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darkdevasofdestruction · 4 years

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Demon Brothers + Diavolo Doing Dance Workouts With S/O

Okay, so! On my journey on getting slimmer, healthier and fitter, I’ve been doing Chloe Ting’s workout programs, all free, all really nice to get yourself started and feel a sense of accomplishment. However, I randomly found some pretty neat dance workouts, especially Pamela Reif’s, and I’m in love with the songs she uses, going as far as to make one with only 80s songs, and she included a-Ha’s Take me on, and ahhhh, resonates with my heart so much! Hope you’ll like this little piece of crack and cutesy stuff <3

Lucifer

Lucifer, while yes, he has an amazing body, he seems rather insecure about it, going as far as to use a spell so nobody in his own family would remember how he looked at the beach, so it’s nothing shocking to know that he doesn’t like to exercise when others are around.

However, when he saw how excited you were finding an interesting routine that combined the fun of dancing with workout, he couldn’t refuse you, despite his fear of embarrassing himself or looking less than proper.

Seeing how much fun you’re having, not caring that your face is red, you’re sweating like crazy, and you’re dying of exhaustion, the fact that the songs are good and the workout is pretty refreshing, he feels himself unable to resist smiling at you, and little by little, allowing himself to let loose a bit.

He is a great dancer, we all know it, so he goes all in with all the moves, no matter how sexy or silly, and he LIVES for the way you cheer for him and say how amazing he his.

Poor Luci is going to blush, unable to contain how much you’re boosting his ego and self-confidence.

Clearly, he won’t do any of that around any of his brothers, and will be extra careful so that nobody, especially Diavolo, catched him while he’s dance-working out with you, in fear of them using it as black-mail, posting it on DevilGram or just keeping the content for the future.

Mammon

Mammon frequently workouts because he wants to make sure his body looks good ( he is highly insecure about himself, so he thinks that at least his body should be good, if not him as a person, poor baby ), and he definitely loves having fun at the club, so if you can combine the two things he loves so much, he’s down for anything!

When you told him about your wish to start working out, while doing something fun, because the past routines became a little boring, he asked if you wanted to workout with him.

He was very shy and sweet about asking you that, because he knows that if you used to be sedentary and suddenly decided to workout, he believed it had something to do with insecurities, and he knew very well how anxious and nervous one could be when someone else is in the room with you.

When you accept the idea, he is over the moon with glee, and will find the most fun and cool workouts that the both of you can do together.

You will get tons of cheers and encouragements from Mammon, since he genuinely wants you to be the best version of yourself and learn how to love yourself and who you are, and if working out is going to do the trick, he is going to be a dancing clown for you without a single doubt.

The fact that you’re vibing so much, smiling, despite how difficult and tiring dancing could be, makes his heart melt, because you are so beautiful when you are happy, and he’s just...SO thrilled that he can help you in your journey of self-love.

Leviathan

It’s pretty canon that Levi doesn’t really do anything physically exhausting, only working out when he feels like it, over DevilTube videos, but nothing too exhausting.

Well, unless he wants to learn a new idol or anime dance routine, which is where he goes all in with no regret, not giving a damn about how he can barely stand on his feet, or that he’s sweating a lake.

One day, Levi was playing video games on the console, and you were searching random videos on his Laptop’s DT, and you found some pretty fun dance-workout routines that you wanted to try out.

Realising that they were already viewed, and that Levi was playing a single-player game, you crawled over to him, telling him to stop the game for a second and asking him about them, then suggesting doing some together.

When he heard about you finding about about you wanting to workout out with him, he started blushing furiously, thinking of the worst, until he realised that it meant you would basically learnt he same idol dances he knows, and you could do fun cosplay skits and karaoke, and you would actually know what he’s ranting about, he was in his working out clothes in a beat!

He was so excited and eager to teach you everything he knows, imagining how awesome you would be as a performing duo on a stage, dressed up super flashy and having so much fun while the crowd was cheering wildly.

Levi did ask in the end, albeit veeeery timidly, if you wanted to perform an idol routine with him in his own room, as he has all the best high-tech stuff to make his room look like an idol concert club, and he has the cosplay-making skills, so when you accept, he’s gonna faint from happiness.

Satan

He’s not too shy about working out - He knows he has to balance a working out, eating and studying to have a healthy life-style, so he does at least the bare minimum to keep himself fit.

Satan isn’t the type to tell you what to do, but somehow, the more you stay with him, the more his habits stick to you, so out of the blue, you find yourself doing random, low-maintenance exercises with him...Sometimes while he’s still reading, and you still can’t tell how he can do that.

From the many people he’s acquainted with, he hears about some succubi doing dance-workouts that are pretty entertaining and give you good vibes, so he asked you if you wanted to check out some routines, and choosing the songs you like together, you start doing dance-routines.

Surprise, surprise, it’s actually super fun, and the succubi are great dance teachers, so you and Satan try to sing some of the lyrics, when you’re not too exhausted and panting, or when the song is just too good.

It’s always been obvious that Satan is the domestic type, loving to do any sort of activity with you by your side, or just staying in the same room, or cuddling, doing completely separate things, and enjoying each other’s presence, so dancing together with you was real fun with him, especially because he didn’t have to be proper in any way or put appearances, as he does when outside of his room.

Satan would definitely ask to do more fun activities with you, including maybe supervised mountain climbing, horse-riding, swimming, painting, taking care of animals at the shelters and many other things you’re both into, or want to try new experiences.

Asmodeus

I already believe that Asmo does some kind of yoga and pilates daily - Not for a long time, but just what’s necessary - to keep himself healthy and in a great, lean shape, because having a healthy lifestyle means your skin is going to be beautiful and have that natural glow, so of course he’s gonna do anything to keep that up with minimum sweat required.

If he has a gig up, like modeling on a catwalk, a photoshoot, or some kind of important event, he’s going to do a shit ton of Aerobics and Zumba, maybe even Kangoo Jump for as little as a week and as long as a month or so, because he has to be perfect - As if he isn’t already, but still!

Since we already know he’s the kind to love going to the club and dancing, when you go to him, telling him about the new workout routine you started, since you were a bit bored of Asmo’s chill yoga routines, he was excited to see you trying out new things out of your own volition.

He will try to fish for all your favourite songs and get some succubi to come up with lit dance workout videos so you could both to them together and have fun, because obviously, he wants you to enjoy your favourite songs, and will do anything in his power to make that happen!

Of course, before you start working out, he will drag you to all the best sports shops and try out tons of outfits, and you’ll get matching ones - Comfy and Practical, but make it Fashion!

I’m pretty sure he won’t take it 100% seriously, and he’ll be all party and fun, singing the song out loud, taking your hands and doing random moves that aren’t in the routine, like spinning you or dipping you low, and of course, the occasional kiss-steals won’t be lost in the party, and you’re too adorable to resist.

Beelzebub

Well, this guy does heavy workouts, including weight-lifting and practices for his club activities, like Fangol, which is similar to American Football, which is very...Very Beel, to say the least.

He never pushes you to workout with him, but he did mention that if you ever want to use the gym and be alone, he will make sure nobody bothers you, but if you are in need of an instructor, he would volunteer to help you, despite going softer on you and giving you so many breaks, because you are a cute, little, frail human who doesn’t eat enough.

One day, he heard from Asmo about this super fun and accessible dance workouts, and he thought it would be nice to recommend to you, so he will ask all the details, along with some DevilTube links to such videos, and when you are next together, alone, he will tell you all about it.

As soon as he sees how enthusiastic you are about it, and you even asked him to join you, he will agree without a second thought.

Until he realises that he is so big and bulky that he basically has the grace of a wooden nightstand.

It doesn’t stop him from having fun and enjoying his time of bonding with you, obviously! He will do anything you want, as long as you’re having fun and smiling the way you’re doing now.

Not to mention, it’s pretty refreshing seeing you dance with no inhibitions, just throwing around your limbs and shaking your body like you’re free as a bird.

This is the type of life he wants to live - Fun, happy and chill with his loved ones.

Belphie

No matter how much of a damn sloth he is, you just CAN’T tell me this guy doesn’t do something like Yoga, Pilates or freaking Ballet, considering the moves his busts during does damned dance battles!

He clearly won’t ever ask you to dance or workout with him, because he has a reputation to uphold, he is the Avatar of Sloth, after all, and he can sleep everywhere, as long as he has that fluffy cow-patterned pillow to sleep on.

But one day, you barge into his room, all excited to tell him the newest gossip...Only to see him with music at max volume and following some random choreography, and you just look at him with that meme pikachu shocked face.

Belphie glared at you as bad as the day he killed you, while also blushing like crazy, because damn it, only Beel was supposed to know his secret!

You then grin at him mischievously, hugging his neck and asking if he wants to do dance-workout routines together, and he refuses at first...And second and third and hundredth, but in the end, he will give in, and you will dance together.

Sometimes, he will suggest the dance workouts with a partner, just so he could have a reason to be closer to you, lazily peck your lips, cheeks or forehead, while also being able to do romantic moves...Even if the song is romantic or has seductive moves or not.

It could be some weird country song about how cute horses and cows are, and he would still do something super cute.

And of course, after a well-deserved shower, a loooong cuddle and sleep session together, in his bed, is going to happen.

Diavolo

This is a bit of a spoiler for the lessons 26-29, but I believe Diavolo is feeling pretty lonely and cast out from the group, and he’s like a sad golden retriever who wants some attention and affection, so as soon as you realise that, you start going to him to talk about random things, send him cute messages, stickers, gossips, selfies, pics with things you found awesome or cool, and he super appreciates it, he’s so happy!

This made you start bonding and go out, spending time together, so you then explain to him about human habits, memes, vines, TikToks, fandoms, trends, fandoms, ideas and all the ape shit things you could come up with, like a grandpa trying to be hip with his grandkids, but he ends up so cringe and overly exaggerated that he’s super adorable.

And that includes the dabs and Egyptian dance moves he pulls in the dance battles.

Now, you don’t get those damned arms, abs and pecs (man boobs) without some effort, he clearly works out quite a lot, as often as he can, so one day, when he was searching around random things on YouTube, on his new human laptop, and he finds some women doing some super entertaining dancing workout routines, and he is so enthusiastic about it, that he called you over and showed you those vids.

Grinning at how excited and curious he is about your world, and since you already knew about them and did some in the past, you see that his eyes were wide and expecting, wanting to try it together...So you suggested it, and he was so cheerful!

Dia has Barbatos get you both some super cute matching workout outfits, and together, you start jamming in his huge room, not before you reminded him that this is more for fun, and he should just enjoy it and not take it too seriously, and he was over the moon, especially since you were there to share his enthusiasm.

Needless to say, neither of you had your cheerfulness and grins wiped from your faces for a long time, and Dia got to find out some lit human songs!

Yay!

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petri808 · 4 years

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Hauntober prompt Vampires

Nalu requested by @mccnfairy

“You guys are leaving already?” Natsu questions the group of girls as they get ready to leave his Halloween house party.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be back later.” Lucy pats the man on the cheek. “There’s just one more place we wanted to check out tonight.”

“Oh, okay cool! Just be safe out there, lots of creeps out tonight.”

“We will,” this time it’s Levy who responds with a giggle. “Besides, we have an Erza. Pity the fool who dares to harass us.”

It had really been a silly idea, but why not have a little spooky adventure this All Hallows’ Eve. The friends, Lucy Heartfilia, Levy McGarden, Erza Scarlet, and Cana Alberona had heard about this abandoned old mansion at the edge of town that was supposedly haunted. According to Levy’s research, the structure dated back to the days of the Civil War and may have been owned by a plantation owner killed by his slaves in revolt. Of course, there was no way to confirm it because town records seemed sparse or missing from those years and most of it became folk tales passed down through the generations.

At one point a haunted house attraction was actually run inside the building, but as of the last six years or so, it had been left vacant with only a fading ‘For Sale’ sign outside its massive iron gates. Until recently, that is. Someone has actually bought the property and according to the large sign out front it would be demolished in three weeks to make way for a new apartment complex. Hence the girl’s temptation to check it out before that happens.

“Be careful,” Erza warns the group. “We don’t know how structurally sound this place is.”

The four girls armed with flashlights slowly make their way into the creepy building. Every hair on the back of Lucy’s neck stands up as soon as she enters; she shivers. This was such a bad idea...

Wham!

The front door slams shut behind them causing everyone to jump and scream.

“I-It’s just the wind,” Erza reasons. “Just stay close everyone.”

All the nervous energy made the sounds around them seem heightened. Every creek of a floor board or scuttling of creatures through the debris. Broken windows allowed wind to funnel through creating eerie drafts to tickle their skin and the groans of the building were like fodder for a horror movie. But they pressed on, determined to explore.

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ Lucy reminds herself. It’s all just made up stories to keep kids in line. She had no reason to believe that supernatural creatures existed.

“Look at all this stuff left behind,” Cana remarks as they pass through what used to be a kitchen. “It’s all the haunted house props.”

Even in the dark they could see fake blood splattered or holes cut in the walls for actors to pop their heads through. Rubber body parts, broken skeletons, old looking medical equipment, basically every cliche thing you could think of. Different props for different themes.

One by one they make their way through the first floor of the house. It was such a huge place. Sitting rooms, pantry’s, a game room, bathrooms, dining hall, a living room, and that’s just the first floor! A grand staircase took you to the second floor which had one long hall way leading to all the bedrooms, then further to a second staircase that took you to the third floor servants quarters and attic.

By the time the girls had made it to the second floor, their guards had been somewhat lowered. Despite the creepiness of the old building, there was nothing really paranormal to scare them. Lucy began to trail behind out of curiosity, stopping at each bedroom to take a better look inside. Some of the rooms still held old furnishings from a bygone era. Large postered beds and ornate dressers or armoires, oil lamps, and old ripped paintings on walls. She could imagine how grand this home must have looked in its hay day.

But when Lucy steps out of the room she was in, the sudden realization that she was alone fuels a wave of goosebumps to ripple along her arms. “G-Guys?!” She couldn’t even hear any of her friends voices. Oh no! Where’d they go? Upstairs? Back down stairs?! The house was as still as death, no more creeks and groans, just the empty darkness beyond the beam of her flashlight or moon glow filtering through the windows.

She books it back downstairs to the front door as the safest alternative. Eventually her friends had to leave, so she’ll just wait there patiently for them. While she waits, Lucy turns on her phone to distract herself from the silence. It was Halloween after all, and social media was flooded with photos of parties and trick or treaters.

A soft shuttling sound causes Lucy to stiffen up. ‘It’s just a mouse, it’s just a mouse, it’s just a—’

Measured thuds, boots over wooden floors in her direction! Wait! None of them were wearing boots! Lucy spins around with her flashlight gripped tightly in her hand. “W-Who’s there!” She gasps as the beam hits a human chest not three feet from her. “Natsu?! What are you doing here?!” But he was dressed differently. His hair was slicked down, wearing an old style black suit and shoulder cape like the dapper dons of the 1800s.

“Why, I live here, that’s why,” he grins wide, his pearly fangs catching the beam of her flashlight.

Was his fangs longer than she remembered? “What are you talking about?! We just came from your house.”

“Oh, that’s just one of my other homes. This,” he motions with his arms, “is where I lived centuries ago. You see I have to maintain a sense of normalcy to blend in.”

“Haha,” Lucy’s hands fall to her hips. “Very funny mister class clown. You’re just messing with me.”

He strides over without hesitation and grips her chin between two fingers, lifting it to meet her eyes. “Am I now?” His eyes grow hooded, amorous as his lips hover centimeters above her own. “It was I who started the rumors to peak humans curiosity. An easy way to lure victims for me to feed on.”

Lucy’s breathing slows and falters at the seriousness of his tone. This was nothing like the silly jokester they’d come to know and love! “Oh my god,” she breathes out. Her fear response screaming in her head but her body was frozen in place.

“There’s no god here tonight,” Natsu utters, then quick as a flash bites Lucy’s neck.

She screams with bloody intent as her heart pounds and pulse drowns out all sound, mind latching on the pain... that wasn’t there?! What the?!

Just as quickly as he’d bitten her, Natsu pulls away from the stunned woman, holding his stomach from laughter as she frantically checks her neck. “I so got you good!”

“What?!” Lucy screams and launches herself at him, pounding her fists against his chest. “You scared me on purpose?!”

He only laughs harder from her weaker strikes. “One of the guys overheard your plans and it was too tempting not to. I-I didn’t know which would end up the victim, but you came out first.”

“Omg so mean Natsu! You really scared me!”

When he focuses away from the amusement and realizes the true panic still left in the girls clouded eyes, Natsu felt a prick in his heart. Crap, maybe he’d gone a little too far this time. “Shit, I’m sorry Lucy, it was just a joke.”

She crossed her arms with a frown. “Well it wasn’t funny!”

At that point, more thuds coming streaming down the staircase. “What’s going on?!” They hear Erzas voice asking as the rest of the girls make it the first floor. “We heard a scream from the third floor and came rushing down.”

“Just a stupid joker,” Lucy points at Natsu. “He even fake bit me!”

“Wait, what?” Erza steps forward as Cana and Levy hold their breaths. “Natsu, you did what?!”

