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#no for real i have the most strange case of art block
demi-shoggoth · 5 months
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2023 Reading Log, pt 13
I've been putting off writing this one for a while, because all of these books are... fine? I didn't feel very strongly about them any way, either positively or negatively. Plus, I've been strongly burnt out on writing in general, and it's been hard for me to push myself to even write little 100 word blurbs about books.
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61. Strange Japanese Yokai by Kenji Murakami, translated by Zack Davisson. It’s rare that I get the opportunity to read a yokai book originally written in Japanese, seeing as I don’t speak the language, so I jumped on the chance to get a copy of this when I found out it existed. It’s cute, with cartoony artwork and little data file sidebars that remind me of a Scholastic book… except the content is far weirder than what American kids books contain. The theme of the yokai stories here is that a lot of yokai… kind of suck. The stories told about the big hitters, like oni, kappa, kitsune and tanuki, are about them being foolish or having easily exploited weaknesses, and a lot of the other stories are about gross or pathetic yokai more than scary or impressive ones. The book is overall charming, but a very quick read. More of a supplement to other yokai books than a one-stop shop.
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62. Mythical Creatures of Maine by Christopher Packard. This is a bit of an odd duck, seeing as it combines multiple monster traditions (fearsome critters, cryptids and Native American lore) under the same set of covers. It’s a pretty typical A-Z monster book, with some good information about obscure fearsome critters and Wabanaki monsters. There are, however, two things about the book I actively dislike, that keep me from strongly recommending it. The art is terrible. The illustrations by Dan Kirchoff are done in a style I can only describe as “fake woodcuts with flat colors” and are ugly (and in some cases, difficult to decipher). The other is that most, but not all of the monsters, get little microfiction epigrams in the character of Burton Marlborough Packard, the author’s great-great grandfather who worked in the Maine lumberwoods. It’s a weird touch, especially since the epigrams are only a sentence or two, and are typically pretty pointless.
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63. Mushrooms: A Natural and Cultural History by Nicholas P. Money. There have been a number of books about fungi for the educated lay audience that have been published in the last couple of years. This one doesn’t really stand out from the crowd. The photography is nice, and there’s some coverage of the history of mycology and some of the prominent people in the field. But the book isn’t very well organized, bouncing from one topic to another within the same paragraph, and there are a number of passages that feel more like rants (the chapter on culinary uses for mushrooms, for example).
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64. The Lives of Beetles by Arthur V. Evans. This book serves as an introduction to entomology in general, and beetles in particular. It covers core topics like insect body plans, introduces cladistics and covers the evolution, ecology, behavior and conservation of beetles in broad strokes. These strokes feel particularly broad because there are a lot of beetles; much of the book covers groups on the levels of family, which makes it feel a little bit shallow. These are alternated with descriptions of individual species, and this is where the book shines, as it gives good information about both well known species and some pretty obscure ones. The real value of the book, to someone who has been around the entomological block as I have, is in its production values—this book is quite simply gorgeous, and there are lots of nice photos of many different species.
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65. Hoax: A History of Deception by Ian Tattersall and Peter Névraumont. This book has an identity crisis. You would think, with a title like that, that the main topic would be about hoaxes and cons. Some of it is. Some of it is about people who believed what they were pushing, even if it wasn’t true (apocalypse prophecies, homeopathy). Some of it is about misconceptions in archaeology, even if nobody was intentionally lying (the Piltdown Man is an actual hoax. Mary Leakey misidentifying rocks as human artifacts isn’t). And the organization is frankly baffling—it’s arranged in chronological order for some part of a topic, regardless of how much of the chapter is actually about when it’s set. For example, a chapter on fixed games is set at 260 BCE, but spends more of its length talking about modern pro wrestling than gladiator matches. The book is a somewhat bizarre reading experience.
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whoiwanttoday · 2 years
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So there is a Captain Carter comic these days with Marvel and I dove into it since it is well... Peggy Carter and a creative team I enjoy. It's alternate universe fun so far, we get the typical What If of what is different (in this case the US and Russia are fighting over her along with the UK since everyone feels entitled to her as property until she gets up and walks out because you know, she's not property) and the What If slightly dystopian hints of a secretly authoritarian UK which is a critique on the real world in a way you can never quite do with the mainline stuff (whatever your politics you cannot in a superhero universe have the US run by Nazis because it becomes an on going concern of why the fuck aren't the Superheroes doing anything about it). And we get the fun, "I know her" bits as Betsy Braddock becomes Peggy's partner at STRIKE, though she goes by Lizzie Braddock. It leads to lots of fun speculation built on what you know of the "real" world. Where is Betsy's telepathy? Why the hell isn't she Captain Britain? Or maybe she is all these things and it hasn't been revealed but where are the X-Men and why haven't mutants been mentioned? Anyway, I am enjoying it but it isn't life changing but it is why Hayley Atwell is here. I am sure to some that might seem strange, posting her based on a comic book that she is decidedly not in cause it's art, not photographs. Well, that is because she is the artist I believe will be forever linked with Peggy Carter. For those who aren't ancient or just got into Marvel stuff from the movies, Peggy Carter was a pretty nothing character for most of my life. If you had asked me who she was I would have known, she was Sharon Carter's Aunt. Great Aunt I guess. Look, it was confusing but Peggy was barely a character herself, she was created as a back story for Sharon Carter. This is because Steve Rogers great all time love was not Peggy Carter, it was Sharon Carter, Agent 13. She started as a much older sister, then became an Aunt, and finally a great Aunt. Honestly, she barely appeared until Ed Brubaker started writing the book and even then she was there to add texture to Sharon, not to Peggy. Still, because Sharon Carter was the great love of Cap's life and a major player in the best Cap story line of the current era when the movies were made it made a lot of sense for Peggy to be in the first Cap movie given it was set during World War II. I don't know what their plans were aside from that but I assume Peggy was there to lead to Sharon in the minds of whoever was setting all this up. I don't think they counted on Hayley Atwell being so charming and magnetic in the role that Peggy would forever be changed from footnote to the greatest love of Steve Rogers' life. And that is why Hayley Atwell is here, it's her portrayal that made Peggy Carter everything she is. Here DNA will forever be entwined with every future depiction of the character because everything that comes after will be built on the foundation of what Hayley Atwell did. Comics are great because they are shared universes but a lot of truly great characters have a single creator entwined in them that you can't separate them out really. Kitty Pryde hasn't been written by Claremont in a meaningful way in 30 years now but because he build what Kitty is from here on out everyone is working with a character who is inseparable from Chris Claremont. Even if no one realizes it they are writing things that are steeped in Claremont's artistic trope. Same goes with Daredevil and Frank Miller or Illyana Rasputin and Louise Simonson. The building blocks are 100% this artist and what they do best. Hayley Atwell is the only actor I can really, really think this is true for. Sure stuff changes when movies come out and they try to shift things to match the publics perception of a character. Costume changes, looks, mannerisms but it all falls away after a few years. This is the only character I can think of offhand (though you know, maybe I am blanking on something obvious, I have no issue with being corrected here) that the actor is the greatest creator to ever be associated with her. For which I am thankful because Peggy Carter has become an amazing character that I deeply love and feel affection for, it is a gift that has been given to us. So here are pictures of Hayley Atwell both as Peggy and as not cause she looks good both ways. Today I want to fuck Hayley Atwell.
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itsmemateinnit · 10 months
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Whitechapel series 1 press pack
Rupert Penry-Jones is Detective Inspector Joseph Chandler
Rupert Penry-Jones is quick to point out that DI Chandler, his character in Whitechapel, is no hero.
“He doesn’t have all the answers.  He doesn’t know how to fix everything.  He doesn’t kill the bad guy and save London like Adam in Spooks,” explains Rupert.
“He’s a bit less of an action man and a bit more cerebral.  He doesn’t really like the sight of blood.  Chandler is the total opposite to Adam in that way; he finds the whole thing quite scary.
“It was actually really nice to play someone who was not an action man for a change.”
Describing his character Rupert says: “DI Chandler is basically a fast track policeman.  They call them ‘plastics’ in the force.  He is destined for great things at the higher end of the police force but has to go through the ranks and work a little in each of the departments; get his feet wet.
“Whitechapel starts with him being given his first murder case which all concerned think is going to be a simple domestic.  But of course it turns out to be a serial killer. So he ends up on this investigation having to muck in a lot more than he expected and realises he enjoys policing rather more than just sitting behind a desk.
“He is a slightly obsessive, compulsive, asexual guy.  You get no insight into his personal life at all. It is all work with him.”
At first Chandler sits uneasily among his new colleagues; a rough and ready East End station.
But, as Rupert explains, the relationship between him and his men does develop during the series.
“To start with Chandler and Miles, his sergeant played by Phil Davis, absolutely hate each other. For Miles particularly, Chandler is everything he dislikes about the modern police force.  But gradually they find a mutual respect for each other.”
Ripperologist Edward Buchan is another stumbling block between the two officers.
“Chandler likes Buchan from the start.  He respects his ideas and thoughts on the case and they end up being good friends.  Miles thinks he’s an idiot and a liability.”
Rupert says that the prospect of working with Phil Davis again was one of the things that attracted him to the part.
“The first thing that hit me was the script - a real page turner.  I was totally gripped by this modern telling of the Jack the Ripper story.  And I loved the relationship between Chandler and Miles.  Even more so as Phil is an old friend from when we made North Square together, so that was an added bonus.”
Rupert admits he knew very little about the original 19th century Ripper before doing his research.
“To be honest I didn’t even realise he hadn’t been caught,” confesses Rupert.  “I thought they caught the suspect in top hat and tails. I never realised that there was this huge conspiracy story going around.
“I found the research very interesting.  I didn’t realise how gruesome it all was though.  They really were the most awful murders.  He did terrible things to those women, even eating bits of their bodies.  He was the original serial killer.”
Many of Whitechapel’s pivotal scenes were filmed at night.  Rupert recalls: “You can’t get very close to many of the original murder scenes but what was strange was while we were filming these big scenes we would see the actual Ripper tours walking past the sights. It was a bit surreal.”
“The night shoots were extremely gruelling on everybody.  All the London boroughs have different curfews so we would only be allowed to film up to a certain time – some would be 10pm, some midnight and so on.  It meant you couldn’t get a good run at the night shoots and we were always having to change our hours.”
But perhaps the toughest part of the role for Rupert was remembering the dialogue littered with names and dates and locations…
“When I was discussing all the victims I had the art department put up a big storyboard behind me. I used it as a prop to emphasise my speech but also as a prompt for remembering the names of the women who were killed.  I had it all up there behind me to reference if I got lost.
“I find all that line learning rather tiresome but lines are easy to learn if the dialogue is good.  And this was compelling.”
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1995lahaine · 2 years
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There’s a massive difference between “true crime fans” who make light of cases and blog about colombine and make ted bundy art 🤢 and people who just want to know more about cases and how they occurred.
It’s really normal to the human condition to want to understand morbid / scary things, saying we shouldn’t learn about crimes is kind of strange since it’s something that happened in real life whether you want it to or not? Do you want there to be a block on crime information being spread in informative ways?
i think it's really weird to derive pleasure or entertainment from real people's suffering. it's weird that people make money from talking about crime and in particular violent and/or sexual crimes where more often than not, they're more focused on the psychology of the criminal and not on honouring victims. it’s also really weird that ‘true crime’ sprung up as a name and a genre of entertainment when the majority of offending is decidedly nonviolent, and in fact most crime goes unprosecuted and undetected. i think it's particularly weird that the proliferation of true crime has resulted in a portion of the public attempting to speculate/solve cases/debunk things/engage with criminals, victims, and victims' loved ones with little to no actual experience or understanding of how crime, criminals, or the justice system works.
i also think true crime has had a profound negative effect on how crime and criminals are perceived in the public eye, and has probably set back anti-prison, anti-police, and pro-rehabilitation causes by a degree we have not yet seen, and as a prison abolitionist and long-time volunteer in advocacy for prisoners, I think it's really fucking weird and gross to see people talk about punitive justice, prisons and prisoners in the way I have so often seen 'true crime' fans do. i don't want to block information, I want to block the non-consensual exploitation and commodification of people's experiences. i would also like to point out that generally speaking, true crime is nowhere near so informative as you believe.
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Ferelden: Redcliffe - Future
Main quest:  In Hushed Whispers
As we explore the castle and save our companions from the future, we explore corridors with a series of statues that make little sense. It only seems to be reasonable once we learn this future has no Veil, and this is how it looks like the Waking World with the Fade, fused one another, under the god Corypheus. I imagine the corridors reflect or have elements from the Fade, or from what the Fade reflects of this place.
