#this is worse than pumpkin hubris

[iwishtoreportaburglary]

artistic hubris is absolutely biting my ass right now

[baby-grayson]

Sweet Enigma| Part 7

words: 2.7k tw: discussion of death/sickness, angst tags:  @wheezeatmedolans​ @styles-dolan​ @prettyboydolan​ @evergreendolan​ @baby-turtles​ @dolanstacoma​ @kombuchagray​ @not-gbd​ @graysavant​ @someonetogray​ @dolansficsandpics​ @batgirl009 @voguekristens @letsgoget-high​ @crossedbone-kat​ @graysonsdollface 

Ethan was angry. Ethan was very very angry at his brother. Outwardly, he knew to be understanding and compassionate in Grayson’s very trying time. But as a business partner, he silently wished that Grayson would end his romantic escapade with a past flame and return from Jersey to help Ethan launch two business endeavors: the lingerie & underwear line to extend their clothing company and the Wakeheart bath bomb launch.

When Ethan looked to Twitter, to find Sherry’s public break up with Grayson: all frustration left his heart. Even from 3,000 miles away, he could feel his twin brother crushed under the weight and impact of his own lovestruck decisions. Ethan managed to get him on the phone later that night, surprised to hear Grayson’s cool tone, “It’ll be alright E,” Ethan could hear some rustling from the background of the call, “I’m flying home—taking a red eye and I’ll be there in the morning.” 

“You’re coming back?” Ethan was surprised: at both how confident Grayson sounded but also how quickly he was turning from his impromptu escape.

“Yeah but—yeah you can wear that one—sorry, but I want to go see Sherry. I want—I want to apologize in person, maybe see if I can do anything to make this better on her.”

Ethan’s eyebrows raised when he heard a girl’s voice in the background. He hadn’t asked Grayson about the photos of him and Kate, but he never pegged his brother to be unfaithful, even in the rockiest relationship, “Make it better?” Ethan mentally swore at his brother for being so idealistic, “You were caught out chea—with another woman Gray,” Ethan groaned into the receiver, “Are you sure going to see her is the right thing?” “Yeah I am,” Grayson sighed in acceptance, “I have to try—to try to apologize more than anything.” Grayson eyed Kate’s back as she innocently left his bedroom, “and E—I wasn’t with her, not like that when I was with Sherry. We’ll talk more when I get home but—those pictures make it look a lot worse than what it was.” “So, you’re saying you tracked down an old girlfriend to be nothing but platonic?” Instead of trying to mask the disbelief in his voice, Ethan leaned into it—hoping the comic edge took the sting off his words.

“No—” Grayson made a grumbling noise over the phone, “got it on in the shower a few hours ago.” “Gray!” “I know—I know. But she’s—I know that I need to apologize to Sherry and sort through everything right now before we can—before I have a chance with her. But like I said, I wasn’t with her when I was with Sherry, I wouldn’t lie to you about that E.” “Okay yeah bro, you didn’t have sex with her—sure. But your heart wasn’t with her?”

Ethan’s observation struck a chord in Grayson’s heart: joining the symphony of guilt that had been building in his soul over the past few weeks. For someone as familiar with pain as Grayson was, he hated causing it in others, especially when he considered them good people. He considered Sherry a good person, for all her faults. She was loyal, dependable, and positive. Despite his growing feelings for Kate, he was genuinely broken when he tried to face the emotional trauma, he caused his former fiancé.

In a white and gold bedroom in a house on the hills, Sherry Maddox clutched a framed photograph in her hands. Her long nails clacked against the glass of the frame while she sneered down at a happier version of herself, Grayson, Ethan, and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend on a beach in Tasmania. The only physical photographs Sherry owned were of her and Grayson from the past 18 months. She much preferred Instagram, but Grayson’s nostalgia had inspired her to collect happy memories of the two of them: memories that transformed her heart into a tainted space, left empty by the memory of who she thought he was.

Huffing, she slipped the photo from the back of the frame and pulled it out. She set the rose gold aside on her nightstand, letting it lean on a pile of a dozen others. In a swift motion, she passed the photograph through a shredder and watched as dozens of little strips came out the other end. The edge of the strips was not yet released from the shredder’s blades when she reached for another frame and began the process over again. Earlier that day, she commissioned an artist to construct a mosaic of herself, made from the shreds of her memories with Grayson.

