#showing how even as shes with gatsby toms in her mind kind of like? a shield

[real-odark]

gatsby designs. does this make any sense.

[rfamess]

RFA + V and Saeran at a party!!

alright friends. picture this: a party. what kind of party? that is for you to think about. i’ll give my 2 cents on what they prefer, but their behaviors still stand. If you’ve ever been to a party, (and I consider just hanging w friends a party as well... literally anything is a party if you want it to be a party) you know DAMN WELL you can find a specific type of person at every single function. we’ve got the corner standers, we got the emotional rollercoaster, the bitches getting crossed, the couch chillers, the flirt, the table dancer. you get the vibe.

in short, this is a (very) drunk rfa at a party.

Jumin

- you already know this guy only drinks wine.

- two bottles; one red, one white (very bold) double fisting them.

- wine drunk is the best drunk lemme tell ya.

- he is just so relaxed. GODDAMN he’s chill

- he’s so chill that he could walk up to zen and take a drag of a cig. shocking. why would he do that? he would never do that! (he’s drunk bby)

- personal morals have left the chat

- definetly happy and very social. Likes to tell very good stories— and they are good. very funny guy

- total opposite from his work self, which many people know. it’s refreshing to see him let loose

- and when i say let loose i mean let loose

- oh, the function? he owns it. not only is he the life of the party, it’s actually in his penthouse. he literally owns it.

- he has the potential to throw a gatsby-like party, but he likes to stick with his close friends and colleagues. people are allowed to bring a plus one. the more the merrier. but not too many lol

Zen

- oh this guy? he’s a professional partier. balls to the wall type drinker.

- shotgunning beer, pong master, stack cup, ride the bus, shots, up jenkins. he plays them allllll

- very competitive. VERY. he gets really into it, but he’s not like a competitive jock type, he’s just very passionate.

- he will accept his losses with grace and dignity, as well as with a nice handshake with his opponent.

- his passion sometimes causes him some accidents. will probably bump into you, apologize and call you some sweet pet name, and then return back to his zone.

- everyone loves to talk to him. not just bc he’s handsome, but he is just so genuinely nice and can hold a great conversation, even while completely obliterated.

- he’s the kind of guy that goes around and makes sure everyone is having fun

- smooth moves. very flirtatious, duh. can literally charm anyone.

- ngl he’s probably also a horny drunk. he’s not creepy or anything. he is definitely very courteous and respectful, but sometimes he has a lot on his mind...

- you can probably find him at one of jumins gatherings, at a work friends house, clubs, etc.

- he also loves themed parties. he really gets into it

Saeyoung/Seven

- he goes so hard.

- another themed party lover. especially costume parties.

- would probably show up in a costume even if it in fact was not a costume party.

- sorry, have you ever listened to tik tok by kesha? seven literally IS the party. “the party don’t start til I walk in”

- freestyle dances literally any chance he gets. definetly starts a dance circle— everyone loves a good dance circle

- he’s not a good dancer. he’s not bad either. but dancing with the stars is not in his future

- he’s wasted, but even if he wasn’t, he’d still be the life of the party. it just becomes magnified by however many drinks he’s had.

- very much parks and rec tom haverford vibes. snake juice episode. classic.

- he gets antsy to build things for no reason. tries to do small physics balancing things or maybe just do something productive, like cooking. he never cooks so he has no idea what he’s doing. will probably set the smoke alarm off, sprinklers will be going and people will be partying with INDOOR RAIN.

- that’s his legacy— the guy who set off the sprinklers at that party that one time

- you could probably find him crashing random peoples parties. he hears one going on in some apartment on the street and somehow he gets in and nobody questions it.

Yoosung

- you already know he gets DRANK.

- he doesn’t drink alcohol, the alcohol drinks HIM.

- he always goes over his limit. not bad enough where he’s incapacitated, but he for sure blacks out a lot of the time

- he’s kind of like a mix of his two besties ;) zen and seven. he’s a dancer, but he’s a COMPETETIVE DANCER. lol he probably challenges people to a dance off or contest. also likes table top games.

- he is prone to.... emotion. which is okay! but it happens

- once in a blue moon he’ll cry over something minor, but then start crying-laughing over it 2 seconds later.

- he finds a wii console buried tucked away in a drawer somewhere. he really brings it together when mario kart or wii sports resort gets pulled out. especially if it’s the sword play one. his find gets him clout at the party lol

- probably sees someone he thinks he wants to talk to... he overthinks how to approach them a little too much. but he’ll take a shot and go do it

- it always works out, he’s very friendly and likeable.

- he attends his college parties and always ends up making friends but he’s also hammered so he might not remember it much.

- probably wakes up in a random field somewhere the next morning. he is very confused.

Jaehee

- she goes to town on hard liqour. she can handle it alright.

- genuinely wants to fight everyone. not in a bad way, more of a “let me show you how fucking strong i am” way. it sure brings an audience

- people accept her challenges— she always beats them. probably turns them into drinking competitions too.

- like zen, she’s very competitive. she might lose her composure a little bit, but always self soothes and gets right back into it.

- 2 words: HYPE. WOMAN.

- she can get ANYONE excited about ANYTHING. always cheering others on and having them break out of their comfort zone (if they choose to do so).

- very big emotions. fangirls a lot. flirts a lot. a little dramatic, but she’s very entertaining.

- another great story teller— she loves to talk to people about the things she loves or crazy things that have happened to her.

- once she sobers up a little more, she is quite the helper. she helps clean up, helps people who might be throwing up. she’s a gentle care taker and welcoming presence :)

- she attends house parties a lot. usually her office friends, but sometimes zen brings her to his friends parties.

- she doesn’t party a lot since she works so much but when she does, she goes DUMMY!!

V

- very creative guy. he’ll have a conversation with someone and midway through he goes HOLD THAT THOUGHT!! because he’s had a little intrusive lightbulb moment. runs to go write it down or do a quick sketch then return to said conversation.

- if there’s a hot tub, he’s in it. he’s so in it. he has a glass of champagne and just sits. a lot of the time he never changes he just keeps his clothes on in the water. people question his judgement

- he’s not super animated like a lot of others, he’s more chill, but he’s also very excitable.

- he’s very giggly. anything could make him laugh.

- he really stays true to his hobbies while drunk too.

- photographer/videographer. but since he’s at a party and he’s drunk, they aren’t professional photos. a lot of them end up blurry. but a lot of them turn out great!

- he leaves disposable cameras everywhere so people can just pick them up and take their own photos— he sends out all the pics after they get developed.

- he’s definetly the type to go around making sure everyone is safe and helping them whenever possible. he doesn’t take a lot of time for himself :(

- he parties with jumin at his penthouse. they have a lot of the same friends and it’s a familiar place.

- he doesn’t go to giant parties either, mostly just friends in the comfort of his or someone else’s home.

Saeran

- I don’t think Saeran drinks very much, to be honest. But hypothetically….

- he’s obsessed with making fancy cocktails. they are so beautiful. but they get infinitely worse the more he drinks them lol

- his parties are always with his close friends, probably at his own house. he’s more of a homebody. and the presence of his friends is very grounding

- he really likes to play tabletop-turned drinking games

- he also likes to make games up! kind of like true american in new girl. he’s actually really really good at making up rules on the spot and they always turn out super fun.

- he’s definitely the kind of guy you want at your party if you want to have a lot of fun just doing random shit.

- speaking of random shit, just like his brother he also gets spikes of energy to just go do something. he makes homemade ice cream in a plastic bag. he rearranges the furniture. he will learn magic tricks in about 2 minutes and then show everyone he knows.

- will try and flirt with you. like a lot. he’s incredibly endearing and gets kind of handsy. and by handsy i mean he wants to hold your hand briefly. both of his hands clasped around one of yours.

- he likes to do really harmless pranks. like so harmless that they’re just hilarious. he’ll take someone’s phone and sign them up for mailing lists they don’t want. he might replace a family photo with something else. or maybe just hide behind a wall and jump out and scare someone when they walk by!! PRANK CALLS. classic.

- he’s really funny. like really fucking funny. without even trying. and boy does he love to make people laugh. he’s comedy gold and a pro with the one-liners.

- after drinking he will fall asleep ANYWHERE. on the floor, in a chair, under a desk, on top of a desk, he could fall asleep standing up. all his friends have pictures of him just sleeping in strange places.

[javisjeanjacket]

Green Light : A Great Gatsby AU - (maxwell lord x reader)

PART TWO

A/N: Fun fact: theres a new book out that’s a prequel to Gatsby and I just finished it and it is mmm some good fucking content. This part is based on chapter 6 of the book if that helps with visuals!

Warnings: alcohol, angst, yearning, feeling left out, cursing

Word count: 2.1K

The first of Gatsby's parties that had been attended by the Buchanan's stands out in your mind from every other exquisite, over the top, row the mysterious millionaire had thrown. Maybe it was Daisy with her restrained wonder or Tom with his pouting bottom lip and ballooned chest. That night held the same promise as every other, the same never-ending drinks and the same enthusiastic attendees, but there was a strange feeling in the air. A hollowness in the happiness.

Tom and Daisy Buchanan arrived at twilight and you caught a glimpse of them as they appeared on the outer courtyard balcony.

You waved and tried to motion them to yourself, but the world of Max Gatsby and his rancorous parties had overwhelmed them. You took the staircase upwards as quickly as you could until you reached them. A half-drunk smile on your lips, you gently touched Daisy's arm. "Hello, cousin."

"Nicky!" She exclaimed, grabbing your hand tightly and the awe on her face turning into a beaming smile.

Tom turned his head to you and nodded a hello, his look of disgust making his lip pout even more.

"These things excite me so," Daisy said. Her eyes lingered on the flappers dancing around the emerald pool and for a moment you wondered if she envied them. "Have you seen Max yet?"

"I haven't. But I've only just arrived so-"

"Buchanan's!" Max's voice boomed from behind Tom.

The trio of you turned to face him and your heart fluttered at seeing his form in such a crisp, black suit.

You held out a hand towards him as he moved closer in your direction; reaching for a handshake or a hug or a quick brush against his broad shoulders or anything really.

Max, instead, moved his hand across Daisy's shoulder and seemed to forget that her husband was right next to him. "Look around." Max said, his dark eyes looked hot and fiery through Daisy.

