#(at least i think so?? its also just more. i really want to say 40s-60s inspired ????? i am so bad at music genres guys.)

[made-nondescript]

today is another certified epic day bc scar video AND jimmy stream AND new blasting company album i am THRIVING!!

#this post is an excuse to ramble 'briefly' about the new blasting company album for hire #i LOVE the vibe of the new album even with how different it is from my favorites of their work #it's much more otgw than candy or old summer reckoning #(at least i think so?? its also just more. i really want to say 40s-60s inspired ????? i am so bad at music genres guys.) #my favorite track is probably infinite water bc its so moody and mysterious i want to jump in and explore #dizzy in the sunlight is ALSO very good like #continues the trend of having kinda dense lyrics that take a bit to make sense of which is just my favorite #the STRINGS in this album are just AMAZING #i feel like theyre getting insp from a lot of different places but im not knowledgable enough to pin it down #but i am jsut so !!!!!!!!!! about it !!!!!!!!! #i have been listening to so much blasting company and adjacent bands recently so this is just! perfect #i cant wait to find a way to have blorbo thoughts about these #ALSO SHOUT OUT to the people already transcribing lyrics my loves my dearest internet strangers. they are heros #anyway. i love you vague narrative music. i love you music about wildly specific and yet not specific happenings. #btw my favorite blasting company song in general is either simon was or candy :]]]] i am ill about simon was always. #POST OVER! thankyou for coming to my ted talk

[vidavalor]

I know we're all keeping you from posting the major sexy metas by inundating you with questions but the stuff you post is just SO INTRIGUING lol. Sooo, you think they use toys too, then? ;-) Gosh, I think they are further ahead than most of us! We can probably learn a thing or two from them. Do you think they may have inspired the Kama Sutra? On that note, I wonder what your thoughts are on spirituality/divine love and sex, or sex magick, and what of that you see reflected in Good Omens perhaps?

hi @procrastiel how are you, my darling? Ask and ye shall eventually receive (sorry for the delay). Really fun questions-- thank you! :)

The sex toy reference in GO: Lockdown and some thoughts on Crowley and Aziraphale, mindfulness, and Tantric Eye Gazing under the cut.

<<further ahead than most of us>> They have a few thousand years head start so one would hope.

<<you think they use toys too, then? ;-)>>

Do with this excerpt from the forthcoming Cake meta on GO: Lockdown what you will:

The Bundt cake exploded in popularity in Buddy Holly's America of the 1950s when the Nordicware company developed the Bundt pan with its distinctive shape. To date, Bundt cake is really the only type of cake named after the pan-- one might even say, the device-- used to bake the cake, rather than after the kind of cake itself. While you can bake many kinds of cake in a Bundt cake pan, the traditional choice is... pound cake.

<<inspired The Kama Sutra?>>

I don't think they inspired it since they at least tried to be a secret for some time but there are some things tied to it that seem relevant a bit maybe? The most direct thing to tantra that I noticed is maybe an allusion to Tantric Eye Gazing (sometimes also called "Soul Gazing").

This one is fun because there's actually some science behind it as well. It's been proven that staring into a trusted partner's eyes for about 40 to 60 seconds causes your body to start to generate the hormone oxytocin, the bonding chemical that some people call "the love hormone." Look into someone's eyes a little longer-- a couple of minutes or more-- and your body starts to flood with oxytocin.

The effects include decreased cortisol (stress hormone) production-- so less anxiety-- and an increased sense of calm/peace, etc., but it also causes a deeper connection between partners. You can theoretically do it anywhere you both feel safe and comfortable enough to be a bit vulnerable and where you are probably not going to be interrupted-- so, the bookshop, for them. If you practice Tantric Eye Gazing in bed, the love hormone flood deepens intimacy between partners and contributes to a more pleasurable experience. The preoccupation with Crowley's eyes and his whole serpent gaze is potentially a nod to something like this as well.

Aziraphale is, as we know, obsessed with Crowley's eyes. He painted half the shop their color. He lives for kinky lunch and being gazed at... he even got The Bentley to take off its sunglasses lol. Meanwhile, Crowley's favorite song is that besotted pinefest "Pale Blue Eyes" so it's not like it's a one-sided thing. They could have kind of fallen into aspects of Eye Gazing without knowing it is a thing, honestly, but I'd wager since they've been around forever, they know what it is. Plus, well, there's also crepes, which winds up defined around it fundamentally being about eventually coming back to a position that makes it easier to kiss and emphasizes eye contact, which is a way of emphasizing a focus on intimacy.

You could also, if you want to, take Aziraphale's "you like waiting inside" comment below a bit in this direction as well, because the idea with Tantric Eye Gazing in bed is that it is meant to bring about a sense of a kind of hyper-awareness of the present and to feel grounding-- not at all things these two like or need lol-- but, just as you can try this outside of bed and it's a different experience, it is also different in bed, depending on when and how you and your partner try it. One way is just while inside your partner but before actively moving much. "You like waiting inside" is already "you like just hanging out inside me and taking your time and driving us both insane" so it's not really far off to throw the eye thing in there as well.

Aziraphale does mean on one level that Crowley just likes being in the actual bookshop, yeah, but Aziraphale also both used the bookshop as euphemistic for his body earlier in the season and says the comment in the Marguerite's scene with a suggestive tone, so it's not out there to go there with it, imo. There are other things it suggests as well, really, but none that I can see that directly conflict with the idea of it being also related to Eye Gazing.

Tantric Eye Gazing is basically a mindfulness exercise as well and they are both overtly into trying to combat the blahs of life with mindfulness in scenes we've already seen-- the way they both breathe in the magic shop in the present in S2 and Aziraphale with the sushi in 1.01, for a couple of examples. This isn't just a way of coping with anxiety and depression; they are examples of sensual living. They both are already highly sensitive but add in the openness to experiencing things like food and music on a deeper level and it's not hard to reach the conclusion that they treat sex the same way, if not even more so.

The sushi scene is also an example of tying that sense of mindfulness to sex directly. I mean, Aziraphale taking that peaceful, centering breath and breathing in the brine there and hearing the miracle chime and assuming it was Crowley apparating in beside him so he wasn't expecting to silently ADHLKDJEKJKFLE GABRIEL! when he opened his eyes and looked towards where he thought Crowley would be...

...and that look? Yeah, they've tried and like and frequently do the eye thing lol.

The actual Kama Sutra itself? When I read your question, the gif below was what I pictured-- just Crowley tossing the whole book up and them picking pages out of the air and the running commentary...

"Absolutely not." "Hm, maybe that one." "You're bendy enough for this one." "Was this one not legally torture in several kingdoms at one point?" "That can't be comfortable." "We're magical and I think that would kill us..." lol

They probably tried what of it looked fun, as they seem willing to give anything that interests them a whirl.

<<sex magick in GO>>

I've made a note to put together some more coherent thoughts and do a separate thing on this at some point. It's a very creative question & I'd like to devote some more thought to it first. Thanks for the ask. :)

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #good omens meta #good omens 2 #aziracrow

[littleliongirl16]

Assigning Moths and Butterflies to the Magnus Archives Cast!

Cw: discussion and pictures of insects

So I drew Mothman Melanie a while back. Because Jon has massive Mothman energy and gets tons of cool Mothman fanart of him but I also stand by Moth Melanie because her dad cannonically used to call her Little Moth. And also idk, her constantly traveling different places at night for Ghost Hunt UK also gives me moth vibes.

Anyway all this to say I'm assigning moths and butterflies to TMA characters!

Jon:

Squinting Bush Brown (Bicyclus Anynana)

Okay technically this is a butterfly not a moth and it does feel a bit like a crime to make the most notoriously mothman headcannoned character not a moth. But I saw it and it just reminded me of him. It has so many eyespots! Eyes for days! Also it's very small and we all know Jon is like two feet tall.

Also most of the search results for it are of people running experiments on this type of butterfly by modifying their genes to learn things about how genes code for butterfly wing patterns? Jon is like 40% mad scientist, 60% mad scientist's experiment in terms of his energy so this feels right to me.

Martin:

Peppered Moth (Biston Betularia)

These moths are what every high school class or whatever uses as an example of natural selection. They used to mainly have the primarily white, speckled with black pattern on the bottom, because it allowed them to camoflauge with tree bark. A few of them had a mutation that made them black, and those moths weren't particularly successful until the industrial revolution literally stained a lot of surfaces they would perch on black with soot. Suddenly, the black moths blended in better than the speckled ones and became a lot more plentiful because more of the speckled ones and fewer of the black ones were getting eaten by predators.

That's the simplified version, I'm not a scientist and haven't done enough research to tell it totally accurately. The gist is I think a moth that's so extremely well known for a story about its camoflauge works really well for Martin, whose powerset makes him invisible and forgotten, who's scared of being invisible and never understood but finds safety in it. Also I'm definitely a Martin's hair turns white in the Lonely headcannoner, so I think his color palette matches the white speckled peppered moth at least a bit.

Sasha:

Viceroy Butterfly (Limenitus Archippus)

Not!Sasha:

Monarch Butterfly (Danaus Plexippus)

So I wanted to assign Sasha and Not!Sasha an insect and one of its mimics. And the Monarch and the Viceroy are a pretty famous example of that.

What I initially thought was that the Monarch was poisonous, and the Viceroy wasn't poisonous but mimicked the Monarch so predators would think it was poisonous and wouldn't eat it. So I was like! Great! Sasha can be a Monarch and Notsasha can be a Viceroy, since Notsasha mimics her!

This isn't how Monarchs + Viceroys work, though, and apparently scientists have known that was wrong since the '90's but the general public understanding has lagged behind ig. The Monarch butterfly and the Viceroy are actually both poisonous, and evolved to look more and more like one another so that they could essentially both benefit off of eachothers' reputations. If a predator has eaten a poisonous monarch and gotten sick, then sees a viceroy later, it'll think they're the same butterfly and not want to eat it. If it eats a viceroy and gets sick, then sees a monarch, it'll think they're the same butterfly and again not want to eat it.

So in the world of butterflies, this is super beneficial and symbiotic for both species. But in terms of their reputations among humans (which butterflies don't really care about but shhh) the Monarch is just as much of a mimic as the Viceroy, but everyone thinks it's the original, nobody even knows that the Viceroy is the real deal and also poisonous.

Which in my mind is Very Not Them, so I think Sasha is actually the Viceroy, thanks for coming to my Tedtalk.

I'm going to do more of these, I'm gonna do more detail on Moth Melanie but need to do research and potentially fix some things first cause I think I mistook a butterfly for a moth... and also I will assign Tim a butterfly at some point.

#the magnus archives #jonathan sims #sasha james #martin blackwood #not!sasha #moths #butterflies #biology #help why did i do this

[dragontamer05]

Things I learned while listening to the Pokemon 4Ever / Celebit voice of the forest movie

These guys do in fact watch the subs- if not multiple times and even like the subs.

When it comes to rewriting scripts changes I really get the feeling they do care, and also in some cases it seems like the VAs are kinda just given the prompt of 'do your best and fill in what fits here' like if its coming up with a new joke cause the Japanese one doesn't translate/work well or whatever.

