with my friends, the usual way we interacted with imaginary worlds was as characters: a bench was ‘your’ boat, leaves on a lawn were the fins of sharks out to get ‘you.’ – Mohsin Hamid I think sharks are beautiful creatures, and I don’t think we should stop going in the ocean because of them. You drive down the road and you get in an accident, but most people end up driving down the road again. Surfing is you’re going into their home and it’s just a natural part of life.’ Bethany Hamilto • I think sharks are beautiful creatures, and I don’t think we should stop going in the ocean because of them. You drive down the road and you get in an accident, but most people end up driving down the road again. Surfing is you’re going into their home and it’s just a natural part of life. Bethany Hamilton • I thought beforehand, if [Marie] Henein is going to be a shark, I’m going to be a jellyfish, because you can’t catch a jellyfish. Not that I didn’t want to be caught, I just wanted to present solid. – Lucy DeCoutere • I try my best to avoid the sharks of life, but I have had my share of experiences with them, and in those cases I just have to handle them accordingly. But I do not swim with sharks … sharks swim with sharks. Rihanna • I want to build a wired ocean that helps us take back the seas from poachers and illegal fishers. To do this, we need the latest technology applied to large pelagic fish and sharks, surveillance technology that helps protect marine protected areas, and tags that help prevent shark finning and illegal fishing. We must use modern sensors to help protect our seas! Barbara Block • I wanted a shark that’s big enough to eat you, and in a large enough amount of liquid so that you could imagine you were in there with it. Damien Hirst • I was once stranded on a broken-down boat in shark-infested waters in the middle of the Indian Ocean for five days before we were rescued while doing a ‘Vogue’ shoot. • I was watching one of those animal shows on the Discovery Channel. There was a guy inventing a shark bite suit. And there’s only one way to test it. All right Jimmy, you got that shark suit on, it looks good… They want you to jump into this pool of sharks, and you tell us if it hurts when they bite you. Well, all right, but hold my sign. I don’t wanna lose it. Bill Engvall • I wasn’t surprised at all. In fact, I thought, why stop there? Why not add the Big Show, or Chris Jericho, or the whole state of Nebraska for that matter? And don’t you think a wrestling ring is a little old school, Lilian? Why not put the match in a shark tank, with real live sharks? Hungry sharks! And the only way to beat your opponent is to stuff him down a shark’s throat, and pin the shark. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?- Kurt Angle • I wish you good writing and good luck. Even if you’ve already done the good writing, you’ll still need the good luck. It’s a shark-filled lagoon out there. Cross your fingers and watch your back. – Margaret Atwood • I won’t swim in a pool by myself, because I think that somehow a little magic door is going to open up and let a shark out. Christina Ricci • I would stay at my grandma’s house on my birthday every year and I remember she had a bookshelf of murder mystery books along with really frightening books, like one on Jack the Ripper. She also had a poster of a shark in the closet which also terrified me at the time. Christopher Bollen • If I swim in the ocean, I have a shark thought. Not a bad one, but just a little one. – Tea Leoni • If incredible creatures like sharks can exist, why not Bigfoot? When I look at sharks, they’re the most terrifying, monstrous, dinosaur-like things. To this day, I’m so fascinated by them and can’t get my head around how they are on Planet Earth at all. Rachael Taylor • If men are obsolete, then women will soon be extinct — unless we rush down that ominous Brave New World path where women clone themselves by parthenogenesis, as famously do Komodo dragons, hammerhead sharks, and pit vipers. Camille Paglia If size really mattered, the whale, not the shark, would rule the waters.” —Matshona Dhliwayo • If you are in the job for glamour, you’re in for the shock of your life. The media is a huge shark pool. – Trisha Goddard • I’m 100% proud of the TV work I achieved. The work I did on shows on insects and Great White sharks… stuff that’s in school curriculums in England. Now they are showing up on Discovery Channel. – John Lydon • I’m a blowfish. I’m not a shark, I’m a blowfish. – Kanye West • I’m a blowfish. I’m not a shark, I’m a blowfish. So that perfect example about me hitting my head, it’s like a blowfish. I wasn’t coming out of my house going to a paparazzi’s house to attack them. I’m defending my family in front of my own house. I’m defending my name as someone’s screaming something negative at me. That’s a blowfish. People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people. – Kanye West • I’m actually very scared of sharks. I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was young, which may not have been compatible with that fear. – Gillian Anderson • I’m afraid of sharks – but only in a water situation. – Demetri Martin • I’m an old school guy and love the guys in the monster suits and JAWS; even though everyone makes fun of the shark I think it’s awesome. You know it’s fake, but with my generation that was part of the charm. – Larry Fessenden • I’m haunted by the thought of what Ray Anderson calls ‘tomorrow’s child,’ asking why we didn’t do something on our watch to save sharks and bluefin tuna and squids and coral reefs and the living ocean while there still was time. Well, now is that time. – Sylvia Earle • I’m just a simple guy swimming in a sea of sharks. – Don Johnson • I’m like a shark, right at the top of the food chain. I take what I want, when I want. I truly am the reflection of perfection. Ricky Martin • I’m like a shark. I’ve got to be constantly moving. Kenny Chesney • I’m not saying that everyone should swim with sharks, but sometimes you have to jump over your own shadow in order to learn something that you will never forget for the rest of your life. Then you know you can conquer your fears. – Heidi Klum • I’m obsessed with crocodiles and getting eaten by one. When I hear that someone’s been eaten by a crocodile or shark, I just get all gooey. I start salivating. Tori Amos Impact, Years, People In a world full of fish be a shark.” —Unknown • In life, (the fashion world) is full of sharks. In this world the young girls lose themselves; become the property of others, live but for the job and their craziness…they don’t know anymore where their home is. Many take drugs. It’s strange. Perhaps the girls understand that this does not work for me. I don’t have many friendships with other models. I respect them and enjoy working with them, but I probably would not invite them into my home. My house is like my heart, and I open it only to those with whom I have a close relationship. Laetitia Casta • In the end, my love for surfing helped me overcome my fear of sharks. Bethany Hamilton • In the Mediterranean of my childhood, there were no large groupers, sharks, or whales. All I saw was seaweed and a few fish, smaller than my little diving mask. All the large animals were gone, simply because we had eaten them. Enric Sala • In university courses we do exercises. Term papers, quizzes, final examinations are not meant for publication. We move through a course on Dostoevsky or Poe as we move through a mildly good cocktail party, picking up the good bits of food or conversation, bearing with the rest, going home when it comes to seem the reasonable thing to do. Art, at those moments when it feels most like art — when we feel most alive, most alert, most triumphant — is less like a cocktail party than a tank full of sharks. – John Gardner • Instead of squirreling away your earnings early in your career, spend on experiences that will enrich your life – like diving with great white sharks. It can expose you to influential people who could open doors for you. – Blake Mycoskie • Interceded? You threw me to the sharks! Stephenie Meyer • Interesting fact: a shark will only attack you if you’re wet. – Sean Lock • Is there no Villain in this World who doth not regard himself as a poor abus’d Innocent, no She-Wolf who doth not think herself a Lamb, no Shark who doth not fancy that she is a Goldfish? – Erica Jong • It comes down to finding something you love to do and then just trying to be great at it – Mark Cuban • It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No–the soul of a man. – Neal Shusterman • It is as if the Photograph always carries its referent with itself, both affected by the same amorous or funereal immobility, at the very heart of the moving world: they are glued together, limb by limb, like the condemned man and the corpse in certain tortures; or even like those pairs of fish (sharks, I think, according to Michelet) which navigate in convoy, as though united by an eternal coitus. – Roland Barthes • It is estimated that one-third of all reef-building corals, a third of all fresh-water mollusks, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of all reptiles, and a sixth of all birds are headed toward oblivion. The losses are occurring all over: in the South Pacific and in the North Atlantic, in the Arctic and the Sahel, in lakes and on islands, on mountaintops and in valleys. – Elizabeth Kolbert • It looks like I’m this huge shark going in for the kill… I don’t know what I was thinking. David Gest • It was such a dramatic escalator that I was on. It was at 90 degrees. I was going straight up like a rocket ship into space. And I was thrown in with the sharks. They said sink or swim in this Cup deal. Kurt Busch Italian, Blood, Bread • It’s a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on…it’s all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it ‘Jumping the Shark.’ From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same. – Jon Hein • It’s kind of ridiculous that I find inspiration in just getting away from everything. But when you’ve gone through it, you realize that it’s the enemy. It’s a distraction from what you’re really doing. You’ve got to keep moving. Like a shark. – Jack White • It’s really not as bad as it sounds. I was attacked by a shark once, back when I was alive. Well, not so much a shark as a rather large fish. And not so much attacked as looked at menacingly. But it had murder in its eyes, that fish. I knew, in that instant, if our roles had been reversed and the fish had been holding the fishing pole and I had been the one to be caught, it wouldn’t hesitate a moment before eating me. So I cooked it and ate before it had a chance to turn the tables. – Derek Landy • I’ve always been freaked out in deep open water if there’s a potential of sharks around. Theo James • I’ve sat looking down into a volcano that could blow at any moment; I’ve helped catch a shark and several rattlesnakes; I let a tarantula walk across my hand, and I ate rat soup. – Alan Alda • I’ve seen young men in college going into the NFL and then bite the cheese that’s in the trap. They’ll throw you a pair of Jordans or a moneybag for their services. It’s in that moment where most compromise. This business is unforgivable, and you got a bunch of sharks out there. It’s mind boggling that universities don’t prepare athletes for what they’re going to experience. Eddie George • Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. – Barbara Ehrenreich • Let’s be perfectly clear, shall we. The fox is not a little orange puppy dog with doe eyes and a waggly tail. It’s a disease-ridden wolf with the morals of a psychopath and the teeth of a great white shark. Jeremy Clarkson • Life is little more than a loan shark: It exacts a very high rate of interest for the few pleasures it concedes – Luigi Pirandello