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This post has compiled the most relevant information during the main quest for completion’s sake. These quests have little “archaeological” value, but since I’m visually covering the majority of the game, I can’t put them aside since there are some exceptions, such as the Temple of Mythal.
[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]  
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Along the corridors of the Redcliffe Castle, we find andrastian statues such as maferath crying on the sword [1], andraste variations [1], the Man holding bigger head [2], Tevinter diapason-like artefacts [3], and alamarri mabaris clipped with skulls [4,5]
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Avvar heads [1], Tevinter banenrs with glyphs [2], strange clipping combinations of different assets to pretend to create a new one [3], sacrificial altars [3,5,6], dragon gargoyles [4], more Tevinter artefacts [7] and classic keepers of fear [8].
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More artefacts appear by the end of the castle: upside-down artefact of Temple of Dumat  [1], torture devices [2], more avvar heads or Eroded dragon skull [3], Maferath statues and Keepers of Fear [4], Andraste in Ferelden style [5] and Free Marches statues with alamarri mabaris clipped with skulls [6].
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I found it curios that this universe is an abomination in Solas’ opinion, so I guess he has in mind something different for the future of Thedas when he destroys the Veil.
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Trying to reach the outside of the castle, we see more of these strange clipped statues and in the darkest corner, we see the unusual statue of Beheaded ram-man.
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Some rooms display Andraste iconography of her life and more Ferelden items. In this case, they display Templar rugs. Rugs are something to question, since we keep seeing Inquisition rugs and carpets in places where there is no way they could be there. So in general, my conclusion about rugs is not to pay them too much attention, so maybe I may have done a mistake in Emerald Graves: Din'an Hanin with doing such a extreme analysis over a damned rug, lol.
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We find the codex A prayer, where we are again suggested to connect darkness with Blight. There is an implication that the Old Gods were gods at some point, but not anymore, and the Maker was always invented. One can suspect this prayer is based on Corypheus’ knowledge shared to his subjects.
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The art of clipping artefacts: diapason-like artefacts in combination with a sacrificial altar and some red lyrium. In this room there are Tevinter urns too.
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We see again Man holding bigger head statue and two stylised dogs, both Orlesian statues.
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Here we find an angry Leliana, changed and transformed due to the torture. We learn she is also immune [or resistant] to Red Lyrium, like Seekers are. This implies lore-wise that Leliana may have been touched by a spirit at some point in her life. 
Once more, we have another character in DA series who speaks this line so similar to Flemeth/Myhtal: “I’ve suffered, the whole world suffered. It was real”
Red Lyrium
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When we meet Fiona, we see she is half  a vein of red lyrium. Later, we see Templar in similar ways along the castle. A creature become a vein of red lyrium  just by exposure. This implies that the spread of the Red Lyrium has doom connotations. So far, we don’t know how to rend it inert, and it infects by mere exposure, living creatures as well as objects. It’s a disease even worse than the Blight which can be contained if living creatures are blocked from an area.
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We are given several bits of info about the nature of the red lyrium. Dorian question if it’s a disease as the Blight, that only affects living creatures. This red lyrium seems to affect things and objects as well, growing out of them.
Exterior
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Now, having the interpretation of this statue of the Faceless figure holding a crown  as the Maker, makes this cinematic angle even more dramatic, with a gigantic Andraste, shattered, trying to reach down to the Maker.
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Solas informs us that there is no Veil in this world, so all the non-physical situations we are seeing, the nonsense of the statues in the corridors seem to be justified. 
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Now without Veil, we make sense of the mixed sculptures we saw in the corridors, reflection and reality overlapping each other. As we go up looking for Alexius, we keep seeing strange statues, like Keepers of fear
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We reach to a place where we can explore more corridors heading to Alexis. This particular set seems to be carefully done to imply something:  The Maker with red Lyrium, the Andraste warrior, the Blocky bearded humanoid [which seems to be in the shadows] and this Adonis human statue.
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When we reach Alexius’ chamber, we see an Elven Ancient Shard-based door. It’s impossible to know if it was taken from an ancient tomb or its a reflection of the Fade and overlapped with the reality. Curiously, this door requires red lyrium-based shards. 
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skekilla · 1 year
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https://www.deviantart.com/skekilla/art/Runaway-Train-Act-II-Scene-4-921852248
Today was proving to be more question than answer, with enough terror to beat out both.
Johnny breathed panicked gasps as he huddled beneath the table with the others. His eyes were fixed on the end of it, out of which he could still see the legs and feet of the newcomer (Lillian, a servant of Death himself, apparently). If the situation were different, he may have liked to breathe the air in now; it had become sweet all of the sudden, a familiar floral scent to it—lilies, he realized as he recalled his sister’s perfume. It was clear the smell wasn’t from that, though; it faintly lingered all through the air, not like how perfume did. More like real flowers, but he hadn’t seen any in the room before. That only added to the questions in his head. Though he was very afraid, his mind was a series of “how”s and “why”s and “what”s. It almost made him curious enough to pop out and take a peek. Almost.
“Oh Tuxy,” he heard Lillian mutter. “You better not have been hurt, dumb dumb. Silly bunny.” A pleased kind of squeaking followed. She’s… talking to that rabbit, I guess? Maybe even petting it…? “You know Death would kill me, right? You want that?” It honked in reply. “Yeah right.” Apparently she was done with threatening Ed for the moment.
To Johnny’s dismay, Orla couldn’t help but giggle. She’d hidden under the table with the rest of them, but it seemed their concealment wouldn’t last for much longer now. “Never knew Death was so fond of rabbits, ay?” she snickered.
“Quiet!!” Sally whisper-screamed at her, covering her mouth. But the damage had been done; the strange girl fell silent, clearly having heard them. Her stance shifted around. She was looking for the source of the noise. Johnny’s heart beat faster and faster. The silence pounded in his ears. Then, after a moment, the girl stopped her movement. Johnny sighed in relief. Maybe, by some miracle, she’d given up and decided to ignore the sound.
That hope was quickly snuffed out. To his renewed horror, Lillian bent down to look right at them. He screeched and tried to back away, but he bumped into Curtis. His panic began to spiral out of control. He couldn’t get out backwards, couldn’t go out the side (heavy dining room chairs blocked his way), and he certainly couldn’t go through her. He was trapped. They all were. Despair quickly began to sink in.
He probably could have guessed her face would have been covered by a mask, but the deep emptiness of its eyes and chilling white of its surface sent chills down his spine all the same. It looked more similar to the other reaper’s mask than the one worn by the rabbit in her arms, with a small slit for breathing at whereabouts the nose might be and gold roman numerals printed on the forehead (though the number was “I” rather than “III,” in this case). However, the mask was where the similarities to that beast ended; despite everything, she seemed… mostly human. Though he did spot white rabbit ears springing from her head, everything else he could see just looked like… a normal young lady. But yet she most certainly wasn’t. She wasn’t fully a reaper, but not quite a human either. Then… what is she…?
She looked over all of them dismissively, ending with an exaggerated “ugh.” “This is going to be so annoying,” she groaned.
Sally, seeming to have gained some courage now that she could see what she was dealing with, scoffed. “What’s going to be annoying?” she said. “We’re just minding our own business! We’re not with that brute—oh, what was it—Ed. We’re not with that man.”
“Well, you picked a bad place to do your business,” the girl snapped. “The very fact that you’re here at all makes you my biggest problem!”
“This is just what I meant,” Ed cut in. He must’ve been trying to sit up; the whole table shook with his laboured movements and his words were growled through his teeth. “This train is for dead things. You all aren’t meant to be here.” “Oh, you already explained all that?” Lillian asked. “Good. Then you already know that me killing you guys now won’t be anything personal. It’s just life. Well, death. Whatever. You get it.” Johnny’s heart dropped. Before any of them could react, Lillian snapped her fingers. A storm of pink light and flower petals burst from between them, flying under the table. Johnny screamed as it swept them all out from under the table. The force tossed them around and up, like a sadistic carnival ride with none of the fun and all of the danger. He shut his eyes tight. Tears leaked through the cracks. Where the storm blustered against him, his skin was touched by a strange pain; it was almost burning, sort of as a scraped knee did. This was far, far worse though. It was almost torture. Please, please let us live! Let this nightmare end!
“OW! God, fffff-”
Just like that, the tossing was over. Johnny and the others fell to the floor in a heap. The pink storm dissipated around them, petals shimmering away into nothingness. He struggled around to look at what had happened. Keeled over on the floor was Lillian, clutching her stomach. She hissed out a string of curses the likes of which Johnny had never heard before (and Johnny had known plenty of rowdy guys back at the studio, so that was saying a lot; it was almost impressive). Standing above her, even more ragged than usual, was Ed, his shovel in hand. Where Tuxy had gone to was lost on everyone involved, and Johnny was no exception.
“That wasn’t fair at ALL,” Lillian screeched. “That HURT, you know!”
“You’ll get over it. I could’ve done worse.” Ed wasn’t smiling as he usually did; rather, his jaw was set in grim severity. His eyes scanned and re-scanned the scene, evidently hunting for the mask-wearing rabbit. On finding nothing, he grumbled disappointedly. “Well? Get moving!” he shouted over his shoulder to them all. “If you want to live for now, then come on!”
Someone slid out from under him, and someone else got off of him. Soon enough, they were all stood up and pressing through the door they’d just been shoved against by that horrid pink storm. Ed held it open for them. As he pushed through, Johnny caught a certain glint in his eyes of cold fire, something almost… kindred. Real mercy. Maybe there could be something other than cruelty in him, after all. It hadn’t quite surfaced yet, but there it was, deep under. He would’ve said thank you if there was time.
Another grunt from Lillian caught his attention just as he made his way through the threshold. She staggered to her feet, still holding herself. If she did have a face under that mask, he just knew it would be scowling. “HEY!! COME GET THEM!” she called. “GET OUT HERE, DEMONS! COME AND GET THE MORTALS!”
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bondelanier25 · 8 days
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15 Feng Shui Tips You Do For The House Today
You might want to keep conversations brief or only via email or texting. The chime will pick along the incoming Qi energy and scatter it through real estate. Of this void arose activity expressed as yin and yang. Reflect the chi. If you reside at no more a T-intersection, you may need too much chi rushing too forcefully toward property. A similar situation occurs if along side it of a building is aimed your own house. Hang a ba gua mirror outside your house to reflect the matter. View More: topyenbaiaz.com - Top Yen Bai AZ Reviewed by Team Leader in Top Yen Bai AZ: Đào Thu Trang - Dao Thu Trang Harmony may be the root to all the happiness. If you've got harmony utilizing your family, harmony with outside people and in many cases harmony with yourself, you will be on greatest track to finding happiness and success. Fengshui has a great deal to offer concerning enhancing harmony in reduce or past. Below are 3 fengshui tips on how to fengshui your bedroom for harmony. Reflective- A Victorian gazing ball use a stand will reflect back locations the garden you most admire and increase the 'wealth' and sweetness of that area. Tin Top Yên Bái AZ If placed in the entrance of your garden, heading deflect any negative souped up that may effort to enter.
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View More: topyenbaiaz.com - Top Yen Bai AZ Reviewed by Team Leader in Top Yen Bai AZ: Đào Thu Trang - Dao Thu Trang While could be true that some trees may block positive chi or even act as poison arrows the answer is not to chop down could be gift of nature, money-making niches ways to create certain that we work a problem tree positive the best results. Killing a living vital a part of nature isn't the explanation. Feng Shui Interior Design - Decorate your bathroom so that this looks like a spa room in an opulent hotel. Transmogrify it into a place to follow and relax, so that a person can forget all of the problems and hassles you are having Yen Bai in Viet Nam your day to day galaxy. As I discuss at my books, use anything typically the bathroom it's you feel great. Trust your intuition. Always design in a way that lifts your spirits. When can certainly no longer abide by our abode, we spin. As long as you've got a tacit agreement collectively home as well as the things in it, discover stay recently there. And it can a person stay hostage for eons unless you choose alter your consciousness or you modify the landscape of your home's consciousness and intentionally create something else. Angels: An individual already have children, this chime could be hung your nursery - the angels will decorate it and protect young children from spoil. If you want getting children - place the item in the western part of your home (children and creativity).