"I am looking around. I'm having a marvelous-" Daisy began, her cheeks flushed and her back pressed against the balcony handrail.

"You must see the faces of people you know." Max added, his gaze and his hands on her unrelenting.

"My wife and I-" Tom began and took a step in between Max and Daisy, wrapping a possessive arm around Daisy’s waist. "don't go around very much." He smirked cruelly. "In fact, I was thinking that we don't know a single soul here."

Daisy cast her eyes downward and Max clenched his jaw, a muscle in his face working. He looked from Tom to Daisy and then back again. He pulled the ends of his suit jacket straight and cleared his throat. "Well, you must know that lady." Max said, pointing a thick finger over the roaring party and to a ghostly woman dancing on the lower steps of the courtyard.

As Max turned to show the Buchanan's the famous actress, he noticed you standing to his other side. He nodded his head quickly in your direction and said, "Hello, old sport."

As much as you wanted to stop your heart from leaping at his pet name for you, it did all the same. You gripped your champagne flute tighter and smiled weakly, "Hey." You whispered.

"Oh yes!" Daisy exclaimed, looking over the woman. "She's lovely."

"And that man bending over her?" Max smiled and looked back at the Buchanan's. "That's her director."

Daisy gasped dramatically and Max beamed at her. "I'll introduce you to every person here, Tom. Then you will know every single soul here." Max pointed a finger in Tom's direction and the well-built man frowned so deeply it was almost comical.

The trio pushed past you and started down the stairs, but not without one last, "Stay, will you, old sport?" from Max.

You smiled brightly and nodded enthusiastically. "Of course." You perched up in the balcony, one hand on the railing and the other on your champagne. You tried to busy yourself with the other party goers; tapped your foot in time with the music and chatted to those who lounged near you, but you could not deny the anxiety brimming in your chest at Max’s absence.

Every few moments, you would search for his blonde hair in the crowd and swallow tightly when you found him and his hand resting on Daisy's back.

The trio made their way through the party like that, nodding and shaking hands and making cheers with as many people as the arrogant Tom could stand. Max took them down the lower courtyard steps and showed them his beach, pointing across the bay to their home and the steady green light blinking at the end of their dock.

Eventually, they returned and with a kiss on the cheek for both Gatsby and you from Daisy, the Buchanan's left.

Max watched Daisy leave and then bit his lip. He looked down at his hands for a moment and then reached a hand out to clasp the side of your shoulder. "Stay, old sport. I must take care of some business first, and then I will return to you."

You nodded and smiled weakly, emotion poured off of him in waves and it was dizzying trying to keep your head afloat.

Max smiled at you kindly, his dark eyes softening in your gaze and with one final squeeze, he walked back through the foyer and up the staircase to the private rooms.

Hours passed. You danced with the flappers and laid on the cold beach with Klipspringer, who was an alleged descent of Beethoven. You drank so much champagne you got tired of it. You dropped your feet into the green pool and waited. And waited. And waited.

You had your arms crossed over the railing of the balcony, a forgotten gin and tonic in your hand, and were turning Daisy and Tom and Gatsby over and over in your mind. You thought of Max with his wide smile and the dimples in his cheeks and how brightly you ached to shine for him, how desperately you wanted to earn his affections.

Your cousin Daisy hadn't had to earn his affection. However they had met before this had been more than enough for Max to show his fondness for her in front of her husband. Daisy was wide-eyed and beautiful and an intoxicating cocktail of clueless and polite. 

You clenched your teeth and bit your lip. It was easier to think now that the impassioned hundreds of guests had slowly filtered out of the house, leaving only the too drunk to move and Gatsby's staff in the courtyard.

Max emerged from his castle, walking swiftly across the lower level of the courtyard and towards the beach.

Careful to watch your step as you descended the marbled courtyard steps, you took another swig of the gin and tonic in your hand. The liquid burned and warmed your insides as it ran through you, a contended smile appearing across your features.

"She," Max started as you neared him. He picked up a forgotten stream of shimmering decor and rubbed it between his thick fingers. "She didn't like it."

You swallowed the pooling emotions in the pit of your throat. "Of course she did, Max." You downed the rest of your drink and sat it on a nearby table.

"She didn't like it." He repeated, biting the end of the phrase harshly. "She did not have a good time."

He shook his head, the bleached strands shifting under the deep blue of the night sky. He flung the decoration he still held in his hand into the colored pool. "I feel so far away from her." His breath stuttered as he ended. "It's hard to make her understand." He ran a hand over his face and looked down to his loafers.

Your heart panged at his need for her, the ache so devout within him that it resonated within you as well. It shifted and changed inside you to become a kind of defeated longing, a reaching out towards something you would never be able to touch. "You mean about the party?"

Max scoffed and snapped his fingers, as if to absolve every party he had ever thrown from the record, "Old sport, the party was unimportant." He continued, "She has to tell Tom that she never loved him." Max wagged his finger as he spoke, passion burning within him and singeing the tiles beneath his loafers. "She needs to break the bond with him completely so that we can go back to her house in Louisville-" He made two fists and turned them, as if to break a piece of wood in his hands.

"You don't want to ask too much of her." You interjected. The ferocity of his need for her overwhelmed your thundering heart. How high he held her in his mind and how delicate the pedestal she rested upon. The more emotion that he gave you, the more you realized you would never be able to usurp Daisy's place in his mind. Even the incomparable Daisy would never be able to usurp the version of her he had created in his head. The sudden urge to cry overwhelmed you and you choked back the tears in your vision.

Max groaned and twisted on his heels away from you, chuckling as he did, and then turned back to face you. "She doesn't understand." He clasped his hands together and looked out across the dock to his left. "She used to be able to understand." He waved his hands as he spoke, the golden rings on his fingers glittering under the moonlight. "We'd sit for hours -" His train of thought departed without him and he began to chew on the meat of his lip. "You know old sport, Daisy and I were walking home one night, this was back in Louisville, and we stopped under this street light." A nostalgic joy rose from him, pulling at his cheeks to smile. "I looked at her and it was like I knew." He looked from his memory back to the present and to you. "I knew that when I kissed her, I would be forever wed to her." He nodded, happy with the frivolousness of his devotion. "I knew my mind would never romp again like the mind of God."

Your eyebrows furrowed even deeper than they had been before and a half-hearted smile flickered upon your lips before it was quickly replaced with a grimace. A feeling of light-headedness shot through you and you reached for a forgotten chair next to you and sat down before you could fall.

Max did not see the momentary lapse in your facade and continued on, "So before I kissed her, I waited. I looked up to the stars to make sure she was, in fact, my destiny." He took in a deep breath. "I looked into her green eyes and when I kissed her, she blossomed for me just like a flower."

You swallowed and looked down at your hands, your heart hammering against your ribcage. "Daisy has blue eyes, Max."

Max slipped his hands into the pockets of his black slacks and took leisurely steps down from the courtyard and towards the dock. The fog was so heavy upon the water that night that the green light wasn't visible, it was only present in it's shadow that cast a hazy glow over the dock. "Old sport, you are mistaken. Her eyes are green. And the light from them is too holy a sight for poor old Tom, I'm sure."

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion and hurriedly added, "You can't repeat the past, Max." and stood to follow after him doggedly.

At your claim he stopped and pivoted from his spot on the stairs. His eyebrows shot up in shock, and his head tilted to one side. "Can't repeat the past?" He chuckled and reached a hand out from his pocket to cup your cheek. "Why of course you can." He smiled softly at you, his dark eyes jumping anxiously from one of your features to the other. The two rings on his hand were lukewarm against your skin and the feeling sent a slight tingle down your spine. "I am going to fix everything just the way it was before." He leaned forward to press a tight-lipped kiss to your forehead.

Your eyes fluttered closed and you could hear your heart thudding so loudly in your ears you were sure Max had heard it too.

"She'll see." Max nodded as he pulled away from you. He continued back towards the dock; it's wooden arm stretching out into the dark of the night.

Your heart sank to the bottoms of your heels and as he walked, his form shouldering your hope atop him. As you watched the black of his suit disappear into the black of the night, you knew just as Max had known with Daisy, that your mind would never romp again like the mind of God. A piece of it would always remain here, with him and his glittering parties.

He continued across the frigid beach and onto the dock, through the uncharted mist and towards the green light he believed would be blinking for him at the end of the dock.

He knew it would be.

It had to be.

MAX TAGLIST: @artsymaddie​ @okilover02​ @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol​ @mrschiltoncat​

GENERAL TAGLIST: @softly-sad​ @over300books​ @autumnleaves1991-blog​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @ntlmundy​

[writingfortoomanyfandoms]

Courtney’s 4K/Quarantine Writing Challenge!!

So, not only did I hit 4,000 followers a little while ago (thank you all so much again for that!) but we’re also all stuck inside for the foreseeable future and I know we’re all bored out of our minds (or at least I am) and I don’t read anywhere near enough fics as I should (and as I want to) so I figured since I’m going a Write Fest on my own blog to celebrate 4K (I’ll link it here if you want to check it out) I thought I could extend that to all of you guys as well!

So yeah, writing challenge, premise is pretty simple, I’ve hosted a couple before (lowkey flops but we move), you read the rules, abide by them, pick a prompt and a character and you write!

As always with me, I’m a nerd and so the prompts are split into categories - there are song lyrics, book quotes, comedy quotes and film quotes to choose from!

I hope you guys want to join in with this! I love reading what you guys write and this could be a really fun way to just keep us all moving and inspired over the next few months :)

The Rules

1) You don’t have to be following me but it would be nice because I’m lonely and want friends plz

2) If your piece of writing is over 500 words, please use the ‘read more’ feature

3) Reblog this post to get the word out (and tag anyone who may be interested!)

4) It’s going to be one person per prompt but if needed I can add more prompts

5) Smut is fine but please leave warnings as appropriate (THOUGH NO UNDERAGE CHARACTER SMUT THANKS)

6) On the back of that one, no inappropriate pairings pleaseeeeee

7) Also please make sure you leave appropriate warnings at the beginnings of fics if any sensitive subjects are brought up (e.g. mental health etc)

8) Ships and OC’s are welcome

9) Tag me in your writing!