He pulls the fake vampire teeth out of his mouth and holds it up, “it was just, I was only teasing. Come on, it’s a Halloween prank.” When he sees Erzas eye brow raise, he holds up his hands. “Truce? I’m sorry!”

“Tch, you better be,” Lucy spits back. “Better make it up to me somehow.”

“I’ll do anything.”

“Take her out on a date!” Cana blurts out.

“Dinner and a movie!” Adds Levy.

Lucy squeaks in blushing embarrassment. “W-Wait! Hold up, that’s not what...”

“Pfft, I’ve been dying to do that since freshman year!” Natsu laughs and clasps his hands together in hope. “Whatdya say Lucy? I promise I won’t bite this time.”

With the other woman applying pressure through looks and hand gestures. Lucy groans and rolls her eyes. “Why do I feel like this was all a set up?!”

He pouts and gives her a puppy dog expression. “Is that a yes, or no?”

“Oh ya damn goof, I’ll go out with you, but yes! If you bite me this time I’ll return the favor!”

“Promise?”

#hauntober #nalu #vampire prompt #natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #nalu Au #nalu fan fic #nalu fanfiction #fairy tail

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grandmother-goblin · 3 years

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Hangman’s Mercy

Chapter 1

Summary: After the war, Levi remembers how he fell in love with the executioner.

Word Count: 4.7k

Warnings: Canon-typical Violence, Decapitation, Suggestive Themes, Language, Period-typical Sexism.

On a summer morning, outside an oceanfront cafe, Levi longed for the executioner's embrace. Seagulls cawed on the distant beach and the gentle ocean breeze blew salty air over his steaming cup of tea. Chamomile; the executioner's favorite. Especially with a little honey after a stressful day. They spent countless nights together, sitting across a candlelit table when neither of them could sleep or in each other’s arms, with a hot pot of chamomile tea between them. God, he missed those days.

The chamomile tea at the Marelean cafe did not taste as sweet, even with honey. Maybe that was just because of the company. Not that Levi minded the overzealous journalist scribbling in his journal across from him. After all, he paid well, and it wasn’t like Levi had much to do after the war. Despite the massive loss of life, humanity trudged towards a new sense of normalcy only weeks later. Businesses had to continue, people needed a new sense of purpose or just a moment of peace, and society was never one to stay still. Levi still had to make a living in a world without titans, so when a fast-talking kid with a fire in his eyes offered to pay him for interviews he took the opportunity.

The young man, Marty Chase, tapped his pen against a pile of notes with a nervous energy. Levi took a few days to get to know Marty’s work before he agreed to a biography, and the kid checked out. Marty co-authored three bestsellers before the age of thirty, all biographies of Marelean warriors. Levi did not know any of the subjects, but he felt like he did after a few chapters into his works. How he wove together someone’s life with just interviews and notes, Levi did not know. Some sort of creative witchcraft he would never understand.

Marty flipped to a fresh page in his notebook and clicked his pen. “When I was listening back to our last session, you mentioned an executioner a couple of times. Tell me about that.”

“What about her?”

“Her?” Marty made a note and underlined the fact the executioner was a woman several times. He flipped back through his notes, finding some highlighted passages in the ink. “How did you know her?”

Steam rose from his teacup, and Levi watched as it disappeared into the wind. He hadn’t realized he mentioned the executioner enough during his interviews for Marty to take notice. In fact, he tried to leave the executioner out of it as much as he could. Those who read his biography wouldn’t give a damn about that. Why would they? They wanted to know about his military experience, his title of Humanity’s Strongest, about Eren Jaeger, the military coup, what he saw, and what he experienced. They wanted to know what his comrades could no longer share. Without bringing her into it, they could know all of that. Would she even want them to know?

Levi tasted the chamomile on his tongue and closed his eyes, wishing it was as sweet as he remembered on her lips. He could not ask her permission to share her part of the story. It was impossible. Levi turned the warm teacup in his hands and sighed.

“I almost asked her to marry me.”

The incessant pen clicking stopped. Marty stared at him, eyes wide and mouth agape like a fish out of water. Marty dove into the fat briefcase he lugged around and retrieved that stupid little recording device. It was slightly bigger than a deck of cards with black casing and a roll of tape inside. “And you thought you could just leave out that teensy-weensy, tiny, detail?”

Levi shrugged. “Didn’t think you’d care about that.”

Marty rolled his eyes, as if Levi said something ridiculous, like cats could be herded or the moon didn’t exist. “This stuff is the heart of a good story, no pun intended,” he said. “You’re pretty extraordinary, Mr. Ackerman, no two ways about that. But, people like you seem so far out of reach to an average guy like me. What we need is something to reel you back in. Something to tell our audience, ‘hey, this guy is as human as he is amazing’, and what’s more human than romantic love?”

“Taking a shit?”

Marty set his pen on the table and eyed him like a disappointed teacher looking at the class clown. “If you really don’t think she’s important, you don’t have to tell me about her.”

“Don’t give me the guilt trip shit, Marty.” Levi finished his tea and set the empty cup at the edge of the iron bistro table. “You have plans today?”

“Not if you have a story to tell me.”

“Then get me another cup of tea. Lavender and bergamot, no sweetener.”

Marty beamed like Levi had offered a pot of gold instead of a day's worth of work. Though to Marty, those two were likely one and the same. His book about Reiner’s time in Paradis sold out in some of the biggest shops Marley offered. Well, Levi hoped the paycheck would be worth both of their time.

After Marty returned with the tea and a heart-attack inducing amount of coffee, he pressed the little red button on the side of his recording device. He leaned in close to the speaker and rattled off his typical prelude to the recording. “Levi Ackerman. Tape thirty-two. Who is the executioner?”

Levi sipped his fresh cup of tea, thankful for the bit of caffeine because he knew he’d be needing it. “Don’t turn my biography into a romance novel.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Mr. Ackerman,” Marty answered without missing a beat. He clicked his pen and tapped it against the first line in his notebook. “Now, tell me how you first met the executioner.”

Levi held his cup of tea just above the table, not sure if he was going to set it down or take another sip. He guessed he had nothing to lose by sharing their story. “Twenty-five years ago, I saw my first beheading. I was still just a kid scraping by in the Underground…”

Levi, a tiny, twelve-year-old piece of garbage, had only been on his own for a few weeks. Kenny taught him just enough to take care of himself and drop-kicked him from the relative safety of the nest to the dogs. With Kenny, awful as he was, Levi at least felt a sense of safety with an adult around. Once that was ripped from under him, it took him a while to regain his bearings.

The Sunday market was the perfect place to pick pockets and swipe valuables, whether they were from a vendor or a customer. The place was so crowded, a small kid like him could disappear in an instant. He just needed to find the right target. Ideally, someone who looked like they didn’t belong Underground. Someone who would be unused to the dim lighting, the stale air thick with the smell of smoke, and the echoing chatter of thousands of people crammed into one place. Few people from above ground went to the Sunday market, but there were enough to make them easy pickings.

On the outskirts of the market, right outside a general store where Kenny used to buy his liquor, sat a young girl atop some supply crates. One look at her, and Levi knew she was the perfect target. Clean clothes? Check. Shiny hair? Check. Dirt-free face? Check? Alone? Also check. The pretty, sun-kissed face was also a dead giveaway. The brown leather satchel on her lap, scratch-free with shiny copper buckles, would be a great steal. He just had to get a hold of it.

Levi smoothed his ratty, moth-bitten coat and checked his hair in a dusty shop window. Well, he did not look so bad that the girl would run away from him screaming. At least he hoped he didn’t. Not that he cared. Normally, he would go for a more covert approach, one where his target would never know he was there, but there was no way he could take the bag right off of her lap. He’d have to get her to put it down.

With his heart beating faster than a bat's wings, he approached the girl. When she smiled at him, his breath caught in his throat. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. He focused on the bag. Even if there was nothing good in there, the bag itself would be worth something, whether it be money or for his own use.

Unable to keep eye contact, he swallowed and looked at his shoes, restless fingers pulling at a loose thread in his pocket. “Hey,” he said, his voice breaking in a way that it hadn’t before. He cleared his throat and willed the heat from his face. What was wrong with him?

The girl leaned on her bag. “Hi,” she said with a pretty, white smile. “I like your haircut.”

His eyes widened at the unexpected compliment and the blush he swallowed before heat rushed right back to his face. Thank the walls the Underground was dark, because he was certain she would have laughed if she saw the color on his face. “Thanks, uhh—” he toyed with the thread in his pocket. “I, uh, like your face.” Stupid. Idiot. Maybe if he ran away right now, she would forget about the whole thing.

She covered her mouth when she giggled. It was the cutest thing he had ever heard. What the hell? Was this what Kenny meant when told Levi that girls would stop being gross one day? What a joke. A terrible, awful joke.

He needed to act fast. Plan A: get the girl to stand. Maybe she would put the bag down for a second, long enough for him to grab it and run. He scratched the back of his neck and eyed the crate she was sitting on. “I need to get to that box.”

“Oh.” The girl straightened, one hand still on her bag. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get in the way,” she said and pushed herself off the crates, her long green skirt billowing behind her. Unfortunately, she looped the handle around her forearm, keeping it close.

Well, that did not work. Time for Plan B. Levi looked over the crate and found a serial number. He pretended to examine it for a second before he turned back to the girl. “Can you help me move this?” he asked. “I think I need the one below it.”

Still smiling, the girl set her bag down and dusted her hands off on her skirt. “Sure. What should I do?”

Perfect. “Grab that side.” He pointed to the side of the crate furthest away from her bag. Without question, she tucked her fingers under one side of the crate while Levi lifted the other. Sure, he could have just snatched the bag while she had her back turned, but that was too risky. He wanted a little more of a head start before she followed him.

Levi lifted the top crate well off of the bottom one, and the little girl followed, shuffling her feet against the cobblestone. Her skinny arms strained and her cheeks colored with exertion. There was his chance.

His fingers released, and Levi’s end of the crate crashed into the ground. The girl faltered and Levi acted before the girl could even let go of her half of the crate. His deft hands swiped the bag as he darted past. Too easy. Way too easy. Levi couldn’t help but smile to himself as he swung the bag over his shoulder and the girl shouted after him. Levi circled around the edge of the market to put some distance between him and the girl before he ducked into the thick of the crowd.

In the bustling marketplace, Levi swung the bag onto his shoulder and blended in among the other patrons. No one gave him a second look, like he was just there for a bit of shopping, like everyone else. Easy, he thought to himself. Even if the bag had little in it, the bag itself was nice. Sturdy, with lots of pockets and a comfortable strap. Maybe he’d even keep it for himself instead of pawning it off.

When Levi ducked through a small crowd near a pastry stand, he felt a sudden tug at the back of his jacket. His collar caught his throat as he was yanked back, and a hand the size of his head gripped his shoulder like a vice.

“Say, my daughter has a bag just like that,” said a deep, gravelly voice as the grip on his shoulder tightened.

Levi felt like his heart had stopped. No. What were the fucking chances. The surrounding people started to take notice of the altercation and backed away. People in the Underground knew Levi through reputation alone, and he had taken on men twice his size more times than he could count. Too late not to cause a scene.

Levi grasped his knife and struck behind him, the blade making contact with the man’s flesh. The man groaned and Levi felt another hand on him as he was spun around. Levi’s heart jumped to his throat. This man wasn’t twice his size, he was even bigger. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought a titan had made it Underground.

Under a bushy red beard that surrounded his face like a lion’s mane, he smiled, a gold tooth front and center of his grin. Levi briefly wondered how much the tooth was worth before he felt his knife plucked from his hand.

“Get him, Ivor!” yelled someone in the crowd.

Another man shouted. “Teach that shit a lesson, hangman!”

The hangman. The fucking hangman. Levi felt his blood run cold as he stared up at the monstrous man. So he was the man Kenny would talk about when he got drunk. The one man that Kenny actually seemed to fear. Not because he thought Ivor would hunt him down, but because Ivor would be the one to carry out his sentence if he was ever tried for his crimes. Remembering the way Kenny described how the hangman would torture his victims before the execution made Levi’s stomach turn.

“I’m not going to fight a child,” Ivor called back to the crowd. “Piss off. You’re not getting a damn show, you buzzards.”

The crowd did not disperse as more insults and jeers were thrown the hangman’s way.

Ivor ignored the taunts. Instead, the hangman focused his pale blue eyes into Levi’s gray ones. “I made that bag for my daughter,” he said. “All it has in it is tea and bad handwritten poetry. I’d tell you to see for yourself, but she’d kill me if I let a stranger read her poems,” he added with a light chuckle.

“Let go of me.”

One hand tightened its grip while the other let go, giving Levi what was supposed to be a friendly pat. “Aye, can’t do that until I get that bag back, son.”

Levi tossed the bag on the ground. Whatever. He knew when to cut his losses. “Take it.”

Still not letting go of him, Ivor placed a boot on the bag strap, keeping it secure. “Thank you, my boy,” he boomed and ruffled Levi’s hair. Ivor knelt as close to Levi’s level as he could, his trench coat made of thick hide bunching up at his feet. He smelled of bergamot and lemon, like he had doused himself in perfumes. Something about Ivor contradicted all of Levi’s expectations: respected and ridiculed, fearsome and jovial, a killer with kind eyes. Despite the iron grip on his shoulder, the hangman seemed… almost nice? Much more tolerant than most of the folks Levi came across, and definitely more so than the ones who felt they were wronged. Blood soaked through Ivor’s pant leg where Levi had slashed his knife, but Ivor did not acknowledge it.

“Take this, boy,” he said in a rough voice barely above a whisper. Ivor reached into his pocket and pressed a small, yet heavy, bag of coins into Levi’s hands, doing his best to shield the transaction from the crowd. “Stay out of trouble. If you don’t, you’ll be seeing me again, boy. And next time, I won’t be so nice.”

Ivor picked up his daughter’s bag and finally released his hold on Levi, patting him on his certainly bruised shoulder. Levi stumbled back, reaching for the knife that was no longer there. Right. The hangman had tossed it aside. Levi pocketed the coins and stood his ground, waiting for an opening to grab his knife again.

Around them, the crowd booed. They hurled words not even Kenny would have used the hangman’s way, and he stood tall and proud, stoic as a statue. When a piece of rotten vegetable pelted Ivor’s coat, he brushed off with a laugh as people in the crowd continued to taunt and jeer. The hangman turned to look at Levi once more, before giving a subtle nod towards a break in the crowd. Levi swore he saw the man mouth the word ‘go’ from behind his massive beard.

“Thought you were going to give us a show, hangman!” a shrill woman shouted.

Ivor tossed the bag over his shoulder. “You’ll be getting a show tomorrow.” He spread his arms with all the showmanship of a magician. “Now stop gawking and do something with your miserable lives, you scabs!”

With a slight limp, Ivor turned into the crowd. Not really thinking, Levi picked his knife off the ground and ran the opposite direction. He did not know where he was going, just that he needed to get out of the marketplace and away from anyone who saw Ivor give him money. Maybe that was the man’s true intention: to put a target on Levi’s back with the cash rather than true altruism. Why else would he give a kid who just stabbed him a satchel full of coins?

The woman’s voice rang in his head. Give us a show, hangman! He was the fucking hangman, and Levi had robbed the hangman’s kid. Levi never felt so stupid in his life. The human embodiment of Death had Levi in his grip, at his mercy, and let him live.

With that gift, Levi ran and did not stop until he reached his lodgings. Levi locked the door behind him and slid to the floor to catch his breath.

When his breathing settled, he pulled the bag of coins out and counted them. More than he expected. A lot more. Enough to get him food for an entire month, or even longer if he planned right. Levi closed his eyes and let his head rest against the wooden door behind him. What the hell kind of person gave a piece of shit like him such a gift? Maybe Ivor had something wrong with him.

Despite how Levi never wanted to see the executioner again, Levi found himself drawn to the town square the following afternoon. He never watched an execution before, but he knew where they took place. The crowd made for good pickings, as those who came to watch were distracted by the morbid spectacle and alcohol. Levi always took his pickings and left before the cart with the condemned even made it to the podium.

There were no gallows for hanging, just a raised platform with a block of wood at the center. People gathered a healthy distance away from the platform. Out of the splash zone, as one man said. Levi did not want to think about how that distance was determined, and stood behind two larger men as a human shield. He could see the podium well enough between them, so long as they stood relatively still. It would have been so easy to swipe something right out of their pockets, but he resisted. It was a day for observation, and observation only. He didn’t know why, but he needed to see the executioner in action. He needed to know it was, in fact, the same man he met the day before.

Nothing he knew of the man, the little he did know, made any sense. Obviously respected, yet despised. A brute who didn’t flinch at a knife slicing his thigh and laughed off a jeering crowd. A man who made bags for his daughter, gave coins to a kid who stabbed him, and went off to kill a person the next day.

One man in front of him, with a stocky build and a mustache that looked like a push broom, puffed at his cigarette. “Any idea what this one did?”

His friend, a taller man with a ponytail, replied, “I heard she killed a few of her customers from the whore house. Poor bastards. Thought they were paying for a good time, then they’d get home and drop dead. Took them ages to find out why.”

“How many did she get?”

“At least twelve, from what I’ve heard.”

“Shit.” The mustached man tossed his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his boots. “Executioner will let us know.”