The image of Kate shined in Grayson’s eyes, but her words made no sense to him, “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”

His voice held the full weight of a dubious question, as if the letters did not belong sitting next to each other in the words they formed. His eyes looked down at Kate, not wanting to accept the truth that they would be separated, if just for a short while, after being reunited for the first time in years. Having her again just reminded his heart of how difficult it was to be without her. She nodded and assured him, “I need to go see my mom. For real. And you need to—you have stuff you need to do without me anyway.” Kate reached up to a hand through his hair and down the side of his face.

On the drive to Philadelphia from New Jersey, Kate thought long and hard about whether or not to tell her mother about Grayson. She considered the possibility that her mother might have seen the pictures of her and Grayson in the tabloids but decided that her mother never knew when a royal wedding was happening, much less when a scandal hit the papers. She tossed any thoughts of Grayson talk out of her head: it was not official enough to put on her mother’s radar. Instead, she spent the next few days at her mother’s bedside.

She held her mother’s hand and reminisced about the good old days. She told stories about California until she saw her mother’s eyes close, welcoming the sweet embrace of sleep. Kate tiptoed out of the room and gracefully closed the door behind her. She welcomed the warm aroma of pumpkin soup as she made her way down the stairs of the brownstone and to her grandmother in the kitchen. When she let her anxieties out and asked why this had to happen to their family, their tiny family who didn’t have people to spare, her grandmother put a knowing hand on her shoulder.

In a semi-hoarse, but loving tone Bethel insisted, “Family is more than the souls you share this Earth with dear. They’re the inspiration and the aspiration of everything you want to be and everything you can be. Your mother gave you everything you need to soar in this life and the next: I should know, I taught her everything she knows.” A few of Kate’s tears spilled onto the black and white tile of the kitchen floor while Bethel continued, “Your home isn’t an anchor: it’s a port in a storm, a refuge from the hardest of times but not a forever shelter because you were always meant to sail harder and farther than the rest of us.”

As Kate’s heart wrenched with the acceptance of the hardest parts of her life, Grayson’s twisted in agony on the other side of the country for a much different reason. Impulsive and filled with hubris, Grayson never formulated a plan for what he wanted to say to Sherry: he expected inspiration to strike him with brilliance in the moment. This is how he stupidly ended up pulling the door knocker on the Maddox West Coast home and waiting on the front steps.

Grayson’s eyes went wide with fear when the door cracked to reveal the lanky figure of Calvin Maddox standing afront of two massive security guards.

“Don’t you know when to quit?” Calvin’s voice was sharp as his elbows from where he crossed his arms.

Grayson stammered and twitched his jaw, his eyes excavating the scene for some kind of a way out.

“Now,” Calvin started with his low Southern drawl. He peered down his nose at Grayson, twisting his upper lip as he spoke “Let me tell you how this is –”

“—Daddy!” Sherry’s voice cut the tension with a shrill acidic screech. She moved between the security to stand in front of her father with crossed arms, in an identical pose to him. Grayson’s mouth went dry. “I’ll take care of it,” she asserted. Minding her father’s disappointed look, she turned to the security guards and waved with her hands, “Shoo.”

Sherry gracefully stepped out of the threshold and closed the door behind her, careful to match her father’s antagonistic stare. She huffed out of her nose and closed her eyes, her hand rested on the doorknob. She looked like she was about to open the door and go back inside when she said, “What could possibly be left for you here?”

Grayson opened his mouth to start to speak but was cut off by her harsh tone, “I mean—don’t try to tell me you want me back. I would never. I could never after you embarrassed me like that—no woman who knows her worth would return to a man who pulled your kind of stunt.” Her words fired from her lips like projectiles that battered at the sack of guilt Grayson had forged in his own stomach.

Grayson nodded and balled his mouth into a tight knot, “I know. You’re better than that. And I will say this until the day I die, but I’m so sorry Sherry. I—I –I—” Grayson reached out for something imaginary in the air, “I was fighting a war in my mind and I took you down with me as collateral and you—you never deserved that. You were never anything but good to me,” Grayson’s eyes welled in kindness and sadness. Sherry stared at him coldly and narrowed her eyes: still not convinced he wasn’t about to ask for her back.