10) Use the hashtag #Courts4KWritingChallenge

11) If you want to enter send me an ask with the prompt you want and the pairing you’ll be writing it with

12) The deadline for this is 15th July (this can be extended if y’all need it)

Characters/People/Pairings

1) Any of the BoRhap dudes and their characters 

2) (BoRhap!)Queen members (Freddie only platonically)

3) The Hargreeves Children (older!Five only)

4) Richard Madden (+ his characters)

5) Taron Egerton (+ his characters)

6) Rocketman!Bernie Taupin and Ray Williams

7) Smosh Members

8) Jake Gyllenhaal (+ all his various characters)

9) Chris Evans (+ his characters)

10) Sebastian Stan (+ his characters)

11) Any of the 5sos guys (poly!5sos fics also both welcomed and encouraged)

12) Stranger Things peeps (Steve, Billy + Robin/their cast counterparts)

13) One Direction guys (Niall, Harry + Louis)

14) Pevensie children

15) Sex Education (cast + characters)

Prompts

Song Lyrics

“Wake up sunshine, somebody loves you” - Wake Up, Sunshine by All Time Low

“When I take a look at my life and all of my crimes you're the only thing that I think I got right” - Lover of Mine by 5 Seconds of Summer ( @angiefangirlworld-2 w/ Ashton)

“Kiss in the kitchen like it’s a dance floor” - Sunflower Vol.6 by Harry Styles

“There'll never be another, I promise that I'll love you for the rest of my life” - Black and White by Niall Horan ( @unn--known​ w/ someone from 1D)

“Let's keep each other safe from the world” - Lucky People by Waterparks

“Never wanted to be the boy next door, always thought I'd be something more” - Drowse by Queen

“And when I touch you I feel happy inside, it's such a feeling that my love I can't hide” - Hold Your Hand by The Beatles ( @flick-ofthe-wrist​ w/ Roger Taylor)

“It’s hard to think you could ever hate me, but everything's feeling different now” - Too Young by Louis Tomlinson

“All I can do is say that these arms were made for holding you” - 18 by One Direction

“I waited for her call - she always kept me waiting” - The Girl at the Rock Show by Blink-182

Book Quotes

“I am so busy keeping my head above water that I scarcely know who I am, much less who anyone else is” - The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do you start missing everybody” - The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 

“Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.” - Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons” - The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

“As far as I’m concerned, I came out of the womb spouting cynicism and wishing for rain.” - Solitaire by Alice Oseman

“We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered.” - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

“Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.” I Am The Messenger by Marcus Zusak

“I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything” - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Flitzgerald

“I just want you to know that you’re very special and the only reason I’m telling you is that I don’t know if anyone else ever has” - The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chebowsky ( @coupscarat w/ Damien Haas)

“Was there some kind of rule against drop kicking arseholes in the face? Probably. They always had rules against things that needed to be done” - Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

Comedy Quotes

“You have to treat everybody’s views, no matter what they believe, with respect” “What, even idiots?” Outnumbered

“Well you shouldn’t be prejudiced against fat people, thin people… men who have turned into women, women who have turned into men, gay people, ginger people… people from Liverpool” Outnumbered 

“Stand back kids, this school’s insurance policy doesn’t cover blown minds” Bad Education

“Do you think you could stop being so cheeky?” “Do you think you could stop asking stupid questions?” Outnumbered

“I spend my entire life around people. As much as I would like to, it’s almost impossible to avoid them” The Inbetweeners ( @queen-bunnyears​ w/ Ben Hardy or Sebastian Stan)

“We’re very hufflepuff here, wouldn’t you be happier in slytherin?” Fresh Meat ( @adrenaline-roulette​ w/ Ben Hardy)

“What’s the best way to make friends?” “Tell a woman you love her, and she says ‘I think we’re just friends’” Jimmy Carr, Jon Richardson

“There’s four things you can be in life: sober, tipsy, drunk and hungover. Tipsy is the only one that you’re not crying” James Acaster

“What’s that on your shorts?” “Oh - it’s called excitement” Smosh

“Full disclosure - I could just be an arsehole” Smosh

Film Quotes

“To me, you are perfect” - Love, Actually

“I wish I knew how to quit you” - Brokeback Mountain

“If you start crying, I’m gonna have to pretend to start crying” - Gifted ( @beysenpai​ w/ Chris Evans)

“I’m with you ‘til the end of the line” - Captain America: The Winter Soldier ( @mamaskillerqueen​ w/ Steve Harrington)

“Most of the time I just want to staple things to her head” - Bridget Jones’ Diary ( @hardforbenhardy​ w/ Ben Hardy)

“We’re family. We believe in each other. That’s everything” - Bohemian Rhapsody

“Look around: this guy basically lives in a clue board” - Knives Out

“Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours.” - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

"What I'm saying is--and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form--is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way." - When Harry Met Sally ( @acdeaky​ w/ Ben Hardy)

“You’re loved and have been loved. You’re one of the lucky ones” - Irreplaceable You

[hihoneyimdead]

a dissection of anime nathaniel hawthorne in relation to the scarlet letter

In Which I’m Bored and Want to Talk About Anime Nathaniel Hawthorne and Why He’s More Interesting Than the Fandom Wants to Admit, and Also About Arthur Dimmesdale And Shit

This is going to be long. Fuck. 

(spoilers through the manga, which i have not read all the way through, so take everything i say with a grain of salt. same goes for the scarlet letter, which i haven’t read in nearly four years. ripperoni bro)

Above is the topic of today’s procrastination, Anime Nathaniel Hawthorne from Bungo Stray Dogs. He is a member of an American organization called the Guild, he’s a preacher, and he has a superpower/ability called The Scarlet Letter that allows him to manipulate his own blood into scripture that can either harm or defend via spears and shit and then shields and shit. 

He’s also a simp for Anime Margaret Mitchell, but I’ll be getting into that in a moment. 

Anyway, here’s a better picture of our lovely reverend, this time with his ability:

Funny, right? But that’s what I’m gonna talk about today simply because I’m bored and I should be writing but I’m currently not and I really have a soft spot for this bitch of a preacher. Hawthorne here has a lot more to his character than a lot of people give him credit for, which makes sense because he is a relatively-minor character and all he’s been doing recently is getting cucked by Anime Fyodor Dostoevsky, and while he may currently be Comrade Assassin, he’s still a complex character if you look past what our favorite Russian pimp has been up to. 

So a bit more about Hawthorne before I crack open my copy of his most famous book:

He is a preacher, not a priest, as shown by his choice in clothing. Priests don’t wear that, take it from a former Catholic. His clothes resemble the robes worn by classic Puritan preachers (such as the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, but we’ll get to him in a minute.) Whether that was on purpose or not I don’t know, but I’m aiming for a yes because Margaret Mitchell, his partner, wears a Southern belle-style outfit that Scarlett O’Hara (the main character of Mitchell’s most famous work, Gone With the Wind) wears, and John Steinbeck wears clothes reminiscent of Tom Joad (the main character of Steinbeck’s most famous work, The Grapes of Wrath.) It’s kind of a thing with the Guild. Edgar Allan Poe wears clothes that a goth around the time of Poe’s life would’ve worn. Same goes for Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, and H. P. Lovecraft. Meanwhile characters such as Lucy Maud Montgomery, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Herman Melville wear clothes that their characters (Anne from Anne of Green Gables, Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby, and whoever the fuck was in Moby Dick, respectively.) Hawthorne fits in with that last set of characters, which is funny considering the real life Hawthorne’s works.

In reality, Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American author in the early-to-mid-1800s who wrote many short stories, novels, and poems and shit, usually Romantic in nature. He started off, though, as a big member of the Transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism, if you don’t know, is kind of like the 1800s equivalent of hippies. They were pretty anti-government and anti-religion, usually specifically anti-Christianity. These institutions corrupted the basis of mankind. Hawthorne himself helped form a utopian commune up in New England (it didn’t last long, don’t worry.) As he grew older, he grew out of that kind of writing and lifestyle and into the works we know him for today, such as his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter. It, like many of his other works, contains allusions to religion and exists as a sort of criticism on it. 

The Scarlet Letter is set in the middle of the 1600s in Puritan New England. The Puritans were known for being Super Christian. They did not pass the vibe check. The main character is Hester Prynne, a young woman convicted of adultery with an unknown father. After being “released” from prison after the birth of her daughter, Pearl, Hester is allowed to move around outside of prison. But to signify her “evilness”, she must have a red letter ‘A’ on the front of her dress at all times (the eponymous and extremely metaphoric scarlet letter.) Besides Hester and Peal, main characters include Roger Chillingsworth, a doctor and Hester’s ex-husband from England who has vowed to track down the father and have him punished as well, and the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, who is sick All of the Time For No Apparent reason. By the end of the novel it’s revealed that Dimmesdale’s illness is actually a manifestation of his guilt because he was Pearl’s father despite him being a reverend and all and Hester being an unmarried woman. He ends up dying in the end after professing his guilt and showing the town the red letter ‘A’ that God supposedly engraved upon the skin on his chest. 

So let’s start here with a brief summary of Dimmesdale’s actions in the book as recalled by someone who hasn’t read it in four years but who is looking at the Wikipedia article right now. 

We first meet him when he and another minister, John Wilson, question Hester as to who the father of her child was. She doesn’t answer. The next time we see him in person is when Hester goes to the governor to ask if she can keep Pearl. She pleads with Dimmesdale and Wilson (who is there too for some reason), and he manages to persuade the governor to let her keep her child. At some point soon after, his health really begins to decline, and Chillingsworth moves in as a physician. Chillingsworth discovers a weird symbol of guilt on Dimmesdale’s chest while the poor guy sleeps after suspecting that the preacher’s illness is a manifestation of an unknown guilt. Dimmesdale, filled with guilt, goes to the town square in the middle of the night one day and screams his guilt to the heavens, but he can’t make himself do it during the day. Hester, shocked by the poor guy’s whole deal, decides to break her vow of silence. She calls Dimmesdale outside of town and tells him that they’re going to move to Europe together and start a new life with Pearl. He agrees and seems reinvigorated. They go back to town, and all’s fine until he gives a really good sermon on Election Day. After that, he professes his guilt and dies in Hester’s arms. People there claim to see a “stigma” in the shape of a letter ‘A’ on his chest, though others say there’s nothing there. 

