#and georgia is like dense to the way he likes her and no one respects him

[honey-hippie-harper]

through the bleeding shell (Re-upload)

This was @obsidianfr3sk ‘s Feel Better gift asfghadsfghadfsghja. It turned out to be pretty depressing in the end bc idk how to write happy stuff but my good intentions were there, ok?

This is a Humon/Renegays fic :’). Which, basically, is about how the Renegays didn’t kiss during the trilogy...sort of. I can’t think of an specific reason why they didn’t besides bad writing and queerbaiting, but I’ve always seen Hugh as this...detached entity. Idk x’d. He shows a pretty dense attitude. And so, I thought that it was partly the reason why they’re not that affective during the trilogy. Not that they aren’t on a daily basis. I just think their relationship was in a bad place when the events happened, because, among other things, Hugh wasn’t grieving Georgia in a healthy way (I headcanon them as best friends </3) and wouldn’t allow Simon to help him. 

idk why I felt the need to talk about that.

tag list (tell me if you want to be in or out): @healing-winston-pratt @obsidianfr3sk @nodrianbcyes @alecjamesartino @everyone-has-a-nightmare @razzmooncake

through the bleeding shell

Being around someone for so long…

It allowed you to know things. Some of them important.

Others, not so much.

Simon had married a person he had been around his entire life; he had slept next to him almost every single day since he was very young. And his name was Hugh Everhart.

Simon knew every spot on Hugh’s body; he knew every mole, every random sun freckle here and there; how his body mass seemed to be well-distributed at plain sight but, in reality, his chest was naturally wider than the rest of his body, as if he had been born with the figure of a baseball player; how he scratched his nose because wrinkling it so much while laughing made it itchy; he knew the way his knuckles turned yellow when he turned them into a fist; he knew there was one single scar below his rib cage area…

He knew everything he had to know about Hugh Everhart, his husband, whom he loved so much that sometimes it hurt.

Yet, Simon was yet to know how and why, lately, he was so cold, despite still being a human furnace who was sometimes annoyed by the blanket on winter nights.

Kasumi frowned, and Simon wished she were misunderstanding, but whatever thing she was thinking, she was probably right.

Cold was a pretty wide term, which could basically mean anything. Being brutally honest, not even he knew what he was trying to convey by using that word, so he supposed he was referring to anything it could express, as a whole.

Thinking about it… yeah.

That option sounded about right.

Another thing that sounded about right, was the idea of Kasumi judging him because of it, which was something Simon knew wasn’t true and, instead, it was just his anxiety trying to ruin his day even more. But sometimes things were like that. He tried to avoid it, but never managed to do such thing. Ever.

“Not to be rude or anything.” She started, but before proceeding she seemed to realize that, maybe, that hadn’t sounded as intended, and her cheeks became extremely flushed, until Kasumi looked like she had ran under the burning sun while wearing a wool sweater for hours. “Really, Si. I don’t mean to be rude. As in...I’m...telling you this...so you think…”

She clicked her tongue, and then both Tamaya, who was also in the room, and him, stared at her as she talked to herself under her breath, making a couple of hand movements, as if she were writing her sentence in the air so she could phrase it correctly.

Sometimes, when Kasumi was nervous, she tended to struggle at putting her ideas together in a gentle, polite manner.

“...I was telling you that, so you don’t think I’m trying to offend you or minimize your pain.” She corrected herself. “Yeah?”

“...Yeah.” Simon nodded.

“Well…” Kasumi rubbed her hands together, more as a distraction than as an actual mannerism. “You know I’ve...never understood. Back at home...when we all lived together and...ugh. You know? Just...don’t mind me. Tam, you tell him.”

“No, no. What you’re saying is important too.”

“I want to listen to you, Zoomie.”

Upon the two pairs of eyes in the room being fixated on her, Kasumi kept fidgeting with the paper cone she now had between her hands, absently.

“Fine.” She whispered in a breathy voice, and then she stared at Simon, who stared back, not because he wanted to be polite or something like that, but because he genuinely wanted to listen to her.

Kasumi wasn’t a talker. That wasn’t an exaggeration or an act of fake modesty. It was just that Kasumi didn’t enjoy a lot of things, and one of them was speaking, to the point where sometimes she didn’t consider it necessary. There were days when she just...didn’t feel like speaking. And she didn’t. Because she didn’t want to. Because she didn’t need to. Because people could understand her anyway.

Still, everyone was willing to listen when she felt there was something she had to explain in a way that was verbal.

“I love my husband very much.” She said, placing a lock of hair behind her ear. “But, still, sex it’s not...a huge part of our relationship because I’ve never understood. When you joked about it back at home, I would just assume you were just doing that. Joking. I...literally didn’t expect you were serious when you talked about experiencing that type of attraction. Because I didn’t. And it’s not that I think it’s repulsive or anything like that. I just don’t get what the fuss is about. When I’m with him...it’s...usually not my first option. To think about that, I mean. And he understands and respects that, which I appreciate a lot.”

The more she spoke, the more confident her tone became. It meant she was growing more comfortable with the conversation, and that her train of thought was getting itself together, nice and slowly.

As for Simon...he was strangely comfortable, too, because this felt like a mature, adult conversation to him. Like a safe space.

After all, he was serious when he told them he needed to talk (now that Evander wasn’t here, because Evander was...not very sensitive). Hence, he was very glad they were being serious about it too.

“I understand that Hugh’s not in the spectrum.” Kasumi cleared her throat. “But...sexuality is fluid. Maybe, if you were talking about only that, it could be a good idea to talk it over. Only if he wants to, of course, because you never know; again, we can’t just assume, because one cannot do that. It’s rude. But what I mean...it’s that, whatever that’s going on in his head, maybe he’s trying to figure it out by himself. It might have nothing to do with his sexuality at all, actually, because, after all, that was just a comment...but it all comes back to the same point. Maybe he just...needs time.”

“Hugh’s pretty dense, Simon.” Simon saw the steamy cup in front of him, but he didn’t realize what it was until the smell of black coffee reached his nostrils. He hadn’t even noticed Tamaya was making coffee.

“Thank you.” He whispered anyway, as Tamaya leaned against the table, putting her weight on her elbows.

For all he knew, and all he cared about, it was pretty easy for people to judge Tamaya and label her as a bad person; she was quiet, although not in the way Kasumi was. On the contrary, she was rather serious, and her resting face was more intimidating than it was warm or welcoming. She was also really bad at controlling her temper, which didn’t help at all, but she wasn’t as bad as people wanted to portray her, or as bad as the recruits talked about her in the halls. Because, when it came to the recruits, Tamaya was strict, yes.

But somebody had to be, because being a Renegade was not a game, and the great majority of the advice she gave was extremely useful and clever.

Tamaya was caring.

Deep, very deep down. But she was.

“He’s pretty dense, but…” She sighed. “Most of the time, that’s not his fault. It’s not a good thing either. It’s not healthy for him and we shouldn’t condone it...but yeah. He can be pretty dense sometimes. He’s like that, most of the time it’s not his fault but...I don’t think you should feel like it’s yours either.”

Simon couldn’t help but flinch a little.

The thing was...he knew that.

It might’ve sounded crazy coming from him, but he knew it wasn’t his fault, even if his anxiety was determined to convince him otherwise.

Also, he was one to know that one couldn’t just fix a person. That’s not how mental health worked; of course, a romantic relationship or a relationship of any kind was a huge source of support and stability, but he knew it wasn’t enough to “heal” a person.

He knew about that, just like he knew that Hugh loved him and he loved Hugh, but that didn’t mean they could fix each other. They could make it a little better, yes; hold each other when things were rough; let the other know they weren’t alone.

But…”fixing” the other.

Not really.

They were humans.

They were people.

And the only thing people could fix, were objects, not other people.

“Like Kasumi said, sexuality is fluid, but it might as well not have to do anything with that.” Tamaya continued. Her voice sounded...soothing, strangely motherly. And she was calm.

Very calm.

It reminded Simon of someone.

They both reminded him of someone.

“Hubby and I, we both experience sexual attraction. It’s an important part of our relationship, and we enjoy it, but sometimes it’s just not the right time. He’s a doctor, I’m a Renegade Council member, and we have three wonderful boys together. Sometimes we don’t have time, so we just sit by the balcony to stargaze, holding hands, or we go out on dates like high school sweethearts, and I stand by the doorframe waiting for him to tell me I look pretty.”

Simon laughed a little.

It was evident she was trying to play it off as something dumb, but he found it absolutely adorable.

“And sometimes I’m too tired or he’s too tired, and that’s normal. It’s not our fault, and it doesn’t mean that we love each other less because…”

“Having sex doesn’t define love.” Kasumi said, and Tamaya nodded.

“Exactly.”

But again.

Again.

Simon knew that.

He really knew.

Hugh and him had busy schedules too. They both were Renegade Council members, and Hugh had it worse because not only was he a member, but also the leader of the Council. He had to be everywhere, at the same time, and people tended to think that just because he was invincible, it meant he didn’t have the right to feel emotionally drained, or at least tired.

Of course he was going to be tired.

He wasn’t a robot.

Hence, Simon understood what they were trying to say, and he agreed with Kasumi and Tamaya.

But the problem was…

He wasn’t referring just to that.

It was...part of the problem, yes.

But now that he knew their opinion about it, he had come to the realization that he still felt...empty and lost. And just...frustrated.

“We’re not only talking about sex, are we?” Tamaya asked carefully, and Simon refused to stare back at her, as he took a sip from his coffee, before answering:

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well...If you’re telling us this, it’s because you do want to talk about it, right?”

“I do. Yes.”

“Well. We’re listening.”

At the same time Tamaya spoke, a cold, little hand, laced between Simon’s.

A hand that felt like the sea and, even if he hadn’t known she was the only person in the room besides Tamaya and him, he would’ve recognized it as Kasumi’s.

So Simon squeezed her hand back.

“We’re listening, Si.” She confirmed. “We’re here for you.”

He knew that, and it was something he was extremely grateful about.

Now he just had to figure out how to put into words what he was feeling, because at this point it felt impossible for him to know.

There were just...so many things, but at the same time such a limited number of details he could recall.

It just felt...unreal.

And weird.

Very weird.

But Simon didn’t feel numb, unlike anyone would’ve expected from him.

In fact, he felt so sad he couldn’t even cry.

And it was the worst feeling ever.

“I don’t know.” He said, in a hoarse voice. “I just...don’t know anymore. It’s just...I…”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know.” He clarified. “...But maybe that’s why I don’t know what it is.”

For the shortest second, Simon came to the realization he was talking to himself instead of talking to them, or perhaps it was something that, deep down, was giving him the answer to why this whole situation was making him so uneasy and upset. Like, of course it was making him this upset. It was his husband they were talking about. Hugh was his fight. Hugh was…

Simon didn’t know.

But what he did know was that, maybe, it had nothing to do with himself, and that’s why he just couldn’t…

He just couldn’t understand.

Why couldn’t he understand?

Why did it have to be like this?

“I want to know what it is.” Simon took a deep breath, trying to make himself understood; trying to make them understand what he couldn’t. “...So I can...make it better...So I can...help him. So we can...look for help together.”

Simon scratched his brow with his free hand.

“But he’s just… so cold. He doesn’t talk to me. He doesn’t come closer. He doesn’t...do anything. We don’t do anything. And I can’t help but feel like...he’s not here, even though he’s…” Simon scoffed, painfully. “...He’s right there, in front of my face.”

His eyes became fixated on a blank point, as if he were staring at an invisible Hugh, who wasn’t staring back at him.

“And I want him to...tell me. Because if he doesn’t tell me, then I have no way to know what’s wrong. And if I don’t know what’s wrong...then I don’t know for how long I can take it, you know? It’s just...I can’t bear to stand there as he pushes me away.”

Kasumi started running her thumb through his knuckles, and Simon felt Tamaya’s hands on his shoulders, massaging them, gently.

“I’m just scared...that when he finally wants me to come closer again, it might be too late...and maybe I won’t want to come closer again.”

Tamaya’s hands stopped moving for a moment, and Simon could almost feel her and Kasumi’s shock. He hadn’t even planned to say that. It just slipped.

And when Simon noticed it had slipped, it was far too late for him to hold it back.

“Maybe you should talk to him, after all.” Kasumi said, slowly, and Simon stared into her eyes.

He didn’t realize that was the thing he didn’t want to hear until he felt nothing but hopelessness.

Emptiness.

Fear.

A type of fear that became more intense in the moment they heard the door opening, and that’s when Simon saw him.

Hugh was standing right there, staring, and when his eyes laid on Simon, he arched an eyebrow, looking genuinely confused and worried.

“What’s happening here?” He asked. “...Si? Are you okay?”

Are you?

Simon didn’t want to answer. He really didn’t.

He didn’t want this to be about him.

He didn’t want Hugh asking him what was wrong if, harsh as it sounded, everything that was making him uncomfortable or upset had to do with him, not because Simon was blaming him, but because he was genuinely worried.

Let me help, Hugh.

“I’m...fine.”

Let me in.

“...Yeah. I’m...fine.”

Please, love.

Let me in.

Simon could see him hurting, but where he saw hurt, Hugh saw some type of burden that was meant to be concealed, committing treason against his own advice; dodging the sound of the voice of a younger Hugh, who guided a younger Simon through the dark, telling him it was alright.

That pain was alright.

And that pain didn’t make him less human.

Hugh’s pain, in particular, was a grey, bleeding shell that was so thick Simon couldn’t find a way to get in, and Hugh couldn’t find a way to get out.

So they just pressed their palms together through the bleeding shell, staring at each other's eyes through a polarized surface, that stopped their skin from touching, and stopped their lips from finding the other.

And the worst thing...was that Simon was craving that. He craved Hugh’s lips. He craved everything physical about him, just like he craved everything that wasn’t physical too. And he craved him so much he felt like dying every time he was close. He craved him so much it made him feel like a teenager again.

Which, in his case, wasn’t a good thing.

He wished it was.

But...teenage years weren’t fun if you had to spend them trapped in a closet. Things were never good when lived from inside a closet.

He didn’t want his life outside that closet to be like that too.

“Did you have an attack? ...Si, did you take your pills? … You did, right?”

“Hugh.” Simon heard Tamaya’s voice. “Is there...something that you needed?”

Hugh blinked, knowing that, maybe, he had interrupted something.

Mostly because it wasn’t like Tamaya was trying to hide it either.

“...Yeah.” He said, resting his arms on the nearest chair.

Tamaya pulled away from Simon, and Kasumi let go of his hand. They didn’t become fully focused, nor did they put on their “I’m working” mode either, but they did manage to...pretend. Even Simon managed to do so.

“Uh...I…” Hugh snapped his fingers in front of his own face, trying to remember what was it that he had to say.

“....Yeah.” He concluded. “Yeah. Uh… Tam. I need you to head downtown because they want you to supervise some of the floats for the parade. From...up, I mean. So you can check some of the details. I already checked from the ground and everything’s looking good, but now they want you to give them the green light.”

“Right now?”

“Preferably.” Hugh scratched his nose. “Were you...in the middle of something?”

Tamaya filled her cheeks with air, and then let it out, making a little trumpet with her lips.

“No.” She lied. “It’s fine. I’ll go. Just let me put some stuff in my locker, alright?”

“Be careful when you fly, okay? It’s kinda hot outside. If you get dizzy...”

“If I get dizzy, I’ll land. I know. I’m the one who’s flying.”  

Given that she was already heading by the door, Tamaya patted his shoulder, and they said goodbye with a very polite kiss on the cheek, before Tamaya left the room completely, and Hugh drew his attention towards Kasumi.

“Margaret White is acting out.”

Kasumi frowned. Deeply.

“Margaret...what?”

“Uh. White? You know? The Renegades’ ward? The kid?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know who Maggie is.” Kasumi waved her hands in front of her own face. “...Who named her that?”

“Who named her what?”

“White. Who on Earth…?” Kasumi clicked her tongue. “Nevermind, okay? Just...what did she do?”

“Zoomie, I had already told you.” Hugh laughed, confused.

“I thought you were being rude, Hugh.”

Margaret White was the Renegades’ protégé. Her powers consisted of detecting and attracting metals which, evidently, was not something that was out of this world. In fact, she had been recruited at such a young age not because she had extraordinary abilities, but because she was problematic as heck.