“I would never want to be yours again,” Sherry retorted, trying to anticipate his next move, “The world would never believe it. The entire world would look at me like some kind of doe eyed, brainless Nancy.”

“You have every right,” Grayson nodded, breathing heavily and feeling his chest tighten with every syllable, “You—you ended us and you had every right to Sher—”

“Every right to?” her words came so slow they were slick on her tongue. “I had no choice to. What was I supposed to do?” she sneered, “post motivation quotes on Instagram and keep telling my family that it was just a phase?”

Grayson nodded and his sweaty palms found a home in his pockets. He looked at the floor, where he noticed an obtuse patch of dirt on the toe of his shoe. “I’m sorry,” his voice was barely above a whisper, “I’m so sorry. I’ll always be Sherry. I can only imagine what I put you through—and you didn’t deserve any of it.”

Grayson was shocked when she laid a delicate, graceful hand on his jaw. She drew him in and placed a puckered kiss on his cheek, “Grayson,” she stepped away from him, “you made me an underdog,” she placed a hand on the door knob, “and everyone loves an underdog.”

She turned to leave but twisted her upper body in his direction, “Was that all?” her tone was flat and devoid of any emotion.

Grayson gnawed at his lip and circled his head, “If—well—those pictures weren’t what it looked like—that girl, she’s—”

Sherry held out an intimidating, long, perfectly manicured finger in his direction. She spoke through gritted teeth, “Don’t.” She unlocked her jaw, “Don’t tell me a single word about her. I’m not about to spend the rest of my life swimming in those kinds of comparisons.” Sherry made a calculated move to swing her backside while walking away and closing the door behind her.

***

Later that night, Kate hung up the phone with Grayson as she leaned her backpacks against the dresser in her childhood bedroom. She dropped on her bed and eyed the science fair ribbons and faded polaroids strung on her wall. One of them showed her old cat, sleeping contently on a dusty couch. A few of them featured her friend Tabby: each iteration of Tabby wearing a different hair color. Kate never had many friends: tending toward shyness and introversion. Her eyes locked on one on the far left. She sat up and reached out for it. She thumbed the faded glossy surface carefully. The photo showed her and her mom on her 16th birthday: in front of a grocery store cake decorated with a few candles. She thumbed the surface again but standing up and walking over to put it in her bag to bring to California.

On her nightstand, her phone started ringing. She stared at the unknown number flashing across the screen. She questioned the chance of a paparazzi being on the other end: she swallowed hard and pushed the thought away that it might be Sherry. Throwing caution to the wind, she picked it up “Hello?”

“Hey..Kate. How are you?” Even three years down the line, she could tell the difference between Grayson’s voice and Ethan’s.

“Hi Ethan! Oh my god, how are you?” She turned on the speaker phone and sat cross legged on her bed: mimicking a pose she used to take when Tabby would come over to gush about boys. She hunched forward, leaning in as if Ethan was in the room with her. “I’m good.” Ethan started plainly, “Gray told me you were flying back tomorrow?”

“Yeah I should be there by lunch, I’m leaving at like 6 in the morning,” she started. She sighed and looked down at the phone. In that moment, she was struck by the fact that Grayson and her had yet to share the details of their mundane lives in the past few weeks, that had been anything but mundane. “Do you two still live together?”

“Yup,” Ethan let out a breathy chuckle, “I get to smell him every morning.” Ethan sucked in his top lip, wondering if it was too soon to make that joke in their relationship. “Um but yeah I wanted to call you, say hi.” He shrugged from where he stood, “Let you know that if you need anything, I’m here.” He was silent for a moment. “I’m happy the big guy came to his senses and found you again. I think the best version of my brother happened when he was with you.”

“That means more than you know Ethan.” Kate sighed and fell back against her pillows, “I just—this is so complicated. You don’t think that’s a bad sign or anything?” She spoke openly, feeling relief to have a place to candidly think out loud about the situation for the first time.

Ethan breathed through his nose and picked his words carefully, “It’s what you make of it. And as his brother, I know I’m--I’m biased, but all he wants is just an honest chance. He’ll come through if you let him. Just because things are twisted, doesn’t mean they’re broken.” “Thanks Ethan, that means more than you know.” Kate’s words fell heavy onto the phone. She sat up, as if somehow powered by the idea that twisted did not equal broken.

