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depressing-debbie · 4 years ago

Note

Could you do the fluff alphabet for Armin? My favorite :) Loved eren's by the way

Aw I'm glad you liked it! Absolutely <3

I had a lot of fun with this, but it’s very much unedited, so... yeah, hopefully it’s alright!

POST Time Skip as always

Fluff Alphabet: Armin

A ctivities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

He plans absolutely adorable little dates, like picnics or hikes. He also loves taking his SO to museums and art galleries, especially if it’s something they’re really interested in. He already has plenty of knowledge on the subject, and he definitely did some research before they left, so he’s fully prepared to point out every little detail and explain the meaning behind everything as they go. Most of all, though, he just likes getting to be with his SO, so he also loves lazy afternoons sitting and reading together.

B eauty - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

Armin thinks absolutely everything about his SO is stunning. He loves the way they carry themselves when they’re confident, the way their face crinkles when they laugh, the sparkle in their eyes when they talk about their interests: they’re just perfect.

C omfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

Look no further, everybody, because we’ve found the most comforting man on the earth. His first instinct when his SO is upset is to make sure their surroundings are comfortable, meaning he’ll make sure to take them somewhere quiet if they are in public, or he’ll find lots of blankets and pillows. Then he’ll sit with them, letting them rest their head on his chest while he traces little circles into their hair. If they want to talk about it, he’s down. If they need space, he’s already out the door, checking on them once in a while with some water. But if they just want him there, he won’t leave their side.

D reams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

He’s really happy thinking about the future, even though it’s not necessarily specific. He loves the idea of building some sort of life with his SO and getting to spend it together. There’s no specific idea in his head of what that looks like, so he’d be happy no matter what as long as they’re together.

E qual - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

It’s entirely equal. He’s an absolute gentleman, but he doesn’t believe in the way society enforces roles on a relationship. Him and his SO are a team, and they work together in their relationship.

F ight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

He really hates fighting, and he doesn’t really initiate a fight ever. And, unless it’s something really serious, he would be quick to find a compromise and make up. But, even if it is serious, even though he might be a bit hurt, he still wouldn’t want to fight. They’re a team, and that team is built on a foundation of solid communication, so he’d want to have a genuine conversation rather than just yell at each other. The last thing he wants is for either of them to get their feelings hurt accidentally.

G ratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

He is so incredibly grateful for his SO, and he makes sure they know it. He appreciates them and everything they do, so even if it makes him uncomfortable, he expresses it as often as he can.

H onesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

There are no secrets in his relationship. You can’t be a team if you’re not on the same page, and he doesn’t see any reason why he would want to hide things anyway. He would respect if there are things his SO just doesn’t want to talk about, especially if it’s something very personal, but his goal will be to make sure they know they can feel comfortable talking to him.

I nspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

Armin is a pretty reserved person, and he has a lot of self doubt and general anxiety. But, he feels so much more confident and relaxed around his SO; they’ve helped him to become more comfortable with himself and his interactions in general. He can also forget his own worries instantly when it comes to protecting them, which shows him that he is capable of overcoming that fear. He embraces the sense of security they give him, and he allows himself to open up a bit more.

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

He doesn’t get jealous often, but he does have some self doubt that gets in the way. It’s not that he would blame his SO or accuse them of anything, he just gets a bit insecure. It’s also not hard for his SO to notice, and all he really needs is a few words of assurance and comfort to relax.

K iss - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?

Alright, unfortunately, their first kiss was so awkward. Armin was absolutely terrified of messing up, and he probably rambled when he asked if he could kiss them. It was honestly pretty cute, though, the way that he blushed, then got all smiley afterwards. He’s able to relax with it over time, and after a while, he’s a really good kisser. He probably gives his SO a little kiss as a greeting each time he sees them, and he’s absolutely a tiny butterfly kisses kind of guy :)

L ove Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

Okay, so if we’re talking about how he asked them out, he was SO awkward. His friends had to hype him up for like two weeks, and he definitely rambles when he’s uncomfortable, so it took him forever to actually get the words out. He absolutely did it in person, though, and it was pretty sweet. But, if we’re talking about the first time he said that he loved them, it was more relaxed. He just looked over at his SO one day and though about how amazing they are and how lucky he is, so he told them, and it came out as “I love you”. He was pretty embarrassed afterwards, but he definitely didn’t regret it, especially after they said it back.

M arriage - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?

I think it depends pretty heavily on his partner, and he’d be happy either way. He doesn’t rely on a piece of paper to show that they care about each other, so if they don’t want to, he’d be happy. But, if they do want to get married, he would be so excited. He would definitely plan the most thoughtful proposal, in a private place that holds some kind of meaning for the two of them, and it would be so cute. Their wedding would be stunning, he definitely has an eye for design. There wouldn’t be a big difference between dating and married life, just more excuse to be happy together.

N icknames - What do they call their s/o?

He has so many cute little nicknames for them. Definitely calls them “love”, or “sweetheart” when they’re upset. But mainly, his nicknames are super creative and meaningful to the two of them. If his SO speaks a second language, he did some research and came up with a nickname in that language. They probably also reference their inside jokes, so it makes no sense to anyone else, which just makes it that much more special.

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

It’s sooo obvious when Armin is in love. He gets embarrassed every time someone brings up his SO, and he keeps getting caught smiling and staring off into space. He expresses his feelings to his SO in every way can, whether that’s through little acts of service, homemade gifts, extra soft kisses, or just flat out saying that he loves them. He never wants them to feel like he doesn’t appreciate them completely and utterly, so he goes out of his way to make sure they know how he feels.

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

He’s really uncomfortable with PDA, at most, he would probably hold his SO’s hand or rest his hand on their back. Otherwise, he just gets super embarrassed and flustered. He doesn’t mind talking about their relationship, though, especially with people he trusts. He’s not going to brag or share specific details, but he enjoys getting to talk about the person he loves, and he’s honestly happy that people know they’re together.

Q uirk - Some random ability they have that's beneficial in a relationship.

This is very random, but he has an endless supply of cozy sweaters and sweatshirts, lots of which are oversized, and he LOVES when his SO steals them. Every time he catches them wearing his clothes, it makes him sooo happy. They’re the coziest couple on the planet.

R omance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?

He’s incredibly romantic, but not in the traditional way. He just doesn’t understand the cliche romantic gestures and sayings, and he would so much rather come up with his own way of expressing his appreciation for his SO and making them happy. It’s much more personal, and he puts so much thought into all of it.

S upport - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

Armin is completely and utterly supportive; he is his SO’s number one supporter. In his eyes, there is literally nothing they cannot accomplish, and he will do whatever he can to help them get there. If they’re hesitant to pursue something they’re passionate about, he is going to encourage them to have faith in themselves and chase after it, no matter what, because he believes in them completely. And if there’s any way he can help them reach their goals, he’s all ears.

T hrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

Probably a mix of both. They probably have a routine of some kind set, and he appreciates the peace and stability of that. But, he also loves getting to add to his list of new experiences that the two of them have shared. He loves learning and seeing new things, and especially when he gets to share them with his SO, it makes him really happy.

U nderstanding - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

He knows them incredibly well. He can predict their reactions in different situations, and he can almost always tell how they’re feeling. It’s entirely due to how clearly they communicate, and the way that he observes everything around him. He took note at the start of their relationship of what makes them happy and what upsets them, and he knows so much about them. He can empathize so well because of this.

V alue - How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?

His relationship is very important to him. His SO means a lot to him, and he’s definitely started to build his routine around them, especially if they’ve been together for a while. He doesn’t really enter relationships without being serious about it, that’s just not his style, so it really is meaningful to him.

W ild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon.

When he doesn’t get to see his SO for a while, they carve out time in their next meeting to just talk. They get nice and cozy together, and they just spent an hour or two talking about everything they can think of, how their week went, what crazy book they’re reading, some new fact about something they’re interested in, whatever they want to share with each other. Armin loves getting to talk about the things he’s learned and what’s happening in his life, but more than that, he absolutely adores hearing his SO talk about things they’re passionate about. He loves the way their eyes light up and their voice becomes animated. He could just sit there, in their arms, listening to them talk for hours.

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

He’s very affectionate! Nowhere else does he feel as safe as he does in his SO’s arms, and he loves getting to be close to them. They definitely take naps together after a long day, and he loves to cuddle while they read. If they’re working or sitting together, he’ll rest his head on theirs, giving them tiny kisses on top of their head, or he’ll let them curl up into his side and run his hand gently up and down their back. He loves feeling like he can protect them.

Y earning - How will they cope when they're missing their partner?

He really hates when his SO is gone for a long time just because their routines are so intertwined, so he’s constantly reminded of their absence. He probably spends more time with his friends and writes down things he wants to tell his SO when they return, which relaxes him.

Z eal - Are they willing to go to great lenghts for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

Armin is the best example of going to great lengths in a relationship. Anything he can do to make his SO happy and keep everything going well, he is more than happy to do. He absolutely communicates with his partner to see what they need, and what they think the relationship needs, and they’ll work together to make sure they are satisfied. His relationship and his SO mean the world to him, so he would definitely do whatever he can for them.

#attack on titan headcanons #attack on titan #aot headcanons #aot #shingeki no kyojin #shingeki no kyojin headcanons #snk headcanons #snk #Armin Arlet #snk armin #armin aot #aot armin #armin #armin x y/n #armin x reader #armin fluff #boyfriend armin #fluff alphabet

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aliveandfullofjoy · 4 years ago

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It’s the first day of 2021, which calls (yet again!) for my ten favorite new-to-me movies I watched in 2020!

The rules are the same as always: no movies from this past year (2020) or the year before (2019). Every other year is free game.

All ten of these movies are fascinating and beautiful and well worth your time, so consider this a strong endorsement for all of them. I’ve also included ways to watch all of the films (as of this writing, Jan. 1, 2021).

01. Two for the Road (dir. Stanley Donen, 1967; USA) Donen takes the ideas of romantic cinema and celebrates it while injecting a healthy dose of painful reality. He chooses two of the English language's most attractive movie stars, Albert Finney (in full himbo mode!) and Audrey Hepburn, and follows their ten-year marriage as seen on their various road trips across Europe. It's a memory piece more than anything else, but the arc of their relationship is clear and their palpable connection burns through the screen. These are two beautiful, intelligent adults who love each other deeply, who are still physically attracted to each other, who are able to hurl verbal jabs and insults at each other with the best of them. Finney is magnificent, but Hepburn sort of steals the show. In what is probably her finest onscreen performance, she gets to grow from a virginal bride to a fully fleshed out adult, living beautifully in different shades of sexy and goofy and bitter. They make a screen couple for the ages. The script is funny without losing its honesty, it's tragic without leaning too far into artifice, it's romantic without being treacly. It's a remarkable balancing act and makes for a masterpiece. (Two for the Road is available to rent online or viewed at this link.)

02. Stop Making Sense (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1984; USA) Stop Making Sense feels like a miracle. It hints at a narrative arc, but that part is unimportant. It’s a live performance recorded and packaged specifically for consumption as a film. In its brief runtime, it becomes a living, breathing, sweating testament to David Byrne’s skill as a performer, as a songwriter, as a storyteller, and to the remarkable talents of everyone in Talking Heads. It’s a breathtakingly joyous experience. I can’t remember the last time I watched a recording of a live performance that captured the same brand of energy, of buoyancy, that you feel as you’re leaving a great communal experience. This is a masterpiece that proclaims as loudly as possible that there is no joy greater than making art with people you love. (Stop Making Sense is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.)

03. Scattered Clouds (dir. Mikio Naruse, 1967; Japan) Filled to the brim with unspoken turmoil and emotional devastation, Naruse's final film chronicles the rough terrain of a relationship between a widow and the man responsible for her husband's death. Spanning years and exploring just how deeply these wounds can go, much of the Scattered Cloud’s success rests on the performances from Yuzo Kayama and Yoko Tsukasa. Kayama is a handsome, likable screen presence who beautifully lives in his own cloud of grief. Tsukasa gets a bit more to chew on, as this really is her story: her arc and her inability to move forward, despite the best intentions, is one of the film's most lasting ideas. Brutally sad but incredibly beautiful. The work of a master filmmaker. (Scattered Clouds is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

04. L’Atalante (dir. Jean Vigo, 1934; France) My only regret with L’Atalante is that I didn’t see it sooner. The final (and only feature-length) film from Jean Vigo before his untimely death at 29, this film is a technical marvel and a humanist miracle. Featuring spirited performances from Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, and the great character actor Michel Simon, and intoxicating dreamlike imagery, as well as a relentlessly romantic score from Maurice Jaubert, this film looks and feels like no other film from its era. (L’Atalante is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

05. Daisies (dir. Věra Chytilová, 1966; Czechoslovakia) Věra Chytilová's iconic masterpiece of anarchic cinema more than lives up to its reputation. Operating on its own chaotic wavelength, Daisies follows the exploits of Marie I (Jitka Cerhová) and Marie II (Ivana Karbanová) who seek to spoil themselves after realizing how spoiled the world is. They begin to live extravagantly and rip off older men and cause general mischief. Over less than 80 minutes, Daisies upends a whole slew of cultural norms. Beautiful, ambiguous, funny, cynical, and truly visionary. (Daisies is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and HBO Max.)

06. The Hero (dir. Satyajit Ray, 1966; India) The Hero sort of feels like Satyajit Ray's answer to 8½ in its meditation of fame and regret. Uttam Kumar is fantastic as Arindam Mukherjee, a superstar actor who works through his career and his loss of values in an interview with a reporter played by Sharmila Tagore, who is also fantastic. Under Ray's sleek direction, gracefully opening up the world of the train, and with his intelligent and human script, the cast uniformly sinks their teeth into this film. Kumar is the MVP out of necessity -- without him, the whole film would fall apart -- but the whole ensemble is remarkable, peppering the background of the train scenes and in Arindam's flashbacks. This also has one of the all-time great nightmare sequences. Easily one of the master director’s best films. (The Hero is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

07. Malcolm X (dir. Spike Lee, 1992; USA) Malcolm X is a truly massive film housing an even bigger performance from the great Denzel Washington. Tracing Malcolm X’s life and career while juggling numerous tones and visual styles and spanning across decades and continents, this is surely Spike Lee’s most ambitious film up to this point in his career. Washington is onscreen for virtually all of its long runtime, from the early exuberant days before his imprisonment all the way up to that fateful day in the Audubon Ballroom, and he is, of course, tremendous. All that classic Denzel charisma and magnetism is on full display, whether in his impassioned speeches or in his more intimate scenes. Lee’s direction is top notch, making this full story about a life with an incalculably profound impact feel richly and deeply intimate. This is one of the essential American epics. (Malcolm X is available to rent online.)

08. Beau Travail (dir. Claire Denis, 1999; France) Beau Travail’s place in the modern canon of world cinema is assured, and Denis is rightfully seen as a master, but it really can’t be overstated just how much of a gem this film is. Pepper with sparse dialogue (though always packed with meaning), the film lives in one of two modes: muscular, suntanned men doing slow, precise choreographed exercises in the heat of the day and those same muscular men dancing and gyrating with attractive young women in some ethereal nightclub. Between these poles lies Denis’ almost cosmic meditation on masculine ego, homoerotic obsession, and regret. A fascinating, enigmatic, devastating beauty. (Beau Travail is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

09. Only Angels Have Wings (dir. Howard Hawks, 1939; USA) Only Angels Have Wings might be Howard Hawks' crowning directorial achievement. The aerial work, the rainy nights, the beautiful atmosphere of the bars, the palpable camaraderie of the characters, the tragic loss of life and yet the persistence to move forward. Cary Grant leads a terrific cast, including a quietly moving Richard Barthelmess and a rarely-more-likable Thomas Mitchell, and his chemistry with both Jean Arthur (the most charming) and Rita Hayworth is a joy to watch. This film seems to dabble in multiple genres at once, subverting the cliches of the Hollywood formula while still embracing the melodrama and the artifice within. In that way, the film feels very strange, but if the viewer lets themselves be carried along with Hawks' unique rhythm, the reward is one of the most fascinating and exciting films in Hollywood's fabled 1939 output. (Only Angels Have Wings is available to rent online or viewed at this link.)

10. Closely Watched Trains (dir. Jiří Menzel, 1966; Czechoslovakia) Between the precise composition of the shots and the young narrator-protagonist, Closely Watched Trains feels like a spiritual predecessor to Wes Anderson's work. This comparison extends to the thematic content of the film as well, as the story of a young man coming-of-age against the backdrop of the Nazi regime is definitely cut from the same cloth as The Grand Budapest Hotel. Lucky for me, I love Anderson's work, and Grand Budapest is my favorite of his, so Menzel's stylistic flourishes immediately endeared me to the film.Menzel maintains a skillful tonal balancing act throughout Closely Watched Trains. Even under the wry, almost self-deprecating humor, the film never loses track of preciousness of life and the horrific tragedy of war. Beautiful cinematography, strong performances across the board, a memorable score, and a clever script make this a gem of the Czech New Wave and a moving, delightful, and accessible coming-of-age tale. (Closely Watched Trains is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, 1951), The Band’s Visit (Eran Kolirin, 2007), But I’m a Cheerleader (Jamie Babbit, 1999), Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962), A Cottage on Dartmoor (Anthony Asquith, 1929), Crossing Delancey (Joan Micklin Silver, 1988), Divorce Italian Style (Pietro Germi, 1961); Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee, 1994), Fireworks (Kenneth Anger, 1947), The Freshman (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, 1925), The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953), Kuroneko (Kaneto Shindo, 1968), Le Bonheur (Agnès Varda, 1965), Le Notti Bianche (Luchino Visconti, 1957), Like Father, Like Son (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2013), Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983), Love & Basketball (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2000), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (George Miller, 1981), Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001), One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (Agnès Varda, 1977), Pennies from Heaven (Herbert Ross, 1981), Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller, 1953), Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998), Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954), Sleepless in Seattle (Nora Ephron, 1993), Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (William Greaves, 1968), Tea and Sympathy (Vincente Minnelli, 1956), They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969), Tomboy (Céline Sciamma, 2011), Wendy & Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008), Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920), Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondo, 1995), and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis, 1988).

And some miscellaneous viewing stats:

First movie watched in 2020: A Fantastic Woman (Sebastián Lelio, 2017)

Final movie watched in 2020: Holiday (George Cukor, 1938)

Worst movie watched: The Notebook (Nick Cassavetes, 2004)

Oldest movie watched: Ten films by the Lumière Brothers (Louis Lumière, 1895)

Longest movie watched: Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954; 207 minutes)

Month with most amount of movies watched: December (58 movies, including shorts)

Month with least amount of movies watched: February (11 movies) (pre-COVID, naturally)

First movie from 2020 seen: Birds of Prey (Cathy Yan, 2020)

Total movies watched: 455

#sometimes elliott watches movies #year in review #two for the road #stop making sense #scattered clouds #l'atalante #daisies #the hero #malcolm x #beau travail #only angels have wings #closely watched trains

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aspenflower17 · 4 years ago

Text

Finding You (Part Fifteen of ??)

Goodness gracious, I’m back, and excited to be here. I just had the weirdest two weeks, so I apologize about not updating last week. Luckily, I just stayed home today and was able to write most of this chapter. Here is a link for anyone who’s new and wants to start over at the beginning: Part One.

A couple notes: I totally forgot I wanted to add a dream sequence to part fourteen, so I added it first thing in this update. It is a rewrite of part of Satan’s “The Search of Self” Devilgram so there might be some spoilers. I also missed you all so much! Honestly, I’ve been feeling kinda down lately and haven’t even had much motivation to play Obey Me (or do much of anything), so being able to hang out on Tumblr today and see all the posts has helped me get some of my inspiration back! I also bought a Chromebook and I'm still getting used to it. If the formatting goes weird, please let me know so I can fix it.

Tags for the beauties: @simpingforsatan @naimena @hachimochi @wrathandgreed @magi-minminxiii @rensphilia @a-dream-at-night @chloelikesobeyme @getbehindme-satan @theuglypugling @oofthelazyweeb @mammonismyfirstman

Word Count: 3293

Warnings: Possible spoilers for the first season (though I think I’ve had some before so...), spoilers for Satan’s “The Search for Self” Devilgram story (it’s not the full story and I added a lot)

Mc followed Satan to a fairly large building. Satan, still so weird to say, had asked her if she wanted to go around the Devildom with him. The letters above the door were illegible, seeing as how the Devildom had their own language and alphabet, but she instantly knew where they were when they walked in, “You took me to an art gallery?!”