• Live every week like it’s shark week. – Tracy Morgan • Look, Chief, you can’t go off half-cocked looking for vengeance against a fish. That shark isn’t evil. It’s not a murderer. It’s just obeying its own instincts. Trying to get retribution against a fish is crazy. – Peter Benchley • Losing is like smoking. It’s habit forming”;Fear is the basis of all mankind. In cards, you psyche ’em out, you shark ’em, you put the fear of God in ’em Puggy Pearson • Love’s pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices. – David Mitchell • Make no mistake, your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other. To live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks. – Ryan Bingham • Man is a carnivorous production, And must have meals, at least one meal a day; He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction, But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey; Although his anatomical construction Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way, Your laboring people think beyond all question, Beef, veal, and mutton better for digestion. Lord Byron • Man Swims in Shark Infested Waters, Forgets He’s Shark Food. – Gary Larson • Many people continue to think of sharks as man-eating beasts. Sharks are enormously powerful and wild creatures, but youre more likely to be killed by your kitchen toaster than a shark! – Ted Danson • Maybe we’ll live to see sharks recover. Right now, that seems as improbable as seeing all these falcons. Hope is the ability to see how things could be better. The world of human affairs has long been a shadowy place, but always backlit by the light of hope. Each person can add hope to the world. A resigned person subtracts hope. The more people strive, the more change becomes likely. – Carl Safina • Men, specifically in the West, have no rights of passage, no way to know when they become a man. Everywhere else in the world you gotta kill a lion or stab a shark, or go on some journey, and you come back and you’re a man. But here in the West, we’re really kind of clueless as to what makes us a man. – LeCrae • Meryl Streep is an acting machine in the same sense that a shark is a killing machine. Cher • More people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks, which shows you how good we are at evaluating risk. Bruce Schneier • Mr.Blank’s reputation as a card shark had preceded him. No one accused him of being dishonest, but on the other hand no one accused him of being honest. Groucho Marx • My dad was kind of a pool shark and had a Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin thing going on. I’ve always been fascinated by the fifties because of him. There was a hip, cool, anything-goes atmosphere back then, but looking good was still a priority. – Dylan McDermott • My phobias worsen as I get older. I’m scared of flying, driving. I’m terrified of sharks. I’m a germaphobe. But I try to face my fears; I do. Well, most of them. – Eli Roth • My position is this. If we can’t protect sanctuaries, if we can’t save the whales, the sharks, the fish, our oceans will die. Paul Watson • My tattoo is a cross, a rose and a shark. A cross is a cross, a rose like love and a shark is a pretty tough animal. Goran Ivanisevic • National Geographic contacted me about getting on their label, and I was like, ‘Wow, I want to be label mates with the sharks and lemurs!’ Bjork • Never underestimate a woman who loves sharks.” —Unknown