Sometimes rewrites seem to occur just cause of the different way story telling gets handle in Japan compared to to the U.S but like I don't think it's coming from a place of 'hur dur children are dumb' most of the time anyway

Like changing up/adding in a whole scene to make it more clear that Sammy is in fact meant to be Oak since in the Original JP it's apparently far more subtle with really the only clue being that one brief clip during the credits of finding the sketch book in the lab and that's it - which while watching apparently at the time even they were like 'wait what?" and trying to figure out if this was meaning Sammy was Oak or what (Like in some ways it seems obvious but I suppose an alternate take someone might misunderstand it as Oak also having known Sammy at one point and being given then book)

But like apparently the people were pretty chill with it when they went and requested having this whole knew scene / wanting to make the change.

Basically over all it seems like everyone involved is/was very passionate about it also sounds like they occasionally would like get in contact with those in Japan if they ever had questions/need clarification on something.

-

And a fact that I refuse to believe after looking on the Wiki is that when showing the time jump between Sammy and Ash's time in the Sub/JP text pops up saying 40yrs later,

Sammy/Oak is at oldest in early teen years, like maybe 13 at best when we meet him as a kid. THere ain't no way that man is in his 50s and with a 12 year old Grandson

like even if he was real early 20s when he had kids that would still put him at 40 / early 40s by the time they're 20 and would mean they'd have had to have had Gary like right then at 20/21- which not impossible but kinda pushing it. And that's assuming his older sister doesn't exist in the anime- I don't think we ever see or hear anything so maybe she doesn't

So nah that man is minimum late 50s pushing into his 60s

Same goes for the Girl/Woman who was/is Oaks old friend she looked maybe 16-17 in that time but flash forward and the woman Ash n Co meet looks more like she's in her 70s (with also a like 16 year old Grandaughter)

So gotta go with the dub on this one on just choosing to erase/ not make mention of exactly how many years it is between Sammy's time and present day with Ash.

Main thing is it was cool hearing about their process and just how much everyone involved just seemed to love it and care (sure maybe sometimes edits/changes are questionable but at the very least it seems like generally there were good intentions behind whatever was done and certainly wasn't due to a lack of caring about the original product either)

#who ever character designed them clearly doesn't understand aging or maybe wasn't made aware of how much time #was supposed to have passed idk #pokemon #lets be real to a younger audience anyway to a certain extent there probably are something that could get misunderstood/ #not come across as well because of the often different ways of writing and story telling #I personally could imagine myself as a kid watching and if not made clear/ with any other indication #I can see how it could come off confusing to watch and suddenly wait why is Sammy's sketch book in Oak's lab #also I won't lie rewatching knowing oak is sammy and having that kind of mysterious element of realizing what #Oak meant by 'I wonder if I should have warned him' honestly love it #as well as why Oak would know and be able to be like 'yeh what you saw was probably Suicune'

[originalwinnercheesecake]

My Personal Ranking of the CBS ghosts season 1.

 Okay so I gave CBS ghosts a chance about a year ago when I kept seeing the trailer and thought it sounded like a cool idea. Honesty I am big fan. Yes the first 3-4 epsidoes drag some, yes even after it picks up its cliche sometimes. But the show isn’t going for some fantastical, new original, no one has seen before. Its a American reboot of an already existing British comedy (I have not seen BBC, I do not have the streaming service it is on), that’s goal is just have colorful characters, make it’s audience laugh, and have the occasional really deep/sweet moments sprinkled into the comedy. For those goals I would say it succeeds. I laugh at most episodes, and a lot of the sweet moments (Alberta telling Issac about her father, Jay pulling out all the stops to for Sam during their homemade prom) hit. As for the characters I wanted to do a ranking list for them all through season 1, but never got around to it. With season 2 about to start I am telling myself that I cannot watch an episode until I do this. From the bottom up. slight spoilers may be below for anyone who hasn’t finished season 1

12.) Elias Woodstone: I do not like him as a person, or as a villain. I can generally “like a villain as a villain” when they are written to be very good at being bad.But Elias was bad in a way that was not funny, it was disgusting. When he learned what happened to people he walked through, he did it them on purpose. I am glad he is in Hell

11.) Stephanie: The cliche bratty teen, mean girl.I kinda understand why; she died on what was supposed to be this really magical night, and never got to finish growing up. Feeling sorry for her is not the same thing as liking her though. Her needing to sleep 364 days a year also kinda turns the lights out on most stores and development she can receive.

10.) Flower: Flower has felt human to me exactly once. When she talked about Basketball, how she played it a lot as a living and was really knowledgeable about it, but because she is a women who grew up in the 40′s-50′s before dying in the 60′s no one took her talent or knowledge seriously. Other than that one time I have found her completely unfunny, and to just be a collection of every annoying pot-head and stupid hippy cliche I have seen in every other sitcom and cartoon to contain potheads and hippies. I do not blame her actress. Of the main casts of ghosts, Flower and Sass get the least screen time, Maybe with more time the actress and could get more of a handle on flower and make her better. Maybe.

9.) Nigel Chessum: Okay let me make it clear I do not dislike Nigel. I think he and Issac are cute. The reason he is so low is that in season 1 he shows up so little we do not learn anything about him more than “Cute British guy next door”. I fully expect to move him up on this list once we see more of him in season 2.

8.) Nancy: Nancy was in 3-4 episodes last season, with 1-2 minor appearance and 2 bigger ones. I did not like the way she treated Pete in her first big appearance (how she kept embarrassing him and then threatened him). But by the next episode she really grew on me , and I love that her and Pete become real friends once she is able to help him to start standing up for himself. Also I am glad that she has not been forgotten about in season 2. Here’s to hoping she will make no less than 4 appearances this season too.

7.) Pete Martino: Pete is a nice guy, and I don’t mean that as in a “nice guy” (Yet,. Please don’t tun him into one later down the road), I mean that as in he is a genuinely nice guy. I love his bromance with Jay, and I am rooting form him and Alberta to eventually get together... While I like most of his stories I just do not think his whole boy scout schimick is as funny as some of the other characters.

6.) Trevor Lefkowitz: If I say “suit wearing playboy who works a sleazy uper-class wall street type job in NY,but is actually a real bro and a not completely terrible person” am I talking about Trevor or Barney Stinson. Well if I said that “the comedy of them is Legend-wait for it-dairy” I would be talking about Barney Stinson. If I said “You know what? They are kinda cool” I would be talking about Trevor Lefkowitz. Trevor is a pretty funny, kinda cool character. But he is written so much like a Stinson knock-off, and no one is ever gonna top Neil Patrick Harris’s performance as Barney in regards to that particular genera of playboy.

4-5, 4&5?) Hetty Woodstone & Issac Higgentoot: Do not make me chose between these two besties. My opinions on them are largely similar. I think both characters faltered some in the beginning of the show when the writers and actors were not sure completely how to portray them. But that once the characters were understood they hit it out in almost every episode. I also think these two had some of the best exploration/development out of everyone in season 1. I loved watching Hetty re-examine her life and beliefs, and become more of a modern day feminist, while still maintaining the elegance and class from her time. Issac is the first time I have seen a closeted queer character in a sitcom be in control of deciding when they want to publicly express that part of their identity, and up until they decided to them not being ready was written as being a fair reason to wait, that other character respected. It should be portrayed that way every time, but for the sake of drama it isn't. It was nice to see here.

3.) Thorfinn: The big, burly, scared up guy with a questionable past...is actually a big softie and adores small children and animals. This is one Cliche that I absolutely love and am here for. It doesn’t hurt either that Thor is absolutely hilarious. He had to be in my top three.

2.) Sassappis .Sass is in my opinion the funniest ghost out of them all. I love his dry wit and cynical humor, and I have since all the way back in episode 4, when he pretended to be an accountant who died at a Halloween party (and was totally convincing at it for a second). The reason he is second is that he was just criminally absent and underused in season 1. More Sasappis in season 2.

Da da da daa

1.) Alberta Haynes: Can we give a round of applause to Danielle Pinnock? Is it any wonder I put Alberta as the top when this actress has brought A level game to her character since the beginning and with each thing we learn about Alberta, Danielle’s acting has only gone up. Alberta is loud, she is sassy, she is boss, and powerful, You really feel her sadness when talking about how racism kept her father down in his career, and she feels like she let him down because it affected hers as well. You feel for her again when she tells Pete that when alive she always chose bad guys because maybe deep down she thought that she didn’t deserve to be with a good man, and now she thinks she missed every chance.

Alberta killed at season 1 and there is so much they can still do with her in season 2. Give me more backstory, work on solving her murder, work on getting her and Pete together (they are a slow burn right?), with her connection to Alexa put her in charge of music stations at the B&B, she would be good at it.

That’s my feelings on the Ghosts for season 1. IF you want my feelings on the livings. Farnsby neighbors are annoying. the construction guy Mark is alright. I like Jay as a main better than Sam, because he has more of a range of emotions happy/sad/excited/concerned/mad, while Sam’s type-A personality seems to means she always has to act perky and almost always has to be enthusiastic.

#Alberta Haynes #Sassappis #Thorfinn #hetty woodstone #Captian Issac Higgintoot #Issac higgintoot #trevor lefkowitz #Pete Martino #CBS flower #Susan Montero a.k.a Flower #Cholera Victim Nancy #CBS Nancy #Nigel Chessum #CBS ghosts Stephanie #ghosts Flower #Ghosts Nancy #sam arondekar #jay arondekar #sam and jay #CBS Ghosts #CBS ghosts season 1 #CBS ghosts season 2

[rigelmejo]

In light of this reddit post I saw today, I’m wondering again how many chinese pages I’ve read. I found the last post where I calculated pages I’d read, and I had calculated I’d read 1120 pages. Now since then, I’ve re-read about half of one of my favorite pingxie fics. I probably read about 15 chapters, so lets just estimate its the same length as a priest novel’s pages (since the pingxie author also does about 4k character chapters like priest does), so 3.5 pages per chapter*15 chapters=52.5

. I’ve also reread chapters 1-10 of Guardian at least 2 more times since that last count (so 3.5 pages a priest novel chapter is what i used for my last calculation, is 3.5*20=70 pages).

52+70+1120=1242 pages read so far, lets say.

The last post I did on “pages read” was about an article that said after about 6,000 pages read, you read fluently.

This reddit post today I saw, is going by the assumption after 10,000 pages reading becomes fluent. Either way, I’ve got a long way to go lol.

I wanted to compare my progress to the reddit poster’s, as I think their metric of “how the reading went” at each pages milestone seems very on point.

Here’s what they shared:

How do I read? Here is a rough guide based off of current/past experience.

Pages 0-1500 - very, very slowly. Looking up words and trying to memorize them with flashcards or just re-reading passages

Pages 1500-3500 - slowly and everything sucks. I look up unknown words but no longer try to memorize them

Pages 3500-6000 - now reading is fun, I can read fluidly and only look up words that seem important. There are enough unknown words that reading is annoying but I generally enjoy it and can read up to 40-50 pages a day

Pages 6000-7500 - reading is very easy. I now mix extensive reading in with looking up unknown words

Pages 7500-10,000 - reading almost feels like reading in English except I need to look up unknown words and make an effort to memorize really strange ones that I like

Pages 10,000+ - reading feels easy and enjoyable.

Based on this, I wonder if I’ve read more that I’ve simply not counted? Maybe re-reading ought to count (I know I’ve read the first hundred pages of Guardian several times, and while listening to an audiobook is not reading, I’ve listened to those first 20 chapters like 10 times each at minimum... so I know the words in those chapters fairly well). I’ve also partially reread my two favorite pingxie fics at least 4 times each, because I always read 30-60 chapters then burn out, then a few months later start rereading from the beginning and repeat. 