“Oh, seems like I made a good choice,” Satan looked a tad shocked, but then smiled, “I like to come here to get away from stuff and clear my head.”

“So, are these like human art galleries?” Mc asked.

“I think so? Naturally, they have older, historically significant paintings, but they also exhibit pieces created by young, up-and-coming artists. And they’re always holding interesting events. It’s a lot of fun… Are you interested in art, Mc?”

“Yeah, I am,” Mc answered.

“Ah, is that so? I’ve got a feeling you and I might get along, then. I really love art.”

Mc felt her heart thill at his words. She’d been interested in the blonde fourth-born the second she’d seen him, and her interest seemed to be well founded.

Satan continued on about why he loved art, and though there was brand new art for her to look at, all she could do was hang watch Satan and hang onto his every word. He wasn’t saying anything she herself didn’t think, but just being here with him was giving her butterflies.

“... If you’re nervous about coming here alone, then say the word, and I’ll join you anytime.”

“Ah, that’s so nice of you. Now that I know this place exists, I’m definitely going to need to visit often.”

“You’re really excited about this, aren’t you?” he was watching her, eyebrow quirked, but with a soft smile.

“Of course! Not only do I have a whole new history to learn about, but there’s even new art!”

Satan chuckled, “Well, I’m glad you’re actually interested in art. It really is important not to focus only on your outward appearance like Asmo, because the person you are on the inside has a way of showing through on the outside as well.”

“I agree. Too many people’s beauty is only skin deep.”

“Exactly. Incidentally, it looks like they’re having a contemporary art exhibit here today. Shall we go check it out?”

“Definitely. I hope demon modern art is better than, “Four Blue Squares on Canvas”.”

“Wait… Really?”

“Yup. It’s a real art piece I saw in my University’s art museum.”

“So, was it really…”

“Just four blue squares on a white canvas, all equidistant from each other.”

Satan blinked a couple times, “Well, I hope ours is better too.”

They entered an exhibit space. Mc found herself a little disappointed, as she saw some of the same stange, abstract, postmodern art she would’ve seen at a human art gallery. Satan noticed the change and hurried to explain, “This is the human art wing. Many of the “lost” art pieces you’ve heard about can be found in collections here in the Devildom or in some of our galleries. This gallery is curated by Lord Diavolo, as advised by Barabatos, Lucifer and myself. Right now I believe this collection was put together by Lucifer.”

“Ah. That makes sense,” Mc stated, lips pursed as she looked around, making Satan laugh.

The duo continued through the gallery, Mc stopping every-so-often to examine a piece that caught her eye. Satan knew the artist’s name and the medium of almost every piece, though there were a few that were new to him too.

“Check out this work here. The use of color is so novel, so original. It’s very eye catching.”

Mc leaned down to read the museum label, “You know, that reddish color really reminds me of… Oh…”

“Human blood? Yeah, I thought as much. Though the smell had been dampened, probably diluted with water, it’s still unmistakable,” Satan answered absentmindedly. Finally seeing Mc’s discomfort, he quickly tried to backpedal, “I’m sorry. I forgot human noses aren’t as... sensitive as demons. This artist makes pieces that stimulate multiple senses. She’s an acquaintance of mine. This piece in particular incorporates the blood of… Seven distinct creatures, demons included.”

“Oh… Which one is the demon blood?”

“The black. If I’m not mistaken, she used her own blood for this piece,” Mc nodded, the art more macabre than she’d originally thought, “Well, there’s a lot more to see than just this. Let’s see, what’s over here in this space?” They walked through an archway into a room that held a huge installation. A lot of strange items filled the room, some on pedestals, or the ground, while others hung from near translucent strings from the ceiling. The lighting in the room was generally low, specific spotlights or illumination obviously very strategically placed. A low glow on the floor marked a pathway that allowed the viewer to wander around the room.

“Wow! Now this is very interesting,” Satan breathed, eyes glittering, “See? Check it out. At first glance it looks like a bunch of random stuff scattered all over the place, doesn’t it? But actually, every piece of rope, string and crumpled paper has been arranged very meticulously. It actually depicts a war between a dragon and an army of angels. If you want proof, look at it from the side. It looks as if the dragon is over powering the army. Buuuut,” Satan continued excitedly rushing over to the other side of the room, “When you look from this other angel here, it seems the angels have the upper hand.”

“Interesting, because, from where I’m standing, I can see Earth.”

“Wait, really?” Satan moved to where Mc was and bent down so he could view it from her height, “Would you look at that. I don’t think I ever would’ve seen that. How interesting… Very nice find,” he complimented, his smile, words and proximity making Mc’s cheeks heat up.

They spent some more time in the room, though they didn’t find any other secrets. They both vowed to come back however to search some more. They then spent more time in the gallery before Satan suggested they head out to get some refreshments at a new cafe in the Devildom.

“Thank you for that Satan,” Mc grinned, “That was some much needed mental refreshment.”

“No, thank you Mc. It can be difficult to get any of my brothers to spend time with me in a manner that I enjoy, and even harder still for them not to annoy me in the process, so I usually end up going around on my own. It was invigorating having someone with me who also appreciates art,” He grinned at her again, making her heart flutter. She could definitely get used to spending time with the Avatar of Wrath.

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

Mc blinked awake. That was the second dream she’d had that seemed more than just a dream. She could still remember the first in clear detail, though her dreams usually started fading once she woke up. The only other time she’d experienced something like this was her memory of being a Wanderer. But… This couldn’t possibly be like that. That was a memory, and these were just the result of finally being able to talk to and spend time with the demon she’d admired for so long… Right? She shook her head, the large questions the dreams brought up already giving her a headache. She grabbed her DDD blinking at the light it gave off. After her eyes adjusted she saw a new message alert. Opening it she smiled. Seems like he'd finally opened up her letter

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

“Dude, just read it.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Belphie sighed and got up, grabbing the letter off of the kitchen counter.

“What are you doing?” Satan asked.

“Well, if you’re not going to open it, I will. I can’t believe you didn’t read and respond to it that night. Honestly, you’re one of the most powerful demons in the Devildom and you can’t even-” he was cut off by Satan grabbing the letter from him, the seal already halfway broken.

“I will open it myself, thank you.”

“Then do it,” Belphie said, unaffected by Satan’s anger.

Satan narrowed his eyes, and turned back to the letter in his hands. Logically, he understood why he was nervous, and usually knowing the why behind a feeling would help him get it under control, but that had never worked with any feelings toward Mc. He had hoped this time around would be different, and he was almost more nervous than before. There seemed to be so much more riding on her returned affection than before. Cautiously, he broke the rest of the seal on the envelope, and pulled the letter out/

Dear Satan,

I would love to get coffee with you sometime! If I can be even half as engaging as last time, I’ll consider it a job well done. To help us plan that and talk more easily in the future, I included my number ;) Once you text me, I have a secret to share with you.

Satan blinked a couple times. He turned the letter over to see if she’d written anything on the back. No such luck. Was that really all she’d written?

“Forever the tease I see.”

“... Did you just read that over my shoulder?”

“Well, when you delay as much as you did, and then have that kind of reaction, who wouldn’t? Anyway, you should text her.”

“I… Yes, you’re right. I definitely should,” Satan said grabbing his DDD. He opened the messaging app, typed in her number and… just sat there.

“You good?”

“Hmmm? Oh, yeah. I’m just not sure how to start the-”

He was cut off by Belphie grabbing his DDD, typing something, and then tossing it back to him, “There you go. I’m going to go sleep now. It’s way past my bedtime.”

“Wait, what did you even-”

“Night,” Belphie called from the doorway before walking out.

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

Satan was reading when his DDD meowed that he had a message. He almost threw the book he was reading into the air as he lunged for his DDD which was on the table next to him. He didn’t even have time to be embarrassed at his over-the-top-reaction.

Satan: A secret?

Mc: Yes :D

My name is not Jane Doe, though

I’m sure you’ve already

surmised that much

Satan: I thought as much, though it really isan ingenious alias.

Mc: Thank you! I thought so too

Satan: So… Do I get to know what you’re

real name is?

Mc: Hmmm… What if I want to go get

that coffee with you before

I divulge that information?

Satan: We’ll just have to go get that coffee then.

Mc:

When?

Satan: Whenever you’d like. I am free today.

Only if you want though.

Mc: Okay! Shall we say… 16:00?

Satan: As long as there’s no last minute RAD Student Council meetings called, that should be perfect

Mc: Well, if there is, I’ll just have to come

tell everyone you already made plans.

I’ve been meaning to visit RAD anyway.

Satan:

Oh how I’d love to see Lucifer’s reaction

to that.

Mc:

Satan: Wait… Shouldn’t you be asleep right now?

It’s rather late.

Mc: I was asleep, but…

Satan: Bad dream?

Mc: No actually. Quite the opposite.

I just can’t stop thinking now.

Satan: Ah. I understand that.

Anything I can do to help?

Mc: Would you talk to me a bit longer? Maybe tell me about thelatest book you’ve been reading?

Satan: Of course.

Though he wished Mc would talk to him about what was bothering her, he figured this was probably the better option. They hadn’t met many times, and prying might upset her. So, he simply started telling her the basic plot of the new novel he’d picked up. Eventually, she stopped responding, and the messages stopped being shown as read. Satan smiled at that, texted her good night, and snuggled down into bed himself.

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

“I’m sorry!” Mc’s voice brought Satan out of the book of poetry he’d been reading, “Not only did I fall asleep while texting you last night, but then I was late today and I set the meetup time? Ugh, I feel so bad and I’m so sorry!”

“You’re alright,” Satan smiled, not wanting to acknowledge how much anxiety had been eased up by her appearing.

“I woke up late, and I dropped my DDD bad enough that we have to get a new one all together, and then Michael was asking me about native Devildom fabrics and if he should get a new outfit made in one… It’s just been a day so far.”

“Like, I said, it’s all okay. I’m sure you would’ve messaged me if you could.”

“I would’ve. I still feel bad… But thank you for being okay with it,” the look of anxiety to joy that she gave him made every second he’d spent waiting worth it.

“O-Of course,” he got out.

“So, what were you reading?”

“A collection of Arabic love poems.”

“Ah, “... When I love, / I become liquid light,” and “... If the devil was to ever see you, he’d kiss your eyes and repent,” Mc sighed, resting her chin on her hand. Then, as if remembering her current company and current residence, she shot up, “Sorry! I just really love that line.”

Satan laughed, and then said a quote of his own, “My lips and fingers were pens on her flesh. / I memorized her in every alphabet and memorized my memories until they multiplied…”

“I look at you and I dream of snow, I look at you and I await autumn…”

“My temptations in your eyes, And the cities of your grief,” Satan quoted just then realizing they were both leaning in towards each other. He leaned back a bit abruptly and cleared his throat, “Anyway, I really enjoy Adonis’ work.”

“Me too,” Mc answered, leaning back as well. Fortunately, a waiter came up to them to take their order, helping resolve the awkward air his sudden retreat had created. He tried to collect his thoughts as she ordered. He could only think of one thing to talk about though.

“So… Your name is not Jane Doe.”

“Nope.”

“So... What is it?” Didn’t they have this conversation last night?

Mc looked disappointed for a second, but then she was back to normal, “It’s Mc.”

“Really? That’s a lovely name.”

She looked up, eyes measuring him, “You think so?”

“Of course! It suits you really well,” Satan said.

“Well, there’s actually an interesting story behind that. Usually when an angel becomes an angel, they receive a new name. Back in the past, they used to allow them the choice between their new name and their old one. This resulted in too many angels remembering their human life, so they stopped allowing it. I’m the first angel in quite some time to keep the same name as I had in life.”

“Really?”

��Yup. Apparently Sim and Luke were insistent on it. Luke didn’t have a ton of clout upstairs at the time, but Sim does. I promised I wouldn’t question them too much about my human life.”

“They were huh? That’s interesting…”

“Why?”

“Oh, uhhh… Just general curiosity. I’ve been trying to pin down what kind of person Simeon is since the first exchange program,” Satan scrambled, actually managing to sound convincing.

Mc just hesitated and then nodded, not keeping eye contact with him.

“I’m sorry. I’m just nervous that I’ll make a fool of myself and ruin this time like I have the other times we’ve talked,” Satan confessed in Latin, his brain still on the last language he had been reading. Saying the things that had been bothering him started when he became more comfortable around Mc the first time around. He found saying the things on his mind out loud usually released much of his nervous energy, helped him understand what and how he was feeling without doing things to make Mc uncomfortable, even if she hadn’t understood most of what he’d said. It had become something they had shared, causing her to work hard to learn other languages so she could catch the little embarrassing things he said.

Mc gave him a look before replying, “Well, you didn’t mess up last time.”

“Well, I-” Satan cut off when his brain caught up to his mouth. She had just responded. In perfect Latin. His brain flipped back to their discussion on Arabic poetry and he realized she had been quoting that in Arabic too, “I hadn’t realized… Of course you speak other languages.”

“I have to read it in its original tongue. Translations generally don’t do the original justice,” Satan was still trying to think of an appropriate response when Mc spoke again, “Question though: Why did you say that in Arabic?”

“I… I fell into that habit awhile ago.”

“I thought a lot of demons knew different languages.”

“Well, I don’t do this around other demons. I don’t care what most of them think of me…” Satan cut off as the waiter came back with their drinks.

Mc sat in thought for a second before realization dawned on her, “Oh, was it because of…” her face fell before she could continue her thought.

“Hmmm? Did you say something?”

“No, just a stray thought that slipped out.”

“Hmmm… Well, do you want to tell me more about yourself?”

“Only if you tell me more about yourself.”

“Sounds fair to me. We can trade off asking questions.”

“Okay,” Mc seemed very excited by the prospect, and Satan found it infectious. The questions were a bit stilted at first, but they slowly fell into a comfortable space. Though the answers Mc gave, it seemed she was the same person essentially, but a lot more educated, even more opinionated, and with a different upbringing. He found the fact her personality had remained intact very interesting as well as relieving. He found the fact she was now an angel not as terrible as he thought it’d be. Sure, she spoke about saving souls and bringing people to the light, but with what she’d done for him and his brothers, it seemed a perfect fit. He’d always known she was a really good person. At times it had almost made him try to give up on their relationship, not wanting to corrupt her, but also feeling it in his very nature too. Now however, he didn’t necessarily feel that for her. She was an angel and it took a lot to corrupt an angel. He didn’t feel any animosity towards her and found her to be a lot like Simeon in her regard to demons. He found himself thanking Simeon for keeping her intact. If they couldn’t give her back to me, this is probably the next best thing.

They were both surprised when Mc’s DDD rang, a call from Luke asking if she’d be back in time for dinner. While she was on the phone, Satan received a similar call from an annoyed Beel telling him it was time to come home. Lucifer wouldn’t let him eat until he’d gotten home. They both got off the phone at the same time.

“I… actually have to go. I hadn’t realized how late it’s gotten.”

“I didn’t either. I have to go as well. There’s a hungry Avatar of Gluttony at home and a stupid Avatar of Pride that won’t let him eat until I get back.”

“Well, I really had a good time tonight. We should do this again sometime.”

“I agree,” Satan smiled, “Today was amazing.”

Mc smiled and blushed a bit, “I’ll text you later then?”

“Definitely. Bye!”

Mc waved cutely and then started running off in the direction of the castle. Satan watched her until she was out of sight, smiling softly the whole time.

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

So, yeah. Arabic love poems make me live. I apologize if the translations are weird. I literally found them on a twitter post someone had posted on Tumblr. Here’s the link: https://twitter.com/rosewatwr/status/1292487129793208320?lang=en

Can we also take a moment to talk about how absurd it is that Satan, of all people, was having trouble eating properly with a knife and fork?! Are you kidding me?

Part Sixteen

#obey me #obey me!#obey me satan #obey me! swd #obey me belphie #aspenflower17 #finding you #obey me fluff #obey me angst #obey me mc #obey me satan/mc #obey me satan x mc #obey me long fic #obey me swd #can you guys believe it's part 15?!#also #there was a part I was going to add on that was pretty angsty and Read My Heart came on shuffle when I was writing it

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teenslib · 4 years ago

Link

IT’S FINALLY DONE! Every year, the Rainbow Book List Committee has more books to review, because literature is slowing getting queerer, and children’s and YA lit are at the forefront of that change. This year, our committee of 13 people had to review nearly 500 eligible titles, and 130 (well, 129) were good enough and queer enough to make the list. There were so many terrific books that we got a special dispensation to create TWO Top Ten lists--the first time the committee has done so! The Top Tens are below, and please visit the link above for the full list.

I’m proud of our committee’s focus on diversity--along lines of race, ethnicity, queer identity, and even genre. At least half of the Top Ten Books for Young Readers and seven of the Top Ten for Teen Readers are about characters of color, and most of those were written by authors of color. We also tried to feature as many different letters of the alphabet soup as possible. I’ve noted the racial and LGBTQIA+ rep for the books that I’ve read.

Here are the Top Ten Books for Young Readers:

Ana on the Edge by Sass, A.J. Ages 8 to 12. Sports Fiction/Figure Skating. MC is nonbinary and Jewish-Chinese-American. Ana is a champion figure-skater. She hates her new princess-themed program, but how can she tell her mother that, when it cost so much money? And why does it bother her so much, anyway? When she finds the word ‘nonbinary,’ she realizes why the program doesn’t fit, but she still has a lot of work to do repairing relationships that have suffered in the meantime.

The Deep & Dark Blue by Smith, Niki. Ages 8 to 12. Fantasy. One of 2 MCs is a trans girl, all characters appear to be Southeast Asian. A pair of twins flee after a political coup that puts their lives at risk. They decide to disguise themselves as Hanna and Grayce, two girls living in the Communion of the Blue, an order of weaving women who spin magic like wool. What one twin doesn’t know is that, for the other, being Grayce isn’t a disguise. This is a beautiful story about self-discovery, acceptance, and affirmation.

Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring by Burgess, Matthew and Josh Cochran (Illustrator). Ages 6 to 14. Biography. MC is a white gay man. This colorful picture-book biography traces the life and art of Keith Haring.

The Every Body Book: LGBTQ+ Inclusive Guide for Kids about Sex, Gender, Bodies, and Families by Simon, Rachel E. and Noah Grigni (Illustrator). Ages 8 to 12. Nonfiction/Health. Various identities and races included. Filled with self-affirming information, The Every Body Book uses inclusive language, illustrations, and facts to cover a number of important topics for young people including consent, relationships, gender, sex, puberty, and hormones.

King and the Dragonflies by Callender, Kacen. Ages 8 to 12. Realistic Fiction. MC is a gay black boy, his best friend is a gay white boy. King’s family–especially his father–have strong opinions about what it means to be a Black man, and they don’t allow for being gay. But King admires his friend Sandy for escaping an abusive home and living his truth no matter what. If King comes out, too, can his father learn to change?

Magic Fish by Nguyen, Trung Le. Ages 12 and up. Realistic Fiction/Fantasy. MC is a gay Vietnamese-American boy. A young Vietnamese-American boy literally can’t find the words to tell his parents that he’s gay, but cross-cultural fairytales help bridge the language barrier in this beautifully-illustrated graphic novel.

My Maddy by Pitman, Gayle E. and Violet Tobacco (Illustrator). Ages 4-8. Realistic Fiction. MC’s parent is nonbinary, MC and her parent are white. My Maddy is a heartwarming story about a young girl and her parent. Readers learn that not all parents are boys or girls; some parents are just themselves. In this young girl’s case, that parent is her Maddy, a loving, caring parent who lives outside the gender binary.

My Rainbow by Neal, DeShanna, Trinity Neal, and Art Twink (Illustrator). Ages 4-8. Realistic Fiction. MC is an autistic black trans girl. Autistic trans girl Trinity wants to have long hair, but growing it out is too itchy! None of the wigs in the store are quite right, so Mom makes Trinity a special rainbow wig.

Our Subway Baby by Mercurio, Peter and Leo Espinosa (Illustrator). Ages 4 to 8. Adoption Non-fiction. MCs are white gay men, the baby they adopt is Black. Loving illustrations help tell the story of how an infant abandoned in a NYC subway station was adopted by the man who found him and his partner.

Snapdragon by Leyh, Kat. Snapdragon. Ages 10 to 14. Fantasy. Haven’t read this one yet, so I can’t comment on its representation. Snap gets to know the town witch and discovers that she may in fact have real magic and a secret connection to Snap’s family’s past.

