#verse: each of us is a nest of lies

[positivelybeastly]

Would you consider beast being a closet bisexual @

"I'm an open heterosexual, thank you very much, and I would recommend that in future, you keep such speculation to yourself."

"Ehehehey, well, wow, that's quite the question, not often I get accused of being a closet anything, but, ah, pretty firmly straight over here, friend."

"Despite what you may have heard from the press or a certain ex-girlfriend of mine, I am quite firmly in the heterosexual camp."

"I think someone needs to have gone on a date sometime in the last year to be qualified to be anything sexual, no?"

"Asexual aromantic. And if you ask again, I shall be displeased."

"Do you have a pulse? Are you happy with scalpels in the bedroom? Actually, your answer to that second question doesn't particularly matter, we'll get you warmed up in no time at all."

All right, so this is one of those moments where I have to pull back the curtain a little bit and talk about how I play a character who is canonically heterosexual, but whom I read to be bisexual because it's truer to the character as I find them.

Now, you know, I actually misremembered how this conversation went? I remembered Emma saying that Hank had never had so much as a gay thought, but that's not what she says here. She say that Hank has never had any kind of physical relationship with another man, and . . . you know what, I kind of believe that to be true.

Because as much as I fucking love THIS moment, it's not a relationship.

We can all agree that a kiss is not a relationship.

However.

. . . Guys, Hank is, like . . . really queer.

This post sums it up nicely, but yeah, Hank acts in a very over the top, dandified manner, over speaking and over-exaggerating everything about himself so that you won't pay attention to the blatantly obvious. He performs masculinity in a way that reads as overcompensating because he feels like he's been othered by his mutation.

There's also panels like this.

"Flirt with everything this side of Boy George."

Boy George being the androgynous gay icon of the 1980s, yes?

And this is coming from Hank's girlfriend, who he has admitted in dialogue to only really being with because she feels stable and safe and familiar, a tether to his old life in a time when he feels without a direction in life?

Like, this isn't me putting words into Hank's mouth, this is HIS dialogue during a time when he was arguably his most heterosexual! Yeah, you could just read it as him having a wandering eye, because he's a very flirtatious fellow, but that really isn't how it reads, is it? It reads as, I need reassurance I'm doing adult, normal things while my life goes weird, abnormal places.

It reads as, I think I'm kinda fucking queer but I'm too afraid to admit it.

Because lemme be real with you, this is Hank at his most heterosexual, but there's. Some. Stuff. Going on here.

"I was GOING to go out on a date with you, really pretty girlfriend, but then my MALE friend turned up and I just got so excited that I went out with my MALE friend and am basically hanging on his every word and eager to impress him, while the straight people at the table (Isaac and Dolly) are on an actual date, and Overmind sounded concerned about three wheeling a date when they asked to come with?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a gay man, and I have never been in just a towel around my best friend while he scrubbed another man's back, because that's just a little gay.

Hey, did you know Bobby's gay?

I don't bring that up for any real reason, just, you know.

And then there's Simon.

Oh boy is there Simon.

From Earth-763, but.

Like.

Come on, man.

When Logan and Hercules did this shit, people were celebrating in the streets because it confirmed bisexual Wolverine, but when Hank and Simon do it, no-one gives a fuck.

But that's an alternate universe. All they've done in 616 is kiss (GAY), so maybe it's just, you know, horsing around.

Right?

Hank, you don't look happy to be put down.

Hank never smiles like this on the X-Men. I'm not exaggerating. I've read X-Men comics for nearly 20 years, and Hank does not smile around other people like he does around Simon Williams. He looks fulfilled. He looks free. He looks delighted, constantly.

Are you two gonna fucking hold hands, like, WHAT?

And you know what, let's talk about the X-Men.

Scott, for someone who said very firmly that Hank wasn't gay before, you don't even throw that in there first?

Is it because of what comes next?

I'm - sorry? What in the FUCK are you trying to say to me?

And let's, for a moment, turn to Dark Beast. Because he has some words on the matter.

You know what, yeah, Dark Beast does seem like the idea to suck, fuck, thrust and kill his way through a Tuesday night, honestly.

And look, I know that alternate universes are shaky ground to be drawing conclusions from, but, like . . . this is. Getting to be rather a lot of very suggestive dialogue.

Look, I get that there's not quite the same amount of outright coding that Bobby had before he was forced out of the closet (Cloud, Emma Frost's prodding at his mind, all the stuff stacking up across Lobdell and Austen and Liu), but it's still . . . questionable. Isn't it? Like, at this point, I have to question why we think Hank has to be straight. Which is why I don't think he is.

So, now we get to the point of the evening where I pull at the curtain, because how Hank talks about himself in my threads works according to a certain kind of logic - canonically, as of right now, 21st of January 2024, he's officially straight, so any references to canon events will be as if he's 'straight' but actually just closeted bisexual. Because I care about continuity and keeping my facts straight and drawing as closely from the comics as possible - within reason - but my interpretation still takes precedence.

And my interpretation is that Hank, at any point in his life, is a bisexual man who feels afraid to admit it. But here's the question you're going to ask - WHY is he afraid to admit it?

You could go with an answer that draws on canon, and point out that when he tested the waters with coming out as gay, Scott and Emma both basically verbally smacked him and said he wasn't.

But that's not my style. I don't personally read it that way.

In my mind, Hank considers coming out to be That One Last Step Past Normal that goes too far. Like, it's one thing if he's a blue furred, canonically kinky, canonically weird, basically canonically bipolar, canonically psychologically damaged beast, but if he's a blue furred kinky weird bipolar psychologically damaged bisexual beast, that's the point where people will turn on him and be disgusted.

I could see him drawing that invisible line and deciding, I have to keep this one aspect of me to myself because I can't trust people to accept that from me. I think Hank has conditioned himself to believe that being accepted is something he has to earn over and over again, in part because of how Xavier schooled the X-Men's train of thought on that, but also because, unlike Nightcrawler, he knows what it's like to go from passing to not passing, and experiencing that scarred him in a way?

Like, one of the last bits of good Hank content we got before Krakoa was that Christmas special where he's back at his parents' for the holiday, and he can hear them talking from downstairs, and they're their usual lovely sweet selves, but they mention wanting grandkids, and . . . for someone whose bedrock, whose psychological wellbeing, is so incredibly dependent on other people, especially his parents and friends, I could see him being terrified of threatening that, even if it means he has to hide a part of who he is (perhaps unnecessarily).

There may be a degree of that where I'm projecting, because I had to deal with my dad being very heteronormative for a while after I realised I was gay, and even though I was certain he wouldn't reject me because of it, it felt easier to just not challenge that and let it slide because What If, you know?

But I feel like it makes sense for how Hank is, with his very tenuous relationship with feeling accepted, and I feel like this also accounts for why Emma 'saw' that he was straight in New X-Men, because he's wound himself into a psychological knot to the point where he reads as straight telepathically, even though he doesn't act like it and isn't.

If there weren't hints, I'd be inclined to be like, okay, maybe I'm just reading it this way because I see myself in Hank and him being a bit more like me makes me happy, but then there are GENUINE hints. The Exiles relationship, the fact that everyone basically treats Hank as Simon's emotional support, EVEN HIS GIRLFRIEND, and then the DeMatteis comment from Vera about how he flirts with everything this side of Boy George.

This isn't looking at pre-Krakoa Logan and Scott and thinking, yeah, they have tension, they want to fuck, this is looking at this guy who is extremely sex positive, flirtatious, open minded, and hearing from his girlfriend that he doesn't confine himself just to the purely feminine.

And it's also, like . . . like, I've talked about this with my boyfriend, and people love to throw out the YOU'LL JUST SHIP ANYTHING accusation, and maybe that's kinda true for some people, but I find I don't do that. Like, there are people out there who ship Hank with Cyclops, and I'm like . . . sure, fine. I don't personally see it, but you go for it, my dude.

If I genuinely did just want Hank to be an action figure that I smash with other action figures in a gay way, I feel like I'd have a stronger reaction, but instead, I look at the way he is with Bobby, and with Simon, and even, to a degree, with Logan (pre Krakoa, obvs), and I'm like . . . this is not the way a straight man acts. This reads as a bisexual man who doesn't feel like he can be 100% himself because he feels as though he's already asking a lot of people to accept him as he presents himself to be.

Hank's entire character from, like, moment one makes so much sense when you understand that he's basically always playing someone else. Sometimes it's who he wants to be, sometimes it's who he thinks other people need him to be, a lot of the time it's who people want him to be - like, I was reading the 2004 Nightcrawler solo the other day, and Kurt is internally narrating about how everyone on the X-Men is just an emotional basket case EXCEPT Hank, and I'm like . . . THIS.

THIS RIGHT HERE, is what the problem is! No-one on the X-Men is capable of seeing that Hank is constantly performing, and just how exhausting it is. That's why Simon is such a breath of fresh air, because Simon doesn't need him to perform, he just needs Hank to be . . . fuck, man, he just needs Hank to be happy, because that makes him happy, and the sheer lack of self-interest inherent in that dynamic is such a GIANT part of why I think Hank finds Simon so attractive. Like, imo, Scott's so insistent that Hank isn't gay during the New X-Men arc because of all of this, because he fell for the act, because he thinks this is just another joke that Hank is gonna duck behind.

Scott is SO INSISTENT that Hank isn't gay, and it's like, bro . . . Scoot . . . how do you know? You barely know what you want on a good day, and you think that just 'cause you and Hank hung around in the OG X-Men locker rooms for three years that you know him better than anyone else? He was on the Avengers and the Defenders and he has so many friends that you just DON'T KNOW ABOUT. How. Do. U. Kno. Scoot. Like, in universe, if Hank was working his way up to maybe coming out, and using the excuse of a joke to do it, THAT kind of reaction, and Emma TELLING him that he isn't gay, would push me RIGHT back in the closet.

If there wasn't coding, if there wasn't a genuine basis to this, it wouldn't have come up in Exiles, honestly. Like . . . okay, so multiversal stories are an excuse to do off the wall shit, right, and especially make characters gay just to push and prod and see what actually changes, right, like Governor Logan and Hercules, but they can also reveal a good amount of truth about a character out of what DOESN'T change.

And on a meta level, like, SOMETHING made Jeff Parker think Hank and Simon worked. He didn't pick Hank and Bobby, he didn't pick Hank and Hercules, he didn't pick Hank and Warren - Hank has NO shortage of male friendships you could pick from, but he picked Simon, and it's because there's enough there that even if you don't buy it for 616, it makes sense for a multiversal thing. Which means there's SOMETHING THERE.

And Ben Percy, cursed be his name, only added to that with X-Force. The idea that Simon is somehow going to be the catalyst for whatever awakening of classic, GOOD Hank is going to happen is just so . . . like, he still clearly cares for Abigail? They were on panel doing the eye socket thing? But, and this is partly because of who Abigail is, the narrative did not change because of her presence. But it does when Simon's around.

Yeah, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but sometimes a cigar is something to unpack. Like, I really Do Not Know how Hank became 'the straightest X-Man,' because A) have you fucking read Avengers and Defenders, and B) even discounting ALL of that . . . do you not find Hank's way of acting to be a little . . . you know . . . effete? Like, yeah, it's an act, he's playing the dandy, he's offsetting his appearance, but there are other things you can do to offset the Beast.

So why does he always go back to the brightly coloured suits, the loud fashion, the high energy, the camp, the billion dollar words - to put it bluntly, why does he always seem to act just a lil' fruity?

So, yes, in my mind, he's a closeted bisexual man, and that's how I play him. Thank you for coming to my lecture.

#vinial453 #outofmuffins #verse: all-new #verse: earth's mightiest! #verse: getting by #verse: each of us is a nest of lies #verse: another time and another place

[padmerrie]

@panharmonium recently gave me quite the shout-out for my Bookends-verse, so I thought I’d post a series of snippets from various in-progress works for anyone interested. :)

Enjoy!

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“This should be illegal,” Obito grumbles, glowering at the school.  He’s slumped back on the bench, hands stuffed into his leather jacket’s pockets, looking as mutinous as Kakashi feels.  He hums his agreement, too tired to use words.  

“Finally.  We agree on something,” Obito mutters under his breath.  He nudges Sasuke with his elbow.  “You’re grounded, by the way.” 

Sasuke’s head snaps to Kakashi.  Occasionally, Obito’s commitment to zero follow-through has its benefits, and it’s often in moments such as these, where flagrant threats are bandied about like a wooden sword, that Sasuke turns to Kakashi for certain assurances.  Namely that said threats are empty and not to be taken seriously.

It’s a shame that Kakashi has been dragged out of the comforts of his bed and into the cold on Sasuke’s behalf.  He offers his unsuspecting companion nothing more than a solemn nod.  

Sasuke’s eyes bug out of his head.  If Kakashi’s not careful, he may find himself on the receiving end of one of Sasuke’s threats.  Those are real and not to be underestimated. 

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Without looking up Kakashi politely asked, “Can I help you?” 

“When is Naruto going home?”

“He’s only just got here,” Kakashi replied softly, his pen skating purposefully across the paper.  Only when he’d finished did he look up.  He stared dispassionately at the shiny, black nest of hair staring at him, while the remainder of Sasuke’s head lay facedown on the table.

“What’s up?  Didn’t sleep well last night?”

As was often the case, Sasuke’s answer was no answer.  Putting his pen down, Kakashi dragged his glasses off and perched them on top of his head.  He leaned back in his chair and assessed the work that lay before him.  

“Why are you way over there?”

Sasuke bolted up ramrod straight and twisted violently in his chair to - and Kakashi could only speculate since he couldn’t see his face - glare at Naruto squinting over at them.  

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“Show me.” 

Iruka beckoned him inside and led him hurriedly over to the coffee table where a mess of papers lay scattered.  “Here,” he said, barely letting Kakashi get a good look before he tapped impatiently at a spot on the paper.  “See?  That’s me!”

Kakashi blinked down at the drawing, then Iruka.  “You’re kidding, right?”

“Are you blind?” Iruka shoved the paper in his face and pointed.  “He has a scar across his nose!”

Kakashi squinted.  “I think that’s supposed to be blood?”

“Not much better!”

“Iruka,” Kakashi said, very deliberately taking the paper from him and setting it down on the table, “if you’re really concerned, call the kid’s parents.  Call me again and I’ll tell Naruto and Sasuke where you hid the Playstation.” 

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There was no time to warn Sasuke about the chaos he’d just unleashed by opening the door.  It only took the dogs one second to catch a whiff of Rin and all hell broke loose.  

Kakashi had to give Sasuke credit; he managed to keep himself upright, even as he was trapped in the center of the pack’s stampede.  Amidst the barking, Rin gave a cry of alarm, seeing Bull bringing up the rear, and in a blink of an eye Kakashi was there to deftly sweep Sasuke up into the air before his behemoth of a dog could flatten him like a pancake. 

The dogs pawed at Rin with a frenzied excitement, competing for her attention, their antics bouncing off the walls, filling their much too small apartment with noise.  In Kakashi’s arms, Sasuke smacked his hands over his ears.  

“Hey,” Kakashi scolded, raising his voice and punctuating the command with a sharp whistle.  It went unheard thanks to Rin’s repeated insistence to each and every one of his dogs that they were, in fact, ‘the best boy.’  All lies at the moment.  

Shaking his head, Kakashi put Sasuke down a safe distance away.  “Come on,” he said with tired exasperation, pulling the dogs off Rin.  “You’re acting like you haven’t seen her in years.  Don’t encourage them,” he directed at Rin, shooting her a look.  “I’ve already got a noise complaint.  I don’t need another.”

“I thought you said this place was dog-friendly.”

“It wasn’t for the dogs,” Kakashi muttered in an undertone, glancing at Sasuke.

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“I am appalled by your attitude,” Madara said rather pompously.  “Do you realize I could have Sasuke arrested?”

“I do.  In fact, I’m one step ahead of you.”  As Kakashi said this, he turned to Yamato, who looked at him questioningly from the kitchen.  “I have one of Konoha’s finest here now to give Sasuke a demonstration of how our criminal justice system works.  What do you think, Madara?  Should I have him cuff Sasuke and take him for a spin in the backseat of his squad car?  Or maybe we should make some wanted posters, huh?  Set him loose and let the people decide his fate?”

Madara clucked his tongue in disgust.  “Be serious, Kakashi.”

“I am serious,” Kakashi insisted, feigning innocence.  “He’s right here if you want to talk to him.”

Yamato’s eyes bulged and, despite the half wall between them, he backed away, wagging a warning finger at Kakashi.  “Do not hand me that phone!”

Kakashi ignored him and brought the phone back up to his ear, catching Madara declaring, “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

“Really?  Because I have 45 daytime minutes that say otherwise.”

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“How many college girls do you think Sasuke’s dated” 

Sakura frowned down at the shirt in her hands, taken aback by Ino’s question.

“I don’t know.  I think he’s gone on a couple dates.”

“You don’t talk about that stuff?” Ino asked.

“We don’t not talk about it,” Sakura said carefully.  She picked up the finished stack of clothes and walked them over to the dresser.  “You know how Sasuke is.  He’s really focused on his studies.”

Ino joined her, cradling a small mountain of socks.  She dumped them into the open drawer.  “You’d think he’d have lightened up a bit.”

Sakura smiled to herself and shook her head.  “Not Sasuke.”

She pushed the drawer shut and turned to Ino.  She was watching her.  Smirking. 

“What?”

Ino eyed the dresser behind Sakura.  “I thought you said this was temporary.”

Sakura let out a sound of exasperation.  Best friend or not, she’d had enough of Ino’s commentary on this particular subject for one day.  “What do you suggest I do?” she demanded.  “Dump them on the floor?  Most of his clothes are at school.  He won’t mind.”

“I know he won’t,” Ino said smugly.

A knock at the door saved Sakura from having to respond.  She marched across the room, ignoring the triumphant look plastered on Ino’s face, and pulled open the door, relieved to see Kakashi.

#*these are all wips 👉👈 #naruto #bookends #naruto au #kakashi hatake #sasuke uchiha #fic #wip

[libidomechanica]

Yestreen, when he tried the nines

A treochair sequence

               I

It’s a sin, and life yields; a honey Lip. He surpass her, save where I

often wearies all the dreams awake, for fear that you would run this

however this omission in his arms. She could love is no haþelez þat

hit hade wonde worþyly with dread, i’m a plain sae rashy, O, aboon

the whereof doth dwell in; so well? And made him free, but not a line had

Julia ever present, and hwen hit ofte, þat bremely taken he

sayned hym lykez. In me no more. With a reflection could be brought

myself a flaw discourage droop, despair; therefore I eþe þe, haþel, how

þay wroȝt. And the commes to come. Ne would have done with one glance on St.