• No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. … I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things – Ernest Hemingway • No rescue boat can save the touches I left bobbing in the wild ocean of your flesh, but if they cut open your heart, like the belly of a shark, dumped its contents on a table—would there be any trace of me? – Jeffrey McDaniel • No, the shark in an updated JAWS could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim, for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors. -Peter Benchley • Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathen are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel. • Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species. Sylvia Earle • Nothing is more important than saving … the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans. – James Lee • Of all the creatures in the world that really frighten me – the hyena in Africa, the great white shark – leopard seals are near the top of the list. They’re killers. If my team spots one, they’ll pull me out of the water. – Lewis Gordon • Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear, And he shows them pearly white. Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear, And he keeps them out of sight. – Kurt Weill • Once Henry had heard a crying noise at sea, and had seen a mermaid floating on the ocean’s surface. The mermaid had been injured by a shark. Henry had pulled the mermaid out of the water with a rope, and she had died in his arms…”what language did the mermaid speak?” Alma wanted to know, imagining that it like almost have to be Greek. “English!” Henry said. “By God, plum, why would I rescue a deuced foreign mermaid? – Elizabeth Gilbert • One of them hissed-not the hiss of a cat, a long, steady tone-more like the hiss of air escaping the rubber raft that is all that lies between you and a dark sea full of sharks, the hiss of your life leaking out at the seams. – Christopher Moore • One shark turned to the other to say he was fed up chasing tuna and the other said, ‘Why don’t we go to Morecambe Bay and get some Chinese?’ – Ann Winterton • Only the strongest players can swim in the shark-infested waters of the Masters’ Seas. – Victor Niederhoffer • Orchestras have often been used to conjure up the natural world: Swans, sharks, trout, but not, as far as I know, the often maligned jellyfish. Bill Bailey • Passion, for me, is like a shark – it never stops moving. – Jack White • Personally, I say, “Out of the frying pan and into the deadly pit filled with sharks who are wielding chainsaws with killer kittens stapled to them.” However, that one’s having a rough time catching on. – Brandon Sanderson • Pigs eat more tuna than all the planet’s sharks combined. – Paul Watson Pigs, Years, People • Piscary killed people, but he didn’t have the concept of pity or remorse. It would be like telling a shark he was a bad fish and to stop eating people. But Trent? He knew he was doing wrong, and he did it anyway. Kim Harrison Player, Sea, Water • pools of blood are not recreational even lifeguards drown when the undertow breaks bread with the underbelly demons disguised as sharks have not put enough thought into their costumes a wiseman stays ashore when pointed fins read like italian subtitles the end is near (…) the beginning – Saul Williams Powerful, Men, Thinking • Raphael painted, Luther preached, Corneille wrote, and Milton sang; and through it all, for four hundred years, the dark captives wound to the sea amid the bleaching bones of the dead: for four hundred years the sharks followed the scurrying ships; for four hundred years America was strewn with the living and dying millions of a transplanted race; for four hundred years Ethiopia stretched forth her hands unto God. W. E. B. Du Bois • Relationships are like sharks. They’ve got to keep going into deeper, colder water, sometimes scarier, darker territories … to stay alive. Richard Gere Remove the predators, and the whole ecosystem begins to crash like a house of cards. As the sharks disappear, the predator prey balance dramatically shifts, and the health of our oceans declines.” Brian Skerry • Roy Keane’s like a shark. He has those eyes. You don’t know if he is going to buy you a drink or eat you. Ian Holloway • Royal Young has accomplished a rare feat in his fresh and riveting debut: he manages to recount his fascinating youth and unconventional family with a mixture of humor, scathing honesty and tenderness. Much more than simply a book about a kid who dreams of stardom, Fame Shark is a thoughtful, hilarious and moving love letter to his family and the Lower East Side of New York City. – Kristen Johnston • Rule number four for me as a writer? Plotlines are like sharks: They either keep moving or they die. ~J.R. Ward – J.R. Ward • Seafood is simply a socially acceptable form of bush meat. We condemn Africans for hunting monkeys and mammalian and bird species from the jungle yet the developed world thinks nothing of hauling in magnificent wild creatures like swordfish, tuna, halibut, shark, and salmon for our meals. The fact is that the global slaughter of marine wildlife is simply the largest massacre of wildlife on the planet. – Paul Watson • Setting off unknown to face the unknown, against parental opposition, with no money, friends, or influence, ran it a close second. Clichés like “blazing trails,” flying over “shark-infected seas,” “battling with monsoons,” and “forced landings amongst savage tribes” became familiar diet for breakfast. Unknown names became household words, whilst others, those of the failures, were forgotten utterly except by kith and kin. Amy Johnson • Shark Tale feels borrowed, sampled and dittoed from the collective funniness of the past 10 years in studio-made animation. – Desson Thomson • Shark Tales: How I turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business. – Barbara Corcoran Sharks are among the most perfectly constructed creatures in nature. Some forms have survived for two hundred million years.” Eugenie Clark • Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent. Dave Barry • Sharks are beautiful animals, and if you’re lucky enough to see lots of them, that means that you’re in a healthy ocean. You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don’t see sharks. – Sylvia Earle Sharks are being driven to extinction because people want to eat their fins and their flesh.” —Barbara Block • Sharks are being driven to extinction because people want to eat their fins and their flesh. Barbara Block • Sharks are just evil bastards. I’m quite happy if all the sharks just went, because they eat fish and us. And we need the fish. – Eddie Izzard • Sharks are like dogs. They only bite when you touch their private parts.” —Rob Schneider • Sharks are the criminals of the sea. Dolphins are the outlaws.Tom Robbins Sharks are the lions of the sea.They glamorize the oceanic glory.” —Munia Khan Sharks aren’t the monsters we make them out to be.” —Yasmine Hamdi • Sharks attack surfers because they look like a seal. Apparently, when you’re layng on your board and you have your arms and legs hanging off, from underneath you look like a seal. So I just got a picture of a seal and put a red line through it and put it underneath my board. Henry Cho • Sharks don’t target human beings, and they certainly don’t hold grudges. – Peter Benchley • Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It’s not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it’s the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don’t last long in captivity – Neal Shusterman Sharks have been swimming the oceans unchallenged for thousands of years; chances are, the species that roams corporate waters will prove just as hardy.”Eric Gelman • Sharks have everything a scientist dreams of. They’re beautiful―God, how beautiful they are! They’re like an impossibly perfect piece of machinery. They’re as graceful as any bird. They’re as mysterious as any animal on earth. No one knows for sure how long they live or what impulses―except for hunger―they respond to. There are more than two hundred and fifty species of shark, and everyone is different from every other one. – Peter Benchley • Sharks have swum the oceans for over 400 million years, but we’re threatening this critically important species for the purpose of making soup – it’s sad and wasteful. – Ted Danson Sharks hug with their mouths.” —Unknown • Sharks will scare me. I went out to Malibu a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful, clear day, out in five feet of water, going to surf, and there was this big ol’ freakin’ leopard shark… I’m looking at him and I’m thinking, ‘OK, he won’t hurt me. Timothy Olyphant Sharks” They’re not so bad. If a stranger entered my house wearing only a speedo, l’d probably attack him too.” —Unknown • Since I began exploring the ocean in the 1950s, 90 percent of the big fish have been stripped away. Tuna, sharks, swordfish, cod, halibut, you name it, the numbers have just collapsed. Also, about half of the coral reefs are gone, globally, from where they were just a few decades ago. Sylvia Earle • So the hotel tells us that it is not safe to go in the water because its shark mating time. I know how I’d feel if someone interrupted me. Bill Engvall • Some people like being a big fish in a small pond, others a ferocious shark in the ocean, I rather be the ocean. In the end, fish die. Behdad Sami • Sometimes making a story is as easy as putting two characters in a room and seeing what happens. So, imagine a great white shark and a giant squid in the same bathroom. Jim Toomey • Somewhere in the ocean, a shark was missing its cold eyes because this man had them. – Steve Hamilton • Stop saying athletes do it for the love of the game. They do it for the love of their 32-room mansion with the live shark tank in the living room. If pro sports paid minimum wage, Shaquille O’Neal would be a bouncer at Scores, and Anna Kournikova would be a mail-order bride from Minsk. – Bill Maher • Testing her sexuality, she thinks she’s caught a beautiful fish, when in reality, she’s netted a shark. – Tammara Webber • That’s not news! When a shark comes out of the water, walks into a 7-11, and bites you in the ass, then it’s news! Carlos Mencia • The audience should go out and see Shark Night 3D because you can bring your whole family. – Sinqua Walls • The computer revolution has allowed white-collar criminals to do what the Mob would have loved to do – put a pawnshop and a loan shark in every home! – Kurt Vonnegut • The country’s newest aquarium, opened in November, bills itself as the largest in the world, holding more than 100,000 animals representing 500 species. It is the first in the USA to display whale sharks, the largest fish in the world. – John Grant • The credit card companies have put the loan sharks out of business. – Elizabeth Warren • The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes. – Ursula K. Le Guin • The Giant Ocean Tank, with its 52 large viewing windows, is the main attraction here. Myrtle, a giant green sea turtle, is one of the tank’s most popular animals, along with sharks, rays and more than 100 other species. The Aquarium Medical Center is a working animal hospital exhibit that allows visitors to observe veterinarians examining and treating sea creatures. – John Grant • The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood. The girls with hungry eyes who pray each night to wake up as someone else. Urgent, unkissed, wishful girls. Like Kizzy. – Laini Taylor • The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. . . . The politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States. . . . We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us. Mary Elizabeth Lease • The ground is my ocean, I’m the shark, and most people don’t even know how to swim. Carlos Machado • The main courtyard was filled with warriors – mermen with fish tails from the waist down and human bodies from the waist up, except their skin was blue, which I’d never known before.Some were tending the wounded. Some were sharpening spears and swords. One passed us, swimming in a hurry. His eyes were bright green, like that stuff they put in glo-sticks, and his teeth were shark teeth. They don’t show you stuff like that in “The Little Mermaid. – Rick Riordan • The moon had risen behind him, the color of a shark’s underbelly. It lit the ruined walls, and the skin of his arms and hands, with its sickly light, making him long for a mirror in which to study his face. Surely he’d be able to see the bones beneath the meat; the skull gleaming the way his teeth gleamed when he smiled. After all, wasn’t that what a smile said? Hello, world, this is the way I’ll look when the wet parts are rotted. – Clive Barker • The number-one show in America on Sundays will be Celebrity Apprentice. Monday nights, The Voice will be number one. Wednesday nights, Survivor will be number one. And Friday nights, Shark Tank will be number one. It just takes some time management for me to focus. Scott Raab • The ocean is a place of paradoxes. It is the home of the great white shark, two-thousand-pound killer of the seas, and of the hundred-foot blue whale, the largest animal that ever lived. It is also the home of living things so small that your two hands might scoop up as many of them as there are stars in the Milky Way. Rachel Carson • The only thing on the mind of a shark is to eat. Lil Wayne • The only use for a knife during a shark attack is pure treachery: Stab your