And here are the Top Ten Books for Teen Readers:

All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by Johnson, George M. Ages 14 to 18. Memoir. Author/MC is a gay Black man. “Memoir-manifesto” is a well-chosen label for this book, which relates stories from the author’s childhood and young adulthood and contextualizes them within a queer Black experience. Although the author’s family is loving and supportive, pervasive heteronormativity, queerphobia, and anti-Black racism threaten his mental, emotional, and physical safety.

Camp by Rosen, L.C. Ages 14 and up. Realistic Fiction. MC and his love interest are gay Jewish boys. For Randy, going away to Camp Outland is a breath of fresh air, a time to be exactly who Randy can’t always be at school. But this year will be different. This year, Randy won’t be the flamboyant theater kid, this year Randy will be exactly the type of bro Hudson would want to date. Changing a thing or too will be necessary for Randy to succeed, even if that means leaving some friends behind.

Cemetery Boys by Thomas, Aiden. Ages 13 and up. Paranormal/Romance. MC is a trans Latino, his love interest is a gay Latino. Yadriel accidentally summons the wrong ghost in an attempt to prove himself a real brujo to his family who struggle to accept his gender identity. Though he thinks he is summoning the ghost of his cousin, he actually summons the ghost of Julian Diaz, and finds himself with not one, but two, mysterious deaths to investigate.

Circus Rose by Cornwell, Betsy. Ages 12 and up. Fantasy. One MC is white and one is mixed-race, one is a lesbian and one is questioning. Ivory and Rosie are twins and half-sisters, born to a bearded woman who refused to choose between her lovers, and raised in their mother’s circus. After a long foreign tour, they come home to find themselves under attack by religious zealots. As tragedy follows tragedy, will Ivory be able to save her circus family?

Elatsoe by Little Badger, Darcie and Rovina Cai (Illustrator). Ages 12 and up. Mystery. MC is an aro/ace Lipan Apache girl. In this OwnVoices novel, Elatsoe is on a mission to discover who killed her beloved cousin, and why. If not for her cousin, then she is doing this for her people, the Indigenous Lipan Apache tribe. Elatsoe has the ability to raise ghosts from the dead, a tradition that has been passed down through generations. On this journey it will take vulnerability, wit, and the legends of her people for Elatsoe to understand all that is hidden in the small town of Willowbee.

I’ll Be the One by Lee, Lyla. Ages 13 and up. Realistic Fiction. MC is a bi Korean-American girl, her love interest is a bi Korean boy. Skye Shin dreams of becoming the world’s first plus-sized K-pop star, and a reality TV competition may just be her chance. To win, she’ll have to deal with fatphobic beauty standards, fierce competition, and intense media scrutiny–as well as unexpected attraction to one of her competitors.

Miss Meteor by Mejia, Tehlor Kay and Anna-Marie McLemore. Ages 14 and up. Magical Realism. (I haven’t read this one, but I think both MCs are WLW Latinas.) Lita is a star – literally. After falling to earth several years ago, she’s now living life as a teenage girl. When the annual Miss Meteor pageant rolls around, Lita decides to enter – but will her ex-best friend Chicky be willing to help her? Will the pageant help her forget about the past and imagine a new future? Lita learns that winning isn’t about being perfect, it’s about showing your true self to the world – even the parts that no one else understands.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Johnson, Leah. Ages 12 and up. Realistic Fiction. MC is a black WLW (woman-loving-woman). In this affectionate rom-com, Liz Lighty finds herself an unlikely candidate for prom queen at her affluent suburban school. Shy, awkward, Black, and low-income, Liz has never felt like she belonged, and she can’t wait to leave for her dream college. But when her scholarship falls through, it seems her last resort is to win prom queen, and the scholarship money that comes with it. Liz’s plan is complicated when new girl Mack decides to run for prom queen also…and ends up running away with Liz’s heart.

War Girls by Onyebuchi, Tochi. Ages 12 and up. Science Fiction/Afro-Futurism. Both MCs are Nigerian, one is a WLW. In a not-so-distant future, climate change and nuclear disasters have made much of the earth unlivable. In the midst of war in Nigeria, two sisters, Onyii and Ify, are torn apart and face two very different futures. As their lives progress through years of untold violence and political unrest, battles with deadly mechs and cyborg soldiers outfitted with artificial limbs and organs, they are brought together again and again and must come to terms with how the war has impacted their lives.

When We Were Magic by Gailey, Sarah. Ages 14 and up. Contemporary Fantasy. MC is a white bi/questioning girl with gay dads, her friends are racially, ethnically, and queerily diverse. This firecracker of a novel follows a group of friends who attempt to correct the accidental murder of a classmate. When We Were Magic combines magic, friendship, and awkward moments to create a captivating story. Each character brings their own uniqueness to the strong group of friends, but despite their differences, their loyalty remains. Author Sarah Gailey has written another page turning novel, with the quirky strange content to boot.

#Rainbow Book List #LGBT literature #queer books #queer YA #queer children's books #Book Recommendations #we need diverse books

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slashnatic · 5 years ago

Text

NSFW ALPHABET [Vincent Sinclair]

a/n: soo...this is the first time i actually post what i wrote + english isn't my first language (and i feel like there’s still 1000 mistakes in this although i proof-read it like 10 times) so please don't be too hard on me, but feel free to give me constructive criticism :)

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

He definitely takes care of you after. He’ll clean you up, gets you a drink if you want...really anything. You need to go to the bathroom? Sure, he can carry you. You’d rather walk yourself? Well, you’re only allowed to go after he’s given you your goodbye-kiss-on-the-forehead. And no, this is not unnecessary because you'll be back in a few minutes, it’s a must.

Once all of that is done he likes it when you lay your head down on his chest or the other way around and you just cuddle and enjoy each other’s company in a comfortable silence.

B = Body Part (their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Vincent has a very prominent v-line. He never paid attention to it until he realized how much you like it and with that it became also his favorite body part of himself.

He loves the curve of your hips and waist. (Whether you are slim or curvy, he absolutely loves it either way!) His favourite thing is when you’re lying naked on top of him, your head on his chest and one leg laying on top of his in an angled position. He won't stop caressing and squeezing your hips.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum basically)

He both loves and hates cuming inside of you. He loves the intimacy of it, the vulnerability you show each other, but he is also scared of the possible consequences, at least at the beginning of your relationship.

He also likes to cum on your chest and belly.

D = Dirty Secret (a dirty secret of theirs)

Vincent has watched you a lot. At first it was innocent glances he stole, later he would make time to watch you from afar going after your daily tasks and the more he started to obsess over you the less he cared about how wrong it was to basically stalk you. It went so far that he once stood before an barely-open door, watching your every move through the small gap while you showered.

It doesn‘t really matter how long you are together, he still does it sometimes. You’ve grown used to it and now even put on a show for him sometimes, pretending you don‘t know he’s right there.

Another secret of his is that he sculpted your orgasm-face. It‘s weird and creepy, but he doesn’t really care. (I’m referring to the faces he sculpted in the walls on the way down to the basement. You’ll find your face there too, just a bit a part from the others.)

E = Experience (how experienced they are)

Not at all. Vincent has been wearing his mask since he can remember. He didn't even consider pressing his wax mask in some girl’s face. Needless to say pressing your lips on wax isn’t really romantic and with that no teenage girl‘s dream. Aside from that he barely left the house. When he was older he had gotten too used to it. In conclusion: He never even kissed a woman and he didn't have sex either.

F = Favourite Position (their favourite position, could possibly include a visual)

I believe it is called the Sphinx Position.

https://littlepennyberry-files-wordpress-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/littlepennyberry.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/IMG_3071.png?w=768&h=433

He likes how he towers over you. Not even in a dominant way, but more that his frame completely covers yours. Your body is practically buried by his, but in a good kind of way? It’s just whatever ground you‘re having sex on underneath you and him on top of you; you’re trapped in between, there‘s only him and it gives him a feeling of pride. He also loves kissing and softly biting your neck in that position.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

He is quite serious, probably even stiff the first few times you’re having sex. He will get comfortable though and then he‘s a total romantic.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Vincent is almost never completely shaved. He doesn’t have the time for it and even if he did he doesn't think of it as necessary. Nevertheless he’s still always clean down there, just a bit sweaty sometimes from the heat of the fire in the basement.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? romantic aspect, etc.)

Uh, yes? Just yes. Yes, sex is an intimate thing to him. Yes, he is a romantic.

While he overall views sex as something very intimate, his mask also plays a big role. He’s scared shitless of taking the mask off, but he also doesn’t want to wear it while you‘re making love. Besides the fact that it‘s quite impractical, it also makes him feel worthless. He’ll overthink and then believes you’re only having sex with him and want to be close to him or even want him at all when you don‘t have to put up with his face, that you don’t actually care for him and that he isn't good enough. He knows himself well enough though, so he takes it off before he can lose himself in those thoughts (this doesn’t make taking the mask off easier though). In conclusion he rather has sex with you when he is (as a side affect, but that doesn’t really make a difference) vulnerable and therefore sex really is something intimate to him.

J = Jack Off (masturbation headcanon)

Well, first of all...he thinks about sex fairly often. There are also quite a few pieces of his art that have a sexual touch. (Have you seen the couple on the couch in the wax house? They’re going at it!)

He doesn‘t jerk off whenever he thinks about something sexual, but he does jerk off quite often. When he does it he‘s downright filthy. Lies in his bed or preferably sits at his work bench stroking his member at first slow and then faster and faster, throwing his head back, groaning and hissing and then finishing all over his work bench with his eyes closed, imagining it was your body.

He might as well has a few photos and videos of you. Wether he took them with or without your permission is up to your imagination.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Voyeurism. While he does enjoy watching you pleasure yourself, he prefers watching or rather observing you while he fingers you. He’ll spread your legs and position himself between them so that he lies on his elbows, fingering you with one hand and holding you in place (as much as possible from that angle) with the other, his face right in front of your heat. This also gives him the perfect opportunity to have a taste too.

He also has a praise kink. Telling him not to stop? Oof. Telling him how good he makes you feel? Bigger oof. Telling him how pretty he looks? Biggest oof.

L = Location (favourite places to have sex)

He preferably has sex in the basement with you. On his work bench or really wherever, just not directly where he works. You can be as loud as you want, there is a lot of space and lots of opportunities for whatever-you-wanna-try. Plus the house is quite dirty and so is his bedroom and he doesn't want to be that kind of filthy.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Anything can be sexy to Vincent, it really just depends on his mood.

It might be simple, but seeing you naked is his biggest turn-on. I‘m talking completely bare and vulnerable. No towel because you just came out of the shower. No blanket because you’re in bed. No make-up. Nothing. Just you, you’re body being illuminated by the warm light of the candles in the basement. And don’t talk. For some reason it is incredibly sexy to him just taking you in, so pure and perfect. When he sees you like this he doesn't get horny, he just:

N = NO (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Anything verbal which is respectless and degrading. If you’re into humiliation, that‘s cool. He can spank you, whip you, do whatever you want, but he won’t call you names. Ever. If you call him names he’ll also probably cry.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Vincent loves eating you out. Your taste, your soft moans, you telling him how good it feels... It makes him proud and when he hears those sweet sounds leaving your mouth he forgets all his insecurities for the moment.

It took him a while to discover this though, since he is so insecure. (‘You seriously want that face between your legs?’)

He hasn’t had any experience, but that doesn’t mean that he’s doing a bad job! He knows your body (or the human body in general) well enough to know what will make you feel good. On top of that he’s a quick learner. For everything else he makes up with his enthusiasm.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

He’s rather slow, but still quite rough. He’s a big, strong guy after all.

Also: When it comes to who’s more dominant it really changes with his mood and the atmosphere. He likes hovering over you and trapping you underneath him, fucking you hard but teasingly slow. He likes to hear you whining, whimpering and telling him how good he feels inside of you. You look so beautiful when you stare up at him with big glassy eyes and rosy cheeks. Nevertheless he likes being submissive too, you straddling him, pinning his arms down and telling him what to do and what not to do. He likes being soft to you and he likes being rough to you. He likes you being soft to him and he likes you being rough to him too. He really doesn‘t have a preference.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Vincent doesn’t like quickies, they are almost a no-go. He likes to take his time, since it's something where he feels very vulnerable. Rushing through it isn’t satisfying for either of you in his opinion. He also feels like quickies lack passion and isn’t that what sex is all about?

Foreplay is also important to him. You start kissing him? He will get lost and he won't let you go. Not even for sex. Your having your romantic kiss now and you will have it a while longer. It doesn't matter how horny you are, you’ll have to be patient.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Absolutely! There’s basically nothing he wouldn't try, he just needs a bit of time “exploring“ whatever is new.

He also isn‘t actually disgusted by anything, whatever tools, body fluids or other things are involved. He might be a bit confused about some things you want to try out and isn't naturally turned on by it, but you can probably change his mind.

S = Stamina (how many rounds they can go for, how long they last…)

This totally depends on his mood, but even if it’s one round and no more he‘ll want to make sure you are satisfied. If you go for one round it‘s basically a lot of very intense foreplay, petting and all that, but less of penetration. More rounds means more penetrating sex, but will probably include some longer breaks in between.

T = Toy (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Nope. He knows they exist, but doesn’t bother to get to know more about it. He has two perfectly fine hands and now you, he‘s good.

If you want to introduce some toys to him though he’ll be interested and willing to try it out.

For some reason he really likes buttplugs, no matter if you use them or if he does.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He doesn’t tease you, at least not intentionally. When he feels like it, he touches, strokes and gropes you, but never because he wants to tease you. It often has the same effect as if he did though.

If you tease him...oh boy. If he doesn’t realize right away that you‘re doing it intentionally he’ll probably react super affectionate, in the sweetest way possible. Once he does realize it he’s confused as to how he should react and he is?? sad?? Like...why are you messing with his emotions like that? You can explain it to him, but he’ll probably never hop on the train and tease back or whatever.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make)

Isn‘t much of a talker during sex, but he does make some noise. He grunts and groans a lot. Whatever you do you’ll probably get a verbal reaction out of him. He surprisingly isn’t even trying to be quiet and isn’t ashamed of it either. He usually doesn’t talk and it’s as if he‘s letting it all out (Charlie Hoyt voice) f o r b a l a n c e.

W = Wild Card (a random headcanon/imagine for the character of your choice)

He loved your taste on his lips, the sound of your soft moans and needy whimpers in his ears, the feeling of your soft skins underneath his fingertips, even your smell. Yes, he loved your smell. The smell of your hair, the particular smell of your body, oh and he loved how you smelled there. He often wondered if this, the way he felt about you, was love or obsession. Probably both, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind because he knew you loved him too. And in your own way you were obsessed with him too. Ever since he‘d let you in, you had given your all to show him. And it had only made the feelings stronger, for the both of you. He placed a last light kiss to your heat before hovering over you again to feel your lips on his. The kiss was lazy, almost innocent and to him it felt like he was drowning in euphoria. With your eyelids only half open and a tired, loving smile on your lips you pulled him down to you. And there you two laid, lovers worn out with no energy left from hour-long love making, you comfortable on your back and he on top of you, with his face buried in the crook of your neck, your hand on the back of his head, you placed a kiss to his forehead. It was the last thing he felt before he fell asleep, just this once the first of you two.

X = X-Ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Let’s put it this way: It makes up for what god took away from him.

He’s above average length and very thick. Not big enough for an unrealistic way-over-the-top porno, but big enough to write a letter about it to your best friend if you know what I mean.

Y = Yearning (how high their sex drive is)

As mentioned earlier he thinks about sex a lot, so he’d always be down for it, but it isn’t a necessity. He’s horny quite often, but that doesn’t mean he needs to get off whenever he’s horny. He can ignore it or take care of it himself, no stress. Unless you want to have sex whenever he’s horny of course, then he‘d also be more than happy.

Z = ZZZ (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He‘s relaxed but won’t fall asleep for a while, so if you do he probably just stares at you and admires you (he even draws you sometimes, but only if it doesn’t ruin the moment).

#vincent sinclair #vincent sinclair x reader #vincent sinclair imagine #house of wax #house of wax 2005 #house of wax imagine #slasher #slasher x reader #slasher imagine #slasher content #slasher community

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cerebralcentari · 4 years ago

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Chapter 11 & 12

I had to take a little break from posting because I suffered a loss in the family (a really close family member).

Reading chapter 11, I began to see how the different forms of Art Nouveau. The period of the Art Nouveau movement flourished between 1890 and 1910. The different forms of Art Nouveau and the reasons they differ depends on the country. In the Asian countries the ukiyo-e became a prominent form of Art Nouveau. Art Nouveau made it to Paris; Jules Cheret and Eugene Grasset are listed as importation in this transition. The Art Nouveau movement made it to England primarily with the use of graphic design and illustration. Art Nouveau also made it to America by way of British and French graphic art. There were two forms of Art Nouveau that existed in the Netherlands called Nieuwe Kunst and Batikt. Nieuwe Kunst spanned from 1892 to 1906 and is described as more playful and diverse. Germany also had a form of Art Nouveau called Jugendstil.

Chapter 12 details the design in the turn of the century. In this chapter, readers are introduced to the Vienna Secession style of design. This style is the style that bridged the 19th century with the 20th century. Areas of change in the 20th century include designs for architecture, graphic, & typography. The text show that the worlds first underground electric rail system opened in London. This railway system was instrumental in visual design by being an area of free publicity to people that used the public transportation system.

**Notes**

It appears as though women was inspiration to many artist that contributed to the Art Nouveau. Western societies became engulfed with all things Japanese. The term for this mania is Japonsime. The spread of Art Nouveau became possible through advances in transportation and communication.

**People & Entities**

Hishikawa Moronobu: is the first master of the ukiyo-e print.

Kitagawa Utamaro: is called the supreme poet of Japanese Print. He specialized in the portraying nature and human expression such as insects, bird, flowers, and women of great beauty. He went to jail for his pettiness because he depicted military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi wife and concubines. hahhahaha so far he’s my fave of chapter 9.

Jules Cheret: Jules has many accomplishments. The reason for his mention here is because I think it is amazing that he completed his work directly on lithographic stones. He was also a man in support of feminism. He did this with his work by showing a new role for women. According to the text, these women are self assured, happy, wearing low cut dresses, dancing, drinking wine, and publicly smoking. He was named the Father of Women Liberation.

Eugene Grasset: Was inspired by medieval art and Asian art. He developed what is called the coloring book style of art. Grasset is also very important in spread of Art Nouveau in America.

Aubrey Beardsley: Contribution includes work using a vibrant black and white art. This black and white art was coined “The Black Spot”. He continued his work despite being hated on by William Morris. He later was named Art Editor for the Yellow Book magazine.

Alphonse Mucha :is a very important person in the wide spread of Art Nouveau. He created art with women as the focus surrounded by stylized forms of plants and flowers. The women that is portrayed in Mucha’s work are what I call every kind of woman (basically a woman figure without specifics except European.)

Van de Velde: was an architect, painter, designer, and educator. His talents and accomplishments collectively established prominence to be mentioned in the text. Van de Velde used the human imagination to drive the points of his work. This is because he used abstract expression in his work. Instead of telling about the product or showing someone using the product, he would use abstract expressions to deliver messages to viewers. There is a quote from the text that stood out to me from Van de Velde that influenced the development of 20th century architecture and design theory: “He taught that all branches of art-from painting to graphic design, from industrial design to sculpture--share a common language of form and are of equal importance to the human community.”

Glasgow school: consisted of a group of four designers: J Herbert McNair, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and Margaret and Frances Mcdonald. The group collaborated on a number of designs , one of my favorites is the poster for Glasgow school. Though the four are all designers, they all have specialty areas in design such as Mackintosh specializing in the design of objects, chairs, and interiors.

The Kunstlerhaus, the Viennese Creative Artist Association: The group consisted of Painter Gustav Klimt, architects Joseph Maria Olbrich and Josef Hoffman, and artist-designer Koloman Moser.

Ver Sacrum: is a magazine that displayed many designs by various artist. This is the magazine that businesses, writers, and artist alike wanted to be in.

Peter Behrens: was an artist, architect, and designer that sought typographic reform. He is also known as “the first industrial designer”. According to the text Behren believed that after architecture, typography provided “the most characteristic picture of a period, and the strongest testimonial of the spiritual progress and development of a people. (this last quote sums up the evolution of the alphabet and writing. I including this from the text because it sums up the first few chapters in a quote). Some of the designs Behren was responsible for designing include teakettles, fans, street-lamps, and industrial products.

Edward Johnston: is a calligrapher and teacher that designed a version of the Railway system in London that was established in 1890. His version of the stations signage and logo are still in use today.

Designs:

Salon Des Cent: I love the contrasting colors. The warm colors on the woman pop out more against the cool colors in the background. I also love the use of thick bold lines.