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Clear the Clutter. If you're have been following the last couple of newsletters, that you had to know I would say this again! J Because clutter is claimed to block the flow of positive chi, you would like to try to clear actually clutter regarding your your home as you can. This means things shoved under beds, in corners, etc. Keep in mind that. I KNOW this works - a person's clear the clutter and follow one other guidelines I give you, you should notice a difference! How about setting points aside in order to never use and won't use. offers them to charity? Or how about having a garage discounts? Then. there is normally Ebay! Strange and wondrous if you realise through the martial arts, for the martial arts impart next group of organs viewpoint, the side viewpoint. People doing other arts, like ballet and gymnastics, don't really get this viewpoint, for those skills don't force one outside his body. Or, perhaps they do, functional than an ordinary no measuring stick so they just don't really realize that they get outside themselves. Smell- Fragrant flowers and herbs assist with stimulate the senses. Depending on what select to plant, you will set the mood for that area. It does be a calming fragrance like Lavender, or else a more invigorating scent like Lemon Geranium. If you are married or have a partner, your master bedroom is your sanctuary. Could be wondering have children but their toys or clothes don't belong in your master bedchamber. Photos of anyone except the two of you don't belong with your master study in bed. Tin Top Yen Bai AZ 247 This is the place where you honor your marriage or relationship. Preserving the earth . only for. Keeping it clutter free and clean shows respect for your relationship that teaches young children that lesson as efficiently.
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Feng Shui has been practiced by many people via a span up to 3,000 lots of years. Its main purpose is make balance and harmony, and also beneficial energy, to our living and working environments. Adequate by balancing and governing the chi, could be said to become the forces of everything around anyone. If we are able to balance all the positive chi, then our lifetimes would be enhanced, helping us live a happy and healthy life. This art already been practiced by various cultures from across the globe, and has now been popularly adopted by the Western world. While feng shui can apply to all rooms in your own home or office, there instantly strategies which are for particular types of rooms. Clues about focuses on helping you achieve a pleasing feng shui living room in your home. If you crave clarity about something, get out some sponges and will cost less than of window cleaner and wash the windows for an hour. Clean the windows inside and out. Research for streaks create along some Qtips as well as can clean deep into the crevices that hold what years-old earth. While you are cleaning, focus on the situation you want clarity that's about. Imagine the small pros and cons and confusions as dirt and dust on the windows. Sometimes we do it is just see the dirt on our windows until contain been purged of. It can be that way about old ideas and prejudices. Washing them away can bring the clarity you've been craving. Bamboo Tubes: According to feng shui, bamboo is often a symbol of longevity, career growth, material prosperity, and dignity. To be able to enhance any area of the home, nevertheless the ideal destination for it consistantly improves south - the zone of fame and recognition. You can also place it on the inside wealth sector - the southeast, along with family sector - the east. The round Bagua Mirrors with rings of trigrams are secure protectors, which attract negative objects and restrain them using the forces of nature. Bagua Mirrors are very potent and require to be applied with customer warning. Top Yen Bai AZ Yen Bai in Viet Nam, you may use friendly protective animals, with regard to example turtles and unicorns (Chi Lin), which protect against negative spirits and anyone. Smiling is miraculous. It requires far less effort and much less facial muscles to smile than to frown or even be any smile. Top Yên Bái AZ 247 Now don't feel all your face illumine whenever you smile? Before you directly do potty training a Chihuahua, you must first provide your chi a parrot cage. A crate is a box or somewhat much a cage which is larger than large your puppy. It is made of plastic, wood, or stainless steel. This is intended to limit your canine's movements inside your home which may her to litter where. Just place some toys inside your chi's crate to prevent her from whining. For enhancing good health using feng shui, you shouldn't place a brass wu luo aside from your bed on the left side while you sleep. Wu Luo is known to boost good health and promote extending life. Show initiative. Take advantage of moving shadows during the course within the day by hanging a mirror in home to reflect the sun's movement within the home. It was located at a very cul de sac, your home being you receive . house regarding row. Believed it was perfect.quiet, newly constructed package a good neighbor who had previously been a bank. It greatest to begin the day, before leaving the house and anytime when really feel you require some extra protection. At the lowest it will distract you from the negativity you may be experiencing. Also practice meditation daily to more automatically protect on your own own. If you become in a conflictual and it could toxic relationship you need to reassess if this relationship is working an individual. Can electrical power be worked tirelessly on by basic methods in addition to psychotherapy and/or reiki (energy therapy)? Can both sides change, or are they willing? If not, end up with. Top Yen Bai AZ News View More: topyenbaiaz.com - Top Yen Bai AZ Reviewed by Team Leader in Top Yen Bai AZ: Đào Thu Trang - Dao Thu Trang Written By Author in topyenbaiaz.com: Đinh Công Huy - Dinh Cong Huy Written By Author in topyenbaiaz.com.com: Trần Hùng Đức - Tran Hung Duc
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chocolatesapphire · 1 year
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Are Aura's real?
The Black Aura 
What is it?
The black aura is an energetic field that is predominately heavy, associated with dark and demonic entities and negative emotions. Someone with this aura will harbor very negative emotions in the most extreme capacity. Such as severe hate, not just shame but extreme shame, not just anger but accumulated rage. This energy works by this kind of harboring as the longer these emotions are held, the 
greater the increase in strength this darkness has. 
Where is it and who has it?
Anyone and everyone can have a black aura, or it’s range of shades from jet black to light gray. It is normal and can be easily cleared with proper self care methods and other remedies. Someone with this darkness is not usually bad, but probably experiencing a period of time where deep self analysis and inner work needs to be done. It isn’t something that we should be worried about. 
In some rare cases however, someone can have a truly black aura or energetic field. 
This means that this person was born into (possibly from past generations or prior lives), or accumulated over their current life such an overload of dark energy that this energy does not shift as with the normal individual. It is present at all times with little to no experience of any other frequency.  It can be so heavy that it can block the flow of energy in some areas of the body or cause the spilling of darkness onto others knowingly or unknowingly. He who is born into this energy will have the natural inclination toward the darker  side of life. May have been ‘diagnosed with disorders’ such as depression, narcissism, anti social disorder, anger problems and others. These individuals may also have a history of substance abuse, self harm, violence against others, troubled childhoods and more. He may be drawn to attention, however vain, as the black aura draws into itself always- if he has successfully been able to mask this trait, he will be even more successful than he that does not. As the normal natural boundaries that limit most will not be of issue to him with a truly, dark and blackened aura. 
As it pertains to the unique individual that does carry this rare aura or energetic field, he may find this within himself and use it to his advantage. As a musician would, releasing such power through music. Or the creatives, pouring deep sorrow and anguish into paintings or art- passing such powerful energy onto items that will share whatever dark emotion overloaded his aura into the energy field of others safely. 
What are some safe remedies for treating this?
This isn’t something that needs ‘treatment’ in most cases. However, there are some remedies that may help: dealing with emotions- so this means meditating and aura cleansing. Dealing with illness through medical attention and any physical or psychological trauma. Rehab if addiction is the main cause. And lastly, in extreme cases, an exorcism or reversal may be required. 
[Please note: I am not a medical professional]
Can places have a black aura?
Yes. These are the haunted houses in horror films (which are usually based on true houses and  true stories with only slight exaggeration). This is because some locations have been sites of animal slaughter, homes that had extreme events occur in them such as deaths or violent crimes. And cities where major tragedies occurred will all carry the lingering spirits of those that were harmed or the darkness left over from such events. As the souls that usually are most reluctant to leave earth after death are the ones that have suffered tragic deaths, reliving their final moments over and over again. Such places will have a heavy, dark energy looming around. Sensitives and such will be strangely drawn to these places as lost spirits always seek them because they are the only people able to be in both realms at once. For the most part, places where tragedy has befallen is usually site for movies, art, film, books and the like- So to the right eye, there is beauty in everything.
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c-is-for-circinate · 3 years
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For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.
I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)
When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.
We don't talk so much about the joy of it.
Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.
And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.
It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.
And oh, my friends, it was glorious.
We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.
We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.
And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.
Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.
.
Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.
There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.
A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."
And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?
And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.
There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)
It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.
Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.
Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.
And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.
I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--
And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.
And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.
But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.
And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.
Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.
That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.
But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.
And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.
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supertunanana · 3 years
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I’ve debated writing this for a while, because who wants to read my inane thoughts on the matter? What are my opinions really worth in the grand scheme of things? I’m not so self important to think this will be of any value. But, I’m an extroverted thinker, so this might help my brain finally shut up, and that’s worth something to me. 
The hypocrisy surrounding Jikook. 
Are they a couple? Maybe. I legitimately don’t know. I don’t default into thinking they’re straight. I don’t default into thinking they’re gay. Every member is a blob, sexually, until they define themselves one way or another. Because honestly, I don’t care. That’s between them and their potential paramours. There’s nothing wrong with either option, heck there’s nothing wrong with both or none. Live a life, man... good luck! 
And I have no problems with shipping, to the extent it is done in a sane way and fans do not impose their ships onto the actual people. What I mean is, if you think Tae and JK look good together and you want to read stories or draw art of them as a couple and you want to explore their dynamic, you do you. However, it crosses a line when fans get mad when real people or real situations do not adhere to their fantasy. When they contradict footage and quotes and the feelings of those involved because it doesn’t fit into their little shipping box, that’s when it’s a problem. Be realistic. Have distinct lines between fantasy and reality, between what you might like and what is actually happening. 
It is this reason, that I think shipping generally innocuous and indicative of the shipper more than the celebrity, that I also don’t think the celebrities in question need to be defended against shipping. Because  if it is distinctly fantasy, then unless they express an opinion on the matter, most celebrities don’t really seem to know about it or care. It’s harmless. That defense, those hackles raised, again say more about the fans than the celebrities. When Xiao Zhan’s (XZ) fans got pissed off that some fanfic writer was portraying him as trans, XZ never weighed in on it. It wasn’t until those fans, in DEFENSE of their idol reported the writer and those of their ilk to the censors in China and got AO3 blocked on Chinese internet, that’s when XZ stepped in. And not to thank his fans for defending him, but to apologize to all the innocent Chinese fanfic writers who lost their work and their sanctuary because a handful of his fans had gotten the site banned. Again, the problem here was fans imposing their own beliefs on the celebrity, in this case thinking he would be upset by this and thus needed to be defended. They ended up causing more harm than good.
So the crux of this, what’s been kicking about in my brain, was the need for the fandom to “defend” JK from “shippers” the day after “hickey gate” and why these things only ever seem to focus on Jikook moments.
First off, “hickey gate” stemmed from footage that was a full, editorial choice to be shared on the part of Hybe and BTS. It was behind the scenes, closed set, pandemic lockdown footage edited together and released as official content, not some concert fancam or paparazzo on the street catching a private moment. They chose to leave in both Jimin and Jungkook on TWO occasions addressing the bruise/bite/hickey on JK’s neck, with the source being attributed to Jimin both times. Thus, people discussing this after the fact is a natural biproduct of it being shared. Is it even “shipping” when we are given the footage and the explanation? Is it not just a strange fact? This isn’t someone superimposing a fantasy onto them. This is the boys flat out saying Jimin bit JK and left a mark on his neck. I get debate over whether it was a bite or a hickey might lend itself more to “shipping”, with the latter being more shippy, but seriously, just looking at it would make anyone to question whether the BRUISE was more a hickey than a bite mark. What it says about the nature of their relationship is a whole other animal, but the fact is, it happened. And people are going to have THOUGHTS and FEELINGS about this. And that’s obviously something Hybe/BTS were ok with to share it in the first place (seriously, we would have never known, we DIDN’T even have a whiff of this until they put the whole thing on the DVD, so they were obviously OK with this leading to speculation, because how can a member saying they BIT another on the neck not?). All the content we are given of the boys snuggling, biting, ear sucking, tenderly addressing each other, etc.. is mostly a choice. And that choice will lead to questions and debates, and they’re obviously ok with it. It’s not wrong for people to be like, “huh” when they do questionable things and choose to give us said content about the questionable things. 
But, there always seems to be this backlash when it’s Jikook. We have to “defend” JK, a fully grown man, who brought up the bite himself on camera from people talking about the bite as he himself said it was given to him. No backlash to people saying Jimin claimed doing it to cover up JK’s secret girlfriend (uhhh, when homosexuality is a no-go in SK, that seems a weird choice, but sure, ok.... like just cut it from the footage and slap some make up on like they do during the concert, since none of us noticed it then, and move on if you want to cover it up). But that’s allowed supposition despite having NO EVIDENCE to support it. And what we are TOLD actually happened is not ok and “shipping”?!? 
Worse, when days later some innocuous “TAE AND JK WERE STANDING NEXT TO EACH OTHER OMG! THEY’RE IN LOVE” trends, where is the “save JK from shipping” rhetoric? That is CLEARLY shipping. I’m not saying Jikook shippers don’t do this, too, they do. And I laugh and shake my head at every little thing being dissected and offered as “proof”, but there always seems to be this backlash when it’s Jikook. ESPECIALLY when it’s undeniably... different. Neck biting. Ear sucking. “with JK at 4 a.m.” when they found out Dynamite got number one. Golden Closet Tokyo. These things are facts. Again, they’re... weird facts that do lead me to raise an eyebrow a lot, but they are facts and they were shared by the members as facts. I don’t think it’s necessarily shipping to think weird facts are weird and may lead to conclusions that don’t adhere to the THEY ARE ALL INHERENTLY STRAIGHT manifesto so many fans seem to have (and I think “straight until proven otherwise” is a shitty perspective anyone could have in any walk of life and again speaks to inherent or unconscious heteronormative perceptions in society - hurray -_-). 