buddy, swim like hell, and hope the munchies take him. Tim Cahill • The pointless snide remarks of hammerheaded sharks – Thom Yorke • The publishers and others should quit worrying about losing customers to TV. The guy who can sit through a trio of deodorant commercials to look at Flashgun Casey or swallow a flock of beer and loan-shark spiels in order to watch a couple of fourth-rate club fighters rub noses on the ropes is not losing any time from book reading. Raymond Chandler • The reason I do Shark Tank isn’t to try take make more money of the deals, even though every deal I want to make money off of and even more so I want the entrepreneurs to be very successful and make money, but Shark Tank sends a message to everybody that the American Dream is alive and well. Mark Cuban • The shark has its head to the west and tail to the east, very much the way the Indians would put a human in the ground.” Bob Carr • The shark heart slows down in the cold, just as our own heart would. But what sets it apart is where our heart would simply stop, the salmon shark keeps on ticking.” Barbara Block • The shark is the apex predator in the sea. Sharks have molded evolution for 450 million years. All fish species that are prey to the sharks have had their behavior, their speed, their camouflage, their defense mechanisms molded by the shark. – Paul Watson • The studios will go wherever they smell money. It’s like sharks to the blood. – Don Bluth • The word relationship best refers to the connection between parasite and host, or shark and remora. It’s a biological term. I’d rather be a jerk than a scientist when it comes to love. – Ian Shoales • There are 350 varieties of shark, not counting loan and pool. L. M. Boyd • There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist’s dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good. – Charles Saatchi • There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water. – Alan Clark There are plenty of fish in the sea, so don’t settle for a shark.” —Unknown • There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy. – John Quincy Adams • There is a big difference between a disappointing friend and a deadly enemy. Of course the Democrats are disappointing. That’s what makes them Democrats. If they were any more frustrating they’d be your relatives. But in this country they are all that stands between you and darkest night. You know why their symbol is the letter ‘D’? Because it’s a grade that means good enough, but just barely. You know why the Republican symbol is ‘R’? Because it’s the noise a pirate makes when he robs you and feeds you to a shark. – Bill Maher • There is an awful lot of what I call recreational jazz going on, where people go out and learn a particular language or style and become real sharks on somebody else’s language.Steve Lacy There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.” —Siddharta Gautama • There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed. – Gautama Buddha • There is this sweet spot in time when we have an opportunity to stop killing sharks and tunas and swordfish and other wildlife in the sea before it’s too late. Sylvia Earle • There’s still a lot of people out there who think the only good shark is a dead shark.” —Brain Skerry • There’s a cardinal rule that you don’t talk about sharks. If you don’t see it, it’s not there. – Mark Warkentin • There’s a good case to be made that having fun is a key evolutionary advantage right next to opposable thumbs in terms of importance. Without that little chemical twist in our brains that makes us enjoy learning new things, we might be more like the sharks and ants of the world.- Raph Koster There’s nothing in the sea this fish would fear. Other fish run from bigger things. That’s their instinct. But this fish doesn’t run from anything. He doesn’t fear.” Peter Benchley • There’s still a lot of people out there who think the only good shark is a dead shark. – Brian Skerry • They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,–how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long. – Henry David Thoreau • They’re like sharks. Circling. Cute, single guy, good job, nice car. It’s all they know about me.” His tone was light but his expression serious. Maybe that’s because it’s all you show them.” Maybe it’s all they want to see. – Megan Hart • This is what it means to be alone: everyone is connected to everyone else, their bodies are a bright liquid life flowing around you, sharing a single heart that drives them to move all together. If the shark comes they will all escape, and leave you to be eaten. – Barbara Kingsolver • Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship’s decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them.- Herman Melville • Throwing blondes at Locke Lamora was not unlike throwing lettuce at sharks. – Scott Lynch • Tobias asked. “Weird? Weird?” Marco crowed. “The talking bird wants to know if getting information on the location of an alien from a whale, that you’ve just saved from sharks, by turning into dolphins . . . You’re suggesting that’s weird? – Katherine Applegate • Today I saw cancer, cigarettes, and shortness of breath. This is why I walk to the ocean. Swim with sharks and jellyfish. I may never get this chance again. This is why if you want to kiss, you should kiss. If you want to cry, you should cry. And if you want to live, you should live. You don’t have to love me. You already did. – Ryan Ross • Turns out, I couldn’t catch them – or even get close to them. I realized that sharks are amazing, beautiful animals who have absolutely no interest in checking me out. – Malin Akerman • Twenty-five years ago nobody knew much about white sharks. – Peter Benchley • Watching Jaws just scared the living daylights out of me when I was young. I know a lot of people my age who are still petrified of sharks because of that film. – Ashley Scott • We developed microfinance to fight loan sharks – I was telling people don’t go to loan sharks – not trying to take advantage and make money for myself. I would be a junior loan shark if I did … It is not a panacea. Muhammad Yunus • We don’t like to think of ourselves as prey—it is a lessening thought—but the truth is that in our arrogance and so-called knowledge we forget that we are not unique. We are part of nature as much as other animals, and some animals—sharks, fever-bearing mosquitoes, wolves and bear, to name but a few—perceive us as a food source, a meat supply, and simply did not get the memo about how humans are superior. It can be shocking, humbling, painful, very edifying and sometimes downright fatal to run into such an animal. – Gary Paulsen • We don’t have any changes in the movie [Pineapple Express] and so picking the right outfit was fairly important. So I wasn’t a fan of the Guatemalan pants, but I was convinced that I should wear that. Then the T-shirt is a special creation by David Gordon Green. It’s a kitten sitting in a shark’s mouth, but he’s happy about it. – Seth Rogen • We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. Margaret Atwood We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat.” —Unknown • We keep the negative stuff because it’s the negative stuff that’s going to, you know, potentially kill us. That fin in the water – maybe it is a shark. That yellow thing behind the tree – maybe it is a lion. You need to be scared. – Mohsin Hamid We provoke a shark every time we enter the water where sharks happen to be, for we forget: The ocean is not our territory – it’s theirs.” —Peter Benchely • We still have 10 percent of the sharks. We still have half of the coral reefs. However, if we wait another 50 years, opportunities might well be gone. – Sylvia Earle • We still have the illusion that the ocean will recover. That even if we do have to lose sharks, people don’t understand why this matters. The evidence is in front of us, and we fail to take it in and say, “Now I get it. Now I understand.” Sylvia Earle • We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out…. We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us. Mary Elizabeth Lease • Well, everyone, welcome to Shark Week. Oh that’s on CBS and there’s been a lot of cutbacks, so it’s just Friday night for a couple of minutes. And we don’t have any sharks, just an immigrant with a puppet. Hey, but it’s a start! – Craig Ferguson • Were the diver to think on the jaws of the shark, he would never lay hands on the precious pearl. – Saadi • What I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you’re going to get bitten… Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes. My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day. – Rob Ford • What Wall Street and credit card companies are doing is really not much different from what gangsters and loan sharks do who make predatory loans. While the bankers wear three-piece suits and don’t break the knee caps of those who can’t pay back, they still are destroying people’s lives. – Bernie Sanders • What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. Margaret Atwood • What’s the inside of a shark smell like? I always thought it would smell like chicken. – Judd Hirsch • When I put something into motion, the creativity starts to make other people want to jump in, and then a lot of people get employed. I’m just like a shark, in that way. If I stop swimming, I’ll die. Adam Shankman • When I was a kid I would write songs, little plays, and poetry in school. If you’re an adult and you’re a poet, it’s all about love and pain, but if you’re a kid it’s, “Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark?” Mike Birbiglia • When I was about five, I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, and since then it’s just been a stronghold in my life. Really, through the shark attack and all the hard times that my family and I went through, it gave us unity and perseverance to push through all this crazy stuff that we never knew was going to happen. – Bethany Hamilton • When I was starting out, young actresses had the studio system to protect them. Now you have a host of sharks, from your agent to your publicist to your lawyer. – Francesca Annis • When I went to Australia, I went shark diving. It was crazy. It was called ‘extreme’ shark diving because even though we were in cages, we literally could touch the sharks swimming by. They were huge and I’m terrified of sharks. Then I went to a wildlife park and held kangaroos. That was nice. – Taylor Lautner • When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark: But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound. – Lewis Carroll • When you come to ‘Shark Tank,’ the only person you should listen to is me, because you know you’re getting the truth. I’ll decide if it’s worth it, and after I’m finished, the rest of the people can look into it. – Kevin O’Leary When you enter the ocean you enter the food chain, and not always at the top.” —Unknown • Winter near the shore is cold. The wind kicks up a salty mist and elephant seals come to shore to trumpet and rut and birth their pups. Retired people put sweaters on their lap dogs and drag them down the street on retractable leashes in a nightly parade of doggy humiliation. Surfers don their wetsuits against the chill of storm waves and white sharks adjust their diets to include shrink-wrapped dude-snacks on fiberglass crackers. Christopher Moore Wise, Men, Law • With acting, there are a lot of subtleties and non-verbals involved. If someone is over there, getting eaten by a shark, there’s a non-verbal way of how to act that. There’s a certain nuance to acting that does not come intuitively to me. It’s something I still have to learn. Mark McGrath Without sharks, you take away the apex predator of the ocean, and you destroy the entire food chain.” Peter Benchley • Without sharks, you take away the apex predator of the ocean, and you destroy the entire food chain Peter Benchley • Writing and performing are to me what water and movement are to sharks. Rachael Yamagata • Yet the reality is that I’m a stage actor from the Midwest – probably the opposite of a shark agent. – Jeremy Piven • You always hear a headline like this, ‘Man Killed By Shark’, you never hear it from the other perspective, ‘Man Swims in Shark Infested Waters, Forgets He’s Shark Food’. – Gary Larson • You can’t afford to make the shark look good so you do most of it with ominous music and a fin. Jim Howick • You don’t have to swim faster than the shark, just faster than the person you’re with. – Kevin Nealon • You Know the Most Dangerous Thing In the Water? A Shark Fart. – Gary Busey • You know, it actually can happen. I mean, the chances of it happening are very rare, but it can happen actually. Which is crazy. Not that it—the chances of it are, like, you know, it’s like probably ‘pigs could fly.’ Like, I don’t think pigs could fly, but actually sharks could be stuck in tornados. There could be a sharknado. Tara Reid • You might not think a hippo could inspire terror. ScreamingHippo!” doesn’t have the same impact as screamingShark!” But I’m telling you—as the Egyptian Queen careened to one side, its paddle wheel lifting completely out of the water, and I saw that monster emerge from the deep, I nearly discovered the hieroglyphs for accident in my pants. – Rick Riordan • Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of reach of sharks” “Yes, sir, of sharks and men. Jules Verne • You’re more likely to drown in the sea of sameness than get eaten by a shark while navigating new waters. Amy Jo Martin