Tournee du Chat Noir dr Rodolphe Salis: I love this design. The use of warm colors allows this poster to stand out. The cat covers most of the left side of the poster extending from the top and the bottom of the poster.

General Electric trademark: I had to include this design mostly because of familiarity and the fact that I now understand why it was designed the way it is. I now know the styling of the design.

Poster for the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts: the design of this poster is beautiful. It gives a sense of direction by allowing white space to exist surrounding the figure. The figure is in a red color which grabs the viewer attention and the image is balanced. I think I love it because it seems as though the figure is becoming or is in touch with his/her higher self.

Poster for the thirteenth Vienna Secession exhibition: this poster is clearly inspired by the Poster for the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. I love the use of the cool colors as accent colors in the warm colors and the fact that there are three figures. It creates a triangular illusion with the use of the three figures in the middle of the circle.

Poster for Fledermaus: This design was created by Berthold Loffler. Loffler did a great job with this. The use of colors pop on a black background, the warm colors red and yellow are attention grabbers, and the white mask is contrasting with the black background for its attention grabbing power.

Muthesius: believed in simplicity and exactness with the use of machinery. He wanted to elimiate all ornaments. I mentioned him because I wholeheartedly agree even though I also agree with Van de Veldes vision of expression.

AEG Electric Lamp Poster: The geometric elements in this poster makes this design stunning. The light bulbs is centered at the top of the triangle and appears to be emitting light in the form of small circles that are contained by the triangle as if it is a lamp shade. The light is flowing in the direction towards the text of the poster, driving the viewers attention to the name of the product. Brilliant!

**Religion** (You know I have to include that religion portion because the book tells it in the nicest way.)

Quoting from the text: Fearful of the potential impact of European colonial expansion and Christian Missionaries (take overs; Massacres) on Japanese culture, the shogun issued three decrees in the 1630′s excluding foreigners and adopted an official policy of national seclusion.

The above fears of the Asian people came to fruition. The text speaks of the Asian artifacts that were taken and place as trophies in museums.

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scottishoctopus · 5 years ago

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Not So Heartless After All.

Chapter 6: The Aftermath.

Warning!

*Implied past child abuse and mature language included in this chapter!*

~ ~ ~

"And I thought the Darkened Thorn was indestructible."

A relaxed voice mumbled to themselves. A voice belonging to a man who was stood by watching the crew of the Darkened Thorn climb abroad his ship, the Poison Grail. They all looked to be shaking terribly, probably from spending too much time either trying to find land or attempting to get passing ships to notice them. They seemed to be starving too, as their faces were pale as a ghost and their bodies looked thin. They must of spent maybe a couple of days on the boats that they had evacuated to, the man assumed as he watched the scene unfold before him.

The tall man appeared to be a Privateer, as he was dressed in a navy blue uniform with a golden trim lining his long coat and wrists, the front of his coat was patterned with yet more gold lining. This man certainly gave off a sense of authority and nobility around him with his sense of style.

He wore a crimson red vest on top of his pristine white undershirt, though you could barely see that as his coat was buttoned up tight so he could keep as much warmth as possible from the cold breeze from the ocean. Strapped at his waist was an elegant sword, the handle made out of bronze and silver that were decorated with black and golden stripes. Certainly a work of art and luxury made by an extremely skilled blacksmith.

On top of his head was also a navy hat but was decorated with beautiful angelic feathers on top. His face was young and smooth, looking to be in his early thirties. He had jet black hair neatly hidden underneath his hat, and had brown eyes shining with disapproval. He had no desire to wear a wig like so many that he sailed with, he liked having his hair out in the open blowing with the gentle wind.

His elegant stance shifted slightly as he spotted the captain of the Darkened Thorn, well not a captain anymore so to speak. Justin Daniels turned to face the man, and his furious expression that was on his rat-like face had softened slightly as he approached him. Transforming into annoyance.

"Lachlan Houghton, I must thank you for aiding me for once in your life." Justin sarcastically greeted, not showing any gratitude for his saviour as he crossed his arms together like a bratty child and stepped in front of the man, who rolled his eyes in response.

He had dealt with this man before.

Many times.

"That is Privateer Houghton, Mister Daniels. I honestly hoped I wouldn't have to be in a situation like this." Lachlan corrected Justin, putting a stern emphasis on his title and moving his hands together behind his back, pale fingers connecting with each other. Justin immediately frowned with jealousy at the response, eyes gleaming with hate as his fingers around his elbows dug into his damp clothing.

"And that is Captain Daniels." Justin quickly replied. Nearly cutting off the man mid sentence. Replicating the same stern manner that Lachlan had just done now except with a dark smile that was wanting to rise onto his wrinkled face.

"I don't see your ship, captain." The Privateer calmly smiled back, pretending to look over Justin's shoulder as if he was searching for the Darkened Thorn. The smile that was growing on Justin's face had vanished in an instant, and Lachlan could swore that the dark brown eyes on the older man's face had twitched in disgust.

"So, Cutler Beckett decided to promote you and give you a new ship then? After your foolish move in the Bahamas." Justin spat, completely ignoring the reply like it had never happened, examining Lachlan's neat state and the uniform he proudly wore. The captain of the Darkened Thorn was rather in a messy state, some how he had lost the wig and hat he wore on his head and now his blond grey hair was untidy and wet strands of it stuck to his wrinkled forehead. Making him look like he had been involved in an intense bar fight on Tortuga.

"Were it not for my...foolish move, those diseased pirates would of sunk your ship and you along with it. I managed to drive those filth off the islands when I rescued you." Lachlan firmly replied, a large trace of boredom in his sentence.

"I was handling the situation."

"It did not look like that from my point of view."

Lachlan had known Justin for a number of unfortunate years. And never did he find anyone so big headed and selfish like Justin. The two were almost always giving each other glares when they were in a room together, and were certainly always trying to piss off the other. Not only that, but they had always wanted the position to be next to Beckett as it was a very rewarding job and they would be in command of multiple other ships. Both men wanted the upper hand, and were willing to fight each other to the death if that opportunity would ever happen.

"Did you have any casualties?" Lachlan questioned and glanced at the crew members of the Darkened Thorn. One of the men just wouldn't move, even if somebody had tried to get him to his feet. He was sat down against the railing. Staring at the floor. One would immediately think that the man had no life in his eyes. He looked pretty familiar in Lachlan's eyes, but wasn't able to properly recognise him as two other crew members had stepped in front of the sitting man and unintentionally blocked the sight of him from Lachlan.

"Only a few insignificant men. That doesn't matter though. Are you headed to Port Royal?" Justin demanded and caught Lachlan's attention once more. The Privateer angrily frowned at the uncaring dismissal of the lives that were unfortunately lost, mouth twitching into a subtle snarl.

"Indeed I am. Cutler Beckett is going to assign me to a important task." He took great pleasure in the fact that Justin furrowed his brows and gritted his teeth together once again. Yet another jealous expression now fixed on Justin's face. Cutler Beckett hadn't spoken or mentioned an important task, he had only some vital news to share to his work partner. Lachlan just enjoyed seeing the jealously on Justin's rat-like face.

"And what task would that be?"

"It's not your concern, so I don't know why you must insist on sticking your head in." The crew members of the sunken ship instantly turned their pale faces towards Lachlan in deathly shock, their jaws dropping almost to the deck and their expressions on their faces looked like they were screaming, without voices, to tell him to cease talking immediately.

As far as Lachlan knew, it was never a good idea to be angering this man. But he didn't fear him, he had met people that would make anyone's knees buckle in fright and he was much more taller than Justin anyway. He had joyfully angered this man multiple times before, although definitely not in front of the nearby men that served Justin.

Justin immediately became bright red in the face, his hands transforming into tight fists that were both threatening to connect with the Privateer's soft face. Lachlan could imagine steam hissing out the man's like a boiling contraption. The man had surprisingly held that urge back however, and took a step backwards. Giving the Privateer one last glare, he marched angrily out of sight, his fists held steadily at the sides of his body. It seemed like Justin didn't want to make a scene today which Lachlan was thankful for.

The young man sighed and rubbed his forehead. He was slightly relieved that he didn't get another bloody nose from Justin again, that had happened too many times to count and Lachlan was surprised that he hadn't gotten a crooked nose so far.

Turning his eyes to the still man on the floor nearby, he began to walk towards the sat figure and eventually he finally recognised him to be the first mate on the Darkened Thorn.

Spencer.

They had met a couple times in the past before, only when Lachlan was unfortunately stationed upon Justin's ship by Cutler Beckett's order. But he found that he was quite respectful of the first mate, always wondering how he could cope for many years with the most obnoxious person that had ever sailed the seas.

Lachlan made his way over to the still form of Spencer, two of his crew members silently moving aside from the sitting man who they had unsuccessfully tried to see what was possibly wrong with him. His oak brown eyes gazed at Spencer for a brief moment before turning towards the men standing beside him.

"I will take it from here. Continue with your duties, you two." Lachlan assured them, and they quickly nodded and walked off with a determined pace, hurrying back to their work.

"Spencer?" The jet black haired man crouched down to his level and placed his right hand on the left of the silent man's shoulder. Spencer blinked a couple of times, his emerald eyes full of confusion and horror. His head darted around the ship, apparently he hadn't realised where he was sat. His panicked state calmed when his eyes had focused on Lachlan now, he held his face in his hands, rubbing at his eyes and forehead.

"How about we head on into my quarters and you can tell me what has happened?" Lachlan offered and Spencer's intense stare mostly looked relieved now, as if he wasn't expecting him to say that. He nodded carefully and used the railing as support to pull himself to his feet. Lachlan gave him a small smile and led Spencer into the captain's cabin.

The room was spotless and pretty large, as if it reflected Lachlan himself. With the many books on the shelves all neatly arranged alphabetically, all written about myths and sea creatures. The man had a fascination with the ocean life, even having a painting of a beautiful sunset with magnificent colours of blues complimenting the sea hung right next to the doors.

There was a large wooden desk in front of the windows, with neatly stacked papers with a paper weight holding the stack down. There was a vintage tea set on a tray opposite the papers, seeming to be made from perhaps Japan. The porcelain was a simple charcoal but decorated with Japanese flowers and patterns, there was only four tea cups but was in the same style.

Next to the desk and sat in the corner of the quarters, was an extremely gigantic painted portrait of Lachlan himself, stood high and mighty on top of his ship. And around him was multiple burning vessels in front of a town full of life and greenery. The painting depicted the day where Lachlan had managed to drive the terrified pirates from one of the islands in the Bahamas that they attempted to invade. Lachlan found that to be one of his most important achievements in his life so far and decided that it should be painted with him in it too.

He was inspired to do just that after one time when he was having tea with his superior and friend Cutler Beckett. The man had shown a painting of himself proudly standing upon a large globe with the East India Trading Company flag flowing right behind him. Cutler Beckett had shared the name of the person who had painted the masterpiece and Lachlan eventually contacted the artist and kindly asked if he could paint a similar picture, but of course of that day Lachlan had imprinted in his mind.

Resting by the papers, was a sleeping cat with it's fur dark as the deepest night. Lachlan firmly believed that having a cat abroad a ship meant good luck so long as the pet was well fed and looked after. The cat was named after Lachlan's father who was Thomas Houghton, certainly a common name for a cat but Lachlan couldn't care less about an unimportant deed such as naming a animal.

Many of his work partners, for example Justin, had joked at his belief, commenting that it was only superstition and that pets didn't belong on ships, but Lachlan ignored them. Whether or whether not the myth was real, he enjoyed having such an adorable creature abroad his ship.

Lachlan guided the suffering man to a soft seat in front of the desk, letting him sit down in it. Spencer held his head in his hands and rubbed at his forehead. He looked exhausted, and Lachlan wondered why his eyes looked so puffy and bright red. He obviously had been crying for a while, but what for?

Because of the deaths? Maybe Spencer was quite close to his crew members and that was why he looked so heartbroken, Lachlan had wondered.

Instead of seating himself in his chair that was tucked into his desk, Lachlan leaned against it as if he was almost sitting on the top of it. He rested his hands on the wooden surface on both his sides and stared hard at Spencer.

"Now, what happened then?" He questioned.

Spencer took a few minutes to reply, extremely silent but Lachlan was certainly not impatient. He wasn't going to sigh and roll his eyes whilst tapping his foot against the floor like a disappointed parent irritated at their misbehaving child, nor tap his fingers against the desk behind him. Lachlan would give all the time Spencer needed to reply, Spencer looked rugged and seemed as all the life in his eyes had vanished like a corpse.

Spencer slowly looked up, a tired sigh escaping his throat as he removed his trembling fingers from his face and placed them on his knees.

"T- The ship crashed into some rocks, we were in a storm and we couldn't see any land or ships," He managed to mutter, although it sounded more like a whisper. As if he was reliving the event through his eyes right at this very minute, his emerald eyes looked haunted as he stuttered his words.

"We evacuated everyone to the boats, but..." Spencer attempted to explain, his voice quiet and sounding like it could break at any moment, and then suddenly stopped as his eyes widened slightly like he had seen somebody get shot right in front of him. His skin looked pale now, as if he was nauseous, sea sick.

"His niece. She...she didn't make it." Spencer looked as if he had a lump in his throat as he tried his hardest to not break down in tears. His eyes were glistening and his hands were beginning to shiver like he was standing out in the cold without any warm clothing on. As soon as he mentioned the niece of Justin Daniels, he immediately lowered his head and closed his eyes. Lachlan noticed that Spencer was trying to fight the urge of crying, and he immediately came closer to the suffering man and placed a comforting hand on the man's shoulder.

Lachlan had briefly seen the niece of Justin that one time where he was ordered to stay upon the Darkened Thorn. He had noticed her one time below deck with a young boy around her age who was passing her a slice of bread for her to eat. Lachlan didn't know much about her but she seemed very quiet and he rarely ever saw her above deck which was certainly strange. He then had assumed that she probably didn't like being abroad ships so she spent her time below deck then.

He could never really have the time to know much about her. She was most likely like her uncle anyway, irritating and insufferable. Of course, Lachlan immediately regretted to have thought of that just now. As no child should of have to perish so early in their life.

"That is...unfortunate. How did it happen?" Lachlan further asked, desperately hoping at least she didn't have to go through a most painful death. He loathed it when children had unfortunately died. Even if they were stubborn or selfish, they could change into a much better person when they got older as the years went by, children like them could of had a second chance at life.

"Captain Daniels ordered for us to leave her on the ship." Spencer instantly spat at the question, immediately after Lachlan had finished talking.

The Privateer felt confused now with the reply. He knew Justin could be cold blooded and harsher than most people but was he capable of such a sick act as leaving his niece abroad his sinking ship? Lachlan didn't want to believe that but Justin was a very horrid person so maybe he could of done that.

"That doesn't make any sense, I thought he loved her--" Lachlan began but was cut off by Spencer quickly staring at him with his emerald eyes and opening his mouth to speak.

"He abused her." His eyes were dark now, eyes glistening with tears and his hands trembling with anger now. All trace of sadness disappeared as he revealed his words with no shaky voice now. Lachlan's eyes widened in shock at the revelation. He wanted to say something back but his voice had gone silent and he closed his mouth shut.

Lachlan stood himself up and removed his and from Spencer's shoulder, the man's words were repeating over and over in his head as he tried to let them sink in.

He didn't think Justin was that far gone.

All that time Lachlan was stationed upon the Darkened Thorn and Justin's niece was probably being kicked and spat upon below the wooden floors of the ship. And he didn't know those sickening events was occurring right below his feet? It would explain when he caught a glimpse of her, she had sunken eyes and swollen cheeks. He just assumed she was possibly sick with a disease or that she simply didn't enjoy sailing.

Lachlan sighed and turned back towards Spencer, his brown eyes full of sympathy for him. The first mate must of been close to her for him to be feeling this way.

"I offer my condolences. But at least she is now finally free." Lachlan apologised, his voice mildly broken as he lowered his head towards the floor as if he were paying respect to a deceased person buried in a grave.

"Free?" Spencer immediately stood up from his seat, nearly tipping over the chair by how fast he got back on his feet. Lachlan's eyebrows raised to the point of not returning as he met Spencer's intense stare. His eyes were dark as Justin's, and his voice now angered, as if Lachlan had intentionally insulted him. The Privateer knew he wasn't the best for coming to for advice but he definitely knew he wasn't that bad at giving it.

"What do you mean by that?" Spencer demanded as he approached Lachlan with an intense march. All traces that he was grieving had disappeared like a flick of a hand, now there was only fury as he got up close to Lachlan. The man took a step backwards as he nearly stood in front of him, chests nearly touching. Lachlan felt like Justin was stood intimidatingly before him right now, but it wasn't Justin. It was Spencer, and he had never seen this man look so provoked before!

"I did not mean to anger you, I was apologising for your loss--" Lachlan attempted to explain calmly but Spencer had yet again cut him off. Lachlan really hated it when people did that.

"Bullshit, what did you mean by that?" Spencer snapped with another demand, Lachlan raised his hands up like a child who was caught stealing a piece of fruit, wanting to show that he didn't mean any harm by his words. Spencer backed off slightly but he continued to be furious with the Privateer, his fingers gripping the palms of both hands.

"What I meant is that she has gone through much horror and sadness but now she is finally free of that, and she can live on happily in the afterlife." Lachlan expressed, really hoping that the first mate could see that he didn't mean to provoke him. He made sure that he had a honest expression on his face. Lachlan attempted to place his hand on Spencer's shoulder so that it would make comfort but the man brushed it off. The fury in the man's eyes had softened and was beginning to shine with yet more tears.

"This wasn't supposed to happen!" He croaked out, his voice entirely now broken now. "I was going to leave that bastard Justin, and take her with me so she could have a better life, a proper life!" Spencer rubbed his right arm across his nose and puffy cheeks, removing trails of tears that leaked from his eyes.

"She never deserved to be whipped at, beaten at, burned or- or- or..." Spencer struggled to speak any further as his emotions became heavy and full of heartbreak. He couldn't stand any longer, his legs wobbling and dropped to his knees like life had defeated him and took everything he once had. Beginning to sob and hold his head in his hands. Lachlan quickly lowered to his level and pulled the crying man into a comforting hug, placing a hand on his moving head and the other softly on the man's back. His cries were muffled now as he buried his face in the Privateer's chest, Lachlan could feel his coat becoming damp now.

"I could of saved her! She's dead because of me! It's my fault!" Spencer bawled and hit his hand against Lachlan's chest as if he didn't want to be in this position right now. His body moved with his sobs and attempted to move out of Lachlan's grip but failed as Lachlan held him back. Spencer eventually calmed down by holding the man's arms tightly like he was holding onto dear life. He was overwhelmed with emotions and all Lachlan could do was hold the suffering man against him.

~ ~ ~

Spencer could hear sobbing. And he immediately panicked as he stumbled down the stairs and followed the soft crying. A pit grew in his stomach and he could taste bile in his throat as a horrid smell reached his nose, a smell that had told him that skin had been burnt. He rushed throughout the deck, the sickening smell becoming stronger now. Eventually turning a corner to see a red haired child lying on the ground with her knees tucked in her chest. Her shirt missing and lay tossed on the wooden floor nearby, exposing her pale sickly flesh.

Her back was horrifically covered with red fiery welts that trailed from her ribs and upwards on her spine. There were not so visible white streaks across her back, certainly scars from past injuries. The red welts look like they had been marked with a belt, as there was a purple imprint of something that was shaped as a buckle embedded in the child's skin.

The young girl was softly whimpering, her exposed back facing Spencer, she looked as if she was holding something in her arms but the first mate couldn't see what it was. He rushed over to her and crouched down to the small malnourished child, seeing that she was trying as best as she could to cover as much of her body as possible. Her left arm hiding her right from the man's sight.

Her eyes were scrunched tight, tears uncontrollably falling freely down her dirty cheeks.

Spencer felt his heart beginning to snap in two as he covered his mouth in horror, silencing a gasp of shock as he tried to process what the actual hell had happened to her. He knew instantly that it was Justin. There was no doubt about it. The person who did this to her was him, and only him. Although this time, it appeared that he was much more violent in the punishment.

Spencer had unfortunately been forced to go off duty much to his continuing protests involving a family matter, and hadn't been upon the Darkened Thorn in only two days. And this was what he came back to?!

Only two days and all hell broke loose!

He had thought that the cabin boy, Michael Stephenson had took over caring for her! He loved her as much as Spencer did. Now that he had thought of him, the first mate hadn't seen the boy since he stepped back on the ship.

Where was he?

