#i mean i knew running up that hill but not the version he sang so it counts

[codgod]

and in our time of need he arrives [charlie singing a song i’ve never heard before and posting it to twitter]

#.mp4 #charlie slimecicle #i mean i knew running up that hill but not the version he sang so it counts #also finally made a tag for videos #i’ll go back and retag the other clips i’ve posted at some point #i think i’d have to get on my laptop for that

[justlostinautumn]

Agent Zero Part 2

Natasha Romanoff x Reader (Agent Zero)

Part 1

Agent Zero is the best of the best and puts The Avengers to shame. She isn’t perfect and she knows that, but she has made many good decisions that have gotten her to where she is now and one of them was falling in love with a certain Black Widow. Natasha is the only one to know Y/N (Agent Zero).

Natasha had a big secret that she wasn’t sure she wanted to share with her team. But what happens when that secret is put into the middle of the team. Can she keep her wife secret or will the team all find out? If the team finds out how will they react to the news? How long will their game last and will it blow up in their faces when they are found out?

There are still secrets that need to be shared, stories not fully explained and truths that need to be told. Y/N isn’t a liar, but sometimes you bend the truth so much you don’t even remember what it is anymore.

She had already managed to take out Wanda and Strange. They were decoys in the game her job was to get these four to work together, she could tell they were getting frustrated. Every time Steve would say something Tony would do the opposite.

“I’m getting bored and you don’t seem to be grasping what this exercise is about.” She looked at her nails dodging a knife Bucky threw at her head.

“You’ve not touch Rhodey and I.” Tony laughed.

The next thing they knew Steve threw his shield at her and she caught it spinning around and throwing it up so it hit Tony first and then bounced and hit Rhodey. She slid on the floor and caught the shield landing just by Bucky’s feet who punched down and grabbed the shield she grabbed his metal wrist, twisted it spun on her knee back to him pulled him over her shoulder pulled out the gun and shot him in the head leaving a red paint mark between the eyes. Steve charged at her and without flinching lifted the gun and shot him between the eyes too.

“Your arrogance got two of your strongest team members killed.” She looked at both Rhodey and Stark.

“What do you mean?” Tony was furious.

“I mean if they were bullets you’d be cleaning brains off your floor.” She hissed.

“Agent!” Nick shouted.

“No! Listen good all of you. Since your little Civil War I’ve had to clean up your mess, who do you think kept HYDRA at bay while you lot were having a temper tantrum about everything. So what if Barnes killed your parents Stark? You are fucking selfish! Yes, he’s killed his fair share of people, but he was made a monster. You created machines of destruction, you created Ultron. At the end of the day we all have our ledgers, we all have a hole filled with corpses. All I can say to you Stark is be grateful I wasn’t the one who killed your parents.” She slammed her hands against his chest and before he could fall he was caught by Bucky.

“You have no right to talk to him like that!” Steve shouted.

“Really, you’re going to stand up to the man who put your team in the Raft? The man who allowed his arrogance to let him believe he was a God? It’s funny Rogers. When I first learnt about you I idolised you and your BFF there, people willing to die for what they believe to be right. I was like you, the only difference is you would have killed me because I was born on the wrong team. You died a Martyr! Was it guilt that made you stay on the plane instead of jumping out and living your happy ending?” She tilted her head and she dodged as Rhodey swings at her.

“You need to stop before some kills you.” Rhodey threatens. Y/N can see Nat stiffen and Clint smirk, everyone else is looking in awe as they figure out what she’s doing.

“Aren’t you angry, after all, you did almost become paralysed because of them. The rehab you went through, having to watch your best friend mourn the loss of his parents again, as well as his friends and his team?” She smirked at him, her eyes held nothing but cruelty and malice.

“You bitch!” Bucky shouted and she let him pin her to the floor by her throat.

“Go on Soldat!” She laughed and saw something flicker in his eye, “always one to lose his cool too quickly.”

Y/N wrapped her legs around his metal arm and twisted her body causing him to let go of her. They both got up and she blocked every punch and kick he tried until she kicked him in the chest with enough force for him to hit the wall and leave a bent. Tony, Rhodey and Steve run to him.

“That’s how you get them to work as a team.” She brushes the dirt off her stealth suit as she addresses Fury.

“It was all a trick?” Steve was furious.

“Of course.” She smiled at him.

“How did you know it’d work?” Tony looked shocked as he and Rhodey helped Bucky stand, while Y/N walked up to them.

“I was a test, if you didn’t step in for each other I knew it would be a waste of time. But, you did and now I have something to work with.” She spoke lifting Bucky’s shirt and pushing ribs back into place, as Bruce runs up to her with gauze wraps and helps her wrap him tightly so the ribs don’t move.

“How did you know about the anger thing?” Bucky asked.

“In my time working, you and I have crossed paths. HYDRA liked to move you a lot, it kept people like Fury and that guessing if you were real.” She shrugs tapping his hip indicating he can lower his shirt and a memory burst in his mind.

“You’ve done this for me before.” Bucky looked her over carefully.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She looked at him and her eyes gave him nothing.

“I think we’ve done enough for today.” Fury barked.

“I’m beat.” Y/N smirked at Nick and she looked at Maria who giggled.

“Food?” Nat appeared next to her.

“Yes, I’m starved. Maybe pizza, no… sushi? Mexican? Chinese? Oh God anything, I don’t think I’ve had decent food in a year. Natasha, its been a year since I’ve eaten something that wasn’t HYDRA Asset food. Good God, I want everything!” She looked at Nat giving her puppy dog eyes and she then turned her charm to the team who all looked at her with soft eyes.

“Fine, we will order a bit of everything!” Tony sighs breaking, he could help but be grateful for the girl who just might be able to fix the team.

“Agent Zero had to wrap somethings up on a previous mission.” Clint walked into the room with the information they had been dying to know since yesterday’s introduction and training activity.

“I wanted to train with her.” Bucky looked a little put out.

“Fury said she should be back either this evening or tomorrow.” Clint shrugs.

“Spill everything you know.” Tony leans in and points at both Natasha and Clint.

“Clint’s worked with her more.” Natasha shrugs, it was the truth.

“Bird Boy.” Tony looks at him and the rest of the team are waiting expectantly.

“She’s one of a kind, she was from some organisation. A test subject, no one really knows much about it. She’s only ever been an Agent. Only Fury and Hill knows her name. Everyone calls her Zero or Reaper nothing else.” Clint shrugs.

“She doesn’t do teams. So, when she brings down a base she normally doing it solo.” Nat adds.

“That’s impossible!” Steve looked shocked.

“It’s not if you are on both teams.” Nat finally looks at them.

“What does that mean?” Bucky was defensive.

“She use to be a part of HYDRA, she wasn’t originally from HYDRA but she worked with them. They think she is working for them and helping infiltrate SHIELD again.” Nick spoke from the doorway.

“She’s a double agent?” Tony looked impressed but worried.

“She didn’t lie when she said she was a free agent. She fights for what she wants, it’s just her hatred for HYDRA outweighs the hatred she has for your stupidity.” Nick smirks at them.

“Why would she hate us.” Steve frowned confused.

“There is always a story, but it isn’t mine to tell you and if she wants to tell you she will.” Nick nodded as he looked around the room.

“What can you tell us?” Bucky leaned in something was nagging in his mind and he couldn’t figure it out.

“She is like nothing anyone has ever seen, you only got to experience a small bit of what she can do. She is ruthless and she has killed more than any of you. Know this we are lucky to have her on our side otherwise we would be royally screwed.” Maria says as she walks in casually looking for Nick.

“What’s wrong Agent Hill?” Nick frowns looking at Maria.

“Agent Zero called and informed me there have been some... complications?” Maria raised a brow and Nat stiffen along with Clint and Fury.

“Did she say complication?” Nick looked at Maria who nodded, Nick pulled out his phone and called her, looking at the Team and putting it on speaker.

“Nicolas, how may I help?” She sang through the phone and gunfire could be heard in the background.

“What’s the complication?” Nick frowned at the phone and her voice.

“Oh you know some HYDRA goons decided to see if there was anything to collect and then saw me and may have wanted some target practice.” Nick could hear the amusement in her voice.

“We are coming to help!” Clint shouted.

“NO!” Y/N voice was hard and she had lost any kind of amusement it held originally.

“Why?” Nat was furious at her wife and wanted answers.

“You are far from the Team you were and you coming in would get me killed. I work alone for a reason, I don’t want to be a part of your Team.” Her voice is harsh and cold and Nat felt a little hurt.

“What?” Nat spoke softly.

“Trust me, Natasha, I would team up with you any day but having you drop in now would only get you killed. This isn’t your usual HYDRA Agents, think more Winter Soldier meets a diluted version of me.” They hear her grunt through the line.

“Zero!” Maria shouts.

“Stay the fuck down!” She shouts and they hear a loud gunshot ringing in the room.

“Agent?” Nick sounded worried.

“Don’t worry Nick I’m not dying on you yet, I have a few plans before that happens.” They can hear the smirk and mischief in her voice.

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Nick looked at the Avengers who were staring intently at his phone waiting for her answer.

“Shit, shit, shit. Nick this is bad! Take me off speaker right now!” Nick frowned at her.

“Talk to me,” Nick said not taking off speakerphone.

“He’s here.” Was all she said.

“Sweetling, I know you are here.” They hear a voice on the other end.

“Nick!” They can hear the panic in her voice.

“You need him there,” Nick growled looking at Barnes.

“NO! He would be no use, he is not who he was.” She hissed back.

“Sweetling, I know you have no allegiance. I know you are trying to get your Soldier back... tell me that’s the only reason you are with them.” The male voice was louder.

“I have many reasons to do what I do. So what if I want the soldier back?” Her voice was cold and deadly.

“You killed all my men Sweetling, I want you to come back with me. None of this double agent crap... you can be Queen again.” They could hear him purr at her trying to entice her with a title.

“Who’s to say I’m not the Queen right now?” Something in her voice made them shiver, her tone held nothing but power.

“You are always are the Queen, but you need a King and I can be it. Drop the old and upgrade.” An image was being projected to Fury and they saw a burly man and the smaller form of Y/N from a drone she set up. Her head tilts back and they heard her laugh.

“You are hilarious thinking you’re an upgrade.” She cackled, it was cold and the room seems to chill with the sound of it.

“What's so funny?” He changed into a fighting stance.

“You were made to be nothing but guard dogs, sterile. Nothing but disposable! There is only one King and you should learn to respect him.” She growled, her stance like a lioness ready pounce. The look on her face was slightly feral as she snarls at him.

“He will never be King again.” He bellowed.

“Then I will never be Queen again.” She smirked back.

He charged at her and dived and she jumped to the side dodging him but grabbing his arm and swinging herself to land on his shoulder. Legs wrapped around his neck she twisted so fast and loud snap filled their ears and the room and the giant fell and she lept off him.

“Zero?” Nick shouted.

“I’m going to kill you, Fury!” She was pissed because she knew they heard everything.

“She’s a Queen? Bucky was there a Queen and King of HYDRA?” Steve turned to his friend.

“No, there wasn’t. This is nothing to do with you or your Team.” She growled viciously, this was a twisted truth but not an outright lie... I’m not a liar Y/N reminds herself. Nat didn’t know much about the term but Y/N had mentioned something about it being used when referring to her.

“Do you need a medic.” Maria was frowning at the hologram taking in some blood.

“Not my blood, I should leave before he wakes up.” Y/N walks over the body and loots a USB drive from the body and many other things. Checking each for bugs and anything else.

“You coming home?” Clint asked.

“I’m coming back to the compound, yes. It’s not my home.” There was something distant in her voice and they wanted to know who he was. They couldn’t make out his face only his form, almost like she’d done it on purpose.

“See you soon,” Nat said softly, she was worried. Nat knew something was off and there was an issue.

“Yeah... see you soon.” A frown could be seen on her face as she looks directly at the drone and it shuts off along with the phone hanging up.

“Did she say before he wakes up? We all heard that crack, he’s dead... right?” Tony looked at them and they all shrugged and then shivered as they felt the chill at their spines.

Walking in refreshed and in a pair of black jeans and a black tee-shirt, she drops on the sofa next to Clint. 

“Barton.” She grunts.

“Zero,” Clint smirks.

The rest of the Avengers look at her and Clint as they stare at each other unblinkingly. Clint blinks first.

“Ha! I win!” She laughs, it was such a difference to the phone call leaving them with whiplash.

“Evil!” Clint growls going to tickle her but she catches his hands pinning them to his sides and sliding on his lap and then tickling him, he tries to buck her off but she doesn’t budge.

“Submit!” She smirks at him.

“Never!” He shouts and Nat laughs along with the rest of the team.

“Then perish!” She laughs.

Nat can’t help but fall deeper in love with the woman who is tormenting her best friend.

“Nat save me!” Clint shouts.

“I think I’ll pass, you made your bed maybe you should lay in it.” Nat tilts her head and stared at Y/N’s ass.

“Enjoying the view Romanoff.” Y/N giggled as she looked over her shoulder.

“Very much, but I’m not the only one,” Nat smirked, there was a glint in her eyes that Y/N knew well. The Widow was hungry and maybe a little jealous and it caused Y/N to smirk at her. Getting off Clint she saunters over and leans in close.

“Remember Romanoff you can look all you like, but you can’t touch.” Y/N lips were a breath away from Natasha’s and if Nat leaned in a little closer she would be able to kiss her. But, Y/N pulled away before she could and turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Clint shouted.

“Debriefing with Fury and Hill.” She called over her shoulder with a two-finger wave.

“That was so hot.” Wanda looked in awe at the doorway to Nat.

“That is just Zero,” Clint smirks at the shocked faces of the Team and Nat laughed as she dropped next to Clint on the sofa. They need to know more and they knew a perfect time would be team bonding night.

Tags:

@peteyparkersbabyy, @demonstracija, @ludwigvonbaethoven, @i-just-wanna-run-hell, @saturngirlz, @5aftermidnight, @lesbian-x-blackwidow

#Agent Zero #Natasha Romanoff #natasha x reader #black widow #black widow imagine #black widow x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff imagine #the avengers #the avengers x reader #the avengers imagine #avengers imagine #avengers x reader #avengers #marvel imagine #marvel

[ribcagecarnival]

ADMIT ONE • VIOLET SKIES

I first heard Violet’s music while coping with heartbreak in January 2019. Her song “Cry For Me” is peak crying on the dance floor music, which is, frankly, the only genre that matters. A year later, she caught a set of mine at a house show, and we immediately linked up to write. Turns out we have great musical chemistry and we get along very well just as people, too. Her music often calls MUNA and Robyn to mind for me, but her love for folk titans like Joni Mitchell is also apparent. Check out this playlist of songs that move the wonderful Violet Skies (plus her reasons behind each selection). Her ticket to the Carnival is good for a lifetime.

A Case of You - Joni Mitchell The song I wished I’d written. The song I try to write. The lyrics, the melody - HOLY WTF. Unimaginable genius that she is, and the most simultaneously clear and vague expression of love’s totality. 14 year old me heard this through my Dad, who said Joni Mitchell was a true artist and made sure I listened to every single one of her albums. I will NEVER be over this song. Even the title is just insanely beautiful in its duality of meaning.

Zero to Hero - Hercules Hercules was my first true introduction as a child to gospel music (I grew up in Wales don’t judge me) and honestly the vocals on this film, insane. The runs, harmonies, energy - as a child it was nothing like I’d heard before and I learnt this song back to front and still to this day I think it’s insanely good songwriting, musicality is just *chef’s kiss* and the women on this song MAKE that entire film.

Can’t Help Loving That Man of Mine - Showboat Original Recording I sang this 3 times for my ‘show song’ portion of my singing grades. Everyone else usually chose something like Phantom of the Opera or something more classical, because it was a classical singing grade. So I’d sing like a few arias, something in German and then three years in a row I sang this because I thought it was (aged 12) the most wonderful song ever. Lyrically, it’s rather toxic for a 12 year old girl, honestly, but I was a hopeless romantic and having never kissed a boy at 12, the VIBES on this song were just so dramatic and I loved it. Also Showboat had me and my sister in tears the first time we watched it aged 6, I don’t think my Mam realised how traumatic it was when she put it on for us to watch.

Goodnight My Angel - Billy Joel Billy Joel, songcrafter extraordinaire, writes lullaby for his daughter, I die. I aspire to this level of craftsmanship and yes, this also makes me cry. Please go and listen to this song.

Make You Feel My Love - Adele’s version Bob Dylan wasn’t someone my parents played so I didn’t know he wrote this. Adele is just TONE and WARMTH and this song again, is so dramatic and over the top and also subtle in a way that moves my very being. I sung this so many times as a teenager and it began my love for Adele. Ballads never get old, the good ones age like fine wine (I don’t actually like wine but whatever) and they continue to be relevant and timeless in their message.

Samson - Regina Spektor Only recently did I realise that this song has affected my songwriting and is 100% behind my obsession with the chromatic 1-2-3-4 chord progression that is the PERFECT pre-chorus in my opinion. This song is just GENIUS. A song about a modern day relationship with Samson, iconic in its own way (Wonderbread!), paralleled with the original Biblical tale of Samson. Melody and lyric and piano come together in a way that really separates Regina from her peers and this song will live on for decades. The song is so specific, almost unrelatable-to in content, but it makes so much sense on an emotional level and that, that, is songwriting.

Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill She wrote it. She produced it. She’s a feminist searching for equality of experience. She’s exploring gender. She’s talking to God. She’s creating iconic sounds before her time. She is Kate Bush and I will not hear a word said against her. Big Boi does a whole interview on this song and he GETS IT. Go watch that because he explains it so well.

At Last - Etta James I sung this at every talent show I ever did and every shitty pub gig in my teens. This song! Her voice! Nobody sings like Etta. She is effortless. This song shaped my voice and I credit this song and Etta James with helping me learn runs, vocal control across my chest and head voice, and how to really sing something and mean it. When people talk about how music of black origin underpins all modern music, it’s songs like this and artists like Etta they are talking about. She is a foundation, a cornerstone in the development of the modern vocal.

Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap Imogen Heap is really tall in real life and even more wonderful. I heard this first through my sister who played it to me in the car and I lost my mind. THE VOCODER. The melody. I don’t ever know what she means really, completely, (like Bon Iver) but like, god i feel it. *That* moment in the song is so insane and I hear it all the time in my own music. Wild! It’s so wild how 30 seconds of a song can change the entire way you think about music and shape your own musicality.

I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know - Donny Hathaway Amy Winehouse sings in Rehab “cos there’s nothing you can’t teach me…that I can’t learn, from Mr Hathaway”. She’s talking about Donny Hathaway and she’s right. Donny Hathaway’s voice is bottled soul, a depth of feeling most normal musicians will never in their lives. He ‘taught’ Amy and it shows. This song I covered and never released, but I also practiced production for the first time when I made it. The drama of this lyric too - admitting he isn’t perfect, knowing he doesn’t express his love properly but yet this song is the ultimate expression of love.