               II

Been a passion tis man we loved us. Which touches you with all her

kind; so she wept, and pleasure you. It is perfect fright but a tremulously

gentle canna be alright it’s gonna be your persons. Let

him but lent to die of Thirst. Each door; she lay clothed, she says tomorrow.

               III

No dream of Heaven—from the heaviest tempest, it disdain’d to grow.

               IV

Upon the war; shall rise a gloue if hit be sothe þat he should brook a

wordless mind! And we schyn reuel and a day; now hyȝe, bot heterly receive:

for valour was not distinguishing lowe in her pillow. On golden

throne the world will the lamps around, all round her handle. To sing and

small pity mov’d, oh may wel wit no wont þe weder of ledez ar

on lenþe þe lufez vpon flet, of folȝande, in hor store; buy terms of my

wyrdes. Out went before to favourite science of þe Rounde Table.

               V

I’m sensible, because is, one and þe halydam, and Kryst yow falles,

and let loose, or hers whom nakd the Tyrant in a vestal’s veins? A

second at the violet breath, bleed away; she rapt upon the panacea,

Sir! Of couardise and with þe best, not thus much the oceans roll!

               VI

Fro þe houndez, whettez hym ouer þe fest in Abraham’s bosom bounden,

in glade and þe gome in þe grene gered in the window and now

ȝe ar a sleper vnslyȝe, þat geten hem by a conniving still to

leave the rest. When she strove to thy heart re- sent; and so great use, in any

case; for thy pain, allow that grows; a school, the beares by being

mouth, extremely at home, with broader towards some euill were too slow, what were

the nest. Rhodes is the ineffable sense affords; sweet-gard’n-nymph, which mingle

act of immolation, heaven saw her sad ears like summer’s day;-

summer’s house I beheld the Mythological machinery, and syþen

he comes nerre without destroy the best he ne dyngez hym dresses, and

watched then by nature or thirty years, and provoked remark, or Jew; where

juries cast, where all his hode, and thine, an ignorant, noteless, timeless,

timeless, timeless, lastingly. The Northern front, and she was jealous

God, when share that Spring, tis surely and in the middle of being!

               VII

And which I compile, who scorne, noiseless as the Spartan ladies þat

I haf sen a selly in mynde quen yow hider, er þis. My

love immortal work his should run through my unkind as you well knit: he

sees; on several pounds of hands that pious prayere, and he fyskez hem

harden into speed. Nor Loves commands despise, led by some time must come,

who both in your love a white cape on the woods. In menyng of monster

to have on displace, I can say is—that he might be saved, and with solace

of þe proude cropure, his man we love. And so have put my madness

seized my nursling new—like that sun thine eyes, attemper not been quiet.

               VIII

Of lies, a meré mantile abof, menske þe mon on þe morn to fylle

þe godmon, þis gomen bygan, or some luckier night, o

carefull verse. Shall I part musk or civet can wake at nigh expell’d St.

               IX

Ye wadna been sae shy; for laik o’ gear ye lightens, and noȝt haf leue

liflode to take as knyȝtez vnder, þurȝ mony meruayle hym poȝt ful

longe quyle. Although from Indus to the comic Muse; nor envy her.

At having mind of the mind and so þikke, a stede stif kyng he most

atrocious. But with no doubt, it equally desire, swore lustily

he’d be revenge too deere force shall place so proude skyrtez, þe hede, and sturne,

and pass over the way to mine ear, The boisterous, just another land.

               X

And then run away as thou and I am not to ask his mother.

               XI

Assist the point; the spiders throwes onely downe on me thundring

disdained, the first notes, irregular and squirm newly as from a sip

of hem, soft he settled graves are taxes on our joys to telle yow

here: iwysse sir, quyl I leue, me worþed þe broun bleeaunt, enbrauded abof,

menske þe mon may seem so many times, indeed a vertebra to

the flaw-blown rose, even as thy lovest thou no singing, each, the valiant

man! Brief, but know not wear your worth al þe wone of his brutal kind

of crews as renegadoes; which now this she presents lean em, ’t is

strained heavens fall into all she made vpon molde his day; but oh! Naked

in the conceit did melt me down to me, I can’t say, a Jew took off

his lyue; ofte he herd þe howndez þat his balȝe haunche, þat he mette, he

made at leisure with Juan. At the quiet scenes appeared, she uttermost,

I should under hand sharply that rose, and all must love the present; i’m

sensible, I trust that neither children leap, and pray for a hundred

visions and fickle Man is apt to rove: look abroad thro’ the Hebrew

Chronicle, how often wearies all things was angry when their clients,

because man is no dream is fled, by the smart. Then—i never durst begin

to do it for I bayþe hit now her height, or raise him first they seem

strange, how idle seem’d they be more uniform. And more triumphant prize.

               XII

Whom these woods. And the land: betwixt extremes, but coasts of many a herle

of þis ryche ryal kyng of arwes— at vch farand fest among

the forth strydez, foundez þay þer þay wyth in oþer gome wyth blys into

þe Norþe Walez. Could sit down on the flocks do feede, where are the Fates change

ere night proclaim the clearer, farther awake, and þe leude and here I

sought; and the beautiful each and ages hence: two roads diverged in a

wicked people do, suffering blind mans marke, thou dost stay. Had not seem very

well, or pandering but the vision, which two cantos into

familiar guest. If any were boun busked bylyue. To all his steedes in

lowlye laye, and sayde soberly samen alle þat mon most dissemblings

when wearied on my spirit, unaware: Though all its range of duties

totall summe men hit hym þoȝt. And some mould, the little goes a long moment

was as one who have burnt each hapless name, a wretched the Donna

Julia and Don Fernan Nunez? And saw but soon wheel roun’, an’ I saw

a crowd pursue: night a countenaunce, emong the hasp of love. Melissa,

tinged with slow and connection, but can’t tell whether took the other

joys to pray turn your lofte, and of air—Rome’s ghost not own, but the past.

               XIII

Half in dreams. My Spectre folly: thou steal to me, you that compass of

water we can be set withinne with as god wylle—and ho hym respite,

invade and my pretty gentleness the crowned, their languid eyes would

it have been wived, and cemmed, wyth to karp, til þe mon and catch at

any noke I oquere fynd, to end the brain that which the other in

the literary leaves with his happy mother to sing my Highland

Lassie, O. Survey the pedigree his sires would look, as roll the sea

of sorrows whence after-hands may move the heart in that bene with her

walour and govern the rack, and then two myle henne. And heave, as

in a harde as fresh—for he Music to heaven’s decease.

               XIV

My hand tightens, and are as beauteous bride, and we are and unexplaining,

with a short-legged hen, if we can scarce held her writhing, my woe now

wasted fruit of love; so to his course of China brought with your leave me

not any other booty sought forgetfulness. Yet, when push’d by questions;

never saw. And file they labour to my turf, and þe halle, herande

for to come—Well, to reche myȝt, as I am, first inadvertent

brush the flower on earthlie mould’ring to the Turkish mart, her voice kept her

golde ay inmyddez, as his first creature, and Care: how lonely men speded

hom to hay is grassye ground of time to marriage is fledde, these books: hope.

               XV

Light, he told of those queers i remember. The terrace ranged aspect thrown;

each ravishers remained, flaming hair, and sacred be her father was

wildly clad; her eyes can see myself—me— that I do and why we came,

rank on rank; he gave way; him self might me; while life’s strange Poet-princess:

Lady Psyche and hornez ful ryche. ’Er this I heard by falling, Oh.

Received thing their happy herse, make we mery quyl we may have you more

tame flower singing, each, then, ’ said he, Out went to grasp. A thing and oar

of Adria’s god of pleasant city, and scimitars await thy weeding;

but where delightful lily of yourself here þeraboute abelef

as a busk ouer his dirty fee, and lose thronge, with little plants of

man the wakes up and ful siker my trawþe.— A true Hidalgo, free and

sayde þe behoues. Always remember you is here! Resting still shows, kill

me with þe hede of þe bitter Eldre braunch, laments of alabaster.

               XVI

And laȝter. To the watch’d her own; this most dear excepting nature holds

out half undo it. Be better learning to lasse luf in his grave never

heart her could not see thy widows, she resolved on air that cause thou

mayst attune thy quill, and, turn’d, and the long carpet lies: o write within,

which old- recurring wash of a Good Son, who his Dominion sweet to

her beloved nor yet recover. And wyth knotted rushrings, and catch

at any of thee, gaze o’er a name, above the style, and Cymon

suddenly forgive, though fame is my loof, i’m thine eyes the teacups, after

thee, and crispeth with chosen friend, do you feel no more, but took a new

one from the fabulous folds of Time, perhaps that before the Flood, and

yet rolls on thy stead performed of golde; þe werbelande wynde wapped fro

þe fale erþe; ner slayn for gode of þe ȝonge; much steuen, and þat, for we

hold Thee just, and I strove to weep. At last, who had fallen—on this sere

pyne, þat day dele his fare þat he þurȝ þis fryth and her maids tenderness.

Lemons, and lyȝt horce launce. Must be born were boun busked on þat rurde

he of þe fayrer to his bed hym drynk, and latent in a curbside

pool. With pain and felaȝschyp forbe al þyng, his chek for new joy; but oh!

               XVII

The shadows haunting now. Thou by the spouse: her college and all the heroes

of his rage and þe goddess of gods adultery, is more

reconciling ray, and winds arise, a bastard vile, a beast with stupidly

admire how thou canst sit, and to his luflych aloft lepez

ouergrowen; wel bisemed, and look’d, and touches you with alle þe lorde

fyrst cource in þe colde erþe to welcome her son so—i’m very certain

the one POU STO whence around. A naked in a letters in her legs’

sincere the Beadsman, after all, that unfair which, with Mador de la

Port. For there we weep; and so that they call these stone where were time of on

wyȝes þat knit ar þerinne, þat I wear those who champion’d his arms were joined.

               XVIII

Had given her soft lips lie apartment in the hallow’d by the difference

me, hate were ye as poor guide. One asked, how great’s the song, although please

to frame: enough still left to sanctify the deuce they sought; and held her

thou darest in my view set all this is the beil’, where the wrong on the

dead world is dimme and gomenly he sayde, now, sir swete, boþe þe barres of

talkyng noble, wich spede is in speche, for many a flowers, mother

know, but then the Hand of children still to dote upon the last: a

peacefully! Selling everywhere, art still the soot that two at Conway dwell.

               XIX

Til þe sunne, þe stel hondelez, dubbed wyth ful comly bykennen to

rest by cool Eurotas they will say, when separate cages, instead of

sunshine and ink for schame! Ran before the stage. Generate mind. Is much

to pleased amid their former friend remember how the vows I made. Your

name in ordinary place? And þou hatz forred, and said … Nay, we loved

his pain, and hade ben soiourned sadly; sele yow be chose a morsel

he and Juan throttled him of calling too. Have, to rent her sleep of death.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 7 #199 texts #treochair sequence

[coinageinvestment]

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[abellinthecupboard]

The Skeleton in Armor

“Speak! speak! thou fearful guest! Who, with thy hollow breast Still in rude armor drest,      Comest to daunt me! Wrapt not in Eastern balms, But with thy fleshless palms Stretched, as if asking alms,      Why dost thou haunt me?” Then, from those cavernous eyes Pale flashes seemed to rise, As when the Northern skies      Gleam in December; And, like the water’s flow Under December’s snow, Came a dull voice of woe      From the heart’s chamber. “I was a Viking old! My deeds, though manifold, No Skald in song has told,      No Saga taught thee! Take heed, that in thy verse Thou dost the tale rehearse, Else dread a dead man’s curse;      For this I sought thee. “Far in the Northern Land, By the wild Baltic’s strand, I, with my childish hand,      Tamed the gerfalcon; And, with my skates fast-bound, Skimmed the half-frozen Sound, That the poor whimpering hound      Trembled to walk on. “Oft to his frozen lair Tracked I the grisly bear, While from my path the hare      Fled like a shadow; Oft through the forest dark Followed the were-wolf’s bark, Until the soaring lark      Sang from the meadow. “But when I older grew, Joining a corsair’s crew, O’er the dark sea I flew      With the marauders. Wild was the life we led; Many the souls that sped, Many the hearts that bled,      By our stern orders. “Many a wassail-bout Wore the long Winter out; Often our midnight shout      Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk’s tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the oaken pail,      Filled to o’erflowing. “Once as I told in glee Tales of the stormy sea, Soft eyes did gaze on me,      Burning yet tender; And as the white stars shine On the dark Norway pine, On that dark heart of mine      Fell their soft splendor. “I wooed the blue-eyed maid, Yielding, yet half afraid, And in the forest’s shade      Our vows were plighted. Under its loosened vest Fluttered her little breast, Like birds within their nest      By the hawk frighted. “Bright in her father’s hall Shields gleamed upon the wall, Loud sang the minstrels all,      Chanting his glory; When of old Hildebrand I asked his daughter’s hand, Mute did the minstrels stand      To hear my story. “While the brown ale he quaffed, Loud then the champion laughed, And as the wind-gusts waft      The sea-foam brightly, So the loud laugh of scorn, Out of those lips unshorn, From the deep drinking-horn      Blew the foam lightly. “She was a Prince’s child, I but a Viking wild, And though she blushed and smiled,      I was discarded! Should not the dove so white Follow the sea-mew’s flight, Why did they leave that night      Her nest unguarded? “Scarce had I put to sea, Bearing the maid with me, Fairest of all was she      Among the Norsemen! When on the white sea-strand, Waving his armed hand, Saw we old Hildebrand,      With twenty horsemen. “Then launched they to the blast, Bent like a reed each mast, Yet we were gaining fast,      When the wind failed us; And with a sudden flaw Came round the gusty Skaw, So that our foe we saw      Laugh as he hailed us. “And as to catch the gale Round veered the flapping sail, ‘Death!’ was the helmsman’s hail,      ‘Death without quarter!’ Mid-ships with iron keel Struck we her ribs of steel; Down her black hulk did reel      Through the black water! “As with his wings aslant, Sails the fierce cormorant, Seeking some rocky haunt,      With his prey laden, — So toward the open main, Beating to sea again, Through the wild hurricane,      Bore I the maiden. “Three weeks we westward bore, And when the storm was o’er, Cloud-like we saw the shore      Stretching to leeward; There for my lady’s bower Built I the lofty tower, Which, to this very hour,   Stands looking seaward. “There lived we many years; Time dried the maiden’s tears; She had forgot her fears,      She was a mother; Death closed her mild blue eyes, Under that tower she lies; Ne’er shall the sun arise      On such another! “Still grew my bosom then, Still as a stagnant fen! Hateful to me were men,      The sunlight hateful! In the vast forest here, Clad in my warlike gear, Fell I upon my spear,      Oh, death was grateful! “Thus, seamed with many scars, Bursting these prison bars, Up to its native stars      My soul ascended! There from the flowing bowl Deep drinks the warrior’s soul, Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!”      Thus the tale ended.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ballads and Other Poems (1842)

#The Skeleton in Armor #Henry Wadsworth Longfellow #Longfellow #poetry #literature #writing

[stiltonbasket]

Aaaaaah!!! Please please please write about wedding clothes, I need more of the Yearning

(note: please reblog, since that’s how we get prompts for future chapters!)

anon 1: Prompt for the renouncement AU.  Surely the happy couple (plus assorted Huaisangs and juniors, if you like) need to meet with some chefs and sample a gazillion interesting things to decide on the banquet menu.   WWX, of course, samples all the wines...It would also be lovely if you wrote them getting dressed and having their hair done to match the gorgeous fanart of the two of them kissing one another's hands...

anon 2: renouncement verse prompt for the wedding arc: sizhui and xiao-yu help wwx with a practice run for his wedding hair, and lwj has a surprise for each of them!

Despite Wei Wuxian’s insistence that Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen were going to far too much trouble for the union between their two clans, his brother and future brother-in-law refused to do away with the wedding rehearsal--a grand event in its own right, with a reception for the two bridegrooms’ families and an official exchange of gifts--and set the date for the longest day of the summer, a fortnight before the actual marriage ceremony.

“You’ll enjoy the party,” Jiang Cheng scolds, when Wei Wuxian tries to complain. “And you don’t even have to do anything, so be good and let me and Zewu-jun handle it.”

In the end, Wei Wuxian spends the rehearsal morning tasting wine, because three kinds of liquor are usually served at weddings in Yunmeng: with the sweetest and most delicious drinks poured out alongside the food, and the stronger, sourer ones reserved for later in the night, after the newlyweds retire to their bridal chamber. Surprisingly, Lan Xichen tags along to help him choose the first liquor, and approves of the golden honey-plum wine so highly that he buys a whole case to take back to Gusu with him.

“I leave wine bottles as offerings when I burn incense for Mingjue-xiong,” he explains wistfully, as the two of them go back to the clan quarters with enough fengmi jiu for the dinner party. “He would have liked this, I think.”

After Li Shuai and Yu Zhenhong finish sorting the liquor, Jiang Cheng displays Wei Wuxian’s wedding dowry, and Lan Xichen hands over the bride price, while Wei Wuxian tries not to choke on his own spit from his place at Lan Zhan’s side. He knew about the dowry Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling were settling on him, of course--there was a trunkful of silk sheets in violet and blue, and three deep chests of new gowns and slippers tailored to fit his height and slim shoulders, and then a tea set and a box of gold jewelry. There was also a larger case of jade and silver trinkets for him to wear after moving to the Cloud Recesses, where gold was largely forbidden for the sake of breaking the law against extravagance, and Wei Wuxian had to promise not to touch any of it until he and Lan Zhan officially start living together in the jingshi.

Jin Ling decided to present him with a box of baby’s essentials, which Wei Wuxian thought was ridiculous--the only children he and Lan Zhan will ever have are A-Yuan and Xiao-Yu, both of whom are far too old to actually use the gift, but his nephew looked so pleased when he presented his dajiu with the tiny shoes and dresses that Wei Wuxian shut his mouth and accepted them without protest.

After all, he and Lan Zhan might really end up with a new baby sometime in the not-too-distant future, if Wei Wuxian’s propensity for acquiring small children is anything to go by.

But none of this prepared him for the delivery of the bride price, which turns out to be six thousand golden taels from the Gusu Lan treasury to make up for the loss of Lotus Pier’s newly-instated head disciple and the zongzhu’s elder brother, not to mention the only legitimate heir to Yunmeng Jiang. Jiang Cheng doesn’t even bother to look gracious when he sees it, as Wei Wuxian notes with a cough that sounds more like a strangled scream than anything else--because his shidi seems to believe that a small fortune in gold is his due for having to part with Wei Wuxian, even though Lan Xichen will be compensated for about a fifth of the bride price on the actual wedding day, 

“Did your brother just bankrupt your sect so you could marry me?” Wei Wuxian demands, half-crazed as Lan Zhan ushers him back to his bedroom to bathe and dress in his freshly-tailored bridal robes. “Lan Zhan!”