But even the dumb shippy stuff that ALL other combos have, is always an ISSUE when done by Jikook. Their bond or interactions are downplayed by major accounts. They’re an outlier. Some shippers even try to make it out like they hate each other (whaaa? HOW?!?!).  Any odd interaction that really is just odd is deemed “shipping” and cast off into the no-no void, where it’s WRONG if you side-eye it. And I know WHY. I know it’s because they ARE different and they do do stuff people just don’t want to look too closely at because it makes them uncomfortable, so it’s easier to just deem it all “other” and “crazy supposition” and get rid of it. But it’s frustrating when it’s legit and it’s stuff they’re choosing to show and give us. It’s frustrating to be told you’re not allowed to go “huh, weird” because now you’re just a crazy shipper. 
And again, I’m NOT saying Jimin and JK are in a relationship, because again, IDK, but I’m also not saying they're NOT either. I’m going to keep side eyeing the fuck out of some of the stuff they do and just enjoy that they are 100% each other’s person in the interim. And if that makes me a crazy shipper, then I guess that’s what I am. 
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karezzasstuff · 3 years
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From the project of interviewing Stanley S. Bass about his experiences with Karezza techniques, The Life Science Publishing created the 2008 book Energy-Karezza. Here Dr. Bass tells the story of how, in his 30’s, he was on his way to become a celibate yogi through Brahmacharya, when he learned about reaching the same spiritual goal via Karezza & Tantra. He decided to try Karezza instead.
Even though his personal goal was spiritual, Dr. Bass soon discovered that women loved Karezza, and couldn’t get enough. When he started teaching the improved Energy-Karezza method to couples with marital problems, the results were astounding. Usually, within weeks, the couple had fallen in love again. Problematic marriages healed, becoming more and more harmonious and stronger with time.
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Over time, over 50+ years, he not only gained experience concerning every aspect of Karezza/Tantra, but also – thanks to his energy-understanding, being an orthopathic doctor – developed an improved, more powerful & easy-to-learn, version. Traditional “Karezza/Tantra” can be difficult for men, but “Energy-Karezza/Tantra” is easy, and also gives more pleasure & prolongation..
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INTRODUCING OTHERS TO KAREZZA
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Karezza is about one thing, the man has to control himself. It is so easy. I got so good at this control that I soon was able to go almost a whole year with no accidents. With very heavy sex - three times a week, four hours each session. It didn't take long to get to a high level of proficiency.
In a few months I was very good at it already.
It is very simple, it is natural. It is not difficult. Prove it for yourself, don't take my word for it. Try it out. The first time I heard about it, it was strange to me, so I tried it. It didn't take me long to get good at it. It was easier than I thought. In fact, I taught Karezza to a lot of friends, and everyone had success.
If one of them asked me, "how do I know if it will work?", I gave him a simple method of trying it. I usually said, "why don't you first try:
1. Don't have an orgasm quickly, but wait until the woman is finished, until she has had her enjoyment. Practice holding back for half an hour, for an hour, for several hours, if you can.
2. Then you'll see that your own orgasms are better; they are more enjoyable.
3. Also try having an orgasm only every other time you have sex.
Skipping one time. Every other time, try without orgasm. See how you feel."
With my sex students, those were my instructions, to begin with. These instructions summarize basic traditional Karezza. But these simple instructions could still be difficult for some men. They lost control (ejaculated) early, and were never able to do Karezza for a full hour.
Therefore, to make it easier, I gave my students some Energy-Karezza secrets. I asked them to improve their diet, and to avoid alcohol and all drugs. I told them not to eat before sex, because a man can not control himself after he has eaten. Why? Because then too much blood goes to the stomach.
Also, I gave very detailed instructions on the best movements in sex. I told them to move slowly, and explained how to move, so they wouldn't get too excited, e.g. sideways, in semicircles, avoiding the in-out moves.
For the premature ejaculators, I told them to give up salt, and to not use anything spicy hot, avoid hot peppers, stay away from spices, because this throws them out of control. And then I told them to use certain motions, slow motions, that makes it easy to control oneself. That's all.
Then the women will get the pleasure, because the men are controlling themselves.
For some men the pleasure was so overwhelming that they were still unable to control themselves very long, more than perhaps 45 minutes, even if their diet was good and they had high vitality. In these cases I think the solution is just doing it over and over. Sometimes men, just like women, may need saturation with lots of high-pleasure peak orgasms, before they can start with serious self-control and higher-pleasure valley orgasms. It may take months, but in the end they will get there.
I myself was never overly concerned with the clitoris or the G-spot, because the Karezza was so enjoyable and I was so good at it that a woman couldn't hold out long. If they wanted to have an orgasm, they could have it quick. Women enjoyed it.
The women were very happy. After beginning Karezza, it became unnecessary to calculate all this stuff. I never had to actually figure it out.
All I did was to function naturally, the way I felt like, without thinking about it. And it was right, for every woman. If one gets too mechanical about it, one becomes a dud. Then it is not real. Real sex has nothing to do with the brain, it has to do with feelings, true feelings and movement.
That's all. The brain is not needed.
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From page 45 the Technique to Paradise.
🍎🐍🏖️
YAB YUM
What are you experiencing?
~ by yab yum
Be patient. At first you can't experience the orgasmic part of this process. Some get it on their first try and for some it can take years. Keep practicing with the exercise your teacher gives you. Even if you don't experience the orgasm, just the breath and energy circling alone is of great value. It will clear blocks so that eventually the orgasm can pass through you. Blocks can be experienced in many ways – crying, gagging, getting frustrated, resurfacing old memories. Just keep breathing. Visualize letting go of the "old" on the exhale, ringing out the "new" on the inhale. Energy levels will most likely rise and fall, like mercury in a thermometer. Tell your partner where it slipped. Your partner will encourage you to tap into your sexual center when energy is slipping. One of the main keys to learning this technique is KNOWING that it is possible.
(When asked if she had an orgasm, Sara responded 🙂
It was uninterrupted, uninterrupted… This was definitely something else, which I have never experienced so fully.
(Sara was then asked if there were any psychological changes.)
Oh yes, sure. From the point of view of spiritual practice it is always full of insight, a kind of insight that comes after, about how I am in ecstasy in my usual state, because it is obvious that the ecstasy is inherent in the body (level), of my being… and also of course this would affect my meditation. I am much more relaxed and receptive physically, emotionally and psychologically when I sit down to meditate…. I don't know what this has to do with anything, but meditation becomes very sexual, very physical, playing with all these hormones. Very often in my meditation there is a stage like deepening where it goes through something like lovemaking in a hormonal sense. I feel the heat and change of energy and so forth, and then it just cools down. That is when deep meditation begins.
It is absolutely blissful in ecstasy because the bliss is something I feel in the body. The ecstasy is something where the body is no longer. Energy goes up. His community. It is love. The transcendent, the energy feeling, transcends even the light that I'm talking about in meditation, and just went into the light.
One tree merges with another tree, the earth merges with the trees, the trees merge with the sky, the sky merges with the unknown...you merge with me, I merge with you...everything merges...differences lost, melting and merging as waves into other waves…an enormous unity vibrating, alive, without limits, without definitions, without distinction…the sage melting into the sinner, the sinner flowing together in the sage…becoming good becoming bad, becoming bad…the night turning into the day, day turning into night… life melts into death, death plunges into life again – then everything has become one.
This has changed my experience with sexuality forever… It has blown up things like this what you have about sex, the good feeling you get from sexual experience or trying to get. It broke that because it was so obviously about submission. It wasn't about me trying to do something. It was about not doing something, but rather receiving or allowing it, rather than doing and creating and making.
This is the most profound healing practice I have ever encountered. It has awakened me to realize that my body is often shut off from the bliss and ecstasy it might be experiencing. Through this practice I have come to learn that emotional pain occurs when orgasmic energy does not flow freely through my body and that there is an infinite flow of orgasmic energy available to me. It has taken me years to gradually release the tension and pain in my body and I still have areas of tension to unblock. The sensations can be different each time depending on my condition, sometimes there is a pulsating vibration and sometimes it feels like some kind of electrical current circulating through my genitals throughout my body. There may be tears of joy. My mind can be perfectly clear and it can seem like everything I feared has been resolved. When a certain area of ​​tension is unblocked and the orgasmic energy circulates, there is always an amazing sense of oneness with the life being awakened.
Mel 40 Auckland
My teacher knew how to touch – and where to make contact – He knew places to touch that I didn't know about – and soon I was on my way to another place in another universe. I was in a trance of breathing and sweat and pleasure that so long and so dead do had gone – that I traveled through light and sound. I never knew that such an experience could be had without actually making love. When I finally climaxed and climaxed and climaxed, I couldn't believe I was having a sexual climax in the presence of someone other than my husband. I felt both excitement and a little embarrassment. Looking back at this moment, I would never have thought that having an orgasm for another man would actually be the "beginning" of this whole journey in Tantra
Emma S 35
Auckland
And this is the joy of Cosmic Spiritual Orgasm, because you disappear for a moment. That moment is very small, but its impact is immense. For a moment you are no longer the ego, you do not think in terms of 'I', for a moment you dissolve into the oneness of the all, you become one with the whole, you pulsate with the whole. You are no longer an individual… you are no longer limited to your body. You have no limitations, for a moment you are unlimited, infinite.
That is the meaning of Cosmic Spiritual Orgasm – that your frozen energy melts, becoming one with this universe, with the trees and the stars, and the woman and the man, and the rocks – for a single moment, of course. But in THAT moment you have a kind of consciousness that is religious, that is sacred, that is one with all things. – OSHO
Unbelievable! Some are very strong and some are wonderfully subtle. In general, the more time you spend building up the energy, the more powerful the sensations. You experience “electricity” throughout your body, hands, feet and lips tingle, and there is a sense of letting go and receiving at the same time. You will feel high, euphoric and light-headed. It feels very different from a clitoral orgasm (but it can happen at the same time as a clitoral orgasm). You see a seed sprout, flowers appear on a tree somewhere, the birds are singing – the whole phenomenon is sexual. It is life manifesting in many ways. When the bird sings, it is a sexual call, an invitation. When the flower attracts butterflies and bees, it is an invitation, because the bees and butterflies bear the seeds of reproduction. Everything seems to be divided into these two polarities. And life is a rhythm between these two opposites. Repulsion and attraction, coming closer and getting far… these are the rhythms.
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unhinged-summer-fun · 3 years
Text
triptych
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The Thief x Marcus Pike x F!Reader (22+)
chapter 1: the heirophant
series masterlist | taglist | previous chapter | next chapter
Summary: A thief, an artist, and the head of the Art Crimes program in the FBI all share a soul-bond. What could go wrong?
Series tags/warnings: Sexual content, art crime, light angst, art history and criticism, soulmate-identifying marks, slow burn, f!reader, a reader who doesn’t always do the right thing.
Chapter warnings: none.
More notes at the bottom! Referenced works linked in the text.
also on AO3.
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Special Agent Marcus Pike wasn’t having a particularly good week.
To be perfectly honest, it was less depressing for him to think about this week being not good instead of the more brutally-honest alternative: that things hasn’t been any semblance of good since October, and the fiasco with his ex... well, calling her an ex-fiancee seemed a bit too overstated, considering their engagement lasted for all of three hours and ended over a text message and a blocked number.
Not that he was dwelling on it.
This specific week was a whole other story than his own, however. Thankfully.
Another piece of high-profile Baroque art had been stolen, this time from a gallery in Vaduz. While INTERPOL was investigating on location in Liechtenstein, he was being copied into every break in the case, meaning that by quitting time in D.C., he was still well past his bedtime, and new emails were coming in at one in the morning from the art theft agents on site.
Information about the painting taken kept him awake in addition to the regular bureaucracy of coordinating International Art Theft resources. It was from a lesser-known apprentice to van Dyck, and included studies of Charles I at the Hunt on the back of the wooden board, in addition to a long-debunked smudge which had caused quite a stir when art historians falsely claimed it had been a lipstick kiss. Still, the photographs the Vaduz gallery had supplied caught his interest.
For as long as he could remember, he’d been drawn to light. Specifically, light in art, until that interest had morphed into a general affection for art itself, and later a career in art theft prosecution. Whether it was a romantic notion, borne from the outline of the triptych shape that made up his soul-mark over his heart, or simply pure personal interest, Marcus didn’t know. But what he did know was that there was something about Baroque and even Rococo art that caught not only his eye, but his breath, at times. When he’d been a child, newly 18 and on a trip around the museums on the East Coast, he’d been... well, lucky wasn’t quite the word for it. He never considered himself lucky, no. He had a strange relationship with timing, is all.
