#Imagine when he thought for years Clive was gone the only person who saw him and believed in him as him

[moonilit]

having so much emotions over Jote and Joshua I can’t even articulate, like

#Like I know it looks like this one side unexplored ship at first glance but once you give it a thought #Dear god #their situation is so complex and there is SO much work and healing that need to be done #Especially after you learn more about the undying and put two and two together to see what kind of environment - #- they both grew up in #They are at first glance the master and servant trope #Which isn’t so exciting imo #Until you learn that technically neither of them choose it #You can tell they are two kids who grow up together and ‘saw’ each other #Jote not wanting to let go of Joshua because she knows the burden he was forced to carry as the firebird #Knowing that this path would kill him and she want to save him save her dearest friend #While Joshua seeing how Jote was made to live a life where she have no freedom or life or future #Both wanting to save each other but were powerless against their situation #And at the first chance Joshua gets he let her go #Even though she was the only person who grew to see and love him for just him #Which is his most precious inner wish yet he give that up for her sake #Imagine when he thought for years Clive was gone the only person who saw him and believed in him as him #The loneliness of being a god and a deity and yet Jote came along and mended his heart again #Then he let her go because she deserve to be free #Im in tears #there are more layers then this but #I can’t write all of then in the tags aaaaa #Like do you understand me?? Do you?? #Jote #joshua #ffxvi #Like a big theme in this game is people wanting to carry the burden with their loved ones like come one im crying here

[cosmic-metanoia]

The Abhorrent Mother

***Major Spoilers for Final Fantasy XVI***

Calling Anabella the "devil" or a "bitch" sounds like a term of endearment rather than an insult. There are no words that accurately embody this woman. In my book, she wins the award for the most evil villainess which shows just how well-written she was! But it did get me thinking...in addition to the countless atrocities she committed, could it also be because she shatters the stereotype of the sacrificing and caring mother? Do we perceive her as more evil because of that?

In many cultures and religions, mothers are depicted as being soft, feminine, caring, unconditionally loving, and sacrificing for the betterment of their children and families. The character archetype of an "evil father" exists but that typically is more well-received.

When it comes to Anabella, it's as if she is the ultimate sacrilege of the pregnant mother who carries, gives birth, and loves her children dearly. Normally, with her attitude, we expect the classic "evil stepmother" archetype in full blossom. Clearly that is not the case here. I recall how some folks in the FFXVI discussion forums were waiting for the big reveal that she was indeed NOT Clive and/or Joshua's mother - because how could someone so evil give birth to two righteous sons? Turns out nope - she was, indeed, their biological mother through the bitter end!

If she was just an evil stepmother, that would have been incredibly commonplace and trite - making her their actual mother made her all the more impactful. Afterall, evil comes in all forms.

I also read that a few people had hoped she would get a redemption arc. I'm glad she didn't. And I'm glad that her and Clive never reconciled. She was too far gone and the years of verbal and emotional abuse could not be forgiven by Clive, Jill, and others. She betrayed her family, her nation, her people and started a chain reaction that altered history all to obtain more power, more riches, and an "upgrade" to her future royal bloodline.

When Bahamut/Dion killed the Emperor, sacked Twinside, and killed Olivier, all that she had built was ripped from her within minutes. (Also, notice how she did not even think to herself 'Hmm....why is there no blood or body?' after Olivier dissolved away into thin air upon being stabbed through. )

At her end, she had nothing left but to face the consequences of her actions. And I could only imagine that seeing her beloved Joshua whom she thought was dead drove the fear of some divine retribution right into her.

Personally that scene really hurt to watch - how Joshua was the last person to offer her his hand when no one else would. But that speaks more to who he is as a person. To be fair, the last time he saw his mother was when he was 10 years old and he was the one person she showed a shred of decency albeit because he was the Phoenix. Otherwise, she would have tossed him aside like she did Clive.

When she frantically swiped her blade at him and cut him in her madness, I thought, "Yep...time for her to go! How dare she hurt our beloved birb?!"I also thought it fitting that in the moment of escaping accountability, she died by her own hand. It was heartbreaking to see Joshua witness yet another parent's death right before his eyes. Clive and Jill looked away in pity for her.

She could have been the mother of not one but two Dominants and be remembered in history for that. But she threw away her family happily with both hands.

The lesson here - "some of the most poisonous people to walk the earth come in the form of family." Sure, people do deserve forgiveness depending on what their actions were but there are rare times when a so-called redemption arc is not earned and not deserved.

One final lesson is that as a child, you have the power to be different from a horrible parent and that fact is glorious.

#ff16 #ffxvi #final fantasy 16 #final fantasy xvi #ff16 joshua #ffxvi joshua #joshua rosfield #anabella rosfield #ffxvi spoilers #ff16 spoilers #final fantasy xvi spoilers

[dishearteningmediocrity]

So I know I post far too much about Colin Clive, but sometimes you find something that has to be shared. This article appeared in the March 18, 1930 edition of the Brisbane Telegraph, though it seems it’s a reprint from somewhere else. But it’s an article Colin wrote about his experiences in the play, his thoughts about playing Stanhope, and what making the film was like (answer: muddy.) It isn’t startlingly revelatory or anything, but I was definitely excited to read his perspective on things, especially since he tended to avoid publicity and really didn’t like talking about himself. At least that’s my impression from what I’ve read. Anyway, hope some of you find this similarly interesting!

Here’s the transcript because it’s very hard to read:

Greatest War Play

Miracle of “Journey’s End”

Just over a fortnight ago, “Journey’s End” became a year old (writes Colin Clive in “Answers”). That anniversary performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London was, I think, the most thrilling of any that I have ever played in; for whenever I came off the stage during the course of it, and so could forget my part for a moment or two, I found myself automatically reflecting upon the most wonderful year of my life—the year in which I had the good fortune to be chosen for one of the leading roles in the most wonderful play of the century.

The romance of “Journey’s End” is, I suppose, well-known to almost everyone by now. The author, R.C. Sherriff, was a clerk earning a small salary in a London insurance office when he wrote it for members of the Kingston Rowing Club to perform when their annual dramatic show took place.

The club turned it down as being unsuitable for amateurs. Sherriff then submitted it, on the off chance of its being accepted, to several of the theatrical producers in London. They also rejected it.

“A play with no woman in the cast?” they said. “Good gracious no! The public would never stand for it.”

But the Stage Society saw the possibilities in “Journey’s End,” and presented it at one of their Sunday night performances.

The reports of the critics were so good that Maurice Browne decided to buy it and put it on for a regular run. Its success was instantaneous. It is now being shown in nearly all of the world’s capitals, having made fortunes for both Sherriff and Browne, and a name for every member of its London cast. In addition, a talkie of it has just been completed at Hollywood under the direction of James Whale.

Is it surprising, therefore, that I cannot thank Dame Fortune enough for what she has done on my behalf during the past year?

I was never able to serve in the war on account of my age; although it was only by a matter of months that I missed it. But the fact that I did miss it was the most disappointing thing I have ever experienced in my life.

THE NEXT BEST THING

But now I feel that my disappointment has been mitigated to a certain extent; not so much because of the help that “Journey’s End” has given me in my stage career, but because I have been able to do the next best thing to undergoing those longed-for experiences. I have re-enacted them in the most realistic of all war plays.

“A poor substitute!” I can hear many ex-Service men exclaiming. Admittedly I am running into none of the dangers, facing none of the hardships which they had to undergo; but by playing the part of Stanhope eight times a week I am beginning to know just what the Great War must have felt like to every man who went through it. That is to say, I think I can understand this better than most of these others who were unable, through age or disability, to “join up.”

Firstly, I am finding out what a physical strain it must have been. I cannot tell why I should be feeling a strain of this kind as a result of playing my part: but I undoubtedly do feel one.

Secondly, I am getting to know what a terrible strain it must have been on the nerves to live, day in, day out, to that accompaniment of gunfire—a strain far more terrible than I ever pictured, in my most imaginative moments, before “Journey’s End” commenced. I can, in fact, understand perfectly how badly Stanhope must have needed his regular drams of whisky to keep himself from “cracking up.”

PLAY’S MOST STIRRING SCENE

Incidentally, a lot of nonsense has been talked, by the few people who have seen fit to criticize “Journey’s End,” about this need of Stanhope’s for the whisky bottle. According to them, the British officer is accused, through it, of having to become a drunkard before he could do brave acts. The point they miss, of course, is that Stanhope, in his zeal for his duty, had gone without leave for a long time; and that, being a very highly-strung individual at the best of times, this had reduced him to a nervous wreck.

And I have noticed that the same critics, with their overwhelming desire to be destructive, always pounce upon Stanhope as representing the typical British officer, and never upon Osborne, the quiet ex-schoolmaster who is the truly brave character of the piece.

While on this subject, I would like to mention, in consequence of many inquiries, that I consider the whisky-taking scene in the first act to be quite the most stirring of all that I, personally, take part in. This may occasion some surprise, for I have found that most people imagine the scene in which I threaten to shoot Hibbert, one of the junior officers, for cowardice, to be the most impressive of all.

I cannot feel, as some readers may now be thinking, that I am actually taking part in the Great War itself when I am on the stage, for if I did so my acting would suffer.

I admit that I found it hard to remember that I was only acting when I took part in the trench scenes while the film of “Journey’s End” was being made at Hollywood.

I was then up to my knees in real mud, with shots being fired all round me and with men going wilder than would ever have been possible on the stage.

 A striking tribute to the extraordinary realism of this episode was a remark which an American onlooker made to me after it was over.

“Well, if that wasn’t just great?” he drawled. “You know, it has made me wonder if you guys over in Britain didn’t have something to do with winning the War, after all?”

#Colin Clive #Journey's End #R.C. Sherriff #Stanhope #It pleases me very much that he says Osborne is the truly brave character of the piece. #The word disappointing seems an odd choice for avoiding the hell of WWI #but I guess if you've been groomed for the army all your life you might feel that way #Also his choice of the words highly strung to describe Stanhope #Oh Colin you really were perfect for the part weren't you

[banditthewriter]

Electric Love - Billy Russo - 7

Sorry it’s so long between updates. See, this is why I usually write it all and then post haha. Guess this means this experiment was a failure.

Okay! Here we go. Some big things change in this part so I hope you like it!

Tags are at the bottom. Let me know if you would like to be added to one of my tag lists!

*gif is mine*

Enjoy!

*****

Having the other metas around made you feel a little unsettled. Not just having them around, but having them around Frank and Billy; even Lieberman, who had become a friend. He’d recently gotten you to call him David sometimes.

Clive mostly stuck to himself or with the girl—Anna, her name was Anna—so he wasn’t the problem. Anna was a bit of a short temper, but when Clive was nearby, she was steady. You got the feeling they were either together or were pretending not to realize how much they wanted to be.

It almost reminded you of you and Billy.

And then there was Gregory. He had a habit of rubbing the others the wrong way. He tried to tell Frank what to do which was never a good way to ingratiate yourself with the man. He would touch David’s computers without permission. And with Billy? Well, Gregory didn’t have to do anything special to get on Billy’s bad side.

He did stay away from you though. At least he seemed to realize that Billy was serious on that account.