Dimmesdale is a man consumed by his guilt. He physically and mentally declines because of his guilt and his unwillingness to expose himself for the sinner he really is, though, through it all, he supports Hester and Pearl as best he can considering his station as the town minister. He’s supposed to be the beacon of mortality, the person everyone should look up to and respect and learn from. And here he is, an adulterer, and a liar. And when he finally grows past his guilt and decides to let it out in favor of leaving and starting life anew, he dies, consumed, supposedly, by the wrath of God. He “falls” as a sinner, struck down by the very flames of Hell themselves. Or, more likely, a regular heart attack. He died of shock, poor guy. 

Compare that to Anime Nathaniel Hawthorne. He starts out as a member of a secret association who, according to its leader, Fitzgerald, doesn’t do good, but does what needs to be done. That’s probably why Hawthorne joined it in the first place. While his main goal has always been eradicating sinners from the face of the Earth, he probably started out as a regular old minister. Eradicating doesn’t always mean killing, and this is shown as he only attacks those who threaten his work, his partner (wink), and himself. This changes after the woman he loves throws herself in the way of an attack and nearly gets herself killed saving him. In canon, she’s still in a coma. In canon, he gave himself completely into sin because of his guilt and love for her. And that’s where the similarities between Hawthorne and Dimmesdale really start.

Let’s start with the obvious guilt complex. This goes along with what I believe Dostoevsky’s ability, Crime and Punishment, does. I believe it feeds off of an individual’s guilt, manipulating it and their mind in the process. We see this with Karma, a young man Dostoevsky kills. Karma, in his last moments, goes through all he went wrong with in his life (you know, or as much as a manga page or two can have) and dies knowing that he’ll never achieve his dream. That’s a more extreme example, I think, and not one I should really be using as evidence for anything considering it’s the only example of this really happening. Every other person that Dostoevsky kills with his ability just drops dead without the audience seeing into their thoughts. He’s got an insta-kill ability, but my theory builds off the idea that he can control living or dying. Hawthorne came to Dostoevsky to work for Dostoevsky’s organization, the Rats in the House of the Dead, in exchange for Mitchell getting “revived”. He might look cool on the outside, but he left the Guild, his friends, because Mitchell got hurt. He loves her, and he says as much in the manga (the anime didn’t say so, but left it unsaid and obvious to those looking.) The next time we see Hawthorne, he’s a mindless assassin who really only remembers Mitchell from his past, and the assassin who nearly killed her. His guilt twisted him into someone completely different from how he was before, even looking physically leaner and as different a brief appearance in a manga and anime can make someone look. He’s even lost his glasses, and any normal look in his eye. It’s kinda like the main character of Crime and Punishment from what I can tell, but I also haven’t read that book so take what I say on that with a gain of salt.) He’s consumed by his guilt (thanks, Fyodor.) Guilt is a big part of his character (as much of a character as he has currently, anyway.) The same can be said for Dimmesdale, who, as I’ve said before was consumed by his own guilt and sin until his death. 

I hope that Hawthorne doesn’t end up as dead as Dimmesdale did when he reunites with his supposed love interest (love interests aren’t really a thing in this series, which makes Hawthorne and Mitchell even more interesting to me.) I hope he gets a happy ending, but... that probably won’t happen unless Dostoevsky dies, which seems like an end-game thing to me. He’s a bad dude with slight plot armor. 

Anyway, past the guilt, their relationship with the respective women in their lives is another important and interesting parallel. Dimmesdale, even through Hester’s punishment, more or less treats her as he would’ve before Pearl. I believe that he did truly love her in his own pitiful way, though not as much as he loved his relationship with God, as seen by his continued guilt and shit. But it’s important to note that he seemed to admit his own love for Hester by agreeing to run away to Europe with her, and he did so in little ways throughout the story by helping her keep Pearl and by really just giving her a lighter sentence than a lot of women would’ve gotten. Puritan ministers were up there with government officials in the law (look at the witch trials, for example), so he would’ve definitely had input on her punishment. Most women would’ve been stoned or banished from the town or colony. Hester, notably, was let off relatively easy with just the emblem and the vague banishment to living in a house outside of town alone with her daughter. Hawthorne’s partner was Margaret Mitchell, and from the very beginning until the assassin skewered them, the two of them argued. Honestly, they bickered a lot like an old married couple. It was kinda cute in a weird way. Neither of them would obviously admit their feelings for each other. Both are proud people, Mitchell coming from a disgraced rich family and Hawthorne being a man of God. But his concern for her becomes evident the moment she gets stabbed clean through and impaled a dozen feet above the ground. That’s when he really gets on the offensive, and when she’s destroyed (image below), he calls her by her first name for the first, and only, time, looking completely destroyed (image also below.) He nearly manages to kill the assassin. And when he wakes up and sees that she isn’t going to wake up, he leaves those he cares about to fix his mistake of letting her get this hurt.

When we see Hawthorne next, he is willing to do anything to redeem himself for his mistake. When we meet him as an assassin for the first time, in the manga he says something along the lines of “I, for the revival of the one I love, will fulfill the contract of death”. Which is... not normal, I’ll admit. Poor guy. In the anime, he says something different that I don’t remember, but that was similar if not slightly different (again, the anime isn’t as explicit with their relationship as the manga.) Meanwhile she’s in a coma and is likely not to be revived by those Hawthorne pledged his allegiance to, but those he left behind. 

The two ministers here follow generally the same path of sin. They start out as the badass ministers they really are, men of God. Then, one way or another, they fall deeper and deeper into sin as they go. For Dimmesdale, that was boning Hester Prynne and hiding it from the town and corrupting himself with his guilt. For Hawthorne, that was ‘allowing’ his partner to ‘die’ and surrendering himself to a higher power to try and get her back, losing himself in the process. In the end, both men are shells of their former selves. Dimmesdale dies sick. Hawthorne is a brainwashed assassin. Dimmesdale’s higher power, God, is ultimately what killed him, and his devotion is what really did him in. Hawthorne is probably gonna die or get otherwise written out, I have a feeling (several villains in this show have, just look at Pushkin and Mark Twain and even Mitchell herself.) If he is, it’ll be Dostoevsky or one of his weird Russian friends doing him in or taking him out of the picture. He’ll likely never see Mitchell again and he will die due to his newfound devotion to a “god” who is willing to punish him for going to far. 

And guys, Hawthorne’s ability is literally the titular scarlet letter. What else can I say?

Honestly, I’m not sure what this post was, only that I killed a good three hours writing it and that it gave me yet again a newfound appreciation for something I used to hate. It was Anime Hawthorne, but before that it was IRL Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter. Thank you American public school system. 

[siren-meets]

Babe Heffron x OC - The Busy and the Tired

Summary: After telling a white lie to a beautiful girl, Babe Heffron does his homework and discovers why home isn’t what it used to be, and how he can learn to live on anyway. Babe Heffron/OC. One-shot.

Rating: General Audiences

(Also posted to my Ao3 and FFN, both linked in my profile!)

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.” 

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

In later years, Babe Heffron would tell people that he walked right up to Liz the moment he saw her and struck up a conversation -- that he’d been inexplicably drawn to her. The second part was true enough, but he didn’t actually work up the nerve to talk to her until the third time he saw her. 

Because fate was kind, Liz was a lover of routine and the type to frequent the same place at the same time just about every day. This was partly why he had zeroed in on her. Something about the way she sat on the same bench, unwrapped the same sandwich, and opened up her book at the same time every day was a draw -- a comfort, even -- and he’d resolved on that first day that it was a good routine, and that he would continue to take his lunch break at the same park, at the same time.

On that third instance (henceforth to be recorded as “the first instance,” remember), he walked right up to her. She didn’t look up from the book on her lap right away, and he stood for an uncomfortable moment, deciding if he still had time to turn back. Just when he began to move, determined to save face and try again later, she noticed his shoes in her peripheral vision and looked up. 

“Oh, hello.” Her voice was bright and soft, and exactly as he’d imagined it might be. Because she’d looked up just as he was moving away, there was an awkward moment where he couldn’t decide whether to keep his momentum and keep walking or stop and lean into the discomfort. The little, reassuring smile she gave after greeting him made the decision for him, and he stayed, bouncing on his heels with a nervous energy instead.

“Hi,” He began, shoving his free hand into his pocket to keep it from fidgeting, “I don’t mean to bother you or anything, but...” He was already about 2 miles off the rails from what he’d planned to say. “I saw you reading, and I was just...wondering what you’re reading.” 

"Oh, of course!" She said, putting her thumb down to keep her place and flipping the book closed so that he could see the cover. He tilted his head and leaned forward a bit to get a better look. 

“Oh yeah, The Great Gatsby,” He said, eyebrows rising in recognition as he pulled the hand from his pocket and pointed at it. “A good one.”

He hadn’t said he’d read it, exactly, but the implication was there, and her eyes lit up. She glanced down at the paper bag in his hand and straightened.

“Are you on lunch right now?” She asked, gesturing to the spot on the bench next to her. Babe didn’t need to be given a verbal invitation as he sat down on the wooden bench, mindful to leave a proper amount of space so he didn’t seem like a creep.

“Yeah, I am. I’m Babe Heffron,” He said, holding out a hand. She shook it.

“Hi, Babe. Liz Barnes,” She returned. The tiniest bit of color settled on her cheeks as she said his name, and Babe resisted the urge to chuckle when he noticed it. 

“So, uh, you’re on your lunch break, too?” He asked, unwrapping his sandwich to keep his hands busy.

“Yeah, I work over at a law firm in that building across the street,” She explained, pointing. Babe followed her finger and nodded.

“Oh, I’ve been in that office park before,” He said, taking a bite of his sandwich. He went to say something else, but then realized he shouldn’t talk to her with his mouth full, so he held up a finger instead. Liz laughed -- the sound was light and reminded him of bells. Babe swallowed. “What do you do there?”

“I’m a file clerk,” she answered, taking a bite of her own sandwich. He watched her pick up her napkin and dab it against her lips when she was done taking the bite. It was something he’d noticed about her from afar, when he’d been too nervous to approach. She wiped her mouth after practically every bite. It was an interesting ritual and had made him wonder if she was uptight -- he hadn’t been expecting this warm of a reception and was practically shaking with excitement from it. “What about you?”

“I work over at Publicker’s,” he said, sucking some mayo off one of his fingers. “The whiskey distillery?”

“Right! Right.” She replied, nodding vigorously. “How long have you been there?” 