She was Max’s age, more or less but, unlike Max, Margaret had no chill.

Her life was ruined from the moment somebody saw her and decided that White was a suitable last name for her, Tamaya used to say.

Margaret’s skin was tan, and she had slanted eyes. Naming her “White” almost seemed like a tasteless joke.

Simon himself thought Hugh was just being disrespectful the first time he told him her name, and he had to hear it a couple of times before he just...accepted he was serious (and that Hugh himself didn’t seem to like the idea of her being named like that very much).

Maggie was really problematic. For real. She had been kicked out of a couple of orphanages already, and maybe she would have been kicked out of this one too, if it hadn’t been a prodigy orphanage, which happened to be under Kasumi’s management, meaning it was directly related to the Council. And they were supposed to make sure nobody got kicked out of there.

Simon liked Maggie, because he knew that there was a chance that everything she ever did had reason behind it. An emotional reason. Perhaps she wanted love. Perhaps she wanted attention.

Perhaps she just…

Wanted someone who didn’t give up on her at the minimum inconvenience.

So he just...tried not to.

Hard as it was, because Maggie tended to make it hard; Kasumi had tried to canalize her to a psychologist many times, but her response always was that “she wasn’t crazy” (perhaps because kids her age were mean and “crazy” was one of their favorite words to use as an insult) and...well...part of the process in children, was understanding when it was the right time and when it wasn’t.

Sometimes forcing kids into treatment made it worse, and Maggie was pretty mature for her age, while painfully childish at the same time. Respecting her space and giving her time was their only option, if they didn’t want to turn her into a ticking bomb.

“Are you for real? I’ve been addressing her like that for like…”

“Just tell me what the little bundle of joy did now.”

“Pff.” Hugh scoffed. “Bundle of joy.”

Then, he cleared his throat the moment Kasumi fixed a glare at him.

“Well...the usual. She stole something from one of the nannies, Carrietta Ferland saw her and she locked her in a cellar so she wouldn’t say anything.”

“She locked Carrietta Ferland in a cellar.” Kasumi rubbed her forehead, and before she left the meeting room, she squeezed Simon’s wrist.

She didn’t say goodbye to Hugh.

Simon didn’t, either, when he excused himself under the sort of cheap white lie he needed to wash his face.

-.-

But one could only wash their face so much, before their partner suspected.

When Simon didn’t come back, Hugh didn’t go after him. He never did at first.

As in…

Hugh always went after him, just not at first; over time, Simon had grown to accept it wasn’t a pride thing.

When Hugh left, he never wanted anyone to go after him, and he was the type to believe that just because he didn’t want something, it meant nobody wanted it; Simon had gotten used to it, because Hugh was his husband, and they accepted each other just like they were.

What Simon refused to accept, was the bleeding shell Hugh was inside of.

He hated it.

He despised it, especially at night. It would grow around Hugh in slow motion, and then he would bleed through, and the whole room would turn red, overflowing it with unspoken, suffocated anger and pain.

Hugh turned his back at Simon that night, so Simon turned his back at him too, not because he was mad, but because he didn’t feel like staring at Hugh’s back today.

Their room became as cold as an industrial fridge, as they both fell deep into the notion the other was not asleep, and that they both were listening to the sound of a room that was currently filled with deathly silence.

Deathly as the bone-chilling cold penetrating their limbs, their organs, and their everything.

Deathly as…

Deathly as feelings.

All the stored feelings, and the way Simon craved something he knew was right there.

Hugh was right there. Right next to him. And his body, which he knew so well, was laying next to him, turning his back at him, with every mole, every sun freckle, a chest wider than the rest of his body…

And one single scar below his rib cage.

The same rib cage that protected his heart.

Say something, Simon.

The same heart Simon had felt beating so many times.

Say something.

Anything.

Maybe…

Maybe this had a reason too.

An emotional reason.

Perhaps love. Or attention.

Say something. Anything.

Because you do go after people from the very first moment.

Slowly, as if he had never moved before in his life, Simon rolled to the other side, and as his trembling hand rested on Hugh’s arm, he became alert, awake as they both were, and he looked over his shoulder.

“Hugh?” Simon asked, the name leaving a familiar firm in his mouth that tasted like home.

He didn’t answer, because that was his name. Hence, he knew he was trying to talk to him.

“Come here, Hugh.”

And Hugh came over, hesitantly, rolling to his side too, as they faced each other, and Simon ran his finger through his face, just...exploring every spot he already knew, as if he were visiting his comfort place, of his favorite bench in the park.

His blue eyes seemed to shine in the darkness, and Simon felt he could’ve gotten lost in them and never come back.

But he didn’t get lost.

Because he had to find the love of his life first.

“I’m never giving up on you.” He whispered. “...you know that, right?”

Perhaps he didn’t.

But, on the other hand, perhaps he did. And Simon was left with nothing but the mere hope it had meant something.

“I’m never giving up on you either, Si.”

But Simon did know that.

Boy.

Did he know.

-.-

What he didn’t know, however, was the answer to the what.

He wondered what that had felt like.

He wondered what Nightmare had felt when, the morning after, she tried to shoot Hugh in the eye from a roof.

Not because he were mad at her.

No. Not really.

She was young after all.

He just wondered what she had felt.

#renegades trilogy #marissa meyer #my fanfics #dawnie writes #hugh everhart #captain chromium #simon westwood #the dread warden #humon #renegays

[bangwoolofbangtan]

TIME

ENTERTAINER of the year

BTS

[Time magazine BTS interview ]

It’s late October, and Suga is sitting on a couch strumming a guitar. His feet are bare, his long hair falling over his eyes. He noodles around, testing out chords and muttering softly to himself, silver hoop earrings glinting in the light. “I just started learning a few months ago,” he says. It’s an intimate moment, the kind you’d spend with a new crush in a college dorm room while they confess rock-star ambitions. But Suga is one-seventh of the Korean pop band BTS, which means I’m just one of millions of fans watching, savoring the moment.

BTS isn’t just the biggest K-pop act on the charts. They’ve become the biggest band in the world—full stop. Between releasing multiple albums, breaking every type of record and appearing in these extemporaneous livestreams in 2020, BTS ascended to the zenith of pop stardom. And they did it in a year defined by setbacks, one in which the world hit pause and everyone struggled to maintain their connections. Other celebrities tried to leverage this year’s challenges; most failed. (Remember that star-studded “Imagine” video?) But BTS’s bonds to their international fan base, called ARMY, deepened amid the pandemic, a global racial reckoning and worldwide shutdowns. “There are times when I’m still taken aback by all the unimaginable things that are happening,” Suga tells TIME later. “But I ask myself, Who’s going to do this, if not us?”

Today, K-pop is a multibillion-dollar business, but for decades the gatekeepers of the music world—the Western radio moguls, media outlets and number-crunchers—treated it as a novelty. BTS hits the expected high notes of traditional K-pop: sharp outfits, crisp choreography and dazzling videos. But they’ve matched that superstar shine with a surprising level of honesty about the hard work that goes into it. BTS meets the demands of Top 40’s authenticity era without sacrificing any of the gloss that’s made K-pop a cultural force. It doesn’t hurt that their songs are irresistible: polished confections that are dense with hooks and sit comfortably on any mainstream playlist.

BTS is not the first Korean act to establish a secure foothold in the West, yet their outsize success today is indicative of a sea change in the inner workings of fandom and how music is consumed. From propelling their label to a $7.5 billion IPO valuation to inspiring fans to match their $1 million donation to Black Lives Matter, BTS is a case study in music-industry dominance through human connection. Once Suga masters the guitar, there won’t be much left for them to conquer.

In an alternate universe where COVID-19 didn’t exist, BTS’s 2020 would likely have looked much like the years that came before. The group got its start in 2010, after K-pop mastermind and Big Hit Entertainment founder Bang Si-hyuk recruited RM, 26, from Seoul’s underground rap scene. He was soon joined by Jin, 28; Suga, 27; J-Hope, 26; Jimin, 25; V, 24; and Jung Kook, 23, selected for their dancing, rapping and singing talents.

But unlike their peers, BTS had an antiestablishment streak, both in their activism and in the way they contributed to their songwriting and production—which was then rare in K-pop, although that’s started to change. In BTS’s debut 2013 single, “No More Dream,” they critiqued Korean social pressures, like the high expectations placed on schoolkids. They have been open about their own challenges with mental health and spoken publicly about their support for LGBTQ+ rights. (Same-sex marriage is still not legally recognized in South Korea.) And they’ve modeled a form of gentler, more neutral masculinity, whether dyeing their hair pastel shades or draping their arms lovingly over one another. All this has made them unique not just in K-pop but also in the global pop marketplace.

In March, BTS was prepping for a global tour. Instead, they stayed in Seoul to wait out the pandemic. For the group, life didn’t feel too different: “We always spend 30 days a month together, 10 hours a day,” Jin says. But with their plans upended, they had to pivot. In August, BTS dropped an English-language single, “Dynamite,” that topped the charts in the U.S.—a first for an all-Korean act. With their latest album this year, Be, they’ve become the first band in history to debut a song and album at No. 1 on Billboard’s charts in the same week. “We never expected that we would release another album,” says RM. “Life is a trade-off.”

Their triumphs this year weren’t just about the music. In October, they put on perhaps the biggest virtual ticketed show of all time, selling nearly a million tickets to the two-night event. Their management company went public in Korea, turning Bang into a billionaire and each of the members into millionaires, a rarity in an industry where the spoils often go to the distributors, not the creators. And they were finally rewarded with a Grammy nomination. On YouTube, where their Big Hit Labels is one of the top 10 most subscribed music accounts (with over 13 billion views by this year), their only real competition is themselves, says YouTube’s music-trends manager Kevin Meenan. The “Dynamite” video racked up 101 million views in under 24 hours, a first for the platform. “They’ve beaten all their own records,” he says.

Not that the glory comes without drawbacks: namely, lack of free time. It’s nearing midnight in Seoul in late November, and BTS, sans Suga, who’s recovering from shoulder surgery, are fitting in another interview—this time, just with me. V, Jimin and J-Hope spontaneously burst into song as they discuss Jin’s upcoming birthday. “Love, love, love,” they harmonize, making good use of the Beatles’ chorus, turning to their bandmate and crossing their fingers in the Korean version of the heart symbol.

Comparisons to that epoch-defining group are inevitable. “What’s different is that we’re seven, and we also dance,” says V. “It’s kind of like a cliché when big boy bands are coming up: ‘Oh, there’s another Beatles!’” says RM. I’ve interviewed BTS five times, and in every interaction, they are polite to a fault. But by now they must be weary of revisiting these comparisons, just as they must be tired of explaining their success. RM says it’s a mix of luck, timing and mood. “I’m not 100% sure,” he says.

They’ve matured into smart celebrities: focused and cautious, they’re both more ready for the questions and more hesitant to make big statements. When you ask BTS about their landmark year, for once they’re not exactly chipper; J-Hope wryly calls it a “roller coaster.” “Sh-t happens,” says RM. “It was a year that we struggled a lot,” says Jimin. Usually a showman, on this point he seems more introspective than usual. “We might look like we’re doing well on the outside with the numbers, but we do go through a hard time ourselves,” he says. For a group whose purpose is truly defined by their fans, the lack of human interaction has been stifling. Still, they’ve made it a point to represent optimism. “I always wanted to become an artist that can provide comfort, relief and positive energy to people,” says J-Hope. “That intent harmonized with the sincerity of our group and led us to who we are today.”

In an era marked by so much anguish and cynicism, BTS has stayed true to their message of kindness, connection and self-acceptance. That’s the foundation of their relationship with their fans. South Korean philosopher and author Dr. Jiyoung Lee describes the passion of BTS’s fandom as a phenomenon called “horizontality,” a mutual exchange between artists and their fans. As opposed to top-down instruction from an icon to their followers, BTS has built a true community. “Us and our fans are a great influence on each other,” says J-Hope. “We learn through the process of making music and receiving feedback.” The BTS fandom isn’t just about ensuring the band’s primacy—it’s also about extending the band’s message of positivity into the world. “BTS and ARMY are a symbol of change in zeitgeist, not just of generational change,” says Lee.

And in June, BTS became a symbol of youth activism worldwide after they donated $1 million to the Black Lives Matter movement amid major protests in the U.S. (They have a long track record of supporting initiatives like UNICEF and school programs.) BTS says now it was simply in support of human rights. “That was not politics. It was related to racism,” Jin says. “We believe everyone deserves to be respected. That’s why we made that decision.”

That proved meaningful for fans like Yassin Adam, 20, an ARMY from Georgia who runs popular BTS social media accounts sharing news and updates, and who is Black. “It will bring more awareness to this issue people like me face in this country,” he says. “I see myself in them, or at least a version of myself.” In May and June, a broad coalition of K-pop fans made headlines for interfering with a police app and buying out tickets for a Trump campaign rally, depleting the in-person attendance. Later that summer, ARMY’s grassroots fundraising effort matched BTS’s $1 million donation to Black Lives Matter within 24 hours.

For 28-year-old Nicole Santero, who is Asian American, their success in the U.S. is also a triumph of representation: “I never really saw people like myself on such a mainstream stage,” Santero says. She’s writing her doctoral dissertation on the culture of BTS fandom, and she runs a popular Twitter account that analyzes and shares BTS data. “Anytime I’m awake, I’m doing something related to BTS,” she says. “This is a deeper kind of love.”

Devotion like that is a point of pride for BTS, particularly in a year when so much has felt uncertain. “We’re not sure if we’ve actually earned respect,” RM says. “But one thing for sure is that [people] feel like, O.K., this is not just some kind of a syndrome, a phenomenon.” He searches for the right words. “These little boys from Korea are doing this.” —With reporting by Aria Chen/Hong Kong; Mariah Espada/Washington; Sangsuk Sylvia Kang and Kat Moon/New York

FASHION CREDITS

RM: Jacket, shirt, pants and shoes HERMES; SUGA: Jacket, shirt and necklace CELINE. Pants GIVENCHY. Shoes LOUIS VUITTON; Jung Kook: Jacket, shirt, pants and shoes FENDI; J-Hope: Jacket, shirt, pants and shoes LOUIS VUITTON. Necklace HERMES; Jin: Suit, knit top and shoes BALENCIAGA; Jimin: Jacket, silk shirt, pants and shoes CELINE; V: Suit, shirt and shoes ALEXANDER McQUEEN. Tie THOM BROWNE.

#bts #kim taehyung #bts update #kim namjoon #park jimin #kim seokjin #jeon jungkook #jung hoseok #min yoongi #bts time magazine #bts time 2020 #bts time #bts entertainer of the year #bts interview #bts time photoshoot #bts photoshoot #bts group photo #bts achievements #bts article

[nauseateddrive]

3 POEMS by Dana Miller

MX-76

Sneerwise, I’ve seen better Dearborn, without the metal I’d go on to abort you like any other paperweight hitchhiking across my belly and just that fast Grace Kelly has figured out the new math, I’m afraid and lordess, but you’re a strict equation Despite the munitions manifest under the crown of your abdication I just keep on loving you like caloric restriction and late-70s cocaine stretching myself out like St. Swithin’s Day across your salt lick whole oceans of Tawny Kitaen Ready for my Helen Reddy moment I’d sober up if I were you The flecks of Roberta Flack in me will leash every lime tiger leaping out of your 43rd-floor window with a piano strapped to its back

It Glows Under The Half-Smirk

the things you learn while killing yourself... down the end of your own dick, I got my comeuppance quick. this wasn’t like ingestion of the ancestor.

the things you’ll hear in a drowned meadow... I used to think you were a nice bunch of guys, ever out of cigarettes, packs on packs of lies. you thought you burned all the blooms of my life. shark-faced cars for the shark-toothed wife

the way things will phrase themselves in a dream… the porcelain horseshoes of your bent vision. the drugs in your dance have all ditched me, by and by. what’s left is streaks of lightning-blonde--celestial harlot dye.

no truck now for the very idea of you, the two times needles, the twice j’taime. whyever wouldn’t I get off my face? it’s hard, after all, to have fins in this place, where pelicans regard the curvature of the world, and your doormat-ador sneers-- seven full galaxies of dream on.