He’d been one of the last people to lay eyes on the works stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum before they vanished five days later. He’d seen them on his birthday, and within a week they’d vanished, with a hundred little traces no one wanted to follow. Maybe that was the push to focus him into art history in college, and then criminal justice for his masters. Perhaps it was the frustration with the lack of real headway or investigation into the heist, and then the overwhelming coverage about the mafia trial happening in Boston following the scandal. Thirteen priceless pieces of art culture, gone forever.
The same helpless frustration had come over him in 2003, just over nine years since his 18th birthday, with the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. He knew much of the chaos had been brought from fear of American forces invading, which had made him second-guess his intention to get into federal criminal justice, until the FBI stood up the Art Crimes Team in offices across the country. His frustrations then had an outlet.
An outlet, which of course, only served to upset him even more. Most of the recovered works they did find in the ACT were damaged beyond repair, fences having been spooked into destroying the pieces rather than catching heat for selling them. Marcus had stood with his hands full of broken idols, and felt just as shattered a dozen different times.
The only hope he really ever held was looking in the mirror, staring down at the simple shapes that made up his soul-mark. His mother had been concerned about its never-changing status, despite him traveling all over for his job. He didn’t share that one time because he’d rather quite forget it. It never filled itself in, not how her mark had filled in to become brilliant orange poppies when meeting her future husband for the first time. Even after all these years, after he had died, that mark was still just as deep and rich, a garden where her love grew no longer.
His father had described the experience of his mark filling in quite simply: “I met her, and it felt like all the light I’d looked for had finally been let into my soul.”
It was no wonder he was so obsessed with artwork that focused on the play of light across stones, through trees, between clouds. It was no wonder he didn’t mind the east-facing windows in his tiny D.C. apartment, nor the heat which came with it. He kept crystal light-catchers and stained-glass art in the windows, sending rainbow prisms across his room, across his skin every morning. He’d look where the colors filled in the mark over his heart, and he’d hope and dream and pretend until he could get out of bed in the morning.
All this being said, the painting was that of a sunrise.
Two lovers had been painted over in the long grass at the focal point, hidden by paint strokes to keep their morning rendezvous a secret, even by this apprentice. For a piece of Baroque art, it wasn’t stingy with the colors, adding an almost-anachronistic hint of Impressionism to the scene. It was the kind of piece that Marcus knew he’d need a chair to look at, which made it a shame that he was sitting in a desk chair, looking over details on his laptop, while the painting could have been anywhere in the world.
At least his French wasn’t as bad as it had been before.
“The canvas dimensions match those of common briefcases, I doubt there’d be many opportunities at border checkpoints to uncover it, unless we asked every man in a suit in Europe to show us his paperwork.” The INTERPOL agent on the other line barked a laugh at his logic.
“Perhaps not that paperwork, no.”
Their teleconferences occurred several times a day with high-profile cases such as these. Most of the time, curators had no idea something had been taken from their galleries. The smarter burglars came prepared with forgeries, counterfeits ready to go while the actual art left with them out the door. The fact that this piece was noticed missing so soon gave the team an advantage, the theft having taken place less than a week ago - the start of the not a very good week.
Marcus may not have been a behavioral analyst, but he could tell when Jean-Pierre was frowning over something else.
“What is it? Something else come up?” Marcus asked, sipping his coffee.
“Yes,” Jean-Pierre said slowly, like he was still turning over the thought in his head. The fact he’d switched to English wasn’t a good sign. There was a brief moment where the INTERPOL agent didn’t speak, which made the hairs on the back of Marcus’s head stand on end. Jean-Pierre was typing in their WhatsApp thread, alleviating none of the anxiety which had sprung up in a particular office in D.C.
JP Benoit: Veduz had a Bernini.
Those four words made too much sense in their shared line of work, and Marcus sighed, rubbing at his temples. He tapped out a response back.
M Pike: Which Bernini.
JP Benoit: David.
“Fuck,” Marcus muttered to himself, standing from his desk but keeping an eye on his phone. No wonder Jean-Pierre couldn’t say anything out loud. “Fuck,” he repeated, realizing that he didn’t have enough coffee for this. Jean-Pierre still had that look of I haven’t gotten to the worst part yet, which made Marcus frown even deeper. “You think it’s him.”
“I don’t know why, it’s... smells like him.”
Marcus let out a dry laugh. “He doesn’t leave enough for us to smell.”
There was a crack theory among international art theft investigators, some kind of urban legend responsible for most of the unsolved thefts in the last thirty years. Marcus didn’t know if he believed it - most gangs and thieves were caught within a decade or so, braggarts all. This list of unknowns had sprouted legs and walked off with some of the most beloved paintings galleries had to offer. Fragonard’s The Swing. Francesco Hayez’ watercolor Il Bacio, and all three pieces of his Vendetta triptych. Aivazovsky’s Constantinople Sunset. Van Gogh’s unsigned but popularly-attributed Cafe Terrace at Night. Several Ladell still-lifes. A metric fuck ton of Henry Fox Talbot photographs. All of these pieces had several things in common - scenes of love, and scenes of light. Hell, Jean-Pierre had once told him the thief had walked off with five of Monet’s Charing Cross Bridge paintings. The most popular attribution was that of the thirteen pieces from the Gardner.
That last theory had been enough for Marcus to dismiss the concept entirely, and Jean-Pierre kept his conspiracies to himself after that.
Until this week, though.
“When can you get on a secure line?” Marcus asked, wanting to know more about the missing six-and-a-half-foot sculpture.
“Sometime tonight,” Jean-Pierre sighed, rubbing a hand over his face wearily. “You need some more sleep if you’re going to hear about this from me.”
“That I do.” Marcus sighed in the same manner, shaking his head. “Alright. If... if you think he’s taken what he’s taken, then I trust you. It’s your case. Send me everything you have on him and I’ll get spun up.” He didn’t apologize for his initial brush-off of the concept of such a prolific thief, but if they were going to catch them, they needed to be on the same page.
Jean-Pierre wisely didn’t send any of the profile for several hours, knowing Marcus was a light sleeper and practically lived on his phone in the middle of a new case. This allowed the agent to get at least a few hours of sleep in, shoddy as they were, what with the neighbor’s new baby being extremely displeased at existing most hours in the day.
Me too, kid, Marcus thought dryly, before passing out.
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With at least the pinpointed moment of his bad week in the calendar, Marcus watched his bad week extend to a bad month. The Bernini, and Lovers at Sunrise, and now three more pieces from a private collector had all vanished, traceless save for the conspiracy. The photos provided by the collector - a rather unpleasant man from Menlo Park, New Jersey who considered federal investigations, in his words “gauche” - only made Marcus more suspicious. It felt like he was seeing things in a new light, when applying this masterful thief theory to the story.
He was good, Marcus knew. Too good. He didn’t pay off guards, didn’t break down doors or windows, he instead breezed past tripwires and security protocols with little more than a small gasp in the security system. Whoever it was, they were a real thorn in his side, and a walking migraine for all involved.
JP Benoit: We obviously can’t follow him. We have to trap him.
Marcus smoothed down the mustache he’d grown out of stress, too distracted to trust his normally-steady hands.
M Pike: I might have an idea.
He did more research, and didn’t bother querying online, or even over the phone. An agreement like this was bound to be sniffed out sooner or later, so keeping things on paper or simply in the air would be safest. He got approval from his superiors, and drove to a little loft in Shaw.
He almost missed the building three times, the colorful brick buildings and decorated industrial edifices catching his eye in the early-morning light. He was quite-but-not-quite undercover for this venture, a suit and jacket replaced by a hoodie and jeans, his briefcase now a worn blue backpack, and his shoes one of the pairs that still fit him from grad school. He still felt too exposed, like this. Everyone knew that feds walked every street in D.C., a fact he was a bit too aware of as he pressed the buzzer next to the...
What?
Next to the buzzer for number 313 was an empty triptych.
“Hello?” your voice came through, and Marcus found himself freezing up on the sidewalk. “Uhh did I order food?”
Marcus scrambled to respond. “No, no. This is uh.” Oh Jesus, why did he use his middle name for this? “Ithas.”
A few seconds passed in silence, presumably with you laughing behind the mute button on the speaker. “Come up, O Prometheus, and bring your thefted flame.”
He had no time to recover before the buzzer for the door sounded, and he caught it before it locked again. The inside of the building was just as... interesting as the outside. It must have been some kind of artist collective, common in the artsier enclaves in D.C. He was a little sidetracked, when ascending the tiled stairs, he caught sight of a massive and detailed mural of The Swing, though with considerably less clothes, and the mistress in a sex swing. He blushed furiously, and went up to the third floor.
The door to 313 was propped open by a large cement frog, and as Marcus drew closer, he heard a grunt and something dragging across the floor. Warily, he knocked on the spot below the numberplate, and poked his head in. “Hello?”
“Prometheus? That you?” You walked around the corner, dusting your hands off on a dirty blue apron. Your hair was in some kind of style that may have once been a bun, and your makeup looked left over from the previous night. Maybe meeting a creative type on a Monday morning wasn’t the best idea he’s had. You looked him up and down, expression morphing from curiosity to intrigue in a few seconds. “You don’t look like an Ithas.”
“It’s a, uh, it’s a middle name.”
Your eyebrows pushed up. “Ooh, codenames before coffee. You must be a fed.”
Marcus didn’t have too good of a poker face, especially around people as beautiful as you. You take in his nonverbal answer and laugh, throwing your head back.
“Oh, wow. Please, come in.” You disappeared around the corner you came from, and he stepped in. The murals on the walls in the hall bled into - or perhaps from - your apartment, which was an open-plan loft with lots of windows and natural light streaming in. Several canvases and half-formed clay sculptures sat around the space more like clutter than actual decor, but Marcus found his eyes distracted, bouncing from one beautiful thing to another, yet always skipping back to you. “Do you drink coffee, fire-stealer?”
Marcus grimaced. “You can just call me Marcus. And yeah, if you’re offering.” He sits at your counter, at the safest place that wasn’t covered in sketchbooks, supplies, and a slightly-terrifying pile of bills. He didn’t like knowing so much about people all at once, but his training had another idea.
“Marcus,” you said, tilting your head to the side and considering him again. He fought the urge to shiver at the way his name sounded on your tongue. “Yeah. Marcus. You seem more like a Marcus to me.”
“...Thank you?” he said, unsure how to respond. You barreled through with the rest of your train of thought.
“Sometimes people grow into their names, and sometimes their names become them. Middle names are a bit of a mystery, though. In Ancient Rome, middle names, or cognomen, were related to the branch of your family line you were raised by. Well, unless you were a woman. Over time, it became a means of honoring deceased relatives, or providing individuality in an aristocratic family that just named everyone John. Yet somehow, my mother came upon Titania, and decided that I needed to fill the shoes of Shakespeare’s queen of the faeries.” You pushed the coffee cup over to him, with a small tray of cream and sugar in little mismatched cups.
“You’d think fairy shoes would be small and thus easy to fill,” Marcus said, recovering and adding in probably a little too much cream and sugar to qualify his drink as coffee. He won a small smile from your lips, like he’d passed a test of some kind.
“Surely none as large as Prometheus.” You drank from your own mug, smiling as you sipped.
“I don’t think I ever let my name determine my path in life. I’m certainly no thief.”
“Certainly,” you echoed, before setting down your drink, a serious glint catching in your eye. “Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of Uncle Sam at my door? The tax thing was handled years ago.”
“I’m-I’m not that kind of fed,” he stuttered, fishing his badge out of his pocket. “Special Agent Marcus Pike, FBI Art Crimes Team. I’m the head of the International Art Theft squad, and it’s a bit of a story.”
Your once-open and playful expression had shadowed some. Marcus wished he could take back the words that dulled your sunshine. He floundered a little more. “I’m not here to arrest you for anything. In fact, I need your help. Oh, this is all backwards.”
“Hey,” you said softly, reaching over and stilling his flustered hands from where they were trying to pull on the stuck zipper of his bag. He looked up at you, all big brown eyes and pouty lips. It floored you for a moment, how little he tried to hide of his feelings. It made your fingers twitch, and something near your heart burn. “It’s okay,” you reassured him. “I’m not worried about all that. You work in art theft. I’m an artist. You’re trying to catch someone.”