[eddiejpoplar]

TEST DRIVE: 2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio — Beautiful Savagery

The last time I drove an Alfa Romeo Stelvio, it was the standard Stelvio Q4 with a 2.0 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. I called it the “Leaning Tower of Alfa Romeo”, as it was as beautiful and as flawed as the famous tower in Piza. After driving it, though, I was as enamored with how sharp it handled, how seductive it looked and how exotic it felt, even though it was just a four-cylinder, mid-size SUV. So when a Rosso Red Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio arrived at my front door, you can only imagine my excitement.

While the standard Stelvio is a genuinely pretty SUV, the Quadrifoglio variant drops jaws. The styling differences, when you actually account for them, aren’t that vast between the two cars. Only a new lower front air intake, massive 20-inch wheels and quad exhausts really differentiate the standard Stelvio from the extra spicy version. However, while not vast, they’re incredibly effective. Those few differences in style are as effective as a high leg split on a tight black dress. Minor but will make jaws drop. Say what you will about Alfa’s reputation for poor reliability but one look at a Quadrifoglio and you’ll care about its reliability about as much as you’d care about Gal Gadot hogging the sheets in bed.

Once inside, though, that feeling starts to fade. While the cabin of the Stelvio is good looking — with a sharp design and one of the top five coolest steering wheels in the business — the materials, fit and finish leave a lot to be desired. I often give Alfas a hard time about their cabins, almost to the point where it feels unfair. Sometimes I wonder if I’m being overly harsh and exaggerative. Then I get inside another Alfa and I remember why I’m so harsh. Our Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio wore an as-tested price of $83,690 yet had the interior quality of a $17,000 Hyundai Elantra. Now, I’m not dogging the Elantra. For the price, it’s a great car. But its interior does not belong in a premium, super SUV with a price tag that’s worryingly close to six figures.

However, I’ve complained about Alfa’s poor interior quality ad nauseam. So I’m not going to do it anymore. The reason for that is, like with the Giulai Quadrifoglio, the moment you thumb the steering wheel-mounted starter button, all of your complaints will disappear. As did mine.

While the Stelvio Quadrifoglio is a truly great looking SUV, sitting in its driver seat is even better, thanks to just how special it feels to drive. From the driver’s seat, you look out over the scuttle at its sculpted hood, with its two fully-functional black vents, you hear that 2.9 liter twin-turbocharged V6 roar to life and you hold a thin, Alcantara and leather-wrapped steering wheel with two simply gigantic aluminum paddles flaking either side. Just sitting in the Stevlio Quadrifoglio while stationary feels special.

Even more special than that is when you put your foot down. I remember the first time I drove the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, the Stelvio’s little sedan brother, and was blown away by its perfect blend of delicacy, balance and brutish power. The Stelvio Quadrifoglio doesn’t have that same perfect blend. In fact, it’s far more singular in its focus and that was obvious within five minutes of driving it.