Last Lighthouses a riff for the faithless majority

You’ll come to know the type You’ve given them all 13 years or more--full of hummable introspection and the most famous rock stars in the world--to say nothing of your dose-dense soul bandying about your hopes and fears built entirely on bracellae and boustrophedon They will come to your birthday parties and you will go to them at Christmas It will seem the safest and most naturally warm thing in the world to lean your full weight on the concrete of their love (though you might as well be giving birth in the High Arctic) Ta, but how the best ones will swear they love you Til you roundly disappoint yourself and believe It’s only when your weight-bearing hand goes crashing through what you thought was such an indomitable, vertical construction of care that you see it was always made of wet newspaper--and you, my dear, are just a penny gaff girl in the back rooms of their subconscious public houses Then, they’ll quietly sneak round the sticky corners of your rawest self—of the actual show-up time—like white privilege guilt-trippers always do in the face of the real ghetto into invisibility into convenience into convention into covering for him--he is their son, after all (even if they would say they didn’t raise him to act like this) there are twins here for sure, but never once (or ever) a twin flame. To the comforts of conformity, even your last lighthouses will bend Away from responsibility and respectability Away from decency and all their debts you owe Away from everything you thought they’d be weddings don’t count, didn’t you know? Ohhh.......You thought they meant always? worse: you thought they meant like you do—didn’t you? Oh what a laugh-a-minute you are Remember? They even told you how funny and fun you are for parties they don’t admit going to What a lift you give to others, they praise! What a joy to all their days! you should always be around, except when you shouldn’t. and you, precious little idiot, you believed there weren’t any shouldn’ts just because you don’t have any for them—didn’t you? Awww....did you write them a Valentine too? Ha. Sorry, but the joke’s absolutely on you. When you’ve been dead about a week curled up like a conch

on the kitchen floor crying hysterically, on the hour every hour, like a beaten child and every bit as confused watching the door and mapping the bruise This is when you’ll realize that they have always been irrelevant It was only ever your heart feasting on the time their mouse your elephant --trunk and memory, that is. For a flash your tear-gasps will morph into insano-giggles as you imagine telling them to go fuck themselves straight off Then you dream of tricking them into a lunch date where really you’re going to FedEx their whole human bodies, post haste, to the same ruinous wasteland where they’ve so nonchalantly annexed you But you can’t find the address. Even after sifting meticulously through whatever shards remain of your blown-out heart, it isn’t there. Damn. Lucifer probably bought it off Judas and stuffed the only copy in his back pocket for safekeeping. in Hell all the prettiest ones are sooo smart. like they always said you were Funny. Rolling over to try and die one more time again, you will bump noses with the one and only Michael Hutchence, right there stretched out next to you, but not quite how you always dreamed it rather like a canebrake of the afterlife like an invigilator this is autoplatonic strangulation after all Devil Inside and that Oh God, how you love(d) that bacchus boy Oh Mab, how you willed this fall Eventually, once you’ve died all you can die and died some more something invisible will remind you of Patti Smith and you’ll remember that you have to get up off the kitchen floor You still have to get up every day and dress in battered menswear like her so you can write revolutionary poems—but be the kind of skinny only artistic girls can get Even if you don’t yet have a Robert Mapplethorpe to switch stripey shirts with in the paint-spatter of afternoon light Even if you still relentlessly wait for them, sometimes, late later, latest in the grin-less night.

Dana Miller is a giggling wordsmith and mega-melomaniac from Atlanta, Georgia. When not wielding a lethal pen, she adores surf culture, Australian grunge rockers, muscle cars, Epiphone guitars, glitter, Doc Martens, and draft horses. Oxford, England is her spirit-home and Radiohead is holding the last shard of her girlhood heart.

[inkedsoldier]

Chew the Bullet - Chapter Four

A Modern Warfare series

Casey Vos is a liaison officer for the Dutch Special Forces. She has been stationed in Afghanistan and Syria, but now works everywhere they need her assistance. Specialized in counterterrorism and intelligence, she is unmistakably a great asset for the upcoming Taskforce 1-4-1, under the command of Captain John Price.

A/N: Here it is – the official chapter four of Chew the Bullet. This time we are exploring the relationship between Casey and Price. Please, if you see any errors, let me know so I can fix it. It’s much appreciated. Well, I hope you enjoy! And please leave a note, vote or message with your thoughts! Bravo team out.

Warnings: angst, violence, blood.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

Italics are flashbacks in this chapter.

_____

Words left the captain as he stared into those bright green eyes burning with guilt. His heart fell silent and his mind went in overdrive. How was she still alive? Where has she been? He saw her taking a dive down that cliff – downed by a sniper from the hill behind them. No one would have survived the fall. The cell phone in his pocket started to vibrate. He didn’t want to answer, but he had to. “Sorry, need to take this, but you’re both with me,” he commanded pressing the green button on the screen.

  08:00 AM Scotland Yard, London

Insomnia haunted his night – his mind lit up with all kind of scenarios of Casey’s survival. He had so many questions that he needed answers to. As soon as the alarm went off, he made his way to the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service. It was a long time ago since John Price visited Scotland Yard, but it still looked the same. When he stepped out of the elevator, he spotted Kyle Garrick first. “Sergeant!” he called. “Captain! How are you doing?” Gaz replied. ‘Doing well. You?” Price asked, shaking Kyle’s hand. “I’m fine,” he responded. “Question. Do you know where I can find Vos?” he asked, looking around the floor. “Yeah, I think she is in her office over there,” he pointed. “I saw her arriving earlier. But if she is not there, you will probably find her in the gym, one floor up.” Price thanked the sergeant and walked towards Casey’s office.

 Like a second skin her hair lies over her cheeks. Looking like she just got caught in a sudden storm she lets herself step out of the ring. Hitting and kicking that sack really helps her get all the anger and pain out of her system. Her legs and arms feel numb as she carefully walks towards the water tap to fill up her bottle. It never ceases to amaze her that the muscles that were working so hard only minutes ago, now fight to keep up her weight. She pulls off the wet sticky shirt as the salty drops invade her eyes. The cold air from the open window surrounds the Dutch operator. She froze as she saw herself in the mirror, knuckles going white as she clenched the edge of the sink tightly. Seeing the scar always caused this sudden feeling in her stomach as the flashbacks fill her head. She sighed and averted her gaze from the mirror to the wall next to it.

  May 2017 - Georgia

“Alex! Watch out!” Casey yelled, shoving the operator away out of sight from the sniper. The bullet hit her body with so much power that it jerked her off her feet, down the cliff.

 Footsteps behind Casey take her out of a trance. “Kyle told me I would find you here,” the SAS captain spoke softly, spotting the scar of the exit wound on her back. “Am I interrupting?” Casey turned around making eye contact with Price, “No, was just refilling this,” she said, holding up the still empty bottle. “Hmm, I see,” he chuckled. He really didn’t know how to start the conversation, but he needed answers. “What happened, Case?” he blurted out suddenly. “We looked for you… we couldn’t leave you behind.” She puts on a fake smile to hide the pain. John Price was one of her best friends, but she didn’t want to worry him. She kept her survival under the radar to keep them all save. “I don’t know where to start, John,” she sighs. “One moment I was on the cliff covering Alex… the next I hit the water and struggle to keep my eyes open.” Casey looked away for a second, trying to hide the emotions. Her smile looked lifeless and it hit John like a brick in the face. “They found me and kept me alive…” she told him, her fake smile disappeared quickly. “They?” the Brit asked, as she slowly sits down on the floor of the gym. Price moves next to her and does the same. “Al-Qatala,” the girl replied in a whisper.

  June 2017 - Al-Qatala hideout, near the Russian border

When Casey came to, she was greeted by darkness. Where am I? Is this hell? Am I dead? All these kind of questions flooded her mind in an instant. She pulled herself off the cold ground, but pain shot through her body. She dropped down against the floor again as darkness surrounded her once more.

 “What?!” The captain was in total shock about that statement. “I woke up in a dark cell. Had no clue on what day it was. How long I had been out. All my gear was gone and I was wrapped in bloody bandages,” Casey told as she concentrated on the ground in front of her.

  June 2017 - Al-Qatala hideout, near the Russian border

She jolted awake when cold liquid was thrown over her. She gasped for air. Two hands lift her up and began dragging her out of the cell. They tied her up to a chair in the room at the end of the hallway. The cold air hit her hard, only wearing some boxer shorts and an oversized black shirt that was unknown to her. All her gear was gone, but the immense pain was still there. “Welcome,” a thick foreign voice said. “Glad you finally decided to join us.” When she looked up she came face to face with one of the Wolf’s apprentices. “Where the fuck am I?” Casey yelled. “Uh-uh. I’m the one who is asking the questions here,” the man said. “You can make this easy for yourself. Just answer my questions, and you might walk out of here. What information does your team have on us?” he started. The Dutch lieutenant glared at the Al-Qatala soldier, “I’m not telling you shit! I’m dead either way. I know your kind.” A fist connected with her face, sending the chair backwards. She got trained to handle situations like this, but this was on another level – reality hits hard. “I’m going to ask you one… more… time. What information do you have on us?” he yelled, spit leaving his mouth. “Well, I know you probably have a small dick!” she stated.

 The SAS captain’s face fell fast. In an instant his skin became greyed, his mouth hung with lips slight parted and his eyes were as wide as they could stretch. He could see the pain in her eyes.

 A fake laugh spread on the man’s face as he turns to one of his accomplices. Another fist makes contact with her face. This time the chair smashes with the back onto the ground. Even downed, the soldier keeps punching and kicking the life out of Casey. It felt like he kept going for hours. The floor was cold and wet – the pain never ending. Her face was bruised, swollen and bloody. Blood running down from her forehead and eyebrow. One of the men pulled her up again when the soldier’s energy was drained from attacking his prisoner. They exited the room and left her back in the darkness.

 “They were able to keep me there for eight months. I survived eight months of torture, but I’m still not sure how or why…” she looked at the soldier next to her. Different thoughts clouded her mind.

  August 2017 -  Al-Qatala hideout, near the Russian border

One morning she was awoken by one of the men. As she took in her surroundings, she spotted a large table in the centre of the room. The leader that questioned many times before entered the room with an evil smirk on his smug face. “Let’s try this again, shall we?” The girl scoffed, “Fuck off!!” The two men behind the man come up to her and lift her on the ice cold table. They tie her arms and legs to the piece of furniture and put a smelly cloth on her face. “So… is this the thanks I get for patching you up?” the Al-Qatala fighter spoke in her ear. “Get the fuck away from me!” she yelled once again in the hopes that somebody would hear her. But of course nobody came. The water came down on her face and breathing became impossible. She tried, but the flow kept coming. Once the bucket was empty, the whole routine would start over. Question after question, all unanswered. She stayed strong. She would never spill any information given to her. The coughing and gasping burnt her lungs. When they finally stopped, she was unable to stop shaking from the cold. Draining all the energy she once had. “You know we can go on like this for days. Weeks. Even months,” the man spoke before leaving her all alone.

 “I was lucky I guess, that angry locals stormed the camp and burned it down,” Casey continued, tears now filling her eyes. Her shoulders hunched together like she was trying to disappear inside herself. The walls that hold her up, making her strong… collapse. She pressed her head against the wall, trying to stop the tears that roll down her cheeks. John wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, gently rubbing her arm. Casey sunk into the warmth of his side, appreciative of the gesture. “They told me you were all dead… blown to pieces…” she mumbled against his shoulder. “I wished so many times that I would close my eyes and never open them again…”

  December 2017 – 25 clicks from the camp

With the small amount of energy she had left, Casey made her way through the woods. It was ancient. Trees were thick and old, roots twisted on the ground. Once it might have been filled with bird-song and animals that roamed. But is was now past its former glory. The earth was dense and occasionally a streak of light would touch the ground beneath her feet. After walking for a few hours it became hard to make out the details of the area surrounding her. Her skin went ashen and she stumbled forward before she fell. Barely breathing she lay in the dirt as still as a corpse.

 The words to continue telling all that happened left her. She stared into Price’s blue eyes, waiting for him to say something. His silence was somehow comforting and spoke for itself, it was peaceful. And no matter what would happen, he was still here for her. Casey was like a daughter to him and words couldn’t describe how much he cared for the girl. He mourned when they couldn’t find her back in Georgia. They scanned the whole area for her body, but no trace could be found. “A local farmer found me and brought me to the nearest hospital, where I woke up a few days after,” she said. “I managed to contact my commanding officer and Kate.”

 John was at loss for words, “K-Kate knew you were alive?” Casey tried to stand up again, “Yes. I contacted her and we decided to keep my survival under the radar. On my request. The moment I heard you were all safe and sound, I had to protect that. I couldn’t risk any of you,” she finished, sticking out her right hand so the soldier could get back on his feet. The beatings, touches and horrible words left her with visible and invisible scars. “So… now I got a question for you.. What’s with the beard?” Casey chuckled, trying to lighten up the mood. “I almost didn’t recognise you yesterday.”

Masterlist

Tag list: @imahardcase​ @yvessaintrogers​ 

#call of duty #modern warfare #chew the bullet #cod #mw 2019 #john price #captain price #casey vos #lieutenant vos #soap mactavish #gary sanderson #roach #simon riley #ghost #original character #alex cod #alex #call of duty x oc #fanfiction #ff #simon riley x oc #soap mactavish x oc #john price x oc #alex x oc #kyle garrick x oc

[poetlcs]

books I’ve read in 2020 (so far) + their ratings

non-fiction

crossing the line: australia’s secret history in the timor sea by kim mcgrath: important research into australia’s theft of oil in timor leste. didn’t rate

hood feminism: notes from the women that a movement forgot by mikki kendall: essay collection dissecting modern feminism, pointing out the exclusionary practices of mainstream feminism and offering new frameworks through which feminism should operate. really recommend. didn’t rate

the uninhabitable earth: life after warming by david wallace-wells: good introduction to environmentalism and the climate disaster. a little too introductory for me but good for those new to the topic. ★★★

homo deus: a brief history of tomorrow by yuval noah harari: it is simply not Sapiens nor as good as Sapiens. Looks at potentials for our future but, thought it was a little poorly researched. Some parts were still interesting though.  ★★★

SPQR: a history of ancient rome by mary beard: a little dense at times, but super interesting and detailed look at ancient rome. enjoyed it a lot. ★★★★

sister outsider by audre lorde: collection of audre lorde’s essays and speeches, about feminism, lesbianism, the queer community, being Black and a lesbian ect ect. outstanding, important collection anyone interested in intersectional feminism must read. ★★★★★

all boys aren’t blue by george m. johnson: memoir about johnson’s experiences growing up as a Black gay boy in a poor neighbourhood. Very poignant memoir, written in such accessible language which I liked. guarenteed to get you emotional, another one everyone should read. didn’t rate because it’s so highly personal that felt wrong but highly recommend. 