A lot of time was spent with Clive helping the men create a map of where the creator had been. The one drawback with his ability when it came to the man who had created all of you, it worked retroactively instead of instantaneously. He could only sense where the creator had been up to a day before, not so much where he was currently.

“The creator knows Clive’s powers,” you had to remind Billy and Frank when they wanted to strap up one day when they realized that he was still sensing the creator in the same place. “He will know that he can be sensed. I’m not saying he isn’t there, but if he is, it’s going to be a trap.”

And since Clive could sense a lot of new metas on the move, you had to imagine that it was going to be a big trap. 

It was time for the guys to do some recon. You had to stay away because your power sometimes made you light up like a lighthouse, but they took Clive and Anna.

That left you with David and Gregory. The three of you stayed on comms, eyes trained on the computer screens. There was a blue dot that resembled the tracking beacon that David had given Billy and you could barely look away from it. There were other blue dots on the screen, one for each of them, and while you sometimes looked at those, Billy’s kept your attention.

This was how it had felt when Billy had still been active in the Marines. Knowing that he was out there in danger and you were unable to do anything about it? It was not something you had ever wanted to relive.

Especially not with witnesses.

“They’ll be fine,” David said as he popped something into his mouth, hard candy by the sounds of it. “I don’t know Billy that well, but Frank? I can’t think of anything that guy couldn’t survive. He’s too stubborn to let anything happen.”

That made you laugh, which was undoubtedly his reasoning. You tracked the progress of the blue dot that you knew to be Billy. Somewhere deep in your chest, you could feel a thrum of adrenaline; an answering call to the force in your own veins. 

“You should have seen the two of them when they were in the service together. I can’t tell you the number of stories that ended with someone saying they wouldn’t have made it out of there if it wasn’t for the two of them.”

There was a bittersweet fondness in your tone as you thought about it. 

“How long have you known them?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? You decided to count the years you were dead just because it was less confusing.

“Frank I’ve known for about four years. I’ve known Billy for about six years, but we’ve only been together for five of those.” Not counting the years you were dead, you didn’t explain, but David seemed to understand that. You continued. “I actually met Maria and the kids before I met Frank. Billy had given me her contact information when they were overseas for one of the deployments. He regretted that when he realized it meant her and I could gang up on the two of them.”

Of course things took a turn not long after that. With the loss of Maria and the kids, Frank became different. And he wasn’t the only one. It changed all of you.

“I didn’t realize you were with him for so long.”

That drew your attention to Gregory. It was the first time you’d talked to him since he had showed up on the porch. David shifted in his seat, obviously remembering Billy’s threats, but you weren’t worried.

“Didn’t think to ask me about the man you were charged with seducing me to forget?”

His eyes narrowed in your direction as he explained, “The creator didn’t ask me to sleep with you. He just wanted me to be a distraction.”

“So that was your decision? Good to know,” you said as you turned back to the screen, your eyes scrambling until you found Billy’s beacon. “I could have used a friend when I woke up like this. Instead you decided you needed to stick your shiny dick in me because, what, I’m so hot? You were lonely? In the end, it just makes you more pathetic than I already thought you were.”

He didn’t have anything to say after that.

“Here we go,” David said, clearing his throat as he leaned forward, “they are at the house.”

All of your attention went to the screens. They had gotten to the place where Clive had sensed the creator for the last few days. They wouldn’t have gone so far in if they had seen anyone, so at least you knew that they were mostly safe. But a bullet could kill as quickly as one of these powers.

It was a heart stopping twenty minutes of watching the dots go around in circles before the comms came live once more.

“We’re headed back,” Frank said in a pissed off tone that told you there was nothing to be found. “Didn’t find shit out here. He must have left before we even left the city.”

But it was a start. David was already tracing the ownership of the house to figure out if it was a safehouse for Rawlins or if it was connected to the creator.

Anything could be considered a win right now.

------

It was impossible for you to sleep. David had said that he had a line on Rawlins, but it would be another twelve or sixteen hours before he'd have all of the information. Since the house was a bust, you thought perhaps this was the break you were waiting for.

It meant that you couldn't sleep, no matter how much you knew you needed to. Rawlins was out there and the creator was out there, but what if they weren't together? What if after the creator came back, he left to make more metas alone?

Or worse. What if he killed Rawlins and brought him back?

It was all too much. Your mind hadn't been quiet since the moment you realized the creator was alive. 

"You need to sleep."

You looked over at Billy and frowned as you watched him walk through the room. He didn't look like he'd gotten much sleep either.

"You're one to talk," you responded as you stopped pacing.

He made his way through the room until he was in front of you. Then he brushed his hand against your neck, the familiar tingle of your gift reacting to him making you close your eyes.

"Come with me at least," he said as he tugged you towards the couch. 

The two of you fit together effortlessly. This was one thing both of you were pros at; fitting together like this. Even before the two of you were together, neither of you shied from invading the other's personal space. It was what finally made you bite the bullet and have the dreaded ‘what are we’ talk with Billy one night after the two of you had been cuddled together for a few hours.

Turned out to be the best decision of your life.

Your hand ran up and down his arm as you tucked into his chest. There was a tingling sensation in your fingers as you moved them over him. The tiny, near-invisible sparks that went between the two of you were a familiar sight, but the longer you stared, the more it looked like they were going from him to you.

“It’s different, right?”

What was that tone? You looked up and met his eyes, curious. You didn’t think he was just asking if your powers were different with him because you’d told him plenty of times that they were.

“What is?”

“Us,” he said as he skimmed his hand across your arm, linking his fingers with yours. “Before you died, everything just fit together. The two of us fell in together without ever pushing it. We went from friends to a committed relationship after just one night on the couch together. But now? Now I feel like this is what we were meant to be.”

You’d felt it too. There was something stronger than just love and coincidence at work here. You and Billy had slipped right back into old habits, but it was more than that. You had missed him for two years and the moment you saw him again, you knew that this is where you belonged.

It didn’t make sense. Or… maybe it did.

“I’ve told you that I can sense you, right?” You pressed your hand against your chest where you could feel a dull thrum, an echo of his heart beat. “It’s like that. It’s always there. I felt it the moment I woke up, but I didn’t know what it was at first. Not until I came back to New York at least.”

Billy reached out and trailed his fingers around where your hand was pressed. 

“What’s it like? Feeling me, sensing me?”

You closed your eyes and tried to source it out. You could feel his heartbeat, feel his lungs expand. If you focused hard enough, you’d be able to feel the blood pump through his veins. 

“It feels like I’m part of you,” you admitted as you opened your eyes only to fall suddenly silent.

A beautiful glow was emitting from you, surrounding your body completely. It was the halo of energy that formed when you focused your powers, but you hadn’t even been thinking about it. But it was more than that. Not only were the sparks going over your body, but they were all over Billy as well.

“Are you doing this?”

You shook your head. From where his hand was connected to your chest, you ran your hand up the length of his arm and rested it against his shoulder. The sparks zipped over both of you but you didn’t feel them. It didn’t tingle, didn’t feel like static. There was nothing but the glow.

“How in the…”

Billy leaned in and kissed you, stealing the words from your lips. You would have berated him for that, but instead you wrapped your hand around the back of his neck and held him close. The glow dimmed before it completely disappeared, leaving the two of you drenched in darkness once more. You climbed into Billy’s lap, your hands on his shoulders and in his hair as you kissed him with everything you had.

As his hands started to tug at your shirt, his phone started to ring. He dropped his forehead to your shoulder with a swear. 

“We need to answer that.” Your chest was heaving as you spoke, going against every want in your body.

“I know,” he said as he pulled back, leaning in to give you another kiss. “Once all of this is taken care of, I’m locking you in our bedroom for a week. I don’t care if the building burns down.”

You laughed against his lips before you moved off of his lap.

“I’ll hold you to that Russo.”

Billy moved over to where he had left his phone. When he answered it, you could tell immediately that it was David by the volume on the other end of the call. And by Billy’s face, it was welcome news.

------

There was a lot of blood to be cleaned up. You had shooed Billy and Frank out of the way once you got them both stripped down to their underwear. Most of their clothes would have to be burned, but neither of them seemed to care.

Your clothes weren’t as covered, but even you had blood on you.

Rawlins had been located. All of you had headed out to hunt him down, just in case the creator was nearby. It became clear early on that the creator had abandoned Rawlins. There was a meta on the grounds, but they were easily dispatched.

Anna had been a little too eager to unleash her power.

After that, it wasn’t that hard. The men that Rawlins kept on retainer were no match for Billy and Frank as they moved in silence around the house he had holed up in. Once all of them were down, it wasn’t much to get inside the house.

You fried the electrical grid so that the power went off. Frank and Billy had night vision goggles and the rest of you were supposed to stay out of it. Rawlins was theirs to kill.

The only time you interrupted was when it looked like Rawlins might escape. You shot a bolt of pure electricity straight at him, let it rocket him off his feet. He slammed into the wall nearby, a charred spot on the floor and most likely no feeling in his feet. It didn’t matter; the guys were on him in an instant.

You had to look away, unable to stomach the violence they committed. He deserved every moment of it and you didn’t regret your part in the least, but it wasn’t something you wanted to watch.

All of you went back to the rundown house to regroup. David and Clive were discussing strategy, Anna was nearby listening but not participating. Gregory had gone into the kitchen and hadn’t come out yet.

Billy and Frank went into a different room to change clothes. You gathered the bloody clothes into a pile so that they could be moved into a trash bag. 

Rawlins was gone. He was gone and they were free.

What did this mean for you? For the creator? Frank’s reason for going after the creator had just died very violently.

“Here,” Billy said as he came into the bathroom. He held a trash bag in his hands, dressed in some sweats he must have borrowed from Frank.

You loaded the clothes into the bag. As you dropped your jacket into the bag, the only part of your clothes that was stained, Billy gripped your wrist.

“What’s wrong?”

You let out a wet laugh and leaned back on the counter, eyes clenched shut. You weren’t sure where to begin.

“What happens now? The creator wasn’t with him. Does that mean we’re on our own now?”

“Hell no,” a voice called from the doorway. Frank stepped in, shaking his head as he looked between the two of you. “I couldn’t protect my wife and kids but I’m sure as hell gonna protect the rest of my family. We’re not done until that man is turned to ash.”

Unable to hold it in, you flung yourself at Frank for a hug. The moment you wrapped your arms around him, you remembered your power, but it didn’t seem to matter. Frank hugged you back, not bothered in the least by the sparks your body was letting off.

Billy clapped his hand on Frank’s shoulder and then on yours. The three of you stood like that until David called from the living room, “Get a room you three. Some of us are trying to work out here.”

And for the first time in what felt like years, you found yourself laughing without a care in the world.

------

Hunting down the creator was proving to be a sticky situation. It was easier to catch some of the newly made metas. Most of them were taught by Clive on how to block the creator from being able to find them and were let go. 

A few of them had to be neutralized. You hated it, but you knew the type. Some of them were so grateful to still be alive that they were loyal beyond belief. 

Once upon a time you were thought to be one of those loyal people. You were only loyal enough to survive.

You were in Billy's apartment by yourself, late night television playing silently while you folded clothes. He was at Anvil for a job that required the head of the company. It did good to keep up appearances, he told you. Plus he had contacts who might be of some help. 