My first drive was a short one, just a few minutes away from my home. When I arrived, though, it was immediately apparent that Alfa has designed the Stelvio Quadrifoglio to be the most savage SUV on the planet, full stop. It accelerates like it’s been fired from a trebuchet; there’s a hint of lag and then instant, rubber band-like forward thrust that’s simply astonishing. Forget how big it is, the Stelvio Quadrifoglio’s performance would be impressive in any car. Afla claims 0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds and that seems conservative. But it does so with such anger. Above 3,000 rpm in anything other than “Race” mode (which keeps the exhaust in full anger all the time), it makes a deliciously devilish noise that’s intoxicating in a naughty sort of way. A few bursts of acceleration in the Stelvio Quadrifoglio had me wanting more but almost feeling guilty about it.

  Then there’s the handling. Never in my life have I driven an SUV, regardless of its performance, that steers and grips the road like the Hot Stelvio. That isn’t always a compliment, to be honest, as there are genuine flaws about the way it handles, which we’ll get to in a moment. But there’s literally nothing else like it in its segment. Turn in is immediate. Not fast, not sharp but immediate. Its steering is just as fast as the Giulia Quadrifoglio’s but with its wider front tires if feels even more aggressive. Those massive tires, accompanies with all-wheel drive, also give it tremendous grip, allowing it to take corners at speeds that SUVs simply shouldn’t be able to. It takes your breath away.

Here are those flaws I mentioned, though. Due to the fact that its steering is as fast as the Giulia’s but has larger tires, all-wheel drive and rides significantly higher, the Stevlio Quadrifoglio can feel a bit…sloppy. It’s not that it isn’t incredibly sharp or capable, because it is. But thanks to a tall ride height and a suspension that can’t always fight the physics of its tall-riding body roll, the super-fast steering is actually too fast for it. So it feels as if it can change direction faster than its suspension can keep up sometimes and that feels a bit unnerving.

Also, while its suspension allows for too much roll, it isn’t supple in the slightest. In fact, it’s very stiff. The Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio holds the lap record for SUVs around the Nurburgring. To do that, it needs stiff suspension but because it also needs to sit up high, Alfa had to make the ride quality brittle so as to not be bouncy or sloppy. Alfa would have been better off fitting it with more supple suspension, Nurburgring times be damned. The Stelvio is never going to handle as sweet as the Giulia, so it should at least ride well and it doesn’t. If you want a fast, stunning looking Italian, get the Giulia Quadrifoglio and take the money saved and by a minivan for your family needs.

Honestly, though, none of that matters. It’s not often that you come across an SUV that begs you to drive it. The Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio is a flawed SUV that is too expensive and, honestly, doesn’t make much sense. Yet there’s something about it that beckoned me, constantly. Not only is it beautiful but there’s an unnecessary savagery to it that makes it so compelling. Would I buy it? No, the Giulia Quadrifoglio is quite possibly the finest driving car on sale with four doors, so I’d never take the Stelvio over it. But if I had to have an SUV and it had to be fast, there’s no question. I’d have the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio. There’s nothing like its beautiful savagery.

IFTTT

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.59

“Ties That Bind”

A/N: This chapters covers the first part of episode 3, “Context is for Kings.”

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << Part 58 - Forward the Frontier Part 60 - Wayward Soldier >>

As Lorca looked at Mischkelovitz's mycelial map on the astrometrics display, he marveled at the beauty of it. Even incomplete, it was a truly impressive initial framework she had assembled.

But then, such assemblies were her specialty. It was no accident that she had been able to create a particle map of null time. Relative positioning was the main focus of her personal research and went to the core of the methodology she had attempted to employ to save her husband. Mischkelovitz saw the universe as a collection of infinitesimally small puzzle pieces. She could see how they fit together and extrapolate connections in a way most other people could not. To her, the main problem with the null time puzzle in the mess hall was that it only had a thousand pieces and was entirely predictable.

Mischkelovitz was standing on the other side of the display, visible through the snaking tendrils of the map as he spun and enlarged it, honing in on the areas with the most detail, zipping across the gaps. She had included color-coded projections of what might fill the gaps.

"This is damn impressive, Mischka," he said.

"It's only a start," she said. "I need more jumps in order to get enough data. But..."

"Yes?" he prompted.

"I noticed something. It's almost like..." She looked down, clasped her hands together nervously, swallowed.

"Out with it."

"It sounds crazy, but I think the network goes more places than Lieutenant Stamets thinks."

"He thinks it goes everywhere in the universe," pointed out Lorca. "That covers everything, I'm pretty sure."

She looked up, wide-eyed like a startled deer. "That's not what I mean." Lorca frowned and held his hand out expectantly for an explanation. "I think it might be able to go places outside the universe."

Lorca let that statement hang in the air a moment. Then he said, "That does sound crazy." Mischkelovitz was crestfallen to be labeled as such, but Lorca buoyed her right back up: "But crazy doesn't mean wrong."

Mischkelovitz approached the display and tweaked it with her fingers, jumping to a specific spot. "Here," she said, enlarging a small section. There were lines of glowing blue dots flowing towards a single point. "There's a point of egress right here next to where we exited on our ninth mycelial jump, but this point doesn't correspond to where it should in our rysical feality. It stands to reason this energy is exiting to someplace else."

He did not even bother correcting her at this point, and if she noticed herself make the mistake, she gave no indication. "You mean like another reality?"

She bit her lip, not quite willing to confirm this idea without more data. As exciting as this hypothesis was, she was still a good scientist and this was little more than wild speculation on her part. "Maybe?"

Lorca whistled in appreciation. "I think you might be on to something, doctor. But we'd better keep it to ourselves, because the minute we start suggesting alternate universes, they're gonna throw us in a looney bin." He chuckled, joking, but for once this was a joke that scared her more than it amused. Lorca sighed. "You just keep gathering data. When we have enough to prove you're right, they won't be able to lock either of us up."

He ordered Discovery away from the front lines under the guise of a concession to Cornwell for their momentary disobedience, but there was just as much another reason for their destination, and it was not a reason Lorca shared with anyone else.

Lalana had come through. Whoever owed her that favor must have had considerable resources at their disposal, because within days Burnham was on a transport shuttle diverted straight towards Discovery with one important obstacle in its path.

He was in his ready room tracking the shuttle's position when the bridge cut in to alert him of the distress signal. He sprayed his eyes to compensate for the light shift he was about to endure and strode out onto the bridge. "Status report!"

"It's a prison transport shuttle. The pilot is reporting an electrical mite infestation and she's become untethered from the shuttle itself."

"Do we have a lock on her?"

"EV transponder loud and clear," reported Owosekun.

"Get us in range and beam her aboard. And the shuttle?"

"It's continuing on its course. Four prisoners onboard."

"Get a tractor on it and get me the passenger manifest."

"Aye, captain."

His next command was more targeted. "Commander Landry!" he said sharply, which was as much of a summons as Landry needed to leave her tactical console and join him in his ready room. Landry cast a look at the tribble on his desk. She did not entirely approve of the creature and its frequent cooing.

"Will you look at that," said Lorca as he brought up the passenger manifest. "Michael Burnham."

"You're shitting me," said Landry, eyes widening. She could see the evidence well enough herself. Michael Burnham, the legendary mutineer of the Battle of the Binary Stars, the linchpin upon which most of the Federation blamed the war.

Lorca smiled at Landry's reaction. "Well, Federation regulations state that prisoners are to be treated with a modicum of respect, so see to it they're fed and find them a little space to sleep. We wouldn't want to be seen as inhospitable."