under a biliari tree i born by alice biari smith: memoir by an Aboriginal Australian detailing her life growing up learning traditional Aboriginal ways and how the lives of Indigenous Australian’s have been impacted through the years, specifically in Western Australia. Probably more aimed at school age people but still a 101 I think many Australian’s (and non Australian’s) can benefit from. didn’t rate 

classics

maurice by e.m forster: gay man coming of age story in college + themes around class and sexuality. forster’s end note saying he thought it imperative to write a happy ending because we need that in fiction, i love him. ★★★★★

emma by jane austen: read before seeing the movie. loved emma as a character but thought this was okay compared to other Austen I’ve read. ★★★½

perfume by patrick suskind: a man with an incredible sense of smell starts murdering young women to try and bottle their scent for a perfume. weirdest shit I ever read still don’t know how to feel about it. ★★★

the color purple by alice walker: follows the life of Celie, an Black woman living in rural Georgia. deals with her relationship with her sister Nettie, her lover Shug Avery, and with God. this tore my heart to shreds absolutely everyone must read it, like even just for the beautiful writing ALONE. ★★★★

a study in scarlet by arthur conan doyle: its sherlock holmes #1 no further explanation required. not my fave sherlock story, was the weird morman subplot needed? ★★½

dracula by bram stoker: yeah vampires!! this was way easier to read and also way funnier than I expected. we STAN gothic aesthetics and Miss Mina Harker here. ★★★★

fantasy

the diviners by libba bray: teens with magical powers/abilities solving mysteries in 1920′s new york. reread. ★★★★★

lair of dreams by libba bray: the diviners #2. reread. ★★★★½

before the devil breaks you by libba bray: the diviners #3. reread. best one in the series hands down.  ★★★★★

the king of crows by libba bray: waited so long for this series ender and it let me down lol. ★★★

clockwork princess by cassandra clare: the infernal devices #3. dont @ me this is my comfort reread series and I was travelling. ★★★★★

we unleash the merciless storm by tehlor kay mejia: we set the dark on fire #2. latinx inspired fantasy about overthrowing a corrupt government with an f/f romance. didn’t like as much as book one but still good, BEST girlfriends ever. ★★★½

wolfsong by t.j klune: basically feral gay werewolves and witches living in a town together. feels like a teen wolf episode but way more gayer. despite that hated the writing style and I don’t like age gap romances so yay the concept no the execution.  ★★

the fate of the tearling by erika johansan: the tearling #3. finally finished this series, dunno why everyone loathes the ending so much I thought it was cool. underrated fantasy because it’s very unique. ★★★★

girl, serpent, thorn by melissa bashardoust: persian inspired fantasy about a girl who is cursed by a div to kill anyone she touches. has an f/f romance. bashardoust writes the most aesthetically rich settings I love her. ★★★★

crier’s war by nina varela: reread. f/f enemies to lovers where the main character poses as a handmaiden in order to try and murder the princess whose father killed her family. PEAK gay content literally a modern classic. ★★★★★

we hunt the flame by hafsah faizal: I was so disinterested in this book I barely can describe the plot but basically it’s a prince and a hunter who are enemies but are forced to go looking for this magical artifact together anyway it was boring.  ★

ghosts of the shadow market by cassandra clare + others: short story collection set in the shadowhunter world. probably the strongest of her collections but they just don’t hit the same as her full length books. didn’t rate. 

a storm of swords: part two by george r.r martin: a song of ice and fire #3. I WILL finish reading these books eventually i swear !! probably the best one yet though. ★★★★

amarah by l.l mcneil: world of linaria #3. high fantasy with politics, dragons, warring races. tolkein/asoiaf vibes if they had more women with agency. didn’t rate because I haven’t decided my feelings on the end yet. 

science fiction

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: f/f enemies to lovers between spies on rival sides of a time war. good book but writing style wasn’t for me (others love this so eh take my opinion with a grain os salt:  ★★★

not your sidekick by c.b lee: main character is from a superhero family but has no powers herself, so she takes an internship working with a superhero corp. has an f/f romance with a villain character. so much fun and super cute

speculative fiction:

the deep by rivers solomon: speculative fiction wherein pregnant African women thrown overboard by slave ships gave birth to babies that became mermaids. main character holds all the memories of her people’s past but runs away after being unable to deal with the burden. about self discovery, intergenerational trauma and the burden of remembering. a little short imo but still all round excellent book ★★★★

how long ‘til black future month? by n.k jemisin: short story collection, many with an afro-futurism focus. hard to explain because there is such a wide variety of stories but this is an AMAZING collection. didn’t rate because I don’t like rating short story collections but wish more people would read it. 

mystery

the family upstairs by lisa jewell: woman inherits an english house and starts to unravel the secrets of a mass cult suicide that happened there years ago. loved it because it was wild. ★★★★★

the hand on the wall by maureen johnson: truly devious #3. boarding school mystery where the main character has to solve a murder that happened in the 1920s at her school while another mystery is happening in present time. my least favourite of the series but satisfying conclusion nonetheless. ★★★½

contemporary fiction

maybe in another life by taylor jenkins reid: dual timeline book showing the two outcomes of a decision the main character makes. cool concept but ultimately boring book because I didn’t care about the main character at all.  didn’t rate because I didn’t finish it. 

girl, woman, other by bernadine evaristo: vignette stories of various women whose lives are vaguely interconnected. incredibly well written with such vivid characters. deserves the hype. ★★★★

tin heart by shivan plozza: australian YA, the recipient of a heart transplant wishes to connect with the family of her donor, after she discovers the identity of her donor. good story but didn’t like the writing style. ★★★

a little life by hanya yanigahara: follows the life of a group of friends living in life, especially that of jude, a closed off and damaged man with a troubling past. a little too torture-porny/Tragic Gays but I cannot deny the author has a beautiful writing style and I went through all the emotions. didn’t rate

a girl like that by tanaz bhathena: explores the events leading up to the main character dying in a car crash. set in Jeddah, saudi arabia and explores expectations on women, feminism and expressions of sexuality and relationships between women during teenage years. kinda no good characters but I loved it for it’s messy depiction of teen girls (whilst not condemning them for this). underrated. ★★★★

little fires everywhere by celeste ng: drama in white american suburbs when a new family moves in and the neighbours start investigating their past. eh, I heard a lot about this and thought it was just okay. ★★★

stay gold by tobly mcsmith: trans boy decides to go stealth at his new school and falls for a cheerleader, georgia. about navigating being trans and definitely felt like it was written to educate cis people. it was okay but ultimately not my thing and not really the story I was looking for, even though I respect it being written by a trans author and still would recommend to certain people. ★★½

everything leads to you by nina lacour: main character and her best friend have to unravel a hollywood mystery, all while the main character is trying to get over her ex-girlfriend and find work as a set designer. f/f romance and loved the focus on movie making and the power of stories. ★★★½

the falling in love montage by ciara smyth: a girl meets another girl at a party, but she’s not looking to date due to the amount of family issues she has going on. so her and the girl decide to spend the summer having fun, renacting scenes from rom-coms, but never dating. awesome family dynamics and the relationship between the two girls was sweet also set in ireland which is fun. 

normal people by sally rooney: explores the relationship between connell and marianne, who meet in school, date secretly, and then are inexplicably drawn to each other for the rest of their lives. explores power dynamics, relationships, love and trust, and what we owe to eachother. great book, great mini-series, love it to bits. ★★★★★

the glass hotel by emily st john mandel: impossible to explain this book, but there’s a mystery about grafitti, a ponzi scheme and a character falling to their death on a boat under suspicious circumstances. honestly idk what happened in this book but I liked it. ★★★½

historical fiction

half of a yellow sun by chimamanda ngozi adichie: historical fiction about the biafran war loosely based on adichie’s family experiences. incredibly well written with an ending that punches you in the gut. ★★★★

hamnet by maggie o’farrell: explores the shakespeare family after the death of their child, Hamnet, from the plague, and how this leads to Shakespeare writing Hamlet. cool as fuck concept and boring as fuck book with such tropey female characters. ★★

all the light we cannot see by anthony doerr: WW2 fiction, dual perspective between a blind girl living in france and a german boy forced into nazi youth. I cannot believe this book is award winning it’s so boring and predictable and i reget the time i wasted on it. ★

poetry:

on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong: poetry memoir. vuong writes a letter to his illiterate mother, knowing she’ll never read it, exploring their relationship, his experiences growing up as second generation Vietnamese-American, and hers during the Vietnam War. My favorite book I’ve read so far this year, just too good to explain, genuinely just feel like everyone is better off for having read this. ★★★★★

currrently reading:

girls of storm and shadow by natasha ngan

meet me at the intersection: edited by rebecca lim & ambelin kwaymullina

stamped from the beginning: the definitive history of racist ideas in america by ibram x. kendi

get a life, chloe brown by talia hibbert

#books #reading #booklr #book #book recommendation #mine #reading update #did anyone ask for this #no #did i do it anyway yes #its my continuing agenda to get book tumblr to read books that aren't soc and aftg aaldkskska #ok bye #after making this its become apparent to me I need to balance out how much fantasy I let myself read akdksks #i lov fantasy but im TRYING to read more uhh non fiction and lit fic

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Saturday was Joe Biden’s first-ever win in a presidential primary or caucus. It was an awfully big one: Biden won South Carolina by nearly 30 percentage points over Bernie Sanders. And it made for one heck of a comeback: Biden’s lead over Sanders had fallen to as little as 2 to 3 percentage points in our South Carolina polling average in the immediate aftermath of New Hampshire.

What explains the big swing back to Biden in South Carolina? And what does it mean for the rest of the race — and in particular for Sanders, who had entered this weekend as the frontrunner?

Here are five possible explanations — ranging from the most benign for Sanders to the most troubling for his campaign.

Hypothesis No. 1: This was a “dead cat bounce” for Biden because voters were sympathetic to him in one of his best states. It may have been a one-off occurrence.

Remember Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire in 2008? Left for dead by the national media after she lost Iowa to Barack Obama in 2008, she overcame a big polling deficit for an upset win in the Granite State. It didn’t do her much good, though; she won Nevada the next week but badly lost South Carolina two weeks later, eventually losing the nomination to Obama.

There are some similarities to Biden’s position in South Carolina. Like Clinton before New Hampshire, the media all but counted him out of the running after Iowa. Like Clinton in New Hampshire, Biden had a strong debate a few days before the primary along with some emotional moments on the campaign trail. Furthermore, some of the reporting from South Carolina suggests that certain South Carolina voters — especially older whites and African-Americans — felt deep loyalty toward Biden and wanted to keep him in the running.

Degree of concern for Sanders if this hypothesis is true: Low to moderate. If this were truly just a one-off sympathy bounce, then Sanders can live with it. Sure, Bernie missed an opportunity to put the race away with a win — or perhaps even a close second — in South Carolina. But voters rarely just hand the nomination to you without creating a little bit of friction. But if voters in other Super Tuesday states feel the same way that South Carolinians did, the sympathetic moment for Biden may not be over yet.

Hypothesis No. 2: The disparate results so far are simply reflective of the geographic and demographic strengths and weaknesses of the candidates. The notion of “momentum” is mostly a mirage.

If this is the case, you could wind up with a very regionally-driven primary, with Biden doing well in the South but perhaps not so well everywhere else. This is more or less what our model expects to happen, for what it’s worth; it now has Biden favored in every Southern Super Tuesday state except Texas, and he’s an underdog everywhere outside of the South.

The counter to this: Biden clearly did much better in South Carolina counties and precincts that weren’t as emblematic of his base than he had in those kinds of districts in other states. The counter to the counter: Geographic factors pick up a lot of information that demographics alone miss. So his strong performance in certain parts of South Carolina may bode well for how he’ll do in Alabama or North Carolina or Georgia. It may not say much about his performance in Michigan or California, however.

Degree of concern for Sanders if this hypothesis is true: Low to moderate. Sanders led Biden by about 12 points in national polls heading into South Carolina. Moreover, our model — which uses demographics in its forecast — has Sanders ahead. So although Biden has some strong groups and regions, Sanders’s coalition looks as though it’s slightly bigger and broader overall — although a post-South Carolina bounce for Biden or swoon for Sanders could eat into that advantage.

Hypothesis No. 3: The party is finally getting behind Biden. It may or may not work.

Almost half of South Carolina primary voters said that Rep. James Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden was a big factor in their decision. There are some questions about the cause and effect: It may be that Biden voters were pleased with the endorsement and said it was a major factor, even though they were planning to vote for Biden already. Still, Biden did get a big, late surge in the polls following the debate and the endorsement.

Clyburn is also one of the few party bigwigs to have endorsed a candidate. While lots of U.S. representatives, mayors, lieutenant governors and so on have endorsed, not many senators, governors or party leaders have. That leaves open the possibility there could be a surge of endorsements for Biden in the coming days. He’s already scored several major endorsements in Virginia, for instance, which is a Super Tuesday state.

Degree of concern for Sanders if this hypothesis is true: Moderate. The “Party Decides” view of the race treats endorsements and other cues from party leaders as being highly predictive and important. And a surge of endorsements for Biden seems reasonably likely. This could reverse a longstanding period of seeming indifference by party leaders toward Biden as they hoped for Michael Bloomberg or some other alternative to emerge.

But it’s not clear how effective an endorsement surge would be, as few legislators command the respect in their states that Clyburn does. Moreover, although we’re not going to cover it at length here, there’s plenty of room to question how empirically accurate the “Party Decides” is. Meanwhile, endorsements aren’t necessarily what Biden needs; an influx of cash would do him more good.

Hypothesis No. 4: Voters are behaving tactically. Biden was the only real alternative to Sanders in South Carolina, and he may be the only real alternative going forward.

Tactical voting is something you hear a lot about in multi-party systems like the United Kingdom’s, where voters are trying to find the most viable candidate from a number of similar alternatives (for example, from among the various parties that opposed Brexit). The same dynamics potentially hold in multi-candidate presidential primaries, and we’ve already seen evidence of it. In New Hampshire, voters flocked to Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar in the closing days of the campaign and away from Biden and Elizabeth Warren. In South Carolina, tactical voting may have worked in Biden’s favor, instead. Biden was fairly clearly the most viable alternative to Sanders, so voters for candidates like Tom Steyer and Buttigieg may have gravitated toward him in the closing days of the campaign.

Degree of concern for Sanders if this hypothesis is true: High. First, if voters are actively looking for alternatives to Sanders — but just can’t settle on which one is best — that can’t be good news for him, and gives some credence to the “lanes” theory of the race in which the moderate vote could eventually consolidate behind one alternative to Sanders. The South Carolina exit poll had Sanders’s favorability rating at just 51 percent, which is some of the stronger evidence for a ceiling on his support so far.

Moreover, Biden’s strong finish in South Carolina, along with improved debate performances, endorsements, and increasingly favorable media coverage, could make it clear to voters that Biden is the best alternative to Sanders after all, possibly with some exceptions where there are home-state alternatives (Klobuchar in Minnesota and Warren in Massachusetts). If Biden picks up support from tactical voters who had previously backed candidates such as Bloomberg and Buttigieg in polls, that could lead to a larger-than-usual South Carolina bounce.

Hypothesis No. 5: There has already been a national surge toward Biden that is not fully reflected in the polls.

It didn’t get much notice, but polling outside of South Carolina was also pretty favorable to Biden toward the end of last week, including polls that showed sharp improvements for him in states such as Florida and North Carolina. He’s also gotten better results in some national polls lately — climbing back into the low 20s — along with other, not-so-great ones.

The data isn’t comprehensive enough to know for sure. Between the dense cluster of events on the campaign trail (primaries, debates, etc.) and the different races that pollsters are surveying (South Carolina, Super Tuesday, national polls), everything is getting sliced pretty thin. But we do know that Biden made big improvements since the debate in South Carolina polling, the one state where we did have enough data to detect robust trendlines.

Degree of concern for Sanders if this hypothesis is true: High. Suppose that Biden gained 5 or 6 percentage points across the board nationally and in Super Tuesday states as a result of this week’s debate (or other recent factors such as voters’ reaction to coronavirus), but it’s gone largely undetected because there hasn’t been enough polling. If that’s the case, then Biden may already be in a considerably better position than current polling averages and models imply — and then he could get a further bounce from winning South Carolina on top of it. This is a scary possibility for Sanders, and although there isn’t enough data to prove it, there also isn’t much that would rule it out.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nate Silver

[elfnerdherder]

Where the Wicked Walk: Ch.5

You can read Chapter 5 on Ao3 Here

Check out my Patreon Here for early chapter releases, insight to the characters, chances to vote~ on certain outcomes, and more! :)

Chapter 5: The Black Cat

           Will Graham was allowed outside in the early morning.

           He’d grabbed a change of clothes from his pack, having ignored the now obvious hints that the other clothes within the room had been provided for him. He stood out in the fog, and he inhaled the humid air, cool only because of the early morning. It was going to be a warm day, much like it often was in a place like that.

           Will may have had a bag put over his head, but he could recognize the good old, country south when he saw it.

           The trees were hardwoods beyond the lush, well-maintained yard: maples, oaks, river birches, hickory, and beeches. The dense thickness of them was apparent even from where he stood, off to the west side of the house, standing among the dew and the grass. He wasn’t allowed to walk in the forest, Francis said, but he could walk around the yard. A kind sort of exercise, all things considered.

           There was a pond in the back that he stood beside for a long time, staring down in it. It was a large pond, devoid of too much algae and grime. It was difficult for him to wrap his mind around the idea that Lecter hadn’t paid anyone to put so much effort into the space around them. It was difficult because of the implications, because of the idea that adoration for him was so utterly strong that they’d break their backs to give him a lovely mansion of sorts to lounge about in as he attempted to force his old patient’s eyes to change color.