"Child? It's me, Spencer," The man gently placed his hand on top of her small head and she slowly opened her eyes. As if she was frightened to even open them. Her teal blue eyes were wide and full of terror, tears still falling freely from the corners of her eyes. Her breathing was mostly full of convulsive gasps as it took a few moments for her to recognise Spencer at last.

"It's alright, it's me, Spencer." He repeated again. He hoped that she didn't feel betrayed by his leaving the other day. Spencer told her that he was being forced to leave only for a few days, so he was praying that she hadn't forgotten. His heart always dropped to the abyss when her expression was full of betrayal and that she had felt lied to, like he had broken his promise of returning to her.

The child softly nodded, using her left arm to quickly rub away her tears, instantly covering her right again before Spencer had the chance to examine it.

"W- welcome back, s- sir." She greeted with a failed attempt of looking like she was glad or pleased with his return. Spencer shook his head and gently stroked the side the red haired girl's face softly. Offering a small smile to her.

"How many times must I have to tell you that you don't need to call me sir?" He asked but instantly regretted it as his voice sounded annoyed slightly. She didn't seem to feel anything by his hand on her face, she just frowned and attempted to lift herself into a sitting position. Spencer immediately helped her, being careful to not touch any of her sore and injured marks on her flesh. The child winced slightly but there was no sign of her discomfort.

"I'm sorry." She apologised quietly, almost whispering, still not meeting Spencer's sympathetic gaze. He was really worried by how much she was really trying to cover up her right arm from his sight. He could still smell the burning flesh and was convinced that it was coming from her.

"You don't need to apologise for anything. You haven't done anything wrong." Spencer insisted, and this time she actually did connect her eyes to him now and she smiled. It was a small smile, but for the first time in a while Spencer could see some life in her cheeks. He desperately didn't want to let that smile leave for possibly the last time, but he knew that he had to take a look at her arm to see what Justin had done to her.

"May I see your arm, child? Please?" Spencer softly asked as the smile unfortunately fell from her thin face and she immediately looked back to the floor. Glancing at her right arm with guilt and disappointment. The child hesitated for a couple moments but slowly moved her left arm that covered the right. Spencer had nearly fainted by the sight of it, the stench of burnt flesh was stronger than ever now.

Marked, below her hand and on her forearm was a large "P" branded into her flesh. It was burning to the touch as Spencer carefully examined it with the tip of his fingers. The child's entire arm was a horrific red, swelling around the mark. The "P" was bleeding slightly and leaking down the curves of her thin arm.

Spencer had to hold his mouth again in utter disgust. Justin had branded her as a pirate! His own niece! But why?!

"Uncle says that the P means that I am a parasite," The child softly smiled again, as if she wasn't bothered by the fact that Justin had scarred her skin with a letter that was given only to vile and dishonest men! Either that or she had just naturally accepted it as the next form of punishment for her if she didn't fulfill Justin's orders.

"Why did he do this to you?" Spencer coldly questioned, trying to hold back his fury so that he wouldn't upset the small girl. He wanted to pounce on Justin, to rip his throat out with his own teeth like a lunatic!

"Michael was trying to help me into a boat in the night," She explained, covering up her right arm again like before. "It was my fault we got caught by Uncle. And then he put this on me as punishment." She finished with a frown entirely full of regret. Her eyes looking like a little lost puppy.

Spencer felt panic invade him again, as well as confusion as the child looked painfully at the floor. If Michael wasn't here, then that meant...

"What happened to the boy?" Spencer's eyebrows raised, and his fingers dug into his palms. He was prepared for the worst. The child looked sorrowful and dejected, closing her eyes once more as if she was trying to recall what had happened. Her teal blue eyes opened after one silent minute had passed, and her expression changed to despair.

"Uncle threw him off the ship..."

Spencer immediately got up to his feet, fiery fury consuming him as he suddenly swung a tightly closed fist at the wooden wall. He roared in rage and the child quickly turned her head way from him. Shutting her eyes and flinching when she heard his hand make contact with the wall.

The first mate was pissed. Livid. Exasperated as he thought of Justin. His heart was beating rapidly with anger, he had enough.

Justin had beaten this child too much for Spencer to handle and now he had basically sentenced another child to death by throwing the boy off the ship! He couldn't let this terror and sin happen any longer, he might lose his sanity he lived this way! Spencer was going to save her like he had planned with Michael, take her far away from Justin's hands and wrath and love her like he were her father.

Spencer turned back to her and approached the red haired child again, she was shivering and he felt regret for scaring her. She most likely thought he was going to hurt her just then. Reaching into his coat, he brought out half of a loaf of bread and held it in his hands for her to take.

"Here eat this, child. I am sorry." She carefully moved her head back towards him and her teal blue eyes gazed at it with a smile that had shown no emotion. No delight. She hesitated to take it at first, drawing back her left hand a couple times. But she finally did take it, and brought the bread up to her lips. Taking a small bite and chewing it slowly.

There was still no pleasure upon her face and that disappointed Spencer, but he knew it wasn't going to be that easy to successfully heal her and get the past behind them.

"I am going to get you out of here, child. I will not let anything happen to you ever again." He vowed and sat down next to her, stroking her head and making sure that she was properly eating. The red haired girl didn't react to his words and continued to take small bites, a heartbreaking frown on her lips.

And by this, Spencer knew that she didn't believe him. And that made his heart grow cold with misery.

~ ~ ~

It was probably ten minutes that had passed as Spencer's cries had eventually silenced, though his head was still buried in Lachlan's chest. Lachlan's knees felt numb by the time Spencer had finished, but he knew that the man was distraught and was likely not to recover from it for a while now.

Thomas, who had awakened earlier prior to the shouting, had jumped off the desk and sat right next to Spencer. His furry little head resting on the man's knees, the cat seemed to sense Spencer's despair and Lachlan was grateful for the cat to come over. Spencer sniffed and let go of the Privateer whilst he also removed his own hands from the man's arms, rubbing his fingers at his eyes and wiping the remaining tears away. His eyes still looked puffy as he held his head, he likely had a headache now, Lachlan had thought.

"You should get some rest, Spencer. There should be a hammock down below for you to take." Lachlan offered, standing up and helping the first mate to his feet. Spencer had silently nodded in return, heading towards the door so he could leave. He paused before opening it.

"Thank you."

Lachlan nodded his head towards Spencer, a gentle smile rising on the Privateer's face as he watched Spencer exit the quarters. Turning away, he was about to pick up Thomas so that he could place him upon the desk when he heard the door open again. There was a voice quietly muttering. "Excuse me, sorry." Before footsteps were heard, and the first mate abroad Lachlan's ship, the Poison Grail, Aaron had entered.

He was a young man in his early twenties, dressed in a navy uniform with golden trims, typical with anyone who worked for the East India Trading Company. He wore a white wig like many others.

"Sir. We have arrived at Port Royal at last!" Aaron divulged with a relieved smile. He seemed to be pretty pleased that they had finally gotten to their destination. Lachlan wondered if it had anything to do with Justin on board his ship.

Nevertheless, Lachlan smiled and followed his first mate out from his quarters, Thomas trotting excitedly behind him.

~ ~ ~

The Poison Grail was heading towards the peaceful and beautiful town of Port Royal, the view of the life coming closer as the ship was sailing to it.

Lachlan stepped out of his quarters, holding the door open for his cat to follow. He instantly frowned when he spotted Justin Daniels leaning on the railing of his ship, his expression full of delight as he had finally arrived at his destination. The Privateer was quickly angered by the awful smile on Justin's face as he was reminded of the harsh things he had done in the past, but kept calm. Focusing his stare on the growing town nearby.

Walking up close to the railing, he smirked with joy as he spotted the HMS Endeavour floating in the town nearby. He knew it was Cutler Beckett's ship from the brown and golden wood that kept the ship together.

The Poison Grail was quite similar to that ship.

The similarities were of course the brown and gold wood, a total of seventy five cannons armed on the sides, less than the HMS Endeavour but still capable of created mass destruction. And large billowing sails with the masts. However, Lachlan proudly had the United Kingdom flag perched on the back of his ship along with an EITC flag that was next to it just like the Endeavour.

Lachlan had been rewarded with the ship by Cutler Beckett himself not only for his outstanding loyalty and brutal defense for the EITC, but for of course, that achievement Lachlan had always been so proud of.

"So I see you've still got this parasite around." A disgusted voice mocked at Lachlan, cutting the man out of his pleasing thoughts. The Privateer turned to face the man, who was unsurprisingly Justin, who was glaring knives at Thomas who hissed at the man in response.

"That's correct, Mister Daniels." Lachlan frowned, and crossed his arms as he faced the older man. Justin had seemed to still be furious about the whole losing his ship situation and immediately became bright red in the face. Lachlan began softly smiling with pleasure as he stared at the man's dark eyes.

The Privateer noticed that Justin's knuckles were dangerously white now as both his hands had transformed into fists and he knew that was a bad sign. He chuckled and stepped closer to the man.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, it would be a shame for Cutler Beckett to know that you attacked one of his most successful work partners." Lachlan threatened and stepped back after Justin let out an irritated growl of pure rage, he forced his hands open and could only glare at Lachlan as he walked off with the most smug grin on his face.

Lachlan could feel the hate radiating from that man even as he walked off to find his first mate.

He really enjoyed angering that man.

~ ~ ~

Here is the next chapter finally!

There is some more scenes of Justin in this one because I wanna make him a gigantic asshole who loves nothing more than making everyone hate him. So if you hate him, then that means that I've done my job! xD

So yeah, Spencer is gonna be pretty upset for a while but he is important to the plot so it's not like I'm dumping that guy off into the sidelines. There's another flashback in this fic, I really love flashbacks, and it just explains what kind of hell Spencer and Diana have been through and why Spencer wasn't present when Justin threw Michael off board. There will be plenty of more flashbacks about the past which should clear up plenty of questions.

Each chapter should be focusing on Diana's or Davy's POV for one chapter and either Spencer or Lachlan's POV for another so that should be good! Beckett should be appearing after the next chapter, and he's gonna be himself obviously. I'm thinking about having two canon character appearances that live in Port Royal and I think you know which two I'm talking about.

Hint: They both have the same last name and are related!

Next chapter should be back on the Flying Dutchman!

#davy jones #pirates of the caribbean #bill nighy #not so heartless after all #fan character #can't wait to start writing the next one #make sure to leave a review #i love other people's thoughts on my work!

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aprilskyforever · 5 years ago

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tagged by @oertendahlii to answer her 10 questions, write 10 new ones and tag 10 people! not sure if i’ll tag 10 but we’ll see. the questions i got:

1. Favourite mineral or rock, if you have one, if not: birthstone? - i’m weak for rose quartz. just pink and lovely.

2. What was the last movie or tv show/series you watched and what did you think about it? - wild (2014) the other day. not my first time, but it had been a while since last time and i just got this urge to rewatch it because i love it. it inspires me. i think it’s wonderfully built; told. i love the cinematography, the actors, it all feels so real and even if i’ve lived far from a similar life to cheryl strayed i still see myself in her. don’t know why.

3. Favourite jam? - god, all of them? maybe not cherry. but today i’ll actually say black currant, it’s been so long since i had some and we used to cook it at home when i was young. those bushes don’t give much berries anymore, sadly.

4. Do you prefer deciduous or coniferous forests? Or another kind of forest? - mixed, baybeee! they’re both beautiful in their own ways but as long as my forest has bilberry bushes and that earthy, lovely smell, i’m down.

5. Is there any song/movie/tv show that reminds you of a time in your life that you miss sometimes? - the beatles’ albums revolver and sgt pepper’s lonely hearts club band were introduced to be during a writing camp in summer of 2011, and though i knew about beatles before and had been to that camp the year before, those albums became so heavily associated with that year and summer, and man that was a good summer for me.. i made so many new friends, i had my first kiss, i didn’t worry too much about stuff.

6. Do you prefer restaurants or cafés, and why? - cafés actually, i think. more relaxed, you can get away with ordering just a drink and still be there for hours if it’s not too crowded. i love restaurants but hanging out at a café with a friend and catching up, it feels like being home.

7. What would be the perfect picture (for you) for your birth month in a calendar? - a sprouting forest with a wood anemone floorbed.

8. Favourite instrument to listen to? - don’t think i have a favourite, as long as it’s played well most things sound fine.

9. Have you got any favourite motivational quote(s) or lyrics? If not, any other quote(s) you like? - sadly i’m terrible at collecting quotes, i can’t think of any at all right now /:

10. A language you wish you were fluent in? - anything east aisan for some reason. or arabic or farsi. it’d be so cool to just understand, and explain stuff to immigrants here, in their language. and cool to know a non-latin alphabet.

my questions!!!!

1. we have this word in swedish; smultronställe, which is a place that’s special to you, maybe a bit hidden away, somewhere you can go to forget your troubles or buy a certain item, or just admire the world. do you have a smultronställe? 2. your go-to comfort food? 3. you wake up and it’s 1970. you’re in the same place as where you live now. what’s your action plan to get back home to 2020? 4. which city has the best underground/subway/metro in your opinion? if you haven’t been to any, which one seems to be the best? 5. someone buys you a drink at a bar, what do you ask for? 6. ocean, lake or pool? for swimming in. 7. a trope you never get bored of: 8. museums or art galleries? 9. the best place to watch a sunset or sunrise from, in your opinion? 10. if you were able to meet someone who lived in the 1500s, and given five minutes to explain how the world ended up the way we have it today, what would you bring up?

tagging @slightlyintimidating @balkan-ballad @mine-vaganti @radioactivebroccoli @friendlyneighbourhoodlucifer and you kako, if you wanna do this again.

#tag #aprilskyforever

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quitethepirategal · 5 years ago

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Alphabet Headcanons!

List a headcanon that correlates with each letter of the English Alphabet. Can you list that many? It’s harder than it looks! Any tidbit of information counts, from the simplest fun fact to the lengthiest lore!

A - Red Jessica is an Aries. Her moon sign is Taurus and her rising is Leo. She’s also a cusp baby, giving her Pisces leanings.

B - She has quite a few books in her massive library, but her favorites are The Art of War, Anthony and Cleopatra, On the Origin of Species, The Prince, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Frankenstein, and Treasure Island. She reads more textbooks than anything else tho. She really wants to like Jane Austin but she just... can’t. ( unrelated, I was trying to figure which Shakespeare play would be Jess’s fav and found this. Y’all I screamed. )

C - Cats are her favorite animal. Any kind of cat. The grace, the lore, the silliness, the toe beans; they’re majestic little idiots and she loves them. She has two of her own. Sasha and Rosie. Jessica’s loved cats since she first made friends with one as a very little girl and she remembers every cat she’s ever had or been friends with. Her first cat was an alley cat that followed her around that she uncreatively named Katjie

D - Dutch Afrikaans and English are her native languages, she grew up speaking both. However, she hasn’t really needed to speak Afrikaans since her mother died, and is no longer fluent as a result. Her first word was “Ahoy” but her second word was “geld.”

E - Red Jessica has some ridiculous eating antics, as a result of living in starvation from birth to late childhood and living as a pirate from then on. She can bite directly into onions and garlic cloves as if they were apples, will eat ( or save ) the bones and fat of any meaty meal, can eat an entire apple- core included, loves to eat or chew on citrus peels and raw herb leaves, has a somewhat high tolerance for both spicy things and alcohol, and, like all pirates, has learned to tolerate most rotten/stale/moldy/expired food. On top of that, her pursuit in studying biology and botany crowns her as probably the ONLY person in all of the Neversea who knows what nutrition is and how it works. Also eating avocados make her ears itch.

F - One of Jessica’s signature mannerisms is putting her fists up by her face. When excited or overjoyed she’ll shake them and when shes shy she’ll kind of hide her smile with them. She rests her chin on her fists, holds them still by her jaw when waiting in suspense, and its immediately where her fists fly to when startled or snuck up on ( with the exception of when shes armed, to which her hands fly to her hilt or holster ). This mannerism makes complete and total sense considering shes a trained kick boxer.

G - Gardening is her absolute favorite stress reliever and you can pry it from her cold dead hands. Just bury your problems in the dirt my dude.

H - Her curly ginger hair is certainly one of the first things you notice about her and she takes very good care of it; a wash every two days, plenty of oils, vinegar once a week for dandruff. Her curl type is 3a.

I - Red Jessica is a closeted artist and frequently engages in illustration, and while this mostly comes in handy for taking illustrative botanical notes, her other favorite subject is the human figure. Specifically, the human figure of people she finds attractive or has a crush on. And if you ask she’d be happy to try and draw you! Though she isn’t what you would call amazing she is somewhat talented- with her drawings having very technical, anatomical, and minimalist influences. She also like to sketch pastoral scenes when out in her fields.

J - Jessica was a name her father picked out, naming her after his first love.

K - She remembers her first kill. At 13 she was involved in a skirmish and lunged at a man out from under a table with a rapier. She remembers the exact look on his face, and recalls it with pride. First kill is a right of passage to pirates.

L - Jessica’s love language is all over the place, but can be narrowed down to gifts, words, and quality time. Arrogant suitors, take note because Jess will literally never shut up about you; she will brag about you, remind you of your achievements, praise you for your talents, be proud of you, will show you off, insist to EVERYBODY that you’re the best, and in some cases, spoil you. This goes for friends too, of course but this all goes especially for whoever she has a crush on or is courting her. She JUST!! LOVES STROKING PEOPLE’S EGOS!! Speaking of spoiling, she’s a total gift giver. No reason or occasion needed whatsoever; she is the QUEEN of “ I was thinking of you so I got you a little something.”

M - Jessica is really really weird when it comes to materialism. At a first glance, shes as avaricious as they come. She hoards beauty in the form of an art collection that graces her fine chateau’s halls and eminence gardens of gorgeous flowers. She is a little crazy about treasure too, never missing an opportunity to treasure hunt, and has been known to loan-shark a time or two. But in actuality, as made apparent through getting to know her, she isn’t really greedy or possessive at all. Yes she loves pretty things and yes she is great at making money but believe me when I say that she is in the treasure hunt for the hunt more so than for the treasure. Were she somehow to loose it all, money, island, treasure, everything, she’d be more concerned that whoever took her priceless art won’t take care of it. In the best laid plans of mice and men, Jess is totally a mouse. She’s lived the majority of her life owning nothing but the clothes she had on so, she’d just cut her losses and start over… come to think of it being wealthy is a bit boring…

N - Jessica has never been to Neverland. In my canon, only one pirate ( Hook ) was brave enough to ever set foot on that cursed island. Red Jessica, like the rest of the neverpirates, are too afraid. Most heard tales of an unbeatable foe and that the island itself is watching you, and that’s enough to keep Jessica away.

O - Oranges are her all time favorite food. She’ll eat anything with orange in it. Second favorite is crab or lobster. Third is pineapple chili sauce.

P - Her Myers-Briggs personality type is ESTP- a, the Entrepreneur.

Q - Jessica was Dread Pirate Grace O’Malley’s quartermaster. There are 9 Dread Pirates in the Neversea, each one being a legendary pirate of old, and they have the power to grant only the most talented pirates among them recognized captainship.

R - Red Jessica is is short for Red Handed Jessica for no reason other than I am Peter Pan ( 2003 ) trash.

S - Red Jessica’s crew is a sisterhood of sorts. While she is authoritarian and a captain to be feared, Jessica is friends with everybody in her crew and trusts them with her life. Her ship, The Rose, is practically a floating sorority; complete with weird traditions, gossip, gag rivalries, inside jokes, hazing, and the occasional prank. She even aids in getting them dates ( pro wingman right here ) and babysits some of their kids. Granted, they haven’t done much sailing or piracy in some time. But they all live comfortable lives on Crimson Isle, and they’ll be ready to sail should the need arise.

T - Jessica tends to trust people a tad too quickly and “give too much away” so to speak. It’s gotten her into trouble and even gotten her heart broken a time or two; but for some reason she never learns. She’d like to think she’s great at keeping secrets and to a degree, she is… but I wouldn’t trust her with any of mine- that I will say.

U - Oppenheimer, a pirate in the crew of the Flying Frigate ( in the movie the Pirate Fairy ) is her uncle.

V - Jess finds that she spends most of her days in her vineyard. She’s perfected the growing of grapes and timely shipments of wine, but now shes tinkering with how different aspects of growth effect flavor.