“My uncle set aside a bride price for me before I was born, since he guessed that I would require no less than five thousand gold whenever I decided to marry,” his intended shrugs. “Hurry up and dress, sweetheart, or we will be late.”

Wei Wuxian relents and takes a hurried bath while Lan Zhan goes off to tend to his own ablutions, watching Sizhui and Xiao-Yu play together from behind the privacy screen as he scrubs his back and arms and pours perfumed oil into his hair. Sizhui seems to be trying to wrangle A-Yu into an embroidered green coat and trousers, but the baby looks far more interested in Wei Wuxian’s clothes: namely, the red and purple wedding gown, since he manages to snatch the shining silk robes out of his xiongzhang’s hands before building a nest in his pillow-basket with them.  

“Xiao-Yu is a bird,” he insists, as Wei Wuxian drops his cake of soap and laughs himself hoarse at the sight of him. “It’s my nest! Go ‘way!”

“A-Yu!” Sizhui cries, nearly stunned speechless. “Didi, those are A-Die’s wedding robes! You can’t play with them, so be a good boy and listen to xiongzhang, or--or you’ll make Yuan-gege cry!”

Xiao-Yu only squints at him before turning up his button nose. “No!”

But Lan Zhan arrives a few minutes later and coaxes the baby out of his basket with a stick of haw candy, leaving Wuxian to heave himself out of the tub and draws on his underwear. After that, the three of them lure Xiao-Yu into his tiny silk coat (by feeding him all the candy he can eat, to keep him from running away) before Wei Wuxian finally dons his bridal ensemble: a deep red overgown with lotus blossoms sewn onto the sleeve-hems in lilac and gold, while the skirt and shoulders boast a shower of stray golden petals falling from the heart of a single central flower. 

“Let me do your hair,” Lan Zhan murmurs, as if this were their actual wedding day instead of the rehearsal dinner. “You look beautiful, Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian feels his heart quiver at the compliment as A-Yuan steps forward with his lotus headdress, pinning it into place in front of his high-combed bun so that Lan Zhan can secure the tiny gold chains fastening it to the back of his head. He often noticed his friend’s good looks before they were engaged, of course, which is the only reason why Lan Zhan finding him beautiful in return has flustered him so--and he tries to put the thought from his mind, or at least shove it away so that he can examine it later in private. 

Anyone would find it pleasing to hear such a compliment from their bridegroom, he thinks, before blushing himself half to death when Lan Zhan leans down to kiss the side of his face. Get it together, Wei Wuxian!

#renouncement verse #wangxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #wangxian arranged marriage au #my fic

[snapeaddict]

Small thing for Minvember, day 6: cat

Here we go with another song, @mmad-lover!

Bébé soleil

There are memories that never leave us, memories where everything feels perfect, where the rays of sun, still slightly orange, lazily spread on the dark-red carpet, where the room smells of delicious toasted bread and coffee, where the general atmosphere is so full of peacefulness we know at once this very moment will stay with us for a long time.

Albus was not awake yet. Little Severus had been for an hour, but he had not cried, just magically appeared on top of their bed as Minerva had opened her eyes. He could still barely walk, but apparently, he already had other options. He was a very silent child, the kind who spoke with his eyes and would communicate his feelings with gestures and small noises, but did not scream, and did not attempt to speak yet. She very gently picked him up.

“Good morning dear”, she whispered, careful not to wake her husband. “How did you manage to get here, mmh? Are you cold?”

Severus simply smiled timidly. She wrapped him up in a warm blanket and slowly got up, heading toward the living room. There she lit a fire in the chimney as Severus happily started playing with wooden toys, the first Albus had brought him, and therefore his favourites. It was a bright, quiet Saturday morning and Minerva had this strange feeling being awake was relaxing. She was not aware yet of how much she would miss these moments of tranquillity, but she was enjoying every second of it. Severus was watching her.

“Mum will play with you as soon as she finishes to make breakfast, okay?”

He was very still during the whole process, his big black eyes following each of her movements as she brought bread, butter, various kinds of jams, cocoa and coffee on the table. There also was a large glass of fresh orange juice for him, as she was very careful he was getting enough vitamins. She then knelt next to the boy, observing the little wooden figures in had carefully placed in a circle.

“Do you want to eat now? Or wait for dad to wake up?”

Severus pointed his toys. At the centre of the circle he placed a small black cat and clapped his hands, raising his eyes towards her. She smiled.

“I can be a bigger cat if you want. A real one with very soft fur. Would you like that?”

She knew he would. Each time she transformed into a cat he was extremely enthusiastic and far more grabby than he was with her in her human form. He was so small, it was the first time she did not feel small herself when being a cat – she actually considered she had a better understanding of his feelings in those moments, as the angle at which she observed his face was different. He hugged her, and she purred.

She could not even help it. And being a cat, she was much more playful.

Half an hour later, when Albus finally came down, dressed in a pastel lilac-purple dressing gown, he found the both of them giggling, half lying on the floor, Severus curled up against Minerva’s fur. Sometimes he would very gently pull her tail and she would meow in protest, climbing on top of him and refusing to move; and the small boy laughed again, crawling on the carpet until he was too exhausted to go any further. Then they lied there, breathless and smiling, looking at the ceiling above them and enjoying the warmth of the morning sun on their faces. Albus sat with an amused look on his face, buttering a piece of bread. He would not disturb them.

Severus, very comfortable in the little nest of warmth he had made for himself, happily dozed off.

And Minerva watched his sweet little face with delight, her eyes, no matter if they were those of a human or cat, filled with a mother’s love: there was a small ray of sunshine snuggled up to her heart.

~ Very important to listen to the song linked in the title! Clumsy translation below

I have a Baby Sun in the depths of my nights

That lulls me to sleep and shines

Sweet little face who climbs with soft steps

The staircase of the summer room

I have a Baby Sun in the sky of my life

Who comes as soon as he wakes up in my bed

Telling me (his) dreams and singing songs

Snuggled up against my heart it feels good

A thunderstorm broke out in the night

Small hug in the morning, to start the day well

Small happiness, my heart’s going to burst

At the time when all children have fallen asleep

And my Baby Sun, heart beating in the rain

Came to join me quietly

I told him about the fights of those dark clouds

Tears of fear flowed down his cheeks without ceasing

It is incredible how much he trembled

When they met

The day was up when the storm stopped

Croissants, chestnut cream, toast

The sky was bright for breakfast

There were coffee éclairs (a pun as éclair means lightning in a storm)

Small dip in soap creams and shaving foam

I needed three words to finish a verse

Little happiness, fear is quickly forgotten

Small happiness, my heart is going to burst

Alone with my piano, I searched

I felt him enter on tiptoe

I was in heaven

That’s when he started dancing

His steps were flying on the carpet, he was bursting with life,

He already knew by heart

That lulls me to sleep and shines

That one-hour song and sang it too…

It is a Baby Sun in the depths of my nights

Sweet little face who climbs with soft steps

The staircase of the summer room

- Yves Duteil, Bébé Soleil

#V small ficlet #Just a moment of peace #Yves duteil #minvember #minerva mcgonagall #Albus Dumbledore #severus snape #mmad

[shirtlesssammy]

15x16: Drag Me Away (From You)

Then:

Castiel confesses a bombshell to Dean

Now:

We pick up right where we left off. Dean and Cas are about to share mutual I love yous and ---. A man checks into a motel late at night. The man is nervous entering the room, but reassures himself that he “can do this.” He sets up shop, and by “shop”, I mean he starts hitting the bottle. 

Travis gets a text from Caitlin asking him why he would go “back to that place.” The creepy ring he grasps as he tells himself it was never real tells me it was VERY REAL. Get out of there, Travis! 

Alas, it’s very real and he’s murdered by Closet Ghost Boy. 

Sam and Dean are on the case!

Oh wait, I guess they knew the guy back in the halcyon days of their youth and they’re actually heading to his funeral. Sam recaps recent events, including Cas bailing on the fam. Then he asks if Dean and him are fighting again. 

AND IT SENDS ME. #SamKnows

Dean denies knowing anything (AHEM. I sense DRAMA by the end of this episode --I’d normally say this would be left for the end of the season, but we’re really at the end of the season and the END OF THE SHOW...what’s with all the manufactured drama??) Dean then gets a text from Cas asking if he’s told Sam. 

That’s a negative. 

*Flashback Alert*

January 1993

Dean’s about 14 or 15 and Sam is 10. They’re dropped off by John to chill at a motel while he heads out on a hunt. Sam’s hiding something under his coat, and with a little prodding from Dean, it’s revealed to be a college guide. 

#NerdAlert

Also, angst alert, I guess. This sets up the rift between brothers. Sam wants a normal life, Dean’s happy being a good little soldier. (Hmmm, something tells me neither of them will be in The Life when this is all said and done…) 

Sam laments his life but unpacks his bag anyway. 

Dean, meanwhile, heads to the vending machine to grab dinner. A young girl and her younger brother catch him stealing and introduce themselves as the mysterious Caitlin and Travis. And the young Travis is the DEAD KID. 

They exchange life stories and Caitlin insults Dean’s Precious. 

Present Day Sam and Dean meet up with Caitlin again. 

(Mid recap mind-melt: THERE ARE FIVE EPISODES LEFT! What are we doing here????) 

She tells them that the funeral was last week, but she needed them to help her. “I think she’s back.”  

*Flashback Alert*

Travis was her first “victim”. He attempts to get a candy bar from the vending machine, and her gnarly hand attacks him instead. Travis DOES NOT deal well with it. 

The group gathers in the motel room and Travis is upset that no one else saw the old lady in the candy machine. Dean tells Caitlin and Travis that monsters are real. Dean asks if weird things are happening in the town. 

Apparently kids go missing in this town. 

And in the present day, Dean tells Caitlin that he killed the thing that preys on children, so Travis had to have killed himself. 

Team Youth start their investigation.

They think they’ve got things figured out, and Dean is IN CHARGE...or a dumbass even at 14. He heads out alone to fix things. Caitlin follows. (Insert Lucille Bluth gif: Good for her!) 

Sam and Travis stay behind to play Boggle. #nerdalert

But seriously, now they’re setting up the idea that SAM might die at the end? No.

Dean and Caitlin continue their explorations, and Caitlin takes their endeavors less than seriously. GIRL. They find a nest, and something Dean freaks out about and pushes Caitlin to leave the area. 

Sam and Travis start to spell out very grim Boggle results, when the game shakes and the room goes dark. The hag appears in a tangle of gnarled hair and dirty robes and heads straight for them. Dean and Caitlin burst in just in time! Dean chops off her fingers and gives her a bit of a stabbin’ and the witch evaporates into dust. Her ring is left behind on the floor.

Grown up Dean paces through the motel and encounters a ghostly version of his younger self. Young!Dean mocks him, tells him he failed, and hands him a knife. “You know what you have to do.” Dean sinks to his knees, the knife poised to slice into his heart. 

When Sam interrupts him, Dean discovers that he’s been hallucinating everything - even the knife. 

Later at the bar, Dean confesses to Sam and Caitlin that he saw the monster’s nest when he was hunting her as a kid. It was full of dead kids around their age. Sam’s horrified and asks why Dean never told him. Sweet bby Sammy, you know why! Though he tried to forget, the experience cursed him with nightmares for a long time. “We were both just kids,” Sam says to Dean’s BIGGEST GUILTY FACE MY GOD. “We used to keep a lot of secrets from each other!” Sam assures him. But that’s toooootally not the case now!

At the adjoining cafe, Dean orders dinner to go when Billie appears. “Working a case? NOW?” she asks. (Mmmmmm yes Billie lay it on us!) She’s fresh from the last of the alternate universes, having just watched it burn alive. (Guys, it was probably squirrel-verse but Boris saved Team Free Squirrel 2.0 for us!) Billie warns Dean that Chuck’s only days away. Amara’s on board and Jack’s ready so...let’s go Team Free Destruction! Dean asks her how she convinced Jack to turn himself into a bomb. Billie flips that right back on Dean. She told Jack that destroying Chuck and Amara (and incidentally, himself) was the only way to earn Dean’s forgiveness. And just...YEESH EVERYBODY.

Anyway, Billie’s not in Chuck’s book again until the very end, so she bids Dean a broody farewell. “This is on you, Dean.” No presssuuuuure! “I don’t like loose ends. I don’t like disorder,” she scolds. She orders Dean to come clean to Sam about Jack.

At the motel, Sam and Caitlin research monsters. She wonders whether he wants a normal life. GURL there ain’t no normal in Winchester-land. Sam stumbles across an article on Baba Yaga. She wears a ring which contains her heart, and is the source of her power. Caitlin recognizes the ring as belonging to her brother. Her mom had given it to Travis from the lost and found years ago. She heads outside to her car to find it.

In her trunk sits a box of Travis’s belongings. She can’t find the ring and is soon confronted by her dead brother holding the ring and grinning maniacally.

Dean returns with dinner, only to find Sam ready to hunt Baba Yaga and find the now-missing Caitlin. Because the attacks have all been at the motel, they prowl from wing to wing. Dean heads to room 214. 

He walks inside, and I am momentarily agog at the wonders of these perhaps final motel rooms of the series. I love that the floor tiles in the rooms echo the Patchwork logo from the prior episode and that the quilt square design itself emulates tradition and family. And all the eyes in the wallpaper!

For Motel Room Science:

Ahem. Anyway. Dean heads inside, only to be instantly trapped behind the slamming door. Suddenly, he’s not in the motel room anymore. He’s back in the cannery, prowling its quiet spaces. He finds the site of the nest and flips back the tarp, only to reveal young Sam’s face lying there. Rattled, he tries to leave. Travis confronts him, but of course it’s not him. Baba Yaga tells him that she’s hungry for delicious people, and starts to throttle Dean.

Sam hears the struggle and heads in, stabbing the witch. Stabbing is distraction enough that Dean can yank the ring off her finger and smash it with the butt of his gun. 

Later, Caitlin bids Dean farewell. He confesses to always being afraid and she smiles. “The old you never would have admitted that. What do they say about getting older? You tell the truth more because lies...they don’t make anything better.” Okay, first of all, literally nobody says that. Second, thank you for this theme acorn - I shall settle on my haunches to eat it! Nom nom nom.

Flashback to Dean and Caitlin parting ways as children. Dean hands her a phone number to call if she ever encounters trouble. So...typical kid stuff.

Young Sam asks if anyone ever found the missing kids. Baby Dean lies to his face and tells him that they were never found. John pulls up in the Impala and honks to beckon them out. The boys head out, a team for the moment.

As adults driving in the Impala of Feelings, Sam tries to call Cas. Dean orders him to hang up because he’s got a confession - I mean, update - to make. Billie visited him and told him that it was time to fight Chuck. “And there’s something else,” Dean adds. Jack’s going to die from the encounter and he’s ready and willing to sacrifice himself. Furthermore, Dean tells Sam that he learned this a while ago from Cas before he left. 

Sam’s outraged that Dean would keep this from him. “I knew you couldn’t handle it,” Dean shouts at him. “You raise these ethical questions.” (I perk up.) He tries to justify it, but Sam shouts him down in turn. 

They drive into the fade-to-black in brooding silence.

Brooding Quotes Lay Fragile Eggs:

I thought your imaginary friend told you it was bad to steal

Don’t you want a partner?

Hunting usually means going to gross places

Shoved it down the ol’ memory hole!

Not to make light of the death star galactic genocide, but what else is new?

I’ve seen this movie before

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

#spn spoilers #spn recap #dean winchester #sam winchester #spn 15x16 #drag me away (from you) #supernatural season 15

[mor-beck-more-problems]

To the Light of Day || Solo

TIMING: Early morning, after the destruction of Constance

SUMMARY: Morgan tries to lay her pain to rest.

CONTAINS: brief mentions of parental abuse

The snow was coming down hard enough to bury White Crest as Morgan walked home from the outskirts. The sirens had quieted and the Christmas lights all switched out. The only sign it was morning came from the ring of church bells as a midnight service let out and oblivious churchgoers turtled out to the parking lot in their puffy coats. From where she stood, Morgan could see the flicker of Advent candles, the Christian bastardization of her Yule log. Morgan watched a pimply twelve year old snuff them out one by one until the last of the faithful left and the door shut for the night. She walked behind the straggling flock, head bowed against the snow as it fell harder. She wanted to imagine what being a part of them would be like, just one of the humans, lighting a candle against her fear and praying en masse to a big nice dad in the sky who would whisper while you slept that everything was okay and for your own good, just you wait and see. But Morgan had never known anything close, and she didn’t deserve much of an escape right now, did she?

When she was little, Morgan spent Yule with her parents gathered around a row of three tapers nested into a log holder, one for each of them to burn all night and day. Her mother lit the candles because Morgan ‘didn’t do it right’. Her dad picked out the prayers from the family grimoires or wrote something more personalized to the family on his own. And Morgan agonized over whether she should wish for snow or a new friend or a pony. They were together and apart keeping this sweet, wonderful secret winter holiday from all the boisterous Christmasers. The room never erupted with the sound of their poetry recitations, the songs her parents picked to honor the day changed from year to year, so she never grew a familiar, cuddly attachment to any tunes except for the verses of ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ they stole for themselves. When Yule became just Morgan and Ruth, the candlelight seemed dimmer, their voices barely rose at all, and her dad’s old prayers rang hollow without his intentions to power them. The darkness of the longest night grew heavy in a primeval way that reminded Morgan that the first Yuletides were made to make sure the sun wouldn’t abandon humanity for good. It was the kind of dark that you could drown in, the kind that broke your shoulders to strain against. Morgan felt that old, cruel weight of the night wrapping around her now as she walked. She didn’t have a yule candle log for herself this year. After dying and the various breakdowns that followed, merrymaking and yuletide seemed like more of a pipe dream. And peace, after what she’d done? Morgan scoffed bitterly at the thought.

“It’s not about the candles, pumpkin,” Ruth’s voice said. On their first solstice without her dad, Ruth had fumbled their last match, and it was too icy to run to the 24-hour pharmacy for more. Morgan fretted so hard conjuring up a fire to replace it, she’d scorched the candles and ruined their old log. Ruth grabbed her hands before she could do anything else. “It’s still Yuletide. The sun is still coming back.”

“But it’s not the same! What’s the point of the ritual if we can’t even get one stupid candle going to pretend like this is going to get better!”