“Don’t stress about,” Ethan’s voice came with a promise, “If anything, you two taught me something about love last time around. You shouldn’t be worry about it.”

  A/N: I feel like this part is kinda boring and I am sorry!

[unclefungusthegoat]

EXODUS FROM EDEN

A Far Cry 5 AU: The Plagues of Egypt

Hope County Gothic 2018- WEEK 1- PROJECT AT EDEN’S GATE

Word count: 1327

WARNING: Blood, dead animals, frogs, insects, rotting food, sickness/disease, starvation, scars and wounds, self-flagellation, child death, major character death, child abuse references, self harm

A Pharaoh once sat on high, his towering empire built by the hands of enslaved Israelites. But he defied the commandments of God, and his hubris was punished with pestilence, famine and death, wrought upon his lands through God’s messenger- a man he once called his brother.

Joseph Seed sits on high, his Project, his Eden inhabited by the unwilling, the unrepentant. And now God sends another messenger, one who trusts in and upholds the law, to warn the false prophet-

Let my people go.

Joseph Seed seeks to build a garden. An Eden where God’s chosen will be saved from the fury of an impending, catastrophic reckoning. With those he loves at his side- his brothers, Jacob and John, his sister Faith, his wife and infant daughter- he fabricated a devout and holy empire, claiming the people of Hope County for indoctrination into his ‘family’. He believes he is saving them. He believes he hears the voice of God.

He is mistaken, misguided by demons.

In a small town on the border of Joseph’s empire, a young police Deputy wanders through the lush Montana landscape, seeking solace and serenity. They had once been a part of Joseph’s family, enticed by his soothing words, his condemnations of government and society, his genuine care for the world’s ‘unfortunates’. But they had seen his true face. His lust for power. His hungry gaze. His serpent tongue.

They had fled.

And it is in that liminal forest that they hear the true voice of God, whispered first through low hanging branches, slipping gently through evergreen leaves, before alighting a bush and illuminating the glade with an opalescent flame.

God’s message is clear.

The people of Hope County must be freed from the clutches of the false prophet. 

Under a star-ridden sky, silent in the early hours of the morning, the Deputy meets Joseph in his church and explains to the Father of God’s commandment.

Unwavering in his faith, Joseph simply replies:

‘God will not let you take them.’

The Deputy pleads, but to no avail. And so they deliver the first warning:

...I will strike the water...

The Henbane River, once blue and speckled with the green haze of Bliss, grows thick and stains slowly with crimson. John is holding a sinner below the surface of the water, seemingly cleansing him, but instead he watches in horror as his hands redden and the scent of bitter metal claws its way down his throat. The sinner in his firm grasp begins to thrash and, as John brings him back into the cool night air, he looks upon a man glossed with so thick a sheen of blood, that he wonders how he is not drowning.

...I will plague your whole country with frogs...

Soon, Faith collects flowers by the tainted river. The soles of her bare feet are slick with the blood that has begun to soak into the soil. It is not long until the wild lobelias she gathers are scattered along the grassy path where she fled, as frogs are spat from the river’s depths in their thousands.

...Smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice...

The prisoners in Jacob’s care, their clothes stained with the rotting juice from meat they devoured, are used to the bristle of the Judges’ fur and the itching of lice. But upon the Father’s third denial of freedom, they see their captors begin to scratch the skin from their scalps, bloody flesh under their fingernails, their bodies overrun with the gnawing of a hundred thousand tiny mouths.

...Pharaoh hardened his heart...

Upon the release of a swarm of flies, which in turn brought disease as they settled on the harvest, chewing their way into the stocks hidden deep within the bunkers, Joseph’s voice fills the Deputy’s radio frequency. His words are faint from the unceasing cacophony of wings. He asks that the Deputy cease the plagues. He promises freedom for the people of Hope County.

The land was cleansed of the infestation.

But still, the people were not free.

...the LORD will bring a terrible plague upon the livestock in the field...

The bulls in Holland Valley collapse in the untended grass, their ribs prominent as they starve where they lie. Ravenous cougars rip all but the prongs from the elk corpses on the hot tarmac road through the Whitetail Mountains. The meat is poisoned by sickness. It is not long before the wild cats also succumb.