W - Jessica, whether she’s aware or not, is capable of being attracted to women. But she’s never really had any female partners. She’s not homophobic and wasn’t raised in an environment that was homophobic ( pirates pretty much love and sleep with whoever they want to ) it’s just ...never occurred to her to date women. Most of the reasons as to why are subconscious maternal issues but in short, Jess already has difficulty separating different kinds of love. Friendship and romantic love kinda... feel the same. She really only knows how to love one way and she can never tell if a woman is being friendly or flirty, much less if SHE’S being friendly or flirty. For this reason I’ve always labeled her as a questioning bisexual or a heteroflexible...

X - Her most recent botanical experiments revolve around xenogamy, also known as cross pollination. And just to flex, she’s also a huge xenophile for both Spanish and Chinese culture.

Y - Yellow is her second favorite color after red. Pink is her third and emerald green is her forth.

Z - In Jake and the Neverland Pirates, we see a type of rose called a Zebra Rose. While no such flower exists in actuality, I’d like to believe this is a result of some of Jess’s experiments - the medicinal purpose being to combat itching and irritation.

Tagged By - nobody

Tagging - @emcads @shiningsilverarmor @ofrcvenge @hunterhuntcd @youthflight @rcinbowconnection @jesterabandoned @inhxrmony @captainxhaddock @forvistxkonge @mcnsieur and you!!!

#did i just waste two hours bc i had a dumb idea #.....yes #x; WHY AREN'T YOU A CLEVER ONE? { meta }#x; EVER PLAYED CRAZY EIGHTS? { dash games }

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 6 years ago

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Episode 107: Mindful Education

“But it’s not, but it’s not, but it’s not, but it’s not, but it’s not.”

Here Comes a Thought is anything but a bad song. I can’t think of any songs I dislike from this show, but if I did, Here Comes a Thought wouldn’t be one of them. It’s a simple and moving ode to calming down, and Estelle and AJ Michalka elevate its message through their otherworldly voices.

But I do think it’s the most technically flawed song on Steven Universe. Which is a real bummer of a way to start this review, but I’m about to heap a ton of praise on this episode, and I don’t think the lyrical flaws ruin the song, let alone the overall story, so let’s just get my issues out of the way. If Mindful Education is about anything, it’s about confronting problems head-on!

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Here Comes a Thought is a general song about a general problem, which I appreciate. I don’t need it to be specific to Connie’s dilemma, and in fact I think specificity would hurt the message. But my biggest gripe is that even though it speaks in broad strokes, none of the scenarios listed apply to Connie. “What someone said, and how it harmed you”? Connie wasn’t hurt by words. “Something you did that failed to be charming”? Connie wasn’t attempting to be charming. “Things that you said are suddenly swarming”? Connie didn’t say anything. We’re all the way to the refrain, and Garnet has yet to address the actual situation Connie is dealing with.

The closest we’ve got is “failed to be charming,” which again, implies that Connie was trying to impress someone rather than just going about her business and hurting someone by instinct. The phrasing is clumsy in a way Rebecca Sugar’s songs virtually never are: what I love about her lyrics is how natural and effortless they seem, which I’m certain comes from quite a bit of effort on her part. The sentence structure of “Something you did that failed to be charming” feels strained and unnatural, but the words must be said in this order for the rhyme and meter to work.

Which is doubly frustrating because the alarm/harm/charm series ends with swarm, which does not rhyme with the former three words in any dialect of English I know of. I’m not even a stickler for rhymes: for instance, “alarm me” and “charming” technically don’t rhyme either, but they sound similar enough that the pattern holds. But swarm uses an entirely different vowel than most other English words ending in -arm. I majored in linguistics and can get into serious weeds here with the International Phonetic Alphabet, but to make a long ramble shorter, the ‘w’ preceding the vowel alters it, which is why wart doesn’t rhyme with art and war doesn’t rhyme with bar and warn doesn’t rhyme with yarn and so on.

(This obviously doesn’t make Sugar a bad songwriter, any more than William Blake was a bad poet because he rhymed eye with symmetry in The Tyger. Nobody’s perfect, but that doesn’t mean nobody’s incredible.)

Anyway, I might be fine with this imperfect rhyme it if it was absolutely essential for the song, but the structure is so forced already to fit with this poor fourth rhyme that it sorta falls apart for me, especially because swarming comes at the moment it becomes clear that this song has said nothing about the issue Connie is personally dealing with.

Ugh. I’m losing sight. I’m losing touch. All these little things seem to matter so much that they confuse me. This song might lose me!

So yeah, I’m not insane enough to think that Here Comes a Thought was engineered to irk me just so the beautiful refrain can be a self-demonstrating affair in not letting small things like rhyme schemes get to me, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work. The song builds and builds and builds the stress by presenting bad situation after bad situation, and right when everything seems like it will fall apart, Garnet has the answer.

This is a highly quotable song and episode, so I had a lot of great lines to choose from for the header, but I don’t think anything matches the sheer relief that ironically comes from Garnet’s repeating a negative phrase. She usurps the power of “no” away from anxiety by chanting that no, nothing bad is going to happen. Her knowing smile on the last “but it’s not” seals the deal. She’s not just a teacher here, she’s a sage.

This is Estelle’s first full song on the show since Stronger Than You, and she pulls off subdued chill just as well as glorious anthem without losing an ounce of her commanding presence. But now she's fully matched by AJ Michalka, another professional singer that doubles as a voice actor. Unlike Estelle, I hadn’t listened to any of Michalka’s music before watching Steven Universe, so despite knowing she wa a singer, the sheer power of her pipes came out of nowhere for me.

I honestly don’t know what it is about Michalka’s voice, but I’m lousy at crying even when I really want to because it would make me feel better, and that voice doesn’t just choke me up. It makes me weep. The quavering vulnerability in “I’m losing touch” destroys me no matter how many times I listen to this song. Just writing about it makes me emotional. Michalka tells a story not just with her words, but the tone and levels of confidence of her voice, and the lesson is learned by harmonizing with the master herself. On the one hand, I’m glad her voice’s heartbreaking purity isn’t diluted by constant performances, but on the other, I’m not sure it’s possible for something so intense to be diluted. Add in the prominent harp, a fusion of the plucking from Steven’s ukulele and the gravitas from Connie’s violin, and I’m done for.

(My tendency to cry whenever Michalka sings might have to do with how well she’s primed on both occasions in the series: Estelle is a hell of a lead-in, while Escapism is introduced by a stirring callback to Greg’s guitar from Lion 3. But it’d be stupid not to credit the source, considering she’s the one that gets the waterworks going and she’s been spectacular at voicing Stevonnie from the start. It’s a damn shame Catra doesn’t get a song in She-Ra, but at least Michalka does a cover of the theme song.)

I haven’t even talked about the animation from Takafumi Hori, who gives a unique but familiar flair to the mindscape of Garnet and Stevonnie and their components. The facial animations and body language are given extra room to breathe, and the use of butterflies as symbols of fluttering stresses (butterflies in your brain are so much worse than butterflies in your stomach) pays off huge when we see them explode from Connie’s backpack. The unspoken story of Ruby focusing too hard on a single problem while Sapphire is overwhelmed by possibilities works wonders, and the fact that Connie’s problems are initially hidden hints at Steven also hiding problems, seeing as the kids are mirroring the Gems. Colin Howard and Jeff Liu would’ve been more than capable of crafting such a sequence, but bringing in a guest animator makes us pay special attention to this pivotal song.

Because yeah, this is an important song for Connie, but this is still Steven’s show, and it’s a huge song for Steven. In a brilliant development, it turns out his strangely normal behavior after the salvo of traumas at the end of Act II was intentionally strange, and Here Comes a Thought drags him kicking and screaming towards the true path to inner peace. You can’t, as he advises Connie right before Garnet steps in, “just try not to think about it.” The only way out is through, and it’s not gonna be easy.

Every fantastic aspect of Mindful Education benefits from fantastic pacing. Connie’s bad mood is established immediately, but so is Steven’s straining to be fun and upbeat. A series of questions pull us along: “What is Connie upset about?” becomes “How is Garnet going to help?” becomes “What is Steven upset about?” becomes “How is Connie going to help?” without missing a step. Both kids make us so worried, because Connie’s bad mood is out of nowhere, and Steven’s acceptance of his suffering is long overdue. Both sensations are heightened by the preceding episodes, as Steven has been acting way too okay with his mom being a killer, and we know Connie was enthusiastic about school in Buddy’s Book. So it’s such a relief to not only see their worries addressed, but to have an entire episode about addressing worries.

After three goofy episodes, Mindful Education transitions us into a more serious mood with a similarly goofy opening. Sure, Connie’s attitude is cause for concern, but we still get Garnet’s enthusiasm and sign-making skills, Stevonnie’s newfound ability to do a Yoshi-style flutter kick hover, and the most glorious fusion dance ever depicted on screen.

Here Comes a Thought is a showstopper about calm meditation, and while it obviously soothes Connie’s anxieties, it also quiets down the silliness without making a big deal of it: there isn’t a single gag in the episode during or after the song. This is a show that can and has pulled off humor during dramatic moments, but we go full sincerity mode for Connie and Steven working through their emotional turmoil, and considering how big of a turning point this is for Steven’s arc in particular, I appreciate the restraint.

It’s perfect for Steven to only realize he has a problem when Connie is so open about hers, because Connie has always been a catalyst for change, and Steven is more concerned about others than himself. It also serves for a checkpoint for their mutual character growth: we’re a long way from the open-to-a-fault Steven and pragmatic-to-a-fault Connie of Bubble Buddies, and their series-long balancing act continues to bring their attitudes closer together. This isn’t the last we’ll see of Sullen Connie, and it’s nice to see that Steven isn’t the only kid on the block who’s becoming more of a teen.

Another sign of their growth is shown in the fluid action of Stevonnie’s training; even when they’re not on the top of their game, Steven and Connie’s developing physical skill is on full display as their fusion weaves about the battlefield. Stevonnie’s ambidexterity functions well as a signifier of which kid is in a healthier state: Steven’s shield is in their right hand in the first training session, while Connie’s sword takes its place in the second.

(Oh, and on the subject of subtle visual storytelling, don’t think we didn’t notice the damaged pink diamond floating above the Sky Arena.)

The first two acts of Mindful Education tell such a complete story about Connie that the appearance of a butterfly for Steven almost comes across as a twist: again, his terrible advice about bottling up emotions upon accidentally hurting people is a pretty big hint that he’s pushing down his feelings, but this is such a satisfactory episode already that its conclusion feels like a bonus.

It’s harrowing for Steven to start working through how much horrible stuff has happened in such a short amount of time, but it’s oh so satisfying for us to finally see him process it. The transformation of Holo Pearl into Jeff (who I’m sure is named for Mr. Liu) was a neat way to show Connie’s guilt, but it’s complemented by a punch to the gut as Stevonnie impales an image of Bismuth instead of just getting thrown off by the illusion. And because Steven has let his problems pile up, the rest of his ghosts flood in. I love the inclusion of Eyeball, the foe that Steven logically should feel the least amount of guilt about (Bismuth was a friend, and Jasper refused help while blaming him, but Eyeball was an enemy actively trying to kill him). It shows that he really does care about everyone, and that the compounding problems only make the guilt worse: Bismuth and Jasper begin in their normal sizes, but Eyeball is massive in Stevonnie’s imagination. And then, as a horrible distortion of her theme heralds her arrival, we get the most important ghost in the series.

Obviously Steven isn’t able to deal with the Rose factor right now, but acknowledging that there’s a problem is the first and hardest step. And despite how talented Aivi and Surasshu are at enhancing the mood with music, there’s nothing like the stark silence that follows Rose’s theme to bring the impact home.

AJ Michalka once again shows off her talent for voicing Steven and Connie separately as Stevonnie has an internal conversation; it’s such a seamless interaction that it’s easy to forget that this scene shifts from one actor voicing these two characters to two different actors voicing the same two characters as Steven and Connie plummet to the ground. I mentioned in The Answer that my favorite Miyazaki movie is Castle in the Sky, so I’m thrilled to see another reference to two heroes falling hand in hand before slowing to a safe landing.

Our conclusion isn’t about Steven coming to terms with three failures in a row and a life-changing revelation. It’s about him realizing that it’s okay to admit that everything isn’t okay, and that he doesn’t have to put on a bald cap and be a ham to make everyone else more comfortable. This is something that friends can help with, but that he ultimately has to figure out for himself. Still, it’s beautiful that by working together, he and his best friend become strong in the real way.

But of course, they had help. I mentioned in Back to the Moon that our Big Three Crystal Gems each get an episode that acts as an epilogue to their Act II arcs, and it’s Garnet’s turn. Garnet begins Act II as a leader who’s quiet about being a fusion and who has a hard time understanding the anxieties of her less confident teammates. By the end, she transforms into a leader who’s more open and willing to share her own vulnerabilities, and a loud and proud fusion no matter whom she’s interacting with. Mindful Education leans in hard on her expertise in fusion, but just as importantly shows that she’s willing to coach others by revealing how Ruby and Sapphire work through struggles. Her growth is less overt than Amethyst and Pearl overcoming more obvious hurdles, but it’s still hard to imagine Garnet being this capable of helping Connie and Steven fifty episodes ago.

Garnet is also the source of two intriguing callbacks in the form of quoting past lines. The first is the wonderful “Hold the phone. Now give the phone to me,” which Steven tells Greg in The Message as a means of interrupting his song about Lapis Lazuli being a super mean riptide queen (sidenote: I’m sure Lapis would be flattered by Greg’s assessment). Garnet repeats this phrase right after Steven suggests that you can get used to not thinking about your guilt, and it’s a brilliant way of gently putting a stop to this bad idea.

The second is a pointed “that is to say” as she explains the importance of harmony within fusion. This is a common enough phrase, but it was so prominent in fellow sparring episode Sworn to the Sword that I can’t imagine it’s a coincidence. It connects Garnet to Pearl’s role as a teacher to both Steven and Connie; fortunately, this time the teacher is instilling a message of self-reflection instead of self-sacrifice.

I call these callbacks intriguing because Garnet herself wasn’t present for either scene containing the lines she’s quoting. And sure, this could just be standard screenplay magic without an in-universe explanation. But to me, it enhances the sense of Garnet as an all-knowing mentor, at least as far as this episode is concerned. Her wisdom is absolute, and it might be pretentious for a show to claim such certainty with its message, but Mindful Education has an outstanding message, so I’m all in.

But back to that ending for a second. It, like Here Comes a Thought, provides a calming answer to a scene of turmoil. It’s obviously a quicker moment of relief: just a glimpse of Stevonnie laughing, catching their breath, and reassuring Steven and Connie. However, like Here Comes a Thought, the episode keeps going. This time, in the form of the end credits.

youtube

Since Bubbled, we’ve heard nothing but ambient waves as the credits roll, bereft of the comfort Love Like You has provided after nearly every prior episode. But now we begin the reprise, and this first segment is such an eerie departure from the norm that serenity once again takes a backseat.

With time, it’s revealed that this song is just more Love Like You. But in this period of uncertainty in Steven’s life, I deeply admire the decision to keep us lost in the woods for a while before figuring out that it’s something we’ve known all along. Just a thought.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Remember my gripes with Here Comes a Thought, way up there at the beginning of the review? Yeah, they don’t keep this out of my top ten.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

When It Rains

Catch and Release

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

#mindful education #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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the-ghost-of-pastels · 6 years ago

Text

subliminal sides

A Fractured Fairytale of Alice in Wonderland but it’s me and i meet my sides.

y’all wanted to read this.

I’m new to writing so it’s not the best thing in the world, but i’m improving!

You don’t know how you got here.

You stand up and adjust your glasses and take in your surroundings. You are in a medium sized, dimly lit room with all sorts of bizarre looking machines. There are exposed gears and wires everywhere. You spot a rusty looking door to your right that is slightly open.

You open the door and walk through it to find a similar room to the one you were just in. the room is larger than the room you woke up in, but it is just as dark and cluttered. There are a couple different doors scattered around the room. Looking around, you find that the shadows in here are getting bigger and darker the more you look.

You take a hesitant step back. You hear footsteps approaching the room.

One of the doors is thrust open by a small boy with surprising strength. He closes to door and locks it with a large complicated-looking padlock. He turns around and spots you. He looks surprised.

BANG BANG

Both of you jump in surprise from the noises coming from the other side of the door. The shadows are getting darker still.

You try to ask him what’s going on but he puts a finger to his mouth to signal you to be quiet.

He takes a step back and watches the door closely with stern purple(?) eyes. Dark shadows start to pour through the cracks around the door. His tenses.

BANG BANG

The boy huffs in frustration, runs toward you, takes your hand, and starts leading you through a different door in a hurry.

The two of you run through a series of doors, rooms and hallways. Each room is as dark and cluttered as the last.

You make the mistake of looking back at what you’re running from.

There is a dark humanoid figure with piercing green reptile-like eyes covered in shadows chasing you. You feel your heart beat faster and your anxiety spike. The boy holding your hand seems to notice.

The two of you make a sudden turn and hide behind some old looking storage containers. You sit on the ground, and the boy joins you.

You turn to the boy and quietly ask for his name. He turns to you with his striking purple eyes. And holds up his hand. His hand is in a fist, palm facing you, with his thumb sticking out in between his ring and middle finger. Then changes it so fingers are making an ‘o’ shape, then making another fist with his palm facing you, and his thumb on the side, then twisting his hand to the side with his first two finger sticking out like a finger gun without the thumb.

(Noah)

You blink. He’s talking in sign language. You smile and sign ‘nice to meet you’ as best you can with your limited sign knowledge. You sign your name to him as well.

His eyes light up in happiness. Even though you have to explain to him you don’t know that much sign, and only know the alphabet and some basic signs. He understands and explains to you that he isn’t deaf, but he can’t talk.

He reaches into the pocket on his oversized, purple-patched jacket and gives you a articulate, fancy looking gold key with a small purple gear on the handle. He tells you it’s a gift.

He stands up, adjusts his black beanie, then grabbing your hand again and leading you down another hallway.

You ask where he’s leading you. He gestures for you to keep quiet, then signing the word secret. You hesitantly follow, trying to trust Noah. The two of you walk through more hallways, eventually arriving in a room with 4 doors besides the one you just came through. Each door has a wildly different look.

The door they just came through looks like it has seen the apocalypse and been rusted to the bone. The door next to it looks a lot cleaner and really futuristic. The door after that is black with lots of black and white posters of various kinds. The next door looks like a normal bedroom door with a nameplate that is very hard to read at the distance you are at. And the last door is a dark green metal door with a crap ton of warning labels on the door.

You ask Noah if any of these doors will take you home.

He leads you towards the second, futuristic door. You hesitate, but he assures you that it is safe.

Probably.

That really doesn’t help you calm down but you let Noah drag you towards the door anyway.

---

Out of all the things you were expecting, a space station really wasn’t one of them.

When you walked through the futuristic door, you were instantly greeted with a massive window with a view of space. It looks beautiful out there. There are stars everywhere, and you can see what you think is Earth pretty clearly.

Noah leads you away from the beautiful view towards a door with the words “BRIDGE” above it. You jump as the door opens automatically as soon as you get close to it. The two of you walk onto the bridge and find a nice room with screens, computers, and controls everywhere.

In the middle of the room there is an older person sitting in a fancy chair, wearing a clean, cool looking uniform, and looking intensely at their computer. They turn around when the two of you walk into the room.

“Ah excellent. You are both here.” They say, standing up and walking towards the two of you. “I need your help with something very important, but introductions first.” They adjust their black square glasses as they speak. “My name is Axel. I am the captain of the UNS Everest. Pleasure to meet you.”

You nod and tell Axel your name, and ask what they need help with.

“Ah, well you see, recently an enemy spy placed a tracking device on my ship,” They say, showing slight frustration in their voice. “and I need another person to help me disable it.”

You look at Noah, then back to Axel. You ask if it is dangerous.

“Dangerous? Well only if you do it incorrectly.” they reply. Noah lets out a noise of discontent. You can’t help but feel the same way. “But do not worry,” Axel continues, “With me and Noah helping you, there should be no problems.”

You hesitantly accept and Axel smiles and leads the two of you into another room. There is a table with a large box sitting on it. The box has all sorts of wires, words, and buttons all over it. You start to feel a little bit anxious. It looks really complicated.

Noah squeezes your hand reassuringly.

“Now,” Axel walks over to another table with a large book on it. “I will ask you a series of questions relating to the device, and you will answer as quick and clear as possible.”

You agree, and sit down at the table with the device. Axel starts asking questions. Stuff like: “how many batteries are there?” or “Are there any blinking indicators?” You answer the best you can.

After what felt like hours, Axel finally tells you to put the device down and that it should be disabled now. Your head feels clearer now, and you let out a sigh of relief.