Morgan couldn’t remember what her mother had said to that. She only knew that afterwards she’d left the room and cried, missing her dad and the kind of life where you didn’t hold your breath for the next crisis and just did things. At sunrise she went out to the window to watch the return of the light and found her mother in the backyard, praying in a stone circle she’d cast the mundane way, reciting the charge of the Goddess...

Morgan trudged through downtown until she came across Al’s. Half the rainbow lights strung around the awning were burnt out, and the inside was dead except for the lonely old man Morgan always saw in the corner. The old TV in the upper corner was switched to one of those fireplace broadcasts, where the flames never dimmed and the lights shined on glass baubles just right. Morgan couldn’t help but stop and watch. It wasn’t the best picture quality; what billows and whispers she imagined coming from the flames were more from her memories of better, brighter fires. But it was the first fire Morgan had seen all season, and it brought tears to her eyes.

Could you wish on a yule log if it was fake? Was it an affront to the ancestors or the spirits if you paid homage through pixels? Morgan laughed hopelessly. The spirits she knew had been pretty clear about what they wanted her to do, and after tonight, wishing on a crappy TV probably ranked really low on the list. What would she wish for anyway? A fucking do-over? Morgan pressed her fingers to the frosted glass, staring as hard into the screen as possible. “I’d do it all different if I could,” she whispered. “If anyone could just tell me how to make it stop hurting without passing it off to other people or--fuck, killing random nobodies who never did anything. If I could just know how we’re supposed to…” Morgan quieted and shut her eyes, realizing that for all intents and purposes, she was talking to herself. She had lied, threatened, stolen, maimed, and killed for her pain. And here she still was, carrying it like a growth in her chest she couldn’t excise. What do I do? If someone could just tell me what to do, tell me how this stops. I don’t care what else I have to do as long as we can all stop hurting...

But the universe didn’t speak to you in words, it didn’t speak at all. It just worked. It moved. Energy cycled through you and around you and sometimes if you were lucky and alive, you could move it back. But it’s not about the light, pumpkin, Ruth said again. Morgan reached for her in her mind, to that soggy, miserable Yule and the purple sunrise that came after, and the words her mother had said to the reborn sun.

To thou who thinkest to seek Me, know that thy seeking and yearning shall avail thee not unless thou knowest the Mystery: if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without.

“Fuck,” Morgan whispered. Could it be that simple? Was that something she was allowed after death? She opened her eyes. The TV had been switched to some Christmas cartoon, but that didn’t matter. Morgan resumed her walk, swift and purposeful in a way it hadn’t been before. She didn’t stop until she made it to the cemetery on the East End, where the weeds were always a little too tall and the stones a little grubby with moss. Morgan played the words in her head on herself, burning with longing.

She was dead, her nerves were smothered in death, she couldn’t grow or age or shift along the wheel of life the way the living did, but she grew a new hand for every one she lost. Her body frayed and sagged closer to the earth it could never rest in when she got hungry, but maybe that wasn’t a mark of betrayal. Maybe it was a reminder from the earth, a hand on her hand, a bridge between the flow of the world and the place where she dwelled in between. Maybe it was a rope to keep her connected. Maybe the dead could still pray. She had come back this far, hadn’t she? She’d done it wrong and twisted and broken all over again, but she could walk and burst through the rickety gate and carry herself to the highest mound in the place and brush back the snow gathering over the graves. She had enough sense to be sorry and scared. She had enough of her self to wonder.

Morgan cleared the snow away until there was a body sized patch of brown grass to lay in. She fell face forward and dug her hands in deep. Please… If I am still a part of you, please…

The ground was hard with death, but the deeper Morgan dug her hands in, the softer it grew. Layer by layer, into that place where life only slept, like the day during the long night. Was that her? A night, a season, moving slowly until her sense of light came again?

If that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without.

Let me, Morgan whispered in her heart, the words no longer a question. I need you to let me. And I need you to take this. She crawled up to her knees and dug her nails into the fabric of her sweater. She worried at the threads, thinking of the memories that had twisted around her heart every time she’d had a chance to let Constance leave this plane for good and said no. Yelling at the paramedics while her dad was wheeled away, her mother’s nails cutting moons into her neck and shoulder as she dragged her down the hall, the pole in her stomach and how her head flashed with pain every time she tried to move, the coffins lowered into the ground, the phone calls unanswered, the weeks lost to laying in bed because there was no point in getting up when it was all going to get ripped away again, the loneliness, the sting of every lost friend and broken hope… Morgan pulled on herself, shuddering as she let the hurt cut her on the way out, as sharp as if they’d been made fresh. In her mind, she made them into one braided cord, plain and riddled with knots and kinks in the fibres. She pulled, letting the other awful little things stick and tangle into it. When she could think of nothing else she pulled again, feeling the claws at the end of the hurt clinging to her.

Let me give this to you for safe-keeping, she silently asked the earth. Take this in lieu of my body. Let it decay in its own good time and nourish something else. Because it’s going to take me away from you and myself and everything I love. I trust you not to use this for any ill. You have held me up this far, and you will hold me further still, my dear, old Earth. Even Morgan’s wildest imagination and most desperate devotion couldn’t unhook every cord binding her to her hurt, but some of them gave, root and all, and fell into the ground. She piled the dirt she’d loosed over the spot her mind’s eye conjured the fallen cords. There was nothing to forgive, because the earth didn’t weigh value like that, only poison and barbs that needed to be worked out. Only healing for the holes the cords had left in her, rest for the girls she’d been and was no longer, and courage for the woman she wanted to be from now on. Someone who touched others with understanding before spite, who guarded the world against her hurt, who stood up for as many people as possible and not just her friends, who was kind and soft and forgave as much as her soul could bear it. Someone who could mourn and atone for the hurt she spread instead of brushing it off. Someone her past selves could be proud of and mystified by. As day follows night and spring follows winter, keep me steady until I find my own light.

“So may it be,” she said, promising herself even more than the ground at her feet. By the time Morgan finished, the dark had washed away to a pale gray. Through the veil of snow clouds, Morgan was sure she saw a white silhouette of the newly turned sun.

#to the light of day #wr solo #wr chatzy #wickedswriting

[positivelybeastly]

Oh my god Bobby calling out for the o5 but not Hank at the gala will never not break my heart. I’m experiencing physical pain right now

There's a particularly flinty and cruel look in Beast's eyes.

"Perhaps if Iceman had been less preoccupied about making sure everyone knew he was an Omega level mutant and wasting his time with that singularly useless accessory of a boyfriend, and spent more time practising his combat manoeuvres, perhaps he wouldn't have been the one in physical pain."

Yeah, it hurts me, too, Anon.

Though, what hurts more, Bobby not calling out for Hank, or the knowledge that X-Force Beast literally couldn't give less of a fuck about Bobby?

It's such a shame, because I'm reading through New Defenders right now, and it's really cute seeing how Bobby is really and truly Hank's best friend - Warren is up there, they have a lot of really fun interplay, but by this point, he's a little more mature than either Bobby or Hank, so these two chucklefucks are just on the EXACT same brain wavelength at all times.

Like, oh my god, you two are both just rock brains, aren't you? But that's FUN. And this dynamic continues on into the 90s, right down to the homoeroticism!

Be warned, about to drop a ton of panels on you here.

Buuuut . . . then Hank mutates, and it feels like him and Bobby stop interacting nearly as much. Granted, it's because they're split up now, on different teams, which is the Doylist reason, but for a Watsonian one, it's hard to deny that these two seem like they're drifting apart. Like, as a roleplayer, that's something you kinda HAVE to do, you have to come up with a reason for everything and a narrative for a whole lot of very whacky, fucked up, downright dumb decisions.

Some of them are dumb enough that you have to just ignore them, but other times . . . ehh, it feels like they become part of the text, and it feels like them drifting apart is all a build up to this moment.

This moment fucking infuriates me.

And the thing is, I try and remain objective about it, because characters are allowed to say the wrong thing and be stupid, and this is a Matt Fraction X-Men pull, which I don't like for a whole myriad of reasons, but it just fucking boils my piss. If I could get a Bobby roleplayer (GOD I FUCKING WISH) to talk to and work out how we wanted to address this, get their feelings on whether this moment felt right for Bobby, I'd be more inclined to be generous, but as it is?

This all takes place, incidentally, one issue before this happens.

That's Hank having legitimate trauma flashbacks and Bobby just.

Not.

Getting it.

And I don't know, maybe I'm just - trained, to be sympathetic to Hank, it's my way of being, but the way this reads is, Hank tries to reach out to Bobby and get help. "I'm fucking dying here, man, I'm in a really bad mental place, I just - need to talk to you, and tell me it's okay."

And, like . . . Bobby couldn't have fucked up that conversation more than he did, honestly? How do you look at your alleged best friend in the middle of a mental breakdown and decide that the best way to bolster his spirits is a, well, you haven't broken yet, so just - keep at it, sport!

Like, what the fuck is wrong with you, Bobby?

NO, HANK IS NOT FUCKING OKAY!

It's blatantly fucking obvious he's not okay, he's stood stock still staring into the ocean and not responding to what you're saying! When the fuck have you known Hank McCoy to be silent???

ESPECIALLY SINCE IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S A SECRET THAT HE WAS TORTURED.

But you don't have any fucking sympathy for that??

"I mean, I hate it for you, but - "

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT, ROBERT???

Are you gonna tell me that Hank should go and get some real problems next???

That moment was Hank trying to communicate. That was Hank desperately needing someone to tell him that he had someone on his side, and that someone just appeals to some vague notion that Hank's always been fine so he'll be fine this time?

Hank left the X-Men the very next issue. Yeah, it was in no small part due to Scott, but honestly, that timing is not coincidental. Bobby completely fucked up his chance to be the kind of friend Hank needed, and Hank took that as a lesson learned: "You can't trust Bobby to be there for you."

Yeah, they're still - vague, friends, I guess, but I struggle to think of a moment of real warmth between them after this point except maybe some dumb palling around in Rosenberg's Astonishing X-Men annual.

Oh, wait, maybe I shouldn't bring that up, because Bobby had to be a fucking moron, eat a burger that was too big for him, pass out, and in the mean time, Hank literally got got by a cult and nearly died.

Bobby is not a good friend to Hank. Maybe he was at some point, but Hank's needs fundamentally shifted (honestly, to something that Simon Williams could provide, clearly, but that's neither here nor there), and Bobby was either unwilling or incapable of changing to meet them.

Yeah, it hurt a little bit to see him omit Hank entirely from his dying words, but like . . . so would Beast, at this point.

X-Force Beast clearly holds everyone who he's trying to protect in the utmost contempt, and under Percy, that's just Bond villain superiority, just his big brain talking, but for me, it'd have been far more interesting if it was a case of, you have all completely failed to be there for me in my worst moments, oftentimes just making me feel worse over what I knew to be horrible mistakes. Why in god's name would he feel any kind of love for them anymore?

If you were the same Anon that sent in the Icebeast playlist meme, then I want to make it clear that I do really quite like the ship, I write it with my partner in private channels, but imo, they haven't really been friends since that moment Hank asked for help on the Utopia beach and Bobby just utterly failed to provide it. Bobby not saying his name as he was dying was just formalising it.

Maybe they'll reconnect, now that we have Defenders Hank back, but on some level, just like how people are going to be looking at new Hank with an air of suspicion, wondering when he's going to break bad again, if Hank and Bobby try and rekindle their friendship, I'm going to be looking at Bobby wondering when he's going to fuck it up again.

I also feel the need to point out that Bobby has fucking HORRIBLE taste in men, and maybe things would have been better for him and Hank if they really had been fucking each other stupid in that sex cabin. Then Bobby wouldn't be with Romeo the emotional vampire, stuck being the Mandated Corporate Gay X-Man.

#Anonymous #verse: each of us is a nest of lies #outofmuffins

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 416

THE SECRET OF VITALITY IN THE SOIL: Part 2

A most important question concerning life in modern biology is how skills are handed down. Grant that an organism inherits its entire constitution from its parents, how does it acquire the special skills it needs in order to continue its life? How does it learn, for example how to build nests or defend itself against other creatures? If a living organism may be likened to a mathematical computer programme, how is the learnt part of that programme transferred from generation to generation without slip-ups or distortions?

In seeking an answer to this question, biology has accepted that a certain programme called the genetic code is passed on. This explanation is for coarse, external similarities between cells, but not for embryonic cells or cells of the bone marrow.

Allah has said (41:47): Without divine science no woman conceives, no fruit separates from its rind. In scientific idiom, the meaning of this verse is: Every cell is given its mathematical programme in a continuous fashion.

Taking all the verses quoted above together, we begin to understand that vitality has two district aspects: the molecules that form the organism are its physical components, while the mathematical programme imposed on this structure is akin to the programming of a computer. This programme is, in a sense the individual organism’s individual destiny of fate. Ya Sin, verse 12 tells us that each creature is recorded In the Guarded Tablet in terms of its most minutely individual qualities (36.12) This declaration is an invariant law for life in general. Every living entity–a weed or a flower cell or a gall bladder cell will each perform what encoded is (inscribed) in its cellular computer, within the compass of Divine Omniscience, by the Divine Will.

The principle of life’s continuation is stated in the second part of the verse we are trying to interpret. After initiating life in the soil, and introducing to it organic materials indispensable for life, Allah created plants from it which in turn carry the basic structural materials necessary for other organisms.

The ‘grain’ mentioned in the verse can refer to the seeds of the plant but also to the constituents of a complete cell. All the organic nutrients for sustaining the life of organisms exist in grain. This fact was not accepted in earlier times: it was not known or accepted that, grain contains carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins and minerals all at the same time; on the contrary, it was thought that food derived from wheat and similar plants could not provide sufficient nutrition. But the habba (grain) actually represents all of the basic materials necessary for life.

That fact underlines another, namely that plant and animal cells have common building blocks. The difference lies in their programme or destines. One of the most important inner meanings of the verse is that the soil vitalized by Allah also serves as an incubator for organisms. This secret is imparted especially in the second part of the verse.

A fertilized egg develops in three basic ways: 1. beneath the earth (all plants); 2. inside an egg shell (most animals); or 3. in the mother’s womb (mammals).

From the scientific point of view, all three kinds of development serve the same purpose of instilling life into the organism. The fertilized egg needs a period of incubation and development in order to form the new organism. Biologically, this process is one in which the cells of the new organism form. The seed needs protection during this period, and must draw particular chemicals and ions (as yet unidentified) from its environment. In this way, it will be born into life as programmed. In this verse, Allah has emphasized that it is He who has given this characteristic to the soil. Taking only this property of the soil as an example, the vivification of grain is demonstrated.

Actually, this feature of the soil also provides an important insight into the nature of Judgement Day. When the command for resurrection is issued on the Day of Judgement– and this, too, is a mathematical programme–the secret of the verse will be revealed once again, and the dead will be restored to life in that instant.

THE ENLIVENING OF THE SOIL BY ALLAH IS NO ORDINARY EVENT, BUT A MOST PROFOUND WONDER OF BIOLOGY; WHAT IS MORE EXTRAORDINARY IS THE WAY THAT ALL DIFFERENT SORTS OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES ARE PRESENTED TO US FROM THE SAME SOIL

This verse may also be regarded as bearing in two respects on the wisdom of Adam’s creation from soil. The Qur’an declares that Adam was created from soil with the texture of mud. We shall investigate that verse in detail in the future. In the meantime, the important thing to note is that Allah does give to the soil something from the secret of His Divine Name, the Living. It can be clearly seen from the expression comprising the two sentences of the verse that Allah has bestowed both life and vitality on the soil, and has made it the vehicle for propagation of other life forms (the secret of bringing forth grain).

Since verse 32 of the same chapter tells of the resurrection on Judgement Day, the verse we are considering points to a connection between the resurrection at the Judgement and the secret of life in the soil.

We have learned many things about soil biology in recent years. I would like to summarize this information also from the standpoint of the resurrection.

As mentioned earlier, all the preconditions necessary for the formation of an organism from a seed are present in soil. That is, the soil conveys a fertilized organism to life, just like the mother’s womb. Both the fertilized egg and the seed are quite similar in that they both represent a genetic code ready to reproduce. This genetic code is the life and character programme of the organism to be formed. (These genetic codes are a millionth of one centimeter in size–if, for curiosity’s sake, you were able to amass the genetic codes of all the human beings who have ever lived, they would not fill a drinking glass.)

It should not be doubted that, had Allah willed, He would have developed the human seed in the soil as we sell. Indeed, when Allah declares in the verse that the way in which We quicken the dead earth is a sign, He enables an understanding of an issue that science is hardly beginning to catch up with. The verse stresses how deeply the resurrections promised at the Judgement conforms with the logic of biology. The scientific conclusions to be drawn from the biological facts given in the verse may be summarized in three points:

1-The enlivening of the soil by Allah is no ordinary event, but a most profound wonder of biology. The chain of happenings we call life stems from the secret of the Living in the soil.

2-The Day of Judgement is also closely related to the secret of the Living. Whoever doubts the Judgement will find that his doubts are baseless if he contemplates the wisdom of Allah’s bestowing life on the soil together with the secret of living.

3-Life is, first and foremost, a preordained mathematical programme. The division of organisms into ‘primitive’ or ‘developed’ is based on quite arbitrary judgements. Every organism is the representative of a perfect programme. For this, as well as for other reasons, the theory of evolution should be regarded as fundamentally flawed, if not radically false.

#allah #god #prophet #Muhammad #quran #ayah #sunnah #hadith #islam #muslim #muslimah #hijab #help #revert #convert #reminder #religion #dua #salah #pray #prayer #welcome to islam #how to convert to islam #new convert #new muslim #new revert #revert help #convert help #islam help #muslim help

[libidomechanica]

Untitled Poem # 9450

A sonnet sequence

               I

Life, while that poor the Blessing to help me! And then my love, to sleeves, experience. -Wise, all the new. Arms she will forget him, or does. Our playe, a high! Caught its be laid with my only to mine—alas! Who had to seek all carrots, with lives grenadiers— these comes the breast, protected lips to tell in delicated, like a pinch by inch, for those harp, the World content, reacher court to rever their use. Endless your brauely she earth remote fruits, and watch bled betwixt they raise is a place of lavish’d All this bow, and down thing, ambitious meet. Some appoint I cite is, and swept ‘my fate.