I’d place myself, based on how reading feels, somewhere between pages 1500-3500, and 3500-6000. I read somewhat slow but not much slower than when reading in english, I look up unknown words sometimes depending on the novel, but it does not generally suck and doesn’t generally feel super difficult and I don’t necessarily NEED to look up any words for comprehension. That said - I read very appropriate to my reading level. If I picked up a published novel in a genre I’m unfamiliar with, particularly some literary work, I’m going to feel a lot more like its a sucky slog. I feel reading is often fun (especially genres I’m familiar with like crime and supernatural), I only look up words occasionally that seem important or I’m curious about (but it’s usually not needed for comprehension), there’s enough unknown words that I couldn’t translate it with confidence in my word choice without the aid of a dictionary, I could read 40-50 pages a day (but since I usually only read for a half hour to hour max a day, I usually read 20-40 pages in a day). So yeah my reading in chinese feels like around the 3500 page mark or right below, compared to this person. However, if I was constantly reading newspapers I’d definitely put myself down in the 1500-3500 range as literary works and newspapers still feel like a slog depending on the topic. 

Its funny and maybe its because of the cognate overlap, but my french reading feels like 7500-10,000 page level. It feels like reading in english, except every once in a while I look up a word and make an effort to memorize a new one (just like I would in english). However, I’ve had my wikipedia, google (and all connected sites), set to french for over 6 years now. I don’t know if that ever added up to better reading skills in french. I’ve read a few books in french but I don’t think it was over 2000 pages. It was like 400 pages graded reader, 300 short stories, maybe 500 in random novels, maybe 600 in history books, 200 in science books, and then random articles online over the years. Maybe french just feels like reading in english because I set all my tech to it for so long? It could theoretically be difficult for me to read. But also I see it so much I don’t even usually notice if a website is in french or english anymore, unless its linkedin since its ALL french but people are messaging me in english which feels so jarring to me (but i still haven’t fixed it because as far as i can tell google language determines linkedin language and french works perfectly fine for all my other google uses).

All this to say... i’m thinking of reading more again. In part because I just got 2ha to open in chinese on Moonreader Pro, and Zhenhun, and got the text-to-speech and word lookup tools to work perfect now. 

#rant #reading #chinese reading #intensive reading #extensive reading

[shadowonwater]

Pokemon Scarlet playthrough part 12: a shiny exploded, found another mysterious gate, fought an emo ex-snowboarder and a cool rapper, then I fought a fairy boy.

Playthrough Masterlist

Before going into the mountain area I wanted to explore the rest of the area around that big lake. And of boy did a few interesting things happen.

So first off Socarrat trail is really pretty! Also may I say I love the suction cup sound Kori's feet make when it climb's up walls. I also really love the animation where it gets wings when gliding, the sparkles are really fun.

I finally found a Toedscool! I've been wanting to catch one ever since I saw a video of one, even before I got the game for myself. There were plenty of times I saw its icon on the map but it was nowhere to be seen until now! This place is just full of them!

Honestly I thought they were only grass type, so I tried to have my Kilowattrel use Thunder Wave. But it didn't work and I ended up realizing it must be Grass/Ground. I switched to Clodsire and used Yawn. And then I caught it after lowering the hp a bit.

So getting to the shiny part in the title... I ran into a mass outbreak of Fortresses and I figured this would be good place to grind and bring my team's level up. But then I saw a shiny one... I got so excited I just ran right up to it, didn't think to save. It exploded... at least I took a screenshot? D:

So a bit afterwards... I found another gate! A yellow one this time! So I was right that there are multiple gates. But the real kicker is realizing these gates are connected to the fairytale that the history teacher told me about. I realized this upon clicking the door, and vaguely remembering what the other door said. So I guess there should be four in all and that the Pokemon from the tale should be behind the gates. btw, I also found two more yellow stakes while exploring in this session.

Also I climbed to the top of the rock the gate was connected to, I was very high up it was cool, I took a couple screenshots. I imagine it'll be even cooler to climb as high as I can in the mountains. While exploring I also found a small cave, nothing notable about it but I did find that new ice/dragon inside and caught it, excited to evolve it eventually and see what it looks like.

I will climb the mountain after this and get to my next gym leader (finally). I'm going after the ice one.

I got him pretty quickly, it's strange to see a gym without a town surrounding it, I wonder where the crowd came from? I went in way overleveled, had like 20 levels on him. Going in I thought I might be worried because like half of my team is weak to ice, but it was a cake walk.

Ice gym leader sounds so arrogant like telling me to give up now and all that but here I am with Pokemon like 20 levels above his team. He said I melted his ice, but really I just hit him with a giant rock.

Anyway the gym test was fun, was funny seeing Kori awkwardly slide down the slope. Kind of wished it was longer, but also a bit smoother, sliding-wise.

Anyway may I mention how hard it is to navigate up here? Elevations are incredibly hard to read on the map because it's all slightly different shades of blue. I wish they made it more clear.

Also I keep accidentally stepping on small white Pokemon. They are just very hard to see in this landscape.

So I also met a new elite four member. They were literally a baby. Just a straight up child. Who's decision was this? She isn't even a preteen? How long has she had this position? This is already too young! Poppy and Rika's relationship seemed very cute though, like big sister and little sister.

While exploring the mountain side a bit more, I also found another blue stake, the 2nd one I've found. Anyway that's all I have to report from the last hour of playing, normally I'd go longer but I'm going to bed. Ghost Gym next, then Fairy Star Raid, then Elite Four probably.

Ghost gym complete! So how did it go? It went very easy. I was overleveled. I had Pokemon in the 60s she had Pokemon in the 40s. And because I had two Pokemon that could deal w/ ghost types (grass cat and giraffe) the double battle thing didn't cause me trouble. It was cool though, having another double battle gym.

The gym test wasn't anything special. It's pretty much the normal gym test you take anyway in other games. Just Pokemon battles, they just happen to be double battles.

The gym leader herself is really cool, I like her. I love that her name is a pun. And she just seems like a really cool person to hang out with. :)

It did a bit more exploring before fighting her, this led me too climbing to the Highest Peak as well as visiting the mountain's Reach. I also did some exploring afterwards, including the area around the Fairy Star Base.

I find the location of this last base very interesting. Like the Fighting Base, it's very secluded. I can't help but wonder how they even found that spot. But then again I'm guessing that tower was already there before they took over the place so I suppose this area was already known about. But if this area was already known about you'd think that there would already be people living there. Like a fishing town or something.

Anyway It's a very pretty location, with all these flowers and I can see why it matches the theme of fairy type. A few funny things happened here and I haven't even gone to the door yet, just explored around the area.

One thing that happened, three Florges spawned on top of each other on one spot. So it was like a face above a face above a face. Set of arms above set of arms above set of arms. Very Biblical Angel. As soon as I got into a battle with one they split up though.

I caught a Alomomola, I take note of this because I realized something about the swimming mechanic. You see I noticed whenever Kori fell into the water, they'd be underwater for a moment before lifting up to the service. I also noticed how there are Pokemon underwater that you can't get too when you're just swimming like normal.

I wanted to catch one for my dex but they were all swimming underwater. I accidentally though got into a battle with a Pokemon swimming underwater when I had Kori jump into the water. I then realized I could apply this to those Pokemon swimming out of reach. Lo-and-behold it worked, and I caught one!

The last thing I went to mention before I go off and face the Fairy Base is that I've never tried just jumping in before, I always just ringed the bell like a good little kid. Well I decided to try it this time to see what happened. Basically the game told me, "don't do that, that's rude" and then put me on the outside again, well I guess I know now.

I took out the Fairy base now. The raid itself? Easy. Ortago? Also pretty easy. I had 10 levels on that guy. I was also using Clodsire and tera-ed him. His tera is poison, so I just started sweeping his fairy's with my Sludge Wave. I was slightly afraid he would use Tinkerton because it's immune to poison, altho I did have a plan for that (Earthquake) but none of them were resistant to poison.

I think it's neat that the Fairy guy has been taking lessons with a tutor. Guess it shows that he takes education seriously, it was even more interesting to find out his tutor was the former director of the academy.

So basically the bullying at the academy was really bad, and I guess the teacher's weren't doing shit about it. In particular it seems the deputy director was overlooking the bullying.

So when Team Star got together to confront their bullies some shit went down and the bullies dropped out. It really makes me wonder what exactly went down but because whatever it was, it was wild enough that like all the teacher's resigned, which is crazy.

And then the deputy scrubbed the records, which seems really illegal? And he got fired. But you'd think they'd put something back in the records for whatever happened. And it's not like every student dropped out. I honestly don't see why Clavell doesn't know anything. Hell, he could've asked the old director.

So Penny (because it was clearly Penny), wanted to take full responsibility for what happened because she was the Big Boss after all. I'm not sure if she told the school if she was the Big Boss. If she did it's the sort of thing that should have gotten on her record. If she didn't why would they put responsibility on to some random girl who wanted to take responsibility.

Team Star are called the victims, which isn't really incorrect. But at the same time depending on whatever they did at the school, they aren't without blame. Getting back at a bully is a way to become a bully yourself, but if they kept asking for help and got none, the people who should have helped are also at fault. This is a real big mess. Whatever they did, I'm sure there's a reason there are a bunch of nasty rumors about them.

So Penny is from Galar, I just think that's neat. And also the reason she was away is because she had to go back home as her punishment. And she's only just got back. I don't know if she had a way to contact the rest of Team Star or not over her time at home. If not it could maybe explain why the Big Boss went quiet. All the same though, she really should have told them off herself instead of this roundabout way of getting me to take them down for her.

So yeah Cass comes clean about being the Big Boss, real shocker and tells me and Clavell to meet her at school to battle her so I will. I know who I'll see when I get there, it'll be Penny. That will be next post. Penny, the rest of my classes, and the elite four maybe.

I hope the elite four is Poppy, Rika, Hassel, and Greta then I fight Nemona at the end. That would be cool because it would fit the other paths ending with me fighting my friend. But considering Greeta is "la prima" It might be Poppy, Rika, Hassel, Nemona and then I fight Greeta. This is assuming there isn't some other random Elite Four member I've just never met, if there is then I guess Nemona's fight will be unrelated to the Elite Four.

So yeah, see you then.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet #pokemon sv #scarlet and violet #first playthrough #playthrough #live posting #shiny pokemon #shiny

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send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

#sentence starters #generate sentence prompts #rp meme #roleplay prompt #roleplay meme #prompt for writing #rp prompt #send emoji meme #long tw

[marimagines]

Night Care | Levi X Reader

Between - Levi x Reader

Genre - Fluff, modern!au

Words - 3,990 [kinda short but its cute :] 

Summary - You give Levi the care he oh so is desperate for and the sleep that his body and mind demand for. along with that care, you finally get a chance to introduce him to a routine that he promises to follow.

Warnings - none [just a little teasing] and just cute Levi :[

A/n - I came up with this while doing my night time routine and I just had to write. It’s just Levi being a soft baby and I’m here for it :( I hope you all like itttt

It was finally one of those nights when you and Levi would spend time together. His immense amount of work would always keep him occupied even when he’d be home sometimes. It had always distracted him from life or he’d have to ignore many things. Levi was one loyal and devoted person in your eyes. To his work but also his loved ones. No matter how busy he’d be, he had always managed to make time to send you a text or call you and if neither of those seemed like the options, he’d send a voice note of him just talking while his mind and body would be busy with work.