There was a lovely domestic air about it all. Billy at work, you doing house work, it was all quaint and nice. You could pretend in moments like these that you were normal, a normal couple. No one hunting you and no one you were on the hunt for. Moments like these, you were just an engaged couple going about your life.

And then there was a knock on the door.

You called your power up, just in case, and slowly moved to the door. Through the peephole you were surprised to see Clive. Carefully you opened the door enough to let him in.

"Did something happen?"

He shook his head as he looked around a bit. Then he gestured for you to follow him away from the door.

"No, I just needed to talk to you about something. Figured I should do it one on one instead of in front of everyone."

That didn't sound good. The two of you sat down at the kitchen table. He seemed nervous, his eyes darting around a bit. It made you anxious as well. 

"What's going on?"

A list of possibilities went through your head at warp speed, but none of them were close to what he said next.

"I was wondering if everyone knows that Billy is a meta or if that's a secret."

You were blown away. Of course you first wanted to say that he was wrong, Billy wasn't a meta, but Clive couldn't be wrong. Not about this. 

"He's… I mean, I didn't know that he was."

Had he lied to you all this time? Was it possible that he didn't even know?

"It's not like how it is with most metas. I can feel you even when I'm in a different state. Same with Gregory or Anna or the creator. But with Billy, I only feel him sometimes. And when I'm in the room with him, he usually doesn't feel like a meta. It's weird, but it has to mean something."

You pressed your hand to your mouth as you thought about it. Billy was a meta? 

You needed to talk to Billy. Immediately. 

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Just breathe.

Molly was trying. Taking deep lungfuls of air in through her nose until it felt like her lungs were about to burst, letting it out slowly until they burned with the need to refill. She repeated it again, and again, focusing on how many seconds it took to fill her lungs, how long she could hold the air for, and how long it took to empty them again. Better that than focus on the nerves that made her feel like she was about to empty her already empty stomach all over the front row of Clive’s family, and made her shiver even though she could feel a clammy sweat on her brow.

The days up until that point had gone painfully slow. Molly hadn’t seen anyone apart from her housemates since Niall had left the flat, and she hadn’t really spoken to anyone other than that either. She hadn’t bothered with her last lecture of the week, choosing to email for the notes, focus on going over the words she’d written for Clive as many times as she could, trying to steel herself against the lump that tended to form in her throat at about the halfway point. It didn’t seem to matter how times she read it, in her head, or out loud, she just couldn’t get through it, even with the deep breaths, the few seconds to steady herself. She just simply found it a little too much, and she began to wonder if she’d done the right thing by choosing to write something far more personal than a bullet point beginning to end description of Clive’s life.

There was no time to change it though, so she was sat in the chapel, next to Jimmy, behind Louis and his brother, trying to mentally prepare herself as best she could, while someone else read a poem chosen by Clive’s brother. It was the first time Molly had seen Louis since they’d sat in the cafe together, and he’d tried to kiss her. They hadn’t had a chance to speak, but they’d offered each other a friendly supportive smile, Louis’ bright blue eyes shining and red raw. It didn’t matter what had happened, it was nothing, Molly wasn’t going to make something out of it, and she doubted Louis would either. They both had far more on their minds than a stupid kiss that had only even happened thanks to how exhausted they felt.

Jimmy’s hand was wrapped tightly around Molly’s, it had been all morning, he hadn’t let go of her once, and Molly knew the only time he would do is when she got to her feet and made her way to the lectern. Her heart was hammering in her ears as the reader left the small stage-esque area and the service leader moved back to the microphone. Molly knew what came next, and it seemed Jimmy did too, squeezing her hand a little tighter. That morning he’d offered to stand up there with her, if she wanted him to he would, and Molly didn’t doubt that, but she said she’d be fine, and she’d do it on her own. Clive had asked for her, and she’d do him as proud as she possibly could.

“Molly Thomson will now read the eulogy,” The middle aged woman announced, and Molly saw a few people look around to one another, wondering who on earth Molly Thomson was and why she was reading the eulogy when so many friends and family were around. The people in the front row just turned to Molly and offered a smile though as she got to her feet and she offered something weak, that almost resembled a smile back at them.

The walk to the lectern was nerve wracking and Molly felt overly conscious of every step she took, aware of every single pair of eyes on her and the few whispers she was sure she heard. When she turned she lifted her eyes for a second, but quickly dropped them to the piece of paper her trembling fingers were struggling to unfold. Finally she got it open, and laid it on the lectern, glancing over it before lifting her eyes and puffing out a shaky breath.

“I haven’t managed to get through reading this yet without choking, so bare with me,” Molly started, lifting one corner of her mouth. Her eyes scanned the room, it was packed to the back, people standing to be there and pay their respects. Nothing prepared her for the amount of people, or how quickly her eyes would find Harry, stood amongst the crowd and staring back at her. Her stomach flipped, and she sucked her cheeks in, Harry nodding at her, somehow, though Molly couldn’t even begin to wonder how, made her feel a little stronger. Her eyes lowered to the paper and after one more deep breath she began: “I met Clive at the end of my first year of uni, it was chucking it down and I was freaking out about my finals, I didn’t know Clive from Adam, but I stepped foot in the cafe, he made me a pot of tea, warmed me up a cheese scone, and made me feel more at home quicker than I think anyone ever has, and it was never any different.”

It was as hard as Molly had imagined, to get through the whole speech without her voice cracking or eyes filling, and there was more than once that she had to stop for a few seconds. Somehow though, she always found herself looking to Harry, at the back of the room, hair tied back neatly, eyes fixed solely on Molly, giving her the support she needed. It looked like he wanted to step forward when she sobbed and cleared her throat and looked to him again, two sentences from the end. He looked restless and Molly could tell he was holding a breath, trying not to cry with her. Molly swallowed and glanced at the paper before back at Harry, speaking to him, as if he was the only person in the room, as if it were only him and Clive that could hear her words.

“One thing Clive always told me was to just do whatever made me happy, regardless of whether I thought I was letting people I loved down or not, just do whatever made me happy,” Molly spoke, her voice a little muffled thanks to the tears that had spilled from her eyes and made her lips wet. “I think I’ll always wonder what he’d say at times when I’m struggling to make sense of things, but I guess he’d just say ‘whatever makes you happy little lady’, and I suppose that’s the only advice I’ll ever really need, so no he won’t be there in those big moments when I wish he would be, but I’ll always have that, and I’ll always know as long as I’m happy with what I’m doing, I’m at least making him proud,” Molly finished quietly, a soft smile on her face as she did so. She hadn’t gotten to the end since she’d written it, but she felt strangely calm as she stared at the words on the crumpled paper, before lifting her eyes again, a few gentle claps only of support rather than congratulation, ringing around the room as Molly left the lectern, and caught Harry’s eyes one last time, smiling proudly over at her, before she took her seat back next to Jimmy.

“Well done, that was so good, he’s proud of you,” Jimmy whispered, taking her hand once more and squeezing it, just as Louis turned around to squeeze her knee and offer her a smile with a few lingering tears in their eyes.

Everything felt calmer once it was done, but not just because it was done. It still felt raw and painful to admit to, but Molly thought she could feel one more stitch pulling the hole inside her together, so it started to feel more closed and easier to deal with. A lot of things had come along at once to shake her upside down, and perhaps it had been saying the words out loud that made it feel like a proper goodbye, that made it feel like what Molly guessed was closure, and she started to right herself again. It made acknowledging the way Harry had made her feel when they caught eyes a little easier to open up to and accept; how he made her feel safe and secure despite the nerves and anxiety inside her. A day earlier she’d have hated that he could still make her feel like that, now it just settled her, it felt ok to be ok with the fact that in spite of all he’d done, she still cared, and she still wanted him there. It wasn’t that she wanted or expected everything to go back to how it had been before, but she could feel a shift in the water, so that she actually, almost wanted, to hear what he had to say for himself, so at least she knew what she was forgiving if she chose to forgive him for making her feel so betrayed.

The wake was a busy affair, people continually making their way over to Molly to tell her how lovely her speech was. Of course she smiled and thanked them and engaged in conversation, but she was exhausted. After a few hours Molly turned to Jimmy, who still hadn’t left her side, and told him she wanted to go, get some fresh air and have a couple of hours to herself. Jimmy understood, as did Louis who hugged her tightly when she told him she was leaving, thanked her once more and told her he’d see her soon. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement that they wouldn’t mention what had happened last time they’d been together, and Molly was more than happy with that, it was a stupid mistake and nothing more.

It was a warm day, in her black dress and tights Molly was feeling it, especially as she sat window side on the bus, the sun streaming through the glass and hitting her face. Jimmy sat the other side of her, his arm pressed up against hers, thumb resting over the red button ready to press it for the stop closest to home.

“You sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” Jimmy asked again, eyebrows lifting a little. Molly nodded and smiled. It was about the fifth time Jimmy had checked, and she knew it came from a place of care, she wouldn’t have wanted to leave him alone really if the roles had been reversed, but Molly really did want to be alone for a little while. She’d said goodbye to Clive, and she wanted to just sit in peace with her head before the evening rolled in.

“I’m fine Jim, honestly, thank you, go home and relax, I won’t be long.” Jimmy nodded and sighed, leaning forward a little and kissing Molly’s temple before getting to his feet. The bus drew to a stop and Jimmy looked over his shoulder once more before stepping off. Once it was moving again, Molly sunk back in the chair a little, shoulders resting against the stiff back of it, and staring out of the window. She was going out of town, she’d be on the bus a little while, and she tried to get comfortable with it.

Of course there was nothing comfortable about the seats that had appeared to not have been refurbished since the seventies. There was a lingering smell of stale tobacco and it made Molly’s tummy turn a little. It had been a long time since she’d smoked a cigarette, realising she didn’t actually enjoy it, and with little to zero idea why she’d picked up the habit in the first place. Now she found the smell of smoke threaded into fabric made her feel queasy. It was a strange turn of events, considering most of her clothes had at one point smelled just that way, after a night out and before they made it to the washing machine the next day. She’d hardly even noticed she’d stopped her social smoking habit, so much had changed in the last month or so, and it seemed trivial to all the other things that had gone by.

She’d changed, in herself, and she hadn’t even noticed herself doing it. Though there was a time, and she knew it as much as anyone else, that she might not have been able to hold her own with Harry the way she had done. She might have crumbled and cracked and let him straight back in. This way was better, she’d built herself back up, by herself, and she felt stronger and far more prepared for whatever Harry could throw at her.

Harry hadn’t been at the wake, but since she’d caught Harry’s eye at the back of the room during Clive’s funeral service, she’d thought about him a lot, a little more than she’d have liked considering the day it was, but she’d resolved in her mind that she was going to see him again, talk to him again, and get the explanation she not only wanted, but deserved. She deserved to know why, and how, and exactly what the truth of the situation was, because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make sense of the unravelling of it. What the broken down lie left behind was a mess, that made nothing clearer.