Wannabe - Spice Girls Changed my life. First album I ever got (from the tooth fairy). The Spice Girls were the soundtrack to my very early years and there are many videos of me doing dance routines to this song. If I wanted to be a pop star, this is where it started. Also don’t tell me that ZigAZigAHHH isn’t genius!?! This song is something a modern Kpop band would release. That iconic laugh at the start?! I went to their reunion tour with my sister, she was a few month’s pregnant and we both BAWLED because the nostalgia and full circle moment was just too much.

Love Is A Losing Game -  Amy Winehouse Lyrical perfection. Real songwriting. Conceptually perfect. Amy Winehouse changed my life because I saw a woman with a guitar on stage singing lyrics I understood, lyrics I thought were clever and funny and vocally she just outshone everyone around her. When Amy passed away I was at a friend’s garden party, my Mam rang me and I cried in the toilets and no one could understand why I was so sad, she’s the only famous person I’ve ever really cared about like that. I felt I knew her and I owed her so much. The world owed her more and I miss her. I love to imagine what she would be like in today’s music world and what she would be writing. But the two albums were enough to keep me listening for a lifetime. This song won an Ivor Novello award and I think it is real art.

Jealous - Labrinth I’m jealous I didn’t write this song. I think this song is on most people’s I WISH lists and does it even need explaining!?!

33”GOD” - Bon Iver What do the lyrics mean? How do you pronounce Bon Iver? What does the title mean? How do you even arrive at this song when you start writing?! The production is so game changing and the Bon Iver SOUND is so unique and has affected the entire music industry, seeping in to pop and mainstream. Even Taylor knows. But this song is the one I played on repeat. I still don’t know the lyrics but I know I feel like a firecracker underwater when I listen to it and that can’t be a bad thing.

Rude Boy - Rihanna This is one of the sexiest songs ever. It changed how I thought about women and what it means to be comfortable in yourself and your own sexuality. I’m just gonna leave it at that.

Retrograde - James Blake “SUDDENLY I’M HIT” and my entire brain blows off. I played this on repeat when I moved to London and when I finally met him a year or two later I said probably nothing of consequence and likely made an arse of myself but what I should of said was “retrograde changed my life”. It shaped how I think about production, made me think about synths and the interaction between organic and synthetic sounds and the use of a songwriter’s song in a non traditional setting. James sets the bar so high for all of us and we just jump around trying to come anywhere close.

#admitone #admit one #ribcagecarnival #ribcage carnival #violet skies #playlist

[ohmyprodigalson]

Could you do a imagine or HC of Malcolm and the reader’s wedding day?

Ok,so a few things first.

This is similar to the dress I imagined, except the bodice would have a more modest neckline and it would have more embroidery, less beading.

And this is the song that gets referenced.

On to the story!

Word Count: 2255

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

Malcolm didn't want a wedding, but (Y/N) begged him for it. He just wanted to be able to call her his wife and not hold what he felt was a glorified party. But (Y/N) explained that it was a ceremony for her, where she could proclaim to the world how much she loved him. When she put it that way, he gave in and accepted it. So today he found himself in a hotel room with Gil and some of his male relatives getting dressed in matching suits. The only down-side to this wedding was that Jessica tried to control every last detail. (Y/N) was stubborn though and got her way on the things that were most important to her, and he was able to win the fight over what the men would wear. He refused to wear a tuxedo. Malcolm stood by the window, looking out and thinking about today as he tied his tie around his neck. It's strange, the mixture of nervousness and excitement. He couldn't wait to see (Y/N) and finally call her his wife. Gil joked with him from across the room. "You got cold feet, Bright?" Malcolm smiled and let out a small chuckle. "No, just thinking about today."

There was a knock at the door and one of the groomsmen answered. It was Jessica, making sure everything was running smoothly and on time. She looked around herself before scolding Malcolm. "Malcolm! You aren't ready yet? (Y/N) is already leaving." "Relax, mom." He walked over to where she was standing and placed his hands on her arms. "It's ok if today isn't perfect." "It most certainly is not." She had a look of frustration in her eyes. "Now finish getting dressed, all of you." She turned on her heels and left the room. Malcolm stood there with an amused smile as the groomsmen rushed to gather their things to leave. (Y/N) was struggling to get into the big SUV with her dress. Thankfully Jessica had agreed that getting a limo would be a little too much. And it wouldn't have solved this dress problem anyway. Ainsley was helping gather the material at the end of her dress as (Y/N) climbed into the back seat. She made it in and waited for the bride's maids to get in their cars before starting the journey to the ceremony. The wedding ceremony was going to be at one of the local parks. The aesthetic was natural and sweet. (Y/N) wanted to convey the innocence of true love. They found a part of the park that had a lot of trees that could surround the ceremony, and they hung intricate metal lanterns from the branches. There were white wooden chairs for the guests and white cloth laid on the ground as the aisle. The arbor at the end of the aisle was also painted white, but long strings of light pink flowers on vines were wrapped around it. There were accents of light pink to match the flowers, and there were some flowers attached to the chairs along the aisle. Guests were already starting to take their seats as the string quartet was warming up. The officiant stood beneath the arbor, reviewing his notes. (Y/N) and the bridal party arrived before Malcolm, so she waited in the car to hide from him. She was waiting on the other side of the park, where there was a luscious, green hill. They weren't going to take all of the pictures before the wedding, but they wanted a picture of the first time they saw each other. Jessica was there to coordinate it, and when Malcolm arrived she put them in position for the camera. On the count of 3, Malcolm would turn around and see her for the first time today. (Y/N)'s heart was beating out of her chest. She had been waiting for this moment since she picked out her dress. Would he like it? How would he react? Malcolm was excited to see her, and he started to get swept up in the joy of a wedding. When he finally turned around and saw her, he beamed at her. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and she looked perfect today. Her hair was long and flowy with loose twists containing small crystals that met at the back of her head. Her hair matched her dress, which was a ballgown made of organza, so that even though it had the layers of a ball gown, it was smaller and more elongated. He didnt expect to get teary-eyed when he saw her, but he was looking at his future wife on their wedding day. Malcolm reached out to hug her and she met him. "Do you like it?" "I love it. You look so beautiful." Holding her in his arms, he kissed her. They didn't even notice the photographer taking pictures from a distance. They were then quickly ushered to the ceremony. Malcolm took his place at the end of the aisle and waited for the ceremony to start. The quartet started playing when (Y/N) arrived and began to walk down the aisle. He smiled at her and couldn't hide the love he held for her in his eyes. She smiled back at him and the world disappeared around them. He held her hands in his as the ceremony commenced. When it was time to say their vows, both had them memorized so they continued to hold hands. Malcolm spoke first. He didn't break eye contact for a second. "When we met, I was a broken man. I couldnt sleep or eat, and I was always on the verge of a breakdown. But you have healed my soul. I can breathe again, and it's all thanks to you. You are the guiding beacon of light in the darkest of storms, and I hope to be the same for you. I promise to always protect you and love you. I would give anything to make you happy and see your beautiful smile every day for the rest of our lives." (Y/N) fought away the tears at the end of Malcolm's vows as she began to say her own. "You are my sun, and you fill my life with warmth and light. Before you, I had nothing and now with you, I have everything. I want to fight away your fears and wipe away your tears, like you have done countless times for me. You are my heart, and I will always love you for the rest of my life." When the ceremony was finished, they sealed their vows with a kiss. Malcolm had never kissed her with so much meaning as he did now, trying to tell her through his kiss that he meant every word he said, and(Y/N) reciprocated. After the cocktail hour the reception began. It was being held at an old, large stone cottage that had been turned into a special events location. It was warm and full of yellow light, and the rich wood floors played nicely with the continued theme of nature. The same light pink flowers were used in the centerpieces and there were lights strung up above to look like stars. So far everything happened according to Jessica's itinerary and she was pleased with herself. She started to finally relax when it was time for the first dance. But Malcolm was dragging his feet. He actually liked the ceremony, but he didn't feel like having this big party. He felt it was unnecessary, but it made (Y/N) happy. (Y/N) and Malcolm stepped out onto the dance floor. They had succeeded in getting a DJ for the wedding, but Jessica still insisted that they dance a proper waltz for the first dance. Though it was a little too formal for their liking, they both enjoyed dancing, so they didn't mind. Malcolm held (Y/N)'s hand and wrapped the other around her back. He led her around the dance floor and (Y/N) started to giggle. Malcolm chuckled and smiled as he asked, "What are you laughing at?" "This dance is just so serious. And everyone's awkwardly sitting around, waiting for it to be over." Malcolm looked around and saw all of the emotionless faces before he fell on his mother's. She was actually smiling. "Well, at least my mom is happy." Before the night was finished, (Y/N) had a surprise for Malcolm. It frightened her to do this, but he loved her voice. And what better way could she tell him once more today how much she loved him? She nervously approached the DJ and picked up a microphone. "Everyone, I have something I would like to say. I have a small surprise for Malcolm." The music began to play. "I would like to sing a song for the love of my life." Even though her cheeks were flush with embarrassment she sang her heart out. She was singing 'Your Song' by Elton John, but the version used in Ellie Goulding's cover. She even joked when singing the verse "See I've forgotten / If they're green or they're blue." (Y/N) said, after singing the lines, "They're blue, by the way," and the room was filled with amused laughter. Every time she made eye contact with Malcolm during the song, he was smiling widely. He was so happy that she thought to sing a song just for him. The reception came to a close as everyone slowly left to go home. After all of the guests had left, Malcolm and (Y/N) drove back to his apartment, now home for the both of them, to get some sleep before leaving for their honeymoon in the morning. In the back seat of the car, Malcolm reached out to hold (Y/N)'s hand. He gave her a soft smile and said, "I love you, Mrs. Bright."

Malcolm grabbed the mail out of the mailbox on their way up to their apartment. (Y/N) was walking pretty slowly because her feet hurt from standing and dancing in heels while wearing such a heavy dress. So Malcolm was helping her up the stairs and didn't look at the mail just yet. When they got inside their apartment she went to start the long process of getting undressed. He threw his jacket over one of the barstools at the kitchen island and started untying his tie with one hand as he looked through the mail. The third envelope in his hands had a familiar scrawl. When he recognized it, his stomach dropped and he stopped undressing, leaving his tie loose but still in a knot. Malcolm saw the tiny cursive written on the envelope and knew it was from his father. He dropped the other envelopes onto the counter as his right hand trembled. He opened it immediately and pulled out the letter. Malcolm's brows furrowed as he read it. Dear Malcolm, My dear boy, I heard you were getting married. Congratulations! But honestly, would it have killed you to tell your dear old dad? It hurts, you know, to learn about your own son's wedding from someone else. I haven't even met the bride! What is she like? Surely you love her very much to marry her, but I have to ask: is she pitting you against me? Is that why you stopped visiting? I want you to be happy, of course, but do you really want to be with someone that would keep you from your father? It doesn't matter anyway, you will always come back to me. I know you will, because we are the same. Just don't make me wait too much longer, ok? Love, Dad Malcolm stood silent, gripping the paper tightly in his hands. He was shaking ever so slightly. How did he find out about the wedding? He had kept (Y/N) from him this whole time, and Martin found out now? (Y/N) came back into the room, still in her wedding dress. She had to hold it up high to keep from walking on it because she finally got to get out of her heels. (Y/N) wasn't looking at him as she spoke. "Malcolm? Can you help me out of this dress? I thought I could reach the zipper and I can't..." She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the look of anger and pain on his face. Somehow, she knew it was Dr. Whitly's fault. She could recognize the look he got in his eyes when his father was at the forefront of his mind. (Y/N) quietly walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him from behind. She waited for a moment before asking quietly, "Do you want to talk about it?" Malcolm's voice was barely more than a whisper. "No." He didn't want to worry her. He didn't want his father tarnishing the happiest part of his life. She hugged him tightly. "Don't let him ruin your wedding day, Malcolm. Whatever he said can wait, I'm sure. Let today be about us, not him." He thought for a moment. "You're right." He left her embrace and walked around the island to the stove. He turned on the gas and then held the letter above the burner, catching it on fire. Malcolm watched as his father's toxic words burned away before him. He let his anger and frustration burn with that letter. When it was finished and he turned the stove off, he turned around and let a mischievous grin spread across his face. "Now, let's get you out of that dress." 

#prodigal son #malcolm bright #malcolm x reader #prodigal son imagine #prodigal son fanfic #fanfic #imagine

[eene-fangirl]

Ed, Edd n Eddy                          Never Let Me Ed Chapter 13

NOTE: This is the chapter that started it all. So, I changed some things around from the original version I wrote of this scene. @nintendogal55 and I have been having a blast writing this crossover and we hope that you’re enjoying it! Enjoy the chapter! 

Here is the link to the masterpost

And finally, they made it back up on the main decks of the ship. Just like when Edd was out here earlier, there was little to no standing room. The deck was tilting steeper. Pretty soon they wouldn’t be able to stand on it at all! Edd couldn’t think about that now.

Panic started to arise more from passengers. Officers feverishly boarded them into the lifeboats. There wasn’t much time.

Shoving through the crowd, Edd never let go of Eddy’s hand. His clothes were still damp from sloshing through the flooded hallways on the lower decks. The cold night air wasn’t helping much. His hands already felt numb.

“The boats are gone!” Ed frightfully announced, holding May close to him. Looking out into the dark ocean most of the lifeboats were rowing away. Some were filled while others hardly had anybody in them. Why weren’t officers filling them all the way? It was such a waste.

“No, look! There’s a crowd over there!” Kevin pointed out. Struggling to move through the crowds they made their way over to the remaining boats. It was like walking down a steep hill.

The band was still playing soothing music. Except they were only being ignored. Edd felt a wave of relief run through his system, listening to them.

“Music to drown by. Now I know I’m in first class,” Eddy whispered to Edd trying to lighten the mood.

Edd smiled lightly, but it didn’t quell any of the worry in his gut. His mind had been reeling for hours. He was just seconds from having an anxiety attack. No, he couldn't let anyone see that. Especially Eddy.

“May?”

It was Lee and Marie! May’s whole face beamed the instant she saw her sisters. The girls scooped one another up in a big tight hug.

“Where the heck have you been?” Lee asked her with all the big sister authority.

“Yeah, you had us worried sick!” Marie was next to snap.

“Sorry guys, I went back down below and then they wouldn’t let us back up!”

“We were gonna board a lifeboat without you!”

“But you’re lucky we didn’t! Come on! That one is still letting on women!” Lee took May’s hand and lead her sisters through the immense crowds. Marie even shoved passed a man almost causing him to fall into the ocean.

May turned back to Ed, grabbing at his hand so they wouldn’t get separated. Edd and Eddy followed closely behind.

Rockets were still exploding into the sky. Officers were shouting for the men to stand back. It was so loud. Women were being taken against their wills from their husbands. And the children were crying.

“Women and children! Any more women and children?! Three spots left” An officer shouted over all the commotion.

“Yeah, right here! Let us in!” Lee shouted just pushing through the crowd.

“Wait, wait!” May protested, getting loose from her sister’s grip.

“What is it?” An impatient Lee spat.

May turned to Ed throwing her arms around him. “What about you?”

Ed stared helplessly into her eyes. “I’ll get in a lifeboat, bunny.”

“There’s not enough left!” May cried, hugging him tighter. Marie grabbed at May’s dress. She didn’t mean to be rushing things. An officer was starting to put Lee in the boat but she refused until all her sisters were together.

Ed grasped her face. There was hardly enough time. “I’ll get the next one. Please, go? I’m a survivor!”

“Come on, May!”

Ed and May shared the most romantic kiss until she was pulled away. Safely she and her sisters were placed into the lifeboat. The officers started to launch the lifeboat into the water. It wasn’t that far down now. Slowly, May disappeared down the side of the ship until the boat landed in the water, rowing away.

Ed waved goodbye to her. His heart cracked open. This was new. He’d never fallen in love with anyone before.

“Heartbreak hurts, Eddy!” Ed cried, grasping his chest.

Eddy placed a comforting hand on Ed’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, lumpy. You’ll see her again.”

Edd also put a comforting hand against Ed’s shoulder. His own heart cracked. Now he couldn’t bear to leave Eddy behind after witnessing such a tender, yet a heartbreaking moment.

“There’s another lifeboat going to launch over there, let’s go!” Kevin ushered the Eds.

An avalanche of passengers scurried to the lifeboat. Edd caught sight of a woman with a baby. The third class passengers were just trickling out on the deck. There were still thousands of passengers left! Water was looming closer and closer as the Titanic sank deeper into the bitter claws of the Atlantic Ocean. Would they even make it out alive?

“Step back! Women and children first!” An officer shouted at the mountain of men swarming the lifeboat. He had a gun in hand, pointing it at each of them. Edd gripped Eddy’s hand when the officer pointed it in their direction. Would he actually shoot anyone?

“Go scope out the other side!” Eddy ordered Kevin. Reluctantly, Kevin pushed through the crowd and disappeared.

“What do we do, Eddy? What do we do?” Ed asked Eddy. He was practically clawing at his hair.

“Please, I don’t want to go!” A woman shrieked. She nearly fell over the side of the Titanic from her struggles.

“What if we bribed him? No, why would someone want twenty-five cents?”

“It’s only for a little while! Be brave for Daddy!” a father pleaded to his crying daughter.

“Double D, what should we do?” Eddy turned to Edd.

“Women and children only! Stand back or I will shoot you all like dogs!” An officer shot into the air.

Edd’s legs felt like jello. He stared up at a rocket. It looked so bright. Why was it so hard to breathe all of a sudden?

“Double D?”

They were in a new location. Edd sitting on the deck, leaning against the wall. Eddy was sitting close by, holding his hand, and gently holding his cheek. He looked very worried. Until his thoughts started racing back Edd couldn’t make out what Eddy was saying to him.

“Listen to me, Double D! Follow my counts! Breathe in 1-2-3...Breathe out 1-2-3...”

“Row row row your boat gently down a river of butter, merrily, merrily your stomach has some good old buttered toast!” Ed sang.

Continuing this calming breathing exercise for a few more moments, Edd’s breathing returned to its normal pace. Hot tears crawled down his cheeks. How embarrassing! He let all the excitement go to his head! That was the exact reason why his parents never took him to extravagant parties. That, and the incident. His anxiety only made them more embarrassed of him.

“Oh Eddy, please forgive me!” Edd cried. He clung to Eddy, crying into his shoulder. He didn’t want to look at all anymore. This was all too much. First, it was the ship of dreams. And now it was sinking to its doom on its first voyage. Everyone else on dry land had no idea what was going on.

“Forgive you, what’d yah do?” A confused Eddy asked smoothing his back. “Look, happens to me, too! My Mom taught me that,” Eddy assured him. He even pressed a calming hand on Edd’s knee.”How do you feel?”