He deflated, relieved you could infer as much. “Yes,” he said simply. The bag finally opened. “There’s been this... anomaly.” He scrunched his face up at the word, which you found endearing. His face made a lot of different and interesting lines, and you loved it instantly. He explained the theory about the thief, and pointed out the pieces attributed to him. There was a shadow investigation coordinated among INTERPOL, Scotland Yard, the FBI, and the Ministry of Intelligence in England. As he was the only one in the U.S., aside from the Director, who knew about this squad, he couldn’t tell you, but he could tell you what he needed, and hope that smart mind did the rest.
“So why come to me? I know it doesn’t look it, but I’m not a thief.”
The paintings and sketches and sculptures you were working on, or kept stored and in sight, all shared styles with other master painters. A cubist recreation of a blue sedan could have been a Picasso, if he’d ever seen a Honda Civic. The short wax ballerina flipping off the viewer was so close to a Degas sculpture that Marcus had to take another look just to be sure. The lovingly recreated and cheekily altered Fragonard in the hall had your mark on them as well. You were a painter of styles not your own. Your hands remained ill-at-ease unless they were mimicking another, rhyming with the past.
“I know that,” Marcus said. “What I’m asking is... I’d like to commission you. Three pieces, inspired by the pieces we think he took. To be safe, probably a sculpture, a scenic painting, and whatever other media you think would attract him.”
“You want me make art with the goal that it will be stolen,” you deadpanned, lacing your fingers together and resting your chin on them. “Am I getting this right?”
“We’ll have trackers built into the frames, the paint you use, the materials you need. If he takes them, we’ll be able to track him a lot better than the historic masterpieces he’s nabbed before.” You looked at him like he’s grown another head, because the idea was so obviously crazy that you had no idea how it would even work.
“I have rates,” you said after a moment, and he grinned. “I’m charging more because it’s the government.”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t,” he said joyfully.
“And my process is unique and important to me. I’m not going to half-ass art that’s doomed to be hidden forever.”
“Of course.” He nodded, smiling so hard the corners of his eyes crinkled up.
“You really wanna catch this guy, don’t you?” you asked, tilting your head the other direction than before. Marcus didn’t correct you, but you could tell this was getting a bit personal for him, just by his reaction. “Alright, I’ll... I’ll see what I can do. Give me a week to think it over, and I’ll meet up again to see what you think.”
“We can’t meet at the office, unfortunately. This is a very off-the-books kind of investigation, and we’ll need to make it look like a legitimate commission.”
“Then breakfast.”
“What?” he asked, losing the thread for a moment.
“Then we’ll meet for breakfast next Monday. For all intents, it’ll look like two friends meeting for pancakes. You like pancakes, right?”
“I love pancakes...” he said, some kind of faraway look in his eye. He wanted to ask about the symbol on your call box, but the words died on his tongue at your sweet smile.
“This is my number,” you said, writing it on a scrap of paper nearby. “I’m awake pretty much all the time except when I’m not.” He exchanges your number for the envelope of pictures he’d brought for reference.
“This is all the pieces we know of, in case you need some inspiration.”
“Thanks.”
“There’s also $3,000 in there.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He got up and looked around a little more, before awkwardly waving and making his goodbyes. He was nearly out the door when the mark on his chest surged and burned. He turned to look at you. You were watching him with another strange, curious look in your eye. He almost asked, again, but chickened out once more. “Did you—? Did you paint the—”
“Les Hasards heureux de la sex swing?” you answered, smugness apparent on your lips. “Yeah, about four months ago. You a fan?”
“I think I could be.”
“Have a good day, Marcus Ithas Pike.”
“And to you, Queen Titania.”
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Authors Notes:
- I have only watched the Marcus Pike crumbs of the Mentalist. I don't give half a shit about the rest lmao. - Some of the pieces I reference are actually stolen, but not all. A lot of them come from @moodsworks​'s art she made of the Thief among his hoarde, which is the main inspiration for this whole nonsense. Please please go look, I'm eternally in awe and I'm hanging this piece in my home as we speak. - Prometheus was nicknamed Ithas or Ithax by a 5th century grammarian Hesychius. It's where the placename Ithaca comes from! - Titania is the name of the Queen of the Faeries in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Her husband's name is Oberon. You can tell where I'm going with this. - All the drivel about middle names is true. - The real-life FBI Art Crimes Team was stood up in 2004 because of the looting at the National Museum of Iraq in 2003. I'm pretty sure it's currently run by the same woman who started it then. I don't think there's an actual International Art Theft department, but governments often help one another out in these kinds of high-profile incidents. - Learn more about why the Gardner heist was such a headache in the Netflix docuseries This is a Robbery. - The referenced stolen painting in Vaduz is made up, as is the sex swing painting. - We meet the Thief in next chapter, and he's going to eventually have a name, sorry. If you want a fic where we don't ever know his name, I've got one of those too.
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queenmuzz · 3 years
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So, anyways, I saw something @liulyam had posted for Spardaverse a while back I DON'T KNOW HOW I MISSED THEIR WONDERFUL ART FORGIVE ME! Anyways, I saw specifically THIS piece of art, and it sent the brain juices into overdrive....
So, the same thing plays out everyday. Nero gets off the school bus and runs in, backpack flying, and tells his uncle excitedly about his day at school, before racing up the stairs to tell his dad the same thing, in the same adorably animated manner. Unfortunately, Vergil doesn’t respond the same way as Dante, sitting still, not even acknowledging that the boy is talking to him. Initially, Nero doesn’t mind, understanding his recently rescued father has been through a lot, and needs time and patience to recover. But as the months pass by, Dante notices that his nephew doesn’t run up the front steps as eagerly, his descriptions of school become shorter, paler. And most worryingly of all, Nero spends less and less time with Vergil, preferring to peek his head in the man’s room, sigh, and slowly make his way to his own room, closing the door sullenly.
“What’s going on Nero?” Dante takes the plunge and asks him one day, before the boy trudges up the stairs. “You haven’t been that rambunctious ball of energy lately.”
Nero kicks the worn hardwood floor. “It’s dad… I know you told me I need to be patient,” his face scrunches up at the word, it’s a thing he’s never been able to truly do. He’s definitely a Sparda boy. “But he just keeps ignoring me. He won’t talk, won’t even look at me. It’s like I don’t even exist! Maybe...maybe he doesn’t want me to exist-”
“Hey now!” Dante needs to nip this train of thought in the bud. He knows first hand where it can lead to. Had he not found Nero nearly nine years ago, while wandering the world, drinking up every bar’s entire inventory in a vain attempt to fill a void in his chest, who knows where he would have ended up? “Your dad...well, even without the stuff he’s been through, he was never much of a talker. Always preferred to have his actions speak for him.” “But that’s the thing, Uncle Dante!” Nero blurts out, close to tears. “He DOESN’T DO ANYTHING!!! He doesn’t care!” And with that, Nero bolts up the stairs, past Vergil’s room, not even checking up on him, and slams his bedroom door with such force, Eva’s portrait wobbles on the desk and tips over. Dante sighs, sets his mom back up, and slowly makes his way up the stairs. Not to Nero’s room; Dante knows better than to provoke that tiger cub when he’s in an ornery mood. It’s time to talk to his dad.
Vergil, or what’s left of him, is sitting in an oversized chair, the only one that fits his giant frame, facing the window, the only one in the place with a view. If he’s heard the ruckus (and Dante knows he has), he makes no indication that it affects him.
“Verg,” he calls out, “I know it's been rough, I know I piled on a lot of shit on you, the whole thing about having a kid and everything these past nine years. I’m not expecting you to just snap back to normal, and start insulting me like in the good old days, but…” Dante’s not good at this sort of thing. He’d rather Royal Guard his emotional turmoil. It used to be with alcohol, but now it’s with a cheery smile. “The kid needs a sign that you’re still there, you’re still fighting. I know you are, hell, you’re the one that helped me take down that bastard Mundus on Mallet Island. But that’s the thing, Nero’s only heard things that you’ve done, not seen them. You need to show him yourself, otherwise…” Vergil makes no motion, and even Dante, stubborn as he is, knows it’s fruitless to continue much more, “you’re gonna lose him too.” And then Dante heads back downstairs, to see if he can whip up a snack to bribe his nephew to come out of his lair. Strange, he swears he hears the rustle of fabric from Vergil’s room, as if his brother had just moved.
--
Nero sits at Dante’s desk, working on his math homework. It’s his least favourite thing, fractions. Uncle Dante is a whiz at them, and usually would be able to help him, but he’s gone out on an ‘Really quick, won’t be more than a half hour’ errand run. It’s been nearly two hours, and the only other adult here is his dad… so Nero is practically by himself.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of Nero’s neck prick up, and he hears scrabbling at the front door. He’s still not allowed to go out with Uncle Dante or Auntie Lady on their hunts, but he knows what a demon feels like, especially when there are a lot of them. ESPECIALLY when they’re really powerful Instinctively, he grabs a chair, and wedges it underneath the door knob, and looks around in a panic. He’s never had to deal with a demon attack by himself before. He remembers his uncle has a case of weapons that he was told to NEVER touch beside the jukebox, but Nero figures that he can say sorry to his uncle later. He smashes the lock with a billiard ball, and yanks open the lid. He’s disappointed. He thought there would be a treasure trove of swords and guns, but all there are two swords, one red and one blue. But he doesn’t have much of a choice, and the whine of protesting wood ends with a thunderous CRASH, and demons pour through. “FIND THE HERETIC GOD SLAYER!” One says, before turning in Nero’s direction. Without much warning, it shrieks as it launches at him with razor sharp obsidian claws.
Nero might be little, but his uncle has trained him well. Whipping the two blades around, they connect the monster’s waist in a pincer move, and like a pair of scissors, bisect it in a shower of blood and ash. Nero swears he hears a voice (or is it two voices?) approvingly say, “Impressive!” but doesn’t have a chance to savour his very first demon kill as another demon comes at him, knocking him over. The reddish gold blade clatters away on the floor, way out of reach, not that it matters. Nero’s pinned to the ground by a skeletal foot, as the demon lifts a blade to impale him. He squeezes his eyes shut, preparing for the end.
The final blow never comes. Instead, he hears shriek, and the pressure on his chest instantly subsides. He opens his eyes, to see it stagger back, its decapitated head clattering to the floor. Its brethren likewise are either dead or dying, their high pitched screams shattering the glass in the jukebox.
Nero’s first thought is that his Uncle has finally come home, Dante’s come to save me! But what’s odd is that there’s no sound of Dante’s beloved Ebony and Ivory. And last he checked, his uncle never was able to shoot out blue ghostly blades that now impale most of the horde. But it doesn’t matter, because his uncle is here to save the day! That is, until he yelps as he’s quickly, but not roughly picked up and held as whoever holds him spirits him out of the building, the blue blade still clutched in his hand. Nero begins to panic, but hears a voice, almost like a croak, as if the vocal cords had been in disuse for years…
Nero
And even though the voice is harsh sounding, it's one of the most comforting things Nero’s ever heard.
--
Of course that half hour errand run would turn out to be three hours. But when he was promised a free pizza for clearing out that demon nest on the West side, Dante couldn’t say no. Besides, he’d pick up some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies on the way home as a way of apologising to Nero. The kid might be cross with him, but he’d forgive him the moment he smelled those chewy biscuits. Dante might even let him have more than half of the package.
So when he gets home to find his front door smashed open, his office trashed, and worst of all his jukebox shattered-wait no, worst of all, his nephew missing, all thoughts of pizza and cookies vanish from his mind as he rushes in, guns drawn. There’s no sign of life, but the black splatters of demonic ichor painting the walls shows that some real bad mojo went down here. The strangest thing though, is Agni, a weapon Dante was definitely sure he had under lock and key, laying there on the ground, alone.
“Alright, time to spill your guts” he yanks the blade up so that he’s at eye level with the pommel, “What the hell happened here?” Agni makes the same response as Vergil. Which means silence.
“I swear to…” he pulls out ivory, and presses the muzzle into the (more troubled than usual looking face), “You’re gonna tell me what went down, or we’re gonna see how many bullets I can jam into your ugly mug.” “You told us to remain silent.” He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, consider that rule temporarily relaxed.” “There was an attack.” Agni starts, its distorted voice unusually agitated, “The little one fought with great valour, but eventually even he was overwhelmed.” Dante’s blood goes cold. “But then a great bulk of a demon came out and slaughtered the attacking filth, and spirited the boy away, alongwith my brother.”
“Rudra’s still with Nero?” That’s odd, if they were trying to capture the kid, they’d disarm him first.
“Yes, they are not far, I think they’ve stopped moving.”
“Alright,” Dante makes his way out of the disfigured wood, “let’s go find the kid and your bro...and if he’s alright, maybe I’ll reconsider giving back your talking privileges.” “Oh, that would be wonderful, will you allow us to leave the dark box? It’s been so long since we’ve fought, we crave batt- ”
“I said IF, and I won’t guarantee anything if you keep jabbering on and on.”