The man with a ponytail cocked his chin towards the main road. “Speak of the devil and he will come,” he said.

Far down the end of the main road, a draft horse pulled a rickety wagon fixed with a rusty iron cage. The giant, red-haired hangman sat at the front of the cart, his boxy gloved hands gripping the reins as he shouted at people to get out of the way. Beside him was the little girl from yesterday, hugging her precious bag.

“Can’t believe he’s training her,” Mustache Man muttered.

Ponytail shrugged. “Not like she has many other prospects,” he said. “Being the hangman’s kid, it’s not like men will be lining up for her. Hell, I don’t know if a whore house would take her.”

Mustache Man hummed thoughtfully and lit up another cigarette. “Poor kid.”

The wagon reached the podium and Ivor hauled himself down from the rider seat, the wagon creaking with the sudden loss of weight. Levi would not have been surprised if the ground shook when those massive boots hit the pavement like a fallen powder keg. Ivor turned back to the cart and gingerly lifted his daughter and set her down beside him. Without a word, the girl dug into her bag and passed a vial to her father before she went to the edge of the podium.

A man in a Military Police uniform lingered nearby. Probably acting as some sort of bailiff, Levi figured, judging by the official-looking documents clutched between his fingers. He ascended to the podium and shouted something to Ivor, who went to the back of the wagon.

A desperate wail echoed over the crowd when Ivor swung open the metal bars. A frail woman with her hands tied behind her back scrambled to the back of the wagon, sobbing and pleading. Her hair had been cut short, but Levi recognized her from the brothel as a woman his mother would sometimes talk to. Her name was Ada, if he remembered correctly, and she was almost unrecognizable between the haphazardly chopped hair and tear-stained face. Kicking at his meaty hands, squirming away from his vice-like grip, Ivor pulled her from the cart despite her best efforts.

Turning her away from the crowd, Ivor pinched her jaw and dumped the vial down her throat. He held her mouth shut until she swallowed as he whispered something in her ear. Sobbing, tears leaving salty streaks on her face and snot dripping from her nose, she stopped fighting him. Her shoulders slumped and her head hung like a rag doll, as if she had finally accepted what was coming to her. Guiding her by the back of the neck, Ivor led Ada up four wooden steps to the chopping block, his blocky hand grasping her arm when she tripped.

The crowd booed and jeered as Ivor pushed Ada to her knees in front of the block. She stared ahead, her eyes already dead and her body slumping to the side. Ivor righted her long enough to tie a blindfold over her eyes before she slumped over again. The man from the Military Police rang a bell to quiet the crowd. When the chatter and yelling subsided, he read the charges brought before Ada. Like the gentlemen in front of him had said, she had confessed to poisoning at least a dozen men, all of whom were prior customers of the brothel.

Once the charges had been read, Ivor pushed the woman down. With one massive hand on the back of her skull, he guided her neck, so it rested across the chopping block. The moment he let go, her head lolled to the side.

Releasing Ada to pick up the ax, Ivor watched as she slipped off the block completely. Her body curled up into itself like a frightened child, wetness seeping through her blindfold. He set the ax down on its head, holding it upright with one hand and motioning for his daughter with the other. The crowd grew quiet as the little girl joined him on the podium.

“Shit,” Ponytail drawled with more pity than Levi ever thought could fit into a curse word.

“Yeah,” Mustache Man agreed, forgetting the cigarette that burned between his finger tips.

Levi could not hear what Ivor said, but the girl nodded and knelt in front of Ada. Her small hands lifted Ada from beneath her jaw and pulled her back onto the chopping block. With Ada’s neck in place, the girl walked back on her knees as far away from the block as she could manage without letting go of Ada’s hair.

Ivor wrapped his bulking hands around the long handle of the ax and poised himself beside the block, waiting.

When the man from the Military Police gave the signal, Ivor hoisted the ax into the air and brought it down. Once, then once again, each strike accompanied by the thud of metal against flesh, wet plops of blood, and gasps of horror and cheers from the crowd. At least two people vomited at the sight and one man in the front row fainted.

Pale in the face and speckled with blood, the little girl detangled her fingers from Ada’s hair. Ada’s head rolled a few inches from where the girl had dropped it, blood staining the wooden podium in its path. The girl did not move until Ivor yanked her to her feet. Deaf to the audience, the little girl walked back to the cart as though she were drawn by a string and not of her own accord.

The man from the Military Police pronounced Ada dead as Ivor held up the still dripping head to the crowd. Levi’s stomach turned. For a moment, he thought he might join the people who lost their lunch at the sight, but he swallowed thickly and turned away. If he never saw either of them again, it would be too soon.

Twenty-five years later, and he still remembered that afternoon more clearly than he would have liked. It was not the most brutal death Levi had witnessed. Titans were plenty worse. Something else stood out about that one in particular, but Levi did not really know what. Even as he recounted the story to Marty, he could not say why the memory stuck with him so strongly.

Marty poured creamer into his coffee and paused the recording device. Quietly, he wrote a few notes while Levi finished his cup of tea. Even though Marty had listened to the very worst of Levi’s stories, it seemed the story about a little girl holding a severed head and struck him differently. The change in disposition only lasted long enough for Marty to finish writing his notes, the gears in his brain seemed to turn as he did so. Marty checked his recording device and looked up at Levi, intrigue written across his face.

Levi picked up one of the cranberry scones Marty ordered almost twenty minutes ago. “You’ve got questions.”

Marty tapped his pen. “I do,” he said. “But first, I want to hear what happened next.”

#attack on titan #aot #levi #levi ackerman #aot fanfiction

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cecilyneville · 4 years

Text

the spanish princess ep 2:

once more unto the breach, my fellow clowns

jsyk, i am skipping a lot of scenes bc i have far better things to do with my time (even under stay-at-home orders), and i cannot for the life of me watch the maggie pole/thomas more scenes. like what is the point of keeping maggie around, she is so boring. andrew buchan what were you THINKING signing up for this

reggie pole looks like a weird cross bw ben whishaw and sam riley

ok i take back what i said about laura carmichael last week - she’s a damn sight more talented than you-know-who. maggie still boring as hell tho

i can’t wait for the catherine/lina friendship blow-up...it’s coming & lina deserves so much better

oveido’s speech about childbirth and war...you been reading the mirror & the light dude?

THE GLOVE FROM ANNE OF BRITTANY!!!

james iv: i have done nothing wrong, ever, in my life / me: i know this and i love you

as someone with a catherine of aragon icon i just want to say that i really cannot stand tsp’s catherine, she has no redeeming qualities. ef keeps trying to make her likeable by asking oviedo to stay and letting meg keep james’ body but none of it actually gels with her behaviour

[dramatic militaristic music] really just sums up the lameness of this soundtrack

margaret’s prophetic dreams! i wish they’d included the part about her queen’s jewels turning to widow’s pearls

ANGUS DOUGLAS. ANGUS DOUGLAS. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, EMMA FROST

god he’s not even hot what’s the POINT. angus is supposed to be a hot dumbass fool who is just like “hey margaret i know you’re mourning your husband and have just given birth to his posthumous son and are trying to rule the country but are you dtf yet”. what did i do to deserve an ugly angus

i don’t get why they don’t also have meg pregnant at flodden. given that catherine is presumably going to lash out with jealousy at lina, mary, bessie - literally anyone who has given birth to a living son - i think it would have been a good choice, as well as drawing direct parallels between the two women

meg’s costumes are my fave. the colour palette suits georgie and her red riding cap is v cute

catherine’s clown shoes slapping on the floor as she storms off to war

like...it’s supposed to be such a moving scene and i’m just like wow she is literally the biggest moron to have ever lived

oh now she’s going into the enemy tent. honestly can james just kill her on the spot and then the rest of the show can be about margaret in scotland and mary & brandon in france

“he’s fighting for gold from king louis” shock horror! has catherine never heard of the auld alliance or???

like, i know they’re not actually wearing kilts, but the tartan is still stupidly ahistorical - we get it, they’re scottish!

love how catherine’s trying to do all this shit to rouse support, meanwhile in twp all elizabeth had to say was “do it for me” and all the lords were like yeah sure we love you lizzie

just in case the childbirth/war analogy wasn’t clear enough, we fucking get it emma

i’m not even going to comment about catherine physically fighting and actually killing people, this is the dumbest thing i have ever seen

meg saying james was her “best friend” would be lovely if there had been literally anything demonstrating that. georgie’s performance here is so good though. emotion! actual emotion!

so...catherine rode all the way back to london still covered in blood from the battle...once again i have no comment

also no comment on a very pregnant catherine looking wistfully on at a bird in a cage. i want to die

i know i’ve been going on about how good ruairi o’connor is - and he’s good - but i feel as if he’s a little miscast? idk, he’s just not rowdy enough for me to believe him as henry viii. his appearance and manner is very similar to jacob collins-levy though, which i appreciate

not nearly enough mary this episode imo

still stan the hell out of bessie blount. the strawberry-blonde hair! the rosebud mouth! the eoy vibes!!! (no i am not trying to suggest henry has an oedipal complex, that’s for d*vid st*rkey to do lol)

i hate that all these more interesting characters spend the whole time praising catherine for behaving like an absolute clod

emma frost has no idea how pregnancy and childbirth work (remember rosa’s miscarriage in s1?)

anyway, here’s hoping next ep will have some fun margaret in scotland scenes (lowering the portcullis at edinburgh castle...i can only dream)

#tbd #the spanish princess #so i AM going to put this in the tag bc i've been enjoying everybody else's bitchy liveblogs #but like...maybe don't read if you actually enjoy the show #meg continues to be the most interesting and nuanced character? wonder why that is lol

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aj-writes-here · 4 years

Note

can i have one where levi is annoyed he keeps having to do work when all he wants to do is cuddle with his s/o and baby?

Idk why the heck I’m writing at this time of the night, but I managed to finish it! It turned out a little bit more fluff than I expected. I don't know if this is what you wanted, but I hope you like it😅

A Stressful Day Ends Right

Paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork over his desk. Why the fuck did he have to be checking those filthy reports now? It was past nine pm, and he should be home by now, but no. He was stuck with the shitty paperwork. And annoyed as hell. He should be with his woman and his eight months old baby, not in his office with an empty cup of tea, and if he saw another letter of those reports he was going to go crazy.

—Dammit.

He cursed while looking over the one that seemed like the last report left, finally. It was probably the longest of all the ones he had seen so far, but it was his key to go back home. Once it was done, he gathered all of the documents and called for a cadet to leave them in Erwin's office. He was about to leave, but a voice stopped him right on his track.

—Captain Levi—A cadet said, a scared look on his face while saluting him. He felt slightly amused every cadet had the same look when they looked at him.

—What the hell do you want—He snapped.

—Commander Erwin needs you in his office, there's an emergency meeting.

A meeting? Why the fuck would Erwin had asked for a meeting at this time? Levi clenched his teeth, and the young cadet disappeared before he could say something to him.

He sighed, walking back to the Commander's office. He was not the only one, other Squad Leaders were there, and of course other ranks. The meeting was nothing big, just to discuss some aspects of the budget and how to use it with the equipment, food, and all of those shits that were not important to him, at least not now. After almost an hour of discussion, he was set free. Levi scarcely said goodbye to Erwin and almost killed Hanji with a simple gaze when she asked if he could help her with her experiments some other day.

It was a warm night, a slight cold breeze covered his body when he left the HQ but it was not a big deal. Levi and y/n house was near the place of operations, it was easier for both, Captain and Squad Leader.

It didn't take him more than twenty minutes to arrive, it was a small house but comfortable, warm, and clean. What else could he ask for? Making his way into his home, the first thing sounding in his ears was a cry.

When he got to the room he shared with y/n, Levi saw her carrying the little boy, trying to make him calm.

—You look like crap—Levi said—

—I know, thanks for noticing—She furrowed her lips. It had been a long day, and y/n had barely found time to eat properly.

—I'll take a quick shower and then the night is yours, I'll look after the brat—Levi left a brief kiss on his lover's forehead, and poked the baby's cheek with his index finger.

—You're the best, that's why I love you—y/n smiled, she knew he was tired as fuck so that was the least she could do for him.

—Tch, I know.

After saying that, Levi disappeared inside the bathroom, it was something quick just to remove the remains of the day, and of course, no way in hell he was going to hold his son with that dirty and full of germs uniform. He dressed in some slack pants, and a plain shirt, at least it was Friday and he had the weekend off, that only weekend. It was a fair moment to relax.

Levi saw y/n sitting on the bed, trying to calm the cry of the baby.

—What is wrong with him?—He asked walking towards the bed.

—No idea, he's been like this almost the entire day. He ate, I changed him, the only thing missing was to have a conversation with him about the meaning of life—Despite being tired, she laughed.

—Maybe your face scares him—At his dry joke, she punched him lightly on his shoulder. Levi let out a voiceless exhalation indicating he was joking.

—Someone ate a clown for dinner, apparently—She told him in response, giving him a brief kiss on his lips after.

—Go and do whatever you need to do, I'll handle him.

When the baby was in his father's arm, the crying stopped. His eyes were looking at Levi with full attention as if he were a weird object. The older man raised an eyebrow, and one of the baby's hand grabbed one of his dark locks, of course, he was developing his motor skills and he was grabbing anything in his way, didn't care if it was his father hair or nose. The little boy let out a happy laugh, forgetting about the teary eyes.

—I think someone has been missing you—she said in surprise at the sudden change of attitude— I have to say I'm a bit jealous.—y/n laughed, and after giving his son a short kiss on his head she made her way to the bathroom.

Levi sat on his side of the bed, laying his back on the headboard, and he bent his legs, letting his son's small back rest on his thighs.

He looked at the little creature with his usual bored face, but he couldn't deny that his kid was his greater joy. Levi grabbed one of his hands and shake it slowly up and down, making the baby giggle.

—You are going to be a pain in the ass when you're older, Theo—He said as if his son could understand him— I bet you'll be stubborn as hell.

He poked his cheek again, he was not the type that would speak to a baby with a high pitched tone or using ridiculous names to point things, but he could poke his cheeks, play with his hands, and always be there for him.

Letting out another giggle, Theo's small hand landed hard over Levi's nose, squeezing it tightly.

—Tch, stop it, you brat—He grabbed him by his wrist and try to take him away from his nose slowly, but it was a complicated task. Someone was going to have his father’s strength and mother’s willing. When the kid finally set him free from his grip, his hand small hand went to his mouth.—Oi, Theo. Don't put your filthy hands in your mouth.

Levi said with a louder voice, but it only made the boy giggle again. This time taking his hand away from his mouth was easier. He grabbed a cloth that was on his nightstand so he could clean Theo's hand.

They just stood there, looking at each other with profound curiosity, both of them trying to analyze and comprehend the strange creature in front of their eyes. They didn't even notice y/n coming out of the shower, nor did they notice the smile on her lips when she saw her two boys interacting in their very specific way.

After finally eating something, y/n went back to her room. Her heart melted at the scene, Levi was now laying on the bed with Theo sleeping on his chest, his hand was over his head as if he were trying to protect him from everything, and of course, he was going to protect him from all the dangers. Levi was tired, he had been working non stop, and now it was past midnight and yet there he was, attentive to everything.

—Try to sleep, Levi. I'll take him to the crib—She spoke lowly.

—Nonsense, I will. You get some damn rest.

The black haired man sat down thoughtfully, holding Theo on his arms while he walked to his room. Levi looked at his son sleeping peacefully on his arms, and he internally cursed Erwin for making him stay longer with that meeting and the paperwork, but at least he was going to have a weekend at home, it was something. Certainly, being a father was not on his plans, but now his baby boy was there, he swore to love him and protect him with his life. His expression softened just for a bit and he left a very simple kiss on his forehead, setting him down on his crib, covering him with the blankets.

Now back in his room he got rid of his shirt, and then he set himself under the sheets.

—Sorry for being late—He said.

—Don't be. I know how stressful things can get there, so don't think about breaking anyone's legs.

—Tch, where's the fun then.—Levi looked at her with an elevated eyebrow.

—You're an ass—y/n couldn't help but laugh while she held her weight on the side of her body so she could kiss him properly, just after she placed a kiss on his bare chest, right over a scar.

—You love me—Levi said, looking at her and poked the tip of her nose with his index finger, just as he did with Theo.

—That kid is going to be so stubborn—y/n said laughing at remembering her son not wanting anything with her but giving in when Levi arrived.

—If the brat is stubborn, it will be because of you.

—You wish—with a big smile, she left another playful kiss on his cheek.

She rolled on her side and immediately felt Levi holding her by her waist, nuzzling his face near hear. He kissed her shoulder for a few seconds and then is head went back to the pillow, holding her against his torso. She just loved those soft moments she could have with him, especially after a day of being doing different tasks, both of them exhausting. Maybe they were going to be lucky and Theo was not going to wake up in the middle of the night, so they could use those hours to hold each other and try to sleep for a bit. Even though Levi got home and have spent time with his son and y/n, he was still going to break Erwin's legs. At least figuratively.

#levi ackerman headcanons #levi ackerman imagines #levi ackerman #attack on titan headcanon #attack on titan imagines #attack on titan

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bbnibini · 3 years

Text

PSISLY: An Obey Me!CYOA – forty-nine🔖

Telling Levi that everything you experienced last night being a dream was a lie. You didn't remember buying such an expensive blanket, nor did it come with the stuff you packed for your week-long refuge in RAD. The receipt he clumsily left with you was evidence enough that he wrote the letter.