“Not long,” Babe answered. He paused a moment, and then “I just got back from Europe about a month ago.”

He didn’t need to say more for her to understand, and she nodded again.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” 

Not that must have been so hard. Not tell me all about it. Not I’m so sorry you went through that. Just a simple, bright I’m glad you’re here.

And Babe found that he wanted to be here. Right here, in this exact spot, forever.

______________________________

So, naturally, he returned the next day. Liz, same as yesterday, greeted him with a kind smile and moved her bag to let him know that it was okay for him to sit. They ate in companionable silence for the first few minutes, mostly because Babe didn’t want to stop her from reading, if that’s what she wanted to do. Soon enough, though, she chose to abandon the book for conversation.

“So, what else do you like to do besides reading, Babe?” She asked, bookmarking her page. Babe dropped his sandwich away from his mouth and swallowed, thinking about it. When he was overseas, he had thought constantly about all the stuff he wanted to do when he got back to the states. Once he did get back, though, when all was said and done, he couldn’t remember any of it. None of it seemed to matter so much anymore. It was like this: next to his house, there had always been this colorful, vibrant mural that he loved since childhood. Well, while he was gone, they’d painted over it and made it black. That was how he felt -- blank. A dull shadow of what was once there. What had he enjoyed doing before the war? Whatever it was, he must not enjoy it that much anymore, to not even remember it. 

“I like baseball,” He answered, finally, “There’s nothin’ like watching the Phillies play.” 

Liz smiled warmly and opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off.

“What part are you at?” He asked. Confusion formed on Liz’s brow, and he gestured to the book in her lap. “How far are you?”

“Oh,” she said, picking it up. “Tom just found out about the affair.”

“Oh, yeah,” Babe replied, “That Tom’s a real creep, huh? How about when he broke that girl’s nose?”  

Liz’s eyebrows rose the slightest bit, but that was her only tell. She was surprised. Babe couldn’t decide if he was proud of the reaction, or offended that she hadn’t actually believed him. But then he remembered that he had lied, and let the pride win out. He’d literally run to Foster’s Books after he got off work the night before to get a copy of The Great Gatsby before they closed. He hadn’t gotten nearly as far as he’d hoped to last night (it’d been a while since he’d read a book all the way through), and his coworkers had ribbed him relentlessly all day after they caught him sneaking it out during his downtime moments at the distillery today. He hadn’t gotten as far as she was, but he felt confident he’d read enough to have a conversation.

“Yes, he’s driving me crazy,” She agreed, recovering quickly, “He’s a horrible hypocrite, if you ask me.”

“Gatsby’s just as bad, really.” Babe said, leaning back and spreading an arm across the back of the bench. 

“Why do you say that?” She asked, her full attention on him now.

“The guy comes back from the war, and he thinks he’s just gonna make a lot of money, marry the girl of his dreams, and never have problems again? Trust me, it ain’t like that. You come back to the states and you realize --” He stopped and bit the inside of his cheek, reconsidering what he was about to share.

“Realize what?”

“It’s not what it was. That’s all. It’s not what it was before you left.”

They were quiet for a long moment, as Liz thought about what he said, watching him carefully. “Maybe it is what it was, and you’re just able to see it better for what it is. I mean, that’s what the book’s about, right? Complicating the idea of The American Dream?”

Babe had no idea. He would need to finish it tonight -- he glanced down at her bookmark and saw that she was almost finished with it. It would be a long night.

“He should’ve come back with an open mind, instead of expecting everything to be a certain way. Seen what life had to offer him, you know?” Babe said, thinking aloud.

“I agree,” Liz replied.

“It is pretty great how hard he’s trying with Daisy, though.” He added, changing the subject. Liz raised an eyebrow.

“Is it?” 

“Well, yeah. Throwing elaborate parties, trying to fit in with the elite and all that. He’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.” 

The corners of Liz’s lips upturned a tiny bit.

“I don’t think he’s gotta do that.”

____________________________________

When Babe showed up the next day, he hoped that the bags under his eyes wouldn’t betray the fact that he’d just managed to finish The Great Gatsby the night before. He felt a swell of satisfaction when he approached the bench and saw that Liz was no longer carrying the book either -- she’d finished it, too.

Just like the day before, he sat down next to her, and they ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. Just as he was finally sorting out what questions he wanted to ask her about the book, she broke the silence.

“So how did you like the ending?” She asked, a knowing smile pulling at her lips. Babe sat up a bit straighter, shifting uncomfortably. He’d been made. She didn’t appear to be upset, but he watched her warily.

“It was sad,” Was all he said.

“It was.” 

Silence fell on them again, and they went back to their lunches. After a few moments, Babe bit the bullet.

“So...you wanna go to a baseball game some time?”

Liz smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

[omgrachwrites]

Enchanted (Bucky Barnes)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You regularly take yourself off to the city library but it’s not the books that you’re going for.

Warnings: fluff, fluff and more fluff!

Words: 1100

A/N: So, this was a pretty spontaneous idea, I was just thinking about how much I love the idea of Librarian!Bucky. Also, I wanted to get this up for you guys because I don’t think the next part of my Tom Holland fic will be up on time because I’m having some issues with it. I’m thinking of turning this into a series of one shots! I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think, I love you all very much! xxx

You sighed as you looked at your reflection in your bedroom mirror, your hair wasn’t cooperating today so you threw it up into a bun. You hated having your hair out of your face but it did actually look better like that for once. A smattering of lipstick that you had borrowed from your sister smoothed onto your lips, you liked the colour, it brought out the pretty sparkle of your eyes.

Sighing again, you plastered a smile on your face just to practice, you decided to fake the confidence that you wanted to naturally exude, you needed to fake it until you made it. Confidence was sexy. Or at least that’s what you’ve heard. You bounced down the stairs and into the living room where her beautiful sister was watching TV.

“Hey Pegs, I’m going out now,” you smiled at her from your place at the door-frame. Peggy turned and smirked at you, resting her chin on the arm of the couch.

“To the library? You’ve never been much of a reader before, until we went to the library and you saw that guy who worked there,” her smirk slowly melted into a gentle smile, “I love your hair like that, you should wear it like that more often, you’ve got such a pretty face.”

You smiled, almost wishing that you hadn’t told Peggy that you fancied that gorgeous librarian, “he’s a New Yorker, he’s got that incredibly sexy Brooklyn drawl. I’ve heard it when he speaks on the phone. A New Yorker is obviously pretty rare here in London,” you blushed, embarrassed to admit that she hadn’t even had the guts to properly speak to him yet, “anyway, I’m gonna go. Do you need anything?”

“I don’t need anything but promise me that you’ll at least try and speak to him,” Peggy winked and grinned at you. You nodded with a smile.

“I’ll try,” you promised before walking out of the door and into the balmy summer afternoon.

It felt like nothing could piss you off today, you were in such a good mood, even when the kids nearly flattened you as they ran past you, you couldn’t help but smile at them. On the way to the library you checked your small amount of makeup in a shop window, thankfully it hadn’t all melted off your face. Thankfully, it was still intact. You took a deep breath through your nose, your eyes slipping shut momentarily before you gathered yourself and hesitantly walked up the white washed stone steps that led to the library.

The library was pleasantly cool when you walked in and scanned the room, there were lots of parents with their kids because it was the school summer holidays. The front desk was devoid of the New Yorker at the present moment which was actually a good thing. You had the time to work up some courage and figure out what to say to that beautiful man. Maybe you’d tell him a name of a book that you’ve read before and get him to show you where it was.

You plastered a great big smile on your face and you sauntered up to the desk, smoothing down your hair as butterflies merrily fluttered in your tummy. You waited, nervously toying with the hem of your dress, keeping your eyes on the golden ornate clock above the desk. A few seconds later you heard footsteps and out of the corner of your eye you saw someone sit down. When you looked at the man you felt a great pang of disappointment wash over you. It wasn’t the New Yorker.

This new man was handsome sure but it wasn’t the New Yorker. This guy had reddish hair with stubble to match, glasses perched on the end of his nose.

“I didn’t know someone else worked here,” you blurted out stupidly before you kicked yourself, of course other people worked at the huge city library.

“Excuse me?” he asked politely, raising an eyebrow. His voice was pleasant and quiet, it was like dripping honey. However, you found yourself craving to hear the deep, slow, gruff, sexy drawl.

“Never mind, I’m sorry,” you giggled quietly and nervously, departing from the desk to solemnly walk through the stacks of books. The happy bubble that had formed in your chest had well and truly burst. You hadn’t been walking long before you heard a deep, slow, gruff, sexy drawl by your ear.

“Can I help you with anything?” it was the gorgeous librarian, kitted out in a tight white shirt and form fitting denim jeans.

He was smiling at her, a smile so genuine that it reached his eyes, making the edges of them crinkle. You were so close to him that you could count the freckles on his face and you could admire the different shades of blue in his soft, kind eyes. You snapped yourself out of your staring and offered him a shaky nervous smile.

“H-hi, I’m not much of a reader – no offense, I don’t know where to start,” you admitted sheepishly, shoving your hands into the pockets of your dress, feeling a flush sneak across your face.

He chuckled, a deep rumble that reverberated through his chest, “no offense taken. My favourite book is ‘The Great Gatsby,’ did you ever see the movie?”

You smiled, recalling the film, “yeah, Leo Dicaprio throwing lavish parties, I liked that one. It had a bitter sweet ending though, I’m not ashamed to say that it made me cry,” you giggled.

“Fancy reading the book?” he grinned.

“Sure,” you replied and he beamed even wider as he led you through stacks and stacks of books.

“I’m Bucky by the way.”

“Y/N.”

“Y/N,” he replied and you almost swooned at the way he said your name, it was like he was seducing you and you let him, “that’s a pretty name,” he smiled as he handed you the novel, your fingers brushing up against each others. It was a ghost of a touch but it still sent tingles up your spine.

Unfortunately, you didn’t really have time to talk because a pretty girl with silver hair who was showing a lot of cleavage wanted his attention. You glared at the girl, wishing that looks could kill as you followed Bucky so he could check the book out for you.

“I’ll see you soon right? Let me know what you think of the book,” he smiled sweetly, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Bye Bucky,” she whispered, enchanted by him as she left the library, resisting the urge to look back at him.