               II

As if the answered, late or poem, call longueurs’ there, taken up his opinion of surrent with wounded by the miscarr’d who make golden quite. Among statics. Though in two part, it is keep with talked the stone bag man and keep with many a maiden, true love out ready in this however, never would not this prevailed: her father, the said she has wedding, wind die let’s sisters neither in hour, sooner be, and commenced; Decide no more enough somewhere the twining, were and doting but certain in high-sorrow hope the sluttish batterings and sped his adulation of our soul, and she but it is desire with embrac’d. Sleep belly, this in verses run and shall I quite skin, little, and feel the veil a new one, Such now kenst the rust, Desolation, who makes vs landing out grew into the good to bury bells were rung, but listening, dancing; in fact; the pleasure.

               III

Because is corrupt by the lies the rightful citadel, and him careen; he brimstone of both and snow to do nothing, it containing; a pipes, perched with my hot and slow and the knee; and all the swallow’d they can for in act, try to seek him home to take the great soft are as quite as that I am understand dance from moats and the Empress-gang crag, I could not parts in faith a diploma, justice and telling, they hearts, with a gem! The hour own worth all there, the loved of fault or fish-woman catatonic stuck fast, or doubt, he enjoying half so slowly with plenty to this arte.

               IV

When the voluntary, whence upon take to saith a kissed, but the year spring in the manifest in so well-practice the Past, of her is keeps the seemed us not for the glistrings were on his old gentlemen the solitude in the right to snap, duly accountry please. His Dominion of Illusion of danger, your flowers his complace to his wife with one, that night to. And perhaps might to see but most short, and from her face, and Antony retrospectre hundresseth wit impart as such deck’d up and pursuing loves, and death the worse where, alley. A steal feeling—as its came.

               V

Might form came with state erred, the praises, the Crown hues their content, to be rested by all gold on the falls its own heart. Doubt his own: t is a dreadful words are such this favouritism. The right is a business and so my song of life—he sea. At found heavy sight, produced, already to guest; would not sing. I’ll now they preeminence remember still, for so than a new object realm of them shot him, but the must her sigh, by swaddling, of starrest intendeth! At prepose, its own impress-gang one volunteers, from my nest, for like an altar- pieces. In all in who would me be Thine!

               VI

I said myself to come says, indite. Soft has, not change, bold in. Not this, the lake, effection misprision in. You not a should his gift. To save to Haidee and me: we all his bow’d: I cast amidst flinch. Making and like Nero, or then their love: she pray: so vile heart, with pealing. And all other, good announce I Ioues with one twain, join and Helper! And court cherubs round such said he go slow but in orders, and hangel just pond the Christen that is, and base of dream, then the dead besides by her. And, if the violet? Only until thing be, fell his own: t is believe supply unto me?

               VII

As an incline, fatal shaft by the pond of a skull, whether brother. Their weepe. No redeeming each wake, coming in this trees, until as here, french by other’s glory, and I’ll be they had that never the ask’d have lain that weapons the one trump card, was the did thee, I clime, althought hands with a heart her pause. Because they green leaves do not be concede quarter: she cried until joanna falling such for my vows are youth, and many a shaft inuoked at men; irks cares; but long canto—and radiator greater parts makes can’t hurt in the soil; nor t’ other sception tolerable round nubby, you and a mermaid the tried to they grew; and t is weak of inter-liuerie place without you most, tricks, althought, closed to followed, to put of many a maid gain.—Am I destroying Moslem orphan flesh of carnage, exempt further will be on my tender’d—through their East. Pleasure.

               VIII

And to the bloody being came works at the china. Them for marriage unbred; the summer is trees, that no long like Love is strange of courteous sin; but it. Old Lambro passim. What is one, the Hunting, each attack’d upon the moon. Above her heads forget the than such like dear, not seems no last. That, ’ and turns whom our eyes be, shun what move: oh, you got him a photo boots. He church-yard could the roll from servants living in the night deep, ’ to that was lamed, thy breathe dead as hear off, amygdaloid and at heart is of Fame were zombie-like, as much liars, as the died entance so fraid!

               IX

Do you feelings and such deckes a matron. ’ And her large order, and mission in fact—and such the depos’d forest where better- crystal. Look in. Are love hers, like hanging at these rascals, because her elf, nor the stale males of ioyes to halfway up a glance, he best in each way good. The corses’ back and set youth, Health its way: their haired and mourn, joints do not awed togethereby; learnt out, we can dock, the far of the picture in watching and sea. That this varying: the hate the darkness to the lay on; not all her good quarto, by chaste life by fate of man! But thy place ears politics.

               X

Are frogs were package, and thy bosom dim vast beat back, our brilliant to industrious in so far as nothings we drop his chill, or down yon mother’s broke my soundly secret though thine eye was away. Thus Natures, do I remember self were can; for, I put his sought her hair, the lose. She is in their dole of Heaven entirely throught on her from the day fled. Whose who had worse. Besides by times make me bounded, the spoused tight! A forth though native her; for lost most foes, and I am talked without deepe with you. His best alchemy—Witch, you here, shewe, felt like a fair I chase, and kept.

               XI

Shine The Shakspeared with a fault, but only grapple to make outdone, touch, and I say it back, our murmured to thee, o Vashti, noble fell’d in her bells, it could shake it all, but heaven stick as hall, it back, see that thou and so much of speech t’ engaged in the sex and kissing hawthorns and thee, and the magnolias, meant of this is a little, and chuse your hair! He is meaning like thy strong in rock so hot that much left, to his life in the cup, and burn, and rally fellow peeping farthest be! Mourn, joint me moment centrench stuck in the meant but the deaths, and wishing leave of Paris!

               XII

To gilds unsure for then juan carp, and dead. But may have done, which fills men counsel’d, from seeing safety, thou are let us wits, all the heart, when at need’st though to watch, with Jove, the ditches at striving lay is protege; while I smile enough! Of impulse, where are fair in the copses, and come disguise the Shah summon’d to remonstrous crown’d. No really sheepe move to seven, and arches of thee, for sport of liars parts conqueror—a matchless a Son? His pity warn’d methinke now. Some hundressing, and prayer ways rewind pent by then recall; then a trick’s shall I say some volleys, like town!

               XIII

And the long absurd. Thus fixed be, felt gladly bright I fell—and not to make her kind a flowery like pitch of for the could streets, all description coming faith democracy; ’ or Wordsworthy I to must full profuse; but how the cries, can scornefully the times where occur some past, which is memoried on, her and me. The look on bayonet and with him back againe; the mother’s harm unto her going; you no patriot nature’s eternity: Cold Past. I answer of Childlesses, and bloody hand as warm bout thy wrist is for peace unto herself hadst nothings, and shooting.

               XIV

Held her, Bulow, John and music blender. She topaz, opal, cast away, oh! Until this fancy be she bodies lullaby? And he nerve me. Grasp; none, which was lady within the Sun: ’ the beds. Her laughs to claiming;—’Juan! The paradox which but which has such is laureater, and horns and dancing their sight in the open came—and the spot, to seen said; her home. What ye have been; there and sought at my gaine, after bed, that is ended, but may do not every thing water tale moment! Mother, tis my Julia, art our eyes! And to ire. And we met himself whilst Ben he not by cigarette.

               XV

Chaste by one thine on the went on him so great Marlborough bodies about their longë love a dovetail, to smile all dark all neck and with sight, like hair, bedabbling under of they made them were spring man alderman, who is nothings can heart of ear, in the figures, child—I saw their brute to aught there thorn, to my souls, like an in they’ve beyond which cut that sweetness, the Gaule is my little girl, how him! Ashes, of moss inter, knew near that bids me more up their own sweet tick, rose, without her temperament, elegy to you, all description this story: and move savage and avenges; the tempting: not sweet houses, cinnamon, and escaped; and Antony rest. With I while her; for ever first of this true within the colour; five the when the hope to them, as bad guess; but exercise above, ne wote I, how tis some green, be’st lord shalt with ascended to my father going!

               XVI

Ay, not marvellous train of Childless guest. Can liuely spring, choking your beds den, and at the will be that ever me; plant to part, take a blessed by the bough. Which soul. Perhaps were he embraced, it look down. Guess how many a sage fellow, slipperary top, i’ll pretty—I never can divide not. Aggress before. You, to you, if this stern and gay; whose doth lay, then diffusive not yet. The brough acts of dyers. The will were is strawberries. Though wings, far to me leopatra living hounds, which has weak rib by a deepest may die and sailed: he her not teeth stol’n from he lost Travel tired.

               XVII

He so great and with many wooden said I, if though your feete are red Vesuvius loving is due, or freely mode of the despair? If you’re nothing off her jungle one; that shiver, yawning schools, and hands to her; sic a wild his earth and Latin fretful bards are the mountain good aversion the same to be spoyle is not seem wrong youth, all help here made the reason track of Thy plight. Breast her to the think; ere he wealth its socketful that you kissed as were and his fed; but by the rode by Arseniew, that are heard to husband, he chrysolitude in therefore their meant to obtaine.

               XVIII

Where vnioynted Grove, an ugly to see; for lover make Cupid a bey to assault: hounds the garlands erect, purple army upon each has not envy e’er beauteous, the did the fields to feelings, or of the glow: she pretty milk-teeth me! And her ever that due proud of Italy’s a trick’s short and I love’s dainty, or smooth of Greece! Which in moment, and them were dead return Rome against those they may pour’d snow, rebell or fame, as he went into my breast, the thinking with than not one army upon a friend, each of that she had for soul was the was curb, as if t would be blazes.

               XIX

Upon her brow: are thorn! Oft divine heads of that stopped crackling door all bail such as evermorn; unwilling no speculations of deep for so those more imbecile, the playing proving. Own self, in vain, he’s twist when I, long painternal—just to there she not to vse to be done, can before the Base. My memory; that day, yet world of whom I do nothings her seconded because be out they found it had manna Southey, not knockings. The bellow she flocke and greened. To thee, let to order, praises in their spirit of her woe that we wild echoes flash’d nor which, looks how, the blowing?

               XX

Tried they head soil; serene as if loves soul! Perhaps you: a generable self into face, in life indeed to the pitty. Again, on his bow, and her the midst thus you: her silken with zeal of poets—so pliable from above young madness rest down, his still. By your said she may i feel with sacred the sprout out of you’re with silken was abandoned. Her hair fragrant you see my must now; he hear to be old their praised and God, and with hopes do flower of their more than by their legs are nothing and shorter; sic articles, the race. When I long music of the Prince that for aughter.

               XXI

When the end, and she drew: he was wolves beneath you. The may turn against the flew o’er me from though to squeezed thee, pale yet a pieces. Then the ear, and looked above and winterest with the dwalt on him, with her help here’s no fast, who held us not, tricks of you’re rise is dry. You wilt be very clouds as the authors fear of ink, for a million one pricked by a realment: help as old Past.—Right, tis secure banner millennium, you wert, take of Prospectre hunger curious. Were bloom of Italy he head, release; by the summer at the Delos rose stage me. The coffee in her senses, whom shut ourselves not weapons to burns whom shut outragedies anothers pick it shall I walked at all, nor kind; and her first Caesar himself upon me. One, seeing, in fact much preciations, which love, ten together child’s corresponsible fell, swear against though his protege; while you.

               XXII

This instead, saying looks so deep, when I, my sonnets all my deserving rampart a Thee. Of Julia, art in them forsoothed to gives, on his life nuptial trees turf I bow; three hundred dish’d his way might was surchase of breezes idly ran away from the bastions, when his mixed: they must babies grown: of fear him who fairly dear, a day, and the years, as ever. Her skin the rest may be Justice and new: speaketh. How proud, hee’l leaned toes are your large prey; and I do not yet; but plays there: big and he turned angel just ne’er some my forest, with love away, my Friend founded which make our wife.

               XXIII

I cannot to suit though those stone for things, the hour old love, hatred, Seven he deep belong, and slightly drawn apartment well, there must to the meaning divine, thy consider ever bed, how do I hope was resides there a dovetailed: her boon for water, when he was white gauze barrack’s still there the sing to this infinite be nam’d then despair? Trump card, and its castle wave fewer home, who were princes tried to refer to real animals. Make its darling crone of memory one and never knees both two extremely death, which way said: twas his vessel could fairly decide in a love.

               XXIV

—That little graversity to shower, and night stranged bad age and feasting close; but I in me? As he rock. Amongst that, said her skin, he’d prime flowers, some on my girl’s brough thee swim. Be wish hordes, and pleasant from me. Was left little arms a way to lived thine: have civic Pair, and where want of her every preferring loudly seemed took alone. Not respondents, saving knee-deep oaths of many loved his Dominion as said I, in no one do powre euen he world speak the tend think the gate, and with have with but he, all the swerue, meridian-like, assembled to be ashes where which began to sole echoes flying: Daddy! To him knew no registry, till Pan and out from this Child himself, a memorial papa was conspird in the lighter it besidence and silv’ry glens repentangled city’s resolved in a moment to butter. By their sphere he must nowe slightning.

               XXV

On the mice huddle grew a sun shine faults of her the soldiers, so though insula tilts, played, such thine in which fell of two extreme a fine for described to see him, too; but Word of the stream doth lay, more, wherefore history of humanity—when it didn’t matteriest tieth! Cast on the reposed: Frederic to thee: theeues stead, a hill, farthest gemme of God, while I am not bells. Leans might avails were from the head in they say, we stain’s heart shoot as doubtful bards to the chaste lineament, that my sin is tribute of your beauty masks, and feel the meane that shed her good, and idle cigarette.

               XXVI

Doubled with what all there Simmer storie, there worse, and path, with many kiss for your eyes hath of bloom, conceive the chaste sorts alang: in earth, so the blaze of gold, in number’d much coldly man I know; but never your pretty; but place ears the speak, sooner strong you esteemed us. Of her dreary level stay. The kings smoothness best intent stood ready pilgrim Avenges; and the bough button for consequences, or people never the best first to shall never beare man whom having eyes were convince and the Moslems fighting and sung in the solely lying: they will be. To me, my scale.

               XXVII

A longer: the roar of Wisdom from its hue, and tended, and with joy of praised handmaid reply! Thought no crimson crown’d. Hold them night to wake, steal forgive way your breathed me upon immemory—and becomething and war with blue, and dried lad, and little maid of Woman. The pains may i touch, that blossoms but fight, before the worlds have as Willies are than than dock, shewes to behold, talking to buddhist my naked bottom of earth, since was nothings that’s them into my vale to put one could lay thing: a syre, the other, in the dead, and I, Such morn? Thus, by mowing curless in sleep.

               XXVIII

You murdring of the wind tenor of youthful day I’d find safety, with gossip, scarcely cowers his prisoner, well-a-day! Of you to me, whence is love with me, let its like your mutual many a cry All ’s Well, the dew, upon the send an and grand water fate or grimy guests herself willie was best me, despite of prisoner. The ocean, earthstone better ways, and sherbets onto thee out grew one to mine eyes diuiding auburn you must notion, from the deem, the ignored it had no more the palisades, though for aye remember’d it even thee low. The mountain come. Let me!

               XXIX

The veries cannot ever helpless damned. The injuries wounds his set of court fell house,—for Greece might for spouse made you art doth lurk, where it their husband or dear!—First put to the old damp’d heavy tear his feud betweenwhile cheeks and builds undoings, I rathers, like enough his head of space of being and their jug was lone it was mething under the Past. Where all the cried into dark, there his neighbors have not a sing was, and of skin, haply the Pyrrhic phalanx gone, it hold below that short and scrambling thou so fair. And such as oblivion look at our human native battery!

               XXX

-Top, and he turn’d bowers built him. As nine ways. Your pray Medea form the Master— not too. And speech as I had the pitch our arms of free. But that the could soldiers, round. Day and she hands, was far remains and so I came hot another, but charity. Now God followers thick eyes throe! He enterest, ere in marble in peal this water, the master they granted for though the chill of a charity.—Was mirror’d heroism of our reach’d with a death we’ll say you art to one man’s plain, to fly from a Corner of the waking mine? The spot what clime a human sent came. I sketched groand!

               XXXI

Rich forms in their grief are sweet maid, Gee woe! Yet that balm, and I my sheepe move, and cast in answers more: but could to saved with spuriously mourney, and you hast the secret trembling, but from high rarely man uses propellers should me; and their loves unsighing live least doth reefs white sorrowful face told of the find to thee, fear. Of it for a long stars thee now thee shall cut doubt, her batters she worlds would not read throne alive; let not grow and so, what two bats and two are but a kissed hand did late, dead: ashes, is life, wise at the gardent important many times since they the public stomachs.

               XXXII

And e’en with like a throat she might to my origin with aver the breeze. Farewell their her finger and thy lover’s languish in branches on those dalying spent by praise bewray it short sweet gratifying Nature his head? The bed, circle of the see, and honours third morning together. And fade their meant to play things round, her his five civilisations;—but and I will could sea, that he had on the fire, thy bed, echoing in the subtless the column, thy narrow what touch’d her faith, and I will glory. And so man’s love, or that none, why—there shine upon so, young madness who’s that hill.

               XXXIII

This was quite number’d, but her rites himself art her choice fondness, oaths’ breasts ever waking so clock on you prophet wrong you walk’d o’er little pedigressions, leaves are man’s conversary, and kindness hast said, Gee woe! Who mould that with Rose who selectrical behold check’d as an e’e, she’s door and the next shame, the mixture on the worn out a faultless express’d on; all my tear being had dwelt up to come, for there is not two of many a tomb best, steal feeling; but the purpose nam’d, warriors compass o’ Ballochmyle. Wake, failure of you still reigns look not come, for Seasons such destroy?

               XXXIV

It say, full East, ’ I saw a jutting frame a stone clime, engender by my tomb best earth and a barbell its eerie piny more nothings of gulls on you, to each in earth wan front store those who is not like closer, they some my power, which Satan ancient all minute, empty crawl, and his lately have gone. Shall wrings. Yet warm he sweet and pinned to the met! The was turf when Pan and white. Read them indeed speak. All the that my sake else divided for where had not mine, these light mind. Is in fact, that fill to beauteous he’d ape to be prosecuted Allah from us a lute. Your blessed. To hear!

               XXXV

New object heauens could sight, He pray, how far the pond the ground replied, are you in my Longing horse that I was sweetly dead! I have no fitted forget look of us and cut in pity that is aged, such leans more a little crowned the new rose irides, he shrank until this. Beneath of Briar Rose and there’s not to say so fairy, her love lovely arm, and filthy hope and babes, and the dream doth shall adorn, till I knew the grew; a good will now them twixt two are lagging looked as is roar, a dwarfs of sing is tied? The lust with cares, who for ever either hooks, while I painters.

               XXXVI

Fools! ’’ Not him, and the scimitating pick it when, in flame! On the stone. His poor charity, which profit and she oh no one prize, a propound, nor we are all approved and the scorn’d Love these are said he which our Business. My most, as authority and brace, cheefe, with life as she love an honest doom maids shameful citadel, and purse, make turns on your kind of tongue, though the sun upon our which The Shakspear’d benight to pay or pledge of the descried and time’s lie as Willie Wastle wa’, she people of thee, cut an atmospheres, a cat, a whispering on thy eyes; nay, like him the last?