           Thankfully, they hadn’t changed color. He woke with two very, very blue eyes.

           “Judging by the interstate we were on last before Molly had a bag put over my head, I’d say we were in Georgia,” Will said casually, glancing back to Francis. Francis stood a respectable distance, standing at a stiff ‘parade march’.

           “I can neither confirm nor deny,” Francis said.

           “You don’t have to,” Will assured him. “It’s not quite wet enough for Florida, and we drove farther than South Carolina. I’m guessing Georgia.”

           Francis said nothing to that, a stoic expression on a carefully constructed face of calm.

           “Marine Corps?” Will guessed, studying his stance. “Yeah…Marine Corps. My dad was in the marines, long before I was born. When he thought he was stuck waiting for something a long time, he’d stand like that, too.”

           “Mr. Graham-”

           “Did Dr. Lecter tell you to call me that, or have you decided that’s just how you’ll speak to me?” Will asked. “Because if he told you to call me Mr. Graham, that’s a load of horse shit.”

           “I respect your position in this house,” Dolarhyde said, and he stumbled over his ‘S’ once more. It made his shoulders tense, and he ducked his head. “Please…just enjoy your walk.”

           Will sighed, tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, and enjoyed his walk.

           It wasn’t right for him to needle at Dolarhyde, but he’d woken with an honest anger, now that the shock was abating. Dr. Lecter was going to try and induce a full connection because he couldn’t handle the idea of his psyche reaching for something that didn’t reach back? He was going to try and force Will to connect to him so that he could justify something in this world changing him the way he oftentimes changed other people?

           God, if he were a saner person, the thought alone would have crippled him.

           He wasn’t a saner person, though. That��s why Hannibal Lecter honestly thought that he could change him.

           “Will?”

           Will glanced to the side as he meandered along a gravel path. Beverly stood closeby, her steps silent in the grass.

           “Go away, Beverly,” he said pleasantly.

           “I just want to talk.”

“Do you honestly think that you can salvage this mess out of the maw of madness?” he wondered. He realized instantly that he’d picked up on Lecter’s tone and words, and he gritted his teeth. He hated when he did that. “Better put, why do you think that I want to talk to you?”

           “You don’t understand,” she said.

           “I don’t,” he agreed, and he kept walking. “And I honestly don’t want to.”

           “If you’d just listen-”

           “You know, I’m getting that a lot from you people. If you’d just listen, if you’d just trust me, if you’d just get in the fucking car, if you’d just look into my eyes…everyone here, despite claiming to care about my well being, seems royally hellbent on giving me a laundry list of to-do’s, even as you all say, ‘if you’d just.” He paused to savor the sound of his voice coming out dry, sardonic, and perfectly in control. “I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised at your lying, though.”

           “Look, Will, we’re friends, and I honestly care about you,” Beverly replied.

           Will barked out a harsh laugh, hands curling into fists in his pockets. “No, we’re…we’re not friends. The, uhm, the light of friendship wouldn’t reach us, Beverly, not for a thousand years. Not after this.”

           “Will-”

           “You pretended to give a shit about me! For the better part of four years, you slowly gained my trust, got to know me, became the person you thought would appeal to me so that you could sidle in close and spy on me for Dr. Hannibal Lecter.” When his voice grew, he paused to take a deep, slow inhale. “What…could possibly make you think that now that I’m well aware of just the kind of person you are, I would ever want to consider you a friend, let alone think fondly of you?”

           “I do care about you, Will!” she snapped. “That is real! That is honest!”

           “Whatever shred of real honesty you claimed to have shriveled up and died the moment you watched Molly point a gun at me and did nothing,” Will replied.

           That made her hesitate. An odd shadow passed over her face, and if Will had been closer, he could have seen the emotion shifting in the corners of her eyes, bleak somehow as her lips twisted down.

           The moment passed, and the expression was gone.

           “Dr. Lecter…is a good person,” she said after a long, pained silence. “He sees things that no one else does. He views the world in an entirely different light, like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

           “That’s because he views human beings as animals,” said Will dryly. “Beverly…you may think this is somehow right or somehow…justifiably good, but you are putting your faith and trust in the hands of a very bad man.”

           “You simply need to see him from a different perspective,” Beverly replied easily.

           “Under his orders, I was kidnapped. Under his orders, Francis Dolarhyde murdered at least five FBI agents, and four others aided in the escape of a criminal, not before murdering at least two innocent people at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. That was after another person under his command walked into a police station and murdered a police officer. Can you say that it’s worth it? What you’re giving up for someone like that?”

           “…I don’t know that yet,” she said honestly, “but I’m willing to find out.”

           “You know that sooner or later you’re going to have to pay the piper, don’t you? Are you going to be willing to pay that price?”

           Beverly held his intense, probing stare, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed.

           “I guess we’ll see,” she said, and she raked fingers through her hair before adjusting her stance.

           “I guess we’ll see,” Will agreed.

           “Mr. Graham, it’s time for breakfast,” Francis Dolarhyde said from behind them. Will turned to him, no longer standing at parade rest, then looked back to Beverly, brows raised.

           “We have a specific breakfast time,” he said informatively.

           The three of them ventured across the lawn back to the house, their passage marked by the dark shapes of their feet cutting through the dew.

           “Dr. Lecter said that you’ve likely puked up anything of substance last night,” Beverly said when they reached the door. “You didn’t consume anything with protein, so he requested a remedy for that.”

           Will didn’t want to admit that she was right –alone in his room, thoughts gave way to a discontented nausea that brought everything up, the wine burning in his throat hours after.

           “…I wasn’t sure quite how the meat was sourced,” he said after a beat, darkly.

           “We’re not all cannibals,” Beverly retorted.

           “You just blindly follow one, I know.”

           She looked like she had a quick rebuttal for that, but when they walked down the hall towards the dining room he’d just visited the night before, she let the matter drop. Which was just as well; at the swell of voices carrying down the hall, Will’s muscles tensed, and the ease in which he condemned Beverly was gone, replaced instead with the sensation of hands reaching out, grasping for him. He was painfully, completely aware of Francis following behind him, just a step-and-a-half away, and he wondered if he’d be so quick to keep them off of him, should they try to touch him again.

           The curtains had been opened in the dining room, bathing the rich mahogany walls with natural light. The flowers from before remained, although they’d been moved to a small table against a wall off to the side. That gave room for the twenty or so people that crowded along the chairs, eagerly discussing the morning events, punctuated with yawns, sniffles, and the sort of dry cough one can only give when they’ve just woken up.

           As Will walked in, such chatter stumbled to a stop. Will was painfully aware of far too many eyes on him, their mouths in various shapes of surprise or intrigue, mouths half-full of what looked to be semi-chewed eggs and sausage.

           “Come on,” Beverly coaxed, and she blessedly led him through a door to the side that opened up to the kitchen and away from so many prying eyes.

           “Good morning,” Lecter greeted from an island counter. Standing poised beside him, Molly sipped a cup of coffee and observed him over the rim of it.

           “…Good morning,” he managed after a beat. When Molly met his gaze, his lip curled, and he had to look away before something nasty fell out of his mouth.

           “I’ve made omelets. It’s been some time, but I do believe I remembered the recipe after all these years,” he said. Molly and Beverly laughed appreciatively, and Will managed a grimace.

           An uncomfortable pause followed, one bred from the memory of what a butter knife felt like pressed to his pulse just the night before. Being blatantly rude to Beverly was one thing, but when he’d exhibited too much emotion in front of Lecter, things hadn’t gone so well.

           “Thank you,” he said, much too late for it to be considered polite, much less in conjunction with what Dr. Lecter had first said.

           Thankfully, Lecter didn’t seem to mind. He set a plate down to the side of the island where stools had been pulled out, and Will sat down, accepting a fork with a dip of his head.

           “The tomatoes are coming in only a little late in the season, but they taste wonderful,” he assured Will. “Ladies, if you’ll give Will the privacy of eating in here, there should be more than enough room at the table.”

           Molly and Beverly left, although the look Beverly shot him as he began picking bits of sausage out of the omelet clearly said behave.

           “It’s a protein-packed meal in order to replenish anything you lost within the last few days,” Hannibal said conversationally, washing his hands at the sink. As he dried his hands, Francis set a plate in front of the stool beside Will, adjusting the fork just-so. Will wondered if Lecter had ever had the chance to stab someone with a fork before.

           Maybe that’d be the weapon of the day, if he didn’t keep careful control of his mouth.

           Dr. Lecter hung his apron up on a hook by the pantry, and he sat down on the stool beside Will, his back straight and his presence far closer than Will would have liked. Beside his own hunched, curved posture, Lecter’s was impeccable and professional.

           “The spinach is to replenish electrolytes,” he said, motioning to Will’s plate.

           “I don’t even have the ability to puke in private,” Will muttered, savagely setting another bit of sausage to the side. He stopped, turning the fork around in his hand. “…Thank you for breakfast,” he added hastily.

           “It was an educated guess that I made based off of what I know of your personality, actually,” Lecter said. “No doubt if you did manage to sleep, the images of fallen agents whose faces you’ll now forever remember haunted you at your most vulnerable.”

           He was right about both of those things, although Will didn’t want to admit that. He picked another piece of sausage out of the omelet and set it to the side by the steadily growing pile. He tried very hard to pretend that he didn’t notice Hannibal watching his every move, taking notes. Before, when he’d been nothing more than his therapist, Will had always felt under a microscope, each inch of his person noticed and noted. While at the time it had been unsettling but ultimately helpful since he was trying to get better, now it was a grating sensation, the notion that each move he made gave away some sort of aspect to his character that he didn’t want to share.

           “Do you suppose that I am feeding you something other than pork?” Lecter wondered after Will dug out a particularly large chunk of meat.

           Will gripped the fork tightly and focused on the task at hand. “After the first year of therapy with you, Dr. Lecter, you wished to congratulate me on my progress by inviting me to dinner,” he said, staring at his food. “You told me that you’d made rabbit with braised potatoes and fresh herbs, and I ate everything on the plate that night. It was probably the best food I’d ever had.”

           He spared Hannibal a glance as he unearthed another piece of sausage. “About two years later,” he continued savagely, “during one of your court cases, the prosecuting attorney listed dates in which the Chesapeake Ripper had murdered his victims. One of the victims you’d killed, Marissa Schurr, had died just one day before that dinner. She was missing several vital organs, as well as the meat just along her spine.”

           “You believe that I fed you Marissa Schurr.”

           “No, I know you fed me Marissa Schurr. When Agent Crawford was secretly investigating you, you invited him to your home and fed him Nicholas Boyle, brother to Cassie Boyle.”

           “He vomited the dinner and ran tests on the meat,” Hannibal said dismally. “An ingenious plan, all things considered.”

           “Yeah, so I’m not entirely convinced that it’s not your plan to do the same now. Half of your amusement, I think, was keeping us ignorant of your general machinations.”

           “How is Agent Crawford?” he asked.

           “You saw him less than a day before your escape. How was he then?” With all of the sausage successfully removed from the eggs, Will allowed himself to eat, chewing over the cooked spinach with a curl to his lip. He hated spinach.

           “I asked if he ever woke with stomach pains. He informed me that the only pain he suffered was the fact that I was still alive.” He didn’t sound upset by the statement. Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw his lip twist into a small, delighted smile. “I’m sure he is enduring stomach pains now.”

           Will had nothing to say to that. Instead, he focused on his meal, and Lecter followed suit, the sounds of forks clacking against china the only noise in the otherwise silent kitchen.

           After breakfast, he was led back through the dining room where the numbers had dwindled down to about ten, Hannibal walking just ahead of him. Will didn’t so much as watch him as he watched the others in the room, noting the way adoration and –horrifically enough –hope lit up their eyes, mouths curling into soft, pleased smiles. He’d seen similar expression on the faces of those in churches, eyes turned towards statues of Gods and saints. Hope. Blind faith.

           “Who are all of these people?” he asked Dr. Lecter as they walked down the hall.

           “Attempting to glean information, Will?” Hannibal wondered.

           “…Trying to understand what I’m seeing.” Among other things. He hadn’t seen a single cellular device or telephone yet, but he reasoned that he hadn’t seen all of the rooms just yet. Once he could locate a phone, he could find a way to get ahold of Jack.

           “These are dear friends that have come together to help me in my time of need.” He didn’t sound the way one sounded when referring to a dear friend; if anything, there was a distinct turn of his mouth as he spoke, and Will wondered what sort of person suit he’d put on to convince them that he was their savior. He thought of the hands touching him before and cringed.

           “Are they all…?” His voice trailed off.

           “Killers?”

           “Yes.”

           “Some.” A young woman walked by them and stopped just long enough to bob her head respectfully. “Some are disparate youths seeking shelter from a society that has rejected them. Others simply found a place where they can be accepted, regardless of their differences.”

           “So you’ve made a summer getaway camp for psychopaths,” Will said, though he immediately chastised himself. He couldn’t call it ‘surviving’ if he kept running his mouth and made Hannibal angry enough to make him dinner.

           Rather than chastise him, Lecter surprised Will when he instead laughed, pausing in the main hall to really, truly look at Will, as though he were seeing him for the first time.

           Will tried very, very hard to not look at his mismatched eyes.

           “I have missed our conversations,” he said fondly.

           That time, Will was smart enough not to say anything in return.

-

           Jack sat across from a pretty, young woman with mismatched eyes and wondered where all her love had gone. If blood hadn’t stained the front of her shirt in a sloppy, haphazard manner, her appearance would have suggested a trip to a mall, not an attempted murder. She was dressed to blend with a ponytail tucked into a baseball cap, a white t-shirt, and medium wash denim pants. Jack wasn’t the sort of person have a damn clue about differences between medium wash from a light wash, but Zeller had noticed right away. This was a woman meant to blend into a crowd.

           Thankfully, even while being stabbed, Bowman was quick on the uptake.

           “We ran your prints, and they don’t match your identification, ‘Alyss Conners’,” Jack said at last. He’d let the silence sit suspended around them for quite some time, simmering in an underlying rage that was contained with only the slightest control. She hadn’t seemed to mind it, in truth; one brown eye and one hazel eye blinked at him lazily, casually. Her thin lips parted, and she let out a soft huff of breath.

           “That’s odd,” she said. She had a distinctly high-pitched tone, the sort of voice that would normally get her whatever she liked.

           “They did match the prints found at the scene of a crime in Kansas City from nine years ago, though,” he continued like she hadn’t spoken. “Suspect Kelly Brown, wanted in conjunction with the murder of four family members: Jason, Steven, Linda, and Bryce Brown.”

           “My name is Alyss, not Kelly.”

           “We know you’re working for Lecter. We’ve been pulling visitor records, and you’d started going to see Hannibal for at least 3 years under various misnomers. Thankfully, face recognition was able to pull you up and save us time.”

           “I’m currently unemployed, actually,” she informed him lightly. “I hope to fix that, though. I want to work with soulmate counseling.”

           Graham was attempting to finish his residency with soulmate grief counseling. Jack leaned in at that small jab, his mouth rippling with a silent snarl.

           “Where’s Will Graham?”

           “It must hurt to see your fellow agent die, Agent Crawford,” she commented. “In a TattleCrime news article, Freddie Lounds once said that you ‘walked with death’. Everywhere you go, death follows. How does that feel?”

           “Agent Bowman isn’t dead, Kelly,” Jack replied with a gritty smile.

           That took her aback. Her expression of sweet calm faltered, a twinge of panic lurking around her eyes before she struggled to compose herself, teeth bared.

           “You’re lying,” she decided.

           “He’s in surgery right now, but things are looking good. Whatever mission Lecter gave you, you failed.” He relished in her unease at his completely serious tone, a spasm near her mouth. It was a balm against the burn of her words. “You were supposed to kill Agent Lloyd Bowman and get away, right? A shadow of death that could strike wherever. Except you failed on both counts, Kelly.”

           “You won’t find Dr. Lecter,” she hissed, and she bared her teeth. Her canines were sharper than normal, peeking out over lips the color of pink rose petals. “I may have failed him, but you won’t find him. You who walks with death and brings it in your wake, you will only hurt those around you in your quest to save Will Graham.”

           “Where’s Will Graham?” Jack demanded. His tone darkened in response to hers.