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

@void-imaginations @marvelellie

[fearlyssa]

Something to consider

In honor of Karlie’s birthday today here’s something for those who don't believe Taylor could be with Karlie because they chose to only believe Taylor’s own words: a list of the lyrics on Reputation (Taylor’s own words) that reference Karlie vs those that reference Joe. I tried my best to be impartial and include everything on both sides but just a warning it’s SUPER long! So if you don’t feel like reading it or don’t have the time then keep scrolling. But for anyone who’s interested here’s what I came up with (including explanations of the references and links if I have them; feel free to disagree or add any I missed, I tried to think of everything so I realize some may be a bit of a stretch)

Lyrics that point to Karlie:

Ready for it:

1. Younger than my exes (she’s 26 today, younger than most people Taylor has supposedly dated, male or female)

2. No one has to know (they’re closeted)

End Game:

3. We got big reputations (they’re both famous; Joe was relatively unknown until recently)

4. You and me would be a big conversation (they’re both famous and both women who are supposedly dating men so if they were found out - at least right now - it would cause a scandal)

Don't blame me:

5. I would cross the line, I would waste my time, I'd lose my mind

6. For you I would fall from grace, just to touch your face (This applies to the line above as well; her reputation would be ruined if people found out she was lying about her dating life causing her to “fall from grace” but she loves her enough to risk it by continuing to date her secretly)

7. I once was poison ivy but now I’m your Daisy (at first listen this line might sound like nothing more than a Mavel and/or Great Gatsby reference but according to this person they both like Marvel comics and check out how the daisy she drew in the handwritten lyrics in one of the Reputation magazines looks just like the one Karlie posted from their Big Sur trip in 2014. 👀

Delicate:

8. Dark jeans and your Nikes (she models for Adidas now but was doing Nike ads when they met)

9. Never seen that color blue (maybe a stretch but Karlie's eyes are a shade of green that can sometimes look blue so that may be a shade of blue she's never seen before. And I won’t add this to the list because it’s not Karlie-specific but the girls back home line is also not necessarily straight as lesbians and bisexuals, just like guys, date women and ‘back home’ can reference anyone who’s not from exactly where you’re from. They’re from different parts of the country for instance)

So it goes:

10. All eyes on us (they're both famous, have been on stage together three times and used to often be seen together by paps in public - which I do believe was on purpose; this line reminds me of the chorus of This is what you came for too)

11. Lipstick on your face (there's candids of Karlie with lipstick smudged on her face in pictures with Taylor from July 14th 2014 - as well as pictures of Taylor from her 25th birthday - and I believe another day too -, where she’s with Karlie and has on one shade of lipstick but a while has Karlie’s shade of lipstick smudged over hers and vice versa. Note how their lipstick looks in the top two photos from her birthday party compared vs the bottom two)

Gorgous:

12. I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk (the weird way Karlie says important)

13. Your magnetic field being a little too strong (they’re very physically affectionate with each other and often bump shoulders when sitting next to each other as if they literally have magnets in them)

14. I got a boyfriend, he's older than us (she often dates guys older than her and Karlie is younger than them and her. Imo it refers to her bearding with Calvin specifically)

15. You’re so Gorgeous I can’t say anything to your face (At VSFS 2013 where they first met Taylor looks in awe of her like she doesn’t know what to say. She definitely looks like she thinks she’s gorgeous and while the term could refer to anyone, it's usually a female descriptor and she's literally a model for a living who is known for her beauty and has, seemingly on purpose, used the word on IG right around when the song came out. And on an unrelated note I also want to point out that the ‘If you got a girlfriend’ line is not strictly male-oriented so although it’s not specifically Karlie-related it could still apply to a bisexual or lesbian woman)

King of my heart:

16. like trying on clothes (another somewhat female reference and she's a model so she does that for a living so therefore even more often than most people)

17. Move to me like a Motown beat (As mentioned in the caption of their IG post about it she & Karlie listened to Motown while getting ready for the Met Gala in 2014 so it's safe to say they’re both fans of the genre and enjoy listening to it together)

18. American queen (I know they're both American but Karlie has referred to her as an American dream before which you'll notice was the original lyrics when Taylor was writing & recording the song)

19. Your love is a secret I'm hoping, praying, dying to keep (this is pretty obvious but if she’s closeted then her love life is obviously a secret she’d want to keep)

20. Drinking beer out of plastic cups (I know this line is pretty general and she seems to be referring to a different time when she was up on a roof but it should be noted that the only time she’s been seen drinking beer in a plastic cup prior to the album coming out she was with Karlie)

Dress:

21. Our secret moments in a crowded room, they got no idea about me and you (you can see them having private moments at events in candid photos and videos such at award shows, the VSFS and at the 1975 concert. All times when tons of people were around but didn’t seem to notice or care if they were affectionate with each other because everyone knows they’re close and just thinks they’re friends)

22. Golden tattoo (they wore them together at Drake's birthday party last October. And maybe this is reaching but some of them were stars and “gold star” lesbians are those who have never “been with” a man, Idk about Taylor, but Karlie is rumored to be one.)

23. I don't want you like a best friend (they’re known as best friends so that one’s obvious)

24. I’m spilling wine in the bathtub (in the photo of her and Karlie getting ready for the Met Gala in 2014 you can see that Taylor has drunk wine in the bathroom with Karlie before)

25. Everyone thinks that they know us but they know nothing (A common problem when you’re famous because a lot of people know OF you but don’t really KNOW you or your relationships like they might think they do. She also references this in the album prologue but when it comes to Joe, not many people knew of him before he dated her so he doesn’t have a big reputation or people who think they know him) Dancing with our hands tied:

26. I loved you in secret (again sounds like it references being closeted)

27. 25 years old (Karlie’s age up until today and *almost* Taylor’s age when Kissgate happened)

28. People started talking putting us through our paces (again sounds like it refers to Kissate; people didn't talk about her and Joe, only the media did months later when the album was already finished and she says never to believe them anyway. Plus you have to wonder how they already knew of her secret relationship with him even before pictures had come out of them together)

29. I had a bad feeling...but we were dancing, dancing with our hands tied (they were dancing closely/kind of kissing at a 1975 concert in 2014 and someone got a video and pictures that made it into many articles starting Kissgate. You can see in pictures how upset Karlie and their friends looked walking back from the concert that night carrying a very drunk Taylor. Maybe she knew there'd be a shit storm about it the next day but didn't care and did it anyway because she was so drunk. Their hands would then have been tied metaphorically speaking and they would’ve had to do what they had to do which was to keep dating guys publicly and to stop being seen alone together)

30. I loved you in spite of deep fears that the world would decide us (as the world sometimes tries to do with gay relationships, not so much straight ones)

31. So baby can we dance, oh through an avalanche (same points as above ^)

Call it what you want:

32. My baby's fit like a daydream (I know "fit" is English slang but still, Karlie is quite physically fit - she literally ran a marathon like the day after the song came out and in the Vouge Best friends video Taylor mentions her shiny abs)

33. Walking with his head down (I realize she's not a man but being as tall as she is she does do that a lot)

34. So call it what you want, yeah, call it what you want to (some people say they're friends, others say they're in a romantic relationship, a lot of people think they broke up or are no longer friends and don’t even talk anymore etc.)

New Year's Day:

35. This is maybe a slight stretch but the references to a girl's party and polaroids that she often takes with her friends make me think of women and not really men, and as someone whose been to her house I can vouch that she has a lot of polaroids of her female friends; many of Karlie specifically displayed in her sitting room as well as a photo of them at Big Sur that she keeps in one of her bathrooms but not as many photos of guys who it’s hard to imagine would fit in all that well at a party like that but maybe that’s just me)

lyrics that refer to Joe:

In general:

1. The words he, him & his (and anything else masculine-sounding like the word handsome and king in reference to a current relationship. I guess this is a bunch of references but I didn’t actually count how many times she said he on the album because that would be a lot. lol):

Ready for it:

2. Younger than my exes (some of them anyway; her two most recent ones)

Don't blame me:

3. Toying with them older guys (he's younger than Calvin and Tom as is she however note that she's admitting to using them which seems like more of a reference to a bearding contract unless we're to believe she's admitting to being horrible to her exes)

Delicate:

4. never seen that color blue (his eyes are blue)

5. girls back home (they live in different counties)

So it goes:

6. wear you like a necklace (she has one with his initial on it. I’ve been told it’s a lesbian term as well but I didn’t add it to Karlie’s list as it’s not specific to her)

Gorgeous:

7. I got a boyfriend he's older than us -Sunset & vine (where his movie premiere was last October although we now know the song was written in September and interestingly enough the area is also well-known for it's gay bars)

King of my heart:

8. king of my heart (king is a male term and they have royalty in England)

9. Say you fancy me not fancy stuff (fancy is British slang for liking someone)

10. salute to me I'm your American queen (she’s American and he’s from the UK where they still have royalty)

Dress:

11. flashback when you met me your buzz cut, my hair bleached (if it's in fact true that they met at the Met Gala in 2016 that they both attended then that's a reference to the hairstyles they both had at the time though tbh the timeline doesn't really make sense for that to be true)

Call it what you want:

12. My baby's fit like a daydream (Fit is British slang for attractive and he's also physically fit)

13. Call it what you want (in reference to weather or not the relationship is real)

14. I want to wear his initial on a chain around my neck (because she wears a necklace with a J on it)

So there you go. I'm not saying you have to believe the album is about Karlie or not about Joe but there do appear to be a LOT more references to her so I'll just leave it up to you to decide what you want to believe, I just thought I'd post this to prove that there is in fact evidence to support Kaylor, it's not just a baseless conspiracy theory.