But today wasn’t that day. Today she was going to sit on the bench at the top of the trundle, and look down at the racecourse. There wouldn’t be any horses running, the season hadn’t quite started, still a week away from opening Saturday. But still, Molly would imagine, think about Clive, and how happy he’d have been to climb that hill again and watch the horses running, checking them out in the Racing Post, checking his betting slips that he’d put on that morning. Molly didn’t understand it really, at least not the betting part, all the horses looked the same to her, read the same to her, but Clive seemed to know each one, how each would run and if they’d stumble, how and why. It was a gift, Clive had told her, but Molly knew it came from years of reading and watching and learning.

It was late afternoon when the bus finally stopped at the Trundle stop, and Molly hopped off with a quick thanks to the driver, before heading for the steps up the hill. They were steeper than Molly had imagined. She’d never been there before, but Clive had talked about it so much she felt like she could have been sometimes. It was quiet, there didn’t seem to be anyone else around, for miles, and if it hadn’t been so peaceful, a soft breeze brushing through the grass, it might have set Molly on edge. As it was she found herself, smiling softly to herself, and looking up to the sky, and around, calmed by it.

There was a bench at the top of the hill, just as Clive had said. From it, Molly could see straight down to the empty racecourse. The grass of it was bright green and it looked freshly cut, prepared for the following Saturday, first race of the season, the one that was advertised on a big banner tied to the fence at the bottom of the hill where the car park was. The stands were empty, covered by tight white shiny sheets that would keep the rain and wind out on a bad day. It looked quite glamorous, though Molly wouldn’t know, she’d never been to the racing in her life. She’d never really taken an interest in it until Clive, but there she was, looking down at the course, wishing he was there to tell her about it. Or just wishing he was there really.

“What am I doing Clive?” Molly sighed, throwing her head back and looking up to the bright blue sky. She had her sunglasses on, blacking out her eyes, but still the sun made her eyes sting and water, forcing her to close them and drop her head, but she could still see the white spots on the inside of her eyelids, and they blurred her vision when she blinked them back open. It felt disgustingly poetic though, that through the haze and the blur, and the black spots in her sight, she could see Harry walking towards her. She stilled herself, breathing halting, her stomach knotting taught and her jaw biting together until it hurt. Even with the resolution in her head firm, he made her feel off kilter.

Molly swallowed as Harry got closer, and she could see he had his lips pinched together nervously, though his eyes didn’t give that away. They were firmly on Molly, just as they had been during the service. Even though she’d decided that day wasn’t the day she wanted to talk to Harry, there was something in her that was glad he was there. It felt like a day of tying things up, and she supposed things with Harry may as well be included in that. Not to mention she couldn’t help but feel like Clive was trying to tell her something, having him turn up there even though she hadn’t told anyone where she was going. Not even Jimmy.

“Hi,” Harry breathed, standing away from Molly a little his hands delving into his pockets. The jacket he was wearing earlier was gone, his shirt rolled up over his arms a little and not quite as neatly tucked into his trousers. His skin was browner than it had been, and Molly guessed he’d been out in the sun, probably working. He looked tired though, dark circles under his eyes, and his skin seeming dull and worn. “You did really good earlier, he’d have been proud of you, I’m proud of you,” Harry told her, and Molly felt something shiver over her before she spoke.

“Why are you here?” She asked quietly, lifting her head to look up at him through her sunglasses. She saw his throat twitch as he swallowed, the muscle tightening before it relaxed again and he spoke.

“Need to talk to you, can’t take this anymore,” He admitted without apology. “Seeing you up there today, I’ve got to make this right, I need you to-”

“How did you know I’d be here?” Molly asked before he could continue.

“Went to yours, Jim said you’d gone off on your own, wanted some time to yourself, something told you me you’d be here,” Harry explained, and Molly nodded silently, glancing to the sky again and silently telling Clive to keep out. Of course she knew no one was meddling, Harry was just proving, once more, that he knew better than she knew herself, or at least as well. Though she liked to blame it on Clive, reassurance coming from the idea he was still watching over, keeping an eye, not to mention it would make it far easier to walk away when it was all said and done if she had to, without knowing Harry knew her better than anyone else whose arms she could ever walk into. “Can I try and explain myself?” Harry asked, and Molly couldn’t help but smile a little as she bit back a chuckle, try was definitely the right word. “What?” Harry asked, moving to sit next to her, a similar smile on his face, though Molly was surely about to wipe it off.

“Try, whether you will or not...” Molly shrugged then, turning to look at him a little, shuffling up the bench away from him so she didn’t have to strain her neck so much. Harry just nodded, supposing that was fair.

“I’m sorry-”

“No, I don’t want an apology, nothing you say is going to fix what you did, I just want an explanation,” Molly told him. She could feel she was beginning to tremble, but she refused to to let it show in her voice, trying to hold onto that strength she’d found nearly a week ago and seemed to come back just as strong then.

“I was just scared, I didn’t kn-”

“No Harry,” Molly cut in, and sighed, rolling her lips together, and lifting her sunglasses onto her head so she could look back in his eyes and he could see her. There was something about his right eye that looked a little off. Maybe a little swollen, a little red, shadow of an old injury, or perhaps a fresh one. Molly chose not to think too much about it yet. “Not an explanation of why you did it, just this whole situation, because no matter how many times I go over it, I can’t make any sense out of it,” Molly told him, and Harry nodded seeming to understand.

“Ok,” Harry sighed, still nodding before he started taking a deep breath. Molly felt like it wasn’t going to be quick, Harry was going to give her everything no matter how long that took. It was a long time coming, and Molly couldn’t be sure if she was ready, mainly because she didn’t know what to expect, but she readied herself for anything, as best she could. “I met Shane at the fight club, we got on, and he introduced me to some of his other friends, he’d just started playing rugby and he was fighting less, he’d met Joe and it was the team Niall played for as well so it worked out well,” Harry started, his brow creasing as he tried to remember everything. “I met Ellie and we hit it off, but it was just friends with benefits, we’d have never worked together, and we didn’t want to, only when she got pregnant she wanted to try, and I freaked out and wanted anything but,” Harry told Molly, eyes lifting from his hands where they’d dropped, back to her. “I never even wanted kids, ever,” Harry sighed.

“Is that meant to explain why you didn’t tell me about Lola?” Molly asked cautiously.

“No, I just, the idea terrifies me, raising a child, I never wanted to do it, cause I know I couldn’t,” Harry explained, and Molly shook her head.

“Harry,” She sighed, ready to tell him otherwise, but he didn’t allow her, jumping back in before she could even try.

“No, I couldn’t Molly, I’d be constantly overthinking every little thing, worrying about everything, I have no idea how Ellie and Shane do it full time, I might make it look easy with Lola, but inside I am constantly questioning myself,” Harry told Molly, honestly. “It terrifies me, I love her, I adore her, but it terrifies me, I don’t want her to end up like me,” Harry told Molly who just nodded, not even tempted to tell him otherwise, no matter what it was she thinking to herself. “Being a father to Lola, for Ellie, was just two more people to let down, to hurt, and the last people I wanted to hurt was the mother of my child and my child, so in my head, it made sense to tell her I didn’t want anything to do with it,” Harry told Molly quietly, clearly ashamed, clearly full of regret. “I didn’t see Ellie for months, or Shane, he left the club, and I stayed, went harder even,” Harry continued, but Molly had already worked out as much, joining up the dots from things he’d told her previously, realising how it all slotted together. “Shane and Ellie got together, and Shane found out it was me that had got Ellie pregnant, somehow, Lord knows how, I can’t remember, and that’s the truth,” Harry added, just to be sure Molly knew he wasn’t keeping something from her, he just genuinely couldn’t remember how exactly Shane had managed to get in his head. Molly just nodded silently before Harry continued. “He convinced me to at least try, that child could be what saved my life if I let it, so I decided to try and let it.” Molly was lost in him and his words, how honest he was being, she could tell, and she trusted her instincts that it was the truth.

Something was telling her the man sat before her wasn’t a liar, wasn’t going to let her down, wanted her to know, wanted to be vulnerable and for her to know the truth of him. It only highlighted how much she’d ignored her instincts before, she’d never felt so sure Harry was being completely honest with her apart from when he’d told her about his sister. Really she should have spotted it then, but other things had gotten in the way.

“Obviously Ellie wasn’t having any of it at first, I had to prove myself to her, it took time, and it was hard to walk away at first, I went back once or twice, stupidly, it’s hard to be honest about what hurts and the mistakes you’ve made when you’ve spent so long keeping them to yourself and dealing with them the worst possible way,” Harry explained as best he could, and Molly thought she understood. “Eventually Ellie let me see Lola, just a couple of hours at first, with her and Shane there, but Lola was nearly one by that point, and it was complicated, all three of us had complicated upbringings and it did nothing for any of us, so,” Harry cleared his throat then and dropped his eyes, gripping his knees so tight his knuckles, still bruised and scabbing, turned white.

Without really thinking at all, Molly reached out for his hand and took it, squeezing it, letting her fingers fall between his. No matter what had gone before, it hurt to see him like that, so broken, clearly still so full of regret and pain. It was in moments like that, that Molly realised how much of a front Harry often put up. He’d always appeared like a strong, outgoing young man who wasn’t scared of anything. The more Molly got to know Harry, the more she realised he was scared of a lot of things, and maybe acting so brave all the time helped him deal with it, rather than face it. She wondered if he was the same behind closed doors, or if, when he was alone, he sunk back into the broken, child like state she felt almost honoured to be let into. She doubted there were many who had seen him like that, as he refused to let down his walls for anyone to get past.

“It’s funny,” Harry sniffed, clearly staring at their locked together hands, the way their fingers weaved together neatly. Molly could see the pools filling in his eyes though, a drop creeping over his lashes and down his cheeks. “Katie always says I ruined her sisters life, getting her pregnant.” Molly chose to ignore that, that was the first time anyone had said anything about Katie and Ellie being sisters, realising it obviously wasn’t the time to focus on that. “But Ellie has got a little girl that calls her mummy, the man of her dreams, a nice house, with my daughter, that I will never hear call me daddy, that I will never get to call mine, who will never know she’s my daughter, because of all the mistakes I made, the only persons life I ruined was mine, thank god,” Harry laughed, and Molly shook her head.

“Harry, don’t say that,” Molly breathed squeezing his hand again.

“Well it’s true isn’t it,” Harry started with a shrug, glancing to Molly, eyes filled and a tear creeping out of the corner of one, but getting stuck in his lashes. “I fucked up, missed the beginning of my daughters life because of it, and to make it easy for her, which is what I wanted don’t get me wrong, I don’t want her ending up anything like me because of a messy upbringing, because of me, I gave up being her father, so my best mate could do it, and I could just be Uncle Harry,” Harry explained, and Molly just sighed. It was blatantly clear how much that hurt Harry. Maybe he had decided he never wanted children, but he probably thought because of that decision he’d never be faced with the option. But he had, and he’d given up the option, despite how clear it was that wasn’t what he truly wanted to do. To anyone on the outside looking it, it might have looked like a selfish choice to walk away, and Molly could understand why Ellie had been so cautious, but it was very obvious to Molly, as Harry spoke, and she expected it was clear to Ellie now too, that what Harry had done was, at least in his mind, was entirely selfless.