           “You’ll never find him,” Kelly hissed.

           “Tell me, and we can maybe think of a deal, Kelly.” It was a lie, but it was a good one. Even if he took care of her attempted murder of a federal agent, she was wanted elsewhere for other murders. Things didn’t look good for Kelly Brown.

           “Over my dead body,” she snarled.

           “That can be arranged. The death penalty is still legal in Missouri.”

           He stood up and gathered the papers into a file, heading from the room with a straight, confidant step. Just outside, Zeller straightened from his slouch, and he fell in step beside Jack as they headed down the hall.

           “He’s still in surgery,” he said, and Jack grunted. Bowman was still alive, even if only just. It was good news. Good news was hard to come by whenever Lecter was in the mix.

           “Also, I did checks on everyone. Molly Foster, single mother with a son by the name of Wally. Twenty-seven, widowed, but the death of her husband is from cancer, not murder. No soulmate, and no word on where her son is. Her face was pulled from the cameras at the BSHCI five different times, although she signed in to see Lecter under a different name each time.”

           “I want to see where, when, and how she first came to find this guy. Do we have letters of correspondence?” Jack wondered.

           “Beverly Katz, a student in the GWU graduate program for criminology. She was being scoped out by the FBI, but… this essentially ruins her application. She has a soulmate, Saul Yancy, who visited Dr. Lecter five years ago and used his real name. Beverly Katz visited Dr. Lecter only once, although she used a pseudo name.”

           Jack nodded and walked into the autopsy room where Price was busy peering through a microscope. He tossed the folder down, loosened his tie, and tried to roll her words off of his back.

           Everywhere you go, death follows.

           “Agent Francis Dolarhyde.” At that, Zeller paused, a frown creasing the space between his brows. “We pretty much know his professional career. Before that, though, he was bounced from foster house to foster house, abandoned by his mother, cared for by his grandmother for a short while before she died, then taken in by his mother once more before he was back in the foster system until he graduated high school and joined the marines a month later.”

           “How many times did he visit Dr. Lecter in his spare time?”

           Zeller glanced up from his folder and frowned, uncomfortable. Jack didn’t care, though; while Dolarhyde may have been an agent, he certainly wasn’t one any longer. Jack had placed his trust in him to keep Will Graham safe, and Francis Dolarhyde had spit on it.

            How does that feel?

            “Quite a few times, actually, each time under a false name with a different guard working,” Zeller said reluctantly. “We’re going through as much information as we can, and Dr. Chilton is giving us his full cooperation.”

           When Jack didn’t speak right away, Price lifted his head and cleared his throat.

           “While he was looking at that, I looked through a few things, too,” he said. Jack turned to him expectantly. “Namely, the backpack of your Saul Yancy, soulmate to Beverly Katz. It seems that in the rush, he left a few things behind, namely a Nalgene bottle with very stale, very warm water in it.”

           “Okay,” Jack said blankly.

           “Well, I decided to study the diatoms in it, on a hunch,” he continued.

           “You studied the diatoms on a hunch,” Zeller repeatedly bluntly.

           “People have hunches,” Price replied defensively. At Jack’s aggravated sigh, he continued, “Diatoms are unique and can house specific ‘fingerprints’, so to speak, like people can. You study the diatoms, compare them to other diatoms, and you can find a general water source. Where this was water from a tap rather than bottled water…”

           “We can try and hunt down just where Saul was before he made his way to Graham’s apartment,” Jack finished for him. His gut tensed, and he idly rubbed the scar. It did that often enough when he was stressed, a reminder of just how close one walked the line between life and death in situations like this. If Bowman lived, they’d have to compare scars.

           “Sounds like a long shot,” Zeller murmured. Despite the misgivings in his tone, his eyes lightened perceptively.

           “That’s what I thought, but I decided to give it a shot while you were doing your background sleuthing and face recognition project.” Price paused to savor the moment. “Looks like our guy Saul came from a place in Georgia before he made his way to Graham’s apartment that fateful night. Specifically either the Piedmont region, or the Upper Coastal Plain.”

           “That guy really needs to drink more water,” Zeller said triumphantly.

           “I’m pretty damn glad that he didn’t,” Jack replied. He felt the beginnings of excitement unfurling just under the place where Lecter gave him his crooked smile. “Get me on the phone with the Atlanta HQ,” he said, grabbing his phone. “I want my ass in the air in under an hour.”

A special thanks to my patrons, @hanfangrahamk @sylarana @matildaparacosm @starlit-catastrophe Duhaunt6 and Superlurk! Y’all are the best!

#LiaS scribbles #where the wicked walk #hannibal fic #hannibal au #hannibal soulmate au #hannigram #slowburn hannigram #i mean it it's a slowburn yall #someone help will graham #will graham x hannibal #team sassy science #minus once since she is in a cult as of right now #jack crawford #needs all the help he can get

[5hfanfiction]

Sixth Sense

The group consisting of five: Camila, Lauren, Dinah, Normani & Ally decided to book at the creepiest place while they were travelling. Well, not that it was their choice. They mainly just couldn’t agree on which hotel, room or cabin to rent until when they went to a decision all of their choices were either already fully booked or only had slots for three people left.

It made Camila feel uneasy the most. Basically since out of all the five of them, she was the one who would hide under the blanket whenever they would watch a horror movie during their movie nights and would spend the following days sleeping with the lights on or avoiding places that ghosts appeared on in some of the scenes.

“Don’t worry, Walz. You can just cuddle up to Lauser here whenever you’d get scared. She a brave one.” Dinah, one hand on the steering wheel, the other pointing to Lauren who was sat behind her, suggested, with a disapproving Mani on the passenger seat, who swatted her arm away upon hearing her.

Camila, of course, didn’t reply while Lauren subtly looked at the rearview mirror to see how her girlfriend would react.

“Let’s not think about that right now. And I’m sure we can always pray and everything will be alright.” Ally, who was kind enough to be the mediator to the two quarelling girlfriends decided to seat between them to somehow reduce the tension, advised, always the one with the most faith out of all of them.

“True that.” Dinah seconded, nodding. Mani, on the other hand, smiled her trademark smile that looked like a smirk because she was not sure if the Polynesian was really sincere she agreed with Ally or was just playing with their friend.

A little later, the song on the radio changed to one of their group’s favorite songs and Ally excitedly ordered Dinah to turn up the volume to which the blonde easily obliged.

Well, I had me a boy, turned him into a man I showed him all the things that he didn’t understand Whoa, and then I let him go

Ally led their sing along, perfectly synchronizing the tone of her voice with the song.

Mani and Dinah joined her by the second stanza, and Camila, no matter how she tried to be consistent with her resolution yesterday that she’d not join in on anything that would seem like she wanted to forget her squabble with Lauren and just forgive her, also sang along starting with the pre chorus. By the time the chorus came, all five of them, including Lauren, were already singing their hearts out.

Ex’s and the oh, oh, oh’s they haunt me Like gho-o-osts they want me to make ‘em all They won’t let go Ex’s and oh’s

“I told y'all we should have just went with the basement room of that other hotel.” Dinah, one hand holding her bag stood still infront of the building when they arrived, looking not as brave as she was on the way there. Camila, who was standing beside her was biting the tip of her thumb, already nervous.

“Hey, guys, that song in the car. That gho-o-osts they want me. What if that was some kind of sign?” The smallest of them blurted out her thoughts.

“Ally!!!” Camila, Dinah, and Mani immediately cried in unison.

“Come on. Either we go in there or sleep in the car. We still have a long drive tomorrow so I doubt you want to be cramped inside that small box of a vehicle.” Lauren, true to what Dinah described her earlier, walked ahead of them and entered the building first. The rest of the girls looked at each other first before following their raven-haired friend.

On their floor, Mani and Dinah quickly occupied the room for two that they reserved, which left Ally, Camila, and Lauren no choice but to take the other one. The three discovered, to Camila’s dismay, that there were only two beds available, one king-sized and one solo. Thankfully, Ally made the initiative to walk to the king-sized, placing her bag at the foot of it and Camila followed. Lauren, since it was obvious, occupied her bed on the other side.

When they had all their stuff settled, they came down to the hotel’s restaurant to get dinner. As if there was an unspoken rule to not let the girlfriends sit beside each other, Ally sat beside Camila while Mani and Dinah followed Lauren on the other side of the table.

The girls each checked the menu and to Camila’s pleasure, despite the hotel’s scary reputation, they still had the good sense to put pizza on their carte.

Other hotel guests were also present in the restaurant and so far everything felt at peace to the girls. Before the beautiful waitress came walking to get their orders, that is.

“Good evening, beautiful ladies. May I have your order?” The attractive blonde with blue eyes asked pleasantly with a disarming smile. Camila was taken with her approach that after Ally, Dinah, and Mani had ran down their choices, she gave hers with an equally pleasant smile. But when it was Lauren’s turn and suddenly the waitress’ smile became brighter, Camila’s expression turned into a frown.

“How about you, hottie?” The blonde faced toward Lauren. Camila wasn’t sure if Lauren was really oblivious or was just trying to be dense but she didn’t like it that instead of simply giving her orders, Lauren asked more questions regarding their dishes, which seemed to Camila like she was prolonging the conversation.

“Is that all? I can list all the extra quirks you like for your food and tell the kitchen folks to do them for you.” The waitress persisted. Good thing Lauren declined with a simple, “No, that’s all. Thanks anyway.”

When the waitress left, Camila decided to let her thoughts slide and just focus on the conversation that was going on between Ally, Dinah, and Normani.

“We should reach Georgia by tomorrow and there we can stop at some good spots. Take some pictures, eat, anything.” Camila heard Dinah tell the other two.

“I’m excited. I’ve never been on a roadtrip this long and I feel giddy just thinking about the things we can do.” Ally added cheerfully.

They went on for the next few minutes, Camila and Lauren alternately joining un, discussing some possible locations they could visit while Mani typed them down on her phone for reference.

When the beautiful blonde came back with their food, though, Camila went back to her sore demeanor earlier.

“And here’s for the one with the most beautiful eyes here tonight.” The waitress complimented Lauren as she was serving the green-eyed girl’s food, having finished with the four other girls’ first. This time, Camila saw Lauren got the hint as she saw her cheeks turned red.

“Are you usually that generous with compliments for your guests?” Camila couldn’t help it and asked the blonde, tone laced with undisguised venom. “If you are, why not turn that generosity into food so maybe we’d have real use for it. Great idea, huh?”

Camila saw Lauren frown in her peripheral but decided to ignore it and just continued glaring at the blonde until the poor one averted her eyes and excused herself meekly.

“What was that for?” For the first time that day, Lauren spoke directly to Camila and also for the first time, Camila acknowledged her.

“She was obviously flirting with you and I had the compassion to save you from an unnecessary situation.” Camila said, looking to Lauren’s eyes.

“You didn’t have to be so rude.”

“Well, she wouldn’t let up and it’s not like you were doing anything to stop her either.”

Lauren huffed out an incredulous breath at what she heard her girlfriend say. “I was being polite.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s what you always say.”

Suddenly a realization hit Lauren. “Is that why you were not talking to me? You’re jealous again?”

“No! I was not talking to you because you managed to come late at our monthsary date even if I reminded you days ago.”

All patience Lauren had been holding the past few days left her and she replied angrily. “God, Camila. I was busy reviewing for finals and shit and I didn’t forget. I was too tired so I fell asleep and woke up late. I did not do it on purpose.”

Instead of replying, Camila just stood up from the table while mumbling, “I’m not hungry anymore.”

The four girls watched as Camila walked out through the entrance, a mixture of concern, sadness, and regret within them.

They did not see, though, when Camila went back a few minutes later and sat at a table away from them, a look of uncertainty and dread on her face, until they were finished eating amd were heading back to their rooms.

The next few hours went relatively peaceful, with no more further spats between the brunette and the raven-haired girl. Actually, as they were already in their respective rooms, Camila became silent. The two didn’t pay much attention to it and attributed it to her foul mood.

By 11PM, as what Camila’s wristwatch told her, she was still wide awake. She could hear Ally’s even breathing beside her so she knew she was already asleep. Lauren was laid facing away from her, making no movement so Camila concluded she was most likely asleep as well. Camila kind of envied them in that moment because she was not even close to feeling sleepy, the guilt over her outburst in the restaurant nagging at her and the take-out food Lauren brought for her was staring at her on top of the bedside table. That and the fact that all rumors she heard about this hotel, of ghost sightings and eery history was keeping her imagination running amock. Not once had she sworn she saw a shadow move at the corner of the room but when she turned to look there was nothing there.

She managed to ignore that but then a few minutes later, she heard a door creaking, the sound sounding much like those in the horror movies, with scrapy, lingering sound like the door hadn’t been used in a very long time. She could easily disregard that as someone who just came inside their room but when that continued happening every minute, no sound of footsteps following them, she became paranoid.

What was that? Could that be Mani and Dinah fooling around with each other, feeling insomniac like her as well? She dismissed the thoughts rightaway for she read their messages at their group chat wishing them all a good night’s sleep and telling them they were already going to bed.

Not long after, but most definitely felt like hours to the brunette, she heard footsteps walking back and forth infront of their room, and the faucet going in their bathroom going off on its own, Camila admitted she was scared.

She fidgeted in her spot, tossing amd turning, not sure how she’d be able to relax given the circumstances let alone sleep while her roommates are still fast asleep. Thirty minutes more passed when she decided her peace of mind was more important than her pride, she stood up and walked to the other side of the room.

She felt the bed dip as she sat on it, her girlfriend’s body dipping as well with the weight so she moved carefully as she laid down beside her before wrapping her right arm around Lauren and hiding her face behind her back.

“Camz?” Lauren’s raspy voice broke the silence.

“I’m scared, Lo. The faucet, door creaking and footsteps. There are ghosts here.”

Lauren turned around to face her, one hand caressing Camila’s cheek. She seemed to be taking in the sounds of their surroundings before she stood up and went inside their bathroom.

The fear that left Camila shortly when she was beside Lauren immediately came back but Lauren was quick to return so she didn’t have to dwell on it for long.

“That faucet’s ours, I think it’s broken. But, Camz, I didn’t hear the door and the footsteps.”

“But you were asleep,” Camila replied, looking to her girlfriend’s eyes that had the power to take away her fear with just one look.

“I was not. I - I couldn’t sleep either.” Lauren admitted.

Upon hearing that, Camila’s guilt from earlier came back. “I’m sorry. I was being irrational and I got really jealous.”

“Shhh. It’s okay. I shouldn’t have blown up on you like that.” Lauren silenced Camila’s apology with one finger over her mouth. “It’s okay, babe. I’m sorry, too.”

Camila gave Lauren a sweet kiss on her lips before snuggling up to her chest, feeling a lot lighter and less scared. Soon enough, she noticed she hadn’t heard the eery sounds again and she fell in a deep slumber.

Needless to say, they had a new seating position the following day. It was Mani’s turn behind the wheel and Dinah sat in the passenger seat. Lauren was still behind the driver but this time, Camila was cuddled beside her, while Ally was beside the brunette.

Dinah, being her usual dorky self was muttering absurd jokes that made them either cringe or laugh, which Camila reacted by nuzzling her face on Lauren’s shoulder. It was during one of those times while Dinah was looking at the raven-haired girl that Lauren mouthed a silent, “Thank you.” To which the Polynesian replied with a soundless “You’re welcome, Lauser.”

***

A/N: I hope you all got that. 😊

I had this idea because my friends and I are going to this place in two weeks and we still haven’t booked a room to stay at so I jokingly suggested this haunted place. All purely a joke because I’m like Camila in this fic in all things ghost related and would NEVER willingly go anywhere with real ones.