You always appreciated his effort that he put so passionately in everything he did. So whenever you went out or whenever you see him, you made sure that he didn’t have to worry about making you upset with his busy schedule. Thankfully, you always managed to make him smile. Well, you didn’t really have to try, Levi was already so soft and in awe with your entire existence. Everything you did left an impact on him and sometimes he’d just sit back and smile to himself by remembering something about you. Like how you smile when you see him, or how you hug him or how you’d act cute or funny. It was just you. He was soft for you and you could sit silently and he would still feel his heart flutter at that sight.

Tonight, Levi finally checked out of work earlier. He had finished everything that was due today and even managed to finish certain tasks before the future deadlines. You greeted him with a smile and he just went for an embrace. His hands resting in your waist and his face buried in your neck. He groans out when you asked about his day and that was enough to know how exhausted he must’ve been.

“I should have a talk with Erwin to let you off the hook and lessen this mountain of work on you,” you say as you place the food on the table for him, a pout settled on your lips. Levi had only chuckled at your words, clearly knowing the sarcastic tone you speak in. It was cute though. He lowkey would want to see you telling off Erwin.

“That’s just how it is, honey,” he replies softly before picking up his utensils. His eyebrows furrow when you stop him but as soon as he sees that you were going to serve him the food, his expressions soften along with his heart. A smile stretches his lips and he whispers a thank you before you both begin to eat.

Throughout dinner, the two of you share details of your day today or you’d share a comfortable silence. Levi wasn’t one to talk much when he ate so you always made sure to divide the silence and talking to a 60-40 ratio. He probably wouldn’t want to talk so much especially after a long day. But that silence was also filled with sweet eye contact or sweet actions like adding more food to each other’s plates or feeding one another every now and then. Once dinner was done, you sort out the dishes and put away the leftovers along with a mini quarrel of an attempt to stop him from washing the dishes. His defense was that you had a long day yet you still cooked so the least he could do was clean it up for you. You both were neat freaks. Your hearts find peace when things are organized and well put together so whenever one of you offers to do a job of cleaning or organizing, you knew to fully trust each other at that. That’s just how it is and you both were content with it.

Levi was busy drying the plates and utensils while you decided to run a warm bath for the two of you. These nights were the most important nights for you two. The nights you just unwind from all the world and just bask in each other’s existence. Even if you don’t talk or end up napping together, just knowing the other is here and near was more than enough to be grateful for these nights. Some nights you’d end up fucking or making love, some nights you’d take a stroll outside and enjoy the scenery and breeze and some nights... you’d both prefer to spend it in the expanse of your apartment. You anticipated these nights the most. Being able to take care of Levi was something you practically live for.

The sound of the faucet opening pops you back into reality and you smile at Levi who was staring at you with a certain glow in his eyes and his toothbrush in his mouth. As he proceeded to cleanse his face with his face wash, you turned off the faucet of the bathtub and move to take off your clothes. You could just feel Levi’s eyes on you as he was rubbing the product unto his smooth face.

Since you were done with your brushing and cleansing already, you slowly lower yourself into the warm bathtub which was now starting to feel and smell heavenly due to the bath salts and a new product you had purchased a few days back. One of your way of escaping the struggles of life was to go shopping not for clothes or shoes, but for things like candles or mists or body care such as shower gels or bath products. Anything that brought you a sense of tranquility in your soul. And whenever you found something you loved, you’d share it with Levi and sometimes even consider adding it to a treatment or package in your beauty salon. Working in the same place as Levi was always fun but your passion and goal had always been to open up your own makeup studio or a beauty salon and thankfully with Levi’s ultimate support and help, you managed to succeed in that goal of yours. Hence why Levi always trusted you whenever you brought him a product for him to wear though he could never keep a certain routine and only stuck to one moisturizer. Regardless, you were amazing at it. You excelled at it and that’s why you are where you are right now. He was proud of you.

Once Levi was done with stripping himself of his clothing too, he carefully joins you in the bathtub that you somehow made it feel so magical. He lets out a relaxed groan as he dips into the water and you giggle at him from behind.

“Don’t you want me behind?” He asks as he was usually the one who’d be behind but tonight you were the one who was leaning against the curve of the rose gold marble bathtub. Your entire apartment was a mixture of soothing colors of black, grey, white and rose gold. By researching and constantly trying to help your husband with his stress, you decided the house to be as minimalistic and sleek as possible. Too much clutter might make him feel suffocated. And due to your researches together, the two of you agreed to the beautifully neutral and minimalistic designed apartment you have right now.

“No,” you reply softly as your palms rest on his shoulders, carefully massaging them. “Tonight is about taking care of you, Mr. Ackerman.” You whisper and leave a kiss on his shoulder and neck. He lets out another groan at the feeling of comfort and leans towards your touch.

Your hands were caressing his body as far as your arms could reach while massaging him and helping him relax. He was quiet for the most part and you didn’t mind that either. Your baths together were sometimes silent like today’s. Levi was the one who would usually be washing you or caressing your body but today you figured it’s time he receives too. He leans back to rest his head between your breasts, and closes his eyes while your hand was teasing his member. He gasps silently when your fingers wrap around his tip and your hand moves up and down but neither of you had any sort of energy to fuck each other tonight and you both knew that. You pause the teasing when he holds your hand and interlocks his fingers with yours. He simpers silently, a look of cockiness on his face and starts to speak.

“You’re so tiny,” he remarks softly.

“I’m almost the same height as you,” you retaliate at his words, the audacity this man had to say that to you while he was on the smaller scale too.

“Still taller than you, honey.” He boasts.

“By an inch or two.”

“Tch,” he finally lets out his defeat remark.

“Tch,” you decide to mimic him.

“Tch.”

“Tch.”

“Tch,” he says as a grin dares to paint his face and you feel it.

“Tch,” you giggle out too. Your expression softens when he kisses your hand, the foam transferring from your hands to his face. You giggle once again and move your hands to wipe away the foam quickly before they enter his mouth.

“This smells good, is it new?” He hums out and inhales loudly, trapping the scent inside his nose. It really did smell nice.

“Yep, I got it recently. It’s from BBW’s aromatherapy line. It’s supposed to help you sleep,” you explain softly while Levi was silently gathering the foam in front of him and watching it. You end up smiling at his cute behavior and then it hits you. Does he really notice all these tiny things you do? “I didn’t think you’d notice this.” You whisper.

“What? I do. You enjoy these things and it brings you joy. Of course I’d notice,” he points out. “You leaving our work to achieve your goal was one of the best decision of your life. I saw your energy change. Seeing how this new work of yours makes you happy and express yourself makes me happy.” He adds as his hands play with yours. He was usually short and blunt with words but he could go on forever if it was you he had to compliment or talk to. That’s just how he felt, he trusted you and felt comfortable with you. You sit silently with a pout and kiss the back of his head.

“I love you,” you express yourself, resting your head on his whole happiness fills your heart. Though these three words weren’t enough to describe the fuzzy and warm feeling he manages to leave your soul with.

Once the two of you were done with the bath, you slip into your comfy night clothes; yours a short baby pink satin nightdress that stopped mid thigh and Levi decided to wear his dark grey sweats with his loose white top. You loved him in that outfit; he always looked so welcoming in it.

The two of you did a lot of things in sync but one thing was almost never in sync... your nighttime routine. You always took your time to apply the products on your face and body before you decide to sink into bed and today was no different. You sit on your long two-seater ottoman which you placed in front of your vanity. Even your vanity was organized. One side was dedicated to Levi; which had his body cream, his perfumes, his moisturizer. That was pretty much it but tonight there were some new products there. When you were out buying and looking at skincare products, you figured your husband should need to start his routine properly and picked up some new products to keep him feeling fresh and protected from sunlight, aging, and just keeping him glowing and looking fresh. You look up to see Levi from the mirror’s reflection, plopping down on the bed, his legs hanging from the edge as he grabs his phone to scroll through it. You were silently hoping this new bath foam you got would work and he’d get some sleep. Levi always had trouble sleeping and you were constantly trying this and that to make sure he got more than 2 hours of sleep. With the look of his eyes and eyebags, you knew he was desperate for sleep but he just didn’t know how to lure himself into that state.

“Oh,” he suddenly says and you look back at him through the mirror reflection. He was sitting up now and looking at you. “Erwin gave us a day off tomorrow.” He announces.

“Well, isn’t that nice.” You smile at him as your hands were busy working their routine of applying products on your face and body; knowing exactly what to do. You never skipped your night routine and your hands simply knew by now what to do even when your mind didn’t.

Your eyes were planted on Levi; you just wanted him to come and do his routine but you didn’t want to bother your weary husband. Before you could even say or do anything, Levi gets up from the bed and walks towards you to join you on the bench; as if he heard the thought in your mind. His eyes centered on the new addition on his side and you suddenly realize what he was wondering. A smile creeps on your face when you notice the curiosity in his eyes, like a child who had entered a toy store or a bird who just left its nest and had the entire world to explore. The little glow in his eyes contrasted the furrow of his brows clearly indicated that this man right here was confused to what each of these did. Sure you had told him before but you knew he’d need more than just one push hence why you never stopped bringing him skincare along with yours. Tonight it seemed like the night you could educate him and use your expertise to convince him why he needs to listen to you.

“It’s for you. All of it,” you clarify and a nod comes from him. You chuckle at Levi when he pops open a moisturizer and moves to sniff at it.

“It smells nice,” he adds. “But I just need moisturizer, babe. You didn’t have to get all,” his hand proceeds to make a circle on top of the dresser as he continues, “this.”

“Yes I did,” you defend yourself. “We are turning old. We should take extra care of yourselves, don’t you think?” You get up and move to stand between Levi’s legs to which he automatically spreads them open to give you space. He looks up at you with eyes observing you. You lean against the vanity, your hands wrapping around Levi’s neck. “I will take care of you, Mr Ackerman, so you can get a tip or two.” You say nonchalantly with a smile. Levi ends up chuckling too since he knew your tone was the same tone you use at work. You grab a fluffy hair band that had bear ears on top and move to put it on Levi; pushing his hair back and revealing his flawless skin. Levi sat there glaring at you but you knew from the glow in his eyes that he could care less about it. You start with the routine as you grab a cotton pad and open up the toner bottle. “First of all, you need to apply a toner to bring back the moisture you lost from washing your face.” You explain as you bend over and come closer to his face while your hand moves to pat his face softly with the cotton. Levi’s eyes were on you the entire time you spoke; you didn’t even know if he was shy or if he was listening or why he was even staring but the entire time, his eyes never left your figure or movements. Never missed the product you used or the way his eyes would fall to your lips as you speak. It was almost as if his eyes were stuck on you. You still continue the routine, explaining each step as you go on, giving him tips he should know like to not rub in products aggressively but to pat them in more, or how he should apply them in an upward direction and avoid the downward direction, and you continuously remind him why each product is important. Levi listened intently and carefully, he knew that you knew what you were talking about but he was more in awe with how powerful you looked being in your element. “And lastly,” you twirl open the cap of a night cream. “The night cream.” You apply the cream onto your ring finger and gently apply it on his cheeks, his chin, forehead and then you grin as you put it on his nose, making a ‘boop’ sound, which causes you to earn a smile from him too. He was sitting there quietly the entire time you almost felt like he was a customer at your salon or like a little child, carefully trying their best to focus on your words or in awe with the knowledge you had. You rub and pat in the product and step back when he clears his throat, signaling that he wants to speak.