--
Angi directs the demon hunter to a dark secluded alleyway, a few blocks from Devil May Cry. One hand on its hilt ready for attack, the other fingering the trigger of Ivory, he cautiously makes his way past the recently overturned garbage cans, to a shadow alcove, where a shadow crouches. Beside it is Rudra, glowing faintly, it’s turquoise blue light providing enough illumination for Dante to make out what has happened. There’s Nero, peacefully slumbering away, apparently unharmed, not even his shirt is torn. And holding him gently, stroking his downy white hair with a giant hand...is Vergil… And for once, even though he is still staring straight ahead, there’s a different look on his face, a sense of contentment.
Huh Dante thinks to himself as he holsters the weapons, I was right, actions DO speak louder than words.
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mpregwizard · 2 years
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used to be yeet-motherfucker, swampwizard, and beaftwizard. my art account is @art-of-the-bog. i did my icon. im good with any pronouns.
i know that tumblr makes new users follow people before customizing, but most of the blank blogs i get are bots anyway. if it so happens that you are a new user following me, please put something in your bio that shows me you are a real person by like the next day even if its just "looking for header/icon" or something. i dont want bot followers and its annoying to have to remember to check. i will assume youre a bot and block and report you if you dont do this. im here for fun.
send me blogs that post:
strange or interesting art
cool interiors
cool buildings
sci fi/fantasy stuff
mens fashion
anything visually interesting
i used to tag for dogs and bugs but im having trouble remembering to do that so if you need those blocked i would recommend just unfollowing me.
jojo blog is @jojosbizarrepussy
everyone is migrating to like bluesky or cohost now and im mpregwizard on both but i am incapable of consistently posting on more than one platform at a time, and i havent gotten a feel for either yet. so i guess if you want a backup in case tumblr explodes overnight or something you can follow me there.
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a-n-conrad · 3 years
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Training (Dr.Strange x Reader)
[Summary: After getting mugged a few nights ago, Dr. Stephen Strange, the sorcerer supreme, decides it’s important to teach you a thing or two. But as you start training with your friend, the two of you realize you might be closer than you originally thought. (She/her pronouns)
Warnings: blood, mentions of an attack, knife mention, swearing, insecurity
Request: From my request survey (https://forms.gle/2XeYLsGekCdFmQjD7)]
You stumbled into the New York Sactum late one night, your clothes dirty and the knees of your pants ripped. Your hands and knees were scraped from falling, a little blood dripping onto your clothes. There was a bit of blood dripping down you neck, too, soaking into your shirt where the blood met the fabric. It was really just sinking in that they had cut you. 
You had been mugged, stopped on the street when you were walking alone by a knife pressed against your neck. And you when tried to fight back, gripping your bag as hard as you could, you were just hurt more. They had cut you just a little before ripping the bag from your hands and shoving you harshly to the ground. You hadn’t even gotten a good enough look at them to give any sort of description. Not that you planned on reporting this to the police anyway. You were friends with a literal superhero. There wasn’t really anything that they could do that Stephen couldn’t. 
You were so tired by the time you made it to the sanctum. Your ankle felt like every step you took was a knife being shoved into the side of your ankle. And you supposed you a bit more of an expert on knife injuries than you were just moments before. You were limping pretty badly as you pushed the doors to the sanctum open. Honestly, you had started regretting putting your phone in your bag ages ago. You really wished that you could’ve just called Stephen to portal you somewhere.
Luckily for you, you didn’t have to try to hunt Stephen down, since he was just walking through the foyer as you stumbled in. He froze a bit when he saw you, his eyes gliding over your body, clocking every single one of your injuries. You wondered if this was how he looked at all of his patients before he worked back when he was a surgeon.
But you knew it wasn’t when the icy professionalism melted away into a warm worry that you knew his old self never really felt. He had been a lot more selfish back then. But he had grown quite a bit since then.
He was by your side in seconds, His hands, though a bit shaky, and not quite as strong as they used to be, were placed on your arms, moving your arm to rest over his shoulders so that he could guide you to one of the antique couches. 
He was gentle with you as he sat you down, almost instantly working on cleaning and examining all of your injuries. He pulled first aid supplies out of seemingly no where, though you didn’t really question it. Lately, magic had become a pretty routine part of your life every time you visited Stephen. He cleaned all of your cuts and scrapes, carefully bandaging them all up. When he reached the one on your neck, his brows furrowed just a little, though he didn’t really say anything. Instead, he just continued his work. 
“Is there anything else that hurts?” He asked, you could tell by his tone that he was holding back from scolding you until he knew that all of your injuries were treated. He knew he could be a bit harsh sometimes, and you knew that he’d rather you at least be fully taken care of before he made you upset enough to try to storm off. And something about that thought made your heart buzz. 
“Just my ankle,” You muttered, “I think I twisted it a little.”
He nodded, still clearly biting his tongue. Almost literally at this point. He moved his hands carefully towards the ankle that you had indicated, slowly moving it, carefully watching for any signs of pain. The skin of his hands was textured in a way you had never felt before, and feeling it brush so carefully against the smooth skin of your ankle made your face heat up a bit.
“You definitely have a sprained ankle,” He stated, pulling compression tape out of thin air to start wrapping your ankle. His hands were still shaky, but there a quite a few things that he could do, because they weren’t even really considered tasks to him. He had done them so many times that with a bit of extra attention he could still do them with a little extra effort, “Now would you like to explain to me what exactly happened?”
“Well, as you know, we live in New York,” You started, causing him to roll his eyes in a way that you were pretty sure he had reserved exclusively for when you made jokes at inappropriate times, “And I got mugged. As you do. In New York.”
“Did no one ever teach you how to handle that situation?” he asked, exasperated, “You’re not supposed to fight back. I can literally just track down your bag and take it back. I have magic.”
“You know that’s not really how that goes with me, Stephen. And it’s not going to change any time soon,” You stated. You had always been much too stubborn for your own good. Which was how you managed to survive being friends with Dr. Stephen Strange.
He rolled his eyes at you yet again, “At least let me teach you a few things if you’re going to insist on getting into trouble.”
Your eyes lit up in seconds, and you could tell that he noticed, “Wait, for real? Are you offering to teach me magic?”
“Well,” It was sort of like you could see the wheels turning in his head. Like he was trying to figure out how to say what he was planning to say without ruining your good mood, “Maybe a little, but I was more thinking martial arts? Knowing you, if you start going around using magic against random petty thieves on the street, you’re going to end up getting in more trouble than all of the Avengers combined.”
You mulled over his words for a few seconds, before deciding that he was right. There were enough superpowered vigilantes in New York City, and they already got into enough trouble. And you knew very well that most of them weren’t as danger-prone as you were, “Fine, I suppose I’ll settle for martial arts.”
- - - - -
It was a few days before your first lesson. Stephen, pulling his “I’m a doctor” card, had insisted that you stay at the sanctum for a bit so that he could make sure that you were healing properly. He had already set up a spare room for you a while ago, considering the amount of times that you had tried to help him fine a certain piece of information in his library and ended up falling asleep on one of the couches at about two in the morning. 
But it really wasn’t long before he cleared you to start your training. You had expected it to take him a lot longer to get around to teaching you anything. Between his studies, teaching the newest apprentices of the mystic arts, and having to constantly ensure that the universe and timeline weren’t going to fall apart any time soon, Stephen was a very busy man. In fact, most of the time that you managed to block out to spend time with him, you were either helping him study, grabbing a quick meal, or helping him tidy up the sanctum. But he actually managed to get around to your first lesson the day after he told you that you were healed enough to go back to your own place. 
It was a chilly Saturday afternoon. The weather was just starting to turn a little cold. Not cold enough to be anything you really needed to worry about, but it was cold enough that you decided to put on a sweatshirt before walking to the sanctum. By the time you got there, your knuckles had started to show a bit of red and your nose was a bit cold. But you managed to ignore it, choosing instead to focus on your excitement to start training with your friend. Your mind had been wandering to how this might go almost constantly for the whole morning. 
You had been thinking about what you would be learning. Stephen had told you that the first thing he was going to teach you was how to use a sling ring. That way perhaps you could just avoid conflict. 
You were definitely fantasizing a little. Imagining things that obviously weren’t going to happen. In your mind you pictured yourself getting it on the first try, revealing yourself as some sort of magical prodigy. You pictured Wong and Stephen praising you, talking to you like you were even a little bit as impressive as a majority of the people that they talked to on a daily basis. Stephen, smiling at you with a smile that you were pretty sure you’ve really only seen in the rare romance movie with good acting, telling you how amazing you were. 
You stopped yourself before you imagined something you couldn’t just write off as needing praise. And in order to prevent your mind from wandering back to where it had been going, you decided to rush just a bit to the sanctum, managing to make it there before you ran out of other thoughts to keep your mind occupied. You took a deep breath, hoping to reset your brain before you opened the doors into the foyer.
Stephen had been waiting the foyer for you. You weren’t sure how long he had been waiting there, but you couldn’t help but smile when you saw him. He gave you a soft smile too. He had been a lot more open with caring about people since he took over the New York Sanctum, though he was still pretty walled off. He had changed a lot, but he was still Stephen, and there were a few things that were never going to change. And something about that, and the fact that you knew him well enough to know that, warmed your heart just a little.
“Alright, there’s a little field in the middle of no where that I portal to when I want to try out new spells sometimes that I think we should probably go there. Just in case,” He explained as you walked up to him. He seemed to be standing taller and the look on his face was one that you recognized from when he was teaching classes. You had to fight a little bit to keep your mind from wandering off to somewhere you didn’t want it to go as his deep, commanding voice reached your ears. He was definitely in teacher mode, and you really couldn’t say you had any reason to complain. Except for the fact that it was a little harder than usual to hide the fact that your face was beginning to heat up.
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” You replied, trying your best to hide any sort of unevenness in your voice with your regular cheerfulness. 
- - - - -
It didn’t take more than half an hour of training without results for all of your excitement to fade away. Stephen had tasked you with trying to create a portal back to the foyer. He had gone over how to do it, too. The visualization, the hand motion, everything. And still, you couldn’t manage to summon a portal. 
“God fucking dammit,” You shouted, throwing your hands up into the air. You felt like an idiot. You had just been standing in a field for half an hour, spinning your hand in an attempt to create a doorway of sparks out of thin air. You knew it was possible, too, which was driving you even more insane. What was wrong with you that you couldn’t get this?
“Hey, whoa,” Stephen walked over just as you were about to through the ring in anger, stopping you just in time, “You’re really not doing all that bad. It takes time to get it down. You’ll figure it out.”
He placed one of his hands on your shoulder, the trembling stopping as it pressed against your arm. You could eel your skin heating up under his hand, and you really hoped he wouldn’t notice.
“Yeah, right,” You said, sitting down cross-legged in the plash grass that was surrounded you, “How long did this take you? Five minutes?”
He chuckled, taking a seat next to you. The deep rumble in the back of his throat when he laughed was one of your favorite sounds. It was like a thunderstorm, but specifically a thunderstorm when you were wrapped in a blanket, reading a book that you loved, “Actually, I didn’t figure out how to do this until my mentor abandoned me on Mt. Everest.”
“Wait, really?” The surprise was less about him being abandoned on Everest and more about him not figuring this out right away. He was so talented and learned everything so fast. He was the smartest person you had ever met, and you admired him more than you had ever admired anyone in your life. 
“I know that I get talked up a lot, but I’m really only good at this because of all the reading I do,” He laid back, his cloak wrapping itself around him a bit as he lounged on the ground. You had never seen him like this. Stephen Strange was a man with the weight of the world on his shoulder, gray hairs on the sides of his head well-earned. But as he laid down next to you, sprawled out on the ground among the grass and a few tiny flowers, you felt as though there could never be anything wrong in the world as long as Stephen was beside you. 
“Oh, please,” You flopped back, surprised by how soft the pillow of grass was, “You’re so talented at everything you try. Honestly, Stephen, I can’t think of a single thing you couldn’t do if you put your mind to it.”
“Is that really what you think about me?” a hint of insecurity seeped into his voice, a tone you had never heard from him before. He had always been so unwaveringly confident before.
“Of course it is, Stephen,” You turned a bit to face him. His brows were furrowed as he stared at the sky, clouds reflected in his eyes, “You’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Honestly, sometimes I feel like you’re so amazing that I’m barely worth your time.”
That last sentence came out pretty sheepishly, quietly enough that for a moment you had the slightest bit of hope that maybe he didn’t hear you. That hope was quickly extinguished, though, as he turned to you, his eyebrows raised as though you had said something entirely unbelievable. 