As always, thanks for reading. Love you all!!

wattpad: litaddict02

-PAT

#UPDATE #one shot #AU #camren #camally #norminah #laurinah #angst drama #romance fluff #submission #Sixth Sense

[may85]

Series: Apocalyptic Title: Goth Queen Part 1 All GIFs/Photos: credit goes to original owner! Thanks to @magikat409 for the polyvore! Elm Grove was a community that not very many ventured to or through. The desolate town seemed like something out of a horror movie or hell, even something out of a Scooby Doo episode. Negan heard of a mysterious woman that ran Elm Grove. Anyone who ever had made it out alive always called her the Goth Queen. Time and time again he brought it to the table to go and pay the Goth Queen a visit, but his men always voted against it. They were running out of places to scavenge and they were only getting so much from Rick the Prick, Hilltop and the Kingdom. It was high time the boys shit or get off the pot. Having Simon rangle up some men who had the fuckin' balls was difficult enough. Hell, he didn't even think he'd have the time to screw any of wives because of the pussies who worked for him. When he walked out to the trucks, the men were hesitant to get into the vehicles. "You sorry shits better have a damn good explanation for not being on the goddamn ball today!" His voice thundered. The men looked from one another, shuffling their feet where they stood. Negan clicked his tounge and rolled his eyes, "Either get in the fuckin' trucks or loose what room and board you fuckers have!" With that, he knocked Lucille against the metal railing and got into a truck. The men, terrified that they may loose their housing, quickly jumped into their awaiting vehicles. °°°°°° Night had fallen, the humidity rather high this time of year. Fog had rolled in, covering the surrounding area of Elm Grove. At the very entrance, was a tall iron gate, too tall for any of the men to climb. Negan rattled the gate, the metal clanking loudly around them. In the distance, wolves howled and a flock of bats flew over head. To their right, they heard heavy footsteps approach. "Who goes there!?" The deep baritoned voice, asked. "Jesus Christ! How's the weather up there Lurch!?" Negan said, leaning back. The overly tall mans upper lip curled, a growl coming from deep in his chest. "Uh, Negan. I wouldn't do that." Simon warned. The mother fucker actually gulped! "Say your peace and leave!" Negan held his hands up, eyes wide, "Easy there man. Just fuckin' jokin'!" "What say you!?" "We would like to have a word with the Goth Queen." Simon said, his voice shaky. "Pssft! Disrespectful fools! What makes you think-" "Who is we?" A much smaller person asked, stepping out from behind the tall man. He appeared to have dwarfism... and an Irish accent. The joke tickled Negan's tounge, making him bite down. Simon elbowed him, shaking his head. "Negan and the Saviors." "Vince, go let the Goth Queen know of our new arrivals." "Issac, we must not trust outsiders, they have no respect!" Issac, the dwarf, snapped his fingers at Vince, "Go, now!" With a growl, the seven and half foot something man slowly walked up the cobblestone pavement. "Now what's the lot of ya wantin' with our Goth Queen?" The dwarf asked. "That's for us to know and the Queen to find out, Little Man," Negan said. His face contorted, but a creepy laughter bubbled up from him. The men flinched, looking around at their surroundings, waiting for something else to pop up. A pop and crackle from a walkie came from the little person. "Let them in, damnit." Issac grabbed the walkie and hit the talk button, "It'd be me pleasure." Taking an old key from his pocket, he inserted it into a lock that was at his height. Clinks and clanks from the locking mechanism echoed through the bare trees, bound to draw walkers. As the men slowly crept through, Issac snapped, "Move yer asses!" The gate slammed shut as he grinned, "Watch ye step now lads. Don't want to fall and hurt yerself, now do ye?" Issac disappeared into the darkness. "Creepy little bastard," Negan muttered. Leading his group up the same path that the giant went, they took in the run down buildings of the town. Candles lit the way in every other street lamp. Some windows were lit from the inside in a couple buildings, shadows moving about inside the dim rooms. It felt as of they were taken back to another century. An elderly man with no teeth, gumming a cigar, blew out a puff of smoke on his question, "Lookin' for the Goth Queen?" Negan proped Lucille up on his shoulder, "Yep." "Take a left at the first light. Mortimer's Funeral Home and Crematory is where she'll be." Following the directions that the old man gave, had the men standing in front of a run down three story house. A gust of wind blew through the group, making the leaves dance in a twirl. The windows rattled from the force of the wind, then an eerie silence fell over the neighborhood. The entrance to the funeral home creaked open, making all the men gulp. "She waits for you, oh she does, yess." A child like voice said, from a dark hallway. "Ain't no fuckin' way I'm goin' in there man!" "No way!" "Hell naw!" Negan spun around on the ball of his feet, "I never knew I had the biggest group of pussies! Goddamn cowards." Negan made his way to the door, stopping at the threshold. Simon stayed a couple paces behind him, his hand on his gun. "Oh, this is fun! Yes, yes it is! Do come in, the Goth Queen awaits you!" The child like voice said, gleefully from the darkness. Negan looked to Simon, brow raised as the door slammed shut. A boney hand, with long fingernails crept from dark, pointing to a door, "Go down the steps. She waits for you!" Their boots heavy as they walked across the wooden floor; each thud sounded as if it was bouncing from wall to wall. The door led down to a basement, which was lit, thankfully. Type O Negative's Black Number 1 was playing, heels clacking against the cemented floor. "Don't keep her waiting... hahaha!" Simon actually grabbed ahold of Negan's arm as he felt the breath of the speaker on his ear. Trudging down the steps, Negan and Simon were hesitant seeing as they bowed underneath their weight. An electrical saw had drowned the music; a gnarly wet sound, then the blade hitting something dense making them gringe. The saw was shut off, followed by a squelching noise. Simon gagged behind Negan. Negan knew that sound all to well. It was flesh and bone. When they stepped closer, they heard a woman singing along to Type O Negative. Negan could not believe what he saw. Jet black hair, pale skin and tattoo's. She wore a white lab coat, black pants and black high heeled boots peeking out from beneath the coat. Was this the Goth Queen? "Well hello there!" He called out, pausing at the color of her eyes. She was leaned over the adult dead body, appearing to be looking at the brain. She squinted, the light reflecting what appeared to be green eyes... or were they light brown? A mask covered her mouth. She went to remove it, but paused when she realized her gloves were bloody. She snapped them off as she stood. Purple nail polish covered her nails; tattoos decorating the skin of her hands. She had a hell of a rack, a Misfits tank top stretched over her chest. Negan was damn near rendered speechless when she whipped off her mask. Standing there, hands on her hips, she raised a brow. "Goth Queen, I presume?" Negan asked, loosely holding Lucille. "Depends on who's asking," "Negan and the Saviors." Her smile was slow and dark. Wait... were those? Fucking fangs!? Negan and Simon looked at one another, then back at the woman before them. "I am the Goth Queen, yes," she looked beyond the two men, talking to something that was in the dark. "Cyrus, take this," she pointed to the stone cold body on the draining table, "and make me a few slides, please?" "Hmmmm mmhhm." Negan raised Lucille, ready to hit whomever snuck up on him. "I really wouldn't do that if I were you," The Goth Queen warned, all hints of niceness gone from her tone and face. The man that had hummed came from the shadows, his face badly scarred. The Goth Queen's heels clicked with impatience on the cement as she made her way to the stairs. She had removed her lab coat, her curvy curves doing bad things to Negan's labido. He licked his lips, following her. She was a few steps up from them, her ass all but in their face. "And if you want to keep those eyeballs in their sockets, I highly suggest you look else where." They let her walk farther ahead of them, clear of her anger. This was one woman that Negan did not want to see pissed off. °°°°°° They followed the Goth Queen into the living room, where the walls were a dark lavender with white trim. They matched the color of the walls, but the design seemed out of place with as dark as the Queen was. "This was where they would hold the viewings," she said, crossing her legs as she sat in a chair. She motioned for them to sit. "So what is it that you want?" "Well Sweetheart, we came to offer our services." "Your... services?" She raised a brow. A meow came from around the corner, a hairless cat jumping on the Goth Queen's lap. "Mother of fuckin' Hades what is that!?" Negan asked, amused and disgusted all at once. "What? You act like you've never seen a bare pussy before," She said, winking at Negan. "I fuckin' love you," he blurted, surprising everyone in the room. Negan blinked, realizing what he had just said. He watched as the Goth Queen ran her tounge over a fang. Their meeting was interupted, a medium height man with tattoos and piercings all over his face, breathing heavily. "Goth Queen! They're back!" The cat jumped from her lap, scampering away. "Goddamnit, get everyone back into their homes and lock their doors! No one is to go near the gates, no one! Am I understood?!" "Yes Ma'am!" "Who's back?" Negan asked, standing from the couch. She sighed, going to the next room and gathering some weapons, "People on the outskirts of our town. They traveled from Georgia and are highly out of control. We've heard rumors of them... Cannibals." "Georgia, huh?" Simon stroked his mustache, looking at his leader. "Yes. We had a dear friend taken from us... she was eaten," she paused, staring at the men with tears in her eyes, "her body was drained of all of its blood after she was murdered." The childlike voice the men had heard upon entering showed up again, though extreme sadness echoing in her voice, "Poor, poor, little Charlotte..." "She was just a child," The Goth Queen sniffed and cleared her throat as she looped a belt around her waist. "I apologize for not having enough time to explain, but I must get rid of them before they destroy the front gate." Negan and Simon followed the Goth Queen outside and around the block. From the top of the hill, torches and lamps could be seen at the entrance. They shouted curse words and threw out The Devil, Satan's whore, Freak of Nature and so forth. "You've delt with this before?" Simon asked. She nodded, her hips swaying as she stomped down the road, "Yes, but they are... they're getting more violent." "You, you whore! You Demon!" The head of the group yelled. Negan and Simon stayed back a bit, watching, waiting. "Leave now!" The Goth Queen's voice boomed over the chaotic group. One man spit at her feet, "Not until you abominations are exterminated!" Vince, the Giant, appeared from the darkness, snarling at the group, "Disrespectful littl-" an arrow was shot into his forehead. "Vincent!" The Goth Queen screamed. They watced in horror as the Giant swayed, then fell backwards with a sickening thud. The Goth Queen turned to the group, hissing at them as she advanced towards them. Negan grabbed her arm, halting her movements. The group began to back off as Negan's men walked towards the gate, their guns drawn and cocked. As fast as they appeared, they fled. The Goth Queen's chest heaved with great breaths as she went to her dear friends body. "Looks like you'll need our services after all Goth Queen," Negan said, though the cocky tone of his voice was gone. She looked to him, and nodded, "You're right.... but you'll need to know a few things about the Termites before you make your final judgment." He saluted her, his index and middle finger touching the side of his head, "Yes Ma'am." Tagging: @thedeadmost @krissy25 @fancybubble @superprincesspea @cherieann-2001 @darshaya @ladylorelitany @ali-pennell @wadeyourebarelyalive @fangirlindenial @negans-dirty-girl @smuttwd @justacaliforniandreamer @piilow-talk @pan-and-proud-writes @memphisgirl1977 @5sos1dsex @deviousginga @strangersangel9 @mogaruke @crzcorgi @siobhan-elizabeth @thecynicalnerd @cookiemunster10 @laureng-99 @danleto97 @miss-nori85 @rhysiecupcakes @texasgal2222 @magikat409 @jmackie1983 @sweatersandcaffeine @andillica @brandivstheworld @persephinii666 @jasoncrouse @rushernparadise @ferpyferp @catleesi-xo @lynnliciousadnan @astrangegirlsmind @kitcat44 @unicorn-blood-splatter @warriorqueen1991 @kellyn1604 @raspberrypuddle

#jeffrey dean morgan #Negan's Thirst Squad #Negan's Network #negan twd #Negan #Apocalyptic Negan

[chevd-blog]

My Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time (Part 5: 20 - 11)

20. Hand. Cannot. Erase. – Steven Wilson (2015)

For his fourth solo release, Steven Wilson took inspiration from the real-life story of Joyce Carol Vincent, a young woman who passed away in her London flat in December 2003 and remained undiscovered for more than two years, even despite having family and friends, and having left her television on at the time of her passing. The album follows the story of a fictional woman heavily based on Vincent, ending with her abrupt disappearance. With a stylistic nod to prog pioneers like Rush and Yes, as well as the powerful guest vocals of Israeli singer Ninet Tayeb, Hand. Cannot. Erase. serves as a poignant examination of the isolation and alienation of modern urban life.

Prime cuts: "Home Invasion / Regret #9", "Routine"

  19. Absolution – Muse (2003)

Bolstered by the success of the lead single "Time Is Running Out", Absolution is the album that first gained Muse major mainstream recognition as a band to watch. There aren't many hints of their later excessive, over-the-top tendencies here— though "Butterflies & Hurricanes" does contain a piano section which aptly demonstrates Muse's appreciation of classical music. Instead, this is one of Muse's more low-key and easy-to-listen efforts, demonstrating the prowess of a band that could be content with crafting hauntingly beautiful melodies ("Sing for Absolution", "Blackout", or "Ruled by Secrecy" all come to mind), or simply shredding (as on "Stockholm Syndrome"). Sometimes, less is more, and simplicity is just better.

Prime cuts: "Stockholm Syndrome", "Butterflies & Hurricanes"

  18. Core – Stone Temple Pilots (1992)

At the beginning of their musical career, Stone Temple Pilots was another in a lengthy list of bands that benefitted from the exposure afforded them by the Seattle grunge explosion in the early 1990s. They spent years dogged by accusations of sounding a bit too much like Pearl Jam, before they eventually managed to develop a more distinctive voice that distanced themselves from anyone else. That isn't to say that their early material is bad, though; on the contrary, their first album, Core, is hands down my favorite of theirs. I don't think of it as derivative, either; rather, I appreciate it for what it is. Like most of the alt-rock at the time, there is a dim, dingy feeling about it— but it's all channeled through a sunny production, reflective of their San Diego roots. There's more California here than Washington. That makes for an album which is oddly upbeat about being grungy, which I find rather appealing.

Prime cuts: "Plush", "Wicked Garden"

  17. The Downward Spiral – Nine Inch Nails (1994)

There is no album that encapsulates my high school years quite like The Downward Spiral. Which probably says something terrible about me, because— with all due respect to Trent Reznor, but let's be honest here— this is a seriously fucked up album. This album is what it sounds like to slowly be driven into the ground, day by day, until you are ground down into little more than a cold, numb machine made of rotting meat, just begging for the sweet release of death. This album is how it sounds to gradually become an automaton, going through all the motions, but truthfully no longer giving a fuck. This is nihilism incarnate. And I've been on that brink myself, more times than I can count, driven by a sense of alienation from the hostile outside world, and it never gets any easier. But at least through the rough patches, I've had The Downward Spiral to reflect my turmoil. When I first encountered this album, I immediately adopted "Heresy" as my personal anthem— a song that expressed perfectly to my repressive Bible Belt surroundings just how I felt about their precious 'Good Book'. I buried all my vulnerabilities and my pain beneath a mechanical visage, as modeled in "The Becoming", and I grew a thicker skin. I gravitated to this album, and (at least in my head) eventually embodied this album, specifically out of spite; I recognized it as everything the religious conservatives hate about our culture, and I had no greater desire at the time than to piss off a world that had rejected me. I'm happy to report growing out of that phase of my life, for the most part. I still have occasional episodes where I stare longingly into the abyss, and ponder jumping in. But the power this album has had, to take the chaotic tempest of negative emotions inside of me and give them form, is awesome. Ironically, I think this album has actually prevented me from following through on several occasions, just by allowing me to work through my angst and get all of that built-up poison out of my system in a constructive way. Now that's power.

Prime cuts: "Closer", "Hurt"

  16. Altered State – Tesseract (2013)

Following the departure of lead singer Dan Tompkins, Tesseract went through a period of searching for the right person to replace him, beginning with Elliot Coleman's short-lived turn at the microphone, but ultimately settling on Ashe O'Hara. Perhaps it was kismet that it was during O'Hara's time in Tesseract that Altered State was recorded, as the new voice also heralded a new direction. O'Hara's silken voice was obviously best suited for clean vocals; all of Tompkins' guttural screaming went right out the window. That made emulating peers like Periphery essentially impossible, which also provided the band with an opportunity to reinvent themselves, tighten their sound, and be more adventurous (such as on the track "Of Reality: Calabi-Yau", where they underscore their blend of palm-muted heavy metal with the extremely unexpected wail of a saxophone, and actually pull it off). Consisting of four multi-song suites (Of Matter, Of Mind, Of Reality, and Of Energy), the album also contains extremely dense metaphysical lyrical material to match its heightened musicality. In combination, all of these new circumstances result in Altered State being nothing short of a miraculous metamorphosis for the band— Tesseract in a literal altered state.