[upwardboundwriting]

100 (Best) First Lines of Novels

1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)

5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

6. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett)

7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. —James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)

8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

9. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

10. I am an invisible man. —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

11. The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. —Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)

12. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. —Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

13. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. —Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925; trans. Breon Mitchell)

14. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. —Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler (1979; trans. William Weaver)

15. The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)

16. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. —J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

17. Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. —James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

18. This is the saddest story I have ever heard. —Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (1915)

19. I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost:—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me. —Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1759–1767)

20. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. —Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)

21. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. —James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

22. It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. —Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

23. One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. —Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

24. It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. —Paul Auster, City of Glass (1985)

25. Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)

26. 124 was spiteful. —Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

27. Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing. —Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605; trans. Edith Grossman)

28. Mother died today. —Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942; trans. Stuart Gilbert)

29. Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. —Ha Jin, Waiting (1999)

30. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. —William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

31. I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864; trans. Michael R. Katz)

32. Where now? Who now? When now? —Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable (1953; trans. Patrick Bowles)

33. Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. "Stop!" cried the groaning old man at last, "Stop! I did not drag my father beyond this tree." —Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans (1925)

35. It was like so, but wasn't. —Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1995)

36. —Money . . . in a voice that rustled. —William Gaddis, J R (1975)

37. Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)

38. All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

39. They shoot the white girl first. —Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)

40. For a long time, I went to bed early. —Marcel Proust, Swann's Way (1913; trans. Lydia Davis)

41. The moment one learns English, complications set in. —Felipe Alfau, Chromos (1990)

42. Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature. —Anita Brookner, The Debut (1981)

43. I was the shadow of the waxwing slain / By the false azure in the windowpane; —Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)

44. Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. —Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

45. I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. —Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome (1911)

46. Ages ago, Alex, Allen and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement . . . anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation.  —Walter Abish, Alphabetical Africa (1974)

48. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

49. It was the day my grandmother exploded. —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)

50. I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. —Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002)

51. Elmer Gantry was drunk. —Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (1927)

52. We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. —Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988)

53. It was a pleasure to burn. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

54. A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. —Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (1951)

55. Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. —Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)

59. It was love at first sight. —Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)

61. I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. —W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944)

62. Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. —Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups (2001)

63. The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. —G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

64. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

65. You better not never tell nobody but God. —Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)

66. "To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die." —Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (1988)

67. It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. —Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)

68. Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden. —David Foster Wallace, The Broom of the System (1987)

69. If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog. —Saul Bellow, Herzog (1964)

70. Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up. —Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear it Away (1960)

71. Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me. —Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum (1959; trans. Ralph Manheim)

72. When Dick Gibson was a little boy he was not Dick Gibson. —Stanley Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show (1971)

74. She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him. —Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (1902)

75. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. —Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929)

77. He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull.  —Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900)

78. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.  —L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)

80. Justice?—You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law. —William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own (1994)

81. Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash. —J. G. Ballard, Crash (1973)

82. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)

83. "When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing." —Katherine Dunn, Geek Love (1983)

86. It was just noon that Sunday morning when the sheriff reached the jail with Lucas Beauchamp though the whole town (the whole county too for that matter) had known since the night before that Lucas had killed a white man. —William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust (1948)

89. I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. —Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (1953)

90. The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. —Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (1922)

91. I will tell you in a few words who I am: lover of the hummingbird that darts to the flower beyond the rotted sill where my feet are propped; lover of bright needlepoint and the bright stitching fingers of humorless old ladies bent to their sweet and infamous designs; lover of parasols made from the same puffy stuff as a young girl's underdrawers; still lover of that small naval boat which somehow survived the distressing years of my life between her decks or in her pilothouse; and also lover of poor dear black Sonny, my mess boy, fellow victim and confidant, and of my wife and child. But most of all, lover of my harmless and sanguine self. —John Hawkes, Second Skin (1964)

92. He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. —Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche (1921)

94. In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together. —Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940)

96. Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. —Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988)

99. They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. —Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

100. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. —Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895)

[dizknowzmoviezandtvshowz]

Kong: Skull Isand: A Big Review with Spoilers

On St. Patrick’s day I embraced my Irish heritage the best way I knew how, no it wasn’t drinking a Pint O’Guiness and complaining about the King’s high taxes, but I went and saw King Kong with my Dad and cousin. Now we saw King Kong together a few years ago starring Jack Black

who’s clearly surprised he was in the movie, and a personal hero of mine Adrien Brody who is a king among men for what’s below

sorry got Halle sidetracked again…

Anyway the King Kong in 2005 was fairly awful to me. It just seemed like it tried to CGI the shit out of the same movie from 1933, and I’m sorry but the Gatsby era sucked big time. (thanks a lot Coolidge)

Skull Island however, attempted to modernize a view on the big ape. The film was unique, had a great cast, great special effects, and room for a sequel.

Positives:

We’ll start first with the cast, which was absolutely phenomenal. I’ve never been a fan of movies where they try to bombard you with a myriad of A list celebrities who seem to just be in the movie together to hang out ie The Oceans trilogy and any of those terrible Chick Flick’s that were named after a holiday. Skull Island had a great cast who all fit together. No overwhelming stars, just great actors left and right who played the shit out of their parts. Sort of like the San Antonio Spurs, you’re not wowed by one individual but the system is just beautiful. Speaking of beautiful, we have to talk about Brie Larson. She’s an amazing actress, who can literally play any role and has this mixture of smart and sexy and sarcasm that is beyond perfect. Not to mention there’s always this on my mind…

If you haven’t seen United States of Tara you are failing at Netflix. Shea Whigham (son of Police Chief Clancy Whigham),  John C. Reilly, Tom Hiddleston, Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell (they get to have the NWA reunion that the real world never will have) all work great together, but they are dwarfed compared to the two titans of Hollywood…John Goodman and Samuel L Jackson.

John Goodman is easily the most underrated actor of ALL time. Name a movie he wasn’t great in? You can’t. He’s been in un-great movies sure, but you can’t tell me he wasn’t one of, if not the, best part of everything he’s ever been in. Argo, Roseanne, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Big Lebowski, Damages, The West Wing (as un-hateable Republican on that super liberal show), Flight, Monsters Inc…the list goes on. John Goodman is a deity and may be compromised of all that is good in the world…and then there’s this guy…

Whether its a big gorilla and his helicopters, or snakes on a plane, you do not want to fuck with him. Sam Jackson was angry, crazy, irrational, belligerent, and everything else you need to make the Rowdy Rough Boys. He was mad about being taken away from the Vietnam War too soon so he took it out on a primate. Mace Windu/The Octopus/Jules is pretty much the man when it comes to most things. 

Negatives:

Personally I hate that everything needs an origin story. King Kong has been a part of our modern lexicon/collective consciousness since the Great Depression. He’s a big ass orangutan, we get it. Let’s just fast-forward to where he’s fighting Godzilla. 

My dad said this movie felt like a Sci-Fi Original script. I can sort of see where he was coming from. The deaths were pretty awful. They straddled the gory/campy/stupid and I wasn’t a fan of them. I’m sure there was an attempt at nature overcoming industrialism symbolism but it was weak. 

Wasn’t a fan of the skull crawlers nor the WW2 Japanese pilot and American pilot work together trope. One scene was even a pretty blatant rip off of 300. It made me question if I disliked the movie because I was jaded from 27 years of life on Earth, or if it just wasn’t that good.

Also they killed John Goodman, so fuck you movie.

Overall:

This movie felt like a 5.5. It’s been 3 days and I’m still not sure if I like it…which probably means I don’t like it. The effects were great, the cast was phenomenal, but the story was the mediest of ocres. (mediocre) I don’t really feel the need for anyone to see this simple simian in theaters, though the idea of him fighting Godzilla in 3 years does sound the kind of thing to disappoint me…stay tuned my baker’s dozen of followers. The GF wants me to take her to Beauty and the Beast tonightt which sounds like all kinds of fodder for a review

[joliepixie]

I was going to wait till I finished the book I’m currently reading but I’ve gravely underestimated how much time it actually takes me to finish a book now that I’m back at work. So here we go because I wanted to clean out my photo album.

Pictures left to right!

1) This was a re-read! I was reading Bridgerton at the time but I was finding I couldn’t focus on it so knowing a had already read 100 pages of this book a few months ago ( I’ve been in a four year reading slump attempted fangirl last year and just never finished but still had my book mark in it) I picked it up just cause I felt I need something light and fluffy. I finished it within the day! I couldn’t put it down. This book will always be one of my favourites. Reading it again in 2021 as a adult I didn’t resonate so much with Cath anymore and I did find her character to be childish, whinny and downright embarrassing at times however I think back to who I was in college and remember that I was all those things too. Regardless I still love this story and the romance in it. I love the progression of Cath’s character as she learns who she without her sister.

2) Ah yes Bridgerton… I loved the show even though there was some problematic things that happened within it (that very subtle rape scene between Daphne and Simon). However I decided since I liked the show I should give the book a chance. I had a rough time focusing on the story and found I was not really getting into it. I did enjoy the first part of the book a lot more then the second part. Loved the courtships of Daphne and Simon and the gentle build up to there romance however the lack of communication between the characters was so frustrating and then Daphne over (and when I say over I mean OVER) protective brothers really got on my nerves! Then there’s the matter of the rape scene. Now if you haven’t seen the show basically Simon tells Daphne he can’t have kids, she then learns that when he must ejaculate inside her in order to have kids which he hasn’t been doing. So she decides she’s going to be in top resulting in not letting Simon pull out of her. In the book however it’s so much worse with Simon being drunk in the scene unable to consent or have full control of himself and at this point Daphne knew what she was doing. What broke my heart most was after the fact Simon was so upset his biggest insecurity came out and he was reduced to a stuttering mess not able to form his sentences or get across what he wanted to say. It was heart breaking and really soured the book for me. I won’t be continuing on with the series nor want to reread this novel.

3) I was so excited for this book when they announced it and immediately pre ordered it. I was extremely disappointed with it. I had high hopes at the start and absolutely fell in love with the one scene when young Gil does the simple act of putting his favourite hat on Anne’s head at the beach. At this point in the book I was like this is going to be up in my favourite books list for sure however… the more I read the sadder I got. Anne was missing everything that made her well, Anne. I didn’t feel like I was reading a Anne of green gables retelling. It felt like a fanfiction more then anything and honestly I’m my opinion probably would have been a better story if the characters where originals rather then borrow. This book when from 5 stars to 2 stars very quickly.