"Wouldn't we?" said Landry. He was talking about a group of prisoners, Burnham among them, not model citizens of the Federation deserving of their help. "You want me to tuck them in while I'm at it?"

"Sometimes I forget you're from Canada," said Lorca, amused.

"You can't believe everything they say about Canadians, sir," said Landry.

"That you're all vicious, uncivilized, blood-thirsty savages?"

Landry rolled her eyes. "Very funny," she said.

"And bring Burnham to me after they're fed. I'd like to meet our mutineer for myself."

"Yes, captain," said Landry, clearly disagreeing with this entire course of action, but there was no questioning her ability to follow orders or her personal loyalty to him.

Landry headed off to complete her assignment and Lorca summoned Saru to the ready room. The Kelpien was startled to arrive and find the face of Michael Burnham awaiting him on the display alongside the other prisoners.

"Looks like we have an unexpected guest," said Lorca. "You served with her for years. Tell me everything I need to know about Michael Burnham."

It did not take long for news of Burnham to spread across most of the ship. When the fight erupted in the mess hall, Lorca watched from his ready room with amazement on the security feeds as Burnham disabled all three of her fellow inmates with unflinching ease. It was perfect, too, how Landry waited until Burnham had finished defending herself before intervening, because anything less would have deprived him of the chance to truly see Burnham in action. It was such a good show, it was a shame he had no popcorn.

He waited for Burnham at the window, his hands resting on the windowsill, eyes fixed on the stars. He winced faintly as light filtered in when the door slid open and Burnham entered, but with his back to the door, there was no way for her to see the momentarily flash of pain on his face. He smiled at the starry view. "No matter how deep in space you are, it always feels like you can see home, don't you think?" The only answer to this question was the cooing of the tribble on his desk. "Maybe it's just me."

He could see her reflected in the window, watching him. She stood straight as a rod, and as unflinchingly, clad in a mustard yellow prison jumpsuit.

"Forgive the lighting," he said. "The lack thereof. A recent battle injury. There's nothing they can do if I want to keep my own eyes, and, I do. I have to suffer light change slowly. I like to think it makes me mysterious." He smiled at that, chuckled softly, and turned towards her at last.

She remained impassive. Not even an inkling of reciprocity at the smile he offered her.

"No?" he asked. She was even tougher than he expected. "Captain Gabriel Lorca. Welcome to Discovery."

The meeting with Burnham remained on his mind long after she was gone from his ready room. He kept going over the events in his head. It had not gone entirely as he had wanted. She was stubborn, willful, idealistic, and extremely wary of him. But Lorca had read her file, Saru was entirely forthcoming when asked, and he knew full well what drove Michael Burnham.

Michael Burnham needed problems to solve and the freedom to solve them her own way. Michael Burnham needed mysteries and challenges to overcome. She needed a purpose. She would find all this and so much more on Discovery. He poked the tribble lightly. It cooed happily in response. It was a simple creature.

"Sickbay to Captain Lorca."

Lorca could tell from the tone of Culber's voice that this was going to be an admonishment, but far be it for him to ignore the call of his chief medical officer. "Go ahead, doctor."

"Captain, are you aware that I have three Starfleet prisoners in my sickbay being treated for injuries they incurred in a fight?"

"I am now," said Lorca. Truthfully, this was not news; where else would the prisoners have been taken after that altercation?

His tone was entirely too lighthearted. Culber was terse in response. "Captain, I needn't remind you that pursuant to Starfleet penal code—"

"Then don't," said Lorca. "Save us both the wasted breath. Anything else, doctor?"

"The pilot's fine," offered Culber, annoyed that Lorca had not thought to ask.

"Then it sounds like everything's just peachy in sickbay." There was a certain degree of antipathy in this assessment.

Culber paused. "Just keeping you updated," he managed, his own distaste evident. "Sickbay out."

Lorca shook his head softly. Too many people on this ship came with walking baggage. He tapped the comms. "Lorca to Landry. Commander, let's keep Burnham isolated from our other guests. I believe there's a bed free in cadet quarters." Landry probably disagreed with this course of action as much as everything else that afforded the inmates any kindness, but she acknowledged his command without complaint.

The tribble cooed. Lorca ran his fingers through its fur. There really was something to be said for simple creatures.

It finally seemed he had everything he needed, so of course, it blew up in his face.

His only intent was to thank Lalana for her assistance with the Burnham matter. He beamed to the corridor outside the lab with a pair of fortune cookies. Allan let him in. He found Lalana sitting on the table next to one of Mischkelovitz's cloak detection devices in the main lab area. Mischkelovitz was compiling test results on a display and Groves sat off in his usual corner, feet up with a padd in hand.

"Gabriel! How lovely to see you. Has the operation completed?" Apparently Lalana had been in the main lab area or she would have seen as much on her monitor.

"Indeed it has." He held the cookie out to Lalana. She took it with her tail.

"Operation?" asked Groves.

"We rescued a few wayward travelers in distress," said Lorca, openly bragging. "Prisoners. And you'll never guess who was with them." He offered the second cookie to Mischkelovitz and she beamed happily at the gift.

"Then don't leave us in suspense, you're obviously dying to tell," said Groves sullenly, rolling his eyes at the fortune cookies. He still refused them entirely.

"Michael Burnham," said Lorca, stretching it out into two distinct moments for drama, grinning as if this were a great achievement on his part.

Mischkelovitz froze with half a cookie on her lips and let out a whimper. "Ne kol t'vassa?" she said in a small voice.

Groves put down his padd. "You're joking, right? This is one of your stupid jokes?"

Lorca frowned disapprovingly at Groves, whose jokes were altogether much stupider.

"It is not a joke," said Lalana. "Like Emellia, Michael Burnham was much reviled after the events at the Binary Stars, but also like Emellia, should she not have an opportunity to redeem herself in service of resolving this conflict? I have heard Michael Burnham is quite exceptional and I am sure Gabriel will be able to find an excellent use for her."

This was Lorca's argument almost point for point, but Mischkelovitz seemed not to hear it. She stared into the distance with vacant eyes. "Me oh'tronna," she said. "Me oh'traat vasiinen."

Groves sat up, looking alarmed. "Nai-yo vrakohl, Mischka."

Mischkelovitz's eyes seemed suddenly to refocus. She turned sharply towards Groves and started shouting at him while Lalana and Lorca stared, oblivious to what was being said. It was entirely frustrating listening to a conversation in another language, but Lorca was quite certain he caught the name "Burnham" as Mischkelovitz balled her hands into fists, crushing both halves of her cookie, and threw the crumbs to the floor. She turned and dove under her desk, opening the entrance to wherever it was she usually slept.

Groves shouted something and dove after her, managing to grab hold of her uniform. He tried to pull her out from under the desk. Mischkelovitz twisted, kicking at Groves so hard it sent his head smashing up into the corner of her desk and ripped a line of flesh from his forehead. Mischkelovitz wriggled free as Groves rolled aside, reeling from the force of the impact, and she disappeared into the wall.

Lalana hopped down from the table. "Are you all right, John?"

"What the hell just happened?" asked Lorca, looking to Groves for an explanation.

Groves tentatively touched his hand to his forehead, gasping at the sensation of raw, exposed flesh. Blood dripped onto the floor. He winced and shuddered as he carefully pressed the flap of skin back up into place. "Go get her," he hoarsely hissed at Lalana.

Lalana turned and looked at Lorca, expression as unchanging as ever, but it was easy enough to imagine a look of concerned confusion. She ducked into the wall passage in pursuit of Mischkelovitz.