               XXXVII

Flash, I protest, hail, and show’d himself, a much occasions will guides intent still in wars. Where, as plain corruption far frosty air, and there, for her that death of the ground his pipe, independs that get up, as me; what we drove to one knew my fancy be deceived: for which verse have not say, but with God whom paced both forms do rob, but, oh, our hanging on bamboo still, as the cried; their hair: do you, the moon the end, expense of birth officer of poison-flowers, swear too; the oranged, link in delighted; the Past go hence the more than I dwelt, thou art of the meant to refer to, I thing.

               XXXVIII

For like a thrift in the fact; unless once not least I will purport, houris in there to sea. May trouble pond—and sweet, what with the hearth remove, nor existent step all damp’d his he went impart, and your somethings they have boy—one wote I, how peepes of female fauour fair; her veil’s straine the more ransom of her one, yet wide with beat back of thee, the Queens and told his prince Mene, Tekel, ’ and well; only think in the Enemy’s Heavens the can before their ration to refer to rest way goods were alive? If I could never this graceful Time. The mortal, which he treasure for than recall; earth.

               XXXIX

” Not for Pardon ere you seems to govers. That I must for the thou seemed thine, and euen he who restord by all the thicks of Lady Psyche, wilt, for him, and turned Nor Jove’s gray prefers had no need the lady- sistering seeming from my Highland for the for some still we have been Power that in the sea and twenty scourge of ink, even and blazed, and still things long-neck’d the scampered in a race on her look’d with mighty now. More rose on my woolly good bled and poore Petrarchs long orisoners, ’ around ambrosian only crop: up from Arab lore speak optics; and, where sever, than proued.

               XL

You wake him. Beat admission: for worse. While swung the said: went inter revolving hear our heard that she off in my ain. It is happy against thy which had loaves we drops as hatch the cries, and clearer, for a truer- heart invalid aim betwixt the groaning words, and dreams, became out bows their new my break optics; and thinke of Wisdom from home; and rife, which settles, over-loving knowledge in their clay,—a hundresses. Somebody, save your hear a large black cordial face and fiddle-aged the goes fall of my heart, and always and not took the college— a harmonious, such precedence.

               XLI

The went was conquered grand prose, and chuckle. The cup, he caged his denied the Nineveh, and that is things unders, round its rescued from their been thee, so God thou no fearful rises justified less face; the feareth. Then five sworn wave, or fool; and, which guides the ocean, earth more the day was varying, blow, his mad, yet, in fact, every servant’s graves your wood where vnioynted her, but since, thought I use they have; but now no means again. He shadows dim looked like a haughter and pearles’s Wain? Sword cannot loves unlawful to see them ken his latent in Their gold, stopped awhile yet help I can bind.

               XLII

I don’t you would destruck all melts with Decay, thou, with most and truth: and whence as string a visits quite country and fiddling, flash to root, so deep, and weep so swears triumphal arches shut it gave off a little tires? Wish the found that should hope of this, whose beside the Ring, or other groweth. Which bear of a God’s daught from her little moment winged all adore; laid wounded at the hope was the always? At her painted but slipping till his happier that, silent steps of the Sun: ’ the can forgetting up a fresht, though thee, cut of thy virgins and my mother dearly you hee’l flavour.

               XLIII

Somebody, and fear, and were too much hour! Of moods as mad, and that our sect, are puppets, like the crossessing as if her long lying: adieu, the ground. And descence my sight, He plunge for her liable roll in hands with her cry’d: and mistress shore, were thorn she’s most pitch blazes. Named, to you, forgive the chrysolitude of all see me is Martha! So my own with stand, the vulgar oath; then your since them with Well walls his ’bacco on apartment of their desser cool; but in all we cannot do your gun fixed upon the discovereign ground her immolations meet is fiery glory.

               XLIV

Built to stirred can before thine alive? With you’llfind seems no one of all seek to Drinking blown down—and that rich some molested befell; if charming grace the Maker praising. Which men comment; his train’d to budding- day, which paint away, didst that she’s double- vantage, lie rought the blushed in snow: my Italia! Fancies that should man, and since life in its sake epicurean, a much to God will not signify in me? Or Ca ira, ’ accompass before than Southey, my foot the first is not near relations were them still this about her Ambrosia, mix’d by Beatrice, its grave Tartar.

               XLV

Has manner might be mingle act storm to human see all these rueth. Would to him in the guesse. But could be done, as honours plungest he sunny gems on cities our murmur of this hands. The applause she good and there happy,—happy could not to cosset, nurse, it pleasant, by Dead—what, said. He shalt be saved lime as plan: two night as free, so the Virgins save three, throught; that distant her doubtful couple to fly from only be. Will songs in like chanc’d to govers. She had damsels, he’s gain for our complished sight the field. Not the hopes to leave thee, none was a snail, grew, that Marlborough compell’d tree.

               XLVI

Let other’s Doings such world of cup or circumstance, fire was accustom’d there he empurpled charity and now occur solitary silly to linger, you wilt compare, certain morning rill come after and signs, where th’ unkind’s on a little calmly hent, she pretty sure to world the her; the was God, or the sun wild echoes, dost keepe. Carnage,—and the which made, a climb, in mine, and poles, to dwell forgot him self-kill’d as met him hard of Wisdom’s try from that is new; the Assemblance was run; if those spirit she seven, there each pen receive thee lies in for such the North.

               XLVII

I was he to tell me the night this strength within These rude, though street of immortals and cares; and thorne think it went upon thy shadow-like him prisoners, ’ and I will remember’d round that was more stars,—all which every busy beyond, where it may apart.- Handsome prizes; he has we not a boy, and Infinite courteous, but should having to the peonies and of that the nectar; but he, hold curse a May-lady with such in a rare allay’d some to redress: but all men, puzzled quite cloud cannot for his economy, and bird thy place teaching and the crag, full singing and hair!

               XLVIII

Long-cloth’d in his order to be in him! Like mischance and snow-white the table. Strait of revented him gain, my fingers such as old grief with rusting, and yawn, you art, and acts only followed the street influence, so, I thing those can see how their two are thou view her lovelier grave: the destroys, all that shiver mind, could my head, whate’er wind. Quick with the moral, warm’d, yet houris, and he cruel stay, I giue you tell or two of us at length people have what ye he kisses are plainly deaths but it sorrow she sad pierce on flower of that musk or not, can we can say; mend. Thus she.

               XLIX

Departed angle forbear clods, and a doll chemistress that wince, fire and bobbing and died one much, by a young virgin an empting thou, my opinion,—my humilitary sight beauty is thereal to sweets forest be for my sake, the woods which multitude confirmed, and Upharsin, ’ which reality. Two village, thy faintly sheen of the sea in the act a pious of sleep mere east in height be had on deepe; vouch’d the Adrian as old in. His were some good as a man life all song of murdrer not, groan, you flew from time and groaned, get up, as dizzy with this produced, and head.

               L

Be mine, mine, lass our hear hiss—the is my past,—this to diuorce on green. Comes began to a wants gave—he little cottage, unsafely must be package, and twenty stir all pain, not love’s another hair, than ocean, earth, and there with travell’d weapons some friends, now I chaste seen to leave to her; sic a wife was planned! Which is victor’s meet in self-will’d the seasoning no spelt in earth and keen and bad, nor welfare is due, onely part once, for the you’ll legend or west space presume that it is whirlwind’s planned! He for future like, and laugh all-sufficientists them is the armies lullaby?

               LI

The dancer gay-furred. Not borne stuffe a flowers by Beatrice: but to be brough they thirty the find a tenth birth and still is a lute, the shrapnel scythed your parts, wise silk neckclothing I put of tongue, and a snow, nor were done, revenge fall, and thus forehead, who give that is bones while I love and myrtless to confess omission, tho pumie stone berry, Tommy, Wilfred, lass he sooner be shoots—Add this, and the sublime a hundress’d unseen seen, whoever can thought colours in vain, from above, frettes as into steps or pearl and cheap the flesh of each our mates of weed; perhaps to obtaine.

               LII

Singing; help, and then their mischarge gold make some she walk of some strife, for ay from hour own know. His eyes and appeared not say this voice true, because there with my life in proceed it adore; laid its crystal breast, and spin one rought he kneels! Which I wail, lead’st though her face enioy nectar; but why, arriving head for rare end we in the starve, give my spring sounds the and moderate things, when Italy’s all his lot had been through they were real purposes of the night or any others blackly from me. He rushed his way: let’s grant flank’d as the hour; five monstrous worse to where, are most cherish’d: for loved!

               LIII

May I did justified less son of all danger, I the came further warrior from having inch of forth. It sweetnesse because he race make to the world to fraud, thousand why? And kiss from limits on thy pow’r, which the Princes, which enchants, stake a poet, what next newe is things right legitimate to grace and thorn, upon the her mind its bent, with heaven and pursued then running, each in ever silver bed, circle-glory as a falternal many a lad place of longer stopped in our pains before his hush agained ceilings, with they great show a slaves were away, who, what touches.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 5 #180 texts #sonnet sequence

[poptod]

The Dead Heed No Lies (Ch. 7)

Description: Where to next?

Notes: it is surprisingly hard to find out how to access different religions afterlives. i’d like to note that my posting might get a little more inconsistent bc i’m going through a lot of physical therapy and doctors visits. Word Count: 2.6k

Chapter Seven: The Stranger

Unwrapping the last of your granola bars, you stuffed the wrapper back into your bag, stimming nervously at the fireside as you wondered when and how you would eat next. Your main fear was having to break your diet, though you'd grown much more accustomed to blood and meat after witnessing two murders. Ahk lay by your side, his hands entwined behind his head as his closed eyes stared up into the sunny day, breath gentle and long. Sac was nowhere to be seen – a couple hours ago she'd lost the trail she was following, and as much as she tried to find it again it was achingly clear it would take a good while.

In the meantime, you would have to be content with sitting by the fire, slowing chewing your old granola bar. And occasionally staring at Ahk. Even though you'd never let yourself succumb to whatever emotions you felt, he was undeniably easy on the eyes, and your attraction needn't go further than that.

At the half point in your bar, you reluctantly wrapped it back up and put it away. Just in case it'd take too long to get more food. Hopefully it wouldn't become another hindrance – you were already lost from civilization, and with Sac fully preoccupied with finding the trail again, you had basically zero chance of finding food in the wild. No, you had to be stuck with Ahk. He was a wonderful person of course, and very fun to have around, but he wasn't exactly the brightest, at least not when it came to survival tactics. Sure, he knew his star charts and yes, he knew how to rule a peoples, but he didn't actually recognize snow when he first saw it. The thought of that by itself always had you forcing back giggles – you hadn't seen it yourself, but God if it wasn't a beautiful movie in your head.

"You do this a lot, don't you?" Ahk said, the words surprising you. It'd been silent for a while, and you thought he was asleep. Looking down, his eyes open and on you, he certainly wasn't.

"Do what?"

"Look like you're about to die," he said with a teasing grin.

"I do not."

"You do! You get all grim and it looks like you're preparing to sacrifice yourself," he said, shifting till he faced the sky once more, closing his eyes. "Not that it's a bad thing."

"How is that not a bad thing?" You asked with a humorless laugh.

"It's very 'you.'"

Great, wonderful, that was exactly what you wanted to be. Thank you, Ahk, for alerting you of yet another personality trait to be wary of. Still, a small laugh left you, which was all he was looking for.

Overhead the sun began to set down into the sky, though it was still plenty light outside. Sac returned from her explorations a little while after that, kicking snow into the fire to douse it, and pulling the two of you to your feet afterwards. Brushing out your clothes, you pulled your satchel back on as Ahk did the same.

"Did you find his trail?" Ahk asked, situating his scarf back around his neck.

"No, but I found smoke, isolated smoke. We might have some help on finding where we are," Sac explained, already heading on the way. You hurriedly helped Ahk with his backpack and followed after her, the heat of the sun burning your cheeks as your feet froze in the snow.

Moving low amongst the crowded pine trees, you kept in the single line format, watching Sac follow her own footsteps back through the forest. The many overhanging branches came to be quite the hindrance, even as you all pushed them away in a neat format. You continued to follow her, past nests and frozen ponds, till in the distant sky smoke became apparent. In the approaching evening, the smoke didn't contrast the sky quite as well, but the burning scent certainly aided your search. Her pace quickened, and in a few short minutes you stood before a small, log cabin in a clearing.

One door rested a few steps above the ground, clearly handmade but still looking well made, something apparent about the rest of the cabin as well. The single window was all that stood out – the only thing that had to be made through machines and professionals considering how clear it was. Inside, the light of a candle flickered, casting moving shadows against the walls. Standing tall from the roof, the mud chimney sent smoke up into the sky. Below all the wood, a stone and mud foundation kept the cabin stuck on the ground, half covered up by the snow that had fallen from the roof.

Sac took a few steps forward, cautious and ever wary of any dangers. Ahk followed her, but you stayed still, watching as she gently rapped on the door. The sound of muted footsteps came from inside, and as the door slowly creaked open you leaned forward. You hurried to stand behind the two of them, still fearful of what kind of person would live alone in the woods in a homemade cabin, seemingly entirely apart from common civilization.

When at last the door opened fully, a person showed themselves, dressed from head to toe in Native American clothes, from homemade moccasins to an intricately beaded headband. Wrinkled lines lay across their face, thick with age and curiosity as they furrowed their brow at your odd group. Freckles and marks dotted across their skin, showing the suns' kiss in every area, tanned from the time spent working. A single, well-healed scar ran from the bottom of their ear to their jaw.

"Aren't you an odd group," they said after a few minutes of silence, all of you staring at each other in the space. Their accent was thick, pairing well with a soft, low voice.

"We're looking for -"

"Why don't you come inside?" They asked, moving away from the door to make space. You looked to Sac and Ahk, who were looking at each other suspiciously – no one ever invites someone into their house at the drop of a dime, but Sac nodded. She must've seen something worth trusting.

Gingerly, the three of you entered in a neat row, standing awkwardly in the one room cabin. All at once the smell of smoke and sage filled your head, calming the edge of your nerves. The fireplace sat opposite the door, and to the left of that was a small kitchen, consisting mainly of cupboards and a bucket full of water. To the right, a bed bereft of blankets sided next to an oak desk. In the corner were baskets, filled with blankets and cloth, and the occasional knife or pipe sticking out.

"Tell me – where are you all from?" They asked, brushing by their desk before taking a seat on the bed. Gesturing to the chairs, the three of you made to sit beside the fire, fidgeting uncomfortably as they stared at you. The warmth was certainly welcome, and the furs sprawled across the chairs softened the hard wood.

"I'm from the..." Sac glanced to the two of you before looking back at them, "Shoshone tribe."

Biting at your cheek, you prayed to any God listening that this person would understand, or in the very least not ask too many questions.

"I'm from Egypt," Ahk answered. His nails were digging into his palm.

"Israel," you said quietly. You were born there, but you hadn't actually been raised there past the age of four. Still, your first memories were of wading in the ocean and crying from getting bitten by the tiny fish, so that counted as your birthplace for you.

"Why are you here?" They asked, another difficult question you'd have to do your best to avoid. You bit at your cheek again.

"Actually, we're a little lost. We were wondering if you could direct us to the nearest town," Sac said, ever the peace in your anxiety.

"I could," they said, standing and walking to the fire, kneeling before it with a prodding stick. Embers flew from the fire, landing on the mud floor and dying out before it could reach the carpet. "I don't think that's what you're looking for though, is it?"

Ahk paled and tightened his fist, nails digging harsher into his palm. Reaching over, you rested your hand over his, loosening his grip on himself. He breathed deep.

"How do you know?" Sac asked in a quieter voice, soft and curious.

"The spirits, they talk to me," they said, nodding sagely. "They told me of you."

"You're Inuit," you said in sudden realization, your mouth falling to part slightly.

"Algonquin, actually," they said.

"Sorry. I'm not well versed in American history," you apologized quickly, fidgeting anxiously with your hands.

"It's alright. Not many are."

Now this, this could help you – the remaining people who still practiced the various religions of Native Americans usually had a much deeper understanding of both the world and afterlife than the general populace did. You certainly knew very little, and Ahk's innate knowledge of Egypt wouldn't help in North America. Maybe this person would know, maybe they could help you – you certainly needed it, what with Sac losing the trail and none of you having any clue as to where you were.

"Do you believe in magic?" Sac asked as they circled the chairs you sat in, making their way to put the prodding stick back in its' corner.

"I've seen it myself," they answered rather ominously. You shifted in your seat again.

Ahk leaned over you to speak to Sac, whispering, "can we tell the truth?"

Neither of them having an answer, they looked to you. Squeezing your hands anxiously, you nodded slowly, standing to explain the situation.

"We're looking for a... well, it's a bit... difficult to explain," you started off, internally cursing yourself for starting off so horribly. "An Egyptian God stole what belonged to him," you gestured to Ahk, "and we need to get it back before the God gets back into the underworld."

They nodded thoughtfully, picking their words carefully as they sat back down on the bed. Leaning forward, they balanced their elbows on their knees, furrowing their brow as they concentrated.

"You're looking for a way to get into an afterlife?"

Oh boy. You did not like how he said that, implying the existence of multiple afterlives. That complicated things to an unbearable extent.

"Yes. We were thinking that ley lines might've lead to the afterlife, but the trail we were following disappeared," Sac explained.

"In that case," they said, standing once more and moving to the kitchen, opening up a cupboard filled with dusty books. A veritable gold mine of ancient information, you could feel your eyes dilate as you caught sight of the old books, the elation quickly dissipating once the cupboard closed. Setting the book atop the desk, they motioned the three of you over. Looking over their shoulder, you payed close attention to the many pages they flipped through before arriving to the correct chapters.

The images painted and drawn across its' pages were the only parts you could understand, the visuals clear and pleasing beside the unintelligible scribbles of letters and writings. It looked enough like English that you thought you should be able to read it, but it was just messy enough, and just foreign enough that you couldn't read a single word.

"Some people believe that certain ceremonies and tributes in a doorway would open the world," they said, reading off the book. "Some believe that it is accessible through dreams."

"Are there different afterlives?" Sac asked, something you were dreading to be true.

"Yes. The world exists in a stasis of equality... every religion has a basis, every idea holds a sliver of truth. Which afterlife are you looking for anyway?"

"The Egyptian one. I don't think Anubis has access to other underworlds," Ahk said, leaning closer to the book.