... festering boils will break out on men...

Joseph dabs soothing ointment upon the sores on John’s back, where they nestle among his deep scars. They grow inflamed and fever racks his body, droplets beading across his brow as though he was newly baptised. He bandages Jacob’s arms, where the patchwork of vermilion welts have given way to a new shroud of bulging sores. The Father is kept awake through the humid night by the screams of his infant daughter, boils burning into her tiny face.

...The LORD sent thunder and hail...

The Angels in the fields were nothing more than dust now. Each was incinerated by a lightning strike that evaporated their milky eyes, before claiming their bodies entirely. The church in Fall’s End no longer had a steeple, the hail having shattered it down. The people of Hope County had heard it crumble. The bell had tolled endlessly as ice rained upon it, and had then fallen silent. The thunder had rocked the earth and reduced the mighty statue of the Father to rubble.

...they will devour what little you have left...

There are no longer pumpkins at Rae-Rae’s farm. No longer are the fields blotted with fleshy fruits, but instead, dark with locusts that even devour the metal fencing, the wood of an old dog house, the tarp that covers a rusted truck. Radio towers appear like pillars of black salt, writhing in the fading sunlight. Joseph hides with his family, still ignoring the Deputy’s pleas.

...darkness that can be felt...

Madness came with three days of darkness. The Seed family kneel before the altar, whipping the flesh from their backs, unable to comprehend why God would allow this false prophet to punish them, his chosen, when they have all suffered so much already. Many of their flock walk out of the compound, never to be seen again. The shadow is suffocating, the silence oppressive. Joseph knows no light can be found in sleep- they are all haunted with nightmares.

...loud wailing... worse than there has ever been or ever will be again...

Joseph doesn’t cry when his baby daughter suddenly pales in his arms, her skin and lips fading to a periwinkle blue, cold to the touch. He does not respond to his wife’s heavy sobbing as she clings to the swaddled child. He holds her hand, gently winding his rosary around her palm. He doesn’t cry when he hears John screaming at the hunched figure of his eldest brother, blistered hands gripping at Jacob’s well worn camo jacket and oddly peaceful face, in desperate hope that he might wake. He barely hears the wailing that rings through the compound, through the valley and the mountains. God’s chosen few, chosen no more.

Instead, he radios the Deputy. He speaks in a quiet voice. It is a voice that lingers in the hollow space somewhere between forlorn resignation and tempestuous rage.

And the people of Hope County are at last freed. Purged of Bliss, their scars and swollen tattoos bandaged, the Deputy walks with them through the gates, as the sun rises once more.

Joseph watches them go. 

He sits alone in the ruins of his garden. His Eden. He waits for guidance, an echo of the Voice that had let him climb so high and then allowed his world to be torn apart around him.

He is met with silence.

It is the same aching silence he had known as a boy in the moments after his Father had finished beating him. Perhaps he was still there now, in that moment, resting on a porch in the heat of a Georgia summer. Perhaps he would indeed see the Red Sea part, in the form of a gash in his back where leather met skin.

Perhaps this was not his promised land.

And taking a knife in his malnourished fingers, he cuts into his tall forehead, a permanent reminder to his forsaken soul:

Exodus 7:17

“By this you will know that I am the Lord”.

-----------------------------------

Bold quotations are from the Book of Exodus. Painting is The Great Day of His Wrath, by John Martin.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! This is my first fanfic for this fandom- I haven’t actually written fanfiction for a few years, (at least, not written down, I write it in my head all the time hahaha) and I’ve been concentrating on my meta essays for FC5, so I apologise if I was a bit rusty!

Also, disclaimer: I’ve never actually read the Bible, and obviously this is a fictional interpretation, so there are almost definitely some inaccuracies, but I tried to research as best I could! I wasn’t sure whether the death of the first born applied to daughters as well as sons, or to adults who were firstborn, but I used both for the sake of story.

Finally, I unashamedly acknowledge that I was 100% inspired by the Prince of Egypt.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Ok this is gonna be a Long-Ass Post so it's Under The Cut, But the questions being answered are:

Marik Found the Yo-Yo Gang by taking out a want ad. Which is also how Seto found the assorted Sadists/Serial killers for Death-T. You can find anybody to do just about anything in the Help Wanted Section of the Los Osaka Times. Marik's Ad runs semi-regularly in newspapers all over the world, and it approximately reads: "Duelists Needed! Need Money? Like Card Games? Come join us at [TIME AND LOCATION] to see if you can cut the cards with our gang. Expirience in Theater, Orphans or Forklift Certification a Plus."