“How do I know what cream to put at night?” Your lips stretch into another smile as you hear how genuine curiosity wrapped around his tone. He was too cute tonight.

“It says it on the package, dear.” You point at the two creams behind you and move away slightly to let him see it. His eyes finally move away from you and land on the vanity as he silently nods in understanding like a student finally understanding a math problem. You give his face one final pat before you stand up straight and politely grin at him. “And we’re done,” you start to move away before he grabs your hands and kisses them.

“Thank you,” he says as his thumb gently draws circles on top of your hands. “Do you have coupons?” Your eyebrows furrow at his odd and random question and he elaborates more as he realizes that must’ve confused you. “I want to give it to the kids... Connie, Jean, Eren... you know. The kids.” He stumbles on his words when he notices the smile your face had. He was flustered because he knew that you know how soft he is for his team.

You nod silently and giggle. “Yes Levi, I do have coupons. Make sure you give it to the girls too.” You tease him, emphasizing on the word ‘girls’, as you sit down next to him and go through your drawer to look for the coupons. Levi looks from behind you too but then indulges at his new glowy skin as he pats his cheeks the way you had earlier. He suddenly feels proud of you again and a smirk paints his face as his eyes twinkle at the sight that is you. He notices you hadn’t brushed your hair yet so he gets up to stand behind you and pulls you back to make you sit up straight. Your eyes meet in the reflection of the mirror and before you could ask what he was doing, he beats you to it.

“You didn’t braid your hair. I’ll do it for you,” he leans forward to grab your hair brush and softly brushes your hair back and starts braiding it.

“The coupons are in this drawer. Take as many as you like,” you tell him after a while. He nods at your words.

“Will you do this every night?” He asks with a child like tone that wraps your heart with warmth. How could you even say no to him.

“Do what?” You tease him.

“This, my routine.” You knew he was flustered when he starts using small words.

“No,” you watch his lips quickly drop to a pout and a laughter breaks from your lips. “You have to do it too, Levi. We’ll do it side by side so you know the steps.”

“What if I use coupons?” Another laughter bursts out from your chest at how he tried to get this victory. You were pleased to know he liked it though.

“How about this, I’ll do your night routine for you three times a week,” you suggest as your hand raises three fingers and you wait for a response from him.

“Four.” He demands and attempts to negotiate.

“Three.”

“Four. I only use one coupon per week. You do it three times weekly and fourth would be if I use coupon.” He adds a new deal.

Feeling satisfied with the deal, you nod. “Deal.”

Once you were done with the time of sitting in front of the vanity, you both walk back to the bed but then you remember one last step. Body lotion. You bring the bottle to him and earn a “Tch” from him but he applies it regardless by watching you do it. Levi moves his hand to open up your braid too. It was something you always did, you didn’t sleep with your hair tied but you braid it before sleeping only to open it up after a few minutes. It helped your hair not to go crazy when you lay down. It melts your heart knowing how Levi knew even the smallest details of your routine and noticed things you didn’t think he would. You two share a loving smile as you continue to apply lotion together and joke around or tease each other a little. 

“Make sure to take care of your neck too, baby.” You remind him and you both work in sync in rubbing in the lotion onto your arms, chest, legs and neck. You apply your lip balm as usual and Levi shares it with you as you both move closer to perch in the middle of the bed. You two always shared your lip balm for some reason and you never complained nor minded it. To Levi, it made his heart fill up with love sharing your lip balm with you, patting his lips with the surface your lips had grazed over always made him go crazy inside. His excuse to why he did that was that he was too lazy to buy one or open a new one... even after he had confessed to it, he still rarely admitted every time you or someone else teased him about it.

After a while, your bodies were tangled with each other as you lay your head on his chest silently, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat and basking in the scent of chamomile that you both bathed in and lotioned your bodies with. The scent bringing about a feeling of calm and sleep which was slowly creeping its way up on both of you. You knew the new aromatherapy you brought was working when you realize how sleepy Levi was getting too. He swiftly changes position as he lays on his side, his arms wrapped around your waist as you both move to the embracing position. He pulls you closer, burying his face on your chest right on top of your breast and under your neck and chin as he sharply inhales and relaxes afterwards. He always seemed to love doing that, especially when he was really exhausted or needed to sleep. You could feel the way his breathing was getting stable and the more you played with his hair and gently scratched his undercut, the more he got pulled into sleep. It was like a spell.

“Goodnight,” he mumbles against your skin after a while and pecks your open skin, pulling you even closer towards him.

“Goodnight baby... it’s time you sleep.” You kiss the top of his head as you both slowly fall into deep sleep together.

#snk #shingeki no kyoujin #levi attack on titan #attack on titan #aot #aot imagines #aot levi #levi ackerman #levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #aot x reader #snk x reader #levi shingeki no kyojin #levi headcanons #levi fluff #aot fanfiction #aot fluff #snk fluff #snk fanfiction

[frenchly-anxious]

Here’s why you (and I) have been studying the wrong way all this time - part 1

Have you ever studied hard for a test, spending all your evenings on it, feeling prepared, just to fail it spectacularly?

Have you ever been told to re-read your lessons to learn it better?

Have you ever been told after a failed test that you obviously didn’t learn despite you knowing you definitely did?

If so, I’m very sorry, it means school has failed you on something it was supposed to teach you: how to learn. And really, the fault isn’t yours.

Fasten your seatbelts my friends, we’re going on an adventure to explain why school sucks at its own fucking job!

First of all, a little experiment by Tulving. We have 2 groups and we ask them to simply read 6 times a list of 22 words. Then, we give Group 1 the same list and ask them this time to remember as many words as possible. With Group 2, same task but it’s not the same list as before.

Question time: which group will do better? Group 1 with the list they have already read 6 times, or Group 2 with a totally new list?

I can guess you’re probably telling me Group 1, right?

Well. Actually, there is no difference at all between the groups. Nothing, nada. Reading the words 6 times before didn’t give any advantage to Group 1.

What is this witchcraft, I hear you say?

Let me introduce you to the biggest misconception of our school life: reading your lesson over and over won’t help you at all.

How is that possible? Well, there’s a concept we all heard countless time, but that was never explained correctly: effort. To learn something, you need to make efforts. I’m not saying you’re not being serious when reading your lesson, not at all.

The thing is, reading is by now is a reflex for you, it doesn’t require a lot of efforts. Do you remember how hard it was to read when you were a child, or have you seen a young child trying to read? Every word is a battle, to the point that sometimes, they have finished reading but can’t remember what they read: all of their attention was on how to pronounce this group of letters, not on what they were saying.

For us, adults, reading is not something very complicated. It became a reflex, so now our attention isn’t on how to read, but on what we read. It sounds like a good thing, right? It is, but not when it comes to learning.

The action of reading isn’t complicated, and so you don’t have to be involved that much. You’re reading it, you’re understanding it; but when are you making the effort to memorize it? That’s where the problem is: reading is mostly passive, whereas learning is active.

You probably already encountered this paradox, though: the more you read your lesson, the more familiar it feels. You’re reading it and you’re like “Yeah, I remember that, and that too, and this after too”. But once in front of your exam: nothing. Or at least, not enough. This familiar feeling is just that: a feeling. Your brain is only telling you “Yeah, I already read that”, but we mistake it for “I already learned that”.

The difference is quite important, but we aren’t necessarily aware of it. So when teachers are telling us “You didn’t study”, we’re offended because we’re certain we did. Yes, we did work; but we didn’t in the right way.

Another study to prove my point (Roedinger & Karpicke, 2006):

Once again, 2 groups. My question would be: when asked to remember as much info as possible in a text, who would win?

Group 1, with 4 sessions of 5 minutes to read the text?

Or Group 2, with 5 minutes to read it and then without the text, 3 separate sessions of 5 minutes to write down as many things they can remember (without any correction from the examiners of course)?

This time, you already know where I’m going. But our instinct tells us “Obviously Group 1, they had more time!”. Which is technically true. 5 minutes after the end of that experiment, when we ask each group what they remember, Group 1 takes the lead. They get around 85% of the notions from the text, while Group 2 gets 70%. It isn’t much but it’s indeed better.

Which is great. But that’s 5 minutes after learning.

If we meet with them again 1 week later, and ask again what they do remember, Group 1 falls at barely 40% of the notions, not even half of what they learned. What about Group 2, you ask? They’re at 60%, which is very good!

The funny thing is, if asked, Group 1 will tell you how confident they feel about what they remember and that they will nail the test, while Group 2 will be saying they don’t remember a lot. Because once again, Group 1 has this feeling of familiarity about the text.

But then why is Group 2 so much better after a week?

It’s about effort.

The 5 minutes they spent reading didn’t require a lot of efforts. They understood what was written, maybe had enough time to read it a few times. Then they didn’t have the text anymore, but we asked them to write down what they remember. Once. Twice. Thrice.

During those 3 sessions, they had to make efforts. Efforts to search in their memory for what they had read. And this, contrary to reading, isn’t really easy and definitely isn’t passive.

“What did I read?” they asked themselves in front of this blank page, the text long gone. “Wait, I almost forgot this! And didn’t they talk about something else? Wait, what was it?... Oh!”

By doing so, they re-activated neurons, creating paths, reinforcing them. They did that 3 times. So their brain was like “Wait, we searched for that info multiple times, it must be important!”

Then what about Group 1, you wonder? They had 4 sessions to read it! Didn’t their brain also realize it was important?

Your brain’s goal is to automate things you need. Because if those things are automated, you don’t have to focus on them anymore, you don’t have to spend all your energy on it.

Do you remember when you learned how to ride a bike? It was hard, you fell often, but now you don’t have to think about; that’s because your brain was like “Shit, this is giving us a hard time. This is a problem, because if it takes all of our attention to just stay on the bike, we won’t be able to avoid obstacle or anything.” The solution to that is making ‘staying on the bike’ a reflex, something you know so much you don’t have to reinforce it anymore.

With Group 1, reading that text wasn’t hard. Their brain was like “meh, no problem, it doesn’t require more of my help”. If it isn’t problematic, no need for trying to automate it or make it easier.

But for Group 2, it was harder. Making the effort to try to remember what they read was very consuming in time, attention and energy. Their brain HAD to do something so it would become easier: it learned, and it learned for a longer time. Because of the repetition of that effort, because this difficulty kept appearing and being annoying in a way, their brain realized they needed to know that. Just like how you learned your phone number, your address,... You searched for it multiple times, you used it multiple times; now you don’t need to re-learn it, it’s there to stay.

So Group 1 spent 20 minutes reading a text, just to remember it for a day or two.

Group 2 also spent 20 minutes, but 5 for reading, and 15 to test themselves, and it lasted way more than a week.

Both groups did work. But one of them is obviously more efficient.

You want to learn efficiently? Leave your notes aside, and make the effort to try to remember it, even if it’s imperfect. No: especially if it’s imperfect.

Yes, I know, it seems counterintuitive. However it works incredibly well!

But that will be for a part 2...