"Ghost my ass. Coward."

So you say, but you cuddled with the said blanket anyway, hoping remnants of him would be there.

If he loved you back, then why would he reject you? Should you have told him to wait for you? To fix your shit so he would give you another chance? It was pathetic. Now you understood Mammon's desperation. But you do need to fix your shit. And maybe stow away your daily necessities at your locker until tonight. Classes would start in a few hours and you needed to prepare.

That fucking locker.

If you would have known this would all happen, you wouldn't have opened it at all.

"Stupid ghost."

"Achoo!"

You jumped at the sound and wrapped the cursed blanket over you like some cloak of invisibility at one of Satan's wizard shows but you ended up looking stupid instead.

"Who's there?!"

Your sneezing invader ended up being the last demon you wanted to see while starting your day.

Fuck.

"You weren't there when I woke up. And they won't tell me where you are.

It's because of me, ain't it?"

"Mammon--"

Without any warning, he rushed up and hugged you, feeling the tightness of his hold. Your ghost crush's words repeated in your head like a mantra,

"Face reality."

…ringing incessantly in your head like a curse---of cruel fate trapping you, shaving away your own will and dictating your heart on what it should feel like the cheesy otome games which you play in pajama nights with Asmo and Levi.

Stupid fate told you to hug him back. To follow the script in this messed up romance story and fall in love with the right (person) demon.

"It's all right to feel surfeited. Your emotions are valid, no matter what other people will say. You shouldn't force yourself to love someone. It would be cruel to both of you."

But of course, your ever wise ghost crush has all the answers, for you remembered what he said again, along with your passionate kisses last night despite being in the arms of another man. You felt sick to your stomach.

"We're over."

"No!"

"I don't love you, Mammon. I'm sorry--"

You felt his tongue inside your mouth, probing, desperate, waiting...for you to look his way--to forget about a person who did not want to be remembered. To fall in love with him instead. To lose yourself in the kiss and finally give him a chance.

…but you pushed him away. You stopped yourself from raising your hand out of respect for his own feelings, even if he clearly didn't do the same for yours.

"I can't do this, Mammon. This is unfair!"

"I don't care! I love you! I'll make sure you'll love me too!"

"You're being ridiculous! You know I'm in love with someone else! Aren't you angry with me? I kept on telling you you're all these things when you're not! Why would you want anything to do with me?"

You were tired of crying. Your heart sought for the solace of that one fleeting dream, hopeful for an escape. Face reality? For what? To see how much of a horrible person you are?

"I should be the one saying that. I should have told you the moment I'd known!" He was shouting now, screaming at the top of his lungs at an early, sunless morning. His voice echoed through the hallways, a piercing screech, frustrated and angry at himself. At you. Your voice was a whisper in comparison.

"No, it was me. Why didn't I notice I was idealising you?" You answered back on the verge of raising your own voice, tempted by the catharsis brought about by mindless projection, uncaring of what it will destroy on its path.

"You're not. I wanted to change on my own. I stole your chance of you ever knowing him. I'm the scoundrel here, aren't I? Must be why you can't ever love me."

The hurt in his voice made your heart clench. You held him by the hand and shook your head repeatedly, letting out a voice as if it were on the verge of screaming. Deep breaths. You aren't the only one confused and pained about all of this. At some point, while false, you had feelings for him. And even if the truth of your twisted love story had been revealed, instead of that love diminishing, it only took a different form. You realised that with your conversations with Levi last night.

"You know that's not true! You have a lot of amazing qualities! Just because I love someone else doesn't mean that would ever change. Mammon, I care about you. That's why I want you to love yourself too."

Tightening your hold on his hands, you looked in his eyes, trying your all to make him see what he could not. Oh, you know there was something there. Something that would make both of you finally listen to each other, instead of shouting at each other but not hearing yourselves at all.

"You were my first demon. You stayed by my side and cared for me. Even if we didn't have the best first meeting, you have always treated me well. So…please don't say you want to change for those reasons. You deserve to be loved for who you are!"

Oh, to hell with this! Stupid feelings! Stupid tears! Stupid you! You were a sobbing, screaming mess, palms sweating as it was intertwined with his, eyes stinging from a love blinded by idealised illusions.

"I love him, Mammon. I want to find him…"

…only to find pain in realising the truth.

"He's a coward who won't even show his face to ya! Why would you love a jerk like that?"

A truth that the both of you couldn't take so kindly, evidenced by the fact that he spoke his next words with unbridled jealousy.

"Oh, he is! I hate him so much! But, I love him all the same!"

Your vociferations were feral---inextinguishable, lighting a fire in your heart that you thought was long gone. The same flames of wrath you snuffed out before even understanding the unfairness of your situation---of your own life being taken away, anger over those who could never understand the fragility of a transient existence as yours.

"He's the worst!"

You cried out, voicing out your complaints for a man who couldn't even tell you his name. His stupid name! "Arrogant! Prideful! Selfish! Telling me to face reality when he cannot even face his own!"

You aired out even more of your complaints, screaming at the top of your lungs, a crying sobbing mess--undergoing stress far too early in the morning for you to gain any sense or bearing. You didn't even realise your legs gave out on you as you were sitting with your legs splayed on the floor, muffling the sound of your sobs, hoping the tears would also stop.

You screamed until you had no more voice, calling out to your first demon in a hoarse whisper,

"I want to love you…but I can't…"

Mammon lost his anger the moment you broke down in tears, epiphany in his eyes that he was too emotional to ever understand or control. You were in his arms, this time not out of possession but of concern. His chest was stained with your snot and tears, uniform crumpled by the clench of your hands, clawing at some proverbial cliff your ghostly love threw you in to fend for yourself.

"Why would he kiss me? Why would he tell me he loved me if he couldn't fight for me? Why would he tell me to face reality when he's not here by my side?"

Mammon's clutter of a mind held back the urge to ask you 'You met him?' And instead held you in his arms, his desire to protect you from anything that causes you harm intensifying, even if the threat was himself.

There was a sense of understanding in his eyes, too late to be realised, or at least that was what he thought. He was disgusted by how similar he was with that scum of a man who didn't even have the courage to tell you his feelings face-to-face. He didn't say anything and held you until you calmed down, making soft strokes on your back as if you would shatter in his arms at the slightest touch. You probably did already, perhaps you had been broken all along. Maybe that was why he left you.

"If you want me to stay by your side," you said weakly, void of anything in your eyes, reflecting the bliss of abreaction. "I can only offer you my friendship. I'm tired, Mammon. I need space."

"Okay…" he answered back, hearing your voice for the first time.

"I'm sorry for hurting you."

"I'm sorry too."

"I want to break up with you."

"Yeah…we need that right now."

"I'm not good enough for you. For him. For anyone right now."

"That's not true. It's that guy's damn fault!" he quickly lowered his voice down upon seeing you look up at him. "He doesn't deserve ya."

"But I love him…"

It hurt to hear it from you, but he didn't comment. "Mhm. I know."

He held you in his arms for a while until your tears dried and both of you were calmer--able to listen to reason, or at least civil enough to have a coherent conversation.

He broke the ice and told you now that he had a deeper understanding of your situation, about his own truth. "It was the morning before I went to work at Witch's Brew. Little D gave me my own letter." "Apparently I placed it in some random classmate's locker. Couldn't even remember stupid instructions. That damn Belphie…"

"Belphie?"

Why is Belphie involved with this?

Mammon answered generously. "Yeah, Belphie. He was the one who told me your locker schedule.

Judging by the look on yer face…that..ain't good, huh?"

You nodded, replying softly. "I never told him about my locker."

"Wait. What?"

"I'm shocked too. I kept it from him before…especially after…you know."

"Oh."

"B-but I don't feel that way anymore! We're good now!" you replied, flustered.

"...I just didn't have the time to tell him, I guess."

Now that you were now on speaking terms, Mammon couldn't help but finally ask. "What about you?"

"Huh? Me?"

"Your face is a mess. You've got lipstick smudged like a clown--

Oi, I'm being serious here!"

You wiped the tears on the corner of your eyes. "Sorry, just laughing at the irony."

"In English, please."

You looked at him cautiously.

"Promise you won't get angry?"

"I already am and I don't even know why. It's that jerk, ain't it?"

You wrapped the blanket around you and covered your face. "Maybe…"

Since you knew Mammon's mind is probably racing with all kinds of tangent thoughts right now, you hoped to silence them with your brutal honesty.

"We kissed a bit…

Okay, maybe a lot. I'm sorry…"

Mammon was more concerned about your secret admirer's lack of responsibility more than anything. There was anger there of course, but he had already burnt out. Like you, he was also tired of…feeling. It was Satan's specialty, not his. Instead, he answered with slight annoyance. "Yet that jerk still left you?!" (Emphasis on the slight)

"It's not like that!" it was such a complicated and surreal situation that if you didn't experience it for yourself, you wouldn't even believe it. But you explained it to him, everything that happened. A dreamlike encounter, now only a reminder of your heartbreak.

"I was the one who forced myself on him. He kept on saying it was a dream but…" you showed him the blanket wrapped around you and flushed at the reminder of your nightly embrace. "...why does it feel so real?"

Mammon didn't know how to respond. Satan's spells are powerful stuff. It would keep every intruder away that only the likes of Lord Diavolo or the caster himself (or the Great Him!)could dispel. Still, it doesn't make sense. He can still feel the traces of magic in your temporary dwelling before he broke the barriers, familiar with the runes and the spell's intricacy---a magic that was entirely his fourth-born brother's.

"The spells were untampered before I got here. Even someone as powerful as the Demon King would leave traces of his magic if he went in here last night. Yet there's nothing. Only Satan's. Ya sure you really kissed someone here?"

"I-I did! He...he left this for me." you cuddled with the blanket even more, hoping it would hide the blush in your face.

"Tch." He rolled his eyes in secret and pretended not to look at your lovestruck face. No time for pining, stupid. He thought to himself.

"Only way I can think of is if that stupid jerk is Fat-- ex-Father himself."

G-God?!

"You ain't locking lips with that old geezer, aren't you?"

You? In love with God himself? That's the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard!

"I WOULDN'T DARE!"

"Yeah. Figures. This is hella weird."

Thankfully,even Mammon thought it was too impossible. You haven't met the man yourself, but you were certain it wasn't him.

"I agree."

Your beloved ghost crush had an odd, familiar air to him. A presence that made you feel safe, loved and protected. Treasured . Comfortable enough to joke and share laughs with each other despite only meeting for the first time.

"It feels like I've been waiting for him. Like we've been apart for a very long time, and we met each other again."

Awkward silence.

"You don't even know 'em." said Mammon, unable to hide the bitterness in his tone.

"I'm sorry...maybe we shouldn't--"

"S'cool. I was the one who asked anyway." Saying that though, he considered your situation and changed the topic."So…you're gonna stay here for a whole week?"

"That's the plan."

"Even if we're good now?"

You nodded. "Until we're both completely recovered and I don't want to beat his ass anymore."

"Heh. So you're not giving up on him? Even if he already did?"

How could you? As much as you want to, your heart told you that it still wanted to find him. And when you do…

"...I'll give him a piece of my mind. Hey Mammon?"

"Yeah?"

"I care about you, you know that?"

"Yeah. But it ain't the same as lovin' me, ain't it? You have bad taste in men."

"Mhm. The worst."

He let out a sigh, whether it was because of your stubbornness or your stupidity, or an amalgamation of both, you didn't know. But he must be disappointed in you right now. Even you aren't blind to the fact that he was the "better choice". But you hated that term. Mammon is so much more than a "choice". He was his own demon, he didn't deserve being objectified or being treated as a substitute for someone else.

"Just so you know, I ain't giving up either."

Yet here he is, equally stupid as you are, declaring his bold words with a toothy grin, hiding his pain to pacify yours. Something hurt in your chest at the thought. But you could do nothing else but pretend you didn't notice his unfair kindness.

"Eh?"

"My rival's as good as dead. I'll steal your heart, fair and square. You'll see!"

"Pfft. Don't ever write a poem."

"Well I'm sorry that jerk can write! Writers are lame anyway!"

The artificial sun illuminated the classroom with its orange hues, welcoming the day filled with new beginnings. You wished you could say the same for you, that this heartache, this ending, this pain would signal the start of your own. For Mammon too, so that he can learn to love himself again: a fresh start, an acknowledgement of the love you've had for each other despite parting ways.

"See you soon." You stood up slowly, and offered your hand to him.

Smiling he took it and answered back.

"Yeah. I'll be waiting. Always."

[ Mammon's Normal🌸Ending obtained.]

💌Read the epilogue

💌Autoload previous save slot

💌masterlist

#psisly #hamartia series #interactive fiction #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me x reader #obey me fic #obey me fanfic #cyoa #obey me mammon #obey me mammon x reader #obey me satan #obey me satan x reader #obey me barbatos #obey me barbatos x reader #obey me lucifer #obey me lucifer x reader #love letter #secret admirer

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little-ideas · 4 years

Text

Life in the Devildom

I’ve spammed playing Obey Me for ~1 week and have just begun chapter 16, so if anything is addressed in the series later, I haven’t gotten to it yet > < I tried to leave these ish outside the realm of the plot so hopefully they’re not too crazy :)

MC getting sick and the brothers freaking out because the last time they dealt with human illness was the bubonic plague

Time difference shenanigans:

The devils and angels say they’ll get something done “soon” or “briefly” and MC constantly having to ask for clarification

MC’s current schedule is fairly light, but they’ll be that rad senior citizen who’s always got something going on during the weekends

Zaramela concerts with Levi in 2058

Cheering on Luke & Barbatos w/ Beel in the Realms’ Centennial Bake-Off

Tea time with the Angels once a month

Convincing Diavolo to let the brothers in to the human world and getting true history/purpose on items in museums

Getting kicked out of various antique shows with Mammon until they’re both permanently banned from every single one

MC getting asked if they remember the name of that one book about ___ from the library of Alexandria

Just constantly being asked if they recall things/events/people from history

“Guys wtf that was millennia ago”

“Wasn’t born yet”

“Ask my great, great, great, great, great grandparents”

Asking the non-humans questions from ancient Earth’s history

“So like, what really happened with the dinosaurs?”

“We don’t talk it. Too soon MC”

“It was 65 million years ago, wtf do you mean ‘Too soon’?!?”

Brothers had to crash course human world info before MC showed up since going to the human world is limited to Barbatos, Diavolo, and Lucifer

Asking about religions and how true they are

MC probably asks Lucifer to curse their door after they learn he can do that so the others stop coming in uninvited

MC honestly is probably struggling so hard in their classes regardless of how much help and studying they get/do. MC’s common knowledge or background info can’t top what’s common knowledge to the devils. It’s a school for those who have lived for freaking ever what more can they learn about???

Upon accepting the reality they’re in the Devildom, MC starts making a list of people/souls they’d like to meet

All the things MC can’t do without help because they can’t fly or the task requires magic so is just constantly calling the brothers for help

Has Mammon on speed dial because he’s upset whenever the called help isn’t him

Honestly at some point MC just snaps at all the others because they keep calling Mammon stupid/fool/idiot (was implied that this has happened even in their angel days) and not only is it cruel, Mammon’s behavior may have started out as a desire for attention that’s now just habit because he’s canonically good when it comes to bets and things that get him money and is very emotionally cued in to MC

He’s also just 2nd most powerful after Lucifer yet still gets walked over by everyone

A lot of his actions just seem like he’s trying to do something to stand out or gain praise even if they’re not good

Many years ago I heard something on NPR or someplace that said class clowns are often highly intelligent and act in such ways because they’re bored, so MAYBE MAMMON’S THE SAME WAY AND NOT ACTUALLY STUPID *glares at the rest of the OM cast*

Look Mammon annoys me but he doesn’t deserve all the shit he gets from everyone else, ESPECIALLY since it’s been going on for millennia and he’s been hearing such things from so long he’s probably internalized it and is acting in such a way that makes it true

So MC stands up to everyone else about Mammon and they are all sHoOk

And thus begins MC’s reign as Mammon’s champion of justice and they have sleepovers where MC re-assures Mammon and helps him see his true worth. Continues even after their yr in the Devildom they have a pact Mammon gets summoned for self-worth night fIgHT ME

Stands up for Luke, too

And Levi as not being a “worthless” otaku (he’s an otaku, he takes pride in that, but he ain’t worthless)

Just extends this to everyone because all-powerful beings can still be insecure and struggle with emotions and self-value, especially when they’ve already been defined as powerful and are held up on a pedestal by others yet make fun of and put each other down a bunch

Humans may be the weakest and shortest living but don’t for a second think they wouldn’t and couldn’t kick demon and celestial ass if they have to

Are social beings by nature protecting friends and processing emotions is kinda our thing

Do the Celestial Realm and Devildom have therapists? Because MC’s the leading advocate for them now after seeing how mentally unhealthy everyone is

TBH Diavolo probably allows MC to get away with so much shit

Want an MC who’s not afraid to curse in front of him

And yeah MC will respect the established hierarchy, but still calls out the others’ BS and isn’t afraid to challenge him

Something that the others clearly are hesitant to do

So this puny, fragile (by demon standards) human having no qualms about voicing their opinion to Diavolo amuses the heck out of him and he probably appreciates it

They have an interesting relationship going forward, complete with their own set of jokes and clapbacks and they probably give Lucifer a heart attack the first couple of times

MC doesn’t realize anything’s amiss and is just interacting with Diavolo as normal, but Diavolo is purposefully messing with Lucifer

Lucifer bristles and is about to tell MC off when Diavolo just laughs or silently waves him off

Probably either questions Diavolo directly or asks Barbatos about it afterwards

MC just not giving a damn about the human-devil-celestial differences

“You want my soul? Fucking work for it”

#om #obey me

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vgdemy · 4 years

Text

The school year was finally coming to an end, which also included their stay at Gallagher. She felt so many things during this semester: pain, stress, anxiety, and betrayal. But there was also the part of her that was happy. Because of the people that she met, the friends that she made and will be keeping, and the fact that she had her group to back her up. Especially Grace. If Harper hadn’t invited her friend to the protest, things would’ve been different. She wouldn’t have been carted away to a strange school filled with spies. Especially a spy that became her (ex) boyfriend and another that was in love with her. It was a mess and the other deserved better.