Prime cuts: "Of Matter: Proxy", "Of Mind: Nocturne"

  15. Mer de Noms – A Perfect Circle (2000)

Mer de Noms is a cryptic album, in the same way that Tool albums generally are. Furthermore, this is the only album of A Perfect Circle's where I really feel there's an apt comparison, if not in sound, then in attitude. Setting aside the music for a moment— can we talk about how much I geeked out over the band actually inventing their own arcane-looking alphabet to use in their liner notes? I was a nerdy teenager at the time I obtained this album, and being a lover of puzzles, naturally I decrypted it and then adopted it for my own use for encoding secret messages in my notebooks. But, I digress. What makes the music so interesting here, after listening to Tool for so long, is Maynard's voice being channeled into music with a completely different energy. Tool is logical, cerebral, and quite masculine; APC is much more of an emotional experience. That goes even for the harder-edged songs like "Judith", where Maynard's cry of "Fuck your God!" is intended less as a slight toward religion in general than as a frustrated outburst from a person who had watched his devout mother paralyzed in an accident when he was a child, and who was astounded that such a trial did not cause her to lose her faith. With nearly all of the song titles being names (hence the album's title, which translates to "sea of names" in French), much of the puzzle presented by this album comes from familiarity with the eponymous subjects; some are Biblical or legendary, while others are somehow personal connections to the band. But regardless of how much the listener may know about the myth of Orestes, the music is still a reward unto itself.

Prime cuts: "Judith", "Orestes"

  14. Ten – Pearl Jam (1991)

You know how certain songs are attached to memories or sensations so strongly, that you can't hear them without replaying those other associations in your head? Pearl Jam's Ten is like that for me. Yes, the entire album. It's an album that makes me feel the cool, crisp autumns of northern Georgia where I grew up, and see the leaves turning, and smell the hickory smoke of roadside boiled peanut vendors. It's an album that I see in dark reddish colors— maroon, sienna, burgundy. When I listen to "Black", I remember staying home from school for two weeks in 2001 due to a bad case of pneumonia, and the flannel blankets, and spending my daytime watching old episodes of SNL from the early 90s. When I listen to "Garden", I remember quiet, rainy nights in my on-campus apartment during my first year of college, just sitting in the dark after my roommates had gone to bed, drinking a cold glass of milk while watching the rain dance and glitter in the outside light with the windows narrowly slatted. When I listen to "Jeremy"— well, of course, that song makes me remember how terribly I was bullied all through middle school and ninth grade, and how reliant I was on that song to help me through one of the most miserable times of my life. (Seriously. This is another album I credit with literally keeping me alive.) I know none of this is concrete or tangible to anyone else but me, but… this is something that frustrates me about lists like this when music journalists write them. By the nature of their publication, they can't focus on the intangible impressions they get, because they're supposed to write about universally-appreciable things. In this case… I can't do that. Everyone already knows it's a goddamned brilliant album. But these impressions, and the way they make me feel— they're so strong here that they're basically half of the album's appeal to me, as far as I'm concerned. This is just an album that I've known so long, that it is deeply ingrained in me.

Prime cuts: "Jeremy", "Alive"

  13. Master of Puppets – Metallica (1986)

I was introduced to Metallica (and heavy metal itself) in ninth grade by a classmate of mine named John. On one fateful extended class field trip to Mentone, Alabama, for a trust-building workshop, John lent me his copy of Master of Puppets to listen to during leisure time. I didn't know it at the time, as I sat on my cot in that cabin in the forest and listened to my Discman, but there was absolutely no better album to initiate me to metal. It was revelatory. Up to that time, I was still finding my taste. I had never heard music so hard-edged, or drumbeats so fast, or guitarwork so intricate before. And 8-minute songs? Being a prog rock fan who now routinely listens to songs two to three times that length, it's funny to think about in retrospect, but when I was that age, my attention span wasn't used to anything longer than 5 minutes. I was used to the stuff being played on the radio at the time— stuff like Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray. It should be a testament to how much of an earthshaking experience it was for me, that I still even remember the trip to Mentone (which was otherwise pretty forgettable, honestly). When I got back to Georgia, one of the first things I did was buy my own copy. There are eight songs here, and not a single weak one among them. Lars Ulrich's drums are on point. Kirk Hammett's guitar is on point. The lyrics, and James Hetfield's vocals, are on point. To this day, I still get goosebumps listening to the opening of "Damage Inc.", or the instrumental "Orion" as it slows down into a more laidback tune, led by the incomparable bass grooves of the late Cliff Burton. And in addition to being technically impressive, it was a cathartic album, too; this was the album that first allowed me to tap into my inner adolescent rage, and to release it. "Fuck it all and fucking no regrets", as they say. Wherever you are, John… thanks.

Prime cuts: "Master of Puppets", "Battery"

  12. Superunknown – Soundgarden (1994)

It's sad for me to write this now, still only a few months out from Chris Cornell's passing. He was a hero to me when I was a teenager, and this was my first encounter with his music. First I got into Nirvana, then Pearl Jam, and then gradually I got into Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. Out of all the releases between the four of them, Superunknown is and probably always will be my personal favorite, even over Nevermind and Ten. The combination of Cornell's unearthly voice and Kim Thayil's guitar stirred something inside me that the others just couldn't quite reach. Maybe it's because, at the time, Soundgarden had been together longer than the other three bands, and they were able to reap the rewards of knowing and playing with each other for a longer time. Whatever the reason, it just felt (and still feels) to me like one of the most musically mature albums to come out of the whole grunge scene. And the sad thing is, I think a lot of people pay attention to it because of "Black Hole Sun" being such a gargantuan hit, and undersell the rest of the album. There are lesser known songs here, like the title track, or "Fresh Tendrils", or "Like Suicide", that are absolute sparkling gems. To listen to those songs, and to know now that the moment has passed, and that chemistry can never be truly replicated again with Cornell gone… it's really disheartening. But at least they left behind one hell of a masterpiece.

Prime cuts: "Black Hole Sun", "Superunknown"

  11. The Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd (1973)

Did you really expect me to leave this one off my list? Pink Floyd has been showing up on my list with a fair amount of frequency, and I saved the best one for last. I mean, it's almost ridiculous how clichéd it is to talk about this album as an example of a musical tour de force. It's practically to the point where I can just say the words "great album", and this will be one of the ones that people automatically think about. And as I sit here writing, trying to come up with something to say to rationalize my choice, I realize— there's probably no other album in my life which has served more as a soundtrack to the truly awesome moments. I've painted to this album, and felt the invigorating high of inspiration. I've synched it up with The Wizard of Oz, not once, but twice. I've played it while taking a breathtaking car ride through Badlands National Park in South Dakota. I've listened to it while watching a total solar eclipse. There's no other album that fits these kinds of experiences as well. It's an album that compresses time with its mellow nature, and causes 42 minutes to disappear so rapidly you can scarcely understand where they've gone. It's an album that simultaneously makes you feel insignificant, as a tiny human in a grand cosmos billions of lightyears and aeons large, and important, as someone fortunate enough to bear witness to the splendor of the universe. In short, about as close to perfection as an album can aspire to be.

Prime cuts: "Money", "Time"

At last, we’re down to the final 10. Which ones made the cut? Find out the first half tomorrow, with Part 6, featuring #10 - #6!

#top 100 #top 100 list #music #albums #favorite #list

[browsersbooks]

(via The Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. on His Son’s Legacy)

*trigger warning: violence*

As the 1960s unfolded, the great well of passion stored up in this country for so long simply spilled over. M.L. and A.D. were moving the South with their efforts and those of the young men and women who marched America far beyond its own expectations for a time. And whether the location was Albany, Georgia, or Birmingham, Alabama, or Chicago, Illinois, the message was clear. The cause of integration in America was served by the nation’s aristocrats, farmers and students, by workers and preachers, men and women, young and old. The costs were accepted when they came and they were often very high. But we moved through.

Ivan Allen, who succeeded Hartsfield as mayor, had the courage to stay in office for a couple of terms, and it took courage through the 60s. The Voters’ League was with him and with Sam Massell, the city’s first Jewish mayor, who succeeded him. And coming into the present, Atlanta has a black mayor, Maynard Jackson, whose grandfather, John Wesley Dobbs, and I labored together in the 30s and 40s to make it possible for our people to vote. I’ve supported that line of succession with the long-term feeling that it may be the most interesting series of city officials in the nation’s history. So I have lived in Atlanta, and go on doing so.

I also lived to be at Oslo, Norway, to bear witness when M.L. received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964. And I prayed on the plane trip over there that the Lord would keep me humble, the son of a sharecropper and father of a man who, at the age of 35, had been presented the most prestigious of world awards. God surely had looked down into Georgia. And He must have said, Well, here are people I will give a mission and see how well they can carry it out. And I felt He must have looked down into Oslo, Norway, and simply said, Yes, they have shouldered the weight part of the way. A people had been led by a young man who could have found comfort elsewhere, yet stayed where he was needed, bearing witness. And as M.L. stood receiving the Nobel Prize, and the tears just streamed down my face, I gave thanks that out of that tiny Georgia town I’d been spared to see this and so much else. M.L. was my co-pastor now, and A.D. would soon be joining us in serving Ebenezer. I knew the movement was far from finished with its work, but I did feel M.L. had given so much, reached so deeply inside himself to be up in the front lines, where the glory was thought to be, but where danger held the real dominion.

Killing is a contagion. It begins, then rushes like fire across oil, raging through emotions out of control. America will have to remember the early 60s when the guns came out, when small children were blown to pieces while in church, and the blood seemed destined to flow until it became a river. The nation seemed to lose its way, as though it stumbled for a while through some dense forest where nothing could be seen clearly. How could we not have realized what was coming when those four young girls were killed by the explosion at their church in Birmingham? Was it not any clearer when civil-rights workers began disappearing, and when Medgar Evers, over in Mississippi, was shot down without any real concern about punishing the man who supposedly murdered him? How could a nation have not understood the terrible path it was walking when the President of the United States could be gunned down while riding in an open car through an American city?

The turmoil continued. The 60s were a time of battle for jobs and housing and the winning over of whites, who came now to understand how their lives, too, were being bent out of shape.

What we learn, with God’s help, is that there is no safety. Therefore, there can be no danger we are not willing to face. A great passion stirred this nation in the 60s, bringing violence and rage with it, but focusing on the hypocrisy that was at the root of America’s racial condition. Our struggle against that racist part of the nation’s personality was recognized, in some instances, more quickly and with a great deal more understanding in other parts of the world than it was at home.

When M.L. asked me to join him in 1964 at Oslo for the Nobel ceremonies, all over Europe folks had been clearly aware of what my son was trying to accomplish against enormous odds. But in the United States, a campaign to destroy his leadership was conducted within the government. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, made no secret of the fact that he held M.L. and his work in contempt. And the Civil Rights Movement received little active support from church leaders, many of them close enough to the struggle to see how important M.L.’s nonviolent protests had become among young people. When he was in jail, there were those who turned their backs, who criticized and rebuked him. He carried on.

It was a time when strong churchmen needed to reach out to embrace the American public as it huddled against its pain and tried to pretend that everything was still under control. We had moved to establish the sense of freedom any people must have to remain civilized.

There could be no real separation between exploiting a man because of his color and taking advantage of his economic condition to control him politically.

I had entered civic affairs as a young man because I thought everyone wanted a better world and that nobody would have one if I didn’t put a shoulder to all the wheels that turned justice and dignity. A preacher, as I understood the term, was called for life. And there was a wondrous harvest in those fruitful years. But I could hear the ticking that was fast replacing the American heartbeat in our daily lives. And as M.L. expanded the movement, I became more and more concerned and less and less able to get him to pull back even for a time. Bunch was deeply affected, of course. She grew ever more apprehensive as her sons became rooted in the struggle and the cause.

By 1968, there was great anxiety throughout our family. No matter how much protection of any sort a person has, it will not be enough if the enemy is hatred that cannot be turned around. Not even the forces of law can control such hatred in a society. When evil is organized, it becomes a cup more bitter than the one given Jesus . . .

In April 1968, my sons went to Memphis to help organize a struggle by the city’s sanitation workers to achieve better wages and working conditions. I wondered about M.L.’s involvement in this, whether or not he was spreading his concerns and his energies too thin. But again he was right. There could be no real separation between exploiting a man because of his color and taking advantage of his economic condition to control him politically. Exploitation didn’t need to be seen only in terms of segregation. It involved all people, white and black, in the continuing human drive toward freedom, toward personal dignity within a just society. In Memphis, M.L.’s joint efforts with the workers brought out the old charge that he was, inside, more Communist than Baptist, which may have been the silliest thing anybody ever said about any person in America.

M.L. had been able to convince his brother, who was extremely skeptical in the beginning, that he too could make a difference in the kind of America that would enter the 21st century. The nation could be changed. The cracks in the armor of racist attitudes were visible all over the South. Maybe the time had been ripe before, but M.L. could see that now was an excellent moment in history to move a nation beyond itself. He sensed that Americans would respond emotionally to what he was now doing, that their passions could be cooled, then turned around into a force that would make the country into the place it should always have been. We have the resources, he would explain to me. We have the means, and the human energy needed is at its peak. . . .

The tension of those months took a heavy toll on Bunch, who was always aware of the pressure both the boys were under in their daily lives. The sound of a telephone, our doorbell ringing, any call that brought with it some news, edged up on us like a series of loud, sudden alarms. M.L. knew he had to share with his mother the changing nature of events as they involved him. Each moment he was away, out of touch with her, became an eternity of waiting for the next indication of any kind that he was all right.

He came to Atlanta and had dinner one evening with his mother and me. Some of the things he’d told me earlier came as no surprise, but both of us understood how difficult the information was going to be for Bunch to handle. Several reliable sources, both private and from within the federal government, concluded that attempts would soon be made on M.L.’s life. Money was involved. Professional killers were being recruited.

After dinner, the three of us sat out on our patio and enjoyed the late-setting sun of a warm, clear evening. Had I chosen M.L.’s words, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so blunt. He felt, though, that out of respect for his mother, he couldn’t be less than candid with her. “Mother,” he said, “there are some things I want you to know.”

“I have to go on with my work, no matter what happens now, because my involvement is too complete to stop.”

She didn’t want to listen, not then, on that quiet Sunday when it was so good to laugh about childhood, and remember tears easily replaced with laughter back when everything seemed so much less dangerous. “There’s a chance, Mother, that someone is going to try to kill me, and it could happen without any warning at all.” M.L. said this quickly, then stood up and walked to the far end of the patio. We sat silently, knowing that for this moment at least there couldn’t be any words. The same emotions that caused Bunch and me to urge M.L. to leave the movement more than ten years before were all still there. But saying these things now could bring no relief, only an intensity to the suffering we all carried. The great weight of that, I still believe, came from the certainty all of us had that what M.L. had chosen to do was unquestionably right.

We had been aware of the dangers, each out of our own experiences with the South we knew—M.L., his mother and I. A time had come. To avoid it was impossible, even as avoiding the coming of darkness in the evening would have been impossible. But word was moving through our part of the world. People were reporting conversations overheard in restaurants, in taverns, on street corners, that indicated serious efforts to plot against M.L. as a leader of this movement that was changing so much in America so quickly. Police departments had been alerted. The talk of hired killers being on the loose and following M.L. was now past the stage of rumor and hearsay. Police officers who had never been in sympathy with our cause were nevertheless concerned about anything happening to my son in one of their towns or cities. It simply wouldn’t have looked good, I suppose, for all these law-and-order advocates to be unprepared for lawbreakers whose intention was to commit murder.

“But I don’t want you to worry over any of this,” M.L. said, returning to his mother’s side. “I have to go on with my work, no matter what happens now, because my involvement is too complete to stop. Sometimes I do want to get away for a while, go someplace with Coretta and the kids and be Reverend King and family, having a few quiet days like any other Americans. But I know it’s too late for any of that now. And if mine isn’t to be a long life, Mother, Dad, well then I respect that, as you’ve always taught us to respect it as God’s will.”

We ached when he left that evening, deep inside, and though we tried to comfort each other with small talk about neighbors and church folks and even our earliest hours together, nothing could remove the unspoken pain we were sharing.

From Daddy King. Used with permission of Beacon Press. Copyright © 1980 by The Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr.

#mlk changegonnacome mlk2017