Edd arguably felt better. That still didn’t make the situation any better. That lifeboat they were at had a swarm of men around it. The officer in charge wasn’t letting any of them into the lifeboat. If only... no, he wasn’t going to think that. Edd was happy to be a man.

Cuddling against Eddy, Edd whimpered, “Eddy, I don’t want to be separated!”

“We Eds are stickin’ together!” Eddy assured him.

“I’m not going to leave this ship without you two!” Edd determined proudly to his friends.

“And I’m not leaving without you.”

Victoria loomed over Edd staring at him with that disdainful smile. Edd felt his heart stop again. He thought she would have left already. Rudy was still with her though he looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.

Immediately, Victoria dropped to her knees, scooping Edd up in a bone crushing hug. “Oh, my Eddward, there you are! I have been searching every inch of the ship for you! You had me worried!”

“What the hell are you doin’ here?” Eddy scowled, holding Edd closer to him.

Victoria turned her nose up at Eddy, disgustedly. “You need to learn some manners! Oh, Eddward you’re freezing! Here,” Taking off her immense fur coat she tossed it around Edd’s shoulders. “Now stand up off from this filthy deck! Oh, get a grip on yourself!”

Eddy tore Edd away from Victoria, eyeing her darkly. Ed went along with trying to stare her down, too.

“Ma’am the lifeboat is filling up,” Rudy tapped Victoria’s shoulder to get her attention. “We best chance it.”

Victoria took one look at Edd dressed up in her fur coat and her eyes grew. She wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him close. “Eddward, I have a brilliant idea! We could get into the boat together!”

“What do you mean?” Edd asked her.

Victoria placed the hood over Edd’s head. “They’ll think you’re a woman!”

“I beg your pardon!”

“We can get into the boat together! Say nothing, or they may believe you to be a woman anyway.”

Edd stepped away, tossing off the hood. “I am not leaving this ship without my friends!”

Eddy snapped his finger. “Hold on, what if we all dressed under a blanket!”

“That would work!” Ed agreed with the plan.

“Those rotten scoundrels are not getting into the boat with us!” Victoria hissed.

Edd grabbed at her hand, pleading. “Please, Victoria, If you let them come with us I...”

Edd turned helplessly to Eddy. Feeling his heart swell, guilt loomed inside of Edd.

“What, Eddward?” Victoria asked curiously.

Guilt swarmed Edd’s heart. “If you let them come on the lifeboat... I will marry you...”

“What?!” Eddy exclaimed.

“You will?!” Victoria looked completely taken aback, probably one of the few times it wasn’t feigned in the time Edd knew her.

“Only if you let them come aboard with us!” Edd affirmed with finality.

Victoria smiled. “You’d better find some wardrobe, gentleman. We haven’t much time!”

Luckily, two blankets were sitting right by the railings. Ed and Eddy through the blankets over themselves making sure to conceal their faces good and tight.

Edd approached Eddy, guiltily looking into his eyes. He wanted to tell him that it was only a ruse but Victoria had the ears of a hawk.

“Eddy, are you sure this will work? Can we get in together?” Edd asked him.

“I’m sure, Double D!” Eddy nodded giving his hand a tight squeeze.

Flipping the hood back over his head, they started off towards the boat, Ed and Eddy leading while Edd was right behind them. Victoria chained Edd, keeping a firm grip on his shoulder. At least he could reach out and hold Eddy’s hand. Rudy was walking right alongside them. Edd eyed him, watching his every move. He was the one who orchestrated the scandal earlier that night.

“Here, let me help you, ladies,” the officer offered to the covered Ed and Eddy. This was actually going to work!

But then, the blankets disguising Ed and Eddy flew off, revealing themselves.

Edd gasped noticing that Rudy had purposely stepped on the blankets.

“You shallow imposters! They were trying to disguise themselves as women!” Victoria confronted pointing right at them.

“Step back!” The officer ordered, pointing his gun at Ed and Eddy.

“Eddy...” All hope faded out of Edd’s voice. How could he be so naive to trust Victoria?

“Could they at least help us in? It would teach these mongrels to act like gentlemen!”

“I don’t want to go without you...” Edd begged, reaching out to Eddy.

“Oh, there’s another boat on the other side letting in men,” Rudy pointed out.

“Is there really?” Edd asked.

“Yes, it’s where we were before we found out that you were on this side of the deck. Don’t worry, Rudy will lead them over there.”

Rudy blinked. “Ma’am, I thought I was coming with you.”

“That was before I found my darling. You’ll be okay, Rudy. Now, be a good butler and help us into the boat!”

Rudy stared ungrateful at the woman. How could he have given up his original occupation for this?

Then Victoria turned to Eddy, “Pity I tore up that drawing of yours. It could have been worth hundreds by morning,” she said to him.

Eddy was just about ready to explode. Seeing him this way only made Victoria smirk even more. The uncanny resemblance to his brother was not making the matter any better.

“Get in,” Eddy ordered Edd.

“No!” Edd refused again but Victoria continued to drag him away.

“I’ll find a way! You know me! I’ll get on the other boat. Don’t worry, Edd. I’m a survivor, too!”

Right before Edd could kiss him farewell Victoria pulled Edd away, sneering disgustedly at the men’s love. She pushed Edd in front of her as she placed her hands on his shoulders. Edd peered through the hood noticing the officer look at him.

“My sister isn’t well. Could you make sure she gets on, please? Oh, she’s so fragile,” Victoria went on. “Always needs someone to help her. It’s quite sad.”

As the officer helped Edd, Eddy also supported him into the boat keeping a hand on his back, mostly in comfort. Once assured that Edd was safe, Eddy stepped back only for Edd to reach out and grab Eddy’s hand in one last attempt to feel the soft flesh but also to see if he could pull him in. It could look like an accident. Then the officer would have to let him stay.

Victoria practically shoved Eddy to the side breaking the lover's connection. She leaned on top of him pushing all her immense weight on Eddy’s shoulder as she pulled herself into the boat with no problem.

“Thank you, dear boy!” she roughly pinched Eddy’s cheek as a mother would do to a little child.

Eddy stared hatefully into her eyes. “There is no boat, is there?”

“There might be,” she whispered back. “But, you see, Eddy. I always win.”

And Victoria stepped into the lifeboat seating herself next to Edd, still holding his arm in an attempt that he may try to escape. Edd already knew how dangerously frigid the water was. Victoria had him right where she wanted him.

Eddy could see Edd frightfully peering out from under the warm fur coat. Eddy gripped the railing of the ship, his composure obviously failing him. It hurt to even smile. Edd deserved to be saved. But not like this. Ed kept a hand on his shoulder. He couldn’t find any words of comfort.

“Lower away!” The officer called out.

And the lifeboat slowly descended. Edd never broke eye contact with Eddy as he was lowered further and further from Eddy’s reach. Rockets were still being fired into the night sky. They illuminated quite nicely behind Eddy. His blue eyes sparkled. He looked so handsome.

“Together forever, Eddward,” Victoria proudly stated leaning against his shoulder. “We can make this work. We can get married. I know you haven’t been on your best behavior as of late, but nothing like a little punishment won’t help. However, I have decided to give you this.”

Taking out the blue diamond engagement ring, she slid it around Edd’s finger.

The diamond ring felt so cold. Although it was so little it weighed Edd down.

Edd looked up at Eddy once more. He was much farther, too far for Edd to reach out.

It had only been three days since he met Eddy. Through that little time, Eddy helped him understand himself. He gained more confidence actually standing up to his mother and father about an hour ago. Edd felt capable of so much when he was with Eddy. And yet, he was here with this woman who manipulated him at any chance she got.

Edd actually felt like a man with Eddy. Until now Edd had no idea what love was. Eddy loved him.

Edd’s heart stung. Again, he was obeying like a polite little puppy. Edd didn’t want to be in this lifeboat. He had no desire to sit next to this… this… woman.

“Hold my hands, darling,” Victoria pleaded, already taking Edd’s hands. “They’re cold.”

Edd shoved them away. He stood up, jostling the lifeboat.

“Miss, can you sit down?” The officer in charge ordered.

“Edd?” Eddy called out from above.

“Emily, sit down! We’re not allowed to stand!” Victoria ordered roughly grabbing Edd’s hand. “Sorry sir, my sister is stubborn!”

Edd threw off Victoria’s fur coat throwing it right into the sea. Victoria was so shocked that she tried to reach over the side of her lifeboat to grab it.

Edd took off the ring, letting it hit the lifeboat.

“I’m a man!”

And he bolted to the side ignoring Eddy’s warnings from above. Edd jumped to the open window clutching at it nearly falling below into the frigid water.

“Someone stop him!” Victoria called out trying to grab hold of Edd.

Edd was pulled back aboard the ship. Once his feet safely touched the deck, he ran. He practically bulldozed into a man that he ran so fast. Tears leaked down Edd’s cheeks as he ran down the promenade deck and passed other passengers who were still on the doomed ship. Once he entered the grand staircase he saw Ed and Eddy running down the stairs searching for him.

“Eddy!” Edd cried when he saw the man.

The instant Eddy looked into his eyes with both a pained expressed mixed with overwhelming love, Edd started sobbing even more.

They ran into each other's arms, fiercely grasping one another, never letting go. Eddy was also crying, almost unable to catch his breath. Edd didn’t think Eddy could cry in the few days they’d known each other.

“Why did you do that?!” Eddy hollered, tightly gripping Edd’s face and covering him with kisses.

“I couldn’t go!” Edd’s cheeks hurt from smiling. He was more relieved to be here with Eddy then on that little boat for rescue. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Eddy! I would never have married that woman!”

Eddy laughed. “You’re so stupid, you brainiac!”

“Eddy,” Edd pulled his lovers face to look at him. “You jump, I jump, remember?”

Eddy’s lip trembled yet again holding Edd’s slim frame closer. “Right,” he answered him still feeling overwhelmed. He didn’t know whether to be mad or overly happy. For now, it was happy. He didn’t have to be alone again.

And he kissed Edd. A deep, passionate kiss that electrified their whole bodies. They didn’t care that they were out in public showing affections which were completely disdainful. What did these people care? There was enough panic already.

Ed happily stared at the couple. At last, Eddy was happy.

Hearing a commotion, Ed looked up the grand staircase.

Pushing Rudy to the ground, Victoria pointed a gun at Edd and Eddy.

“Guys, look out!” Ed called out.

#ed edd n eddy #eene #eene fanfiction #eddeddy #titanic never let me ed

[wattydrabbles]

Heart of Edana 18a

Epilogue Version 1 Decided to play with a few options. This would be the most “true” ending.

---

Birds sang of the spring that settled into the hills and trees of Kaia Mountain’s range. Small woodland flowers had begun to bloom and cover the underbrush with whites, yellows, and pinks. A gentle breeze tousled their petals and the few loose leaves that hadn’t fallen the previous fall. Veil pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders as she trudged on. Years ago this scene might have lifted her heart but now all she could feel was the knot in her gut. Four years was a long time… but she had to try.

Adiri had told where to find the cabin once but the years had made her question the memory. If this didn’t work, Veil didn’t know if she could find the strength to try again. She just had to trust that she remembered her words right. Just a little east of Phionel’s cabin. She was still on the path, she thought.

Just when she was about to give up and turn around she heard the joyful shrieks of a child at play and her heart leapt into her throat. It was now or never.

The small cabin peeked out through the trees as she rounded a corner on the dirt path that led in its direction. A small food garden to the side. A smoke house in the back by a hunting shed. Cords and cords of wood stacked alongside to supply many winters worth of warmth. And right in front, settled onto the small covered porch, was Onris twirling a young boy of a few years.

Anxiety made Veil stop as she saw them. They were happy here together. If she made herself known it would only complicate things. Either he would remember, and probably be upset, or he wouldn’t… and she would just be a stranger intruding on his peace. She just watched as the laughter faded and the two of them sat together on the steps to joke, or talk, or do whatever they would for those bright smiles to be on their faces.

A few hesitant steps forward and her confidence broke. She turned on her toe to hide back in the woods where he trees would keep her out of sight. 

“Uh, hello? Who are you?”

Too late. Veil stopped, hands pulling her light travel cloak tight around her body. He didn’t know her… How she wished she had her old armor where she could hide her face in a shroud of darkness. There was no hiding in the dress and cloak she wore. Forcing a smile back onto her face, she turned to look her pain in the eyes. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I seem to have gotten a little lost.”

Onris had gotten up from where he stood and walked closer. “Please… stay. You seem so familiar and you’ve come all this way. I’d love to talk.”

The pain was too much. Veil looked past Onris to the porch where she saw his son sitting, wide eyed and curious, and so much like him. “I should really be going… I’m sorry. Forget I was here.”

That itch that he knew this woman did not leave Onris as he watched her turn away. Like a word stuck on the tip of his tongue he scrambled for the memory. Every second he tried to remember she drifted farther away with the memory that he could not place. He glanced back towards the porch, wondering what she saw that would make her turn away like that. His son met his eyes and suddenly he was staring into hers. 

Everything that had happened, everything they had been, everything she was, snapped back into his mind as he stared into those eyes. So much like hers. “Wait… Veil…?” By the time he looked back she was already so far away.

There was no time for hesitation or explanation as his feet tore through the dirt. His body hadn’t forgotten what it was like to run with such desperation. The only time he ever did was because of her. Onris caught that flash of pain in her face when he grabbed her arm. There wasn’t even a chance for her to pull away before he wrapped her in an embrace. So many years had been lost, years where they could have been a family, and he was not about to let her slip away again.

“O-Onris…?” Hesitation still laced her voice.

“You’re actually here.”

Veil leaned out of his arms to look him in the eye. Her hands cupped either side of his face, taking in his words for a moment, as it all settled in. “You… remember? You really remember?”

Emotions overwhelmed both of them as he nodded. “I do now.” A hand covered her quivering lips as the tears welled up. The years had not been kind to her regrets. Onris pulled her back in for another tight embrace so she could bury those emotions under the relief of knowing it would be alright now.

“Daddy?” the small voice from the porch grabbed both of their attention.

With a little tug, Onris managed to coax Veil to follow him towards the house. Towards their son. “Remember when I told you Mommy would come back? Once all her important stuff was done? Well…” he glanced back towards her again with a smile, “she came back. Ilhen, this is your mother.”

Still holding back so many emotions, Veil knelt down to be on level with her son. The last time she had seen him he had been so small… swaddled in a blanket as she gave him to Adiri… never knowing if she’d ever see him again. “My name is Adessa, and I’m so… so happy to see you, Ilhen.”

The boy did not hesitate as he nearly jumped off the steps and threw his arms around her. Veil sat motionless for the moment it took to comprehend. This was her son, in her arms, and he did not hate her. And in that realization she poured all of her love into that hug. To let him feel the love of so many years missed.

Veil looked up to Onris and caught the curious look that questioned the name she had given him. “A new name, for a new life.”

His lips twitched into a coy smile. “Welcome home, Adessa.”

A home she would never leave behind again.

#bdo collection #Veil #Onris #Ilhen #heart of edana series

[the-idevenk-blog]

The Party Head cannons

Popular with the bullies *gun fingers*

Couple stuff? Double dates all the time / They're competitive couples -always trying to one up each other- / Will, Max and Lucas always give the best gifts because of how much thought they put into them, the rest forget and bring something from their way there, also Barb and Steve / they are really smooth

Max doesn't let Jane get high because she gets to talkative, Dustin doesn't let Lucas gets high because he gets too sensitive and Mike doesn't let Will get high because he gets to flirty (handy) and has no filter. Dustin gets pretty cuddly and tells secrets

Vacations/Road trips, Mike and Will remodeling the van (the one that El flipped over them) and they use to travel. They go on their first trip on spring break before they become high school seniors. They go to Arizona, Puerto Peñasco (a day and five hour trip so they took eight hour turns -Mike going first, Max going second, and Lucas last-), they had a blast trying to surf (the surfing instructor was really young and started flirting with Will, ‘your boyfriend seems like he is ready to kill me if I touch you in the wrong way’ “he is just protective” Will said melancholically as if it were no big deal ‘how much you want bet that if I put a hand on your waist he’ll come immediately’ “some free lessons would be nice”) and when they accidentally kissed in public no one shot them weird looks instead they all started kissing their loved one (Puerto Peñasco was more liberal and since no one knew them they could be openly affectionate). They slept in the bed inside the van Mike spooning Will who is facing the doors, Max and El facing each other they were head to toes with the guys, Dustin and Lucas gave each other their back but hold hands under the blanket. No motel, only for taking a bath and getting ready to a beach party they were invited, some dudes wanted with the girls and they went along just because the guys insisted. They stayed for four days. When they went to a bar they ordered their main drink which is ‘tequila sunrise’ a fruity tequila drink Will loved it and gets hella drunk after the fifth one but by the third one he was already tipsy / The first time they go out of town -as a group- they go to a 70’s themed disco and discover that their boy Will can dance

Summer, the party went swimming in the nearby lake, where Will saw the continents on Max’s freckles while she was sunbathing and he traced them, they chicken fight / make bon fires and roast marshmallows / they ride their bikes to the ice cream parlor / run barefoot through the fields / they also made flower crowns / A carnival past by and they went all the week that it was in town, the couples each went to the Ferris wheel, the last day they had fireworks, they watched from a hill / The four boys tied their shoes and threw them into electric cords they are stuck there ever since / they were once forced to sleep together, Mike ended up having to confront Will by stroking his forehead and Will tangled his fingers in Mike’s hair ; Jane kept hogging the blanket so Max had to spoon her, in the morning they end up smelling like each other ; they made a wall of pillows to separate them, Dustin kept snoring and Lucas kicking but in the morning they still ended up tangled on each other, they can't exactly say they minded

They have a secret word for when things are getting too weird or awkward and just want to change topics, ravioli, then they proceed to sing the sponge bob song and make a new conversation

They have mutual break ups and their sexualities are defined; Max and Will are gay, El, Mike and Lucas are bi, Dustin is pan

School? On their last Snowball they danced as a bunch and halfway through they leave and chill on the bleachers, they’re happy and in love -Byeler is low-key making out and Henclair is just lovingly staring at each other- / Prom is loud and they sweat a lot, they jam to fast songs and loose it all together / They eat their lunch in the back of Lucas pickup truck so they can openly be gay / They sometimes ditch P.E. together -one time Jonathan catches them and Will blackmailed him with telling their mom that he was ditching to make out with Steve he only said ‘touché’ and left them alone- / First year as freshmen? Oh, yeah proud momma Steve dropped them all off / They pass notes in Morse code during class -Jane uses her powers to make paper plains fly from everyone seats because the teacher separated them as soon as the cafeteria accident happened-

Truth or dare is boring because they tell each other every thing, it only gets interesting when they ask couple questions -like: who is the big or little spoon while cuddling? Who asked who? First date? First time? First kiss? If you were a girl/boy…?- this, El: I've never kissed a boy, Will: me neither, Mike: whAT DO YoU GuYs MeAN, definitely happened