“Barely worth my time?” He exclaimed, as though I had just insulted him, “If anyone here isn’t worth this time, it’s me. (Y/n), I’ve been such a jerk. I was cruel to you for a good majority of our friendship. I honestly don’t know how you stand me.”
You knew he had been having some self-worth issues since his accident. He had lost everything, or what he thought was everything. But you had never seen the pain so clearly in his eyes before. 
“Stephen, I know you’re not the person you were right after your accident. You’re not even the person you were before it. You’re Dr. Stephen Strange, master of the mystic arts. The savior of the earth more times than I even know about. The only person that ever offered to teach me how to defend myself. The person the patched me up after I got mugged. The person that carries me to my guest bed when I fall asleep in the library,” By the end of the rant, you had realized what you truly meant. 
You had fallen in love with Stephen since he had come back. He had grown so much as a person, changing for the better. And as you got to know this new Stephen, a person that despite still seeming cold and arrogant had learned how much good he was capable of. A person that, for the first time in a long time, remembered what it felt like to do things for others without needing any sort of reward. 
And as you look back to his eyes, which were staring at you, wide with shock, you realized that you couldn’t keep it to yourself much longer, “I love you, Stephen. I love the person you’ve grown to be.”
You really hadn’t realized, but his face was much closer to yours than you expected it to be. You could smell his cologne, a warm scent, like a chai latte from a nice cafe mixed with the smoke that always seemed to cling to his clothes. You could feel his eyes, flickering down to your lips. The world around you felt like it was both slowing down and speeding around you. Like time was irrelevant as you laid there, staring into his crystal clear eyes. 
Finally, the moment broke as he closed the gap between you, his lips softly touching your own. They were softer than you expected them to be, though his beard was a bit rough against your face. It was gentle, caring, and timid. Things that never would have been associated with the old Dr. Strange. 
He went to pull back after a few seconds, though your arms seemed to move without you telling them to. You had been waiting fo this so much longer than you even really knew, you had bottled up these feelings for so long. You pulled him back by the collar of his shirt, pulling his body to hover over your own a bit. It was nearly instinctive, the feeling of needing to be as close to him as you could be. You had been forcing yourself to stay at a distance, and it felt as though that first kiss broke the dam. 
It was a few more moments before you allowed him to pull away again, finally loosening your grip on his clothing. The way he looked at you was something that you were pretty sure you never could’ve imagined, like you were the center of the universe. Like out of all the beautiful things in the world that he had seen, you were the only one he ever wanted to see. 
You were both silent for a few moments, just taking in what had just happened. It took you a few moments to fully take in that it was real. And then a few more moments to convince yourself that this wouldn’t stop being real the second the two of you got up.
“We really should get back to training,” he finally broke the silence, a smirk plastering itself onto his face, “You only got half an hour into a four-hour lesson.”
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sagamemes · 3 years
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the sheridan tapes  📼  part one.   here and under the cut, you can find a little under 120 lines of dialogue from the horror podcast the sheridan tapes, specifically from episodes one to three, edited for roleplay purposes.  tw: police, murder, supernatural elements, mentions of apocalyptic scenarios, near death experiences, injuries, vehicular crash, recreational drug and alcohol use.
❝  jesus, [name]. you’re not making this easy, are you?  ❞
❝  makes you wonder... do these things follow me because i chase them, or were they always following me?  ❞
❝  darkness and complete disorientation does a number on the human brain.  ❞
❝  i don't think he was a werewolf.  ❞
❝  i’d call it the customer service smile. you know, the one that says  ‘ thank you for shopping with us, please die now ’.  ❞
❝  i’ve found the more showy the text, the less impressive the actual phenomena.  ❞
❝  my job here is kind of… shaky at the moment.  ❞
❝  [name] was also engaged in the study of the impossible in his free time.  ❞
❝  so it’s just me who drives you up the wall then?  ❞
❝  well, you’ll be happy to hear i haven’t been having any fun. no weed, no ghosts.  ❞
❝  there hasn’t been a new lead on her case in more than half a year.  ❞
❝  so here i am, wrapped up in a blanket, staring at my little fireplace, so bored i actually decided to call my sister for once.  ❞
❝  it’s a little town near bandon. very little. nice little mini-market, and that’s about it.  ❞
❝  i doubt i’ll sleep much tonight. that’s okay. i just feel like looking at the stars for a while.  ❞
❝  it's probably for the best. i am simultaneously exhausted from the drive and absolutely wired from the coffee.  ❞
❝  i wonder if there will still be ghosts out there when that happens?  when the earth is gone?  ❞
❝  glad to hear you’re enjoying yourself, then.  ❞
❝  knowing doesn’t make things any easier, but it does make them a little less frightening.  ❞
❝  that’s all just a lazy way of saying that the real explanation is too difficult—or too horrible—for them to accept.  ❞
❝  it almost killed me, but in the end it settled for putting me in pt for a year while i figured out how to use my hands again.  ❞
❝  he muttered something about my time being up. or maybe he said it wasn’t up.  ❞
❝  i don’t really care that i didn’t get any writing done today.  ❞
❝  nothing. not a single idea worth writing down, no itch i needed to scratch or question i needed to answer.  ❞
❝  guess there really is no such thing as bad press.  ❞
❝  i have no idea what a writer’s  ‘ process ’  usually looks like, but i’m pretty sure it’s not this.  ❞
❝  see what i have to deal with?  god… siblings, am i right?  ❞
❝  what can i say?  i have a soft spot for gothic architecture.  ❞
❝  computers have never been very good at reconciling paradoxes.  ❞
❝  they’re pretty much over funding my little expeditions.  ❞
❝  that kind of smile doesn’t normally show that many teeth.  ❞
❝  you know, that’s only scary the first few times you do it.  ❞
❝  one day, it will be dead. one day all the stars will burn out, go dark and silent. one day, everything will be so dark and so cold that no new stars can ever be born. the old ones will blink out one by one, like candles going out, and then… nothing. silence. darkness. void.  ❞
❝  the simplest explanation is almost always the right one.  ❞
❝  i don’t remember getting in my van, putting the key in the ignition, or speeding away from that house, but i must have.  ❞
❝  no, no, i’m fine, i’m fine, just go bother someone else.  ❞
❝  i haven’t eaten, moved, or written anything all day.  ❞
❝  but maybe that's just the fact that it is two in the morning and my brain is running mostly on caffeine.  ❞
❝  given how good a [job] he is, i know it’s not the first time he’s done it.  ❞
❝  i escaped, but i knew that whatever was in that house has just marked me as prey.  ❞
❝  calm down. think. you’re just going to confuse yourself.  ❞
❝  just wanted to tell you a couple of us are headed out to marvin’s for drinks if you want to come.  ❞
❝  one of the most disappointing things about living in america is the lack of genuinely haunted houses. out of all the supposed haunts i’ve visited, maybe one in ten seems like the real deal.  ❞
❝  sounds… peaceful. not many distractions, then?  ❞
❝  something tells me this tape wasn’t played in court.  ❞
❝  one of the neighbours must have called 911.  ❞
❝  my infamous accident. it almost killed me.  ❞
❝  i just woke up to footsteps in the kitchen. i don’t know who, or what, but there’s someone in here with me!  ❞
❝  could you shut the door on your way out, please?  ❞
❝  uh, wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon.  ❞
❝  the fire that i said went out?  yeah, it just started burning again.  ❞
❝  so i asked him to lie.  ❞
❝  it'd really be just a few of us. maybe me and [name] and one or two other tagalongs…  ❞
❝  apparently, the press had a lot of questions too.  ❞
❝  i’ve driven more than 8 hours and drunk enough bad coffee to give an elephant heart palpitations. i’m sure as hell going to get my money’s worth.  ❞
❝  oh sorry, am i bothering you now? what happened to  ‘ call anytime you want, [name] ’ or,  ‘ you’re always welcome here, [name] ’ ?  ❞
❝  i’ve forgotten to charge my phone. again.  ❞
❝  i… think i’m going to turn around now.  ❞
❝  well sorry if i wanted to have a nice talk with my sister for a change.  ❞
❝  will it just be left there forever? our legacy? look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair?  ❞
❝  no matter how far away from home you are, no matter how different the constellations might look from where you’re standing, you can always look up on a clear, dark night and feel like you’re about to fall right into it—the terrifying, endless expanse of nothingness.  ❞
❝  i know authors can do some crazy things to get out of writer’s block, but i’ve never heard of one resorting to arson.  ❞
❝  why do you always think there’s something wrong?  ❞
❝  ours is not to question why, ours is but to digitize and stay the hell out of trouble.  ❞
❝  so let’s try walking backwards. just keep an eye on it.  ❞
❝  i got lucky. or maybe i was just fast enough to escape.  ❞
❝  maybe there are secret passages behind the walls and corridors.  ❞
❝  no matter how far i walked, i couldn’t find the way i came in.  ❞
❝  well, i /know/ i’ve had worst nights. i just can’t think of any right now.  ❞
❝  i do want you to have fun, [name], i just don’t want you to get yourself killed doing it.  ❞
❝  i mean, obviously, i do care, that’s the whole reason i made this trip. to get away from the noise and focus.  ❞
❝  i might have… forgotten to tell anyone where i was going.  ❞
❝  before i get started, there’s just one thing i need to say. i have absolutely no patience for the unexplained, or the things people call  ‘ unexplainable ’,  ‘ supernatural ’, or  ‘ paranormal ’.  ❞
❝  i told [name] that i needed to get out, to get inspired.  ❞
❝  okay, if someone is messing with me, they’re going to be very sorry, very quickly.  ❞
❝  [name] lied his ass off to save yours.  ❞
❝  a crash like that does funny things to your head.  ❞
❝  i still don’t know how he got there without me noticing.  ❞
❝  any plans i had to travel abroad went up in smoke.  ❞
❝  i thought of pulling out the bad cop routine.  ❞
❝  strange how something so dead can be so beautiful.  ❞
❝  it hated me:  hated what i do, and more than that, hated who i am.  ❞
❝  lots of tall tales. and more than a few ghost stories.  ❞
❝  oh good, you’re still here!  ❞
❝  reviewers absolutely grilled it:  said it was a nonsensical rip off of the dark tower, whatever that means.  ❞
❝  i jumped out the window. cut my hands on the glass, but thankfully not bad enough to need stitches  ❞
❝  i told her, tonight.  ❞
❝  for a minute, i wondered if that would really be so bad. it was a fitting way to go, given my… well, everything.  ❞
❝  i suppose that’s a universal constant—maybe the only one.  ❞
❝  i never let myself get this turned around. especially not at night.  ❞
❝  i don’t know if it’s actually haunted. but if not, then it was sure as hell convincing.  ❞
❝  i’m not one of those people who thinks she’s the spawn of satan or something ridiculous like that.  ❞
❝  unless i’m prepared to accept that she was murdered by something that crawled out of a funhouse mirror, this isn’t much help with the case, either.  ❞
❝  i have to try and work some actual cases the rest of the time. you know, cases that might have some answers i can find.  ❞
❝  it's cold, damp, and dark as night. i'm in my element, at least.  ❞
❝  your place is waiting for you.  ❞
❝  yeah, i’m all good. great… hanging in there, you know?  one day at a time.  ❞
❝  oh, i see you. you think i’m still scared of [thing], huh?  think you can freak me out?  ❞
❝  trust me, i’ve had a hell of a day, and you do not want to mess with a pissed off…  ❞
❝  and tell my sister i'm sorry.  ❞
❝  oh god, it's cold.  ❞
❝  the night sky really is beautiful out here.  ❞
❝  tell him he shouldn’t have been such a good liar.  ❞
❝  i’ve been listening to this for the last two weeks now.  ❞
❝  it’s not even that i’m having bad ideas. i’m not having any at all.  ❞
❝  can’t get away from the work, no matter what i do.  ❞
❝  i made sure i switched off my phone before i came up here, just in case.  ❞
❝  god, these things smell of weed.  ❞
❝  yeah, well… just wanted to make sure you’re okay, you know?  ❞
❝  [name] is dead. that's all there is to it.  ❞
❝  no, i need to get out of here. it’s been a long day.  ❞
❝  a lot of the art i found was just paintings of a night sky full of stars.  ❞
❝  my job is to look the facts dead in the face and find an explanation. one that will hold up in a court of law.  ❞
❝  personal and career choices, i guess you’d call them.  ❞
❝  damn. i could’ve sworn i felt something strange about this place when i hiked through this morning… or maybe it was a different part. hard to tell this late at night, anyway.  ❞
❝  well, let’s just say a middle-aged man-child running out panicked and tearing at his eyes would hardly be a marketable image.  ❞
❝  i didn’t mind that i’d be alone—i always expected that to be how i went.  ❞
❝  i’m sure that’s on my personnel file by now, as if it could get any more problematic.  ❞
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