“If anyone had ever told me the choices I’d make would lead to that, and lead to me losing you, I would never have made them.” Molly swallowed on nothing. It didn’t feel like it was really about her anymore, or what had happened to them, it was far greater than that, and Molly had almost entirely forgotten about why she found herself sat as far from Harry as she could with her hand wound over his,  resting on his knee.  “Lolly, I’m so sorry I lied, I don’t know why I lied, I just had to tell you something, and it’s complicated and messy and I panicked and I’m so, so sorry.” Harry was begging her to see, pleading with her, twisting their hands so he had hers, wrapped up in the middle of both of his and squeezing it gently between them.

“You dragged so many people into this,” Molly reminded him regretfully. It was one part that stung the most, it felt worse, more purposeful, because he’d asked so many people to lie for him, with him, just to keep Molly from the truth.

“I know, and all of them hate me for it, Shane hasn’t spoken to me since Saturday,” Harry told her, a tinge of regret in his voice and a lot of sadness. “I’ve really fucked up, I know, I’m so sorry, all I want is to make this right with you, that’s all I care about,” Harry admitted without hesitation, one of his hands dropping from around Molly’s and moving to her face to ensure her eyes were caught in his as he told her as much. “I promise you there is nothing else, this is all of me, I’m not hiding anything else,” Harry vowed, and Molly believed him, but still she could feel her heart beating wildly in her chest. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, she did, but there was a niggling question at the back of her mind that she wanted to ask, but didn’t want the answer to.

“Have you been back to the fight club?” Molly asked quietly. Harry just nodded, and Molly felt herself sink, eyes filling quickly as her lips rolled together, staring back at him as he pulled his bottom lip under his teeth and began to chew on it, paling the flesh to a much lighter pink that the normal cranberry colour. “Explains your eye then,” Molly sighed, pouting a little, but Harry said nothing. “How can I trust you when you keep breaking promises?” Molly asked, her voice barely a whisper as she choked back the tears she could feel in her throat stinging. “I can’t keep looking the other way,” Molly sighed, a little frustrated as she let her limp hand slide from inside Harry’s. Disappointment felt like the right word, or just let down, again. Molly supposed if nothing else at least she could rely on him for that much, it seemed.

“I don’t want you to, I want you to look this way, at me, I want you to see me, I want to let you see me,” Harry told her quietly, clearly a little afraid of what it was he was admitting, afraid of being that vulnerable for someone, that open, and honestly breakable. “I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve been back, it’s good for me to blow off steam, I’m not saying it’s right, I’m not saying I want to do it again, but you asked me if I’ve been and I have,” Harry told her, and Molly nodded as she sighed. She couldn’t pretend she was happy, but at least he hadn’t lied, she supposed, she asked for the truth and she got it.

“Are you going back again?” She asked, heart thumping inside her chest, making her ribs shake, praying, silently, for the answer to be what she wanted it to be.

“No, I’ve signed up to a proper boxing club, nothing shady, fully legal, I don’t have to fight anyone, just go down there and throw some punches at some bags when I’m feeling like I need to get something out,” Harry told her, and there was a light in his eye, almost an excitement, for the boxing or for the possibility that he was finally, properly, sorting things out, and opening up to himself. He was someone who got angry. He was someone who had to blow off steam. He hated it, and before it had led him down darker paths, but he was starting to realise he didn’t need to. Starting to be honest about himself, with himself.

“How am I meant to ever believe anything you say after this?” Molly asked him seriously. Yes, she trusted him, she didn’t know why and she knew she shouldn’t, experience told her she shouldn’t, but she did. Maybe it was a weakness, maybe she trusted him because the other option looked like it would hurt to much, or maybe she trusted him because everything inside her was telling her she could, despite it all, and it wouldn’t hurt, and it wouldn’t matter.

“Let me prove it to you,” Harry bargained, taking her hand again, a little tighter, not painfully so, but so it wouldn’t slip away again at least. “I’m not gonna let you down, ever again, I’m not gonna hurt you,” Harry continued to promise. His voice was calm, levelled, reassuring. It held more than just his words. “I know that sometimes, the best thing to do is move on, let someone go, sometimes that is the right thing to do for everyone, but this isn’t one of those times, it’s not the best or right thing to do, I can’t let you go, I will fall apart, I know I’m meant to be with you, and I can finally admit I want you to be with me, I want you to l- I want you to feel the way I do too,” Harry sighed, choking on a few words, stumbling over a few lines, but getting there forging through despite his defensive lines trying to creep up and hold the fort.

“Everything is telling me to walk away,” Molly whispered, and she felt Harry go tense, rigid, preparing for the blow. “But I don’t want to.” With that he softened.

“Don’t then, give me another chance, I won’t fuck it up,” Harry promised again, and Molly nodded, licking her lips as she contemplated. “I will do anything for you, I will do anything to prove myself to you.” Again Molly nodded, still thinking it over, every word he said running around in her head, even the ones that seemed like filler to what he was trying to get across.

“No more lies, because I don’t want to do this again when something else crawls out of the woodwork.” Molly told him, sternly, there was no room left for compromise, there was nothing left in her for another chance.

“There is nothing else,” Harry assured. All Molly wanted to do was forgive him one hundred percent, wrap her arms around him and be swaddled in his. As always, Harry looked warm and welcoming and comforting, despite the strong look on his face, his wide eyes, set tight jaw as he stared back at Molly. There was one more thing she wanted, needed to say. If they were doing this again, she knew it had to work both ways, she had to be open and honest, and she needed to see his reaction, before she could give in completely.

“There’s something I need to tell you too,” She started, her voice almost monotonous as she tried to quell the shudder in it. Harry nodded, waiting patiently for her to say it. “The other day, I was in the cafe with Louis, and he kissed me,” Molly admitted, suddenly swallowing on nothing as the same guilt she’d felt a few days before hand rushed back, and raised it’s sickening head in her stomach. Molly watched Harry intently, the way he lifted himself as he took a deep breath and nodded slowly. Neither of them said anything, Molly didn’t need to say anything else, that was all there was to it. Again Harry just nodded. “You gonna say anything?” Molly asked quietly, nervous. She watched as Harry began to chew the inside of his mouth.

“I’m not gonna pretend that doesn’t get under my skin a bit,” He admitted, “Obviously, I like you, I don’t want other people kissing you, but it was just a kiss, you were both going through a lot of stuff, as long as you’re not telling me you’re having second thoughts about us because of it-”

“No,” Molly chimed in quickly. “Actually it made me realise how much I do want to be with you in a weird sort of way,” Molly sighed, and Harry nodded then. “Don’t make a fool out of me again Harry,” She warned.

“Baby,” Harry breathed, and they both swallowed on nothing, eyes entangled in one anothers. It had been days since she’d heard his voice like that, or watched his lips form around that word, and it sunk over her like warm bath water. And Molly thought maybe Harry had missed saying it as much as she’d missed hearing it. “I promise you, I’m telling the truth, I don’t know what I can do to make you see, but I will keep saying it until I run out of time, that you know everything,” Harry told her, and Molly couldn’t help but smile shaking her head, sure she’d keep unfolding layers of Harry forever, but she knew what he meant and she appreciated it. “I know I’m not good, I know I’m not worthy of your-”

“What? Why would you say that?” Molly quizzed quickly, confused and lost. Harry looked at her, eyes falling, brow creasing. “Why would you not think you’re not worthy of anything?” Molly asked a little quieter, noticing how small Harry seemed suddenly, how much like a shunned child. “Is this cause of your mum?” Molly was careful with where she trod and gentle with her words, tilting her head to try and find Harry’s eyes but he wouldn’t let her. “Harry, tell me,” Molly almost begged, though she didn’t want to guilt trip him into it, she didn’t want to make him feel like she would walk away from him if he didn’t want to talk about something that so clearly hurt. This wasn’t lying about being a father. This was something that settled in far deeper.

“She just made me feel so worthless, like everything bad that ever happened was my fault, she made me feel stupid for crying, like I didn’t have the right, so I get angry instead a lot,” Harry explained. “I’m sorry,” He quickly added, looking up then, a tinge of sadness in the green.

“You have nothing to apologise for Harry, not for that anyway, you’re not worthless, you don’t need to beat yourself up so much,” Molly told him, swallowing on nothing. She didn’t quite know the right thing to say. “Harry there are so many people that value having you in their lives, you made a mistake and your friends are upset, they still love you, they still care about you, they’re still going to want you in their lives,” Molly tried to tell him, but Harry wasn’t having any of it, just shaking his head a little and licking his lips. “She might not call you daddy, but Lola loves you, Ellie could have decided not to let you into Lola’s life at all, but she did, because you’re a good person, because you’re strong, and kind, and compassionate, and clever, and thoughtful, and everything she wanted as a godfather for her child, everyone else can see it Harry, I promise you,” Molly told him, grabbing his hand as he did so.

“I just always hear her in my head, it’s my fault, I’m gonna fuck it up, I’m gonna ruin everything, again, she’s too good for you, you don’t deserve her-”

“Harry stop,” Molly called over him. His voice was getting frantic, breathless, and shaky, his grip on her hand was getting almost painfully tight, and when he realised what it was he was squeezing the life out of her, he dropped Molly’s hand sharply and tried to whisper a sorry. His lips moved but there was no sound. “You’re not what she said you are, you need to make peace with this, you need to find some way of getting closure,” Molly told him gently. It seemed like he was living up to what his mother had told him he was. She said he was a waste of space so he acted like a waste of space. She said he was weak for crying so he showed his strength the only way he knew how, by lashing out, not realising that in letting himself feel things, letting the emotions in and out again, he was being far stronger. “Open up Harry, you don’t need to close yourself off so much.”

“How am I meant to get closure when I don’t even know where she is?” Harry asked, shrugging a little and looking off into the distance.

“I don’t know,” Molly sighed, “Write it down, get it all out, stop bottling it up, it can’t hurt,” Molly suggested and she saw Harry contemplate it, but he didn’t say anything more on the subject. “You’ve got to stop letting her words get to you, because the more they get under your skin, the more you’re becoming what she told you, you were, and you’re not that person,” Molly told him, honestly, with a little force, trying not to leave any room for him to argue, even in his head.

“Maybe this is who I am,” Harry suggested quietly, but Molly just shook her head.

“No, it’s not, you’re a father, and you’re a good man, and you’re better than this and whoever has tricked you into thinking otherwise is an idiot,” Molly seethed. She was angry with a faceless shape of a human, she didn’t know who to direct it at, but it was anyone who had ever made Harry feel like he was less than he was, and it poured out of her. “Why are you scared to show me who you are?” Molly whispered, and Harry just stared at her thinking about it.

“Because it’s not very likeable, but that’s all I’ve got, so if you don’t like it…” Harry trailed off there, he didn’t need to say it, implying it was enough.