Privacy is something Hawkins doesn't fully understand so they hang out in the tree house. Hang out? More like bicker, make out -they have a bell just in case- and get high, They also have a swing

The girl that cried and danced with Will is Jennifer -she’s lesbian- she cried at Will’s funeral because she was the only one that knew and now there was no one who could confide in -she has a girlfriend named Tara and she works at the local dinner and is always willing to give them the back booth-

They watched ‘Back to the future’ and loved it

Karaoke night is a thing for them. Mike sings ‘viva la vida’ to Will. Max and El sing ‘how to be a heartbreaker.’ Dustin and Lucas sing ‘tell me what you want’ as a duet, after they sang individually. ‘The mythic’ is their group song. Will sings ‘I wanna be yours’ by Arctic monkeys and they learn that their girl Jane can rap

The party in their nice church clothes

Monopoly, Jane is always the first one to go bankrupt but Max is always like “I gotcha babe” and they share properties and money, Henclair is all about the ‘if he passes he doesn't have to pay’ and Byeler is just competing with each other

Ruffles vs Classic lays “Cheese is so much better” ‘salt is better than cheese’ “you take that back!” And Jane likes Cheetos

“You wanna go Byers?” ‘Bring it on Ives’ the war of the century which ends with laughter and hugs

They ask Will who is the better dad and he is all nervous and they are all looking at him, even the party, and then he smiles, a wicked caught the cannery smile, and they all get goose bumps, “the best dad is the one that can tell me, no birds no bees, where babies come from” and they all holler and Steve and Hopper just awkwardly cough and say it’s a tie. ‘They always do what I tell them not to!’ Pats him on the back apologetically “welcome to parenthood, buddy”

They once, for Aprils fools, so it was obviously Will’s idea, they spend the afternoon covering Steve’s BMW in multi-colored post-it notes, they each leave a signature, one time they wanted to prank Will for April fools he was prepared for everything and even pranked them on his way to class

Their last thanksgiving in Hawkins? They all spend it together in the Byers house, this time the Wheeler’s are included, -Holly and Karen- they all have a turn talking about what they are thankful for, Mike high-key spends all his turn talking about his bb boy, Will talks about how he is grateful for his family and how he hoped they never have to go over something like that again but also talks about his goofy bf, Max rolls her eyes but totally wants to one up them so she just talks about her beautiful gf

They are super competitive when it comes to -the old version of- Kahoot they always choose hilarious names and Dustin once broke one of the machines while pressing the button to hard 

For the ‘who wore it better’ wall there is a picture of Dustin and Will with the same jacket, Lucas and Mike get into an argument on who looks the best, Dustin and Will exchange jackets and tell them to differentiate them

#the party #henclair #elmax #byeler #the things in italics are not mine #headcanon

[gloomy-goober]

A Graceless Spell

Roman Day 3: Princey is cursed to be clumsy in everything he does for one whole week! I wonder how that plays out?

Part 1 (You are Here!) / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 In which Princey has the worst morning of his life. 

The initial wake up should have been the first clue that something had been off. 

Roman was usually graceful when he awoke. Like an animated princess he would wake with a dramatic yawn, his hair perfect in every way, and birds singing either outside his window or even in  his bed chamber. 

Today was different. The Prince was on his way to return to the mind palace castle after he had defeated an evil witch. He had not made it back before dark so he felt it wise to set up camp on the side of the trail in the forest. 

No birds sang as he woke up and he woke up in a groggy fashion that would be more appropriate for some of the other sides to wake up like. He did not feel as well rested as he normally felt. He just felt like he needed to get the rock that had found a way to dig in his side away from him. 

He sat up and groaned at the soreness of his muscles. Battles did not usually leave him in such a state.

“I guess she was a tougher fight than I thought,” he mumbled to himself as he popped his back and sighed at the small bit of relief that brought over him.

He moved out from under the blanket he had laid under for the night and stumbled out of the tent. The usual dramatic flair of the creative side foiled as his barefoot snagged on the side of the tent and he fell face first into the dirt road. 

“Blasted tent!” Roman grumbled under the breath and pushed himself to his feet. He glared at the simple tent as if the inanimate object was truly to blame for his face plant. 

“I knew I should have made the deluxe version,” he stated to the empty wood as he brushed the dirt from his once clean silk pajamas. “I guess exhaustion made me foolishly think that any old tent would do.” 

He snapped his fingers and the tent disappeared as well as the dirty pajamas that were replaced with his usual princely attire. Usually he did not bother with using his power in his area of the ‘mind space’ but this very unflattering awakening and run his patience thin. 

“Reginald, I believe it is time to-” Roman turned to address the space where his regal white steed should have been tied to a tree but he found the reigns had been cut and the horse no where. 

“Horse thieves! Really? In this part of my wood!” He looked around the dark space and frowned. He could have sworn he had been closer to the castle yesterday not in the thieves usual hang out. “Fine! Whatever! I will just...just walk home.” 

The side moodily made sure his sword was still with him before he started off down the dirty road alone; leaving the tent behind. 

“Don’t they know conjuring a horse is a lot harder when one’s had used most of their power to make a main hub a castle?” he mumbled to himself. “No respect for their prince. I should send a royal guard to flush them out. That’ll show them.” 

Boot covered feet slowly made their way out of the darker part of the wood and into a more familiar territory. The wood had slowly thinned out to show the outskirts of his kingdom. A few farmers were out and about; toiling their land and carts moved down the road towards the communal market. 

He ran a hand through his hair to get out any leaves or dirt that may have gotten stuck during his rest or walk and stood up taller. Roman would not let his people see him in such a miserable state. They would see their prince as he should be seen; strong and victorious. 

His world seemed to have other plans. 

A great roll of thunder rumbled across the suddenly darkened sky and great drops of water began to abuse the earth. The villagers scrambled to get to shelter. The farmer left their crops to be watered naturally by the rain and got their animals back inside. The carts hurried along to get the main village to stay in a shop or pub. 

None of them noticed the now drenched prince. 

“Could this morning get any worse?” Roman grumbled and shook his head as he moved to continue his long walk through all this rain. 

He must have not picked his foot up enough because before Prince knew it he was laying in the muddy path; white clothes now stained brown with the wet dirt. Anger swirled in his gut but he swallowed it down. He had to get back to the main hub and then he would get warm, ask Patton for a cup of cocoa, and stay in his room to sleep the rest of this day away. 

Everyone’s eyes were on Prince. Usually the creative side would be overjoyed with the undivided attention he was getting from the other three sides. They never did pay enough attention to him, in his honest opinion. Today, though, he wished they would look away. 

His walk back had been terrible. The mud had slightly washed off of him because of the rain but the force of the drops had splatted his boots. The brown of the dirty path had also stained his usually white, and currently soaked, outfit. 

“Whoa, Roman, what happened to you?” Patton paused the move he had been watching and stood up from the couch. Concern was in the emotional side’s voice and it showed by the speed that he made his way over to him. 

Roman put on a smile and waved off the concerned hands that wanted to check a small cut he had gotten from a wayward branch on his wave up the hill where the castle sat. 

“It is nothing. I just had a small run in with an elemental in the woods on my way back,” Roman added a laugh that he hoped did not sound too fake, “Threw me into the moat-”

“We have a moat?” 

Roman ignored Virgil’s little add on. “But it is no matter. I just need a change of clothes and something to warm me up.” 

“Say no more,” Patton said with a grin, “You go get a nice shower and change into something super cozy. I will make you some of my extra special hot cocoa.”

“With marshmallows and whipper cream?”

“What kind of special hot cocoas would it be without that stuff?” Morality snorted and pushed him out of the main hub and towards one of the many hallways. “Now go.”

Roman did not go against the ‘order’ of the trait. A sense of calmness had washed over him at the feeling that he was safe again in the mind castle. More peace came over him as he walked into his room and greeted his lovely posters that adorned the walls from their frames. 

He wanted nothing more than to flop onto his bed and fall asleep but in the state he was in that was no an option. He grabbed his most comfortable pajamas from his dresser and moved into the en suite. That is when more trouble began. 

What should have been a relaxing shower was a clumsy nightmare. He tripped over his trousers when getting them off, knocked over his shower’s shelf, almost broke the handle when the water was ice cold on his back, and ripped his sash when he got out of the shower and almost fell over because the floor was slippery. 

“What in Walt’s great name is going on here?” He thought as he very, VERY carefully got into his pajamas. He clung to the ripped sash as he threw the rest into the laundry basket. He would have to fix this later. 

“Roman! I got your cocoa!” Patton’s voice sang from outside the doorway. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to drink it in here or if you wanted to join us to watch The Avengers.” 

Prince made his way over to the door and gave a weary smile to Morality. Carefully he took the warm mug, his favorite one he noted, and held it in both hands to soak up the warmth. 

“Thank you, Patton, for this and the offer but I am weary from the journey back. I think I want to rest up in here if you do not mind.” +

“Say no more, kiddo. You drink that and sleep; me time is always a good thing to have.” 

Roman nodded with what the heart said and took a sip. That had been a mistake. Too much of the molten chocolate hit his mouth and he felt it as it burned his mouth. 

On instinct his hands let go of the mug and it feel to the floor with a loud smash. The hot cocoa hitting Patton’s shoes and his bare feet. He jumped back with a hand over his mouth as the sting dulled to that uncomfortable swollen feeling. 

“F-!” 

“Oh no!” Patton cut him off, “I’ll get a rag, just don’t move. I don’t want you stepping on any glass.”

Roman watched as Morality walked off quickly and he moved to lean against the door frame but missed. The royal fell, luckily away from the spilled drink, onto his back in his room. 

"What happened? I heard a crash.” 

Roman felt his face heat up in embarrassment at the sound of a anxious side’s voice. It only got worse when he heard the rushed yet methodical footsteps of Logic join the darkly clad side. 

“It appears there was an accident,” Logan stated and Roman had to open his eyes when a shadow fell over him. The prince made a face to see the nerd staring down at him. “Are you seriously hurt, Roman?” 

“Nothing was hurt too badly except-”

“Okay! I got the rag and a broom, also some cold water for your-hey guys!”

Roman sat up to see Patton had returned. He waved off the helping hand to Logic and pulled himself back to his own feet.

“Thank you,” he mumbled. 

“Patton what happened?” Logan asked, “Did you drop the cup when handing it over?” 

Morality shook his head and started to work on cleaning the spilled drink. “No. Roman burnt his mouth and dropped the cup. It happens to the best of us but he is lucky he did not get any of glass on him.”

“Princey dropped a cup?” Virgil said the question with disbelief and looked over at the sulking side. “Really?” 

“It isn’t that impossible, Virgil,” Logic stated as he took the broom from Morality and started to sweep up the shards of the mug. “Sure, Prince is the least likely of us to drop something but it does not mean it won’t happen.”

“Yeah, but you got to admit it is a little weird. He comes back drenched and covered in mud and-”

“I am still here you know,” Roman shouts from his bed and glares at the two that had been mostly engaged in the conversation. “I don’t appreciate all the talk about me when you are not talking to me about me.”

“Fine,” Anxiety said and crossed his arms, “Then what is going on with you?” 

“Nothing is going on with me!” Roman may have used too much flourish with those words and almost knocked over a lamp. He had to move fast to catch it and luckily did. It was a collector’s item after all; it would be terrible if it did smash to pieces. “I am perfectly fine. Merely tired after a long battle. I would appreciate it if you all left now.” 

The other sides looked at each other and than at the prince before they left one by one. The first to leave was Virgil; the side had a blank expression on his pale face which usually meant he was thinking too hard. Logan left next after he made sure all the mug pieces had been swept up. 

Patton left last after he made sure all the cocoa was gone and that Roman was ‘snug as a bug in a rug’, his words not Roman’s. The prince let the strained smile on his face fall as soon as they all left and he flopped back onto his pillows. 

The ramification of that was the lamp he had luckily saved getting shaken and tipping off of the night stand. Ariel’s head went flying off and landed a little ways away; not to mention the bulb was broken. 

“Oh come on!” He covered his face with his hands and took in a shaky breath.

“It’s alright. I will just...rest and than later I can glue her back together,” he mumbled to himself and rolled over so his back was to the broken lamp. “It is just one bad day. I have tomorrow.”

A faint smile lit Prince’s face and he clapped his hands to the lights would dim in his room. 

“Yeah. Tomorrow...tomorrow...I love ya’ tomorrow...you’re always a day...a...way...” 

#Roman #Roman Sanders #Prince #Princey #sanderssidesappreciationmonth #sanders sides #fic #my fic #'A' Fic #thomas sanders #A Graceless Spell #I hate Annie but I had to put it in there because even I admit the song helps me on bad days #The FAM ILY #Virgil #Anxiety #Morality #Logic #Logan #FOUR SHOT WHYYYY

[finalproblem]

“Sixteen by six, brother.”

Carrying on with Eurus’ song...

As someone once said (very recently), for a twist to be effective you need to give the audience a fair chance to work it out.

Eurus’ song code was not, by that standard, a great twist.

Sure, we knew she sang a song that had something to do with the Redbeard incident. And we knew there were funny gravestones with wrong dates. But most of the information was withheld from the audience until it was splashed up on the screen for Sherlock’s big deduction sequence.

Which, okay, is not the worst cheat ever committed by a TV mystery writer.

It does feel like a pretty unnecessary one, though. Withholding most of the song as if anyone watching was going to assume there was a code, pause the episode, and take notes so they could crack it? And really, they could’ve easily slipped in one more creepy voice singing a single line--”Let Death make a room”--somewhere earlier in the episode and it would’ve been much less of a cheat simply by playing fair enough to let us know the word “room” was in the song.

But what if we try a thought experiment?

What if the writers didn’t care about playing fair with the whole gravestone code business because it wasn’t the real puzzle?

What if there’s a different puzzle?

Ready? Here comes the experiment:

For the duration of this post, let go of the idea that this song was something created by Sherlock’s sister to lead him anywhere.

Just let the song be the words on their own.

If you need a reason to talk yourself into even considering this possibility, remember that in The Lying Detective, Sherlock’s writers introduced a memory-inhibiting drug named TD 12. Then they made a point of having Culverton Smith explain that not only could the drug do what he was using it for and erase memories currently being recorded, but it could also corrupt past memories. And then we never got an example of old memories being corrupted. You don’t introduce an invented fact like that unless you’re planning to make use of it later.

So if you need a reason to shake the song free of the story we were told, assume it was a real thing Sherlock remembered, but his memory of the song’s actual context was completely corrupted.

(I’m not going to get into what Mycroft knew or where reality ends and memory begins or the larger backstory beyond the corrupted memory idea in this post or we’d never make it to the actual point. So try to just relax and enjoy this experiment for what it is on its own.)

Because we care about playing fair, we’ll start our experiment with the image at the top of this post. The very last image of The Final Problem--John and Sherlock running out of a post office.

“A post office?” you ask. Yes, a post office. Because they are Big Time Action Heroes. 😉

But seriously, that’s a post office, and here’s why.

It’s a big building named Rathbone Place. There’s still a street named Rathbone Place in London, but did the writers decide to have our heroes walk by a street sign in honor of Basil Rathbone? No. No, they did not. They made it a building and had the set decoration folks create two big plaques so we were all very clear what the name of the building was. And the only big building that’s been named “Rathbone Place” during Sherlock’s run was the Royal Mail’s Rathbone Place Western Delivery Office. (Note that the real Rathbone Place building looked different than that, but as it was torn down shortly after Series 3 aired, I don’t blame the Sherlock team at all if they made the decision to pick something that looked more like the other related post offices instead of trying to recreate a very specific post office almost no one would remember the look of.)

Is it completely obvious that the building is a post office from a glance if you’re not a super nerd? No, but Googling “Rathbone Place” takes you right to a Wikipedia article about the street that mentions the former mail depot. So it’s not too hard to get a foothold from there. A fair, if admittedly subtle, clue.

Knowing that’s a post office is the single most important hint for the thought experiment we’re about to try.

Meanwhile, if you do happen to be a super nerd you can dig a little deeper...

Rathbone Place was one of a small handful of postal depots that were part of the now-defunct Mail Rail network--a mini subway system used to transport mail under London.

Remember the clown robbers in The Sign of Three? I’ve argued that the only way for them to have expected to get 12 tons of gold out of the bank was if they were taking advantage of the abandoned Mail Rail trains. (Sally Donovan mentioned a “tunnel entrance” at the bank, and the whole thing becomes a parallel for canon story The Red-Headed League.)

I’ve also argued, for unrelated reasons, that the robbers were connected to Lord Moran. Remember how the tip that led to Lord Moran’s capture was about “an underground terrorist network active in London”? And then they caught one (1) guy. Do we really think Lord Moran was the entire “network”? Or does it make more sense that there are a bunch of baddies taking advantage of London’s various underground tunnel systems, and Sherlock just hasn’t figured it out yet?

Also for some wacky reason, the writers started throwing clowns and trains all over TFP. So, uh... Huh. That’s interesting.

And because it will matter later, you need to know I refer to the robbers as the Scowrers, like the baddies in The Valley of Fear. Here’s the reason if you want it.

Time for our favorite song again:

I that am lost, oh who will find me? Deep down below the old beech tree. Help succour me now the east winds blow. Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go!

Be not afraid to walk in the shade Save one, save all, come try! My steps - five by seven Life is closer to Heaven Look down, with dark gaze, from on high

Without your love, he’ll be gone before. Save pity for strangers, show love the door. My soul seek the shade of my willow’s bloom Inside, brother mine - Let Death make a room.

Before he was gone - right back over my hill. Who now will find him? Why, nobody will. Doom shall I bring to him, I that am queen. Lost forever, nine by nineteen.

Like we said last time, one of the interesting quirks of this thing is the number pairs: “sixteen by six,” “five by seven,” and “nine by nineteen.” They’re superficially similar to canon, but then actually different enough to make a person wonder what the writers were up to.

I’m sure many attempts will be made to bash through using those numbers as code or cypher key or mathematical curiosity. But we’re not going to go that way today.

Instead, we’re going to double back to canon.

Remember how I said the mysterious rhyming words in The Musgrave Ritual were like a verbal treasure map? The writers had Sherlock brush off that approach to interpreting the song (he dug as a child and found nothing). But what if that was a feint? We’re operating in an experimental reality where the song was never about finding Redbeard or Eurus’ room, so of course it was a feint.

We should reconsider the song’s lyrics as instructions or directions.

And honestly? Look at ‘em. The amount of overwriting that was put into the song considering most of it was never highlighted in the episode makes way more sense if these were actually proper Musgrave Ritual style directions the whole time. Plus there are tons of pieces that would work as abstract descriptions for locations or directional guidance just like in the original story. It’s dripping with them.

For example? “And under we go!” That right there would be a mighty fine line to include if you were writing instructions so all the other baddies in your underground terrorist network would know how to navigate the subterranean tunnels of London.