Yet, there was the selfish side of her that was happy that Grace was with her. Because Harper had someone to fall back on when things got tough, to go to when stressed out, her rock that was always there for her. Because honestly, if she didn’t have her best friend, she would’ve lost it a lot sooner and that was on poor mental health. Grace was her everything and because she was her everything, her best friend deserved something special.

The two were sitting in the dining hall when Harper decided to ask. It was the perfect location that would add onto the aesthetic and flair of her question. She stood up, catching the attention of her best friend and even more so as she got down on one knee, hand going into her pocket to pull out a little box.

“Victoria Grace Demy,” Harper began, voices around them going hush, watching the show. She had to keep up a straight face because she was ready to crack. “You have been my best friend since freshman year where we met at that wack ass frat party. Because some jerk face was trying to hit on you and I slid in to save you. It was after that moment, when we talked for a bit and partied the entire time that we became best friends. You’ve been my ride or die ever since. From going to parties together, to crashing the other’s dates, and to pulling all nighters during finals week. We’ve done it all together.”

“Even while we’ve been here at Gallagher, you’ve been there for me and vice versa. From talking about stupid boys that don’t deserve our time to being absolute idiots when we’re together, I’m so glad to have you in my life and that you’re my wife.” A few ‘aws’ and laughs were heard that almost made her crack but she didn’t. Time to take it home, Harper. “Which is why I’m here today to ask if you’ll be my date to this boujee ass Gallagher dance. Let’s just focus on each other and no one else. No Rafael, no Jai, and no Michael. Just us and these wack ass matching necklaces that I got us because we’re cute and deserve it.” Popping open the case, Harper revealed the matching best friend necklaces that she made Levi buy (thanks for that bud, remember to buy her more stuff even when she’s gone xoxo). “So, what do you say? Be my date?”

She’s been breathing a little easier, knowing that they’re finally going home. She wishes she could say she grew from this experience, but in reality, she’s just a little more messed up than before, and with an additional ten pounds from all the stress eating.

Grace pokes at her food while they’re sat in the dining hall, not really feeling like eating ( or doing much of anything ) when thoughts of the past played a monstrous loop in her head, like the one from It where the Losers saw Pennywise manifest from that old-timey projector, except instead of a demon clown, it’s every moment where she felt like her heart was about to rip into two, and she can’t stop thinking about the worst versions of Jai and Rafa, angry and mean and with scowls on their faces, telling her to fuck off forever.

Note to self: kissing boys ( and falling for them ) are not, and will never be appropriate coping mechanisms to trauma.

Still. Harper keeping her company is all she can ask for during her last days in Gallagher, and the girl’s been trying her best to pick up the blonde from her slump ( God bless her ) and excited for the party. Grace is almost ashamed that she isn’t.

It’s almost telepathic, or karmic gravity ( if such a thing exists ) doing its magic of turning things around, how the sadness that blankets her begins the rumble like there’s an earthquake about to happen.

Grace is a little shocked when Harper says her full name ( gross, it never suited her ) loud enough for other people to hear. Her eyes go wide, and for a split second, she thinks she’s going to get a lecture from her best friend about thinking negatively again ( she’s pretty sure Harper can read her mind at this point ) and to not play with her food.

But then Harper slides into a story, and she knows exactly where this is headed. Blame the countless promposal compilation videos she watched growing up, wishing that that had happened to her.

Her best friend, her wife, is saving her, as always.

Before she knows it, she’s beaming at Harper’s romantic reverie ( she’s positively gushing ), and she’s right, isn’t she? Without each other, they would’ve gone insane in this school. They’re each other’s complete and utter ride or dies, and nothing could ever replace the feeling of someone having your back like a best friend does. Not even a thousand Rafas or Michaels could come close.

She’s speechless in the best way possible, and she only squeals in delight when Harper presents her with a gift.

Matching best friend necklaces. Because, obviously. It’s cheesy, corny, and fucking amazing. It’s already her favorite piece of jewelry of all time.

She’s so happy that her smile wore her, and she feels an overflowing sense of love that only Harper could ever make her feel. When you’re this busted as a person, and someone still wants to do crazy things for you just to make you smile, you know you have a best friend for life.

Grace enthusiastically nods, and a giggle fit bursts through her from sheer happiness and excitement, “Oui! I’d be honored!” It takes her all of two seconds to envelop her best friend in a hug, and she’s almost in tears because of the gesture ( damn it, Rafa, it’s this simple ) and she laughs, “Je t'aime, Harper. What would I do without you?” her voice is a little softer than her high-pitched, fairy-like ‘yes!’ because she means it when she says she’d be lost without her. She briefly pulls away from their hug to say, “Absolutely no boys. Just us looking gorgeous and having fun,” before wrapping her arms around Harper right back, even tighter this time.

When you have a best friend like Harper, what more could you possibly need?

#threads / harper kent #bye #submission

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hanji-zoe103 · 5 years

Text

LeviHan Spookfest! Whispers/Screams

Haunted House-

By: Hanji-Zoe103

“This is stupid, I can’t believe I let you talk me into this…” Levi grumbled.

“Ooooh, are you scared?” Hanji teased.

She and Levi were on their way to a haunted house. The scariest house Hanji could find.

“Of a stupid fake house? Yeah right.” Levi snapped.

“This is the scariest most haunted one around!” Hanji said.

“So, you’ll piss your pants, got it,” Levi replied with a smirk.

“I will not!” Hanji said.

“We’ll see,” Levi replied.

Hanji parked and got out of the car. It was dark, creepy, cold and a fog floated over the ground. People came running out of the haunted house, some crying, some paler than a ghost. Hanji gulped.

“Chickening out already?” Levi asked.

“Hell no!” Hanji replied.

She grabbed his hand and walked up to the main entrance. There was a warning sign that this was not for the weak or faint of heart or children. The attendant lead them into a room.

“Have a frightfully terrible time,” they said.

The door was shut and Levi and Hanji were plunged into darkness. Hanji jumped slightly hearing the loud click of the lock.

“Just getting ready!” She quickly said.

When hinges creak in door-less chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls. Whenever candlelight’s flicker where the air is deathly still — that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight!

Hanji moved closer to Levi. This had only just begun and it was already creepy.

Consider this dismaying observation: this chamber has no windows and no doors… which offers you this chilling challenge: to find a way out! Of course, there’s always my way…

Thunder boomed and a bright flash of light lit up the room, followed by a scream. Upon looking up, Hanji and Levi saw a skeleton drop from the ceiling with a noose around his neck. Levi tensed up a bit but quickly brushed it off.

Do you dare enter the realm of the undead and monsters….? Find the passageway and begin your dreadfully awful scary tour.

Hanji grabbed Levi’s hand. They slowly began to feel around on the walls. There was a soft creak and a door slowly swung open. Levi lead Hanji into the foggy, dimly lit hallway. Candelabras flickered in the dark.

We find it delightfully unlivable here in this ghostly retreat. Every room has wall-to-wall creeps, and hot and cold running chills. Shhh, listen!

“Help us…HELP usssss….”

“Death… death… death…”

“You…cannot…escape…”

“That’s mildly creepy,” Hanji muttered.

“Just people behind the walls talking,” Levi said.

“Levi…Hanji….”

“How the f**k does this thing know our names?” Levi asked.

This creeped him out.

“J-just a game I-I suppose?” Hanji suggested nervously.

There was a creak and then two doors swung open. A werewolf came rushing out. Hanji screamed and jumped onto Levi’s back. The werewolf stopped and retreated.

“Fake. You can see the tracks.” Levi grumbled.

“I-I knew that!” Hanji lied.

“I was um…just testing you!”

“Uh-huh,” Levi muttered.

They continued into the maze of the haunted house. The next room was an eerie long hallway. It was decorated like an old Victorian home, doors lined the walls. There was a creepy tickling and tolling of an old grandfather clock. Doorknobs shook and ratted as if something was trying to get in. A loud sudden bang and scream made Levi jump.

“HA!” Hanji teased.

“Normal reaction idiot,” Levi said.

Moments later, a coffin fell from the ceiling. Both Hanji and Levi jumped.

“Let me out, let me out of here!” came a mans voice.

“M-moving on!” Hanji said as she quickly walked past.

Levi poked at the coffin, seeing if it was real. The lid popped open and fog poured out followed by a skeletal hand.

“GUH!” Levi exclaimed,

He quickly followed after Hanji. Only to find her cowering in a corner.

“Hanji?” Levi said.

She pointed behind him. Sitting on a giant web, was a ginormous, hairy, mouth full of fangs, spider.

“Oh come on, it’s fake!” Levi assured her.

He grabbed her hand and tried to pull her to the next area. Hanji refused to move. She hated spiders. Levi picked her up and walked by. He lightly punched the spider.

“Don’t scare my wife.” He said.

Once into the next room, Hanji got down. Levi ruffled her hair. They were near the end and he didn’t even seem to be afraid. Hanji on the other hand, had gotten many scares and wanted to get out. The pair headed to the next room, a carnival theme… Broken lights flickered along with creepy sounding carnival music. Demonic laughter echoed through the air. Levi and Hanji could see the exit at the far, far end of the building. They began walking, unaware something was lurking in the shadows.

“Hanji, quit touching my back, it’s irritating,” Levi said.

“I’m not touching your back, I’m in front of you!” Hanji replied.

They both came to the unpleasant conclusion that they weren’t alone here.

“Hanji…?” Levi said.

“Please tell me that’s your hand on my shoulder…”

Hanji stepped away and shook her head.

“Levi, don’t freak out…but uh..” she said.

“There’s a demonic clown behind you.”

Levi’s blood ran cold. If there was anything he was afraid of, it was damn clowns. Bad memories from when he was a kid and a carnival clown traumatized him.

“Wanna play little boy…?” the clown whispered to his ear.

Hanji had never heard Levi scream/curse so loud and never seen him run so fast out of a building. With Levi gone, the clown turned its attention to Hanji.

“Come here pretty lady, I have a special “treat” for you,” the clown said followed by psychotic laughter.

“DON’T YOU LEAVE ME HERE LEVI!” She yelled running out after him.

Hanji ran straight to the parking lot but saw no sign of Levi. She leaned against the car, panting and shaking slightly. Then she remembered, shit where was Levi?!

“Levi?!” Hanji called.

“Are those things gone?” Levi replied from somewhere.

“Yes, we’re good,” Hanji said.

“Where are you?”

Just then a pinecone bounced off her head and Levi jumped down. This caused Hanji to jump in surprise.

“We’re going home and I’m not EVER coming back to this thing,” Levi said as he pushed her inside the car and drove home.

#levihanspookfest #levihanspookfest2019 #@levihanweek #hanji zoë #levi ackerman #levihan

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freedomartspress · 4 years

Text

Three Poems — Tongo Eisen Martin

Kick Drum Only

All street life to a certain extent starts fair

Sometimes with a spiritual memory even

Predawn soul-clap/ your father dying even

Maybe I’ve pushed the city too far

My sensitivities to landfill districting and minstrel whistles/

White supremacist graffiti on westbound rail guards

-all overcome and reauthored

The garbage is growing voices

Condensed Marxism

modal gangsterism for a warrior-depressive

Underpass in my pocket

because I am a deity

or decent bid on the Panther name

revolutionary violence that chose its own protagonists

or muted stage of genius

A merciful Marxism

Disquieted home life

Or metaphor for relaxing next to a person

Who is relaxing next to a gun

I stare at my father for a few seconds

Then return to my upbringing

Return to the souls of Ohio Black folks

Revolution is damn near pagan at this point

You know what the clown wants? The respect of the ant.

Wants a pen cap full of bullets

Wants to see their ancestors in broad daylight

I am not tired of these rooms; just tired of the world that give them a relativity

My only change of clothes prosecuted

The government has finally learned how to write poems

shoot-outs that briefly align…

that make up a parable

white bodies are paid well, I posit

do white men actually even have leaders?

all white people are white men

white men will only ever be metaphors

all I do is practice, Lord

A rat pictures a river

Can almost taste the racial divide

Can almost roll a family member’s head into a city hall legislative chamber

Knows who in this good book will fly

I have decided not to talk out of anger ever again, Lord

Met my wife at the same time I met new audience members for our pain

We passed each other cigarettes and watched cops win

A city gone uniquely linear

Harlem of the West due a true universe

“I will always remember you in fancy clothes,” my wife said

so here I sit… twisting in silk ideation

My rifle made of tar

My targets made of an honest language

This San Francisco poetry is how God knows that it is me whining

Writing among the lesser-respected wolves

Lesser-observed militarization

Dixie-less prison bookkeeping/I mean the California gray-coats are coming

lynch mob gossip and bourgeois debt collection

I mean, it’s tempting to change professions mid-poem

in a Chicago briefing, a white sergeant saying, “blank slate for all of us after this Black organizer is dead.”

standard academics toasting two-buck wine at the tank parade

bay of nothing, Lord

nuclear cobblestones, gunline athleticism

and the last of the inherited asthma

children given white dolls to play with and fear

facial expressions borrowed from rich people’s shoe strings

I can hear hate

And teach hate

And call tools by people names

And name people dead to themselves

no one getting naturalized except federal agents soon

carving the equator into throats soon

I’m sorry to make you relive all of this, Lord

pre-dawn monarchy

friends putting up politician posters then snorting the remainder of the paste

minstrel scripts shoveled into the walls by their elders

my children sharpening quarters on the city’s edge

For these audiences

I project myself into a ghost like state

For these gangsters, I do the same

every now and then, we take a nervous look east

Sleep becomes Christ

Sleep starts growing a racial identity

do you ever spiral, Lord?

has the gang-age betrayed us?

be patient with my poems, Lord

So much pain

there is a point to crime…

There has to be if race traitors come with it

Lord, is that my revolver in your hand?

Better presidents than these have yawned at cages

Have called us holy slaves

Filled the school libraries with cop documentaries

Baby, I don’t have money for food

I have no present moment at all

I Do Not Know the Spelling of Money

I go to the railroad tracks

And follow them to the station of my enemies

A cobalt-toothed man pitches pennies at my mugshot negative

All over the united states, there are

Toddlers in the rock

I see why everyone out here got in the big cosmic basket

And why blood agreements mean a lot

And why I get shot back at

I understand the psycho-spiritual refusal to write white history or take the glass freeway

White skin tattooed on my right forearm

Ricochet sewage near where I collapsed

into a rat-infested manhood

My new existence as living graffiti

In the kitchen with

a lot of gun cylinders to hack up

House of God in part

No cops in part

My body brings down the Christmas

The new bullets pray over blankets made from old bullets

Pray over the 28th hour’s next beauty mark

Extrajudicial confederate statue restoration

the waist band before the next protest poster

By the way,

Time is not an illusion, your honor

I will return in a few whirlwinds

I will save your desk for last

You are witty, your honor

You’re moving money again, your honor

It is only raining one thing: non-white cops

And prison guard shadows

Reminding me of

Spoiled milk floating on an oil spill

A neighborhood making a lot of fuss over its demise

A new lake for a Black Panther Party

Malcom X’s ballroom jacket slung over my son’s shoulders

Pharmacy doors mid-slide

The figment of village

a noon noose to a new white preacher

Wiretaps in the discount kitchen tile

-All in an abstract painting of a president

Bought slavers some time, didn’t it?

The tantric screeches of military bolts and Election-Tuesday cars

A cold-blooded study in leg irons

Leg irons in tornado shelters

Leg irons inside your body

Proof that some white people have actually fondled nooses

That sundown couples

made their vows of love over

opaque peach plastic

and bolt action audiences

Man, the Medgar Evers-second is definitely my favorite law of science

Fondled news clippings and primitive Methodists

My arm changes imperialisms

Simple policing vs. Structural frenzies

Elementary school script vs. Even whiter white spectrums

Artless bleeding and

the challenge of watching civilians think

“terrible rituals they have around the corner. They let their elders beg for public mercy…beg for settler polity”

“I am going to go ahead and sharpen these kids’ heads into arrows myself and see how much gravy spills out of family crests.”