“You did great. I appreciate your help immensely.” Axel says, gratitude clear in their voice. You tell them it’s no big deal, and that you are happy to help. “Excellent. You want to get home, correct?” You nod. “Alright. I shall accompany you on your journey.” They give you an asymmetrical silver key. “You’ll need it.” You accept the gift and put it in your pocket.

---

Back in the room with the 5 doors, you find yourself feeling a lot better than you did around an hour ago. You still feel weird and out of place, but you’ve made some friends and you feel safer with them.

Axel leads the two of you to the door next to theirs, the black door with the posters all over it.

You take a deep breath and walk through the door, wondering what will the three of you experience next.

On the other side of the goth door, is an even more goth living room. There is a black couch with a white throw blanket on the side. There is a black fuzzy rug on dark hardwood floors. The entire place is very aesthetically pleasing to look at.

The three of you walk into the center of the dark living room.

…

After a minute a waiting Axel sighs and clears their throat.

You can hear muffled footsteps in the distance. The footsteps are getting closer and closer until a door next to the couch is thrown open by a very out-of-breath teenager.

“OH THANK GOODNESS YOU’RE HERE!” They exclaim, trying to catch their breath. The teen has short black hair, subtle dark makeup, and round gold glasses covering their scarlet red eyes. They adjust their short black skirt and take a deep breath. They turn to you.

“Greetings! My name is Percy, and I really need your help.” They say, taking your hand and kissing the back of it, making you blush. Axel rolls their eyes. “What did you do this time?” They ask, as if this has happened more than twice.

Percy makes an annoyed face at Axel, “I was trying to make this story about these two characters who adopt a child.” Percy explained, “But I can’t think of anyway to make the story interesting!” You notice Noah flinch at how loud Percy is being.

You ask Percy if they can keep it down a little. Percy looks at you, then at Noah. “Oh… OH!” They exclaim, then flinch at their own loudness. “I’m sorry, dear Noah. Would you like to help me with this?” They ask. Noah nods their head and takes Percy’s hand.

Percy smiles. “Wonderful! I will need you two to help as well. Please follow me.”

Percy leads the three of you into another room just as goth as the first one, but this one is more of an studio with art supplies everywhere and paper thrown about the room.

“Now,” Percy starts, picking up a notepad and a fancy black mechanical pencil from one of the desks. “These two characters have been married for 5 years. The child they adopted really trusts character A, but can’t seem to trust character B.” Percy makes wild gestures as they explain their story, Noah looks mesmerized. “I need a way for the child and character B to bond, but I don’t have any ideas!”

“Why can’t the child and character B just talk?” Axel asks.

“Because that would be boring.” Percy shoots back. “Besides the child doesn’t trust character B remember? They can’t just talk to each other.”

Noah waves a hand at Percy, getting their attention. (Why not injure character A, so B has to take care of the child while A is in the hospital?) He asks.

Percy smiles wide. “That’s a brilliant idea Noah! High five!” Percy raises a hand, and Noah giggles and happily accepts.

“But why and how is character A injured? You can’t just put them in a hospital with no explanation.” Axel states. Percy stops to think for a moment. “Well, I can’t have character A dead, or in a coma” They pause for a second, “But they could have broken a bone or two! In a car accident!”

“How did they get in a car accident?”

“Because character A is overworked and sleep deprived from a tough month at work!”

“Then why were they driving the first place?”

“A wasn’t the one who was driving! B was driving because they were worried for A’s health!”

(Wouldn’t that make the car accident B’s fault?)

“No, the one at fault was the other driver! Who was drunk and texting. But B still blames themselves for it!”

“I guess that makes logical sense…”

“Really??” Percy beams at Axel. It seems that these two don’t agree that often. Axel smiles back. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, Percy.”

Percy smile fades for a second. “Something’s missing though…” They say, in thought. “What does this story need?”

You say that maybe a fantasy or supernatural element would help.

Percy looks at you for a second.

“Oh my god. That’s… a great idea!” They scribble something on their notepad. “What if after the accident the child develops wings??? Like magical, rainbow wings? Ooooh I’m getting ideas!” Percy starts scribbling rapidly in their notepad, mumbling excitedly to themselves.

After a minute or two, they set down the pencil and notebook and stretch out their hands. They sigh in relief. “I am so thankful to you guys for helping me! This has been bugging me for weeks! Here, hold out your hand!” They ask you, “I have a gift!”

You nervously hold out your hand. You watch as Percy pulls a shiny black key with a white skull and red rose design on it and put it in your hand. “That’s for helping me.” You accept the gift, and put it in your pocket with your other keys.

“Now, I hear you’re trying to get home correct?” Percy asks you. You nod. “Oh wonderful! I shall help you! I know where we need to go next!” Percy guides the three of you back to the room with the 5 doors.

----

You arrive back at the room full of doors. Percy walks over to the next door over, which is the plain bedroom door with a nameplate on it. Looking closer now, you can see the nameplate says: “Theo’s Room.” in slightly messy handwriting.

Percy opens the door, and the four of you enter the room. It looks like a decent sized garage with all sorts of cool toys and gadgets. There are skateboards, roller blades, rock climbing gear, jumprope, all sorts of stuff. There are two doors on one wall.

And immediately you can tell something isn’t right.

Noah grabs your hand, and Axel narrows their eyes. Percy walks around the room. “Theo?” They call out.

They wait for a second before calling out again.

You scan the room, looking for anything that looks out of place. Next to what looks to be a foam pit, you see a yellow rose with a piece of paper next to it on the floor. You immediately call the others over.

Axel picks up the note. They sigh, and hand it to you.

The piece of paper is blank, except for a smiley face drawn in green sparkly sharpie. You don’t know what it means at all. Noah looks over your shoulder and tenses. Noah’s face changes from worried to angry. He crumples the note and starts heading back for the room of doors.

“Noah! Wait a minute!” Axel calls after him, but Noah doesn’t listen. Axel huffs and runs after him.

You and Percy look at each other for a moment before following.

---

You and Percy catch up to the other two, and find Axel holding Noah and talking softly to him. As you get closer, you notice Noah has fresh tears running down their face as they shakily sign to Axel.

Axel notices the two of you, says something to Noah, waits for a second, then motions for you two to come over.

You ask if Noah is okay. He shakily nods and signs. (Panic attack.) You nod in understanding, knowing how difficult those can be.

Percy pulls out a sketchbook and fancy black mechanical pencil out of nowhere and sit on the ground. “Do you want to watch me draw?” They ask Noah quietly. Noah nods and Axel sets him down and he sits next to Percy, who starts drawing something random.

Axel stands stands next to you for the next few minutes as you watch Percy draw random characters with Noah watching intently.

After it seems Noah has calmed down enough, Percy puts the sketchbook and pencil away and helps Noah stand up.

You ask what the note ment.

Noah looks at the ground. Axel puts a hand on his shoulder. “One of our friends, Theo, has been kidnapped.” You gasp in surprise.

Now you understand why Noah had a panic attack.

“We do know who did it though.” Axel continues. You ask who.

“Cecile.”

You look around at the other two. Percy seems upset, and Noah is clutching Percy’s arm.

(I want to rescue Theo) Noah signs. (But it’s very risky. A lot could go wrong) Axel squeezes Noah’s shoulder reassuringly. “I’m sure it will go smoothly if we have a plan.” They tell him.

“Now.” Axel continues, “Let’s make a plan.”

---

As you walk through the dark green door full of hazard signs, you can help but feel anxious. The room is dark, with dim green lighting filling the long hallway.

Eventually, the four of you arrive in a large room. The room is also dimly lit, and there are scientific looking machines everywhere. There are vials of mysterious substances on a table to the left, and a large circular container of glowing liquid to the right.

Straight ahead, there is a wall made of glass, with a door in the middle. The door has a pretty impressive lock on the handles.

There is a faint voice coming from the room.

You hesitate as the other three run up to the wall.

As soon as the three cross a certain point, another glass wall lowers in between you and the others.

Noah turns around and presses against the glass wall. Staring at you with scared eyes. You stare back.

You hear a noise behind you, and you dash for a hiding spot behind some large containers.

You watch as a figure in a lab coat and bright green reptile-like eyes enter the room. He spots the three behind the glass wall and smiles.

Once you know the figure isn’t watching, you dash for the exit. Looking behind you, thankfully the figure doesn’t notice you. You run back to the room of doors and close the green door.

You sink to the floor and try to take a deep breath, but you find it hard to catch your breath.

To be fair, you have been through a lot in the past two hours. You actually feel a little proud of yourself for making it this far without breaking down.

You feel yourself shaking, and dissociating. You feel incredibly tired, and your hearing is muffled.

You sit there for what feels like only seconds and at the same time feeling as if days are passing by.

You barely register lying down, nor do you register someone putting your head on their lap.

Someone is running their hands through your hair. It feels nice. You feel as if you could sleep for days.

After what felt like forever, while also feeling too soon, your feel your senses coming back to you.

You finally notice the person behind you.

He’s your age, soft blue eyes, big round glasses, backwards baseball cap and freckles everyone. He smiles at you. “Are you okay?” He asks.

You can’t answer, your voice won’t come out.

“It’s okay if you can’t answer” He says. He helps you sit up, and offers you a water bottle. You accept.

“My name is Theo,” You perk up at the name, “How are you feeling?” He tries again. You make a face and a meh gesture with your hands. “Well at least you won’t fall asleep I hope.” He says. You nod to confirm. He sighs in relief. “That’s good.”

“Are you able to tell me why you’re here?” He asks.

You are able to tell him in a slightly raspy voice all the events that led to this moment. He listens intently. When you’re finished he chuckles. “It seems my friends have found themselves in a situation huh?” He smiles.

You watch as he stands up and stretches his legs. You can now see he’s wearing a gray shirt with a blue, pink, and white striped flag on it, cargo shorts, and a turquoise checkered flannel tied around his waist.

He offers you a hand. “Come on then! Let’s save our friends!” He helps you stand up, and you ask if he has a plan. He makes a face. “Oh… I’m not really good at making plans, really. I just go with the flow. See what happens, then make do accordingly!” You can’t help but feel anxious at that.

“Well now’s not the time to worry about that!” he says, walking towards the green door. “We got a couple friends to rescue!” You smile and follow him.

He stops for a second, and you nearly bump into him. “Oh! I forgot to give you this!” He hands you a silver key with a light blue heart gem on the handle. You accept it and put it in your pocket with the others.

“Okay now. Let’s go!”

---

Through the green door again, you and Theo are silently walking towards the laboratory. When you arrive, the two of you hide under some tables. You can see your friends have been moved to the main glass room.

Axel is staring into space, Percy is drawing on the walls, and Noah is watching. You and Theo can’t help but smile a little.

You also spot the scientist, Cecile. He is typing away at a computer at a desk near the glass room.

“Wait for my signal.” Theo whispers to you. You nod, and he gets out from under the table and approaches the scientist, to your surprise.

Theo casually walks up to Cecile. “Hey CC! What’re you up to?” He asks in a friendly way. The scientist turns around, startled. “Jeez Morality! You scared me.” Cecile gives Theo a look.

“Aw sorry, I didn’t mean too! You’ve been dissociating again! Should you be doing all this work like that?” Theo asks concerned. Cecile scoffs at the teen. “I’m perfectly fine.” He says.

“What’chu workin on?” Theo innocently asks, giving you a hand signal behind his back. You nod and sneak your way to the glass room door.

He signs a series of numbers to you, which you use on the keypad of the lock.

It opens with a green light, and a beep. You smile and open the door.

“What are you doing?” You hear behind you. You turn around to see Cecile walking towards you with Theo just behind him.

You hesitate, before stating that you’re rescuing your friends. No need to lie about it, you’ve already been caught.

Cecile raises an eyebrow at you. “Oh really?” You nod.

Axel, Percy, and Noah go through the door and stand behind you.

You and Cecile stare at each other for an intense minute.

Then Cecile sighs and shakes his head. “Well if you just asked then you wouldn’t have had to try to sneak your way in.”

“Really?” Theo asks, thoroughly surprised.

“Uh. yeah? I’m not rude.” Cecile folds his arms. “And Logic, you really should know by now that you shouldn’t touch my stuff.” Axel gives Cecile a look. “I didn’t touch anything!” They protested. “Your little trap activated on it’s own!” Noah was clutching Percy’s arm, who sighed.

“Yeah, because you got too close!”

“You should mark where is too close!”

“You should know by know where that is!”

“You know I have bad depth perception! And why did you kidnap Theo in the first place? You gave Noah a panic attack!”

“I didn’t kidnap Morality! I just wanted to give him a rose and you took it the wrong way--”

“Guys!” Theo yells. The two immediately shut up. “Can we not do this right now? We have a bigger problem.” He gestures to you.

The four of them look at Cecile, who sighs.

“Fine. But please get Anxiety to stop looking at me with those cursed puppy dog eyes.” Noah in turn, stuck his tongue out at Cecile. “Wow. Real mature of you.” He walks up to you, and pulls something out of his lab coat pocket.

It’s another key. This one is a dark green with a snake carved into the handle. You accept it.

“There should be another door in that other room. You can use it get home.” You nod at Cecile.

You say your final goodbyes to your new friends, then head back to the room of doors.

And just as Cecile said, sitting on the opposite wall, was another door with 5 different colored locks on it, each door corresponding to the color of each key. The door itself was beautifully made. It is made of a nice dark wood, with silver decorations every here and there.

You take a deep breath, and insert the keys, and walk through the door.

---

You awake on your bed. Your sketchbook is sitting next to you, and your headache is gone.

You look around, confused as to what just happened. You notice a couple things sitting in front of you.

A black beanie, A logic puzzle, a fancy mechanical black pencil, a ring with a blue heart gem on it, a yellow rose, and a piece of paper.

You open the paper.

It’s blank except for two words next to a green smiley face.

“Thank you.”

The End.

#my writing #my sides #anxiety noah #creativity percy #logic axel #morality theo #deceit cecile #fander sides #famder sides #bleh #its midnight and i just finished this #only read through it once before submitting it #but hey #12 pages on google docs when the requirements were 1-6 #so #thats somethin

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forwhycas · 6 years ago

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Love Thy Neighbor (part 7)

So here is part 7, little smutty, but mostly we find out more about Lacey, and get a lot of cuteness between her and Brian! Enjoy!!!!:)

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“Darling go down there to the front row, I wanna sing to you, and then I want you to sing back.”

Freddie led you on stage and you looked out to all the chairs, holy fuck, being up here without people was terrifying to you let alone with people. You walked down the stairs and walked to where Freddie wanted you. He sang out to you a few times and you yelled the lyrics back to him.

“Alright darling get your ass back up here, it’s time for you to treat us.”

He had the sheet music in his hand and was setting it up at the piano for you. You sat on the bench with Freddie beside you. The rest of the guys were all tweaking with their instruments. You started to play, but not the sheet music that was in front of you. Something your mom always played for you. Something you could never forget to play, she called it Lacey’s lullaby. Your eyes were closed as you played. When you opened them it was dead silent.

“What was that?”

Freddie asked, you smiled.

“My mom wrote that for me when I was younger, I guess I never forgot how to play it.”

You turned to see Freddie and looked at the rest of the guys, just staring at you.

“Anyways, you guys need to get back to rehearsing! I’ll be around……”

“Darling no, I want to hear you sing, sing the alphabet for all I care.”

“I told you guys I don’t sing!”

You did sing, you loved it, but it was your own private little skill. You never really sang in front of anyone, or for anyone, just yourself.

“I’ll play the piano, any melody you want, but singing is not in my skills set!”

Every one kept pestering you to sing so you started to play the sheet music to lights, to drown them out, after a few songs you got up from the bench and wondered to the front of the stage and sat down, soaking in the sun. Everyone carried on with what they were doing before, Freddie eventually handed you some ear plugs warning you that later on it was going to get loud, you’ve never seen them perform for such a large crowd, it was mostly theatres and concert halls, never a stadium. Hours passed and people started to gather. You were back stage in the guy’s dressing room sitting next to Mary.

“I can’t help but notice that necklace, Roger’s right?”

Your hand went down to touch it.

“Yea.”

“Oh you have a thing for him, I can tell.”

You laughed.

“You can tell? Tell what?”

“Your eyes just kind of brighten up when you two interact. You guys have something.”

“My eyes light up? That is the most cliché thing I have ever heard Marry!”

She shrugged her shoulders and you watched her go stand near Freddie. You looked over at Roger who was talking to some crew member, he caught you staring and started to walk over to sit next to you.

“So tomorrow is the day right? The big 24…..”

He sounded so unenthused, dull really.

“Roger are you making small talk with me?”

“Yes….”

“It’s ok to be nervous, hell I’m nervous when I have my art shows and those aren’t even a big deal.”

“Your art shows are a big deal! That’ something you love and get paid for……”

You reached for his hand which was shaking, he was nervous. Changing the topic, putting the attention on you instead of him.

“Rog, what can I do to…….”

He turned his head and kissed you, so quick it’s like it didn’t even happen. He got up and got on with getting ready. Just then a fully dressed and ready to go Brian sat down next to you. You sighed and lay down with your head in his lap, he looked down at you.

“You look very confused right now.”

“I have a lot of stuff going through my head.”

“Does it have anything to do with the other hickey on your neck?”

Your hand went to that spot and you sighed.

“Surprisingly no.”

You let out a sigh.

“Brian, are you nervous? Because I know Roger is but he’s too proud to admit it.”

This time he sighed.

“I get nervous all the time before going on stage, eventually it just wears off, ya know?”

You smiled up at him.

“Can I tell you something personal?”

He nodded down at you.

“When I was little I used to write plays for my family and I would cast my friends in them, we would use old stuff from the garage to make a set, I used to be so nervous when they were being performed, here I am 9 practically dying of nerves. I was 10 when my mom passed away, and I will never forget the first play I wrote after she died.”

You paused just to think about it.

“It was about a rabbit who got lost, and couldn’t find its way back home. Eventually the rabbit died because it was so sad, and I have never seen a group of people so moved by a 10 year old’s play, I’ve written countless ones before and I was always nervous. But that one I wasn’t because I realized I was only ever nervous of my mom’s reaction.”

You were smiling just thinking of her face lighting up when you would bow your tiny little head at the end of each play.

“Lacey I learn so much about you, how come you don’t open up like this to Roger? Hmm”

His arms were spread out across the back of the couch you were laying on. You looked up at him again.

“I don’t know. But for now, if it’s ok with you, one person at a time, ya know?”

“I really wish I could have seen one of your plays, I could have been the star of the show.”

He smiled down at you, and you looked over at Roger, who was already staring at you, he gave you the biggest smile when he saw you make eye contact with him.

“Alright lads, it’s about that time to start heading for main stage.”

You got up and immediately walked over to Roger, he was tweaking with his hair, nervous.

He looked at you in the mirror. Your hands reached out and started to play with his hair as well, he eventually turned to face you, so you just kissed him, in the overly crowded dressing room.

“Your gonna have a great show, I know it.”

You said after you pulled away.

“Oh yea?”

He was smirking at you and his hand slapped your ass. And off you guys walked with the rest of the gang to main stage, he reminded you to put your ear buds in, and he did as well. He gave you a quick kiss on the cheek and the boys went off. You and Marry had a blast from the side stage, dancing with each other and a few crew members. It was a long show, even though it was a normal set for them. The crowd really shocked the guys when they sang the lyrics back to them, even though English wasn’t their first language, it was beautiful.

“Roger your too sweaty, no, don’t you dare!”

Roger was chasing you around back stage soaking wet from after the show. Trying to get you to kiss him.

“Lacey please get your ass over here, just embrace it love! It’s rock and roll!”

“Fuck that, I am not about to be covered in sweat for the sake of rock and roll!”

He eventually got you, locking both of you in a bathroom. You were trying to catch your breath.

“I think you should take off your shirt.”

He said still slightly out of breath.

“I can’t, a friend of mine is letting me borrow it and I would hate for it to get ruined.”

Roger laughed, a breathless laugh, more like a huff.

“A friend? Friends fuck don’t they?”

You smiled and hopped up on the counter, swinging your legs back and forth.

“Yea I guess they do.”

You were intently looking at him, reading into every move he made. Walking towards you, his hands that grabbed your knees and spread them apart, his body becoming close to yours, his hands grabbing at the thin material of the shirt and ripping it open, his lips on yours, him inside of you, moaning your name into thin air, your voice mixing in with his. It was all so fast, always so fast.

“I know fast sex is exciting, but I don’t think my legs can handle much more Roger. It’s been a while, and my legs are not as strong as they used to be.”