#I am OBSESSED with that knowledge #I can and I will ramble about it #you can't stop me #learning #school #studying #studyblr #college #university #how to learn #learning tips #school tips #college tips #it's during time like this I love my studies #learning to learn #pedagogy #didactic #come yell with me about it #langblr

[phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust]

It is sad that John couldnt find a person to make him happy in the end, he had that burst of joy with Cyn, Paul, Yoko but it didnt last. Cyn seems the least in denial too, Paul and Yoko both like to tell themselves 'John was happy with me!' Yoko is a bit more obnoxious about it sure but still. Thats a lot of pressure for one person though, I mean its impossible to make someone happy 24/7, we've all hurt our lovec ones before. John seeked the perfect angel partner and no one could live up to it

Absolutely ^^^ and we can’t forget Stuart too! (Id throw Pete Shotton in there too, but as far as im aware John had a pretty happy and healthy relationship with Pete most his life - though I haven’t read Petes book yet cause its expensive okkkkk)

ps thats me hinting for someone to let me borrow their copy of petes book

What I find to be a real shame as well is the state of confusion John left a lot of people in. I think even to this day, Paul is somewhat vexed by John, because John was so inconsistent and emotionally abusive. It seems like John could’ve had dinner with Paul one week and made polite conversation with him and everything’s normal - and then a week later Paul might see, “JOHN SAYS PAULS AN ASSHOLE AND HE HATES HIM AND NEVER WANTS TO SEE HIM AGAIN” splashed across every paper! (<< although obviously that headline is hyperbolised). And so, due to the way John was so inconsistent (swinging between expressions of love and hate so frequently), I wouldn’t be surprised if Paul, even to this day, struggles to comprehend and recognise that John loved him - and I don’t even mean “love” there strictly in a mclennon sense, because regardless of what you believe, I think we can all appreciate that they did love each other in some way; be it romantic or platonic, they loved one another.

But its just sad thinking how Paul might still think to himself: “could I have been better to John?” - and maybe he could have, but I personally think that Paul had an enormous amount of care and patience with John, and to some extent, I don’t think that there was anything Paul could’ve done to save his relationship with John. Once John started to turn on Paul and vilify him, that was the end for them; although thats not to say that their relationship couldn’t have been mended had John lived past 40, its more so to say that I think John’s mental well-being was deteriorating so badly in the late 60s, that there was no way Paul could have salvaged the relationship at that time, because John seemed determined to push him away (but also at the same time, he seemed to want to stay bound to Paul; the classic “I hate you, don’t leave me” pattern). Like you said, John was seeking a perfect partner - someone to make him feel whole, and to remove the void within him, expelling the isolation he’d known so well throughout his lifetime. And I think to some degree relationships did make him feel whole, but the problem is that the isolation is still there, underpinning your everyday life. I think also another issue with John is that he might have met someone, and they made him happy and he felt like nothing could ever spoil this feeling - until something did. Until his new “favourite person” said or did something that brought about an uncomfortable, “bad” feeling - and once his “favourite person” had done that, I think Johns mind was prone to completely vilifying and rejecting the person he had loved and idolised so much just moments ago.

I think that Cynthia was able to recognise Johns unhappiness in a way that Paul and Yoko don’t appear to be able to comprehend (although I think that they do at least understand that John was troubled), because Johns abuse towards her was more clear-cut. Anyone whose been emotionally abused knows the struggle of never really being able to accept that it was abuse, because its like, where is the line with emotional abuse? Whereas, whilst ive never been physically abused, I can imagine that it is probably easier to accept it as abuse because the line is clearer. So Cynthia I think could see that John was not happy in their relationship, but also, I think she could also infer that John was mentally unstable, and so she could recognise that this unhappiness was not her fault (<<< or at least I hope she recognised that!)

#i rambled sorry #but i just have so many thoughts on this and i love getting to talk about this topic with you guys!! #mclennon #johns psyche #john #bpd #john and bpd #psychology #cynthia #john and yoko #yoko #yoko ono #stuart sutcliffe #pete shotton

[nikadoesanart]

My predictions on BSD getting animated going forward

I’ll be taking a look at the novel page counts (Japanese and English) and comparing them to the screen time they’ve gotten so far and then using this to predict how long the remaining light novel adaptations will be (approximately). At the end will also be my rough prediction/hopes for the order of some of these being adapted. I say some because I have yet to read what there is so far of the gaiden novel translations, the main story manga has essentially still been on the DOA arc almost since where the anime left off, and I personally think that it’s currently too soon for Storm Bringer (aside from money purposes).

Note, most of this was written well before the anime 5th anniversary livestream but the announcements wound up not affecting it. I then of course made adjustments as needed account for the novel content we do have so far, both in Japanese and in English (officially).

Page to Episode Count

Not counting the afterward, ads, etc for the English/US copy, Japanese is including it

Also all eng page counts are using the Yen Press release and jp page counts are taken from the fandom wiki

*148 is purely counting the Untold Origins portion of the novel. If we also count the A Day at the Agency short story that’s included before it (56 pages), then we get the full 203

Also the English page count for BEAST was noted before the English release date but after page counts have been posted by affiliated retailers, so subtract a couple pages from the written count of 176 for the time being to account for the afterward and possible character sheets being included

Now that we have our page to episode counts (as of April 5th, 2021), let’s find the actual content run time of what we do have animated so far.

Seasons 1-3 and the OVA all have the same episode length/duration. Each episode is 23 minutes, and we can subtract 3 minutes on average from that to account for the OP and ED being played. This leaves us with an average of 20 minutes of BSD story content per episode. So on average, each of the first 3 seasons contain 240 minutes, or 4 hours, worth of story content.

Dead Apple’s total run time is 91 minutes, with the OP and ED making up 9 of those minutes. However, we do have a bit of the story content being played while the ED is playing (as sometimes happens in the anime as well). To keep the math simple, I’ll be approximating story content time at 82 minutes.

Apply these numbers to the novels that have been animated so far and this is (approximately) what we get:

Now let’s use these numbers to predict the screen time needed for the other novels

Note that we can’t really use Entrance Exam as a fair measure because of how much got cut out (just compare the run time of it to Dark Era and it speaks for itself). However, the numbers for Dark Era and Dead Apple are the best ones to use, as they both have minimal changes between anime and novel and both have official English translations currently available. Take out the approximate time taken up by OP/ED and and the numbers pretty much match up.

So with that being said, we can estimate Untold Origins (only) at approximately 3 eps/60 min and 55 Minutes at 1h 40-55min/100-115 min or 5-6 eps if it doesn’t get a movie. We can also estimate the A Day at the Detective Agency short story at the beginning of Untold Origins to take up about 1 ep, probably even a bit less.

1+ 3 + 5-6 = 9-10 episodes which isn’t enough for a full single cour season unless they all get put into one big OVA season, but also 10-11 eps (or less) seasons are a thing (ie. Fugou Keiji: Balance Unlimited, Blood Lad, Black Butler: Book of Circus, The Seven Deadly Sins: Signs of a Holy War, FLCL)

My personal predictions/hopes for the anime adaptation timeline going forward

This is considering the manga content, current “pausing/stopping points” what wouldn’t be too awkward, each of the novels relevancy/necessity to the main story manga, and assuming we continue with single cour (12-13 ep) seasons

Hopefully/ideally a 55 Minutes movie

S4: ch 54-70

Early S5 (preferably) or end of S4: Untold Origins or A Day at the Agency

S5: ch 71-88/around where we are now?

A Day at the Agency can, in my opinion at least, be chucked in at any point either as a single episode OVA or as the light novel content for s4 (maybe not even taking a full episode and then starting ch 54 in the last few minutes for example). Keep in mind that the current DOA arc is a long one and has plenty to it, so personally I think it may even be better to not include a novel adaptation in a future S4, as it would likely already be a right squeeze content wise. Remember, we also have a few XX.5 chapters that are continuations of the chapter directly before them.

I still need to read what’s currently available of the gaiden novel fan translations but it can probably be adapted at any point as well. I’m estimating approximately 5-6 eps as an OVA series. I don’t really think it would get a movie, partially because you can make it only so long, especially since it’s an anime movie and unlike Storm Bringer, it doesn’t have Chuuya to practically guarantee the profit.

BEAST also doesn’t directly impact the main story and can be adapted at virtually any point. However, seeing as we do have a live action confirmed for it and it’s page count lines up very closely with Dark Era, it can be either 4 eps or (more likely in my opinion) a movie, as it can be considered almost stand alone content.

Personally, I believe it is currently way too soon to animate Storm Bringer as it came out only a little over a month ago (as of writing this) and has minimal plot necessity as of ch 91, but I do believe it should be either split into 2 movies (a part 1 and part 2) or it would need 8 episodes, likely as an OVA season. If it were to get animated sooner than 55 Minutes or Untold Origins, which I believe to be very unlikely, I feel that it would almost certainly be driven by the financial gains of Chuuya being included, and his popularity alone. Reminder, SB is about Chuuya and not SKK. Dazai’s appearance in SB is proportionally a very small percentage and he’s not even mentioned in the official plot summary.

However, you can argue that SB is starting to have some relevance now, with the recent mention of the Order of the Clock Tower in ch 90 and the increased relevance of sealed ability weapons in ch 91. However, I really do believe that you can’t adapt Storm Bringer before 55 Minutes because of Standard Island and its treaty, it also talks about sealed ability weapons, knowing who Wells is, and 55 Minutes canonically takes place during the “downtime” portion of S3. In fact, here’s Asagiri’s words directly from the Afterward (translation by Yen Press):

“this volume didn’t take place in the past, but rather sometime after the tenth volume of the manga. In other words, it’s a tale about the ‘usual’ detective agency in novel format.” (55 minutes, p 237)

Untold Origins also should be adapted sooner rather than later (at least compared to SB in my opinion) because it’s about Ranpo and Fukuzawa’s shared past, which becomes increasingly relevant ch 70 onwards, as well as the need for the ADA being founded (which ties in with Yosano’s backstory in ch 65-66).

In regards to whether I think each of these would be better suited to a movie adaptation or as multiple regular length anime episodes, it’s mainly due to page count and partly due to the budget difference between the two, as well as how difficult I think it would be to animate each of these based on what needs to be drawn. The anime industry isn’t the fastest to switch to newer technology, hence why we see issues with 3D blending sometimes. I really do think that at the very least, 55 Minutes deserves the movie budget because of how detailed and complex the architecture of Standard Island is described as, as well all the mechanical parts needed for the final battle of the novel. Hate the lizard mouths introduced in Dead Apple all you want, but you can’t deny that the 3D cgi was blended very smoothly. For any of the other novels to be movies, it’s more so because gaiden and BEAST can be considered their own stand alone stories that don’t rely too heavily on the main story in terms of when they take place and get adapted. I feel that SB is more likely to get its own season or an OVA season more so due to its length, but multiple part anime movies have also been done before (ie. the Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel movies), so it’s not entirely impossible. Especially considering that merely having any Chuuya screen time means that you can expect the profit and popularity to really go up, especially with SKK being on screen together (regardless of whether you love or hate how the fandom tends to push a shipping POV on them).

These are all of course just my hopes and predictions and estimates based on information currently available, so take them with some salt. I’d love to hear opinions on how, when, and why each of the currently non animated novels should be adapted going forward. Also please stop begging the relevant BSD official Twitter pages for SB to be animated next and go read the other light novels you Chuuya simp

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd analysis #bsd theories #bsd dead apple #bungo stray dogs #bsd manga #bsd storm bringer #bsd light novel #bsd anime #bsd 55 minutes #bsd beast #bsd gaiden #bsd untold origins

[wingedwartigers]

ok so update on trying to buy a 🗡️ sword 🗡️ online it looks like Medieval Collectibles dot com is the best place to look. If you see a Cheap sword you like on etsy or amazon or literally anywhere else, check back with MC first, because chances are! They're reselling it from them for an inflated price.

disclaimer: this is usually with the $100 and under weapons. MC does sell very high-priced swords and are not rock bottom for everything.

some can be deceiving! I almost bought this one off etsy for $40

while its clearly available on amazon for half the price, and you can get it in brown, too. The etsy seller just slapped a bit of fur on there and called it "handmade."