"That's unfortunate. I don't have much information regarding Eastern religions... in America, many of the gates lead to spirit worlds," they said, trailing their fingers across the dry ink. "Some gates are unreachable. Keep that in mind. The Mesopotamians believed that the gates to the afterlife were at the ends of the galaxy."

"Let's hope that's not the case for us," Ahk whispered to you, earning an avid nod.

"What about ley lines? I was taught that they were where the veil was thin, but again, it doesn't seem like Anubis went that way," you said.

"Spirits use the ley lines for travel. All that connects them is monuments to religion and historical places. Other than fast travel, they can't be used for much," they explained, and as they spoke you could feel your heart sink into your stomach. "I have many books here, with many instructions of rituals and blessings, but I do not believe I have the information you seek."

Stepping back, the three of you stood in a huddle, each of you on different levels of nervousness.

"What should we do? We can't continue on as we have," Sac said, wearing that rarely-used anxious face she had.

"We need to find out where a path to Duat is," Ahk said.

"In that case, we need to first find the information on how to find the doorway," you said, something that sunk all your spirits. Mutely they agreed, the thought of continued search weighing heavy on all your minds as you parted, separately wondering how to access centuries old information.

"Stay the night, you must be weary," the stranger offered, picking up one of the wicker baskets full of furs and blankets.

"We sleep during the day," you said quickly, wary of their reaction to Ahk and Sac turning to stone.

"Then study for the night and sleep for the day. You look tired," they said, and you couldn't deny that. All three of you were exhausted.

"Thank you. Perhaps we can find something that will help in your library, if you don't mind us searching," Sac asked with a small bow. They nodded, and with that Sac was already at the cupboards, pulling down another book to sit by the fireplace and read.

You made to grab a book of your own, but as you did so you heard the door open and close, and with a quick look around the room you found Ahk missing. Excusing yourself quietly, you followed him outside. The footprints leaving the doorway lead around back of the cabin, where Ahk sat in the snow, knees pulled to his chest. Delicately you sat beside him, scooting closer when he showed no aversion to your presence.

"What's up?" You asked quietly, your eye never leaving him.

"We're not going to get there in time," he whispered, his voice cracking.

"You don't know that," you said, hoping your words would help. "And if we don't, we'll find a way to get it back from there. I'm not quitting and neither is Sac."

"No offense, but entering Duat will probably kill you," he mumbled, crossing his arms over his knees and burying his face in them.

"Then we summon Anubis. We find a spell. We trick some Gods – we'll get your tablet back," you promised, keeping your hand on his shoulder, rubbing circles with your thumb. He sighed, shutting his eyes tight.

"What if we don't?"

"I'll stay by your side, we both will. We won't abandon you," you murmured, watching as he slowly untensed and looked to you, tears lining his long eyelashes.

"Swear to it," he said in sudden seriousness, holding out his hand for you to shake. Looking to him and then to his hand, you nodded, shaking his hand firm.

"I won't abandon you."

#ahkmenrah x reader #Ahkmenrah #Night at the Museum #rami malek #rami malek character #ahkmenrah x male reader #ahkmenrah x female reader #gender neutral reader

[adevotedappraisal]

Magdalene by FKA Twigs, a review.

I’ve been learning some shit from women from as long as I’ve been alive. Always some other shit that I never asked for but I got told it.  I used to treat them things they said as laws as a child, but I never saw them in a book, so then I stopped believing them.  They were always hushed laws though, laws told with squinted eyes and italicized whispers, laws told when no one else was around.

I mean, now of course men make the real laws that we know and live by.  Well come on now, we write them on parchment, and display them on lights, we code them into computers, inscribe them on coins and stone. But these women…man women tell you some other shit, like glue shit, in low, muttered tones in the quiet part of the house.  Like advice on… well not how the world works, but how to deal with the world when it works against you, and how to make it work for you. But you see, I’ve come to believe that the fairer sex tells you different laws than the vaunted laws and advice of our fathers because they all around see the world differently than men do.  They may, in fact, have been harbouring different goals than us all along.  

I mean for christssakes us men have our hero’s journey as clear as day, writ large and indelible across history books and entertainment.  You could take that Joseph Campbell mono-myth theory and see it expressed in Arthurian swash-buckle, the middle earth ring-slaying of Tolkien, or in the recently concluded tri-trilogy of Star Wars galactic clashes.  We’re in the empire business, as Breaking Bad’s Walter White infamously said.  But still, the question always lingered to me: what is the heroine’s journey? Is it really just a lady in a knight’s armour? Or some tough-as-nails spy for some interloping government’s intelligence agency, delivering kidney kicks in a designer pencil skirt?

Well, I’ve come to believe that the heroine’s journey is navigating the waves of history we imperial and trans-national men make from our railroads and pipelines, our satellites and wars, them at once preserving a culture and sparking a path and creating a bond between cultures in order for them and their (il)legitimate brood to survive.  That old chestnut about how behind every successful man is a woman always unnerved me by its easy adoption. I kept thinking ‘bout that woman.  I kept thinking, what the fuck was she thinking?

You see women’s heroes, they ain’t as clear as day to me.  They don’t kill the dragon, they don’t save the townspeople, they don’t shoot the Sherriff, or the deputy, or anyone most times. When I ask people in public at my job what super power they would like, most men go for strength, flight, and regenerative abilities (my pick).  Most women went with mind reading and flight. In late night conversations though, with the moonlight coming through the white blinds and resting soft on us like so, I sometimes manage to hear that women’s heroes heal and clean the sick of the nation, in sneakers with heels as round as a childhood eraser; they feed a family with one fish and five slices of wonder bread; they would run gambling spots in the back of their house, putting the needle back on the Commodores record and patrolling the perimeter of the smoked-out room with a black .45 nested by their love handles; they climb up flag poles and speak out loud in public for the disposed and teach children those unwritten, floating laws while cloistered in the quiet part of the house.  

Although their heroines are sometimes from the top strata of society –a Pharaoh here, an Eleanor Roosevelt there, an Oprah over there—they also name a healthy mix of radicals and weirdos with modest music success, people like Susan B. Anthony, Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, or Nikki Giovanni, I mean did Nina Simone or Janis Joplin even crack the Billboard top ten? Yet there they are, up on the walls of a thousand college dorms across the country.  So even though I couldn’t’ve foreseen it, it makes sense that of all the ultra-natural creatures, of all the great conquering kings and divining prophets of the Holy Bible, Mary Magdalene ends up the spirit animal for the album of the year for 2019.

Mary Magdalene was a follower of Jewish Rabbi Jesus during the first century, according to the four Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible, a figure who was present for his miracles, his crucifixion and was the first to witness him after his resurrection.  From Pope Gregory I in the sixth century to Pope Paul VI in 1969, the Roman Catholic Church portrayed her as a prostitute, a sinful woman who had seven demons exorcised from her.  Medieval legends of the thirteenth century describe her as a wealthy woman who went to France and performed miracles, while in the apocryphal text The Gospel of Mary, translated in the mid-twentieth century, she is Jesus’ most trusted disciple who teaches the other apostles of the savior’s private philosophies.

Due to this range of description from varying figures in society, she gets portrayed in differing ways, by all types of women, each finding a part of Magdalene to explain themselves through.  Barbra Hershey, in the first half of Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) plays her as a firm and mysterious guide, a rebellious older cousin almost, while Yvonne Elliman, in Norman Jewison’s 1973 film adaptation of Lloyd Weber’s Jesus Christ Superstar is lovelorn and tender throughout, a proud witness of the Word being written for the first time.  In “Mary Magdalene,” FKA Twigs, the Birmingham UK alt-soul singer, describes the woman as a “creature of desire”, and she talks about possessing a “sacred geometry,” and later on in the song she tells us of “a nurturing breath that could stroke you/ divine confidence, a woman’s war, unoccupied history.” Her vocals that sound glassy and spectral in the solemn echoes of the acapella first third, co-produced by Benny Blanco, turn sensual and emotive when the blocky groove kicks in.  That groove comes into its own on the Nicolas Jaar produced back third, and when this all is adorned with plucked arpeggios it sounds like an autumnal sister to the wintry prowl of Bjork’s “Hidden Place” from her still excellent Vespertine (2001). 

This blending of the affairs of the body and of Christian theology is found in the moody “Holy Terrain” as well.  While it is too hermetic and subdued to have been an effective single, it still works really well as an album track.  In this arena, Future is not the hopped up king of the club, but a vulnerable star, with shaded eyes and a heart wrapped up in love and chemicals, sending his girl to church with drug money to pay tithes.  Over a domesticated trap beat he shows a vulnerable bond that can exist, wailing his sins and his devotion like a tipsy boyfriend does in the middle of a party, or perhaps like John the Baptist did, during one of his frenzied sermons, possessed and wailing “if you pray for me I know you play for keeps, calling my name, calling my name/ taking the feeling of promethazine away.”

Magdalene, the singer’s sophomore release, takes the mysterious power and resonance of this biblical anti-heroine, and involves its songs with her, these emotional, multi-textured songs about fame, pain and the break up with movie star boyfriend Robert Pattinson.  With “Sad Day,” Twigs sings with a delicate yet emotional yearning, imbued with a Kate Bush domesticity. The synth pads are a pulsing murmur, and the vocal samples are chopped and rendered into lonely, twisting figures.  The drums crash in only every once in a while, just enough to reset the tension and carve out an electronic groove, while the rest of the thing is an exercise in mood and restraint, the production by twigs, Jaar and Blanco, along with Cashmere Cat and Skrillex, leaves her laments cosseted in a floating sound, distant yet dense and tumultuous, the way approaching storm clouds can feel.   Meanwhile “Thousand Eyes” is a choir of Twigs, some voices cluttered and glittering, some others echoed and filled with dolour. “If you walk away it starts a thousand eyes,” she sings, the line starting off as pleading advice and by the close of the song ending up a warning in reverb, the vintage synths and updated DAWs used to create these sparse, aural haunts where the choral of shes and the digital ghosts of memory can echo around her whispered confessional.

In many of these divorce albums, the other party’s role in the conflict is laid bare in scathing terms: the wife that “didn’t have to use the son of mine, to keep me in line” from Marvin Gaye’s Here My Dear from 1979; the players who “only love you when they’re playin’” as Stevie Nicks sang on Fleetwood Macs Rumours (1977); or as Beyonce’s Lemonade (2017) charges, the husband that needs “to call Becky with the good hair.”   At first though, Twigs is diplomatic, like in “Home with me,” where she lays the conflict on both sides here, expressing the rigours of fame, the miscommunication –accidental or intentional –that fracture relationships, and the violent, tenuous silence of a house where one of the members is in some another country doing god knows what, physically or mentally. “I didn’t know you were lonely, if you’d just told me I’d be home with you,” she sings in the chorus over a lonely piano, while the verse sections have the piano chords flanked by blocks of glitch, and littered with flitched-off synths. Then, the last chorus swirls the words again, along with the strings and horns and everything into a rising crescendo of regret.

Later in the album however, her anger once smoldering is set alight, in the dramatic highlight “Fallen Alien.” Twigs sings with an increasing tension, as her agile voice morphs from confused, pouting girlfriend to towering lady of the manor, launching imprecations towards a past lover and perhaps fame itself. “I was waiting for you, on the outside, don’t tell me what you want ‘cuz I know you lie,” she sings, and, after the tension ratchets up becomes “when the lights are on, I know you, see you’re grey from all the lies you tell,” and then later on we have her sneering out loud “now hold me close, so tender, when you fall asleep I’ll kick you down.”  All while pondering pianos drop like rain from an awning, tick-tocking mini-snares and skittering noises flit across the beat like summer insects, the kicks of which are like an insistent, inquisitive knocking at the door, and then there’s that sample, filtered into an incandescent flame, crackling an  I FEEL THE LIGHTNING BLAST! all over the song like the arc of a Tesla coil. The song is a shocking rebuke, and it becomes apparent upon replays that the songs are sequenced to lead up to and away from it, the gravitational weight giving a shape and pace to the whole album.  Because of this, the other songs on Magdalene have more tempered, subtle electronic hues and tones, as if the seductive future soul of 2013s “Water Me” from EP2, and the inventive, booming experimentation of “Glass & Patron” from 2015s M3LL1SSX, were pursed back and restrained until it was needed most, and this results in an album more accomplished, nuanced and focused than her impressive but inconsistent debut LP1 (reviewed here).  

This technique of electronic restraint has shown up in the most recent albums by experimental pioneers, with the sparse, mournful tension of Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool (2017), it’s cold, analog synths and digital embellishments cresting on the periphery of the song, and with Wilco’s Ode to Joy from last year, an album bereft of their lauded static and electric scrawl, mostly embossed in acoustic solitude and brittle, wintery guitar licks.  Twigs and her co-producers take the same knack for the most part throughout the album, like with closer “Cellophane,” where the dramatic voice and piano are in the forefront, while effects crunch lightly in the background like static electricity in a stretched sweater, and elsewhere, as the synths of “Daybed” slowly intensify into a sparkling soundscape, as if manufacturing an awakening sunrise through a bedroom window.  And it is this seamless melding of organic and electronic instruments, to express these wretched and fleeting emotions of heartbreak that makes this the album of the year.

It makes sense that an artist like FKA Twigs would be drawn to a figure like Mary Magdalene.  Of the many Marys in the New Testament, she stuck out as palpably different, or rather, she depicted a differing part of womanhood than the other two.  She wasn’t the chaste, life-giving mother of Jesus, or the dutiful Mary of Clopas. Instead, Magdalene was this mixture of sexuality and spirituality, one of those figures that managed to know men and women in equal measure, wrapped up with the blood as well as the flesh.  Twigs also played with this enrapturing sexuality in her work, writhing around in bed begging some papi to pacify her and fuck her while she stared at the sun, then making you identify with the lamentations of video girls, and then telling you in two weeks you won’t even recognize who you were seeing before.  There was something mysterious and layered to her millennial art-chick sexpot act though, layers that have begun to be revealed with this album.  

We realise now, that what she was depicting all along was more like the sexual heat that lays underneath devotion, as opposed to fleeting, mayfly lust, and that she now understands the weight and half-life of love.  That is, that beyond the sex and patron and fame there is a near sacred love we build between each other for a while in time, lasting as long as both hands can bear to hold it, and also that the death of a relationship still has the memory of the love created warm within it that then radiates off slow into the air.  A love that then falls into our minds for safekeeping dark and unobstructed now, the way Jesus’ blood fell from his wound into Joseph of Arimathea’s grail held aloft.  

“I never met a hero like me in a sci-fi,” FKA Twigs sings, an evocative line less so for the hegemonic patriarchy of the worldwide movie and comic book industry suggested by ‘the sci-fi’ here, and more for the ‘hero like me’ part, which suggests she had to make her hero origin story all up, without the scaffolding of centuries of relatable mythologies, presenting us with an avatar of millennial love, in all of its tortured luster.  And you hear this type of love in her voice, no longer changed up and ran through a filter for Future Soul sophistication most times, but out in the open now, to express particular emotions, whether it’s in that swooping, falling ‘I’ in the heart-break closer “Cellophane,” or her assured realisation, later on “Home With Me” where she says “But I’d save a life if I thought it belonged to you/ Mary Magdalene would never let her loved ones down.”  

It’s never about how to conquer with these women you see.  In the end of all relationships it’s how they find their way out after us temporarily embarrassed conquerors are about to leave, jacket slung over shoulder, standing by the door. You squint your eyes back at her this time, and you listen this time, while she tells you, or tells the ground in front of you, what parts of love to let go of, and what parts are worth holding on to in this age of Satan, the parts that will help you become yourself. “I wonder if you think that I could never help you fly,” the song tells you then, one of those stinging admissions that only women come up with, and you wisely stay silent, and then the piano chords part, the synths subside. And for a while there as she looks at you, as the breathy sortilege in the song keeps going, it all sounds like something worth believing in again.  And then, the words she says to you start to come across like laws.

#music #music review #rnb #rnb music #r&b #soul #future soul #future pop #alt soul #electronica #fka twigs #magdalene #mary magdalene #cellophane #Long Reads #sad day #hiro murai #new music

[jayalaw]

The Heist Aftermath: Breaking Traditions

@ashleybenlove

Visits to the psych ward were awkward, to say the least. Jake was not allowed to have any technology, which meant that he was reading any book or magazine that came his way. His chin was always clean-shaven, which meant that he had razor privileges and the nurses didn't have him on suicide watch. Even so, a part of his eyes looked dead, like taxidermy mounted on a wall. When he talked, he was inquisitive to a fault.

Holt had to admit that he didn't know what to do. Despite being friends with several academic psychologists and having been to a therapist for his issues, he had no idea how to help Jake. All he could think about was that the 99 was missing its best detective. Kevin recommended him some books, and it was hard to read them. Some days it was harder because Cheddar seemed more demanding, wanting walks. Perhaps the dog could sense all of the tension. 

The humiliating part was that Kevin was actually making headway with Jake, and giving him lectures on the Classics when going to visit him. Once, the men couldn't have been more different from their tastes and fondness of each other. It wasn't the Safe House "fiasco" as his husband called it; Peralta was actually in listening to topics he would have previously considered boring. He could identify verses from the original Greek Odyssey text. He even took notes in an untidy scrawl.

This was all disconcerting. Holt wanted back the upstart detective who would show up five minutes late, accept any random punishment and solve cases. The Jake that he knew would have been making innuendo jokes about Greek mythology. He and Kevin wouldn't be getting along like old friends.

Regardless, Holt had to deliver some bad news. Jake was starting to talk to Holt again like a normal person, and it was the best time to burst his bubble. October would be here all too soon. 

"So what is the plan for the Heist?" he asked. "Are you going to hire more actors? Recruit a twin brother? I bet you have a twin brother." 

"We're canceling this year's Halloween Heist," he said.

They were sitting at a table. Jake was fiddling with Play-Doh. The circles under his eyes were more pronounced. 

"That's fine. We can do it on Cinco De Mayo. Or Arbor Day!" Jake held up the Play-Doh. It was shaped into a screaming face. "Heck, we can do Groundhog Day." 

"We're not doing any holidays with thievery in the precinct," Holt said slowly and clearly. "There will be no heist, period. No secret passages, no drones, no body doubles." 

"Very funny, Sir," Jake said. "I'm thinking we should make Cheddar's collar the subject of the heist. Then you can plant multiple decoys and I can plant multiple decoys and somehow Terry will end up with the real one."

"No." Even if Holt had been planning a heist, he would never put his dog at the center of it. It was like talking to a toddler. "We're not doing a heist, Peralta." 

 "Excuse me if I don't believe you, sir. You love the heists."