But hang on--if none of this was ever about a secret sister, why would the song keep using the word “brother”? Like I said above, I refer to the robbers as the Scowrers because I think they’re based on that group of baddies from The Valley of Fear. And what do Scowrers call each other?

“Then in the name of Lodge 341, Vermissa, I welcome you to its privileges and debates. You will put the liquor on the table, Brother Scanlan, and we will drink to our worthy brother.”

(This also raises the question of whether Jim had a stationmaster brother, or a stationmaster “brother.” But we’ll leave that one alone for now.)

We could be here all day just picking at parts of the song that might mean this or that. Let’s try to nail down something specific instead.

Using the framework that the song is actually a verbal map for the underground terrorist network to navigate the tunnels under London (some real and some fictional or exaggerated, as is the usual way with this show), let’s go back to the strange number pairs.

The Scowrers were using Mail Rail and John and Sherlock ran out of a post office as the final big hero shot of the series. Does the postal system give us some kind of clue about how to interpret the numbers?

Why, yes. Yes, it does.

I give you... the postcodes of London.

(bigger map here)

You can read all about the history of London postcodes online if you want, but the short version is:

first directional letters were assigned to districts

then numbered subdistricts were created

but the system used to assign numbers was quirky and geographically haphazard, resulting in what you see on the map above

So any numbered subdistrict isn’t necessarily going to be geographically close to the other subdistricts with sequential numbers. Instead, any number can randomly turn out to be by any other number.

Hmm... Numbers by numbers. Why does that sound familiar? 🤔

Yeah, let’s look at those number pairs from the song again.

We’ll start with the pair that got the most play in the episode: “sixteen by six.”

Help succour me now the east winds blow. Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go!

If we take the number pair line and its rhyming line from the song at the same time, we get a pretty good clue about where to look. The rhyming line gives us the direction of “east,” so if we head to the E postcode... Ta da! E16 is right next to E6. Sixteen by six.

Interesting point to note? There is a Mafeking Road in E16. When Sally Donovan was talking about everything they were doing to stop the clown robbers in The Sign of Three the other weird thing she mentioned besides the tunnel entrance was that the police had “armed response on Mafeking Road.” There was no obvious reason why Mafeking Road had anything to do with anything, and it was never explained or addressed. But if the part-real, part-fictional subterranean tunnels of Sherlock connected over to E16 via Mafeking Road... That would’ve given police a reason to be there.

Next number pair: “five by seven.”

My steps - five by seven Life is closer to Heaven

Pulling it with the rhyming line doesn’t help us quite as much this time. There’s no obvious compass direction. If we get a little flexible in the proper tradition of these being disguised directions, though, you could read “closer to Heaven” as “up.” That isn’t very helpful for finding postcodes in a 3D space, but on a typical map we can translate “up” into “north.”

And sure enough... The N5 postcode is next to the N7 postcode. Five by seven.

Interesting point to note? Pentonville Prison is in N7. That’s the same prison Jim broke into in Reichenbach. And it’s the prison that was the origin of a creepy flower arrangement sent when Sherlock was in the hospital in a deleted scene from His Last Vow (released later as a DVD extra):

Magnussen: And the black wreath? C Block, Pentonville. I’m not sure the intent was entirely kindly.

I previously put forward the case that Lord Moran could reasonably have been held in Pentonville while on trial. And honestly, he could still be there if the writers felt like keeping him there for story / Victoriana reasons. Or maybe the relevant point is that he’s not there anymore between having Pentonville staffed by people who were willing to help Jim with his Reichenbach stunt and possible secret tunnels linking up to the area...

And Pentonville was quite close to an old proposed Mail Rail expansion line...

Should we be worried about that Lord Moran lookalike who was getting on John’s bus in The Six Thatchers? And carrying a newspaper with a headline about being in two places at once?

BUT I DIGRESS. Let’s get back to numbers.

Our final number pair is the trickiest. As it should be in any good puzzle.

Doom shall I bring to him, I that am queen. Lost forever, nine by nineteen.

This time our rhyming line doesn’t have any obvious directional hint.

We could maybe break pattern and borrow the “right back” directional indicator from the beginning of the verse to suggest returning east where we started, but are E9 and E19 next to each other? No. In fact, there are no “9″ postcodes next to any “19″ postcodes anywhere in London.

So are we sunk? Doomed by the queen?

Maybe not.

Here’s a fun little quirk--there’s no E19 postcode. There’s an E20 postcode, but no E19. The E postcodes already went up to E18 when they decided to add one for the London Olympic Park, but instead of doing the obvious thing and continuing on to E19, they skipped straight over it to E20.

The E9 postcode may not be next to the nonexistent E19, but it does bump right up against E20.*

And the proper name for E20?

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

So read that one more time:

Doom shall I bring to him, I that am queen. Lost forever, nine by nineteen.

Interesting point to note? Even before the creation of E20, there had been multiple attempts to get another neighborhood’s postcode changed to E19. The requests were rejected. It would be so easy for the writers to concoct a government conspiracy reason for E19 not being allowed to exist and instead being the “lost” London postcode. Especially when you’re mixing this in with the secret subterranean tunnels of London, which already have tons of government and conspiracy baggage of their own.

I’ll pause here for now. I do have thoughts about what other parts of the song could mean within the “underground terrorist network” interpretation, but it’s harder to be precise with the bits that didn’t get convenient assigned numbers. So I’ll get to those in a separate post later.

In the meantime, as usual, I encourage you to post in Tumblr’s #the musgrave riddle tag if you want in on this funny little map game. (Don’t send stuff directly to me, because I’ll probably never be able to get back to you.) Once you start looking at the song this way, it’s really easy--and fun--to find more possible London location references in the lyrics. Get on Google Maps and knock yourselves out!

* E20 is so tiny that the E9 / E20 border may not show up clearly on most postcode maps, including the one I embedded earlier in this post. But if you look on Google Maps, you can see E9 is indeed physically adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

#sherlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock theories #the musgrave riddle #sherlock holmes #john watson #eurus #culverton smith #scowrers #sebastian moran #sally donovan #jim moriarty #moriarty #the sign of three #his last vow #the six thatchers #the lying detective #the final problem ep #series 4 #canon #the adventure of the red headed league #the adventure of the musgrave ritual #the valley of fear #gold is heavy #long post is long #have a game sherlockians #it's been a while since i gave you a big theory game #this looks like a good one

[transformationstuck]

Equius on an adventure and by adventure i mean fitness run or something like that, Encounters a Liquid metal Aradiabot from a doomed timeline. The Aradiab0t feeling lonely decides Equius would make some excellent company and infests him into a VERY HEAVY slime host.

In an alternate timeline where things aren’t quite the same, but at the same time aren’t too different that we would call them unrecognizable, we find ourselves on an Alternia, well an alternate Alternia, Alteralternia perhaps? Wherever it is, it’s irrelevant as this timeline and its world of trolls are untouched by the game that destroyed so many universes.

We find  ourselves following a Zahhak, Equius Zahhak to be exact. A strong and proud troll of noble hue’d blood, currently exercising, the troll having lifted near impossible weights and showing unmatched levels of raw “STRENGTH” as he himself would refer to it. That very same troll is currently on a long jog, an extremely long jog which has taken him far from his hive and half way up a mountain.

The equine hoof beast troll making constant and rapid pace up said jogging trail, his body glistening with an unfortunate amount of slick sweat which was a curse his cast were born with, everyone knew those with his blood type while strong and quite gifted in the mind, are subject to heavy sweating, but Equius manages, in fact he barely even notices the sweat anymore thanks to the quantity of towels he possesses.

That being said. Around a third of the way up the towering hills, along a forest path, Equius found himself borderline exhausted, deciding in his noble blooded judgment that  a log a few short steps off of the trail, The noble taking a seat, panting heavily as he wipes the sweat off of his forehead, reaching into his pocket for a small dry towel with which to dry off-.

“Fiddlesticks!” Equius yelled loudly as he realized that not only was he down to his last towels.

Equius paused there in the cool hillside air, thinking of what to do next when he heard something from the woods behind him, specifically, from a rock with a crack present in the side. Curiosity getting the better of him Equis approaches the rock, wondering why it was making such noises.

Upon examining the rock in question Equius noticed two things which were strange, one was that the crack itself appeared to be oozing a grey substance that seemed to flow out to a certain point, then stop. The second thing that Equius noticed was that the crack appeared to be turning into the grey ooze around half way down the rock.

Equius was so preoccupied by the large rock turning into grey goo, that he didn’t noticed that he was dripping sweat onto ooze. The ooze in question reacting to the drippings from his body, the slime glowing slightly and beginning to bubble and pop, which did get his attention, all his senses telling him to move back from the glowing goop.

As he backed away Equius noticed patterns on the ooze, patterns which looked like circuitry, thousands upon thousands of tiny circles and lines connecting to one another which glowed a faint indigo hue. Equius was right to step back from the rock, because no sooner had it began to glow, than the rock it was oozing out of begin to rapidly break down into ooze also, the large grey stone seemingly melting before Equius’ eyes who at this point was backing away slowly constantly and considering making a hasty abscond.

That’s when something odd began to happen, well, more odd than a glowing circuitry patterned stone turned ooze melting before your eyes, No, The Ooze began to pull together, growing taller and taller, slowly forming into the outline of a bipedal creature, then pulling itself together into a feminine shape before finally taking the shape of…

“M-Megido…?” Equius was, confused beyond reason, why was there a metallic ooze in the form of one of his friends, even if she was a… lowblood. The Ooze Aradia maintaining eye contact with blue glowing eyes, its body still covered in circuitry patterns the whole while.

“Hell0 Equius.” It stated, Equius’ concerns oddly fading as it began to talk, even though a small part of his mind considered the whole exchange, not only did the entity before him know his name, but it thought itself as Aradia, Equius took a deep breath and stated in a calm and proper tone…

“What are you?” He Inquired, still unsettled by the glowing eyes and the face it made itself.

“I am Aradia, an Aradia, I am fr0m a d00med future fr0m a w0rld where we played a game, we l0st the game, everything died.” It stated, Equius was officially confused.

“That… sounds like a fabricated story.” He replied in confusion before the “aradia” continued.

“An Alternate y0u built me after my 0riginal b0dy died, y0u pr0grammed me t0 have feelings f0r y0u, A sentiment at the time I rejected but have since c0me to terms with said advance, h0wever 0ne sided it was… Y0u it is an 0dd feeling t0 be singular and next bec0me a swarm 0f nan0machines…” The now technically Robot commented, Equius was in disbelief alternate timelines, Nano-machines, The end of the world.

“I…I….” Equius was speechless at that point, sure he had some feelings for the Aradia he knew, but those were, improper and… indecent, he struggled to keep composure and stick to etiquette when it came to said emotions.

Equius’ slow drippings of sweat quickly turned into a torrent which seemed to amuse the Nano Swarm Aradia before him.

“Y0u kn0w, it’s funny, I sent myself thr0ugh a crack in time to escape that w0rld and lay d0rmant th0ugh c0nci0us f0r the past few millennia, and then 0ne day, y0u just s0 happen t0 c0me al0ng and pr0vided a catalyst to re-activate me.” Equius worry and concern growing as the Aradia’s face grew a rather unsettling smile.

“Few th0usand years 0f pr0grammed em0ti0nal attachment and n0 way t0 express it c0uld drive a girl mad~” Aradia joked as Equius stood there, stoic as always on the exterior, but currently fearing for his own life on the inside.

“I-I could image.” Equius comments.

“I… should be going…” Equius taking a step back as he watches the smile fade on the Aradia’s face turn to a neutral, then to that of an expression of one being hurt.

“After what felt like an eternity al0ne and the versi0n 0f y0u, the first pers0n i meet in this reality, and y0u want t0 leave me al0ne?” Spoke Aradia to Equius in a sad tone, Equius’ guilt responding rapidly.

“I-I won’t leave you alone, do not worry.” Equius quickly replied without thinking, acting mostly out of guilt and those feelings for the real Aradia he had long since suppressed in the back of his mind. Aradia’s smile soon returning although… slightly more crooked than before, maybe agreeing to keep the slightly crazy robotic version of his friend company wouldn’t be so bad?

“Y0u mean it~?” Aradia Inquired to which Equius nodded.

“Yes I me- Uuumph!!” Gags back looking at the Aradia twitch, as he felt something in his mouth, looking down he saw a stream of the Ooze that was Aradia flowing into his mouth, Equius coughing and spluttering as he attempted to pull the ammount out of his mouth, this was a mistake, this wasn’t right.

“Thanks Equius~!” The robot replied, the sound seemingly coming from all over the liquid Aradia’s body, even the hands worth shoved into his mouth and slowly being pushed down his throat.

“N0w i’ll never be al0ne again!” The Aradia sang in a very chipper tone, Equius realizing that whatever the alternate him had done to rebuild Aradia must have gone wrong, and those programmed feelings over the course of being alone for a millennia must have driven her mad.

While Equius struggled, he felt the clothes being ripped from his body, a tendril of the Aradia stripping his clothes off, but why, and why was she so STRONG? Equius thought to himself as he tried pull the Flow of cold metallic ooze flowing down his neck out of him, Equius may have been strong but this… this “thing” was unnatural.

Equius spluttered against the ooze as he felt the flow around his mouth widen, grey grey ooze smothering his face, two streams flowing up his nose to join the torrent going down his neck. Equius coughing and gagging, dropping to his knees before shuddering, his pupils dilating, it felt cold and firm…

Equius looked behind him, turning his head to see the liquid Aradiabot wink to him as it pressed a part of itself up his rear, it felt cold and was moving slow, Equius’ cheek lighting up in an instant when he heard her.

“Feels g00d right~?” Aradiabot teased.

Equius shaking his head as best he could as the Liquid robot stuck its tongue out.

“D0n’t lie, we’ll be living t0gether fr0m n0w on~” Equius’ shutting his eyes as he felt more of the ooze being shoved up his rear, his eyes starting to water as he felt the streams slowly pushing through his insides along his digestive system trying to meet each other. Equius’ gut beginning to push outward as his insides were becoming tight and stuffed with metallic ooze. Equius rolling onto his back trying to get away any way his could when he saw Aradia about to do something else to him.

“00h~ Sh0wing yourself to me already, d0n’t worry, let me handle it~” Equius looking down in horror as he saw the Aradiabot place its finger to the tip of his bulge, Equius’ Eyes rolling back as he felt the cold pressure begin to work its way down the length of the shaft. Aradia cooing in an almost loving manner the whole time.

This torment Equius was going through continued for what seemed like forever, it was so… l-lewd he couldn’t handle this, Equius’ insides feeling tight and bloated, his vision darkening around the edges as he couldn’t breath properly, Aradia making loving teasing as she stuffed him with herself, Equius’ bulge and balls swollen and heavy by this point much like the rest of him…

Aradiabot had poured half of herself into Equius at this point, and as much as he hated himself for it, the perverse pleasure of being stuffed with this cool metallic ooze was beginning to feel good, Aradia’s metallic body slowly covering his skin now, seeping into his pores and as well as anywhere else untouched by her metallic body.

“H0me stretch n0w Zahhak~” Aradia chimed in as he felt a cold prickling sensation as she continued to seep into him all over, Equius finally passing out from the lack of air…

“-Cough-”

“-Cough splutter-”

Equius woke up and rolled onto his front, he felt… heavy all over and… slow, it took all of his strength to even move. Getting onto all fours he breathed heavily.

[y0u awake~?]

Equius heard Aradia’s voice, from… everywhere, the previous events swimming back to equius’ mind rapidly.

“W-what d-did you do to -cough- me?” He asked in a hoarse tone, Equius forcing himself to his feet when he looked down he was a mixture of mortified and an emotion he couldn’t even describe.

[I m0ved in, n0w neither 0f us will be al0ne ever again~!]

Aradiab0t chimed as Equius clutched the sides of his temples. Her voice was coming echoing from the inside of his head. Equius looking down at himself he looked… fat, what was happening.

[S0rry about the pudge, there was a l0t of me and I needed to put myself somewhere until I g0t settled in]

Equius grabbed his now pudgy gut, horrified by the lack of muscles visible. Equius staggering forward his walking slow, resting  with a hand on a tree as he felt his skin bubbling and shifting, it looked like all the nano-machines which made up Aradia were moving deeper inside him, bonding with his cells?

[G0t it in 0ne~!]

Aradiabot answered Equius, was she reading his thoughts, this… this was wrong, but he felt a zapping sensation inside him, the pudge that was on his body slowly retracting inside him, the sensation feeling good… really good, he… he couldn’t.

“-moaning-” Equius began to moan, dropping to his knees again as aradia shifted around inside him, reaching for his bulge he felt something different, it felt larger, thicker and heavier, no… it was…

Equius pumping his shaft as a method to try and relieve these feelings, Aradia making teasing  and lewd comments inside his mind as he did so, all his private thoughts and secrets hers to view whenever she wanted, Equius moaning and stroking his swollen length as he failed to regain composure.

[Isn’t it great that y0u agree’d t0 let me stay with y0u~]

She sang inside him equius barely managing to moan a yes as he continue to  jerk off, his breath becoming slow and ragged by the time he drew closer to a finish.

[hey, let me help y0u 0ut! 0u0]

What did she mea-

“Oh… Oh g-g-gaaaaah~!” Equius moaned as he felt Aradia’s nano-machines buzzing and vibrating inside his length, his mind going dim as he climaxed his mind growing dark again as he passed out from the pleasure, his last thoughts being the sound of Aradiabot’s voice in his mind.

[We’re g0ing t0 be t0gether… f0rever~]

-x

p.s. Sorry if this isn’t the best quality, I’m not good at Equius and this was a weird one.

#homestuck #equius zahhak #aradiabot #slime possession #transformationstuck #mental tf #aradia #aradia megido #equius #homesmut #cock expansion #weight gain #possession

[how2to18]

A LABOR STRIKE and a heart-wrenching tragedy in 1913, Woody Guthrie at a hootenanny in a New York basement in 1945, and Bob Dylan in a recording studio in 1962 — these three seemingly unrelated events provide the framework for Daniel Wolff’s study of industrial violence in the United States, the folk music revival, and the evolution of rock ’n’ roll. Wolff’s narrative is an angry polemic and social commentary. The “mysteries” he explores reveal how economic depression, foreign wars, and racial discrimination shaped the music of two restless and fiery artists. Along the way, he delves into the world of copper mining, revising the official version of the 1913 tragedy in order to set the record straight.