“Who says its not likeable?” Molly didn’t need an answer, and Harry didn’t give her one, just stared back at her. It was her, at least once upon a time it was, but now it was his own voice that told him he wasn’t likeable, or lovable. Molly supposed if someone told you something enough times, it became easy to believe. “I am sorry bad things happened to you, that someone made you feel like you’re not worth the air you breathe, I’m sorry that you think love is something to be scared of, that you hit the self destruct button rather than be true to who you really are, or let anyone in, I’m sorry I’m not enough to make you see how-”

“You’re enough Lolly, you’ve always been enough,” Harry quickly interjected, glancing to her out of the side of his eye, frowning a little. “S’why I need you so much,” He half laughed, letting Molly take his hand, but quickly slipping his out so he could wrap his arm around her middle and pull her close. Molly let him. It was the closest they’d been in a week and the warmth of Harry’s skin came as a bit of a shock, but she settled into it as she always had, taking a second to let her nose fill with the smell of him, that intoxicating woody scent that she didn’t realise she’d gotten so used to, or missed so much. It filtered through her and she felt her eyes flutter closed and her shoulders relax.

“Don’t make an idiot out of me again Harry,” Molly whispered, slowly opening her eyes again, and glancing up at Harry. The tears that were in her eyes weren’t necessarily ones that came from sadness or happiness, just from the overwhelming feeling of something inside her once she was close to him again.

“I won’t,” Harry swore, dipping his head to place a kiss on hers. “Look, let me take you home, I’ll go and sort out what I’ve got to sort out and then I’ll come over and we can just,” Harry seemed to think for a few seconds before settling on a word. “Be.” Molly nodded, the corners of her mouth lifted. “I won’t stay the night, I know I’ve got a lot to prove to you-”

“I’d like you to stay the night,” Molly interrupted. It whirred in her mind, cogs twisting, overthinking on the horizon. She looked like a mug, she looked ready to be walked all over, taken for a ride. That was what all the voices in here head were saying, and they sounded like her mum, her sister, Jimmy, Lauren, herself. But she ignored them. She wanted to be with Harry, she wanted to spend the night with Harry, so she would, because it was going to make her happy to have him beside her again, and she’d come to realise her own happiness was a choice, and down to her, no one else, and there and then, on that bench with Harry, she made a promise to make her own well being sacred, no matter what other people might say or think. It was her life, she knew what was good for her.

“Ok,” Harry breathed. And Molly thought about just being with him. It sounded just right, in fact it sounded perfect. She hadn’t just been for a little while, nothing had stopped to just be, her mind, her heart, life. It had all gone on at a million miles an hour, and left her a little breathless. Just being, with a man she valued so highly, who she knew had walked into her life to show her what was good for her, and to teach her to rate herself as highly as she rated others, and to let her fall deeply and madly in love with someone so much that it would feel like she’d always love him, and always would.

If you need me I’ll be in that hole fic writers hide in when they’re panicking their readers are gonna hate them.

BYEEEEEE

Have a good weekend though <3

#dive #TALK TO ME #ask box open #im scared #but i still want your thoughts #and your feelings #and your theories #thanks for your love so far #its amazing #and im a bit gobsmacked by it #but thank you #harry styles #harry styles fan fic #harry angst #harry fluff #1dff #hsfic

[wildphantasm]

So originally I planned to write a small summary regarding my thoughts about Clive Dove and the ongoing discourse but this turned longer than expected oops. Well, here I go anyway. Just some thoughts about Clive and fandom debates on whether a character is good or not in general. 

First of all, is Clive a good person?   That’s a question with no right answer honestly. Whether a character or a person is good or bad is entirely subjective and depends on the audience point of view, their personal experiences and their own moral standards. If you think Clive is a good person, good for you. If you think he’s not, good for you. But there’s no point in forcing your opinion or point of view onto somebody else because they have reasons for believing what they believe just as much as you have. 

Fandoms, and especially this god-forsaken website, has a tendency to put everything in black and white. But if you’re reading this, I’d encourage you to consider both sides, because people usually have good traits as much as they have flaws. The same goes for characters, because characters are based on people. 

However, whether a flaw can be forgiven or not is, as already mentioned above, entirely subjective. A character performs bad actions to keep the story going because no story can exist without a conflict. But depending on the circumstances of how everything plays out, some people will find forgiving certain characters and their actions easier than other people. Many, many different factors can play into that such as personal experiences, your own moral compass, personal attachment/attraction to the character and so on and so on. 

As such, a person might say “yeah that was bad, but I still like this character because they also did [good action according to their own personal standards]” While someone else might go “I liked them before, but then they did [bad action according to their own personal standards] and now I can’t forgive them” Or maybe they never liked that character at all. That’s completely fine too. Not all characters are meant to be liked and believe me when I say that even the most beloved character is hated by someone out there. Again, it’s all subjective. 

Now putting all of that aside, let’s talk about Clive, because I’ve been pretty general until this point. The elephant in the room is of course that Clive is a mob boss who used the power of his organization in order to trick a fuckton of people into thinking they were trapped in a future version of their hometown and built a death machine in order to level their actual hometown, actually managed to use said death machine and killed hundreds of innocent people in the process, justifying his actions by calling the government and scientists corrupt because they were responsible for the death of his parents and then covered it up, ruining Clive’s life in an instant. Wow. That’s a tough pill to swallow. 

I’m not gonna go over the entire plot of Lost Future again because I’m sure everyone reading this is familiar with it, but we’re talking about a revenge story that ended in mass genocide entirely moved by the grief of a single young man with lots of power and lots of cash to make it happen. Unlike whether or not Clive’s a good person, this is not up to debate. That’s what happened, period. 

Now while it’s undeniable that Clive was the person who executed this horrible but definitely impressive plan, people also like to argue whether or not he was responsible for all of this. And I can’t blame people for arguing about this, because even the game itself seems to be not entirely sure about this. Which brings us back to the black/white morality thinking that’s so deeply rooted in fandoms. 

At the end of Lost Future, Clive’s plan falls apart, but had Layton and co. not gone back to save him he would have most likely died in the explosion caused by his mobile fortress malfunctioning. He was saved, and soon after he was immediately arrested. We never get to see what happened to him after he’s been dragged away and whether or not he’ll get out of jail one day is entirely irrelevant and up for fanfiction authors to decide. We do however get one final confrontation between him and Professor Layton, in which he apologizes and says that he’s ready to make up for his crimes. 

It’s undeniable that Clive feels sorry about what he did and realized that his actions were wrong. Whether or not an apology makes up for all the points stated above is again, entirely subjective. The people Clive killed in the process of his revenge won’t return. It’s undeniable that he caused great harm to lots of innocent people and ironically enough made them suffer just as much as he did when his parents were caught in an explosion they had no connection to. Clive’s entire revenge plot becomes extremely hypocritical if put that way and it’s extremely unfortunate that he only sees the error of his ways when it’s already too late, considering the damage has already been done. 

However, there’s one part of the end that feels like putting oil into the fire of morality discussions and it’s when Claire says that Clive, too, was a victim. And absolutely, he was, because his parents were caught in an explosion and he became an orphan despite having no connection or impact on the time machine experiments that ultimately caused all of this. 

It’s a sentence that shifts the blame, at least partly, from Clive himself to the scientists that caused him pain and ultimately motivated him to form an overly complicated revenge plot. Now whether or not that means Clive is less guilty than he was before is entirely subjective too. 

Now it’s time for my two cents. In my personal opinion, and this is just me talking from my point of view, Clive is still guilty. He’s undeniably a mass murderer and while his motivation ultimately comes from a tragic accident he had no personal impact on, it was his choice to go through with his plan. Clive is obviously traumatized and perhaps to some extend delusional. But he made conscious choices over the course of many, many years in order to set all of this up. Tricked people, lied to them, planned and executed a plan as complex as this. A person who was entirely irrational couldn’t have done that. And nobody forced him to either. Nobody held power over him and forced him into doing all of this. It was all him and him alone. 

However, I don’t think that Clive is an entirely bad person, mostly because of his conversation with Hershel at the very end of Lost Future. It is very clear that Clive isn’t irredeemable. After his plan failed, he saw the error of his ways, apologized and promised to do better in the future. He can’t undo what’s already been done, but he’s willing to shoulder the responsibility and guilt and make up for what he’s done. And that’s believable, in my opinion, because if someone can understand the pain of the victims of Clive’s plan, then it’s Clive himself, considering he himself went through the exact same stuff many many years ago. 

What’s still in the air now is why Clive went through with all of this when he knew best how much harm it would cause. Well, we can’t say for sure, considering we never see Clive explaining it thoroughly, but I feel like it was a mix of many things, mostly desperation and selfishness. As much as Clive tries to disguise his plan as an act of justice and for the very best of humanity, his entire act boils down to how much pain was caused to him. Of course, he’s been working as a reporter and he also talks about how he’s sure other people have been harmed in the same way as he did. In that moment, he sounds genuine and reasonable. He’s fed up with politicians not caring about the pain of the smaller people, but we can’t say for sure whether he’d be the same way if he was never affected by it directly. 

Clive paints himself as a hero of justice. Since we can’t say for sure, there’s obviously a chance that Clive would have been fed up with the government even if his parents were still alive. But considering he was affected by it directly, I’d say that him reading and researching other people’s pain and misery served the purpose to further justify his actions.  As said, Clive falters in the end. Even says that “perhaps part of him was hoping that Layton would stop him”. That very sentence implies that he was uncertain the entire time, even if just on a subconscious level. So at least part of him thought he was wrong, but whenever he found someone new suffering the same way he did he was pulled back into the mindset that he’s doing what’s right. At least that’s how I could imagine how it went down. As said, there’s no real evidence, only implications here and there. 

Additionally, I don’t think that causing harm to innocent people was his number one reason to go through with everything. He says it himself multiple times, that he wants to take revenge on the politicians and scientists that ignore the pain of the smaller people. Then why the giant-scale mobile fortress to level an entire capital? Well, as petty as that sounds, it was most likely for attention.  As said, Clive had been a citizen for a while, worked as an ordinary reporter despite not needing the money. Which means that he had already worked within the boundaries of the laws and achieved nothing impactful at all. Clive hated the system and he hated the higher ups controlling it, because as he had seen over and over again, it was a system that had no space for the pain of the smaller people. So he did something on a much bigger scale, which would surely leave an impact for generations to come. Which would surely attract attention and get the message across. I feel like the fact that this plan was so elaborate and big says so much about Clive’s suffering and how much he wanted to be seen. Nobody could ignore a giant mobile fortress like that. And considering the fact that part of him wanted Hershel to stop him, it seems like a giant cry for help. 

Too bad though that this cry for help brought death and suffering to so many people. Despite the justifications Clive is giving, his plan was at least partly selfish and about his own pain, which is mostly apparent because he was literally willing to step over other innocent people in order to make it happen. What a fucker honestly. 

Now with all of this in mind, the fact that characters can be neither good nor bad, that people’s opinions and morality is subjective and that while Clive’s life was ruined in an accident, he still made conscious decisions that brought death and trauma to an entire city there’s one question left.

It’s whether Clive can and should be forgiven or not. 

And just like whether or not he’s a good person, that’s subjective. End of the story. I’ve laid out all facts and my own speculations based on facts and implications, but I’m not going to change your mind, nor am I planning to. 