Modern fans of war

What with their t-shirt poems

And t-shirt guilt

And me, having on the cheapest pair of shoes on the bus,

I have no choice but to read the city walls for signs of my life

The Chicago Prairie Fire

First, I must apologize to the souls of the house

I am wearing the cheek bones of the mask only

Pill bottle, my name is yours

Name tagged on the side of a factory of wrists

Teeth of the mask now

Back of the head of the mask now

New phase of anti-anthropomorphism fending for real faces

Stuck with one of those cultures that believes I chose this family

I am not creative

Just the silliest of the revolutionaries

My blood drying on

my only jacket

just as God got playful

the police state’s psychic middlemen

Evangelizing for the creation of an un-masses

An un-Medgar

Blood of a lamb less racialized

or awesome prison sentence

Good God

Elder-abuse hired for the low

dog eat genius

Right angle made between a point

On a Louisiana plantation

And 5-year old’s rubber ball

3 feet high and falling

like a deportee plane

to complete my interpretation

(of garden variety genocide)

I am small talk

about loving your enemies

A little more realistically

About paper tigers

And also gold…

I need my left hand back

I broke my neck on the piano keys

Found paradise in a fistfight

Maybe I should check into the Cuba line

Watching the universe’s last metronomes

some call Black Jacobins

Just wait…

These religions will start resigning in a decade or two

Some colorfully

Some transactional-ly

In a cotton gothic society

Class betrayal gone glassless/ I mean ironically/ my window started fogging over too

Wondering which Haiti will get me through this winter

Which poem houses souls

Which socialist breakthroughs

Breakthroughs like ten steps back

Then finally stillness

Stillness

Then stillness among families

a John Brown biography takes a bow

I’m up next to introduce Prosser to Monk

I remember childhood

Remember the word “Childhood” being a beginning

Scribbling on an amazing grace

I rented this body from some circumference of slavery

Remember being kicked out of the Midwest

Strange fruit theater

Lithium and circuses

Likeminded stomachs

The ruling class blessing their blank checks with levy foam…

with opioid tea

Sentient dollar bills yelling to each other pocket to pocket

Cello stands in the precinct for accompanying counterrevolutionaries

My mother raised me with a simple pain

A poet loses his mind, you know, like the room has weather

Or first-girlfriend gravity

Police-knock gravity

Mind-game gravity

Or revolution languishing behind

The sugar in my good friend’s mind

“The difference between me and you

Is that the madness

Wants me forever”

A pair of apartments

Defining both my family

And political composure

Books behind my back

Bail money paved into the streets

Playing:

Euphoria

Cliché

Bracing for the medicine’s recoil

Sharing a dirty deli sandwich with my friends

Black Jacobins

Underground topography

Or grandmother’s hands

Psychology of the mask now

Teeth of the mask again

—

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker and educator who has organized against mass incarceration and extra-judicial killing of Black people throughout the United States. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book of poems, Someone’s Dead Already was nominated for a California Book Award.

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myamoonie · 4 years

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How about I take my anger out on the brother huh? Das cool right? Bc GOD I really need it. I can get really angry over a short period of time I’m no satan tho I’m not faking a smile, fuck all that. I’m stressed and depressed.

I love y’all all of my followers n all but I really don’t like belphie stans, specifically the ones say believe belphie is right for killing mc (or that it’s okay in whatever way). You can like belphie that’s whatever because he’s not awful if u ignore that he killed mc, but for me he’s just not it. He’s very clingy and bossy n I don’t like that, he gives off a yandere vibe but the worse kind. There’s nothing I like about belphie I think he’s the first character I’ve ever genuinely disliked. He tries to start shit between Lucifer and mc and gets upset when mc shows that he’s not their favorite. Tries to get mc to ruin Lucifer and satans recently formed bond. Bc you can’t tell me calling satan Lucifer wouldn’t cause a ripple in their friendship.

I like Beel, but he still deadass tried to kill me over custard. I’m always hungry n I kinda relate, however I can and will forget to eat and getting sad will make me lose my appetite which makes it harder to remember to eat. Beel cool I don’t really have much to say. I wish he’d defend mammon bc he seems like the only other caring character but he has his own problems so I understand a lil.

Asmo just needs a hug I’ll provide but damn does he really need one. I feel like asmo has depression n needs constant validation. People give him it yeah but he knows it’s all bc of his charm or bc of how attractive he is and just wants someone to love him for him and he’s clinging to the hope that mc will (n based off my time within this fandom not many of them reciprocate his feelings) I’m someone who picks a fave at the beginning and doesn’t change,, or at least tries not to.

I think all the brothers has their own issues n take it out on mammon but that’s for later.

Satan is okay, I really hope people stop associating him (in game) with Lucifer bc they’re not the same person and he’s tearing himself apart trying to prove that to everyone. Yeah sure they may have some similarities but bitch they’re related!! And they live together you pick up habits from people u live around. But none of that excuses how he talks to mammon.

Levi’s cool, he a lil bitch but a cool one. He’s trying his best I know. The constant need to tell mammon how terrible Levi thinks he is is annoying and unnecessary. I’ll admit it’s super fucking annoying when someone doesn’t pay back their dues and that he probably decided to give mammon one more chance when handing money over to mammon but still foolio! Stop fucking giving him money it’s not helping u or him. You’ve been around him for CENTURIES AND UR STILL DOING THIS. Who’s the real clown gotdamn.

Mammon’s baby case closed. Mammon hasn’t done shit to us but tbh he doesn’t get an opportunity to. Luci puts mammon onto us the first day and it’s his responsibility to take care of us with the threat of punishment hanging Over his head so he didn’t have much wiggle room. he does threaten to eat us a few times and does go through our stuff looking for things to sell buuuuut it’s what he does Damn it. It’s like getting mad at Beel for eating at 2am. Mammon just might get physically sick if he doesn’t do something related to money we don’t know either way I stan him and he’s baby. All my faves are the type that I wanna protect from others who’ll make fun of them (ex: jumin, Zapp, Baku) they may be assholes but they’re my assholes.

Luci’s a little bastard. I cannot stand to be told what to do it bothers me so much he reminds me of my mother with him feeling like the only means of displine are physical and humiliation. A lot of the shit he did just pissed me off bc I don’t like him, I don’t wanna dance with him n I definitely don’t wanna be alone with him. Even now I don’t like him. I understand how stressful it can be to watch over a bunch of little shits that don’t appreciate you and everything you’re doing for them but that’s not the way to do it. But he’s a demon, pride at that. So he can’t comprehend compassion and empathy ig. But how long is that excuse gonna work??

None of the brothers truly gave a shit about mc, I genuinely think the boys are/were affected by their pacts. Since afterwards they get much nicer (idk for sure bc belphie was ‘nice’ before and after his pact) it could also explain why Lucifer avoided making a pact for so long,, but I don’t remember much,,,,

No mammon I will not make up with your brothers they SUCK!!

Basically: I don’t like belphie and all his brothers owe mammon an apology.

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itsmariotti-blog · 5 years

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Jay Mariotti: Who's got it better? Harbaugh

He wasn’t on the ballot and has yet to coach a game at Michigan, yet Jim Harbaugh finished fourth in voting last week for the student-body presidency. This should shock no one who has watched life’s two proven equalizers, karma and justice, embrace him with hugs and love since Dec. 28. You’ll remember that as the dark and dirty afternoon when the 49ers — and there is no other way to state it — removed his khaki-covered carcass from the premises in one of football’s all-time mismanagement fiascos.

Those of us who know Harbaugh — me from way back — realize his public persona is something of an act. Yet no PR firm could shape a campaign that has him coming off as a happy, wealthy and enormously popular BMOC, in contrast to a Jed York-Trent Baalke corporate abomination that grows more sour and depressing by the hour at Levi’s Stadium. Seems Harbaugh makes more news than the Kardashians these days, the difference being that his events always glow with good, fun vibes, devoid of a Kanye or Disick funk.

“Disappointed w/4th place finish for @umich student body Pres,” he cracked Monday on his Twitter account. “Competitive juices flowing! Hat in the ring for 2016 & will campaign.”

Can a man beat Urban Meyer and rule a large student body in one swoop? Jimmy Frat House might be the only coach capable of pulling this off. It’s amazing how he keeps his personal headline cycle generating with cool water-cooler buzz that must warm the collective embittered souls of 49ers fans, who at least can root for Harbaugh from afar while their franchise implodes amid a crippling roster exodus and a bizarre coaching appointment. If he already had blown away York and Baalke in the public-opinion race, what’s happened since is a rout akin to the last Seahawks loss.

There was Harbaugh on a snowy afternoon in Ann Arbor, playing good Samaritan when he observed a rollover crash on an interstate highway. Christine Mowrer didn’t know who he was, but covered in blood after her 2003 Jeep Cherokee flipped at least three times, she was relieved to see Harbaugh and another football staff member wrap her and her 73-year-old mother in blankets and administer first aid until help arrived. “He probably kept me from going into shock,” Mowrer, 53, told the Ann Arbor News from her hospital bed. “I had blood dripping out of my nose, and he helped me out and got me onto the ground.”

Meanwhile, in Santa Clara, York and Baalke were trying to explain the identity of Jim Tomsula and douse speculation that Tomsula had undercut Harbaugh to get his job, furthering perceptions that the departed angel had been sabotaged by the worst kind of office politics. As Harbaugh said to a Bay Area columnist, “[You] definitely walk down the halls and people look away or they look at you and you know something’s going on,” adding that it would be a good issue for Tomsula to address. When Tomsula did address it, he blamed the media and never really denied it.

There was Harbaugh, going to Michigan basketball games, belting out the “Hail to the Victors” school fight song and pressing his hand against his heart during the national anthem. There was Harbaugh, staying in a budget hotel with his assistant coaches and eating pre-dawn cereal in the lobby before carpooling to Schembechler Hall and staying until midnight. There was Harbaugh, hanging out with his 25-year-old son, Jay, the new tight ends coach. There was Harbaugh, waving at students who wear “Maize, Blue and Khaki” T-shirts and “Welcome to Ann Arbaugh” clothing lines. St. Jim, they were calling him.

Meanwhile, in Santa Clara, York and Baalke were ducking reporters on a day when serious explanations were needed for fans. Why was Patrick Willis retiring? Why were Frank Gore and Mike Iupati leaving? Why was Justin Smith considering leaving? Why was yet another player in trouble with the law? Why wasn’t the highly regarded Vic Fangio given the head coaching job? And why was Tomsula babbling incoherently during a CSN Bay Area introductory interview?

There was Harbaugh, a big fan of the “Judge Judy” show, using his Twitter feed to congratulate Judith Sheindlin for signing a contract extension, to which she replied with a good-luck wish for his opening collegiate season. There was Harbaugh, hosting NFL prospects Jameis Winston and Bryce Petty for precombine workouts in what only could be a tribute to his standing as a quarterbacking guru.

Meanwhile, in Santa Clara, Baalke was denying reports he is shopping Harbaugh’s regressing pet QB, Colin Kaepernick. This while Kaepernick was engaging in Twitter wars and telling one fan, @battman_returns, to “mind your damn business, clown” and to “get better at life!” — all because one Stephen Batten had said Kaepernick’s abs workouts wouldn’t help him find open receivers, which is kind of true.

There was Harbaugh, escaping the Midwest winter for Arizona, coaching first base for the A’s as a “special guest instructor” for an old pal from his Palo Alto boyhood, manager Bob Melvin. And you know what he said after the Cactus League victory? “How does it get any better than this?” he gushed, in a variation of his famous line. “It’s a great day for baseball, and just to be able to put on the uniform … I haven’t been in a baseball uniform since American Legion ball.”

“He’s an inspiration just walking out here,” Melvin said. “He’s got that air about him. He’s always been quite the competitor and everyone knows that. A winner. And whenever you can have guys like that around, guys benefit from it. Plus you don’t find too many guys who want to get in uniform and go out there and interact with the guys during the workout.” Meanwhile, in Santa Clara, emerging defensive star Chris Borland was becoming an inspiration in his own right by retiring from football at age 24, injecting a cursed element into the raging chaos.

Given the turbulence and in-house leaks that undermined Harbaugh’s final season with the Niners, he deserves to experience a blossoming love affair at his alma mater. If York were an effective CEO, he would have made the Harbaugh-Baalke combination work and buffered their strained relations. The Seahawks have made it work with Pete Carroll and John Schneider, but instead of drawing lines for the coach and GM, York did the covenient management dance and sided with his fellow exec. I covered a fairly famous sports dynasty, the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s, that ended prematurely because an owner couldn’t soothe the differences between a general manager and a coach named Phil Jackson, who went on to win more championships than any coach in NBA history. Yet everyone weathered the storms long enough to win six titles, six more than these 49ers won.

“You have to have like-minded people building a team,” Baalke said in a media gathering after Tomsula’s first news conference. “If you don’t have like-minded people building a team, coach, coaching staff, front office … If we’re not all looking for the same characteristics, the same type of players, it’s tough to build a unit that can go out there on Sundays and win football games.”

We’re still waiting for York to say that he failed in letting the marriage collapse, in choosing a winner and a loser. Clearly, he wasn’t overly interested in appeasing Harbaugh after using his ultrasuccessful debut season to help get a $1.3-billion stadium built in Silicon Valley. The coach was too popular and wanted too much power, and regardless of his three consecutive appearances in the NFC title game, the big bosses wanted control and no tugging of the rope. Now, Baalke gets to pull the strings of his puppet, Tomsula, and tell him which assistants to hire and which players to acquire. Now, York can preside over his sterile, quiet stadium — the high-tech antithesis of Candlestick — and count megaprofits from Super Bowl 50, WrestleMania 31 and an outdoor hockey game.

Each party in this debacle has gained total control — Harbaugh in Ann Arbor, York and Baalke in Santa Clara. Yet only one man is going to win a lot of football games anytime soon. Someone asked Harbaugh if he viewed himself as the messiah of Michigan.

“I’m not comfortable with that at all,” he said.

Oh, yes, he is. Very comfortable.

Be happy for him. He deserves that much.

Mariotti is sports director and lead sports columnist at the San Francisco Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected]. Read his website at jaymariotti.com.

#Jay Mariotti Sports Columnist #Jay Mariotti

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ashtrayfloors · 6 years

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My list of "things I need to do/get" right now reads as such: Go to Closet Classics and buy a new corset. (Something appropriate for a sexy, yet melancholy clown-girl.) Go to a flower shop and buy corsage pins. (Not for corsages, but for sticking through my flesh.) Go to the costume warehouse and buy clown make-up. Go to the library and rent Fellini's movie The Clowns. (Study the funeral scene in particular.) The circus is my life. My life is a circus. I couldn't be happier.

I have been saying that I am at a loss for words for the recent events of my life. That statement is not entirely true. The words are all there inside me, so many of them, it is like I am made of words. But they are refusing to come out. They are holing up inside me and it is making me ill. I wake up with my shoulders stiff and my stomach roiling; the words have burrowed themselves into my muscles and they are swimming around in my stomach like fishes with consonant eyes and vowel tails. I just wish I could get them to stop being afraid of the open air, to come out into the light where they could be of some use instead of just making me achy and nauseous. When did my words become fearful? They used to be so brave. When did the truth start to scare me? My beautiful Underwood is broken, and though I've fixed typewriters before, I can't figure out how to fix it. That is not helping with my wordproblem - I have always been able to write more freely on that Underwood than on any other typewriter, or any computer, or with any pen or notebook. I have to buckle down and write - fear and broken typewriters be damned. I only have a few days left to do my twenty-four-hour zine; and I got perhaps overly ambitious this year and decided to do not one, but two of them. And this is the last month and a half of my life, right here, told with the only words I can coax out.

II.

In mid-June, Levi and I went on a roadtrip. June is one of my favorite months to be out on the road, out in the Great American Night. June is one of my favorite months, in general. Everything bursts with life; the world is not so sure of itself and much more fun. The curtain that separates the mundane from the magical is much easier to push aside in June. Which is why it is a good month for travel - there is so much more to see. I wrote a couple entries from the road - well, one written one, and one voice post. There are so many things to say about the journey. As always, I spent half the time hanging out with ghosts; some of the spectral kind, but most of them just memories of my past. J. was there, for part of the drive, talking about that roadtrip we took together a few years back, to go to the Underground Press Conference in Bowling Green. He sat in the back and I tried to ignore him, he is a ghost that makes me sad, but it was difficult because he kept pounding out rhythms on the back of my seat. A.W. appeared alongside the road as we drove past Rockford. He sent a huge, white moth flying into the open car window. He was trying to remind me that I should never, ever take things for granted; because just when you come to count on something, it disappears. I gasped when I saw his ghost in the high beam of the headlights, because for a moment I thought he was really there, in flesh and blood, 'til I remembered that he is in Korea right now. And then I felt a wave of relief, followed immediately by a wave of great sorrow, remembering the way I broke his heart and how in doing that, I broke my own. Ian followed me around St. Louis - peering around certain corners in Laclede's Landing, I caught glimpses of his mohawk and his kilt. He was there to remind me of the days when I had no qualms about fucking a boy I'd just met a few hours before. His ghost made me sad, too; I am not that girl anymore, and I wouldn't want to be, but I do miss how brazen she was. Brazen and brave and bold, all those marvelous b-words. J.W. popped up in St. Louis a couple times, too, but his ghost only made me angry. Shoo, I growled under my breath when no one was listening. I have no use for you, anymore. You're being a dick. You're not welcome to take up space in my mind. Leave me alone. Go drink your whiskey and write bad poetry about sex and cigarettes. Even Maggie’s ghost hitched a ride a few times - she regaled me with her memories of our odyssey (the second time I ran away with the circus). She rolled cigarettes and sang: Sometimes I miss those days, that's right, you heard me. Other times I could not give a damn. Her ghost unsettled me more than any of the others, because she is still in my life. But it was the ghost of the way she used to be, back in those days, and it reminded me that even though we are still bloodsisters, we have changed, the nature of our friendship has changed, and things will never be the same. Which is both good and bad. Or rather, neither good nor bad - it is what it is.