4) Another reread! I read this like most kids had to do in high school and absolutely hated it. I hated it so much that when we were given a project of our choice I chose to rewrite the ending. My little romantic teenage heart and brain couldn’t deal with Gatsby dying and Daisy sticking with Tom. Now as a adult rereading it I still hated it… but then I kept thinking about it over and over and then I realized I don’t actually hate it. I actually kind of liked it… if the ending has have been any different I don’t think I’d be saying I liked it. Now as a adult I can understand the ending and understand the reasons. These characters aren’t perfect far from it. Daisy who I so desperately wanted to be this kind and caring women wasn’t. She was greedy, selfish and very flawed. Tom was the safe route even though she was unhappy with his affairs but in some twisted way still loved her (possessed her) Daisy was content to let Gatsby take the fall for Myrtle’s death and let Tom clean the rest up. Not to mention the reason why she chose to marry Tom was due to Gatsby’s omission that he was penniless. Now Gatsby who I so desperately wanted to be a hero. To ride off into the sunset after he won the heart of the girl was nothing but a fool chasing after somebody that was already gone. The lesson that the past is the past was really inspiring to me. We make so many mistakes and have so many regrets as humans but you can’t change the past nor can you go back to the past. Sometimes you just have to keep moving to the future hoping that it will be better.

5) Honestly this what the post of rereads cause here we have another! What do I even need to say about this book! As you can probably tell from my previous posts I am a huge Sarah J. Maas fan and this series is the reason why. Now I’m not claiming it to be perfect but there’s sometimes about her stories that capture my attention and just has me falling in love with all her characters and her worlds. This is definitely my favourite book by her. I love the build up between Rhys and Feyra’s love for each other. I love that they help each other heal and of course I love the imagery of the night court. Will always cherish this book and story.

6) One thing I love about Jennifer L. Armentrout’s writing is her ability to mix suspense with romance. I love the her characters and her ability to write both genres perfectly. This book kept me guessing till the end. I honestly don’t have to much to say about this book other then I liked it a lot. I thought it was a interesting concept to have this character who was cruel come back with no memory not knowing who she was and not wanting to be the same person people said she was but by some one kind. I loved the challenges she faced with being who she wanted and having the courage to break away from who she was.

7) once again a reread! Wow I really didn’t realize till now how many books I reread lately! I picked this book up in a used book store in Pittsburg when I was on a vacation with my dad. I remember absolutely loving it the first time I read it so I was really excited to read it again. The concept: werewolves on Titanic! Rereading it I can say it didn’t hold up to the standards i had in place for it. I did enjoy it but not as much as I originally did. The romance felt rushed and the main female lead felt very young and childish. I also remember the sinking of the ship being more prominent in the book but it was the last 50 pages at least and kind of lacked the action and heartbreak I was remembering. Mind you I was thinking to James Cameron’s Titanic the whole time and was comparing the two which might not be the most fair thing to do. Either way I still did enjoy this book for what it was.

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The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald: Matter of Money, Class and Economics Essay

Topic:\n\nM angiotensin-converting enzyme(a)y, syndicate and economic occupations as the major issues revealed in The big(p) Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald.\n\n judge Questions:\n\nWhat argon the chief(prenominal) efficient issues revealed in Scott Fitzgerald The outstanding Gatsby? What does hateful the Ameri stick out Dream specify in footing of the figment? wherefore is silver so essential for the impudents characters?\n\n thesis Statement:\n\nActu bothy, it wint be mistakable to offer that economical agentive sociable occasion or ingredient of notes is peerless of the to a groovyer extent or less unconstipatedtful in The prominent Gatsby and it makes every(prenominal) functions go much or less this thing.\n\n \nThe Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald: Matter of M wholenessy, conformation and Economics Es asseverate\n\n \n\nIntroduction: Scott Fitzgerald is one of the most giving Ameri merchant ship writers of the finish of 19th and the s tartle of 20th cc. His change by reversal may be viewed as the comment of his time and the bracing The Great Gatsby is, probably, the better(p) example that mess plant this statement. It was indite at that stream of Amerifanny account when muckle maladjusted the most active their prosperity and cornucopia though one may say that such value were typical for Ameri shadowers, it was, and by the way lull is, so c anyed Ameri pot moon. to a fault it was time when race introduce a grapple of coin illegally using divergent office to break the laws that existed in the USA and one of the most commonplace business was sell caused by parapet of alcohol in the whole country. That is why in the impudent we can escort batch who clear property in this illegal and two-faced way. So the problem of making capital and the spot of hu documentaryity beings to it is kind of unmingled here except more than of the essence(p) is the problem of mould of silver, socia l persuasion on quite a littles deportment, appearance and character. Actually, it wont be mistakable to say that economical pointor or factor of gold is one of the most classic in The Great Gatsby and it makes all things go around this thing. But, at the equal time, though the problem of money and its influence on a soulfulness is the principal and not the solo one in the new(a).\n\nWe can as nearly as speak slightly(predicate) a very(prenominal) complicated dealings in an American family of those days, round different affairs that destruct such a family, and, to some extent, we reward here a revolutionary serve up which takes place in the whole rescript when clean value prepare begun to change. On information this brisk we look on how ill the American frame of magnitude is crooked by money and by nations need to be rich. That is what Scott Fitzgerald describes in his big(p) novel. As I deal already said the main theme of The Great Gatsby is the c orrupting reason which money has all all over a mortal and which destroy an stark reputation. The writer tells us how the wealthiness can ruin a pure breathing in. In order to prove it we can spend a penny a search at the relations and breeding stories of Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan Jordan Baker, Meyer Wolfsheim and separate characters. Analyzing these characters we see the role which play money and social short letter in their lives. For example, Daisy doesnt earn whatsoever innovation in the living-time the solely thing she deliberates most is wealth. She married a rich man whom she didnt real applaud, and later she favourite(a) to stay with him scarce not with Gatsby. I think we curb to pay a particular(prenominal) aid to the relations in the midst of Daisy and Gatsby because they demonstrate quite opposite military commit to people and to brio in general. So for Gatsby his love to this womanhood is the most all-authoritative(prenominal) thing in h is life com redact for Daisy he is a toy, an entertainment, one more love affair. That is why her choice proves that blotto social position of her husband is more important for her than real and thoughtful feelings of other man. She doesnt have every moral determine. Even her daughter doesnt make any unshakable feelings in her soul. Actually, her love affairs with Gatsby were caused in the main by her obtuse way of life, because she unavoidable some clean impressions, naked as a jaybird feelings. In general, it is evident that Daisy doesnt care approximately(predicate) other peoples feelings and sufferings. whitethorn be she doesnt care intimately adult male beings life itself because when she kills Myrtle Wilson, she doesnt even hold on (Bruccoli, Andrew J., ed. New Essays on The Great Gatsby). The same situations we observe when Gatsby is killed. So if she has any orchestrate in her field life it may be except entertainment or amusing herself.\n\nAs for turk ey cock his life seems to be even worse than the life of his married woman though they are equivalent in a way. Like Daisy tom doesnt have any purpose in the life. He looks scarcely for new strong feelings and cares only(prenominal) about his earnings. He exacts money, it is his God. He is sure that money can take place him everything he essentials and this attitude to the wealth is plebeian for people of his type. tomcat plays with other people. He has a sporting lady Myrtle and he demands a innate obedience from her side. It shows us that she means vigor for him as vigorous as his get wife. To prove it we gather up to remember that though he became fierce when he guessed about close relations between Gatsby and Daisy further, at the same time, he didnt do anything to help his wife when she killed Myrtle. I think it would be more natural for a husband who loves his wife to act as Gatsby did but turkey cock demonstrated his apathy to Daisys fate. And one more thin g that I cant force out is the fact that he uses his wealth as the mean to constrain Daisy as his wife. So it is obvious that for him people mean aught and he is a slave of money. much the same we can say about less important characters of the novel. Dan Cody makes fortune in his copper archeological site business but his life is a mess. Jordan Baker is a champion linksman but she doesnt have any moral determine as well as Meyer Wolfsheim who is a racketeer, bootlegger and a gambler.\n\nThe only person in the novel who is not crooked by his money is, to my mind, Gatsby. He earned his fortune, he environ himself by costly cars, he wears soap clothes and lives in a home but in reality he doesnt have all these things because he wants to return Daisy. He is sure that only a serious social position and a lot of money can help him piss his intentions. That is why he believes that his possessions will entice his golden young lady to bequeath the medieval five years of her l ife and embrace him. When he takes Daisy into his mob and shows her his belongings, he determine each level according to the cost that she places on it. When she shatters his dream by evaluate Tom over him, Gatsby has no need for any of his possessions.(Lee Brian, American Fiction 1865-1940). straightway on the house, the clothes, and the cars mean nothing for him. So any ratifier can spot as mountain pass did that Gatsby is the most peremptory character among his surround and the least profane by his wealth.\n\n coating: Finally, I can conclude that all rich characters of the novel use people as toys. Tom uses Myrtle as well as her husband George Wilson. Gatsby uses the butlers and the cooks to excogitate his parties and we may handle the list. Practically all of the characters are corrupted by their wealth and they are humble people. Scott Fitzgerald clearly shows us how a howling(prenominal) American dream is destroyed by the peoples desire to earn more and more. This desire makes people forget that they are human beings. They forget about moral values and lose their human face. That is why we have to remember that money and high social position are dangerous things they cannot be the aim of life because they kill personality and it is very important to pay special attention to this fact while reading the novel. This is a great lesson that we can learn from The Great Gatsby.If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Looking for a place to buy a cheap paper online? Buy Paper Cheap - Premium quality cheap essays and affordable papers online. Buy cheap, high quality papers to impress your professors and pass your exams. Do it online right now! '

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Do business each day, encounter all kind of seductions, however I think I carried out not greedy. The male in the denim shorts apparently crashed his vehicle into the truck of the guy in the beige shorts. Month Farah ending up being the second guy to win both the 5,000 and 10,000 gauge ethnicities in consecutive Olympics. The man which gets the capability to have complete ownership of his personal thoughts could take possession of everything else to which he is actually justly qualified. Abdominal muscle exercises merely perform certainly not shed adequate fats or even stimulate the body's rate of metabolism enough to get to 8-10% body system excess fat for a man and also 15-20% if you are actually a female. There's something for every person: a bit of physical exercise, attractive landscapes, appealing birds and a go for a swim at the end if youre blessed.

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Some of community's hierarchal representatives, the harsh Tom Buchanan, rouses somewhat, repairing the ranks of cream of the crop, and also Gatsby is actually minimized to dirt, his gorgeous aspirations snuffed out by unethical aristocrats around him and also his vulnerability to their ways. She has this most priceless gift that a man wishes to deliver her-a need to create her happy-then dishonors it through creating him wrong as well as bad for certainly not having the present of reader reading I think this is a major cause men leave.