Labor disputes and industrial disasters are not particularly unusual events in American history, but the macabre deaths of 74 people (60 of whom were children between the ages of two and 16) on Christmas Eve in a tall, jammed stairwell of the Italian Hall in strike-ridden Red Jacket, Michigan, in 1913 (renamed Calumet in 1929) was no ordinary catastrophe. Several thousand underground copper miners, mostly Finnish and Italian immigrants, had been on strike for more than six months, but they were running out of strike funds and faced a powerful business-led Citizens’ Alliance. As Christmas drew near, the mining union’s Women’s Auxiliary organized a big Christmas party to make sure that every child of a striking miner would receive a holiday gift. Hundreds of children and parents climbed up the high steps to the second floor ballroom of the Italian Hall and gathered around a large Christmas tree. A young girl played a piano and the crowd quieted down to listen. Although there remains a dispute as to what happened next, it is clear that some person or persons yelled, “Fire!” and that this provoked a mad stampede for the stairwell. Many children tripped and fell headlong down the steep stairs, landing with broken bones in front of the doors. For some reason, the doors would not open. The strikers claimed the anti-union thugs hired by the Alliance held the doors shut; the Alliance later claimed the doors opened to the inside. As more and more tried to escape, the stairway became jammed with panic-stricken children who piled on top of each other, breaking their painfully entangled arms and legs. Soon they began to suffocate. When the doors were finally opened, 74 bodies were carried back up the stairs and laid in rows by the Christmas tree.

The Keweenaw Peninsula is a 70-mile finger of land that juts into Lake Superior at the northernmost point of the state of Michigan. I stepped on the gas pedal and pushed my Chevrolet up to 55, heading south from Copper Harbor, the small town at the top of the peninsula. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is physically separated from the rest of Michigan by the Straits of Mackinac and when you look at a map of the United States you might say, with perfect logic, that the Upper Peninsula really should be part of Wisconsin. Most of the UP is scenic northern forest, but wild, rugged, and largely undeveloped. I’m sure more wolverines live in the UP than humans, but they don’t get counted in the census. US Highway 41 is a six-lane freeway in Milwaukee, but up on the Keweenaw Peninsula it is a narrow two-lane road with tall pine trees standing like soldiers along the edge of the asphalt. Rounding a sharp turn, I suddenly saw five or six whitetail deer directly in front of me. I swerved and missed most of them, but one deer jumped in the same direction as my car, smashed into the hood, broke the windshield, flew over the top, and dashed into the forest. The car was not drivable. After a half hour or so, a Highway Patrolman pulled up to offer assistance. “It happens all the time,” he said. “There are a lot of deer and it can be hard to see them.” He called a tow truck and soon my damaged car was on its way to Snow’s Auto Repair in Calumet, Michigan.

Wolff contextualizes the story of 1913 in a comprehensive history of copper mining in the Upper Peninsula. Native Americans mined copper and used it to make hooks, knives, and jewelry. French explorers and Jesuit missionaries discovered new uses for copper, prospectors searched for more, and industrialists from the East invested large sums to go underground, recruiting thousands of immigrants from Wales, Russia, Italy, and Finland to drill and extract the ore. By reopening the historical record, Wolff resolves lingering mysteries about the tragedy:

Was there a fire? No.

Did someone actually yell “Fire!”? No one ever confessed to it.

Did the strikebreakers deliberately hold the door shut to prevent the children from leaving? No one claimed to have seen anyone hold the doors shut, although the strikers and their families were inside the building.

Did the doors at the bottom of the steps open to the inside, as is so often repeated in official descriptions of the tragedy? No.

It is these rumors and uncertainties that have passed for history, burying the truth under layers of obfuscation that anger Wolff and have led him toward Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Woody Guthrie wrote (and rearranged) about 1,500 songs, but “1913 Massacre,” with its dark tone, solemnity, and dirge-like tempo, was a uniquely powerful piece of his repertoire. The dry humor and ironic double meanings often found in his compositions are jettisoned as Guthrie reports on the shockingly brutal facts in a matter-of-fact way. It suggests that the full extent of the horror sapped him of emotion. As Wolff correctly notes, we hear nothing about socialism or revolution or even unionism. Instead, Guthrie takes the listener along with him as an observer, a witness to what will unfold. “Take a trip with me back in 1913,” writes Guthrie.

Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country. I will take you to a place called Italian Hall, where the miners are having their Christmas ball. I will take you in a door and up the high stairs, singing and dancing is heard everywhere, I’ll let you shake hands with the people you see, and watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.

Guthrie crafted the song based on a memoir written by “Mother” Mary Bloor, an early Socialist and labor organizer well known in political circles for her courage in the face of repression and violence. Bloor’s daughter, Herta Geer, was the wife of Will Geer, the actor and political activist who had befriended Guthrie in Los Angeles in 1939 and introduced him to the local writers, actors, and musicians involved in the growing labor movement and the fight against fascism. Guthrie wrote the song in 1945, about five years after Bloor’s 300-page memoir, We Are Many, appeared. Although her section on Calumet is only a few pages long, it was crammed with detail, much of which Guthrie incorporated into his song.

Wolff uses “1913 Massacre” as an entry point into Guthrie’s life. Despite Guthrie’s self-created persona as the “Political Okie,” with his deliberate misspellings, improper grammar, and “aw shucks” demeanor, Guthrie was not an uncomplicated personality. As he writes his narrative of “1913 Massacre,” Wolff draws out some of those complexities. On the one hand, Guthrie’s situation in 1945 was more stable than ever. He had completed his military service and several tours in the Merchant Marine, and had survived a torpedoing. Working with Moe Asch he was recording scores of songs and beginning a new project called “American Documentary,” which he described as “a kind of musical newspaper,” using songs to illuminate and comment upon current events. His semi-autobiographical novel, Bound for Glory, had received 150 mostly positive reviews and encouraged Guthrie to begin a second novel, Seeds of Man. A song he had written in Los Angeles in 1939, “Oklahoma Hills,” recorded by his cousin Jack Guthrie, reached number one on the folk jukebox list in 1945. That same year, along with Pete Seeger and others, he founded People’s Songs. The United States and the Soviet Union remained united against the Axis powers, unions had made unprecedented progress during the war years, and organized labor emerged for the first time as an important political force at the national level.

But below the surface, Guthrie was troubled. His project with Moe Asch resulted in about 150 recordings, including collaborations with Seeger, Cisco Houston, Bess Lomax Hawes, and Sonny Terry, but the end product, an album entitled Struggle, was not widely distributed. A further recording effort, focused on Sacco and Vanzetti, also proved a disappointment. Wolff describes how Guthrie’s energy and focus began to wane as he succumbed to the debilitating disease that would devour him over the remaining 25 years of his life: “Just dizzy, woozy, blubberdy. And scubberdy and rustlety, tastely […] the soberest drunk I ever got on.” Guthrie’s disease was not accurately diagnosed as Huntington’s chorea until 1952, but he knew that the same inexorable force that had destroyed his mother now held him in its deadly grip. Even as he gathered with Seeger and others to form People’s Songs on New Year’s Eve, 1945, Guthrie must have been beset by deep anxiety. Wolff describes the scene:

They were trying to reinvent the movement, to survive the emerging Cold War, to preserve their hopes and ideals. The meeting soon turned into a hootenanny where everyone sang. When it was Guthrie’s turn, he could have launched into the punchy “Union Maid” or “Roll on, Columbia,” songs of confidence and optimism. Instead he sang a cautionary tune, that slow ballad about the miner’s Christmas that he was now calling 1913 Massacre.

Wolff notes that Guthrie’s productive years coincided almost exactly with the period of the Popular Front against fascism, from 1935 to 1945. That period had ended.

Through the windshield of the tow truck I saw a sign that read “Calumet, Michigan” and immediately recalled the song — a song that’s hard to forget. I had first encountered it on Arlo Guthrie’s album, Hobo’s Lullaby. I remember listening to the song and writing down the lyrics on a sheet of paper, lifting and dropping the needle of the record player a dozen times before I was able to capture all the words accurately. Then I sang the song to myself. And sang it again. And again. 

Snow’s Auto Repair was located in the heart of what remained of Calumet after the copper veins were exhausted and the miners left for work out west. The year was 1988, but at Snow’s it seemed more like 1958. The sagging building, the forlorn signage, the old auto repair equipment, and the two elderly mechanics in dreary, oil-stained uniforms all recalled an earlier time. While I waited for the insurance adjuster to arrive and estimate the cost of repairs, I struck up a conversation with one of the mechanics.

“Say, can you tell me where the old Italian Hall is located?” I asked.

“The Italian Hall?” he responded. 

“Yes, I’m sure it’s here. This is Calumet, right?” 

“That’s right. This is Calumet.”

“Well, I’m just wondering where the Italian Hall is located. I’d like to see it.”

The mechanic raised his arm and pointed his work-worn index finger toward the window, in the direction of a large empty lot across the street. “That’s where it was. They tore it down last year. I guess you’re too late.”

Woody Guthrie appealed to KFVD radio listeners in Southern California and found a new audience among political activists, union organizers, and progressive writers who had never seen a bona fide Okie with left-wing politics. He cultivated his persona in songs, newspaper articles, and Bound for Glory. Even as he branched out into new areas, such as children’s song, Jewish songs, and novels and cartoons, the Okie persona never left him.

Wolff contrasts this with Bobby Zimmerman’s constant reinventions of himself. First the artist who would be Dylan abandoned his early interests in rock and blues for the emerging folk scene and changed his last name. Then, after discovering some Guthrie records from one of his folkie friends in the Dinkytown section of Minneapolis, he immersed himself in the Guthrie persona. He learned all of Guthrie’s songs and limited his performances at coffee houses and parties to the man’s repertoire. He mimicked Guthrie’s guitar style, speech patterns, and clothing. He carefully read Bound for Glory and began to create tall tales about his background, claiming that he was from Albuquerque or Gallup or Illinois — anywhere but Hibbing, Minnesota. “Dylan made himself authentic,” writes Wolff.

He changed who he was to get closer to the truth. Or try to. The sound that eventually came over pop radio — his timed drawl, the rural edge, the off-center sense of humor — was a lot Guthrie. That’s how Dylan became an original — through imitation. It’s as if he ran from his middle-class, mid-20th-century Hibbing and went back to Guthrie’s ’30s. Or as he put it, “I was making my own depression.”

Veteran folkies from the Dinkytown scene who were familiar with Guthrie chided Dylan for going too far with his impersonation. So Dylan went east to find Guthrie, claiming that he hopped freight trains and hitchhiked like Woody, when he actually got a ride from a friend. Dylan’s visits with a dying man in Greystone Hospital have been treated elsewhere, but Wolff captures an important element of this encounter. While Dylan was performing Guthrie’s songs for his idol, who was no longer able to speak, he confronted the reality that Guthrie was effectively gone, that his world of the Depression and his war against fascism had disappeared, that his fervent political dreams had vanished in the wind. Later Dylan would write:

Woody Guthrie was my last idol he was the last idol because he was the first idol I’d ever met that taught me face t’ face that men are men shatterin’ even himself as an idol …

Dylan’s confrontation with Guthrie’s demise was the starting point for Dylan’s composition of “Song to Woody,” written only a few days after their first meeting.

The song draws heavily upon Guthrie, using, almost note by note, the haunting, dirge-like melody of “1913 Massacre,” and opening with the line, “Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song,” which is derived from a similar opening Guthrie had used in a poem for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. The song is a tribute but also a farewell. The lyrics set up comparisons between the Depression-era ’30s and the ’60s, between Guthrie’s old life and Dylan’s new life. “Listen to the song Dylan felt he needed to sing,” writes Wolff, “and you hear a kid who’s come a thousand miles only to discover that what he came for no longer exists.” The song is important for another reason: it marks the commencement of Bob Dylan, the singer-songwriter. Dylan’s first self-titled album included only two original songs — “Talkin’ New York,” a hillbilly’s satirical romp through the big city, and “Song to Woody.” Subsequent Dylan albums contained exclusively Dylan compositions.

Wolff may be right in locating the end of young Dylan’s idolization of Guthrie in “Song to Woody,” but the older folky continued to influence the younger artist. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and The Times They Are a-Changin’ featured songs with powerful but artful political themes. While hardline politicos in the folk scene complained that Dylan’s songs about old girlfriends meant that he was turning his back on the struggle, those who listened closely to “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” and “The Times They are a-Changin’,” heard Dylan developing on the Guthrie tradition. Still, Dylan was carefully moving away from strictly political themes. Wolff quotes excerpts from a “letter back to Dinkytown,” which Dylan wrote for the 1963 Newport Folk Festival program, in which the artists refuses to answer the standard union organizing question posed in the powerful song written by Florence Patton Reece, “Which Side Are You On?”:

Hey man — I’m sorry — … the songs we used t sing an play the songs written fifty years ago the dirt farm songs — the dust bowl songs the depression songs … Woody’s songs … when there was a strike there’s only two kind of views … thru the union’s yes or thru the boss’s eyes … them two simple sides that was so easy t tell apart [have become] A COMPLICATED CIRCLE. The folk songs showed me the way an I got nothing but homage an holy thinkin’ for the ol songs and stories singin an writin what’s on my own mind … not by no kind of side not by no kind a category.

Dylan was preparing to reinvent himself again and he was not taking sides.

I turned to the mechanic at Snow’s and asked, “Where are the bricks?”

“What bricks?

“Well, the Italian Hall was made of bricks and they demolished it. So, what did they do with the bricks?”

“They hauled them away.”

“Yeah, but where did they go?”

“You want to know where the brinks are now?”

“Yes, where did they dump the bricks? Do you know?” 

“Well, I don’t know why you want to know, but yeah, I know where they dumped them, sure.” He pointed out the window again. “Okay, go north for two stop lights. Then turn left and go until you get to the railroad tracks. Cross the tracks and take the first turn to the left. Keep going about a quarter mile until you see an island of poplar trees on the left. Then take the dirt road on the right for, I don’t know, a hundred yards or so. You’ll see a pile of bricks. If that’s what you’re looking for, that’s where you will find them.”

About a year later I was asked to perform in a Labor Concert in Kenosha, Wisconsin, along with Woody’s son, Arlo. I told Arlo I had learned the song “1913 Massacre” from his recording and that I wanted to give him a brick from the Italian Hall — a reminder of how our past can reemerge from under the weight of obfuscation.

Like the miners of Red Jacket, Michigan, who extracted copper from deep below the surface of the earth, Wolff helps us recover the truth about a tragic episode in our history.

¤

Darryl Holter is a historian, entrepreneur, musician, and owner of an independent bookstore. He has taught history at the University of Wisconsin and UCLA and is an adjunct professor at USC.

The post “I’ll Take You to a Place Called Italian Hall”: On Daniel Wolff’s “Grown-Up Anger” and the Calumet Massacre of 1913 appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2yvkoPA via IFTTT

#Blogger

[topmixtrends]

A LABOR STRIKE and a heart-wrenching tragedy in 1913, Woody Guthrie at a hootenanny in a New York basement in 1945, and Bob Dylan in a recording studio in 1962 — these three seemingly unrelated events provide the framework for Daniel Wolff’s study of industrial violence in the United States, the folk music revival, and the evolution of rock ’n’ roll. Wolff’s narrative is an angry polemic and social commentary. The “mysteries” he explores reveal how economic depression, foreign wars, and racial discrimination shaped the music of two restless and fiery artists. Along the way, he delves into the world of copper mining, revising the official version of the 1913 tragedy in order to set the record straight.

Labor disputes and industrial disasters are not particularly unusual events in American history, but the macabre deaths of 74 people (60 of whom were children between the ages of two and 16) on Christmas Eve in a tall, jammed stairwell of the Italian Hall in strike-ridden Red Jacket, Michigan, in 1913 (renamed Calumet in 1929) was no ordinary catastrophe. Several thousand underground copper miners, mostly Finnish and Italian immigrants, had been on strike for more than six months, but they were running out of strike funds and faced a powerful business-led Citizens’ Alliance. As Christmas drew near, the mining union’s Women’s Auxiliary organized a big Christmas party to make sure that every child of a striking miner would receive a holiday gift. Hundreds of children and parents climbed up the high steps to the second floor ballroom of the Italian Hall and gathered around a large Christmas tree. A young girl played a piano and the crowd quieted down to listen. Although there remains a dispute as to what happened next, it is clear that some person or persons yelled, “Fire!” and that this provoked a mad stampede for the stairwell. Many children tripped and fell headlong down the steep stairs, landing with broken bones in front of the doors. For some reason, the doors would not open. The strikers claimed the anti-union thugs hired by the Alliance held the doors shut; the Alliance later claimed the doors opened to the inside. As more and more tried to escape, the stairway became jammed with panic-stricken children who piled on top of each other, breaking their painfully entangled arms and legs. Soon they began to suffocate. When the doors were finally opened, 74 bodies were carried back up the stairs and laid in rows by the Christmas tree.

The Keweenaw Peninsula is a 70-mile finger of land that juts into Lake Superior at the northernmost point of the state of Michigan. I stepped on the gas pedal and pushed my Chevrolet up to 55, heading south from Copper Harbor, the small town at the top of the peninsula. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is physically separated from the rest of Michigan by the Straits of Mackinac and when you look at a map of the United States you might say, with perfect logic, that the Upper Peninsula really should be part of Wisconsin. Most of the UP is scenic northern forest, but wild, rugged, and largely undeveloped. I’m sure more wolverines live in the UP than humans, but they don’t get counted in the census. US Highway 41 is a six-lane freeway in Milwaukee, but up on the Keweenaw Peninsula it is a narrow two-lane road with tall pine trees standing like soldiers along the edge of the asphalt. Rounding a sharp turn, I suddenly saw five or six whitetail deer directly in front of me. I swerved and missed most of them, but one deer jumped in the same direction as my car, smashed into the hood, broke the windshield, flew over the top, and dashed into the forest. The car was not drivable. After a half hour or so, a Highway Patrolman pulled up to offer assistance. “It happens all the time,” he said. “There are a lot of deer and it can be hard to see them.” He called a tow truck and soon my damaged car was on its way to Snow’s Auto Repair in Calumet, Michigan.

Wolff contextualizes the story of 1913 in a comprehensive history of copper mining in the Upper Peninsula. Native Americans mined copper and used it to make hooks, knives, and jewelry. French explorers and Jesuit missionaries discovered new uses for copper, prospectors searched for more, and industrialists from the East invested large sums to go underground, recruiting thousands of immigrants from Wales, Russia, Italy, and Finland to drill and extract the ore. By reopening the historical record, Wolff resolves lingering mysteries about the tragedy:

Was there a fire? No.

Did someone actually yell “Fire!”? No one ever confessed to it.

Did the strikebreakers deliberately hold the door shut to prevent the children from leaving? No one claimed to have seen anyone hold the doors shut, although the strikers and their families were inside the building.

Did the doors at the bottom of the steps open to the inside, as is so often repeated in official descriptions of the tragedy? No.

It is these rumors and uncertainties that have passed for history, burying the truth under layers of obfuscation that anger Wolff and have led him toward Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Woody Guthrie wrote (and rearranged) about 1,500 songs, but “1913 Massacre,” with its dark tone, solemnity, and dirge-like tempo, was a uniquely powerful piece of his repertoire. The dry humor and ironic double meanings often found in his compositions are jettisoned as Guthrie reports on the shockingly brutal facts in a matter-of-fact way. It suggests that the full extent of the horror sapped him of emotion. As Wolff correctly notes, we hear nothing about socialism or revolution or even unionism. Instead, Guthrie takes the listener along with him as an observer, a witness to what will unfold. “Take a trip with me back in 1913,” writes Guthrie.

Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country. I will take you to a place called Italian Hall, where the miners are having their Christmas ball. I will take you in a door and up the high stairs, singing and dancing is heard everywhere, I’ll let you shake hands with the people you see, and watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.

Guthrie crafted the song based on a memoir written by “Mother” Mary Bloor, an early Socialist and labor organizer well known in political circles for her courage in the face of repression and violence. Bloor’s daughter, Herta Geer, was the wife of Will Geer, the actor and political activist who had befriended Guthrie in Los Angeles in 1939 and introduced him to the local writers, actors, and musicians involved in the growing labor movement and the fight against fascism. Guthrie wrote the song in 1945, about five years after Bloor’s 300-page memoir, We Are Many, appeared. Although her section on Calumet is only a few pages long, it was crammed with detail, much of which Guthrie incorporated into his song.

Wolff uses “1913 Massacre” as an entry point into Guthrie’s life. Despite Guthrie’s self-created persona as the “Political Okie,” with his deliberate misspellings, improper grammar, and “aw shucks” demeanor, Guthrie was not an uncomplicated personality. As he writes his narrative of “1913 Massacre,” Wolff draws out some of those complexities. On the one hand, Guthrie’s situation in 1945 was more stable than ever. He had completed his military service and several tours in the Merchant Marine, and had survived a torpedoing. Working with Moe Asch he was recording scores of songs and beginning a new project called “American Documentary,” which he described as “a kind of musical newspaper,” using songs to illuminate and comment upon current events. His semi-autobiographical novel, Bound for Glory, had received 150 mostly positive reviews and encouraged Guthrie to begin a second novel, Seeds of Man. A song he had written in Los Angeles in 1939, “Oklahoma Hills,” recorded by his cousin Jack Guthrie, reached number one on the folk jukebox list in 1945. That same year, along with Pete Seeger and others, he founded People’s Songs. The United States and the Soviet Union remained united against the Axis powers, unions had made unprecedented progress during the war years, and organized labor emerged for the first time as an important political force at the national level.

But below the surface, Guthrie was troubled. His project with Moe Asch resulted in about 150 recordings, including collaborations with Seeger, Cisco Houston, Bess Lomax Hawes, and Sonny Terry, but the end product, an album entitled Struggle, was not widely distributed. A further recording effort, focused on Sacco and Vanzetti, also proved a disappointment. Wolff describes how Guthrie’s energy and focus began to wane as he succumbed to the debilitating disease that would devour him over the remaining 25 years of his life: “Just dizzy, woozy, blubberdy. And scubberdy and rustlety, tastely […] the soberest drunk I ever got on.” Guthrie’s disease was not accurately diagnosed as Huntington’s chorea until 1952, but he knew that the same inexorable force that had destroyed his mother now held him in its deadly grip. Even as he gathered with Seeger and others to form People’s Songs on New Year’s Eve, 1945, Guthrie must have been beset by deep anxiety. Wolff describes the scene:

They were trying to reinvent the movement, to survive the emerging Cold War, to preserve their hopes and ideals. The meeting soon turned into a hootenanny where everyone sang. When it was Guthrie’s turn, he could have launched into the punchy “Union Maid” or “Roll on, Columbia,” songs of confidence and optimism. Instead he sang a cautionary tune, that slow ballad about the miner’s Christmas that he was now calling 1913 Massacre.

Wolff notes that Guthrie’s productive years coincided almost exactly with the period of the Popular Front against fascism, from 1935 to 1945. That period had ended.

Through the windshield of the tow truck I saw a sign that read “Calumet, Michigan” and immediately recalled the song — a song that’s hard to forget. I had first encountered it on Arlo Guthrie’s album, Hobo’s Lullaby. I remember listening to the song and writing down the lyrics on a sheet of paper, lifting and dropping the needle of the record player a dozen times before I was able to capture all the words accurately. Then I sang the song to myself. And sang it again. And again. 

Snow’s Auto Repair was located in the heart of what remained of Calumet after the copper veins were exhausted and the miners left for work out west. The year was 1988, but at Snow’s it seemed more like 1958. The sagging building, the forlorn signage, the old auto repair equipment, and the two elderly mechanics in dreary, oil-stained uniforms all recalled an earlier time. While I waited for the insurance adjuster to arrive and estimate the cost of repairs, I struck up a conversation with one of the mechanics.

“Say, can you tell me where the old Italian Hall is located?” I asked.

“The Italian Hall?” he responded. 

“Yes, I’m sure it’s here. This is Calumet, right?” 

“That’s right. This is Calumet.”

“Well, I’m just wondering where the Italian Hall is located. I’d like to see it.”

The mechanic raised his arm and pointed his work-worn index finger toward the window, in the direction of a large empty lot across the street. “That’s where it was. They tore it down last year. I guess you’re too late.”

Woody Guthrie appealed to KFVD radio listeners in Southern California and found a new audience among political activists, union organizers, and progressive writers who had never seen a bona fide Okie with left-wing politics. He cultivated his persona in songs, newspaper articles, and Bound for Glory. Even as he branched out into new areas, such as children’s song, Jewish songs, and novels and cartoons, the Okie persona never left him.

Wolff contrasts this with Bobby Zimmerman’s constant reinventions of himself. First the artist who would be Dylan abandoned his early interests in rock and blues for the emerging folk scene and changed his last name. Then, after discovering some Guthrie records from one of his folkie friends in the Dinkytown section of Minneapolis, he immersed himself in the Guthrie persona. He learned all of Guthrie’s songs and limited his performances at coffee houses and parties to the man’s repertoire. He mimicked Guthrie’s guitar style, speech patterns, and clothing. He carefully read Bound for Glory and began to create tall tales about his background, claiming that he was from Albuquerque or Gallup or Illinois — anywhere but Hibbing, Minnesota. “Dylan made himself authentic,” writes Wolff.

He changed who he was to get closer to the truth. Or try to. The sound that eventually came over pop radio — his timed drawl, the rural edge, the off-center sense of humor — was a lot Guthrie. That’s how Dylan became an original — through imitation. It’s as if he ran from his middle-class, mid-20th-century Hibbing and went back to Guthrie’s ’30s. Or as he put it, “I was making my own depression.”

Veteran folkies from the Dinkytown scene who were familiar with Guthrie chided Dylan for going too far with his impersonation. So Dylan went east to find Guthrie, claiming that he hopped freight trains and hitchhiked like Woody, when he actually got a ride from a friend. Dylan’s visits with a dying man in Greystone Hospital have been treated elsewhere, but Wolff captures an important element of this encounter. While Dylan was performing Guthrie’s songs for his idol, who was no longer able to speak, he confronted the reality that Guthrie was effectively gone, that his world of the Depression and his war against fascism had disappeared, that his fervent political dreams had vanished in the wind. Later Dylan would write:

Woody Guthrie was my last idol he was the last idol because he was the first idol I’d ever met that taught me face t’ face that men are men shatterin’ even himself as an idol …

Dylan’s confrontation with Guthrie’s demise was the starting point for Dylan’s composition of “Song to Woody,” written only a few days after their first meeting.

The song draws heavily upon Guthrie, using, almost note by note, the haunting, dirge-like melody of “1913 Massacre,” and opening with the line, “Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song,” which is derived from a similar opening Guthrie had used in a poem for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. The song is a tribute but also a farewell. The lyrics set up comparisons between the Depression-era ’30s and the ’60s, between Guthrie’s old life and Dylan’s new life. “Listen to the song Dylan felt he needed to sing,” writes Wolff, “and you hear a kid who’s come a thousand miles only to discover that what he came for no longer exists.” The song is important for another reason: it marks the commencement of Bob Dylan, the singer-songwriter. Dylan’s first self-titled album included only two original songs — “Talkin’ New York,” a hillbilly’s satirical romp through the big city, and “Song to Woody.” Subsequent Dylan albums contained exclusively Dylan compositions.

Wolff may be right in locating the end of young Dylan’s idolization of Guthrie in “Song to Woody,” but the older folky continued to influence the younger artist. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and The Times They Are a-Changin’ featured songs with powerful but artful political themes. While hardline politicos in the folk scene complained that Dylan’s songs about old girlfriends meant that he was turning his back on the struggle, those who listened closely to “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” and “The Times They are a-Changin’,” heard Dylan developing on the Guthrie tradition. Still, Dylan was carefully moving away from strictly political themes. Wolff quotes excerpts from a “letter back to Dinkytown,” which Dylan wrote for the 1963 Newport Folk Festival program, in which the artists refuses to answer the standard union organizing question posed in the powerful song written by Florence Patton Reece, “Which Side Are You On?”:

Hey man — I’m sorry — … the songs we used t sing an play the songs written fifty years ago the dirt farm songs — the dust bowl songs the depression songs … Woody’s songs … when there was a strike there’s only two kind of views … thru the union’s yes or thru the boss’s eyes … them two simple sides that was so easy t tell apart [have become] A COMPLICATED CIRCLE. The folk songs showed me the way an I got nothing but homage an holy thinkin’ for the ol songs and stories singin an writin what’s on my own mind … not by no kind of side not by no kind a category.

Dylan was preparing to reinvent himself again and he was not taking sides.

I turned to the mechanic at Snow’s and asked, “Where are the bricks?”

“What bricks?

“Well, the Italian Hall was made of bricks and they demolished it. So, what did they do with the bricks?”

“They hauled them away.”

“Yeah, but where did they go?”

“You want to know where the brinks are now?”

“Yes, where did they dump the bricks? Do you know?” 

“Well, I don’t know why you want to know, but yeah, I know where they dumped them, sure.” He pointed out the window again. “Okay, go north for two stop lights. Then turn left and go until you get to the railroad tracks. Cross the tracks and take the first turn to the left. Keep going about a quarter mile until you see an island of poplar trees on the left. Then take the dirt road on the right for, I don’t know, a hundred yards or so. You’ll see a pile of bricks. If that’s what you’re looking for, that’s where you will find them.”

About a year later I was asked to perform in a Labor Concert in Kenosha, Wisconsin, along with Woody’s son, Arlo. I told Arlo I had learned the song “1913 Massacre” from his recording and that I wanted to give him a brick from the Italian Hall — a reminder of how our past can reemerge from under the weight of obfuscation.

Like the miners of Red Jacket, Michigan, who extracted copper from deep below the surface of the earth, Wolff helps us recover the truth about a tragic episode in our history.

¤

Darryl Holter is a historian, entrepreneur, musician, and owner of an independent bookstore. He has taught history at the University of Wisconsin and UCLA and is an adjunct professor at USC.

The post “I’ll Take You to a Place Called Italian Hall”: On Daniel Wolff’s “Grown-Up Anger” and the Calumet Massacre of 1913 appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2yvkoPA

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

[floyuki702]

The Writing Games: Task 1

Create an action piece of writing that includes the words: Tail, Cherry, Lullaby, Chicken

Sleep little birdy

Try not to fly

No one is here to see

You try

If you fall from that height

It is certain you will die

Just like when you

Lose this fight

With his long silver hair whipping in the wind and hatred painting his cerulean eyes, Hikaru began to approach Momo and I with his rapier drawn, the blade gleaming in the pale moonlight. The lullaby he sang was one that twisted the words and melody from the beloved version from our childhood.

Even now I can remember the day he betrayed us. The day that Momo and I had finally come to terms with not being able to see our parents anymore after 15 years of their presence. The day he left us and joined those who murdered them.

~~~

The pink and white petals of the cherry blossoms gently floated down to surround Momo, Hikaru and I as we lay on the grass.  

This was one of the few days that we could be together since the day Momo and I lost our parents. The only things we had left were the features that we inherited: Momo with mom's long, straight black hair and dad's golden eyes whilst I had shoulder-length curls that were the same shade of copper that dad had and mom's dark violet eyes.

"Hey Hikaru, " Momo spoke up, breaking the silence, "how come you always seem so busy nowadays. I mean, Yuki and I can come over and visit you nowadays. Grandma and grandpa are great, but it's just not the same. At least you know what we always used to do with mom and dad each evening. When you sing the lullaby, it feels just like those times."

Chuckling under his breath, Hikaru sat up between us and faced us with a small smile gracing his elegant features.

"Okay, you can visit. But not tonight. I have to go somewhere."

Noting the sad, puppy dog looks we were giving him from our laid out positions, he began to laugh that sweet musical laugh he had.

"Alright, alright! How about I sing it right now?"

Nodding quickly and shooting identical smiles up at him, Hikaru shifted so that he was sitting on his knees. Gently clearing his throat, he began to sing those familiar words.

Sleep little birdy

It's time to rest

Momma is here

So don't you fret

When you go to sleep tonight

Dreams will paint the sky

But when that dream is dark

Daddy is here to hold you tight

As --

Just then, something in the distance made him cut off his singing and he abruptly stood up. With a final look at us, with eyes full of remorse, he whispered two simple words and walked around us to climb the grassy hill.

Sitting up quickly, we saw him approach a red Ferrari; the door being held open by a woman with a scarred face Momo and I could never forget. The scarred face of our parent's murderer.

~~~

Just as I struck out with my short blade, he parried the blow and managed to simultaneously push me up against the ironclad gate of the castle that Momo and I were hired at three years ago.

"Urgh!"

My head slammed into the iron and I was momentarily dazed due to the pain, unable to see him come in for the final blow.

"Yuki! Look out!!"

"What?" I managed to breathe out and looked up to see Hikaru lift his rapier one last time. Almost immediately, I called out the one secret code to Momo that I knew would end this fight. With only a split second to feel regret, I sucked in a deep breath and shouted.

"Momo, tail the chicken!"

In the corner of my eye, I saw her falter for just a second as she realized what I said. Then, her resolve hardened and she began to run towards us.

Swiftly, she pulled out her two daggers - one hidden in each combat boot - and threw one of each side of his body. As a dagger pierced his left arm, he stopped his advance towards me and blocked the second before it could deliver the same fate to his right arm.

Pulling the blade out, he let it clatter to the floor and turned his attention towards Momo. Quick to recover, she drew her own rapier and sprinted towards him. Taking a flying leap, she yelled as their blades met in a clash. Within moments, they were dancing around each other, trying to strike the other down but failing as the attempt was continuously blocked.

At one point, I saw Momo attempt to sweep his leg, but he jumped before her heel made contact with the back of his leg. As a rebuttal, he swung down and tried to cut her arm, but she recovered and blocked with the hilt of her blade.

With their attention focused on killing each other, I took the time to pick up the discarded dagger and silently stalked into a position three meters away from the fight. Making sure his back towards me, I got ready to do my final move.

Pulling my hair up into a ponytail, I tied it off with a teal ribbon that I always carried in my pocket. Then, I tucked the dagger, hilt first, up my right sleeve, laying the blade flat against my wrist. Finally, I picked up the hilt of my short blade so that it was 180 degrees and was parallel with my right forearm.

After getting ready, I turned my attention back towards the fight and noticed that they each got a few slashes in and were starting to become more animalistic with their attacks. Taking my final deep breath, sprinted to a spot that put me right behind Momo.

"Reverse!"

With that single word, Momo parried Hikaru's attack, pushed him back and bent forward. As I got a few inches away from her, I jumped and pushed off her back whilst twisting my torso to the right. As I fell towards Hikaru, I allowed my momentum to twist to the left and cut him deep into his chest. At the same moment, I felt his blade push up into my abdomen. Coughing up blood, I let my hand slip from the hilt and flicked my wrist so the dagger could slid into my palm.

With the last of my strength, I stretched up and impaled his throat. Immediately, I felt his body go rigid as the blade twisted even further up my abdomen. When he drew his last breath, his eyes met mine and I saw the light fade slowly away.

As my vision blurred, I thought back to the last words he said to us and tried to say them loud enough for Momo to hear.

"I'm sorry."

#thewritinggames #writer'sclubaminoworks #floyuki702 #action #task1

[toddmichaelrogers]

Letter to You

All in due time

I am obsessed with the concept of time. When I read an article about light moving across time and space to reach us from distant galaxies, and how...what we are viewing in those distances may have already passed into death thousands of years ago, it gets my dick “Super Mario 2 (Japanese Version) hard”.

I think about equations of time v.s growth on a nearly daily basis. I am obsessed about it.

Some may feel possessed

I myself obsess about it

My youngest brother was born twenty-two years ago. His name is Ben. This week, he came for a surprise visit by telling me he would be here and then allowing me to forget. The added bonus was we got to celebrate his birthday together. That night, I drove him and his friends and Kelsie around (they may all be kids to me, but Kelsie’s been my brother’s partner for longer than I’ve known my own). We spent the night at a false speakeasy, and a giant championship pool hall, empty but for a few of us. As the night ended I drove the kids up to a hill called love circle, where a year ago I had imagined killing myself (I had a concussion, it’s cool).

In the car Michael, this kid I had not seen in a decade, popped in a song that maybbbbe three people in the world might have known. It’s a B-Side which could only be known to someone such as myself, someone who cares entirely too much for a half-forgotten Scottish 1980s group. 

“Is this fucking Big Country?” I asked. And then both parties continued asking in astonished voices if the other if they enjoyed the same band, until Michael ripped his shirt open to reveal a 1986 tour tee. “What the fuck?!” I screamed. And then preceded to tell him that Spell Saga was inspired by this band’s music; there was no need to explain what Spell Saga was to the kids in the car, they had seen the card game and its stacks of packages sitting in my living room.

The game has continued to haunt me. The rest of the packages will be sent out sometime in the next 30 days, and the manufacturer will be paid up for services rendered in the next week. That is about 1500 days since I decided to pursue the project, and over 800 days since the Kickstarter worked and we knew it was going to go to print. 

Sometimes people write very frustrated messages online wondering where their packages are, but the comments that mean the most to me are the ones where people are nice hahaha. No, I shouldn’t laugh, it’s haunting. Trying to do something right and trying to handle your own mistakes in public is about as nerve-wracking and humiliating as anything since 7th grade.

In the meantime I’ve taken all those worries and embarrassments and pushed them into the next Spell Saga release (Deck 1.5 The Under Sky) which may or may not work, we’re about to find out in March. The concept and design are so ridiculous and in depth that I’ve been forced to finish the entire thing before playing it at all--something I have not done since Spell Saga 4.0 was finished to show at Gen Con back in 2011. The whole thing could be rendered nearly pointless if the game isn’t fun to play--but then again, how can you know? Countless hours of Photoshopping and weird little doodles for an unknowable outcome. If that isn’t the official theme of Spell Saga, or indeed, everything I make, then I don’t know what is.