Door County was, other than the stuff I already wrote about: buying odd instruments (I now own a toy piano, a melody harp, a musical washboard, a slide whistle, and a thumb piano) and pirate daggers. Dreams about a girl named Hesper and being burnt at the stake as a witch. A sunrise seen from Pebble Beach - I walked high-wire style on a fallen tree and watched black silhouettes of seagulls flying across the graypink sky. And of course there was my drunken breakdown, which, after the initial tears and pain, turned out to be a good thing. The next morning, I did a one-card tarot reading for myself. I drew The World: The World card, very aptly, represents a successful conclusion, all aspects accounted for and taken in. A culmination. An integration of all aspects. I believe I am coming closer to accepting the whole of myself, contradictions and all. It is not an easy process, and I will never reach the end, not fully, not in this lifetime - but it is a worthy goal.

On the drive from Door County to Madison, I saw a line of trees on the horizon that looked like a herd of buffalo galloping across the plains. I almost cried, thinking: at one time, there would have been buffalo roaming free in this part of the world. And now the only buffalo left are raised on farms and used to make burgers. Madison was fun, waking up in the hotel in the morning, having that familiar travel sensation of waking up in a town I am not used to waking up in. The way that seeing an unfamiliar ceiling means that the day will be full of exploration and adventure. And the day was June breeze and iced coffee and everyone out on the sidewalks. Street musicians and lovelygirls - including one who saw my It is a sad & beautiful world tattoo and sighed Oh, that's so true; and one who sat at a table outside a cafe, scribbling in her journal. She had short red hair and a gray tweed fedora, a double strand of fake pearls around her neck, and an ashtray full of cigarette butts with crimson lipstick stains on them.

Then there was the drive south from Madison, down past Rockford and all the abandoned factories, toward Collinsville, Illinois (a town near St. Louis, where we decided to stay because the motel rates were cheaper). Oh the night was glorious as we drove south; the only way I can describe it is to say that it was a Carl Sandburg night. With the almost-full moon looming over us, the sound of trains in the distance, driving down Route 66 while the stars made pictures of fishes and rabbits with fire-ears and fire-tails. We didn't get to the motel until early in the a.m., and we stayed up for a few hours more after we checked in. We got high, wrote song lyrics, and watched a very old silent-movie Western that was on the television. By the time we were about ready to turn in, it was five in the morning. I listened to cricket fiddles playing in the grass below the window, and watched the sun rise brilliant orange over a twenty-four-hour roadside White Castle. We didn't have as much time in St. Louis as I would have liked. The day was hot and sticky and smelled of the Big River. My lunch was catfish and cornbread, eaten in a blues club where we got to listen to Bessie Smith as we dined and drank an afternoon beer. We wandered around by the river, for a bit, looking at the three-mile-long flood wall that all the graffiti artists in St. Louis have adorned with colorful words and pictures. There were lovelygirls everywhere that day, too; they smiled at me and I smiled back and then blushed and looked away, because girls make me so very shy. We spent the last hour of our time in the Gateway to the West at the City Museum, which has to be the coolest museum, ever. So much whimsy and wonder, a museum I'd want to live in. Gargoyles, fountains, slides, circus and carnival memorabilia (including a mechanical fortuneteller that was eerily right-on about my life: she told me I was feeling trapped), and a cafe called Beatnik Bob's that you could actually smoke in! In the cafe, there were shelves and shelves of dusty, crumbling books; I left a copy of my zine next to a book about Lewis Carroll.

On the outskirts of St. Louis, on our way out of town, we stopped at a gas station. There were birds flying all around, swooping, diving, all the same kind of bird, and there had to be at least ten of them. At first, I couldn't tell what they were, but then one of them briefly lit on a low stone wall and I saw - they were nighthawks. The drive through Missouri was strange and unnerving. Most of the billboards were either Jesus or anti-abortion related, or they discussed the dangers of crystal meth. The two most disturbing things I saw? A "cemetery" someone set up on their farm to represent all the "children" killed by abortion. . .and a Klan-related billboard. Yes, really. And I was terribly upset, but what made it odd was, there were beautiful things in Missouri, too - lushly emerald farmfields and craggy red rock formations, rolling hills; the moon, which was full that night, and the same rustred as the rockfaces; classic rock on the radio (Levi and I both agreed to turn up the volume and absolutely blast the music when "Free Ride" came on, and then laughed at ourselves about it); and a BBQ joint where we stopped for dinner - there were enormous pink elephants next to the parking lot, and everyone working that night was extremely friendly. Oh, the dichotomies of the world, of life. I squealed with glee when I started to see Waffle House signs appear alongside the highway. And then we arrived at our motel, a three-story pink stucco thing on the eastern side of Memphis, and I stood out on the balcony and felt the warm Southern air (yes, with a capital "S," we were no longer just in the south, we were in the South) on my bare shoulders that were already tanned and freckled from days spent in the sun, and I looked at the lights of the city. I slept very well, tucked between the cool sheets, dreaming of grace.

In the morning, we had breakfast at Waffle House. Our waitress was a woman who was a transplant from Detroit, and she joked about it: Yeah, I've been here long enough that I say "y’all." We went to Sun Records, of course; and it was humbling just to understand how many talented people, how many shining musical stars, had walked on that very same stretch of pavement in front of the building. We drove all around the city that day, checking out various record stores and coffeeshops and just generally exploring. Driving past pastel-painted houses with vines growing up the sides, willow trees trailing the ground, Baptist churches. And everywhere, that smell of muddy riverwater, and of barbecue tangy and thick. It was even hotter, there in Memphis, than it had been in St. Louis, but it seemed right, slow and meandering and making me calm. The heat was okay as long as I could drink some sweet tea, which of course is not hard to find in Memphis, Tennessee. There was a used book/musical instrument store we visited, run by a man named Johnny Lowe, and his wife. He is an eccentric in the best possible way, doing his own thing. He has a mass of tangled, curly hair, and the day we met him, he was wearing a shirt that said: Rock music is dead, punk got stale - could this be the wave of the future? Jug music - join the revolution! He makes power-chord slide guitars from cigar boxes and broomhandles; some with two strings, some with four, some of them even with two necks and two pickups so you can play bass on one neck and guitar on the other. They're called lowebowes, he sells them out of his shop; and while he showed Levi how to play them, I talked with his wife. She's in charge of the books in the shop, as well as a display case full of tarot cards. I bought The Halloween Tarot deck because it was so spookycute, and fitting with my life and interests. We talked about tarot for a while, and she gave me a pair of the bottle cap earrings she makes. The entire day, I had the sneaking suspicion that I had been in that city before. That happens to me, sometimes, with places I have never visited in this lifetime. Memphis was one of those - I have never been here, but I know this place, in a deep, deep way, not in a way you can learn from a tour book or a story.

After the long, hot day, we went back to the motel to freshen up and change. I changed in to my red red rockabilly dress, because we were headed to Beale Street to see a rockabilly band. Beale Street, at night, in the summer, is a wonderful place. Bikers and locals and tourists all together, everyone having a good old time, dancing 'til dawn. You can drink on the street, there, and the bars are open until three. The band was The Dempseys, and they honestly put on one of the best live shows I have ever seen. Such energy, such passion, you can tell they truly love what they do. Their guitarist sometimes plays the trumpet, and the bassist likes to surf his upright while he plays. I drank gin&tonics all night long, and danced until I shimmered with sweat. Levi and I befriended a local rockabilly kid who seemed stunned to see a girl all dolled up in '50s clothing, and when I introduced myself, he thought I said my name was "Jezebel." Everyone loved my dress, that night; every time I went to the bathroom, a different girl complimented me on it. One girl was hitting on me, she was blond and I don't even normally dig blonds but it suited her; I'd noticed her earlier in the night, she danced drunkenly and hit on everyone in the bar, which made me smile, reminded me of myself in the old days. Between sets, we stood out on Beale Street with our drinks in our hands, chatting with the guitarist from The Dempseys. He told us that we were not tourists, because we hadn't gone to Graceland. And after three hours, the band was still rocking, but we were drunk and hot, tired and hungry, so we walked over to the adjoining restaurant and ate barbecue until our faces were sticky and our stomachs were full. On the drive back to the motel, I took my high heels off and put my feet up on the dashboard. I rolled the window down, let my arm hang out of the car, and sang along with a mix CD - Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Carl Perkins.

The next day, we spent as much time downtown Memphis as we could, before we had to leave and make the long drive to Chicago. We ate lunch at the Arcade Diner, Memphis' oldest diner; we had to go there because of that scene from Mystery Train - when I am in cities where my favorite films took place, I always seek out the landmarks. And everyone mosied down the hot streets, even the downtown businessmen on their lunch breaks were in no rush to get back to work, they stopped under trees to catch a bit of shade, to drink sweet tea and have a smoke. Old black men on benches were overheard saying: Sho 'nuf, and we rode the streetcar down the length of Main Street. And I did not want to leave, not at all. In just a day and a half I fell so in love with Memphis, with the South. It was blues and bluegrass and beauty, hot and sweet and slow. I want to live in Memphis, someday, yes, another place to add to my ever-growing list of places I want to live. There was something about it that fit right with me, and there have been signs: since I have returned, I keep seeing cars with Tennessee license plates, and every time I go into a bar, someone is bound to play something by Elvis or Johnny.

The drive through Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois was long and overbearingly hot, the sun was high in the sky, searing through the car windows. Arkansas was flat and dry and dotted with graveyards. Somewhere in southern Illinois, we passed through a county called Iroquois County, and it made me happy, and then it made me sad. Yes, I'm sure there once were Iroquois there, as well as the Illini tribes - Kaskaskia, Peoria, Cahokia, Tamaroa, Michigamea. I am also just as sure that they were driven out by white settlers. And do you know why this is especially hurtful to me? I am part Mohawk. I also have a bit of French and English ancestry. And to know that some of my ancestors were most likely brutalized by some of my other ancestors - well, there are so many people in this country who are in that position. It makes for a war inside you.

We got into Chicago late, late, delirious from driving and traffic. All we wanted was a drink. We scooped up Maggie from Hell House, and then drove to the Skylark. We made it just in time for last call. When we ordered three Pabsts and seven shots of Jack Daniels, the bartender looked at us like we were insane. And maybe we were - but what good is life without a little insanity now and then? That night, Levi and I slept in the same back room that Maggie and I made our home in at the end of our June journey of two years ago. A lot has changed in my life, and in that house, in those two years, but it was a little too familiar - the stuffy darkness, the memories, the wish to be still on the road. And so, another odyssey came to an end.

III.

A few days after we returned to Wisconsin, I had to go down to Racine for a week. My parents were going to be out of town for a week, and they left me in charge of caring for the house and the dog. It rained a lot while I was there, everything was damp and there were mushrooms everywhere, velvet-brown heads or spotted white-and-red tops popping out of the trees and the lawn. I wished I knew which ones I could pick and eat and not die, only hallucinate the earth. I spent my days outside mostly, on the deck, drinking coffee, reading poetry, jotting observations in my journal (I bought it a few days before the roadtrip, and wrote on the cover: No time for Poetry but exactly What Is). I watched the crows and the mourning doves, the rainwater dripping from the pine trees, and the preteen kids skateboarding down the cracked sidewalks. I spent some time digging through old notebooks and old files on my computer. I kept finding strange notes; sometimes only one word long, sometimes whole sentences or paragraphs. It's as though I leave secret messages for myself to find months or years down the line. One of the documents I found on my computer was simply saved under the filename "awesomeness." Two sentences on a page, that's all it is. Both of the sentences are quite beautiful, but here's what's odd - I'm not sure if I wrote them or not. Usually, when I write down quotes, I give credit to the person who came up with them so as to avoid confusion in the future. The two sentences in this document have no name or book or movie attached to them. Perhaps I wrote them; they certainly sound like sentiments I have expressed in the past. But I don't remember writing them, and since I found them, I have been a bit obsessed with trying to figure out if I wrote them, or if I got them from a movie or someone else's writing. I've even tried doing a Google search with the text from this document, to see if it would come up with anything, but nothing was found. The first sentence is: It's not so much that I dream up my characters; as that they're dreaming me. The second one, my favorite, says: There comes a time in everyone's life when they must crawl to the top of a roof, and drink until they have empty bottles to throw into the street. I'd really like to figure out who wrote them. If it was someone else, I'd like to be able to give credit to the genius that came up with them. And if it was me, I'd like to know, so I can use them in something. Maybe it shouldn't even matter, but it really has been driving me slightly mad.

I also wasted a lot of time online, and ended up getting into a random conversation with a kid of sixteen. It started because of a mutual love of World/Inferno, and then the kid ended up pouring their heart out to me, telling me they've been dabbling in coke and heroin and I got to be the older, wise one. I used to do that stuff, too. I had a massive heroin habit when I was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. I'm not going to tell you not do it, because that would be hypocritical. Just. . .be careful. And for the love of God and Jack Terricloth - make sure you always use clean needles! The kid said: I do always use clean needles, and it's not a problem, at this point. I just do it occasionally, for fun. I know, I said, and it always starts out that way. But it is so easy for it to cross that line from fun into a debilitating addiction. Yeah, the kid said, I've been trying to keep track of it. If I feel like it's starting to become a problem, I'm going to tell someone. Good, I said, that's a very smart idea.

Nights, I spent at Paddy O's, with whiskey or gin, pumping the jukebox full of money so I could hear Patsy and Johnny and Elvis (and The Clash and The Tossers), talking with Beagan whom I will always love with a love so big and easygoing and pure. And those were fun nights with old friends, thoroughly intoxicated; sometimes K. would waltz in and the two of us would tango around the bar (to the chagrin of some patrons, and the delight of the old men) - but I fell into a lot of melancholy moments. With all the alone time I had during the day, I was left thinking too much about everything, about ghosts, about how screwed up I am, and when those thoughts combined with glass after glass of booze, the sadness came. And with it, drunken, 1 a.m. text messages to Maggie and Filia. The messages to Maggie either consisted of quotes from World/Inferno songs (Hothouse flowers grow lush and bright in tiny little towns across this big night), or questions like Will I ever stop missing old lovers and wishing for new ones?' Her response to that one was - All signs point to 'no.' And I laughed at that, and then started to cry, because she's right, and it's funny that she knows me so well, but the situation is not funny at all. And the messages to Filia all said basically the same thing: When are you going to quit being a jerk and come visit me? She didn't respond to any of them. It breaks my heart, because I know I really have lost her, or at least lost the closeness we used to have. It's not like the time I didn't hear from her for ten months. No, she communicates every once in a while, now. I've even seen her twice in the past year. But she no longer makes an attempt to come see me - if I want to see her, I have to go to her. And when I do see her, it is not the same. All we do is talk about memories of the things we used to do; we no longer create new ones. She is stuck in her world of boyfriend and job and battlefield ghosts. Just a couple days ago, I was looking through stacks of old zines, and I found one she made six years ago - collage art and cut-up poetry. She is so talented, and always has been; but she doesn't see it, and she doesn't do anything with that talent, and it frustrates the hell out of me. No matter how many times I tell her how amazing she is, she refuses to listen, or to believe me.

I also spent a lot of time playing the piano when I was in Racine. I worked on some of my own songs, as well as figuring out how to play "Invitation to the Blues." It got stuck in my head one day, Tom's ragged voice singing: She's just a moving violation from her conk down to her shoes. An open invitation to the blues. It would not leave my head until I learned how to play it.

The night I got back from Racine, Levi and I, as well as two of my Kenosha friends, D. and A., went to Shank Hall because the Burlesque-A-Pades was in town. It was vaudeville and circus and burlesque all in one, music and comedy and sword-swallowing and sexy girls. In short, everything I love. There couldn't have been a better cast: Corn Mo, the "accordion rock god," with his hilarious stories and accordion-playing and his amazing voice reminiscent of Meatloaf and Freddie Mercury. The World Famous Pontani Sisters - so talented! Kitten DeVille - meow, baby! Miss Saturn, hula-hoop artiste extraordinaire. Trixie Little and The Evil Hate Monkey - Trixie was adorable, and The Evil Hate Monkey is just fucking hilarious. All the burlesque numbers were backed up by the Fisherman Xylophonic Orchestra, who were marvelous, and made me really, really want to do burlesque with a live band. And the whole thing was hosted by Tyler Fyre, who is one of my circus heroes. He did sword-swallowing and the human blockhead, and told dirty jokes, and he was fantastic. The whole night was wonderful, really, D. and I were both ridiculously drunk, in a silly, swirling way. We kept hugging each other and giggling, and she bit my shoulder so hard I had a bruise there for a week. The night also made me realize, as though I didn't already know - that is what I want. Circus and burlesque. I had one performance with a burlesque troupe in Chicago, but that wasn't going to work longterm because it is just too hard for me to commute to Chicago a few times a month for something I'd get paid so little for I wouldn't even break even on costumes, let alone gas money. And the circus here in Brew City that I was supposed to be involved with, that didn't pan out either - for various reasons, mostly because the guy who is the ringleader of the whole thing gave me very bad vibes, and if there is one thing I have learned, it is that nine times out of ten, my gut reactions to people are right-on. Yes, the Burlesque-A-Pades made me realize that I need to do whatever is necessary for me to be part of circus and burlesque, because that is who I am, that is what I need in my life. I guess, sometimes, the universe does listen. I wished for it, and like magic, it arrived. But that story is in the next chapter.