Personally, I love Clive. He’s a fantastic villain and I love his character arc a lot. That’s all there is to that. But despite my love for the character himself, I don’t consider Clive to be an entirely good person. He did horrible things, he killed people, he’s selfish, and he can be a downright tricky, manipulative asshole. All traits I’d probably hate to see in a close friend, but since he’s a fictional character meant to play the part of the villain of his story, I think it works perfectly well.  Villains are meant to be problematic. As said, a story can’t exist without a conflict. We LOVE stories because of conflicts, because we want to see how they turn out. A good conflict can only be made possible by a driven villain. And not all villains are entirely bad either. Actually, some good characters may become villains because of a change of heart or because they’ve made a mistake. Conflict can happen in so many different ways, and the more relatable they are the better. 

And while on the topic, another thing that causes discourse in this fandom is that the general audience tends to forgive Clive, and won’t forgive other characters, to which I have to say yet again, it’s an entirely subjective manner. Some people will find it easier to relate to certain characters than others. Some people will find it easier to forgive certain characters than others. And as said, the reasons for that are as many as there are people out there. Some may consider some actions as unforgivable, or perhaps they’ve been hurt by certain actions more than others. All good. Nobody is wrong and trying to force your own moral code down other people’s throats won’t work out so save your breath and stick to the people who can relate to your opinion. 

Ok this was super long, longer than I anticipated but if you’ve read until this point thank you and I hope you have a wonderful day. Fandom discourse like this is stupid and everyone likes/dislikes characters for different reasons. Even if they are reasons you can’t understand and probably never will just accept that not everyone on the internet will agree with you because they had different experiences and have different opinions than you. End of story goodbye. 

#professor layton #clive dove #future luke #professor layton and the unwound future #middi.txt #middis analysis tag

[wellthengameover]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you guys know how i’m always screaming about maurice right? well i didn’t know thERE WAS AN UNPUBLISHED EPILOGUE !!!! featuring maurice’s sister kitty being um ALSO GAY??? (or possibly bi, she seems very fond of alec lolol) and finding out that maurice is gay???? 

Since Violet Tonks had married ... [Kitty] had lost her vigour, no longer attended concerts, lectures on hygiene &c, or cared for the improvement of the world...

Then she thought “[Maurice] is not alone there: he’s working under that other man”, and with a flash but without the slightest shock the truth was revealed to her. “... I should imagine they are practically in love.” 

“It must be much too cold up there alone,” said Kitty, whose idea of love, though correct, remained withered: for Maurice and Alec were at that moment neither lonely nor cold. 😍😍😍

‘Epilogue’ (1914) to Maurice, by E. M. Forster First published in 1999 by André Deutsch Ltd, London. Copyright 1999 The Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge -------------------- “The axe is laid unto the root of the trees…” This text, so well expressing her own state, rose unbidden into Kitty's mind. It had been induced by a distant sound of wood-cutting but she was unconscious of this. She was bicycling alone through a haggard country. All leaves had been stripped from the branches by an earlier gale, and now the wind boomed in monotonous triumph under a light brown sky. In such weather, the world seems emptied of good; warmth has gone, ice and snow, splendid in their own fashion, have not yet arrived. And Kitty had nothing to do, did not know where she was going, and did not care. She had left the high road because it wearied her, and turned into plantations; the track sloped, but into the wind, so that she still had to pedal, and over a worse surface. After an hour more she would get back to the inn where she was stopping, and eat her solitary tea. “The axe is laid … therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down … but no one wants to be barren”, she thought. “No one asks to be cross and sad, or five years older. Some of us might have brought forth fruit if we'd been nourished properly.” And sighing she cycled on, while the sound of the chopping grew more distinct. At twenty seven Kitty was as old as most women at forty; youth had found no resting place either in her body or mind. Since Violet Tonks had married – that rather than her brother’s disgrace had been the crisis –she had lost her vigour, no longer attended concerts, lectures on hygiene &c, or cared for the improvement of the world; but looked after her mother or helped the Chapmans wearily. Now and then she “struck”, as she termed it; must have a “real holiday alone”, as on the present occasion. But she never came home refreshed. She could not strike against her own personality. “Can I get out this way?”, she called to the woodman. He nodded, and replied in an independent voice “If you see my mate, Miss, will you ask him to bring up a saw he has, please”. “Yes, if I see him,” said Kitty, who felt that a liberty had been taken with her. But speech had interrupted her thoughts, and when the axe recommenced, it was as a human sound. Half a mile on, she saw the second man. He was piling logs at the side of a clearing. She called to him, and as he approached, she recognized her brother. He seemed a common labourer –not as trim as he who had accosted her.  His trousers were frayed, his shirt open at the throat: he began to button it with hard brown fingers when she cried “Maurice”. But beneath the exterior a new man throbbed – tougher, more centralised, in as good form as ever, but formed in a fresh mould, where muscles and sunburn proceed from an inward health. “What, you’re never still in England … disgraceful … abominable…” She spoke not what she felt, but what her training ordained, and as if he understood this he did not reply, nor look her in the face. He seemed to be waiting – like the woods – till her sterile reproofs were over. “We none of us miss you,” she continued. “We never even mention you. Arthur tells us not to even ask what you did. I shall not tell mother I’ve seen you for she’s had enough to bear. A man further up gave me a message to you about a saw, or I wouldn’t have spoken otherwise.” “Which saw?” These were the only words he uttered: his voice was rougher, but still low, and very charming. “I don't know and I don't care,” she said, flying into a rage. Maurice picked up two saws, listened to the noise the axe made, and moved away carrying the smaller. It was her last view of him. The road twisted out of the wind, and before she had recovered her temper she was coasting away far below. The evening grew more dreary, and sky tree hedges acquired a granulated appearance, as though rust were forming on them, and announcing the earth’s extinction. As the tea brought warmth to her mind, Kitty began recalling her brother’s disappearance. She had never thrashed it out. “Something too awful” had been hinted by her brother-in-law, who knew most, and had been in secret communication with Clive. Clive would make no pronouncement, and had refused point blank to see Mrs Hall and be questioned by her. The two families drifted apart – the more quickly because old Mrs Durham and Pippa spread a rumour that Maurice had speculated on the Stock Exchange. This annoyed the Halls, for the boy, like his father, had always been most careful, and Kitty was allowed to write one of her sharp letters; she remembered its wording very clearly now, in the solitude of this Yorkshire inn. But what was the “awful thing”? Why should a sane wealthy unspiritual young man drop overboard like a stone into the sea, and vanish? – drop without preparation or farewell? The night of the wonderful sunset he had not returned – to the vexation of Aunt Ida, now dead, who desired a motor-ride, and on the morrow he was not at the office, nor at a dinner appointment with Clive. Beyond that she knew nothing, for masculinity had intervened. It was a man’s business, Arthur had implied: women may weep but must not ask to understand, and he warned them against communicating with the Police. She had wept duly, and comforted poor mother, but emotion had now been dead there – many years, and Oh what was it? She longed to know. What force could have driven her brother into the wilderness? Then she thought “He's not alone there: he’s working under that other man”, and with a flash but without the slightest shock the truth was revealed to her. “He must be very fond of his mate, he must have given up us on his account, I should imagine they are practically in love.” It seemed a very odd situation to her, one which she had never heard of and had better not mention, but the varieties of development are endless: it did not seem a disgusting situation, nor one that society should have outlawed. Maurice looked happy and proud despite his cheap clothes and the cold. She remembered how his face had changed when she spoke of the saw: it was the only remark that had moved him: abuse, entreaties, sermons, were all powerless against his desire to work properly with his friend. “Which saw?” Nothing else mattered, and he had left her. Well, and she didn't mind. He could if he liked. She had never cared for him, and didn't now, but she did understand him, and could dwell on him at last without irritation. She saw why he had always repelled her, in spite of surface generosities, why she and her sister, and even her [            ]m, and lived in a state of war. What were their thoughts now? And as the evening drew on, and the carpet bulged up in the wind, Kitty's own thoughts grew less sociological. In particular, she began to think of the unknown friend as a human being, and to be interested in him. She felt that though commoner than her brother, he might be nicer to a woman, she liked his strong loose body and the softness of his brave eyes, and wanted to see him again. He was “the sort of person in whom all meet” – so with unconscious felicity she expressed Alec’s nature, and she found herself asking the landlady about the men who worked in the woods through which she had bicycled. Her question was vague, as was the landlady’s answer: there were so many woods, she implied, and so many men, and some came and others went. “It must be much too cold up there alone,” said Kitty, whose idea of love, though correct, remained withered: for Maurice and Alec were at that moment neither lonely nor cold. Their favourite time for talking had been reached. Couched in a shed near their work—to sleep rough had proved safer—they shared in whispered review the events of the day before falling asleep. Kitty was included, and they decided to leave their present job and find work in a new district, in case she told the Police, or returned. In the glow of manhood “There we shall be safe” they thought. They were never to be that. But they were together for the moment, they had stayed disintegration and combined daily work with love; and who can hope for more?

Maurice by E. M. Forster, The Abinger Edition (1999), edited by Philip Gardner, pp. 221–4

#maurice #forster

[thejoydaily-blog]

NOVEMBER 22, 2016 Made for Another World

Remembering C.S. Lewis

Article by David Mathis

Executive Editor, desiringGod.org

He went quietly. It was very British.

While the Americans rocked and reeled, and the world’s attention turned to Dallas and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, one Clive Staples Lewis breathed his last in Oxford just a week shy of his 65th birthday. Strangely enough, science-fictionist Aldous Huxley passed the same day, and in one calendar square, three of the twentieth-century’s most influential figures were gone.

It was November 22, 1963.

C.S. Lewis is known best for his series of seven short fiction books, “The Chronicles of Narnia,” which have sold over 100 million copies in 40 languages. With three of the stories already becoming major motion pictures, and the fourth in the making, Lewis is as popular today as he’s ever been. But even before he published Narnia in the early 1950s, he distinguished himself as a professor at Oxford and Cambridge, the world’s foremost expert in Medieval and Renaissance English literature, and one of the great lay thinkers and writers in two millennia of the Christian church.

Discovering Truth and Joy

Lewis was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1898. He became an atheist in his teens, and stridently such in his twenties, before slowly warming to theism in his early thirties, and finally being fully converted to Christianity at age 33. And he would prove to be for many, as he was for his friend Owen Barfield, the “most thoroughly converted man I have ever known.”

What catches the eye about Lewis’s star in the constellation of Christian thinkers and writers is his utter commitment to the life of the mind and the life of the heart. He both thinks and feels with the best. Lewis insisted that rigorous thought and deep affections were not at odds, but mutually supportive. And as impressive as he was in arguing for it, he was even more convincing in his demonstration.

What eventually led Lewis to theism, and finally to Christianity, was Longing— an ache for Joy with a capital J. He had learned all too well that relentless rationality could not adequately explain the depth and complexity of human life, or the textures and hues of the world in which we find ourselves. From early on, an angst gnawed at him which one day he would express so memorably in his most well-known single book, Mere Christianity: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

This World and the Other

Such is the heart of his genius, his spiritual genius. So few treat the world in all its detail and contour like he does, and yet so few tirelessly point us beyond this world, with all its concreteness and color and taste, with the aggression and ardor of C.S. Lewis.

And so for many his impact has been so personal. For me, it was a six-word sentence in Lewis — “we are far too easily pleased” — that popped the hood on a massive remodeling of my soul.