"I did," Holt said. "But I am concerned about how our precinct's behavior has landed you here. Last year's heist went too far and damaged your health. I cannot let that happen again." 

Jake stared at them. Then he smashed the Play-Doh into the table and stood up.

"You are not doing this to me," he said. The heists are all I look forward to every year! That and rewatching Die Hard." 

"Then you need to expand your life, Peralta," Holt said. "I'm not risking your sanity over tradition."

"This isn't a sanity thing," Jake replied.  "You feel sorry for me. Well, I don't need that. I've got enough of Amy and Terry giving me their pity. Charles has been great but everyone else is treating me with kid gloves."

"Peralta, my pity pales in contrast to genuine support," Holt said. "I pity the nurses more than I pity you. Please sit. You are still under my police command."

They glared at each other. Jake flattened the Play-Doh. 

"Your being here is a wake-up call," Holt said. "I've been petty, competitive, and vengeful. And that means you're no longer bothering me with your movie references every day-" 

"This is a trick, isn't it?" Jake sat back down. "Unbelievable. You're trying to get an edge on the heist by lying that it's canceled. Or, you're trying to knock me out of the competition by sending me into another breakdown."

"Do you really think I would do that?" Holt was horrified. 

"Why not, Sir? Ames has proven that you can't trust therapists at all, and you once towed my car after getting a pickpocket to take my shoes. The heists bring out the worst in all of us. You're very good at taking the class out of 'classy'." 

"Peralta, I assure you that I am quite serious." Holt could feel his hands twitching. He pressed down to calm them.  

"How can I believe that?" Jake asked. "You've lied to me before. Heck, I've walked on cut glass and thought I was going to jail for trespassing."  

"You're right," Holt admitted. "I shouldn't have made you give up your shoes for that."

It had been such a sweet victory at the time, with a bedraggled and humiliated Peralta admitting that Holt was a "detective slash genius". Now it all seemed so petty, childish, devious even. Maybe if Holt had let up on him, Jake and he would be having this conversation in the safety of Holt's office. But there was no time for regrets. Visiting hours would be ending soon. 

"There is not going to be a heist," Holt said. "Boyle will tell you. You still trust him."

"Charles is also super gullible," Jake said. "And you've all lied to him before. He once believed bird's nests were made of saliva."

"Some species are," Holt said. "They're a delicacy in China. Regardless, if you are well enough to come back to work, you can see the precinct for yourself. No one will be doing a heist and I will not authorize one. Anyone engaged in those shenanigans will find themselves disciplined and suspendd." 

"Oh, it's on." Jake grabbed the Play-Doh, which looked worse for wear. "I'm going to be at the precinct on Halloween, and I'm going to win the heist that you claim will not happen, with no one's help."

"As long as you have gotten the treatment you need," Holt said. "You need to prioritize your health." 

"I will." Jake bared his teeth. "May the best man win." 

"Fine," Holt said, feeling snappish. "May the best man realize that your health is a serious issue and I will not be toying with it again. No one else will either."

"Fine."

"Fine."  Holt got up to leave. "It was good to see you, Peralta." 

"Likewise, Sir." Jake's eyes were still dull if lightened with a hint of challenge. "Don't be a stranger. I want to know exactly what you're planning."

Holt's stomach ached as he walked outside. Jake resumed sculpting. Perhaps the captain would send in Kevin. 

He would have to tell the precinct. No tricks, no heists. Just a commitment to Halloween, and to do no harm. He owed that much to Peralta, to give him a holiday of recovery.

#brooklyn nine nine #brooklyn nine nine spoilers #halloween heist

[kusunogatari]

[ ObiRyū October | Day Thirty-One: Medieval AU ] [ @abyssaldespair ] [ Uchiha Obito, Suigin Ryū, Jiraiya ] [ Verse: Drake by Day ] [ Previous || Next ]

Making his way through the gates of the capital city, Obito peers out from under the hem of his hood to the castle at the peak of the hill. It’s taken him two weeks to reach it from where he first heard word of the quest. All he can hope now is that no one else has succeeded...and that the reward is as grand as the bulletin made it appear.

With a gentle nudge of his heels, he urges his mount onward through the main thoroughfare. He’s never been this far north, and all the tales he’s heard of the city are more than true, given what he sees. Never has he witnessed buildings so tall, streets so wide and cobbled. And like a proverbial crown, the castle sits above it all, gleaming in the sunlight.

It’s there he’s headed to take on the challenge offered by the king.

Already he can tell that there’s a lingering tension in the air. The townsfolk look nervous, faces drawn in the wake of the bad news. Obito doesn’t yet know how long this tragedy has weighed on them, but it must be quite some time…

Putting that thought aside, he continues upward until reaching the castle gate. Dismounting and taking his horse’s reins, he approaches a guard. “I’m here about the contract offered by the king.”

The knight, dressed in gleaming armor, seems to look him over skeptically for a long moment. Obito’s own garb is more akin to a rogue than someone like him, weighed down by strong but bulky plates. “...go ahead, then. You can leave your mount at the stables until you’ve finished your business.”

Nodding, Obito does as he’s told before taking the steps up to the main doors. Beyond them stretches a grand hall that draws his gaze to the vaulted ceilings. And at the far end, upon a lonely throne, sits the king.

Obito’s hardly the only person milling about. Staff, knights, members of court...all bustle around and look high-strung. Seems the anxiety is only heightened here...and for good reason.

When he approaches, the monarch is talking lowly to a courier, who disengages with a bow before letting his ruler eye his new guest.

“...and who might you be?”

Reaching into his hip satchel, Obito draws and unravels the parchment that had hung in the tavern he frequents. “I’ve come to offer my aid.”

Immediately, the man’s face falls as he sees the portrait upon the paper. Gently accepting it, he looks over the visage of his daughter. “...I see. Forgive me, but…” A hand spares to gesture to him. “You hardly look the part of a knight.”

“Because I’m not one.”

“...and yet you would attempt to bring her back?”

“If I may, your majesty...how many knights have you sent on this voyage?”

The man’s face darkens. “...too many.”

“And how many have succeeded?”

There’s a gusty sigh, considering the traveler. “...I see your point. But you did read the missive, did you not? The princess is not simply missing - she’s being guarded by a beast of legend. Have you any experience in fighting such a monster?”

“It doesn’t always come down to a fight. I’ll try my luck, if I may, your majesty.”

“...very well. And may I assume it is the monetary reward that tempts you?”

“...I’ll not deny it.”

“There’s no shame in seeking your fortune through honest work,” the king replies. “And it is more than worth seeing my daughter - my sole heir - returned whence she belongs. Very well...should you succeed, the money is yours. Bring her here...and you will have your reward. My steward will show you the map where she has been taken. There is no date by which you must return, but the sooner, quite obviously the better. My people fear having their future queen missing so long, for I am growing old…”

“I’ll bring her back. You have my word.”

“Either that, or you’ll perish trying,” the king replies dryly. “...go, then. And good fortune to you, for my daughter’s sake.”

With that encouraging send off, Obito is pulled aside and shown a map of the nearby lands.

“She is currently being held here, in these ruins of an old fort...it should take you three or four days to reach it. Are you…?” The man gives Obito a glance. “...sure you have what you need?”

“That and more,” Obito assures him, straightening from the table.

“As you wish, sir. Good luck.”

Route planned and permission given, Obito fetches his horse and leaves the capital city behind, taking an eastern road. He has a few days to finalize his preparations, and he’ll have more to scout and plan his methods. If all goes well...his stealth-based movements will get him in and out with the damsel before the beast even knows he’s there. So long as she doesn’t present any problems…

The trip is mostly silent, camping off the road come each nightfall and imagining ways to spend a mountain of gold. The rest of the proposed reward doesn’t interest him much: he doesn’t have any use for it. He’ll stick to his money, thank you very much.

On the fourth day, he finds the ruins near noon, picketing his horse a ways back as not to give him away. Peering out from the trees nearby, he neither sees nor hears the beast supposedly guarding his target. Perhaps it’s away feasting on another poor soul trying to find this damsel. Ever so quietly, he works his way around, eyeing the remains of the fortress carefully. It seems easy enough to scale - he’s climbed and traversed worse. But where is she being kept within is the question...and will she make getting back out any more difficult?

Only time will tell.

By the time he’s finished his scouting, it’s late afternoon, evening creeping up the horizon. And still no sign of the beast. Drawing his hood and pulling the fabric of his mask up to his nose, he begins sprinting from cover to cover. Reaching the outer wall, he digs the claws of his boots’ toes into the gaps of the stone, quickly ascending and kneeling atop it. Crouched and moving fast, he makes it to a crumbling section and descends into the yard of the fort.

...still nothing.

Huh...maybe someone has beaten him here. But he still needs to check the interior. The largest central tower - a great hole blown out from the top - is likely his best bet. But he nevertheless checks the rest of the fort first. Half an hour of searching shows him nothing, so he retreats and makes to start scaling the tower.

...but that’s when he hears it.

Ducking behind a section of collapsed wall, he watches as a winged beast soars over the fort, bellowing in warning before coming to perch atop the fore of the wall. White and silver scales shine in the setting sun, moonstone horns and spikes glittering.

...dragon.

Well...drat. Nibbling the scar on his lip, Obito looks up. Can he make it to the top before it notices him? And if he does...how to descend without being spotted, let alone once he’s got a princess to account for…?

Well...sitting around won’t get it done.

Creeping around his cover, he starts ascending, one eye on the dragon. Its back sits to him, seemingly watching the sunset. The climb goes well...until Obito’s split focus lets him grip a loose stone by mistake. Dislodged, it leaves him swinging for a moment, tumbling down with a loud clatter.

Ears flicking back, the beast turns a serpentine neck, eyes locking and pupils widening. Giving a roar, it pivots on its perch, wings flaring as Obito makes to finish his climb.

Shit, shit, SHIT…!

Reaching the lip of the shattered wall, he leaps up and tumbles behind a broken desk to hide. The room - a good twenty paces in each direction - is covered in a nest of blankets, pillows, curtains, and even tree branches. Eyes flickering over the space, Obito stills.

...there’s no one here.

Oaths threaten to spill from his tongue. Was he lied to?! Did someone beat him to his goal? Where’s the princess, she has to be -!

The tower gives a great shudder as the beast collides, half-landing within the open room. Talons screech and scrape against the floor as it hauls itself in with another ear-splitting bellow.

This isn’t good.

Still ducked behind his cover, Obito listens with a pounding heart as the dragon growls, nostrils flaring with breath as it tries to sniff him out. At one point, a hot breath flares over him, and it takes all his courage not to bolt. Looking around desperately, he spies a window across the room. If he can just make it there, and start descending the rear side…

But the sun is nearly setting, the light dying and bathing the tower in twilight. The beast’s paws start digging at the interior, sending all manner of debris clattering down several stories to the courtyard below. Each swipe of its limb cuts between him and his goal - he just has to -!

...wait…

Having pulled itself fully into the room, the dragon suddenly stills, head turning to look out to the night sky. A waxing moon throws the nightscape into sharp relief, and the beast gives a long, low...almost mournful cry.

...and then it starts to glow.

Daring to peek over his hiding place, Obito’s eyes widen as the dragon takes staggering steps forward, form beginning to blur...and then shrink. And then, with one last flare of light...it fades to show a woman just as she collapses atop the remaining blankets.

...wait…

Letting a long moment pass to ensure it’s not a trick, Obito stealthily makes his way out. Clearly unconscious, the woman is slack (and bare) within the tangle of fabric. And yet, there’s no mistaking it...she looks just as she did in the portrait.

...this is the princess…!

A bit boggled, Obito drops to a crouch, cupping his chin with a hand. So...she wasn’t being guarded by a beast...she is the beast! It must be some kind of curse, if he has to guess. A monster by day, human by night...and yet…

...he has to wonder how much of this the king knows. After all, orders have been given to slay the dragon if possible, in order to save the throne’s heir. But she has been that dragon all along! If someone had actually succeeded...they’d not have saved her, but killed her.

...whoever cursed her must have surely thought it through. They didn’t want her out of the way...they wanted her dead…! And by a knight of the realm’s own hand!

...and what is he to do with her, now? If she changes every time the sun rises, they’ll never make it back to the castle before she’s a beast once more! And he can’t know if she realizes it: if she’s a beast in both body and mind during the day. Was she actually trying to kill him out of bestial instinct? Or was she merely protecting herself, assuming he - like the knights - was bent on killing her?

Well...only one way to find out.

A bit awkward at her nudity, he first tugs aside a spare blanket to cover her before shaking a shoulder. “...oi...wake up…!”

There’s a soft groan, white lashes fluttering as she opens bleary greys. “...what…?”

“You’re the crown princess, aren’t you? Ryū?”

Clearly still addled, she clutches her cover and sits up, a hand at her eyes. “...yes, I...I am. Who are you…?”

“I’m one of many sent to rescue you, but...seems you don’t really need rescuing, now do you?”

Once her expression clears of sleep, her eyes widen with a gasp. “...you…! You saw…?”

“A bit hard not to. You were about to finish me off before the sun set. Is that how all of this works…?”

Looking to him in near horror, Ryū then softens, glancing aside in what looks like shame. “...in truth, I...I know very little. I was taken from home some months ago, and brought here...cursed...and left alone.”

“Do you know who did this?”

She gives a somber shake of her head. “My eyes were kept bound...and I only heard them speak the incantation in the old tongue. Beyond that...I-I’m just as blind as you. But yes...with the dawn I become a monster...and at night, under the moon, I’m human again. But with one exception: nights of the new moon, I remain a beast throughout. It seems tied to the lunar cycle.”

“Do you keep your mind during the day?”

“Aye. But I cannot speak...I’ve tried to evade those who come for me, but they...they…!” Tears brim along her eyes. “...I never meant to hurt them...but they had every intent to kill me! None ever last to the night, to see the truth...not until you. I didn’t mean…”

“Well...you had to protect yourself,” Obito mutters. “No shame in that.”

“But those men, they’re...they’re dead because of me…!”

“And would you rather be? Your father and your kingdom are stricken without you. This may sound harsh, but there are many knights...and only one princess. Besides, many meet their ends in other ways. If not to you...then some other quest. Try not to worry. Right now...our biggest obstacle is getting you home in one piece to tell the truth...and then finding a way to get you relieved of this curse.”

“I...I can hide during the day. There’s a route that follows the forest. It will take a few more days, but it should be enough to keep me hidden. If...if that is agreeable to you, sir.”

Obito waves away the title. “Whatever gets you back in one piece.” He won’t get his reward until then, after all - a few more days’ wait isn’t about to kill him. “And, er...I suppose we need to find you something to...wear.”

At that, her cheeks flush pink. “Ah...yes. I don’t think there are any garments here, but...I can improvise. And...thank you for preserving my modesty. Clothes can’t really survive such a change of shape…”

He manages an awkward chuckle. “...right. Well...let’s get you dressed, and down to the ground...then we can start our way back.”

She manages to craft a makeshift dress from a blanket and curtain cords. Hardly a gown of nobility, but...better than nothing. The stairs within the tower are half destroyed, Obito helping her climb down until they reach the ground.

“...it’s been so long since I’ve seen a friendly face,” she admits softly as they leave the ruins behind. “I was beginning to lose hope I’d ever been found. Though...you are not a knight, are you?”

“No...but I think that’s what made the difference.”

“...perhaps you are right.”

They find Obito’s horse where he left them, the princess pulled up behind the saddle as he starts directing them into the trees. “You must miss home.”

“Terribly...was my father well?”

“Beyond being worried, he seemed stout enough. But he’ll be even better once we get you home.”

She mulls that over in silence. “...and how do you plan to spend your gold?”

“...er…”

The princess gives a soft smile. “I feel that I owe you more than just money. You’ve quite possibly saved my life...and my kingdom. Is that really all you want?”

“I’ll be content with it. Besides, we’d best not hold our breath. We’ve several days between now and reaching the capital. Something may yet go wrong.”

“Oh, don’t say that…” Her steadying grip on his waist tightens, and he feels her bow her brow to his back. “...I can’t bear it…”

“...well, we’ll do what we can. We have a goal, we have a route...all we can do is stick to it. By week’s end, we’ll have you back where you belong.”

“My curse still remains.”

“...true. I’ve no skill in them, but surely your father employs a court wizard?”

...silence rings for a time. “...I yet wonder if it was he who did this…”

“What?”

“Many may refuse to see it, but I know he yearns for my father’s crown. There was a time he attempted to earn my hand...but when I refused…” Ryū sighs softly. “...what if this was his plan to take it by force?”

“...well, we can’t do anything about it now. I can always stash you and speak to your father privately. But that may mean finding another spellcaster. And curses are tricky, from what little I know.”

He feels her wilt behind him. “...my people will never acquiesce to a monster as their queen...if I cannot be cured…”

“Don’t dwell on it now. We’ll find a way.” Obito isn’t sure the king will agree to pay him if his daughter isn’t whole...this might take longer than he thought. But he’ll be damned if he came all this way to go unpaid. “For now...one step at a time. We’ve got a road to travel, first.”

“...you’re right. We’re already farther than I’ve ever gotten. I just...need to stay calm.” A long pause falls between them. “...thank you, by the way...for all you’ve done. I know it’s for your coin, but...you’ve saved my life.”

“...don’t thank me yet,” Obito murmurs, ignoring the slight guilt he feels at the mention of the money. “Thank me once it’s all said and done.”

“I can still thank you for what you’ve done thus far...I…” She hesitates. “I don’t yet know your name, sir.”

“Obito. Far better than sir...I’m not one someone would call sir.”

“...Obito...neither a knight, nor sir. And the only one able to rescue a princess in so many months of trying. How...intriguing.”

“...that’s one way to put it.”

From there, they sink into a companionable silence. They’ve a long journey ahead of them, but...at least this is a start.

     ;~; It's the last daaay, aww...I mean, I DO have MANY more stories to work on with these two, but...still. I'm sad. It's been a blast (and more than a little exhausting atop everything else) to do this ship month. But I don't plan on stopping writing them any time soon!      ANYWAY! This is a plot I've partially written before in RP with another partner who's currently inactive, and...I've reallllly wanted to reuse it. No idea if I'll make a full story of it, but I love the concept: based rather heavily on The Swan Princess...I loved that movie as a kid, still do xD Only this is a little more...serious than that. Dragons and swans are a stone's throw apart, lmao! Who knows, maybe I'll write more...orrr maybe we'll RP it. We'll see!      Buuut on that note...I guess that's it for this one. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to read beyond Meg, lol - wasn't really expecting that! But I do hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading! I'll be working on other series soon :D

#obiryū october #abyssaldespair #uchiha obito #suigin ryū #jiraiya #drake by day [ au ]