IV.

I first found out about the Underground Literary Alliance because of my stint on the Perpetual Motion Roadshow in September of 2003. Now, the Perpetual Motion Roadshow is in no way affiliated with the ULA, but there are many ULA writers who have toured with the Roadshow. One of my tourmates was F., and he was already part of the ULA way back then. I guess he told them about me, and must have had nice things to say, because soon after I got back from the tour, I received a letter from K.W., asking if I'd like to join the ranks of the ULA. He warned me of things - that the ULA makes some enemies because they are very upfront about their opinions of the mainstream literary world. I joined up, anyway. Maybe it comes from my punk rock background, but I've always thought that if a group like that is pissing people off, they must be doing something right. Like I said, going on the Perpetual Motion Roadshow got me connected to the ULA. Part of the reason I was attracted to the Roadshow in the first place was the description of it as "a traveling carnival of words." That's why, when Jim Munro asked us to come up with our own taglines for the tour, I pegged myself as "Jessica Disobedience, the bizarre and freakish zinester from Chicago." There was a carnival element to the Roadshow, and so it only makes sense that there would be a bit of that in the ULA, as well; that all three things would turn out to be connected, and everything would come full circle.

When F. asked me to participate in the F Independent Literary Festival in Cleveland, I immediately made sure my schedule was clear for the weekend of July 7. It had been a long, long time since I'd done a reading, and I felt the need to get my words back out into the world, again. I wrote a lot in 2005, but didn't do much of anything with the writing, just let it sit and collect dust on my desk, or take up space on my computer's hard drive. The time had come to throw my words out amongst people again, to stop babying them, to let them fend for themselves. I was also looking forward to seeing F. again - he became almost like a big brother to me, when we were on tour with the Roadshow, and I hadn't seen him since then - and I was looking forward to meeting people I'd been communicating with over the past few years, such as P.K.

I couldn't make it to Cleveland for the first day of the festival, on Thursday the sixth. Cleveland is a long drive straight from Milwaukee, so Levi (who joined me as my travel companion and official photographer) and I crashed in Chicago on Thursday night, and after a properly greasy diner breakfast on Friday morning, headed off toward Cleveland. (Slowing down along the way, of course, to give the finger to the Museum of Science and Industry, which was closed to the public that day because Dubya decided he wanted to spend his birthday there. It makes sense, I said, he needs to learn about things like how the human body works and how airplanes are operated.) We arrived at bela dubby, the cafe where the Friday night event was being held, about 45 minutes after it started. I thought we were going to arrive fifteen minutes early, but when we crossed the border into Ohio, I remembered that I had to flip my clock ahead one hour. Whoops. It turned out okay, although I missed P.’s reading that night, which I was bummed about. When we got there, J. was halfway through his reading. I didn't know who he was prior to that night, had never heard of him (ssshhh, don't tell him that!), but was immediately intrigued. His story, which I didn't catch all of, had something to do with getting kicked out of a show for being a clown. And there was a banner behind him, with a painting of himself on it, one half of his face with a leering clownface painted on, holding a cane; the other half, with no make-up, but grinning and holding a drill. Yes, definitely intriguing.

C.R. was next; I'd met him years before, he was the opening act for our Roadshow stop in Cleveland, and I was curious as to what he'd pull out of his sleeve. He did a one-card tarot reading for everyone in the audience. Each person drew a card, and then he interpreted them. I drew the Queen of Pentacles, which in his interpretation means that I am a strong woman, but a touch melancholy. I think that's fairly apt.

During the intermission, Levi and I went outside to smoke. We met F.’s wife, C., and she hugged us and told us how glad she was we were going to be staying at her house. The three of us smoked cigarettes and talked about tattoos and the New York Dolls, and then W. came galloping outside and set off firecrackers in the middle of the road. I was a bit jittery - out-of-it from driving all day, nervous about my performance, and also feeling odd because everyone else there had been drinking beer all evening, and I was still completely sober. But as I watched W. jumping up and down, laughing madly, as smoke and sparks poured down the streets of Lakewood, past the bowling alley with the flickering fuchsia sign, as smoke curled up toward the steelblue sky; and as I watched everyone who was still inside talking and drinking coffee and beer; and saw P. lean up against the brick wall of the building and light his cigarette with a match, I knew it was going to be a good weekend.

Jack McGuane was next, the poet laureate of Lakewood, Ohio. He's not a ULA member, but he is a wonderful poet - his poems are about simple moments of everyday life, with a touch of oldman romantic cynicism. His speaking voice is gruff and commanding. He was a welcome addition to the troupe.

Then W. read his politically conscious soundpoems, including one about the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, and I think maybe I'm not intellectual enough to get the full meaning of his work, but I did enjoy listening to them. The way that, even when the words didn't make sense to me, the sounds still did.

And then it was my turn, and I was nervous, but I channeled that energy into the stories, and I think it worked. The first story I read was a story about kids smoking angeldust-and-marijuana joints dipped in embalming fluid and returning from their flights with the memories of dead people. I heard gasps during the story, and one guy clasped his hand to his chest and said Oh, Jesus. Later, a woman named April told me that when Levy took a picture of me during the performance, she thought the camera flash was lightning, that I had somehow brought lightning into the room. I believe that is one of the best compliments I've ever gotten - to hear that I cast a sort of spell over the audience. My second story was a short one, not quite as intense as the first, but a favorite of mine - a tale of the end of the heyday of the American Traveling Circus, and the carnival barkers being being forced to live in a secluded retirement community. That cast a spell, too, at least on J. After the evening's performances were over, he bowed to me and told me my stories were perfect, and then he said: We're not dead, you know. I wasn't sure what he meant, but then he proceeded to swallow a sword and then snap a mousetrap on his tongue, and I figured it out. That was the moment things came full circle, the whole connection between the circus and the ULA and the Perpetual Motion Roadshow. Have I ever told you that I don't believe in coincidence?

F. was the finale of Friday night's events. He read from his rock'n'roll novel, which I became quite familiar with when we toured together - and it is still, to this day, one of the funniest stories I have ever read. The kind of thing that you should not read on public transportation, because you will laugh out loud, and everyone will turn to stare at you.

It was discovered that Levi and I weren't the only ones staying at F. and C.’s place. W. and P. and J. had stayed at another house the night before, but got kicked out because I guess a concerned parent in the neighborhood didn't like J. waving his sword around in front of the children. So they were to be staying at F.’s for the rest of the weekend. Levi and I went to get a quick bite to eat, while everyone else went to buy beer and wine, and then we all met back at the house for an afterparty of sorts. Time for me to end my sobriety. April even joined us; the more the merrier. It was a wonderful night. It's not often I get to sit around a big table with a bunch of writers and artists, everyone drinking wine or beer, talking about Life, Art, Music. And then J. accosted me in the kitchen and we talked about Circus, and he said to me: Would you like to learn the human blockhead trick? Why, of course, I replied. First, I have to teach you the Carny Code. He told me the Code, which I can not repeat here under penalty of death (!), and besides a true showman doesn't reveal her secrets to just anyone, but I nearly wept tears of joy as he told me the Code, and then as he taught me how to stick a nail into my nose, because by teaching me these things, he was saying that I was worthy of the knowledge. And with that knowledge, I transformed from simply a carnival/circus aficionado, to a real live Carny. (The trick was a success, by the way - soon, everyone was snapping photographs of the two of us with nails up our noses.) And then there was more drinking and talking, and those off us who do those sorts of things stepped out to the backyard to share cigarettes and other smokeable treats. April told me I was like The Debbie Harry of poetry; and then she told me I was brave to work with the guys from the ULA. I wasn't quite sure what that meant. You mean, cos the ULA has lots of enemies? I asked. No, she said, these guys are just so. . .strange. I laughed, and responded: Most of my favorite people are strange. I'm pretty strange, myself.

Saturday morning, we all woke up and sat around the dining room table once again, listening to The Replacements while eating waffles and drinking coffee. I love waking up in houses full of people. Levi and I had to part ways from the rest of the crew for a few hours. We had to drive into Cleveland so I could make photocopies, and we wanted to make a stop at a comic store. Our tattoo artist here in Milwaukee requested we bring him a present from Cleveland, something Howard the Duck related. (You know - Cleve-land. That would be the name of this planet.) When we returned, there was a cookout going on. Along with those of us who had stayed at C. and F.’s the night before, C.R. was there, and Adam Hardin, and Elias from Bad Touch zine, and members of a couple of the bands that were going to be playing that night - Kill the Hippies and The Dad of Rock. And there was plenty of beer and salad and hot dogs or veggie burgers for everyone.

About an hour before we were supposed to be at Pat's In the Flats, there was a mad scramble for the bathroom. J. took up a lot of time in there, putting his clownface on. Seeing that made me miss clowning; I told him how I have clown training, did some clowning when I was a preteen/young teenager, how I've even performed at the Clown Museum in Delavan, Wisconsin. (That's the great thing about Wisconsin - you can say whatever you want about how much it sucks, but there certainly is a lot of circus history here.) I told him that I'd like to get back into clowning, but I'd have to come up with a new clown persona, because the one I had when I was younger was named Pumpkin, and was much too sweet for the kind of thing I'm going for, now. Well, you should come up with a new one, he said. Yes, I said, I think I will.

When we got to Pat's, I was already feeling good. The nervousness I'd had the night before was all gone. I was psyched to perform, and, well, C. had given me a Xanax before we left the house. The edges of everything blurred a little. Don't get me wrong, I was still fully functional at this point, just giddy, and the quality of light looked softer than normal. Pat's In the Flats is a great place, a dive bar/rock club in the industrial part of Cleveland. It's been around in some form or other since the 1930s. Back then, men who worked in the factories would go there to get their lunch. And, since its conversion to a rock club (sometime in the '70s, I believe, but don't quote me on this), a lot of kickass bands have played there. Levi got us whiskey&Cokes, and I scuttled into the dingy bathroom to do a costume change from the jeans & t-shirt I'd been wearing all day to a skirt and strapless top. I also put on bright red lipstick, and when I was putting on mascara, I got the impulse to darken my eyebrows. I've had this thing, lately, with darkening my eyebrows for the purposes of photographs and performances. When I make facial expressions, my eyebrows are a large part of that, so I think that if my eyebrows are exaggerated, it shows up better. When I emerged from the bathroom, W. said: You look great! You're like a. . .cheerleader of the apocalypse! Now, that is a description of myself I would use for publicity. While others were busy setting up the sound system, I sat and assembled copies of my zines. I had a moment of realizing how god damn lucky I am. Because of the zines I've done over the years - zines which I've lost money on, and which many people have considered a fool's errand from the beginning - because of my zines, I have met so many amazing people. (Not to mention all the action they've gotten me. Ha!)

Show time drew closer, and I grew giddier, the adrenaline and Xanax now mixed with whiskey. Man, I said, I feel lame. I don't have any props. Just my stories. I don't have any props, either, P. said. Let's think of it this way, I said, our stories are good enough that they can stand on their own. We don't need props.

The show was terrific. F. did an excellent job of pairing up bands with writers; it was one of those magical nights were everything just clicks, and you feel like you're creating something much, much bigger than yourself. Particular standouts for me? C.R. with Kill the Hippies - they rocked out punked-up versions of old spirituals. And J. with The Dad of Rock. J. chased W. (in disguise as the Evil Professor something-or-other) around the stage, W. set something on fire, there was sword-swallowing, and I even got to be J.’s lovely assistant for the mousetrap trick. My set went so well. The stories and poems I shared that night were about love - my romantic, twisted, tragic take on love. Humphry Clinker played music as I spun my words into the smoky bar air. I felt like a Beat poet, the way the music flowed with the words and then, before I knew it, my words went with the rhythm of the music. (Levi told me, later, that he talked with Pat - not P.K., but Pat the owner of the club - and she said I was her favorite of the night.) Between my stories, Humphry Clinker played their songs, and they fucking rocked. They deserve big kisses for helping my tales come to life. At one point during my set, I looked out at the crowd, and it all seemed so right - Derek DePrator, rocknroll guitarist, in drag. Punks and clowns and poets. The best minds of my generation, and other generations, indeed - all with a touch of madness, but not destroyed by it. Angelheaded hipsters, and those expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, and those who danced on broken wineglasses barefoot. Allen Ginsberg woulda been proud. P.K.’s set with Tripolar Faction came after mine; and that went wonderfully, too. I love P.’s stories - dark, and intelligent without being at all pretentious. And I kept drinking, chugging whiskey; by the time we were all leaving, I was thoroughly fucked up.

On the car ride to F.’s, with the moonlight streaming blue and cold through the windows and making all of us shine, someone requested that I sing a Tom Waits song. I belted out "Cold Water," followed by other Tom songs, and then I recited a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem. Well, I did warn them - once you get me started, I don't stop. Back at the house, the drinks continued to flow. There's a lot I don't remember of that night. From what I do remember, it seems I was still in performance mode - I scared the shit out of J. by shoving a kitchen knife down my throat. I did yoga in the driveway; and J. and I danced on broken wineglasses barefoot. There are other things I remember, but I'd rather not get into them, here. (Ahem.) I drank too much wine, and the last thing I remember is puking in the front yard with J. holding my hair back; then he and P. carrying me into the house. See, these are the kind of folks that are in the ULA - not only are they great writers, they're good people. They open their homes to strangers, and they'll take care of you if you get sick from drinking too much.

When I woke up the next morning, my neck and face were covered in lipstick and clown make-up. There were bits of gravel embedded in my shoulder, and a pack of cigarettes in my underwear. After a couple more hours of hanging out and coffee-drinking, everyone had to be on their way. There were hugs, and promises to keep in touch. I hate saying goodbye. It seems, sometimes, that I've spent most of my life making new friends while on the road, and then having to say goodbye to them. But since my return home, I have received an invite from the Philadelphia faction. I'm going out there in August, to be part of Carnivolution, and to do a reading at a gallery. Final conclusion? Cleveland does, in fact, rock. And so does the ULA.

And life since the visit to Cleveland? Well, I've been working a temp job for the last few weeks. Eight hour days, three to five days a week. Yesterday was my last day. It was a dull office job, but Lord knows I have plenty of experience with things like making photocopies and entering data into computers. Sometimes a girl needs money to buy her costumes and clown make-up, and I'm not too proud to do. . .well, pretty much anything. . .when I need the money - whether that means posing nude, selling records I don't listen to anymore, or working a temp job. I have about six hundred dollars coming my way, now, and that's a good thing. A necessary thing.

I saw The Handsome Family when they came to Milwaukee, and they were wonderful and haunting, as expected. Rennie reminds me a bit of myself (well, if I'm flattering myself). She was introducing a song, and she said: This song is about two people who go into the woods, but only one of them comes out. That's my favorite kind of song. I have a few of those in my songbook. And I just thought - Oh, yes, that's my favorite kind of song to write, too.

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean. It was enjoyable, if overly long. As far as I'm concerned, the best part of the movie was Tia Dalma, the island witch-woman. Especially the whole conversation about Davy Jones - And do you know why he cut out him heart? It was a woman. I heard it was the sea, the sea he fell in love with. Same story, different versions, all true. It was a woman who was wild and un-tameable as the sea. (And those are my favorite kind of women, those wild, un-tameable ones.)

When not at work, I have spent my time practicing the human pincushion, the human blockhead, glass-walking, clowning, and other things of that nature. I have also been feeling truly beautiful, truly and absolutely beautiful, having nothing to do with the way I look, just because of being who I am. And I have been feeling quite fragile. The new World/Inferno Friendship Society album, Red-Eyed Soul, is the soundtrack to my summer. August is going to be hot and wild and wonderful. On August 9th, I am seeing Tom Waits in Chicago! (I got an e-mail yesterday, where the chap who wrote it said: A sociologist friend of mine pointed out that there is a "Tom Waits Generation" that doesn't really fit into either "Gen X" or "Y." How true. We are the TW Generation.) And the day after that, I am flying out to the City of Brotherly Love, to join the circus. That's it, for now. I'll leave you with this, five chapters and fifteen pages after I started. And here I thought the words wouldn't come out. I guess, now that I've pried the floodgates open, the words won't stop coming out. It's time to dig out my Olivetti and get to work on that zine. Even if my Underwood doesn't work - I love my Olivetti, and any typewriter is better than none, right?

[journal entry, 7/27/06]

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