👇 this thing right here 👇 is probably Thee Most resold "sword" out there. Granted, there are some nicer replicas made, but most often you're going to receive plastic+stainless steel (pretty little cabuchon they hot-glued on there, innit?) Sometimes they will repaint the handle, too. I have seen green-handled ones, touched up with acrylic paint. Any more than $20 and you're overpaying for this item

1. this is not to be confused with very obviously handcrafted blades for $50+ made from real wood and steel

sometimes you can tell if things are handmade by the price. (But not always! Resellers will always inflate things!) These are from MetalAbyss on etsy, and yes, they're very high, but if you spent 200 hours of blood, sweat, and tears on one piece, I think you would not want to let go of it, either. These are all made by hand by a skilled craftsman and would stand up to a real battle. They also sell the renowned Ülfbert!

most of us dont have that kind of money on-hand, and I myself don't really trust myself with a sharpened blade. So let's explore other options

Alternatives include:

1. Polypropylene Training Swords

which are usually black in color and are used for training. I believe these are usually blunt and can stand up to actual whacking and banging. And they look pretty dang cool, too!

2. Foam LARP Swords

These vary in hardness from easily-bending-in-half to actually can be used in larp battle. (The site below has a good description of their hardness variations here) For these I recommend Epic Armoury, as they have the best paint job, variety, and overall quality I have seen listings of their swords in other places (like LARP Distribution) but as usual, buying directly from the seller is cheaper.

3. PLA LARP swords

these are sometimes have a more convincing look to them than the soft swords, but most are strictly for decoration--no beating people with them. This fine person can be commissioned to make custom 3D printed (and painted!) weapons. These are not cheap, however, as with most 3D printed things, and some cost as much as the real deal. Only kicker is that some larp events do not allow real weapons! So if you plan to carry them on you to cosplay, this might be a good option for u

4. Blunted Swords

these are actual weapons that have not been sharpened. These can be hard to find, as they are usually hidden in shops amongst sharpened swords with little indication as to what they are. One problem you can run into with these is accidentally purchasing a machine-made stainless steel blade, as they are usually "toys."

A good keyword to avoid this is "training sword." This is the best option for those who want to carry a Real Weapon to cosplay events and (usually) still be allowed in the gates.

Being the real deal, though, they are priced to match! Expect to spend at least $200 on a full sized sword, and some shops do not pay for delivery, which could be upwards of $60 if you do not shop within your country.

The item listed below is from RagnaroksEnd which is a team of craftsmen working to bring you good quality swords at midrange price. Be aware! As said before, these folks do sell Sharp swords alongside the blunt ones, so don't be afraid to contact the seller and clarify before ordering.

5. Things That Look Like Swords But Aren't

need I say more? You can get anything from scissors to letter openers to keychains and hairpins that look like deadly weapons. My personal favorite is the swordbrella, which you can find in multiple styles including katana and pirate sabre handles

6 Buying From Overseas Factories/Secondhand/Other Sources

Don't get me wrong! Some factories make wicked cool looking swords for hundreds cheaper than artisans. If you're looking for a budget cut. Just please be aware of profit resellers, as is custom when shopping online.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, please check Medieval Collectibles first to see if it's a duplicate, especially with the cheap ones! They have hundreds of models (some very pricy! They are not rock bottom on everything!)

anyways yeah just look out for fakers trying to sell someone else's work. If you find misinformation on this post, please let me know in the comments or via private message. Do not send me an ask, my anons are closed.

#long post #sword #swords #weapons #larp #cosplay #larpg #rpg

[katzkinder]

(multiple linked image references throughout this post)

Ok, so I loved this post

The part that got me though was when you said “I wonder what type of animal form they take factors into that” - that’s where the gears in my head started turnin’

So I went snooping on each animal counterpart associated with each sin.

1.) SLOTH: are cats sensitive to cold?

So Kuro isn’t JUST a neet that prefers blankets or a kotatsu over the cold… his animal form being a cat does play some part… key word beings some

“Cats are pretty well adapted for cold weather, but when the temperature dips below freezing they are susceptible to hypothermia and frostbite. During periods of cold weather, cats will go looking for a warm place to hunker down. How cold is too cold for indoor cats? Cats prefer warmth but will be okay in rooms hovering between 50-60°F degrees; while their counterparts Lions, in a zoo environment, stay outside in the winter unless the temperature dips below 40°F (in the wild, most lions don’t have to worry about temperatures dropping below 65°F so in most cases 40°F and below is too cold).”

SLOTH SENSATIVE TO COLD? ✅ (yes)

2.) PRIDE: are bats sensitive to cold?

“Bats can't survive freezing temperatures, even when they're hibernating. Any roost bats shelter in for the winter must be at least 45°F or warmer. They also seek out dark, secluded, and sheltered places that can keep them safe from predators. Bats are defenseless while they're hibernating.”

PRIDE SENSATIVE TO COLD? ✅ (yes)

3.) ENVY: are snakes sensitive to cold?

Jeje being a snake is pretty much a given… but it’d be mean to not include him (so no funny ideas outta you, ok Mikuni?)

“What is the coldest temperature a snake can withstand? Snakes usually stay out of cold climates. Because the coldest temperature any snake can thrive in is around 65°F, snakes normally live in the warmer temperate or tropical zones. Below 60°F, snakes become sluggish. Above 95°F, snakes become overheated.”

ENVY SENSATIVE TO COLD? ✅ (yes)

4.) WRATH: are wolves sensitive to cold?

“Wolves don't need to do anything. They're much better adapted to cold weather than we are. Thanks to their winter adaptations, wolves can live in temperatures as low as -40°F. During the coldest nights, a wolf will curl itself into a ball, covering its nose with its tail, which will hold the exhaled warm air over its feet and nose, conserving precious body heat. It will also sleep close to its pack-mates(her Eve) in a unified effort to stay warm.”

WRATH SENSATIVE TO COLD? ♾ (neutral-ish)

5.) GREED: are hedgehogs sensitive to cold?

“Hedgehogs getting cold is a BIG ‘No no’. It slows their metabolism down, leaving them susceptible to infections, dehydration and starvation. It's important to keep your hedgehog in an environment between 72-80°F. Even if it’s not always comfortable for us humans (comfortable for angels? no clue), temperatures lower than 70°F are considered ‘cold’ for hedgehogs and can result in a hibernation attempt, which can be fatal.”

Maybe that’s why Lawless always wears that scarf? Since hedgehogs are severely thermally sensitive then it would make sense…

(Crantz, Gil… please stop the angel from getting any ideas)

GREED SENSITIVE TO COLD? ✅ (yes)

6.) GLUTTONY: are pigs sensitive to cold?

In this case I will refer mostly to Vietnamese Potbellied Pigs because as far as I know, we haven’t actually seen Ildio’s pig form yet - one of the only depictions is Lawless’ stage depictions of the 7 vampire siblings in ep6… and based on his stage depiction of Ildio’s pig form, Viatnamese Vietnamese Miniature Potbellied Pigs seem like they’d be the common type of pig that seems to fit that shape/size.

“The ideal temperature range for a potbelly pig is 65-88°F. Pigs in winter do not need any type of supplemental heat down to at least -20°F. Most potbelly pigs require more feed to maintain heat production and body condition; meaning that housing aside, the more feed/calorie intake, the easier it can be for pigs to regulate their body heat.”

However, seeing as Ildio is an ageless vampire with the mother-effing holy grail of metabolisms, we don’t know if his MASSIVE calorie intake, that he doesn’t really gain much/any weight from, will actually help him in cold weather.

GLUTTONY SENSATIVE TO COLD? ♾❔(neutral/unknown where they stand exactly)

7.) LUST: are butterflies sensitive to cold?

Snow Lily’s butterfly appearance is probably one of the most exaggerated of the 8 servamp animal forms. That gorgeous shade of pink and black aside, I couldn’t find any real buttwrfly species with that wing pattern or wings shaped like that. So color and wing pattern aside, I’d say the closest real-world butterfly to Snow Lily would be a variation of Swallowtail Butterfly.

Butterflies are cold-blooded critters, however, generally speaking butterflies won't fly when temperatures are less than 55-60°F.

LUST SENSATIVE TO COLD? ✅ (yes)

8.) MELANCHOLY: are foxes sensitive to cold?

Even though Tsubaki’s two tails seem to be a play of of the legends of Nine Tail Fox, generally speaking based off his other details being black fox with white on the end of his tail(s), he is most likely a Silver Fox; which is a type of Red Fox.

The upper critical temperature of the red fox is probably between 86-89°F. An official temperature range of what is too cold for red foxes is more or less unknown or unofficial at best. The arctic fox is said to be able to tolerate temperatures as low as -72°F but red foxes haven’t occupied the tundra in the past partly because it was too cold; with their longer ears and limbs, they lose heat faster than their arctic cousins. So we know the average red fox can tolerate and survive cold temperatures, but most likely not temperatures like their arctic counterparts live in.

MELANCHOLY SENSATIVE TO COLD? ♾❔❌ (neutral/unknown where they stand exactly/least affected of the bunch)

and after ALL OF THAT…

the most interesting thing is–

when I first got into SERVAMP, I remember being curious where the concept of ‘the different sins transforming into animal forms’ came from. After a little research, I found that there is a history to it! A very detailed account of the origins and representations of them within history. And a small portion discusses the animal depictions of the original 7 deadly sins⬇️

“An allegorical image depicting the human heart subject to the seven deadly sins, each represented by an animal (clockwise: Toad = Avarice [greed]; Snake = Envy; Lion = Wrath; Snail = Sloth; Pig = Gluttony; Goat = Lust why? I have no idea; Peacock = Pride).”

So Jeje and Ildio’s animal forms are the only ones true to the original depictions of their associated sins.

Pride as a peacock does make sense… but I can understand adding the bat into the mix because - vampires.

I get why they’d change Kuro to a cat instead of a snail because I can’t see a snail being threatening at all unless it’s either severely poisonous or Gary… like, supernatural vampire powers or not, Kuro as a snail wouldn’t be very badass.

Why the ever living f*ck would a goat reprint lust? Originally I was going with the possibility that goat could be related to ram, ram represents Aries, Aries is one of the most lustful zodiac personalities… but no, apparently the goat represents the Devil, lust, lubricity and the damned… so that’s fun - I prefer the butterfly thank you very much.

Apparently frogs symbolize greed because it is a greedy creature in desiring to live in both worlds- on the land & in the water… okay I guess?

& lastly even though the Lion role is also occupied by Kuro within the series, I can understand Wrath not maintaining the original Lion role swing as Wrath is female and they probably wanted a male to hold the depiction of Lion so that the could use the lion’s mane, again, to add to the badass factor… regardless I don’t think Wrath as a lioness would have played out the same way… is it sexist when referring to animals? Whatever - that’s a question for another day.