Mai has a few of Pegasus' VERY EARLY overwrought and inexpertly rendered undergraduate works. He will die if they ever see the light of day. Pegasus has some of Mai's baby pictures, including the "Baby's First Bath" and "That Year Mai Wanted To Go As 'A Pizza' for Halloween." She will murder if they see the light of day. It's a Stalemate.

Rex's legal name is Rex, but his Surname is both of his parent's extensive polish surnames, hyphenated for a Total of 28 characters, so it doesn't fit in the registration box for most tournaments, so he colloquially goes by "Raptor" for Tournaments. Weevil's given name is Wilburforce, perhaps the only thing worse than going by "Weevil".

Seto will never admit this aloud, but Joey's "List Of Grievences" was an important reference guide while he was designing the rules and updated card designs for Battle City. He did have the social graces/sense to legally cover his ass to anonymously send Joey a substantial check for the use of his notes.

Yugi is the MOST Friend-Shaped, and Poor Seto is the LEAST friend-shaped. All angles and a plain mop of hair that culturally reads as sort of feral. Like the difference between a Corgi and a Coyote. At least some of this is by design on Seto's part.

Besides Dinah, notable artworks include: Pegasus' Assorted Portaits of Cecelia to Weep In Front Of, Shadi's Portrait to Curse and Have Unexamined Feelings About, The ENTIRE comic book run of Funny Bunny and reels of the TV show and both movies, Some Statuary That Definitely Was Meant To Stay In Somebody's Tomb In The Valley of The Kings, The Ugliest fucking statue of Pegasus Riding A Pegasus you can imagine, The original artwork for and master copies of the cards of every Duel Monsters card he's ever made, and a bunch of valuable but not-to-his taste artwork gifted to him by business associates that know nothing about art- Picassos, a Bottechelli, A Rembrandt- but he does keep that one Rothko in his office. The man ABSOLUTELY knew what he was doing with color, and this both inspires and infuriates Pegasus.

Everyone's Drink Order:

Yugi: Iced Coffee With A Ton of Cream And Vanilla Syrup.

Yami: Has been methodically working his way through the Menu and so far his favorite is the odwalla juices sold with the snacks.

Joey: Pumpkin Spice Chai with almond milk.

Tristan: One Black Coffee, two sugars.

Tea: Caramel Frap

Bakura: Brought his own thermos of Proper Tea from home because bless his friends they Absolutely Do Not Understand.

Mai: Actually drinks the little cups of Espresso. No Joey, not like doing shots.

Seto: Wouldn't get caught DEAD in a starbucks, but sometimes Isono slips one onto his desk, and they are consistently drunk. Isona has also been methodically working through the Menu, and can't tell if Seto has a broad taste in caffinated beverages or he can't actually tell the difference between them.

Mokuba: Is 100% ready to drop whatever change it takes to make one of those monstrous "every kind of milk, every kind of syrup, and an absurd number of shots" monster drinks, and is full of the hubris to then drink it.

Ishizu Ishtar was confused and offended that somehow the coffee at the fancy shop tasted worse than the local grind boiled over a campfire she was used to, then remembered she lives in one of the first places to domesticate coffee, so they have had the time to get it right.

Odion Ishtar: Not only grew up with Really good and well-made coffee in Egypt, has since travelled the world and developed a caffeine dependency. Bakura has Tea Opinions. Mai has Wine Opinions. Odion has Coffee Opinions. Some of those opinions are that whoever it was at Cornell University that came up with the Vaccum-extraction method to get 3-5x as much caffeine as normal out of the beans AND an exceptionally smooth brew should be elevated to Godhood, and that the Pumpkin Spice Bitches are right that Nutmeg DOES belong in Coffee.

Marik ishtar: Half-caff Oatmilk Latte with three shots of vanilla and extra foam

Oh god it's 2:30 AM

Stuck waiting at various errand locations, someone please ask me TPOFATGIF lore or character questions or whatever?