He laughed as he pulled his pants back up.

“I really enjoy your honesty, lets keep that going. When was the last time you fucked a guy?”

You thought back to your last relationship, it wasn’t a good one, but it was with a guy named Jason. So you answered.

“Like a year maybe?”

“Really? But you’re so hot!”

Roger helped you off the counter and you pulled your bikini bottoms up as well as your shorts.

“Thanks Rog.”

“When was the last time you’ve had sex with a woman?”

“6 months ago? Any more questions, would you like me to calculate how many times I’ve cum in the last 5 years?”

Roger laughed as he went to unlock the bathroom door.

“Yes actually that would very impressive. One final question, then we can head to the beach.”

Oh good he remembered.

“Continue…”

“How many times have you touched yourself while thinking of me?”

He was close to you, his arm was around your waist the other one pulling your face up to meet his.

“Many times, and you?”

“A lot”

“How many times is a lot?”

He laughed, and just started to kiss you again, deep, slow, needy. A good propper kiss.

“You are very good at that.”

“What am I good at?”

You pushed past him and back into the hallway.

“A lot of things, I would name them but it would boost your ego too much.”

He slapped your ass and you both made your way back to the dressing room with the rest of the guys.

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Please like, share, reblog (all three?)! Hope you enjoyed, I’m going to try my hardest to get the next part written by Sunday! Have a good weekend everyone:)

#fanfic #smut #queen #rogertaylor

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houseki-no-suffering · 7 years ago

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The Lustrous’ writing system

(contains minor and major spoilers from the manga!!)

Writing and reading are recurring elements in Houseki no Kuni. Phos’ first job is to write an encyclopedia and we know that the gems possess a vast library. Writing is so important that Peridot’s main occupation is making paper for other gems to use, just like Alex’s job is being a scholar and writing about Lunarians.

Also, while Admirabilis, Lustrous and Lunarians seem to share a common language, they do not share the same writing system (when showed a dépliant of the Moon facilities, Phos is unable to read it). So which script do the Lustrous use?

Since it’s sensei that educates the gems in writing and reading, we can assume that he taught them a type of script that humans used when he was originally created, so we can try to identify it starting from the scripts that exist today.

First of all, there are many types of writing systems, each with their own conventions, and they are classified according to what the different symbols of the system stand for. While linguists still kill each other in their sleep over classifications criteria, for the sake of this post I’m going to adopt a simplified version of Daniels’ classification. So we have:

Logographic: like Chinese, each symbol is a morpheme (a single unit of meaning, like 王, king)

Syllabic: like Japanese kana, each symbol is a syllable (け, か and こ, ke, ka and ko)

Alphabetic: like our Latin alphabet, each symbol is a distinct phoneme, vowels included (like A, B, C etc)

Abugida: or alphasyllabary, it’s in between Alphabetic and Syllabic, sequences of consonants and vowels are written as a unit like in Devanagari and Tibetan ( क् + प/ पे = क/ कॆ, K + a/e = Ka/Ke)

Abjad: like the Alphabetic, but symbols are only for consonants, like in traditional Hebrew and Arabic (ב‬ ,ג‬ ,ד‬, B, G, D)

Featural: the shape of the symbol resemble that of the sound, like in Korean Hangul (like ㅁ, M, that looks like a mouth)

Another thing to account for is the direction of writing: when the gems write they go top to bottom, vertically and right-to-left like we can see from these pictures:

Pic 1 is of one of Alex’s drawings: the paragraphs align on the right side of the paper, while there’s room left on the opposite side of the sheet, at the end of the second paragraph. The second pic is of Rutile: while it looks like they’re taking notes left-to-right, they could also be editing what they just wrote because the entire page is already densely written. Also notice how they write with a stylus, not a brush, because this detail will be important later.

Similarly, here we have Ghost, Sensei and Phos reading right-to-left, starting from what would be the last page from a Latin script user’s point of view. Notice how the titles of the books are on the left of the binding. Sensei is also reading right-to-left: this is from the panel where he’s teaching a new book to young Phos so he’s reading the first pages, the ones on the right.

So we have a top-to-bottom, right-to-left script, which hints at the gems’ writing system being based on an East-Asian script, since they’re the ones most often written vertically&RTL.

It would make sense for the Lustrous writing system to be Asian-based: the story is highly influenced by Buddhism and the mangaka is a Japanese woman. Yet, while I do believe that the script the gems use is Asian (or, well, similar to known Asian scripts) I don’t believe it’s Japanese. Let’s look at some examples:

(Lustrous script vs Chinese/Japanese cursive)

(regular Chinese/Japanese vs cursive form vs Lustrous script)

The gems’ script does resemble Japanese and Chinese cursive, but there are a few issues. First of all, cursive is hardly intelligible even for skilled readers, because it is regular writing that was drastically simplified and smoothed out to create a beautiful and abstract appearance: it’s more of an art form than an ‘actual’ writing system. Also, cursive is created by the movement of the brush never leaving the paper, so we would expect the gems to write with a brush when we know that they actually use a stylus.

Finally, since cursive is just a type of calligraphy, we would expect some of the writing we see in the series to look like regular Japanese and Chinese, like the script on the left in the first picture, yet it never does.

(Lustrous script vs Traditional Mongolian)

What we do have examples of are the tidy and geometrical vertical lines that characterize the Lustrous’ script. They write vertically in a continuous swirl of characters that is similar not only to Chinese Cursive but also to another East Asian alphabet, with whom the Lustrous script also shares a lot of other characteristics: Traditional Mongolian, a script derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet, a distant relative of the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I have a couple of examples to raise my point and they have to do with the few images of single letters/symbols that we see in the series, like the one below, from ep.12.

I couldn’t find a higher resolution picture, but look at the paper sheets on the wall of Alexandrite’s room: the one on the left is about the different types of Lunarian apparitions, while the one on the right is about the island where the gems live.

If you squint your eyes a little, you can see that, above each portion of text in the image on the right is a symbol, probably a letter or a number to classify the different types of information. Same thing for the left image: there’s a symbol next to each ‘model’.

When Alex tests Phos’ knowledge, they do refer to numbers to classify the different types of models, so let’s say for a second that those symbols are numbers. Even if the picture is not super clear they are not angular enough to be Chinese/Japanese numbers: 一十二三四五六七八九十 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Now look at Mongolian numbers:

They look swirly and rounded like those in the picture. Also, remember how Mongolian writes top-to-down? If you stack these numerals up in vertical sequences (like in dates or two+ digit numbers) they will acquire the same length of the ones showed in the picture.

Finally, we must also take into consideration the type of script. Remember that very long list at the beginning of this post? Well, how do the gems differentiate among symbols and sounds? Do they use an Alphabetic script like Mongolian or a Logographic one like Chinese? Do they use something different altogether?

Thanks to Phos’ never-ending curiosity, we do have one example of how the Lustrous’ write sounds and it’s from when Phos tried to speak with the Lunarians and heard them saying ‘fu’ and ‘a’:

When they write those sounds down, they use two different characters: one for ‘fu’ and one for ‘a’.

Now, the manga is written in Japanese and Japanese uses a syllabic script, so it can’t write single consonants. Instead, it attaches the vowel ‘u’ (or sometimes ‘o’) to a consonant to suggest that it should be read by itself. So we could think that the ‘u’ in ‘fu’ is mute and that the Lunarian said ‘f’ instead of ‘fu.’ However that ‘fu’ is used to make a joke just a couple of panels later, suggesting that it could also exist as a syllable on its own, not a single consonant.

This would change the type of script the Lustrous use, because if Phos wrote down ‘f’ and ‘a’ (instead of ‘fu’ and ‘a’), then it would mean that the gems use an Alphabetic script, like Traditional Mongolian. On the other hand, if Phos heard ‘f+u’ and wrote down the syllable ‘fu,’ then the gems’ script could be Syllabic, like Japanese or an Alphasyllabary like Tibetan.

As for other types of scripts, I don’t think they are using a Logographic one (like Chinese), because if they were, then Phos would have written all the different ways in which the sound ‘fu’ could be represented, just like when Japanese speakers tell each other which kanji to use to write their name correctly. This is because each symbol stands for a morpheme (a unit of meaning), not a phoneme (a single emission of sound), so the same unit of sound can be written in different ways.

Phos is looking at the sounds they just wrote to come up with an idea about what they could possibly mean: it would make sense for them to write down all the possible combinations of sounds for ‘fu’ and ‘a,’ not just one.

What we can say for sure is that the Lustrous’ script is not Abjad, because the vowels (like ‘a’) have an independent symbol. And speaking of independent symbols, if we come back to Mongolian for a second, we can see that the symbols for ‘initial fu’ and ‘independent a’ do look a little like what Phos wrote down:

If this were true, then the Lustrous’ script would work like Mongolian: an alphabetic script where letters have different forms depending on their position in a word (initial, medial, final or independent).

There is one problem with Mongolian, though: it’s written vertically, top-to-bottom like the Lustrous’ script, but left-to-right rather than right-to-left. So if the gems are indeed writing in some sort of descendant of the Traditional Mongolian script, then it was modified to allow right-to-left vertical writing, like in a mixture between Chinese cursive and Traditional Mongolian.

For example, the two Lustrous letters above look like a mirrored version of the Mongolian letters below, and that could explain how one system writes RTL and the other LTR.

Among all the existing writing systems that I have analyzed, I think that Traditional Mongolian and Chinese cursive are the ones that resemble the way the Lustrous write the most. Among the two, I believe Traditional Mongolian shares more features with the Lustrous script than Chinese cursive, except for the fact that Mongolian writes left-to-right.

If the gems really did write in a parent script of Mongolian, then it would be interesting to know if they also spoke a descendant of the Mongolian language or if sensei taught them Mongolian script because he was created in Mongolia, but this post is already long enough.

I’d love to hear what you think about the Lustrous script though, and if I made some mistake or forgot to mention something, feel free to add to this meta.

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous #hnk #meta #long post #writing #writing system #script #hnk headcanon #mongolian #linguistics #lustrous writing system #meta tag #best

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180abroad · 6 years ago

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Day 152: Prague Castle (and the Window that Sparked a War)

On our last day in Prague, the miserable heat that had been oppressing us throughout our stay finally broke. But it went out with a bang. It stayed above 80 degrees until after midnight and only fell to the mid 70s by morning, where it stayed for the rest of the day.

Still, it was bliss simply to wake up to a merely warm morning. At least, it was bliss for the first few seconds of consciousness I enjoyed before a wasp stung my hand.

I’d never been stung by a wasp before, and at first I didn’t know what happened. It was like a bolt of sheer electric pain coursing through my hand and up my arm. I managed to kill and flush the cursed thing (literally) before it could sting again or call for reinforcements.

I was able to wash and clean the puncture quickly--no real harm done--but my hand was throbbing and stiff for the rest of the day. Not a great start, but luckily things got better.

Prague Castle is on the far side of town from where we stayed, across the Vltava River. So, for the first time since we checked into our flat, we took the metro.

The metro doesn't go all the way to the castle, but that gave us a chance to enjoy a picturesque, if largely uphill, walk through the beautiful, shop-lined streets of the Castle District.

One of the shops was a Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth--a major Czech pen, pencil, and art supply manufacturer. As a professional stationery fan, I had to go in.

Meanwhile, Jessica entertained her own professional curiosity at a nearby gingerbread museum.

There were also a lot of shops selling puppets and marionettes. The Czech people apparently have a rich history of puppetry dating back to the middle ages.

That doesn't necessarily make them less creepy, though.

Once we made it to the top of the hill, we had a great view of central Prague. As well the surprisingly close Eiffel Tower.

(It's actually the Petrin Lookout Tower, but it was directly inspired by the Eiffel Tower.)

Prague Castle has been an important center of power for centuries--first for the medieval Bohemian kingdoms and later for the Austrian Habsburg empire that eventually absorbed them. It was also the home of the first president of Czechoslovakia after the country gained its independence in 1918.

It's also huge--a sprawling complex of palaces, churches, and squares. By some measures, at least, it is the largest castle on earth.

Outside the main castle complex is the Castle Square, lined with former palaces of important noble Czech families. One is still occupied by the Archbishop of Prague. Many of the buildings are painted with an interesting "envelope" pattern that gives the smooth plaster walls the appearance of being made of geometrically carved stones.

In the center of the square stands an elaborate column erected as thanks to God and Mary for ending a plague. It seems innocuous enough, but it is actually stands as a reminder of Prague's subservience to Habsburg Austria, which was were the tradition of erecting these Marian plague columns came from. After Czechoslovakia gained its independence in 1918, a similar column in the Old Town Square was torn down by a celebrating mob.

The castle grounds are free to enter as long as you don’t mind going through a security checkpoint. Once inside, you can buy tickets that cover various “routes” or sets of sights. When we got in, there was a huge line at the first outdoor ticket vendor. But the second ticket vendor, just inside a nearby building, had almost no one in line at all. Besides us.

(Thanks for the tip, Rick Steves!)

Just as we entered the middle courtyard, we got to see the changing of the guard.

The centerpiece of the castle complex is St. Vitus cathedral. It is big and impressive like a national cathedral should be, and was also one of the slowest cathedrals to ever be built. It was started in 1344, and due to wars, plagues, and religious reformations, it wasn’t completed until 1929. You can see modern architects with business suits carved into the western facade–representing the men who made the final push to get the cathedral finished in honor of Czechoslovakia’s independence following WWI.

Besides its massive size, beautiful Gothic architecture, and everything else we’ve seen in so many other cathedrals by now, one of the coolest features to us was a stained glass window designed by–you guessed it–Alfons Mucha.

The center panes show a young St. Wenceslas being taught Christianity by his grandmother, St. Ludmila. The two young women at the bottom of the window represent the Czechs and Slovaks. And the sides tell the story of Saints Cyril and Methodius, two brothers who brought Christianity to the Slavic lands from Greece.

One of the brothers’ biggest problems in spreading Christianity was that the Slavs had no written alphabet. So Cyril, the younger brother, decided to invent one for them. Over the next few generations, that alphabet evolved into the modern Cyrillic alphabet, which is still used today in many Eastern European languages.

Sadly, the brothers’ lives didn’t go so well after that. When they returned to Rome to show the pope their new Cyrillic Bible, Cyril got sick and passed away. Methodius returned to Bohemia as an anointed bishop, but eventually a new pope came along and decided that the Cyrillic Bible was actually heretical. The church arrested Methodius and locked him away for years. He was eventually released, after which he spent the rest of his life quietly in a monastery.

So, if Wenceslas, Cyril, and Methodius are the three most-venerated Saints in Prague, why is the church named for St. Vitus, a 4th-century Sicilian boy who was boiled alive in tar?

(The legend holds that a rooster was thrown into the vat of tar with Vitus as a sacrifice to the Roman gods, so Vitus is often depicted with a rooster at his feet. The legend also holds that Vitus was miraculously saved from the boiling tar. But not healed, so he still died--just later.)

In 925 AD, Duke Wenceslas--a Christian ruler of the still largely pagan Bohemia--received a relic of St. Vitus as a gift from the king of Germany. Wenceslas built St. Vitus Cathedral to house the relic, and it became an epicenter of Christianity in Bohemia.

It may have helped that the Slavic pronunciation of Vitus's name sounded a lot like the name of a pagan Slavic god.

Other cool sights in the cathedral included a 400-year-old carving of the city of Prague as it stood in the early 1600s, as well as a massive silver tomb dedicated to another local saint: St. John of Nepomuk. John was a Bohemian priest who was murdered by King Wenceslas IV in 1396. The actual reason was most likely a disagreement over the appointment of a Benedictine abbot, but according to legend it was because John refused to divulge to the king what the queen had said to John during confession.

In any case, the tomb is staggeringly opulent. A huge crowd was gathered in front of it, and it was actually getting hard to move as we approached. Jessica was hit with a wave of claustrophobia and made her way through as quickly as she could, but I managed to stay behind a bit longer to get a good look.

I also managed to get a peek into the gorgeous (and strictly cordoned) Chapel of St. Wenceslas, where the saint himself is entombed.

On our way out of the cathedral, we stopped for a moment to ponder the theological and economic implications of coin-operated electric votive candles.

Back outside, we walked around the central courtyard to find the cathedral's spectacularly gilt south façade.

The next stop on the castle tour was the old royal palace. It was mostly empty, centered around a massive great hall that was once used for feasts, markets, and even jousting tournaments. Today, the palace holds the country's modest crown jewels, a throne room, and a room covered in painted coats of arms.

But the most important thing in the palace is a window. A window that helped spark the one of the bloodiest conflicts in all of European history--the Thirty Years’ War.

One of the few things I still remember from my high-school European History class is the Defenestration of Prague. Mostly because it taught me the word "defenestration."

Defenestration: (Noun) The act of throwing someone out of a window.

To me and all the other kids in the class, that was fantastic. In reality, of course, it was deadly serious.

Long story short: It is 1618. Under the terms of the Augsburg Settlement, rulers within the Holy Roman Empire could choose whether their state would be Protestant or Catholic. Bohemia is an Imperial state, and its rulers are Catholic. But much of Bohemia's nobility is Protestant, and they're tired of being ruled by Catholics.

So, following in the tradition of the Hussites 200 years earlier, the nobles go to Prague Castle and throw the Catholic rulers out of a window. One thing leads to another, alliances are invoked, opportunists join the fray, and soon all of Europe is embroiled in a brutal, convoluted war that kills millions--mostly German civilians caught in the middle.

In the hardest-hit German states, over half the pre-war population die by violence, plague, or starvation before the war ends.

The Peace of Westphalia--a series of treaties that finally ended the Thirty Years’ War in (appropriately) 1648--is seen by many as the beginning of the age of sovereign nation-states.

It’s kind of crazy to me that the idea of countries being independent entities with precisely defined borders and their own separate governments is only four or five hundred years old. But it’s true. Throughout the Middle Ages, Europe was more like a chessboard, with squares constantly being traded back and forth into increasingly large and convoluted hierarchies. A single marriage could join two countries together, and a single death could tear them apart again. One man could be the king of England, an heir to the throne of France, and also the descendant of a French duke. Does that make England part of France or France part of England? It took five generations of war to decided that the answer was “neither.”

You can’t really understand medieval and early-modern politics without adopting a much more fluid sense of what a country actually is. It’s still really hard for me to do, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying.

Anyway...

After the royal palace, we visited the Basilica of St. George--an old Romanesque church that served as the royal chapel before the construction of St. Vitus Cathedral. It is smaller, less crowded, and more intimate than St. Vitus. Among the old Czech rulers buried there is St. Ludmilla, St. Wenceslas's grandmother and the first Christian ruler of Bohemia along with her husband Bořivoj.

Our tickets gave us access to one more sight as we left the castle: a medieval shop-lined street called Golden Lane. The name comes from the goldsmiths who used to work their and serve the castle's opulent needs, but today it houses a wider variety of shops and museums. There were jewelry shops, of course, and a puppet shop that creeped Jessica right out.

The coolest part for me was a showcase of medieval arms and armor, which was housed in the long attic that ran across the length of the street. Jessica found it immediately claustrophobia-inducing, so I stayed back to take pictures while she went on to look at the other shops along the lane.

Having made it from one end of the castle to the other, it was time for us to decide what to do next. There was the highly recommended Lobkowicz Palace--home to the oldest and largest private art collection in the Czech Republic--but Jessica and I had been around enough at this point to know that we didn't have another museum visit left in us that day.

The option we had in mind was a visit to the monastic brewery of Pivovar Strahov. It may have been considerably cooler than the previous days, but we had still worked up a strong thirst walking around the castle. Some traditionally brewed beer from a 17th-century monastery sounded like just the right way to cap off our stay in Prague.

Of course, that meant turning around and walking all the way back up through Prague Castle and another half-mile uphill beyond. It was worth it, though.

I'd wanted to try their "most award-winning" dark lager, but sadly it was sold out. So instead, I opted for their mainstay amber lager. Jessica chose from the more adventurous seasonal menu a coconut wet-hop ale.

Both were good, but we each preferred our own choice.

Thoroughly spent, we called an Uber to take us back to our flat. Jessica tried to make small talk with the driver, but he cut her off with a cursing tirade against an aggressive cyclist on the road. Typical Slavic conversation atmosphere.

Overall, Prague was one of our most challenging cities, but it also left us wanting more. Even five perfect days would not have been enough, and with so much heat and so little sleep, we had been at a significant handicap. So instead of pushing ourselves to see one last thing, we contented ourselves to an early evening and an eager desire to return--preferably during spring.

Next Post: To Vienna

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