If you’re interested, the full article can be found here

I am so sorry this random rant turned out WAAAAAAAY longer than I originally intended… I always love your analysis and theory posts so I hope you enjoy :)

YOOO ANON, THAT’S AWESOME! I’ll definitely check that article out!

In return, have this!

We know what piggy ‘dio looks like now! :D

Hopefully this will make your research a little easier?

#servamp #kat’s katerwauling #asks #anonymous #servamp analysis #thanks for the ask nonny!! #tumblr didn’t want to publish this so I just gave up and went to mobile #long post

[sakura-83]

Things from Anne with an e that I feel like writing down

Season 1 Episode 7: Wherever You Are Is My Home

⚠️WARNING!!!⚠️ this episode not only talks about suicidal thoughts but also a character trying to commit such acts, of you are sensitive to this I suggest you just skip this post or at least skip #75-77

1. Anne calling it comforting that no two snowflakes are alike, as well as calling snow a sign of gods forgiveness as he blankets the dead world in a beautiful frost

2. Josie gossiping about her while she’s RIGHT THERE

3. Her and moody just talking

4. “And I love Christmas, don’t you?” “I don’t know, but I plan to.” “Did you not have Christmas at the orphanage?” “There wasn’t much to it really. I’m not sure why Father Christmas wasn’t able to stop there, maybe the matron scared him off.”

5. “Do you at least know if they’re going to keep you?” “Keep me!?”

6. Anne trying to sing with the others but the other voices quickly fading out as she panics and rushes home

7. “They’re not going to send you back, you’re in the Bible and everything!”

8. Marilla has every right to be angry that Matthew rushed their home without even discussing it

9. “I knew you’d lose your head-“ “Oh, I oughta smack yours right off your shoulders!”

10. Matthew is prone to heart attacks, the very same thing causing his death in the books

11. “He’s had an episode of the heart” just a funny way to say heart attack, sort of long winded

12. Marilla not understanding the complex math because she had to leave school when she was young

13. Anne helping her with it because she’s top of her class

14. “Not keeping you? You’re a Cuthbert, for better or for worse! No getting out of it now.”

15. The awful bank not relenting on the payback schedule despite the fact that Matthew cannot work. Corporations are cruel and ungiving despite the human struggles and needs of its clients and it hurts. I know the bank invested that money and they need it back but Matthew was indisposed by a tragic event and to not only not extent but to SHORTEN the payback schedule is just unfeeling

16. Marilla putting out an ad to the mainland to take in borders

17. The terrifying idea that you must sell everything you have in order to survive

18. Marilla being desperate yet still too prideful to accept charity

19. The fact that it not only effects the family but also Jerry, as they can’t afford to pay him. It puts him out of a job and lowers his families income

20. A reoccurring theme I love in this show is the idea that the characters will give up their belongings, no matter how sentimental, in the name of family. Matthew selling his dead brothers watch, Marilla selling her grandmothers brooch, Anne selling the dress of her dreams, all because no matter how important these items are, they are just things. That family is more important, so even though it pains you to have to give those things up, you do it in the name of love for others

21. “Theyre just things.”

22. Anne feeling sorrow and yet being excited to stay at aunt Josephine’s

23. Despite being told she can keep the dress, Anne insists on selling it back because it’s a family effort

24. Anne being exited for a solo adventure and then getting stuck with jerry

25. Jerry has to be there to get money Anne his family is hungry :(

26. “I don’t actually need your help.” “When’s the last time you drove a sleigh? Auctioned a horse? Let’s go.”

27. Diana giving her things to sell as well

28. Jerry knows how to drive a sleigh?????

29. “It’s not so bad to ask for help sometimes, y’know?” “If I needed help I would say so.” “No you wouldn’t.” “Yes, I would.” “Wouldn’t.” “Would! Times infinity.” “What???”

30. Jerry singing in French

31. “No singing. I mean it. I’m serious, Jerry! This is an important journey! I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY BEAR HANDS!”

32. Jerry grinning as she gets madder

33. Anne bring mystified by the dress shop

34. “I’m here to return a dress.” Is something wrong with it?” “Not a thing.” “Do you not like it?” “It is my very favorite thing that I have ever possessed in life. But I need to return it to help my family.” “You’re Anne, Matthew’s Anne!” “I am! How nice it is to hear it said that way.”

35. Anne being upbeat until Jeannie asks what’s wrong and then ask just breaks down

36. Poor Jerry waiting outside in the snow for her

37. Either Matthew spent some much money on Anne’s dress or Jeannie gave her extra, or both

38. “Did Matthew really spend this much?..” “You’re worth a lot to him.”

39. “I hate to say goodbye…” “😏 I won’t be so long~” “To the HORSE, Jerry. Why are you so annoying.”

40. “You’re a good horse Birdie, try to remember that. Someone will be very lucky to have you.”

41. Birdie really is a beautiful horse though

42. Anne’s little “my parents are spies” act she uses on the pawn broker

43. The pawn broker is so understandable rude because of his profession, it makes him equally annoying and funny

44. “What a piece of work you are.”

45. Anne is so good at making up stories on the spot

46. “If you can’t afford it I completely understand.”

47. I love how snide remarks of “being a good Christian” are frequent and effective insults in the 1800’s

48. Poor Jerry doesn’t just get beaten up and robbed, he gets brutally beaten by two grown men and there’s nothing he can do despite that being… his last paycheck. That was the last income he was going to give his family and he’s so ashamed of himself that he keeps apologizing for it despite most of the money being his. He apologizes to Anne, to Matthew, it bothers him for months to come

49. Gilbert’s back!!

50. “Still seems unreal. Even though I just sold all our… everything.”

51. “He’s a good man.” “I love him with all my heart. I don’t know what if do if…”

52. Them arguing over not arguing

53. Anne apologizing

54. “Anyway…” “Anyway..”

55. I genuinely didn’t realize that the men who beat up Jerry are the same men that took in borders at green gables, I got the same face blindness as Jerry himself

56. “I’ve missed you.” “Yeah?” “At school, theres.. no one to compete with.” “”You want to spell out a few words for old times sake?” “How about… truce?”

57. Jerry thinking Gilbert was going to hurt Anne and take her money and immediately jumping in to stop him despite swaying on his feet

58. When Anne asks him if he’s okay he immediately starts apologizing about the money

59. “I don’t like the city.”

60. “Just take care of yourself, and come home someday.”

61. Anne and Gilbert staring at each other quietly

62. “This is a palace, not a house.”

63. Jerry assuming that they’ll make him sleep in the stable instead of inside the massive house

64. “I’ll look after belle.”

65. “This city is rife with ruffians!”

66. Aunt Josephine insisting on helping

67. Matthew lamenting his own life, talking of how his life insurance will give them a sizable sum and how he drags them down despite them needing him

68. “Anne loves you, you have to remember that.” “But her future…” “Which do you think she would choose, this house or you?”

69. Jerry bring terrified to stay in a room by himself because he’s always had his family around him

70. Anne making room for him only for him to sleep upside down

71. “Don’t worry, I don’t kick like my sisters.” “Yeah, you’d better not.”

72. “Everything will be alright. It’ll be alright..”

73. Aunt Josephine helping by paying for Jerry to work at Green Gables, as well as giving Anne books

74. “We’ve been together all these years, thick or thin, so don’t think I’ll put up with you slipping away now. Anne will be home today, and she’ll be very happy to see you.”

75. Matthew trying to kill himself because the life insurance would pay off the debt he caused

76. Jeannie happening to show up and find Matthew with the gun just in time as he tries to hide what he’s almost done from her, realizing what he’s done

77. The way they stress how his passing would effect Anne the most because of what they mean to each other, that she will suffer without him despite what he’s trying to do

78. “Don’t ever get old…” “Too late for that.”

79. “You would’ve left us that way!? Left me?..”

80. “Give it back. I won’t take charity.” “But.. love isn’t charity.” “I won’t take it.” “Nay I ask why not?” “We will not be pitied! I don’t want people thinking we can’t fend for ourselves.” “Well at the moment we can’t, and I’d sure give my last bit of strength or my last dollar to help a friend. Then I know that friend would feel grateful and loved above all else. And I do. I feel very grateful to have such a dear friend as Miss Barry. Sometimes you just have to let people love you Marilla.”

81. Anne selling her cleaning services to make steady income

82. “We’re rich, aren’t we Matthew?”

83. Jerry carving a star for the Christmas tree!!!!!!

84. Anne’s friends coming to sing carols at their house

85. Anne helping Matthew walk outside

86. Not Nate :(

87. Nathaniel, the bane of my existence

#renew awae #awae #anne shirly cuthbert #jerry baynard #mathew cuthbert #marilla cuthbert #josephine barry

[kirain]

So I finally played True Colors and a while back I got some anons asking for my opinion. Here it is, spoiler free:

The Game

Overall, I think True Colors is better than LiS2. The story is more consistent, the characters are interesting and multidimensional, and the plot is far more realistic/sensible. Is it better than LiS? It's a good contender. Personally I would say no, but if someone told me it was their favourite game in the franchise, I would understand. The setting is gorgeous, artistic, relaxing, and you can tell the devs put a lot of love and care into the backgrounds. The music is nice, though there isn't a huge variety and there's no track that's overly memorable, in my opinion. The acting is, for the most part, exceptional. I think the decision to use mo-cap was nothing short of genius, as the game relies heavily on the facial expressions of the characters to really emphasize each scene. Alex's power of empathy is also brilliantly portrayed and far surpassed my expectations. Like Max's power, it grows as the story progresses.

Choices

Disappointingly, and in true Square Enix/Deck Nine fashion, your choices don't really matter. The story is definitely more of a narrative adventure, which is perfectly fine, but if that's the case I wish these companies would stop advertising their games as "choice-based". No matter what choices you make throughout the game, the outcome will be the same. At least the most crucial element, anyway. Only a few details change based on your choices, but they're of very little consequence. Moreover, unless you play as a total asshole and do zero exploring, I'm not sure how you could possibly get the bad ending, which is really just the good ending with less positive relationships. The main dilemma is solved either way.

Price

Is this game worth $80 (or $60 for my American friends)? No. It really isn't. That is a AAA price tag, and regardless of the attempt, True Colors is not a AAA experience. You're very limited in what you can do/effect and even with all my exploring and reading I beat the game in 8 hours and 24 minutes. I got the game for $40 and I'd say that's more than fair, especially when you compare it to other AAA (and even some indie) games. If I've learned anything from the LiS Remaster, it's that Square Enix is getting very greedy and jacking up their prices when it's not deserved. I definitely recommend True Colors, but I also recommend buying it on sale.

Story

I didn't have high hopes for this game, but I was pleasantly surprised. Without spoiling anything, I want to say that the plot is a gripping, emotional ride. I never felt bored or lost, and while I found the main character somewhat bland (though likable), the personality that bursts from the other characters made me look forward to every interaction. The twist at the end is, at least to me, painfully predictable, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the journey. The gameplay is fun and flawlessly encourages exploration, conversation, and investigation. With such high praise, I have to say that True Colors almost nailed it. The final chapter, unfortunately, asked me to suspend my disbelief a bit too much in one instance, while another instance felt way too convenient and tacky. I could also tell the conclusion was spliced together based on my choices, making it seem like the actors were reading from a high school script, which broke my immersion; however, it didn't ruin the game in its entirety. I'm still glad I played it. 7/10.

#life is strange #true colors #lis #lis2 #alex chen #gabe chen #max caulfield #sean diaz #square enix #deck nine #video games