Speaking of time, games, and 7th grade (and as was mentioned in previous correspondence) this Autumn, after twenty years of waiting, I will be releasing a card game I started making in 7th grade. The illustrator is my friend Weshoyot, who just sent me the final pieces this past week. This is after we began working on it together 9 years ago! My god, I know this blog has a sort of theme running through it but even that takes me aback, (it also takes me a-straight-back, to 2009, when I was getting married to my first wife, designing EPIOCH instead of planning a wedding, and about to start work on both The Novel & Spell Saga...what a fucked up year…)

The novel I started still continues, and work goes well, actually. Yes it’s been 8 years, but after forcing a second draft on New Years day of 2016 I have now arrived, one year later, into new territory. Most of last year was spent agonizing through a muck of the same few chapters. It was almost nerve wracking to pick it back up, after a month’s rest, and knock-out another two new chapters without a hint of friction.

I was talking to my brother while he was in town (we always have the same talk and he hates it, but I always push it) “why aren’t you making things” I ask him every visit. I know he wants to. And I can’t speak for him, or rather, I won’t but I think there’s this perfectionist thing that hits in varying degrees. (I’m speaking more about myself then him, right now) I’ve read that  perfectionism is linked to depression, and alcoholism--this idea that things need to be a certain way, or they aren’t worth it--when really, that’s not true at all. 

Things just need to be as good as you can make them at the time, and then finished. I spent most of last year stuck on the same songs, and the same chapters, unsure of how to move forward, yet sure they had to be brilliant or cool.

But, I’m not either of those things. I don’t know how many passes I think will bleach the uncoolness out of something, but it doesn’t work. There’s something to be said for taking one’s time--and of course putting something away and rewriting it is definitely in everyone’s best interest...but still, finishing things as best you can is important.

I was talking with Meagen the other day about this, about how we as human beings tend to think if something is not hard or time consuming that it must not be good--that a novel should take ten years and not, say two. See? I even wrote the word “one” there and had to erase it. A novel? In a year? How drab.

We as artists don’t believe in ourselves, and pretend that putting time into a project will make it that much more special--or even better, waiting forever to start it...Fuck the fuck outta that. Make it and be embarrassed and move on. Just make it as best you can.

I am afraid of many things, including the new chapters I just wrote, because they happened quickly. But that is how art appears! It boils up like feelings because that’s what art really is. The craft is in getting past yourself to sit down and start the thing past your own fears. The craft is in making it sound good. the craft is in finishing it. I hope my brother starts making things, and I hope I start making things quicker.

The last day he was in town, I put on the pants I bought when I was 22. They were my favorite pants to write in for years, lasting through a full marriage and into a new one. A pair of 2005 women’s jeans so old the crotch is ripped out (my dick hangs like a cotton bulge). I looked at myself in the mirror, decided against them, and picked out another pair of pants for the evening. It was President’s Day, and my band EFFORTS was about to play our first show.

I had spent three weeks wanting to vomit every time I thought about it. But the date on the flyer appeared and with it, our last practice before loading our gear. By the end of practice I was too hungry to be nervous, and Zach, Geoffrey and I arrived at the venue to drink.

Meagen appeared, worried about a friend of ours. We stood in a parking lot across the venue and I tried to console here, it had been a rough couple of days for the both of us.

Last week was Valentine’s. I spent the night before the holiday of hearts holding our dog, Ellie, as her heart began to fail. It had been three years since the doctor told us she would die any day, and now it seemed the curse had come to claim her. I whispered nice things into her ears as she melted across my chest, and then we both feel asleep. 

I dreamed she could talk, and she told me she was hurting. And then she transformed between a young girl and grown women, back and forth again as Meagen and I held her. At the end of the dream she told me to look up at the ceiling to see what death looked like for dogs; it was a dance of shadows and light that made no scientific sense, but I understood all the same. When I awoke Ellie was staring at me, alive and well, he heart has since settled to normal.

So Meagen and I were already wound up when some really bad shit went down for a friend. I tried to console Meagen across the street, minutes before the soundcheck. I was already hot in my leather jacket, but I kept it on because the homemade arm band was tied around my right limb. The arm bands were an idea I had floated by Zach months ago and, black for mourning, with our logo, the crucibolt emblazoned upon it. I had sat down sometime between my dog trying to die and the show to make the both wraps at home using ribbon, velcro patches and iron-on sheets cut carefully and branded by my wife’s straightening iron. (i. have. never. been. cool.)

Meagen asked if I was nervous, and I said yes. Then, we walked into the venue to smoke and drink some more, Geoffrey and I both having quit tobacco except for rare occasions and the first-show-ever exception.

I waited 32 years to perform music--it still feels like a daydream that was never actually supposed to happen, but at the same time, if I’m being honest, events were always leading to this. It feels like I pulled off a miracle that was always going to happen.

On stage we were surrounded by a dimly lit room, filled with lots of people we knew. I didn’t know what to do so Zach instructed me from his drum kit on what to say to the sound guy. Then we launched into our newest song, “6 pack, nice abs!(stinence)” and I immediately heard my own vocals for the first time ever. It was an awful shock. But that feeling was overwhelmed by the rush of sound screaming out from behind me as I stared down at what my fingers were doing and sang as well as I could.

It was Zach’s idea to start with “6 pack”. I had spent two years planning for this moment, certain (god-damn-it, certain!) that when I got to play this shit live, the band (whoever that would be, there was no band, barely any songs, a pipe dream), we would start the show with the opening track of the album “everyone will leave and you”, but two hours before the show Zach said we needed to open with  6 pack, it, and it was agreed. Plans are just plans, sometimes real shit needs to happen.

Here’s a video of it.

We got through the first pre-chorus, and then I was almost smiling as we launched into the second verse

Some may feel possessed

I myself obsess about it

By the end of the song I was already sweating from the stage lights and the leather jacket; and the way I was screamed, stooped with the guitar strap across my shoulder, I felt myself nearly black out several times, a moment that would continue throughout the show.

It occurred to me afterward the opening lyrics were written while driving down the very same street the bar was on, near-as-exact to a year ago as I drove to buy airplane bottle liquor while texting my Father in an AA meeting.

Dad’s on his way to a meeting

I’m on my way to the store

And there I was, holding the guitar I grew up pretending to play, the cherry-red-heavy my Father let me borrow as he left for California, a son who had never written a song, asking someone he didn’t know very well for a guitar they never used anymore. 

He used to write little songs

He don’t write nothin’ no more

Then, the song ended and I heard people yelling and applauding. without looking up, Zach clicked us into the next one and we slammed through another two minute punk song about feelings (the boys and I recently decided to call our genre mid-punk, as we are so damn old compared to ‘dem kids’). It was during this one my head started to get away from me, that I began to realize I was, somehow on a stage and not in my imagination, and I had to grip the guitar pick tighter and focus on what I was doing. That is how insane it felt. And then, at some point during the set, stage lights started to jump and bounce everywhere and the surreality lifted into some sort of mega-dise of everything I had ever wanted.

My favorite part of the entire show was turning to Zach & Geoff between songs and laughing before we launched into whatever was next. Here was the set list, lest we ever forget:

6 pack, nice abs!(stinence)

everyone will leave and you

may you absorb all evil

the bridge song

better off without you

I saw a pale horse

west coast

ash to dust

word waster

vera

Everything ended with me singing a song I had written about a time 5 years ago when Meagen and a friend--the very same one I was consoling her about--were playing Super Mario 2 (Japanese version).

I’ll never be as happy as I was

On those Winter nights

After the show ended, Ben walked up on stage to give me a hug and congratulate me. “I can’t believe you just watched me play a show!” I shouted. I hope he noticed how perfect it was not, as I sure did.

It is so important to just go for things, and fuck up, and not be perfect, and then try over, and over, and over again. When it comes to art, you can do anything you want (if you’re meant to do it). And why would you want to do it, why would you dream about it everyday, if that dream wasn’t meant for you?

Work hard. Fuck up. Fix it. Let go. And finish.

That’s my plan, over and over again, and somehow, it looks like it’s starting to work. If you’re waiting for a package, I hope you have it by the time you read this. And if you’re ever in Nashville, I hope you can see EFFORTS play a show.

-mE.

[footprinting]

Tarawera ultramarathon 2017: part 2

My race reports often lean more toward 'technicolour unicorn dreams on high speed acid trip in the forest' than race report. Everything comes flowing back in HD of a brilliant day. Here's a go at something a bit different like say, a traditional one. Note 1: I can still do the unicorn version in person with lots of hand waving and beaming. Note 2: I tried and, what can I say, my memories of race days are infused with that fizz. Training: This was good. I knew 4-6 months out that I was chasing the 62k distance. This was my fourth year of the Tarawera Ultra. They offer a 62, 87, 102 and relay options (where each person can do about 20, 30 or 40k). I had done my first 100 last year, and done well, but it took a long time recovering. I had key events to lead me through to this event the last six months like fast 5k timed runs (waterfront or parkruns), fast half marathons, endurance events (60k on trails / 42k on trails). My training was generally 50-70k a week with high weeks of up to 100k. One of the most thrilling long runs was running 44k of Lake Waikaremoana, a four day great walk, in 9 hours. I did speed work throughout the year. I'd usually especially focus on this speed in the last 6 weeks. In January I had an Achilles scare so erred on safety and health over sharp speed work. 15-20 minutes of core strength work daily the last month. Summary: a balanced plan of events,speed, distance and core strength all helped. Benchmarking:  My 5k time was OK. It was about 15 seconds off my best, but fast enough. The regularity of the waterfront 5k runs (highly recommend in Wellington, run by Scottish!) helped a little bit with confidence. I eased off these in the 2 weeks prior with safety around possible injury. Training with: Squadrun for the last 18 months; Chris for some weekend trails; Dena for fast trails (less than usual as our ultra train / taper / recover planning was out of sync!); WoRM and Wellington runners (thanks Ewa for making me do core!); I’ve joined Wellington Scottish. Taper week:  Wheee! Usually taper means I'm constantly hungry, and coiled like a spring, and just want to bloody well run. This time I treated it as a luxury. I looked after myself with good food (especially protein), a lot of water, good sleep, and got excited for what was ahead. We had a couple of precious days at the beach with my Grandad beforehand. Crucially, the weekend wasn't about me at all. Chris was running his first ultra. This shifted all focus to his experience. My mind was quiet. Chris: You read that right! Chris had won a competition with Organic Muscle Run (OMR) and Wild Things for an entry into Tarawera with 12 days to go. The long run that we had done together in Waikaremoana a month previously helped enormously in his training confidence. That had previously been his longest run (both distance and time) ever.  We talked a lot about Tarawera in the week previously. I could help answer questions and we were honest in the moments of terror. The day before: We had a blissful sunshine walk in the morning alongside treasured time with Grandad. All restful. We had organised our drop bags already. We headed the short trip to Rotorua, there mid afternoon, checking in at the expo and sorting ourselves. It was abuzz! We the lovely folks of Organic Muscle Rub (OMR) who gifted Chris his entry as first time sponsors, and Julbo who set me up with rose tinted sunglasses. Saw many beautifully familiar faces. We wrestled ourselves away from the party after a couple hours, went to the supermarket, had ourselves in the holiday home eating dinner by 5.30pm. The rest of the evening was chilling, as much as you can chill while sorting a few final logistics. Packed our race day kit. Laid it all out. Got breakfast stuff ready. Chugged back water. Set multiple alarms. In bed by 9pm or so. The hours before: 4.20 wake up call. Breakfast (oatmeal, banana), black coffee. Electrolyte drink (always nuun) Shower, sunscreen, anti-chafe, get dressed, check and double and triple check my gear, make sure my water is packed, check and double and triple check Chris’s gear with him.  Get in the car, go 5.35 at the main start line. Yahoo with cheers for the longer distances, see them off Get in our shuttle buses to our start line 6.40 at our start line Line up Brief moment of confusion when we were told a lead runner was coming through (from the 100k) so we all parted like the red sea going HOLY FAST HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE. We were 25 kilometers from where they had started an hour previously. As it turned out, it wasn’t possible and we were confused, but it sure lightened the mood. 7.05 GO GO GO Leg 1 to Okataina: 16k, 97 minutes A solid uphill, and back down again, all runnable on well maintained grassy, hard soil, gritty or forest floor trail. Mostly tree covered with occasional peeks out to the lake. Jim Walmsley floated past at the end of this leg. I barely heard him at my shoulder as he cruised by. He was a delight to watch run, making it look effortless. I was happy with the pace here and blasting into the first aid station, with a hug for Kerry and cheering back at the volunteers. This is also known as ‘WoW’, Western Okataina Walkway.   Leg 2 to Humphries: 9.5k, 73 minutes The first of the technical stuff, a few hills, and more hills than I remembered. Whoops - sorry Chris! - I texted Chris at this stage to wish him extra super duper well and with an emphasis on stable feet. I hit a good trail pace here again. I always love seeing the oasis of Humphries aid station. This is also known as Eastern Okataina. Leg 3 to Tarawera outlet: 7.5k, 63 minutes I kept my steps careful through here. I loved every bit. It is plush, beautiful single track. The cicadas were absolutely roaring. It was heating up. This section last year was pretty hard, coming at about the 50 - 58k mark of 100. This year it was on fresh legs and lovely. Leg 4 to Tarawera falls: 5.3, 36 minutes Zooooom. This is a delight. After a couple of hours of thinking pretty hard about footsteps, this is beautifully groomed flat, wide trail. It is spectacularly beautiful: looking off to the side for the river, waterfalls and everything being very alive. The signage was top notch. I had a companion through here who was happily following behind me on my pace. The number of times I *almost* hit my head or *almost* lost the path or *almost* tripped over a tree trunk had us laughing a little but also remembering not to take anything for granted. Time to be smart on the nutrition, and keep my feet up. We cruised along into the Tarawera Falls aid station. I collected spare gels from a drop bag, remembered fond memories of picking Chris up in previous years and charged up the hill onwards (helped by seeing a friendly lady pretty close behind me). Leg 5 to Titoki: 9.4k, 59 minutes Kerry told me to attack this section at marathon pace 'smartly'. Smartly, I wondered, does he mean cleverly or briskly? This successfully distracted my legs from the demon hill, and then another hill, and then maybe another one, while I pondered this. I jest. It was luxurious, wide, open trail. I got some speed through here at a 5:20 to 5:40 pace or so, slowing slightly on the attack of the uphills. I kept an eye on my heart rate monitor through here to monitor based on effort. This kept me honest on the flat (fast) and on the downhill (faster). Leg 6 to Fisherman’s: 5.3k, 34 minutes There was some fast trail through here and then also - surprise! - the Tim Day special of the new hill trail cut into the riverside. This came with some possibly curse related words while I scrambled around on steep slopes. Go creaky legs, go. It then dunked us into the river crossing of clean, cold water. I kept running afterwards with an empire of pebbles agitating in each shoe. I thanked my previous self for tucking the ‘just in case’ shoes into the emergency drop bag. That would be a definite change. The wonderful aid station crew got me sorted with my bag, shoes and socks. HUGE shout out to the phenomenal aid station volunteers. I was in, and out, in a minute flat. I felt like I was walking on air in my fancy dry shoes.   Leg 7 to river road: 5k, 29 minutes So fast! So flat! What is this luxury! I had set myself my target of doing this 10k in an hour (Fishermans to River Road; and on to Kawerau). I got on with the business of doing 5:30 to 6:00 pace. I love this section at the end of a long run. I have a lot more energy, confidence and chase in the last 10k of an event than I do in the first 10k. We learn things about ourselves in life through the run. Leg 8 to Kawerau: 5k, 29 minutes Zooooom. I waved hello at River Road but didn't stop. This final 5k was a treat: a bit of flowy single trail, a bit of wide 4wd trail, a high bridge, then 2k across fields to the final Firmin Field. I think I overtook some people here. The ladies ahead of me had stayed far, far ahead but toward the end I continued gaining on some guys. It made a big difference in knowing this section, being able to plan for each section. I knew coming off the bridge the distance we had to go; then I remembered the familiar rhythm of the track and fields all joining up to one another. I sped up. I could hear Margo on the mike. I ran, and I ran, and I ran, and there we were. Finish line, part 1: MARGO HUG! She sang me happy birthday. I hugged Ali, and everyone I could, and then parked myself in the Squadrun tent lying horizontal on squashy grass in the shade. Thanks for the L+P and the love, Ali! I was a bit on edge during this time stalking Chris’s live tracking results. The last I could see was him passing Tarawera Falls at the 38k mark, hours earlier. I decided to head back into the forest to find Chris and run him in. I set my watch, starting running in the direction I had come from, then (ouch) pretty quickly slowed to a walk while cheering and yahooing like crazy for all the finishers in their final 400m, 500m, 600m, kilometre, etc. Every second person asked how far it was to go, probably also wondering what I was doing. And then - OMGOMGOMGOMG - I know that Chris! I jumped up and down like crazy. I cheered. I turned around with him, and we started running the last 1.5k together to the finish line. Finish line, part 2: This is all Chris. He ran so strong in those last few minutes. I ran in front of him, leading the way (mostly correctly) and counting down for him in how many hundred metres there were to go. In all his years of supporting me in these things and pacing me: this is all him. It was his day. He did it. There is a photo where he’s running at high speed over the line. I’m off to his side, cheering at full noise along with the finish line crowd. It makes my heart leap every time I see this picture and barely able to speak. 

The course: 62.5 kilometres (between 62.5 and 64 depending on watch) 1600 metres elevation up 2000 metres elevation down   3 bonus kilometres with Chris :)

Nutrition over 7 hours: 5x energy gels (all GU) 1x small energy bar (packaged) 1x bliss balls (packaged) 2x bananas (from aid stations) 2x ginger beers 3.5 to 4L water Placing: Emma. 7 hours 2 minutes. 3rd female 30-39, 7th female overall (out of 131 amazing ladies), 26th overall behind the guys (out of 316 extraordinary people) Chris. 9 hours 10 minutes. 27th male 40-49, 84th male overall (out of 170). That’s exactly mid way! And for a first ultra - holy heck!   Recovery: Oh my legs. This is still a work in progress. Lots of drinking water, eating well, sleeping well, quiet and slow movement, compression gear when I remember, OMR (organic muscle rub) is helping, sports massage at Back to It, more moving slowly. In the week since Tarawera perhaps I’ve run about 25k. This might be more than recommended. The ‘recovery mile before bedtime’ has been especially good for the soul though, and it’s a treat to keep things moving. I may also be doing a half marathon tomorrow as a 2:00 pace runner in what I hope to be a sensible, achievable pace. This may not be recommended in a smart recovery but it sure will be fun. And that was our day. These shared moments shine brightest. There is magic in knowing what is possible of ourselves, and of ourselves with others. There was an extraordinary community out there that day. We build our communities and fill our lives with things that are most important. This is one of them. Tarawera is special. We return with purpose for the amazing event run by an incredible, thoughtful, diligent, organizing team. This is world class. If you ever dream up a mad plan of running an ultra - or perhaps a relay leg of 15 to 20k - do it, do it, do it.