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Does Jesus really find our desires not too strong, but too weak? I had long professed Christianity, but this tasted so different than what I knew. It tasted good! This affirmation of happiness and pleasure and desire and delight was, to me, so new in the context of the Christian faith. And Lewis was the chef.

My notions about God and the Christian life were exposed as mere duty-driven, and my soul was thrilling at the possibility that Christianity might not mean muting my desires, but being encouraged (even commanded!) to turn them up — up to God.

Feel the Weight of Glory

As a layman, Lewis didn’t preach often, but occasionally had his chance at a pulpit. His most remembered sermon is one he preached under the title “The Weight of Glory.”

When he breathed his last and quietly slipped from this life more than fifty years ago now, he took one big step toward becoming the kind of glorious creature in the coming new creation he speaks about in that sermon.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously.

For a growing number of us, Lewis occupies a class to himself. Few, if any, have taught us so much about this world, and the next, save the Scriptures. If you’d like to take him seriously, and with the smile and warmth he requests, start with his Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man, “The Chronicles of Narnia,” or just about anything you can find with his name as author. His writings are pervasively thoughtful, engaging, provoking, and rewarding. He will not disappoint.

[tanmath3-blog]

I’m going to start this interview off a little differently by using an excerpt from his new book. Please welcome R. Patrick Gates to Roadie Notes…..

  One fine day in the middle of the night,

Two dead boys got up to fight.

Back to back they faced each other,

Drew their swords and shot each other.

A deaf policeman heard the noise,

And came and killed the two dead boys.…

The empty airwaves of the mind…

Welcome to TunnelVision – the premium channel streaming from the imagination of R. Patrick Gates to you!

What happens when you lose sight of the forest for the trees?

TunnelVision!

Wilbur Clayton has a personal connection with Jesus – Murder! Abused for most of his life, Wilbur and Jesus are out to make amends and take revenge. With Grandma in his head and Jesus on the TunnelVision, Wilbur knows what must be done and who must be made to pay for the sins of the father…

The only thing standing in his way are a cop with a gift for details and deduction, and a young genius whose reenactments of his favorite books are about to become all too real.

TunnelVision – streaming seven days a week, 24 hours a day!

On the air and in your nightmares!

      1. How old were you when you wrote your first story?

I was seven years old. Every Monday afternoon I had to go to catechism class after school. Leading up to Christmas that year, catechism had a story writing contest. The story had to be about Christmas and its true meaning. I wrote a story about a drug addict who’s addicted to LSD (shows how much I knew about drugs at seven years old) who takes acid and experiences the Nativity and sees God, basically. Afterwards, he finds out that the pusher who sold him the acid was really selling placebos – just sugar pills. I won first place, and the prize was, I think, my very own rosary.

2. How many books have you written?

At present count, I have written 10 adult horror novels (FEAR, GRIMM MEMORIALS, GRIMM REAPINGS, TUNNELVISION, DEATHWALKER,JUMPERS,THE PRISON, ‘VADERS, NOWHERETOHIDE, and SAVAGE), seven young adult horror/mystery novels, of which four (MYSTERY HILL, GUARDIANS, GHOSTLAND and CANDY STRIPES) have been published so far in the U.S.– all were originally published only in Germany and in the German language; the rest will be coming out this year and next in the U.S. In the works is a collection of my poetry and short stories (called DARK STREETS & FUNNY BONES) plus sequels to at least four of my novels. I’m also working on a very long fantasy novel, THE SECRET WAR, you know, the kind that appeals to children ages 8 to 80. I have also produced two children’s picture books. The first, ROLLERCOASTER WORLD, I wrote with my son when he was seven years old (he’s 27 now). We had gone to an amusement park and afterwards riding home he had mused aloud, “I wonder what it would be like if the whole world was made up of roller coasters.” It was just such a great idea I couldn’t forget it. We created the book and self-published it, and gave it as Christmas presents for several years to my son’s cousins. Then a couple of years ago, around Halloween, I was talking with my step-grandkids about how much they loved Halloween, and we came up with the idea of, HALLOWEEN WORLD, and created a book which we self-published and gave as gifts. We are now working on anotherWORLD book entitled, NINJA WORLD. All of my books, including the children’s picture books, are available as Kindle editions at Amazon. The original paperback editions of all my adult novels (except SAVAGE) are available from Amazon and most on-line bookstores, and everything else is exclusively on Amazon Kindle. Handmade editions of the children’s books are available, and can be ordered through my Facebook page by leaving me a post or a personal message at Facebook/R. Patrick Gates.

3. Is there anything you won’t write about?

No, I don’t think there is. I’ve written in just about every genre there is (I’ve been working on a romance novel for several years) and there is no subject that I would find taboo. Of course I would never glorify despicable behavior even while I try to make such a character sympathetic.

4.Tell me about you.

I have been a published author since 1989; and have been writing since I was a boy. Very early on I was labeled a ‘splatter-punk’ writer which is a style of horror generally credited to Clive Barker. I took great offense at that because I was writing what they called ‘splatter’ (graphic horror) long before Barker ever came along. If I’m not mistaken I was one the very first to push the limits of horror by injecting ultra-realistic gore, sex, and violence into my stories. Now, I am 62 years old. I was a middle school language arts teacher for 20 years, and a college Creative Writing Professor for 11 years. I presently work part-time as a Standardized Patient Examiner at UMASS Medical School, which entails teaching medical students how to communicate better with patients. I’m also a Bob Dylan tribute performer on guitar and harmonica. I’ve been in numerous musical groups since I was a teenager, and I’ve written close to one hundred songs that have never seen publication or recording, but hopefully that will change in the near future.

5. What’s your favorite book that you have written?

My favorite book is my most recent one, SAVAGE. It was the hardest book I ever wrote because it reflected a personal tragedy in my life, and was very cathartic for me. A very close second, however, are, GRIMM MEMORIALS, and its sequel, GRIMM REAPINGS, and my novel, THE PRISON.

6. Who or what inspired you to write?

So many people and books/writers. My mom, my sister, Mary; a teacher, Mrs. Risley, and just about every writer I’ve ever read, but most of all Edgar Allen Poe. My mom was probably my biggest inspiration, and the biggest reason I ended up writing horror. I grew up in a haunted house, my mother was psychic and discovered the place was haunted, like the second day after we moved in. She personally exorcised the house and got rid of the ghost, or at least got it to stop scaring her. I grew up hearing this story many, many times. I also had many experiences – ghostly experiences – in that house, as did my son. Also, when I was a boy I was an avid reader, and I was in the habit of acting out the books I read. When I was 12, I was very much into the books of Mark Twain, and after reading Tom Sawyer and then Huckleberry Finn, I convinced my little brother and his best friend to sneak out of the house at midnight to go dig for buried treasure in a cemetery. Then we were going to build a raft and sail it down the polluted Nashua River and have adventures. My mother caught us trying to sneak out (she thought I was the ghost come back) and when I told her what I was doing she suggested that instead of acting out my fantasies I write them down like the authors that I loved to read. I had been dabbling in writing before that (like with the short story for catechism class) but I’d never really considered writing something as substantial as a novel. That same year, the day after Christmas, I was in a terrible sledding accident and suffered a severe head injury/concussion. I had partial amnesia for three days, but the event changed me—made me more creative and, I think, smarter. It also gave me an extraordinary memory.Early on in my life my sister, Mary, inspired me by buying me my first book when I was, I believe, five years old. She was 10 years older than I was and when I was born she became like my second mother. She taught me to read when I was three years old. By the time I was starting school I was reading books at the fifth, sixth grade level. She bought me the collected works of Edgar Allen Poe, a large tome that I still have. I read that book voraciously. I remember now I hardly understood half of what I read, and had to have a dictionary nearby at all times, but it was the style and the tone and the mood that grabbed me. Then when I was in high school I had a teacher, Mrs. Risley, who inspired me further. Every Friday she would display a surrealistic or abstract painting at the front of the room, put on some weird electronic or Indian music, and tell us to write about what we saw in the painting. Man, I just ate that up! It was the greatest writing exercise I have ever had!

7. What do you like to do for fun?

My wife and I like to hike, play tennis, dance, ski, and hang out with our grandkids. I play the guitar and perform as a Dylan tribute artist, and also paint and sculpt. I love movies and going to the movies.

8. Any traditions you do when you finish a book?

No.

9. Where do you write?

I generally write in my home office, but I usually take a notebook with me, like to work, or if I’m going out and I think I might have free time on a long drive, say. I write in the notebook whenever I can. I’m a constant and prolific note writer, and I write all my stuff in longhand to start with, and then transcribe it into the computer. I like to have the tv on in the background—creates a white noise effect—and usually only listen to music when I’m painting.

10. Is there anything you would change about your writing?

Yes, I would make it more lucrative and popular! I’m rewriting nearly all of my novels as they are being republished – some more so than others. I find that with some of my earlier works, they need editing, so I’m glad that I have the chance to do that. Like with, TUNNELVISION, I did a lot of polishing and editing. Most of my novels were written before the advent of cell phones and smart phones and handheld devices so I’ve tried to update and work those things in to make them more current.

11. What is your dream? Famous writer?

I’ve never had a desire to be famous, though I have always wanted to be able to make enough money from my writing to support myself. My dream is to work with my son, who is a director trained at Cal Arts, to turn all of my novels into movies or TV miniseries. We are presently in the screenplay writing stage for a couple. All we need is financial backing.

12. Where do you live?

I live in Massachusetts.

13. Pets?

Two dogs, Polly and Sad-Eyed Sadie of the Low Lands.

14. What’s your favorite thing about writing?

My first love, and first choice for a career, was acting. Second was music, third was art, and fourth was writing. As I got older, in high school and college,I realized that if you really want to be successful as an actor, you have to live in either New York or Los Angeles – or at least a major city, not the sticks of north-central Massachusetts where I lived and still do. I didn’t have the confidence, or the courage I guess, to move and pursue acting. But then, I realized that a writer IS an actor because you have to become your characters in order to make them believable. I generally act out all of the scenes and dialogue in my books, even if only in my head. I think the best way to describe how I feel about writing is that I agree with what Dorothy Parker once said: “I hate writing, but I love having written.” I love the idea that someone I don’t know and have never met is reading a story that I created. I think that’s pretty cool.

15. What is coming next?

I presently have many irons in the fire. I’m rewriting the second book in the TUNNELVISION trilogy, DEATHWALKER, getting it ready for republication from Bloodshot Books, and writing the third, a new one,AND LITTLE LAMBS EAT IVY. I’m also working on the third book in my, GRIMM MEMROIALSsaga and working on readying all my other novels for reprint as I mentioned earlier. I’m working on a rewrite and sequel of my first novel,FEAR (to be renamed QUARRY), a sequel to my science fiction novel. ‘VADERS, and something new for me, a strictly fantasy novel entitled, THE SECRET WAR and a comedic romance called, HEY TEACH! I’ve also been working on a mainstream, slice of life novel entitled, GROWING OLD.

    You can connect with R. Patrick Gates here: 

website/pages, rpatrickgates.com,

Amazon/R. Patrick Gates,

Facebook/R. Patrick Gates.

    Some of R. Patrick Gates books: 

  Getting personal with R. Patrick Gates I'm going to start this interview off a little differently by using an excerpt from his new book.