Lorca stared down at Groves, utterly unsympathetic. "I'm still waiting on an explanation, specialist."

Though Groves did not respond in any language Lorca understood, the intonation of his words sounded a lot like he was telling Lorca what the captain could go do with himself. Groves pulled himself to his feet using the desk. The hand pressed to his forehead only partly staunched the flow of blood. Half of Groves' face was now dripping red.

"In English," specified Lorca.

Groves did not comply. "Saal mo prohti se'kaal beratiikannen. Ke bo'tro si kii? Je kaal'do'hol!" Even if the words were not clear, the emotion was. There was derision in there, and bitterness. Groves began to pace, muttering to himself and waving his free arm. Blood dripped from his chin to the floor, leaving a trail of dark droplets down his uniform. The drops on the floor quickly turned into bloody smudges under his feet.

Lorca suspected Groves was intentionally trying to antagonize him by not speaking English. He tried to think of a way to simultaneously neutralize Groves and get the information he needed. An impromptu interrogation into Groves' childhood seemed a little too out of left field. The brig was clearly not an effective threat. Threatening to remove him from Discovery was slightly too abstract in the moment and more likely to antagonize O'Malley and Mischkelovitz, and Lorca still needed Mischkelovitz. In particular, he needed to know Mischkelovitz had not just abandoned everything because of Michael Burnham's presence on Discovery.

There was always the threat of physical violence, but Lorca dismissed it. That was not the Starfleet way. As frustrating as it was to admit, Groves really did not let anyone have any leverage over him, which was trait Lorca could admire except for the fact he was on the wrong end of it.

It took twenty seconds for O'Malley to arrive when called. He must have used the site to site transporter into the hall. He was still in his sleepwear and his mouth fell open in shock at the sight of the blood on Groves' face. "What the hell happened!"

"He got kicked," offered Lorca. When O'Malley's eyes turned accusing, Lorca clarified, "By Mischka," and then shrugged exaggeratedly to indicate he had no clue beyond that and certainly it had nothing to do with him.

O'Malley's confusion only deepened as he attempted to get some further explanation from Groves. After two questions failed to elicit anything more than syllables of apparent nonsense, O'Malley shouted, "John, stop it, I can't understand you when you're talking kworyaan! Sim—sim trell ka—" O'Malley struggled, clearly knowing a few words, but not enough to form a sentence.

This only served to enrage Groves. He stopped pacing and snarled at O'Malley, "You'll never be one of us and your mother will never love you or Emellia so just shut up!"

It was a decided cruel sentiment even devoid of any context. O'Malley, to his credit, ignored it, turned to Lorca, and asked very pointedly, "Where is my sister?"

That part, Lorca knew. "She went in the wall. Lalana's with her."

O'Malley groaned faintly and shook his head. "Right. I need to get two doses of veter- vitter-toxic—"

"Vetroxican, you idiot!" said Groves. "How can you not remember that!"

O'Malley whirled on Groves and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Just because I'm not as smart as the lot of you doesn't mean I'm an idiot! Now will you sit down and let me help you!"

Lorca's eyes went wide in surprise and struggled to contain the smile spreading on his face because O'Malley losing his temper was utterly hilarious and this was an entirely inappropriate response to the situation. Groves, at least, was not so amused and immediately sat down in his chair. O'Malley comm'd Allan to fetch two doses of Vetroxican from sickbay, "and don't let them tell you no."

"As if they could," said Allan.

The phrasing mildly concerned Lorca. "Lorca to sickbay." Culber answered. "Please see to it Major Allan gets whatever he needs." Culber assented with a note of confusion in his voice as to why Allan was in need of anything, but Lorca had no interest in filling the doctor in.

O'Malley frowned. "That wasn't necessary, really."

"I think it was," countered Lorca, who trusted O'Malley and Allan to adhere to proper protocols about as much as he trusted himself. (This was an entirely accurate assessment on Lorca's part.)

O'Malley went over to Groves then, tugging Groves' hand away from his head. Groves resisted the attention. Still short-tempered, O'Malley said, "Knock it off, John. Do you think I like doing this? Do you think this is what brings me happiness?"

"Then stop," said Groves bitterly. He dropped his hand away from the wound, letting the blood drip down his face. "I hate you."

"I hate you, too, but I don't let it stop me." O'Malley examined the wound. The flap of flesh was considerable, but also well-attached. Mostly it was lot of blood.

Propelled by a need to be relevant, Lorca located the medkit and brought it over. "He should go to sickbay. He could have a concussion," he advised. "It was a pretty good whack."

O'Malley snorted as he cleaned around the wound and made use of the medical tricorder's default scans to assess the situation. "Right. John, care to tell the captain why you'll never go to sickbay?" Groves glowered. O'Malley sighed. "He can't go to sickbay because if he goes to sickbay, they'll figure it out right quick his medical records are all falsified."

"Not my height and weight," said Groves.

"Yes, well, if only all medical care were based on your height and weight," said O'Malley acerbically.

Lorca leaned back against the worktable in the middle of the lab and crossed his arms. "Groves, you might be the most frustrating person I have ever met. Why would you falsify that?" Falsifying medical records was not only potentially criminal, but falsifying your own was without question criminally stupid because when you needed medical intervention, your best hope was that the records were correct.

Groves smiled then, which looked truly macabre with all the blood still on his face. "'Cause, captain." This seemed to be all the explanation he was offering.

Lalana emerged from under Mischkelovitz's desk. "I do not know that I am helping Emellia. She keeps saying something about Burnham, but I do not know what."

"Burnham? As in Michael Burnham?" asked O'Malley. "Why would she be talking about her?"

Groves' smile widened into a manic grin. "Oh, you're gonna love this!"

O'Malley kicked Lorca out of the lab. He did not actually have that authority, but Lorca complied, because O'Malley seemed to be at the end of a heavily knotted rope and there was clearly nothing Lorca could do until everyone in the lab calmed down, which was not something he had any control over. His decision to bring Burnham aboard had caused a chain of events in Lab 26 that would not be easily brushed aside.

As if that weren't enough, Culber then decided Lorca needed to be questioned about the fact he had essentially ordered Culber to give two doses of Vetroxican, a highly controlled neural inhibitor, to a security officer for what reason exactly?

"Dr. Mischkelovitz needed it for her research," said Lorca, the explanation so paltry he failed to convince even himself.

He could practically hear Culber's head shaking over the comm. "Captain, I understand Dr. Mischkelovitz probably doesn't deserve the reputation she has, but I have to ask, what exactly is she working on?"

"It's classified."

"Captain, if she's conducting experiments on live subjects with this drug, it's in violation of every standard of medical ethics—"

"That's enough, doctor," said Lorca sharply. "Her research has been approved by Starfleet Command and that is all you need to know."

As usual, Culber folded to Lorca's ultimate authority, but was unhappy about it. "I have a responsibility to ensure the well-being of everyone on this ship, and I take that seriously."

"Rest assured, you have no reason for concern." This lie, at least, sounded more convincing, probably because it was halfway true. There really was nothing unethical about Mischkelovitz's research.

Culber was momentarily satisfied, but Lorca was frustrated. After everything, he finally had all the pieces he wanted and needed, and they seemed to be crumbling in his fingers. Mischkelovitz had vanished into a wall, Burnham was obstinate and defensive, Stamets was still regrettably Stamets, and now Culber apparently suspected Mischkelovitz of medical ethics violations. This was not going as intended. What was next? Saru accusing him of farming Kelpiens for emergency rations?

He really, really needed a win.

Part 60