#to be continued....

[cinamun]

Promise | Extra | Next

[clementineofmine]

What if...

What if...

Five, in a last fit of rage and defiance, summons the energy to attack Reginald in the Oblivion machine. With only one arm, dizzy from lack of blood and loss of his marigold, Five's desperate attack is swatted away like a flea. When Allison pleads with Reginald for clemency, their father makes the split second decision to throw Allison into the furnace instead of the nearly depleted Five. The addition of her marigold gives the doomsday machine enough power to achieve its purpose.

Five's last vision before he fades into oblivion is the image of his siblings dying in front of him, once again helpless to save them.

Sometimes later, to Five's surprise and horror, he wakes up. He is in a hospital bed, tended by competent but cold nursing staff that call him "Mr. Hargeeeves" politely and never answer any questions. Late at night, he pulls at his powers, but with only one remaining hand nothing happens. Eventually, he leaves the hospital, simply walking out in the middle of the day, and finds himself in the midst of a city that is Not Quite like the one he remembers.

He wanders the strange City, heading as best he remembers towards the Academy. It's not there. A nondescript housing block sits in its place. Griddys is gone too, as is every recognizable place from the dusty memories of Five's childhood. His entire life is erased, except for the name Hargreeves, which he finds engraved in stone on every municipal building and etched in metal and glass on many of the corporate ones.

Five finds guards with Hargeeeves stitched on their uniform lapels are everywhere in the city, but each of them ignores Five, silently watching as he commits petty theft, then a series of increasingly public crimes and antics. There is one, and only one, exception to their imposed silence. Time after time, Five tries to get close to Reginald, first demanding, then bargaining, then sneaking, then assaulting his way into the ominous tall guilding bearing his father's name. None of these tactics work. Five is rebuffed again and again by the well trained guards who politely but firmly send him away.

Alone, truly alone, Five eventually leaves the City. He finds a small hunting cabin with worn but comfortable furnishings covered in a thick layer of dust. Life is harder out here, but Five isn't so far removed from his survival days, and the skills come back quickly. Over time, he sees Reginald's goons less often, and eventually stops seeing them at all.

One winter day, Five begins doing the math again, the stiff fingers of his one remaining hand hesitantly, reluctantly, then angrily scratching wobbly notes on random scraps of paper. These scraps grow and multiply over years until the creaky table, then most of the cabin itself, is filled with his writings. These tombs of equations, scratched out in increasingly confident strokes over decades, will eventually be catalogued and preserved by his followers as history, but for now, they are simply the proof of a solitary one-armed man accepting his destiny.

Eventually, Five wanders away from his self-imposed isolation, seeking out those who will serve his purpose - academics and engineers and malcontents and even the whack doodle conspiracy theorists - those are the most important ones actually, the ones who can almost see where the lines between realities blur, those threads of space time that are now hidden from Five. With his followers, Five eventually, painfully, finds those lines again and crack them open, using manual technology that recreates the spatial-temporal ripping that used to come as naturally as breathing to Five. Digital would be easier, he knows, but he purposefully chooses technology that can't be tracked, can't be traced by Reginald.

Five is once again turning the corner towards old age when they finally leave this world he never called home and set up shop in a pleasant and non-descript corner of reality. By this point, and by design, his team functions without him, creating a bureaucracy that quickly takes on a life of its own, living and breathing, but most importantly, finally freeing up Five to pursue his own interests.

He barely takes notice when they place the shiny new plaque on his desk. He never turns it around, never mentions it, perhaps because he already knows what it reads: Temps Commission, followed by Five Hargeeeves, Founder.

[historybunnny]

The only thing Lawrence could hear other than his own footsteps against the cobblestone beneath his shoes was blood pumping in his ears as he approached Mr. O'Doyle's gentlemen's club.

He had no plans to become the richest man in Ireland, nor did he even want to be. He just needed to put his money into something that would generate enough wealth to pass down to his children, and their children's-children, and each step pushed him closer towards his new dream of finding a way to secure this new-found wealth.

Inside, there were only half a dozen other men; smoking cigars and playing poker, beers already cracked and opened at half past noon. None of them even noticed his arrival, too entranced by the idea of winning big, as if their pockets needed to be any heavier.

These men didn't shout or curse or cheer the way people did in the pubs back in Wales; instead they were focused and poised, their attention locked into the hand in front of them. But they weren't betting with their families' milk money; children's new shoe money; or gambling with their rent. They played just to show their opponents that they could win.

As he passed by the table, Lawrence couldn't help thinking how he could put any old drunk from his hometown at that table, and they'd be able to walk away with enough money for a new cow and then some.

As he climbed up the steps towards Mr. O'Doyle's office space, he heard two voices speaking up above his head, the grip on his briefcase handle tightening as he listened in on their conversation.

“I had truly hoped after it passed the house of commons…” A man’s voice grumbled.

“I had a feeling it wouldn't pass through the lords, what bullocks!” A woman replied.

“I had thought with Gladstone," there was a long pause, as if the man was sighing or perhaps thinking, "we might stand a chance.” The man sounded disappointed, almost pained.

Lawrence had very little knowledge about what they were discussing, only that Gladstone was the current prime minister.

When he finally reached the top, he located where the voices were coming from and peered inside, where a woman with bright, almost wildly curly red hair sat holding a newspaper and a man looked over her shoulder as he puffed away on his pipe.

The woman was the first to notice him and invited him to enter; her voice was stiff, almost as though it were unmoving, but her eyes were kind.

The man introduced himself as Mr. O'Doyle, offering a sturdy handshake and a friendly smile before gesturing towards the red-headed woman standing next to him, who he introduced as his wife, Florence O’ Doyle. He explained that she would be listening in on their meeting, as she operated as something like a secretary for him.

After the last syllable left Mr. O’ Doyle’s lips, “flaw-ruhns”, Lawrence felt a tug buried within his chest and grimaced for only a split second before regaining his composure; he knew he couldn’t dwell, nor did he want to mention the coincidence and put a damper on the mood. 

After more pleasantries were exchanged, Mr. O’Doyle invited Lawrence to take a seat and have a cigar, which he politely declined.

Once situated, Lawrence pulled out the blueprints an architect had drawn up for him and laid them on the table, proceeding to tell them of his plans for the mortuary, and ask for their investment into his business.

They both listened wordlessly, but watched on with intent while Mr. O' Doyle resumed puffing away on his pipe. Their vacant stares only added to Lawrence’s nervousness, and he could only hope they didn’t notice the sweat forming above his brow. However, the more he spoke, the more confident he became even with their expressionless faces.

When he was finished, the room fell into a dead silence, aside from Mr. O'Doyle's lips puckering and unpuckering tightly around the mouthpiece of his pipe; his brows furrowed deeply in thought.

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[swan2swan]

[starlightshore]

Gonna try out something whacky to save time on drawing backgrounds for Fallen Royalty. Stay tuned for details later today.

[heyitsburtburt]

ALMOST forgot the Stickmintober prompt uh let's see what is it?

Rupert Price?

.... oh yeah that guy.

Well I can take a picture of him I guess. BRB

[destinyc1020]

Okay.... whew.....

I just read this entire interview, and I have some thoughts lol....

There's a lot to unpack here lol....

Grab a seat.....

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

Overall: Overall I'd say the interview was okay for the most part? The author of the interview seemed like they had a slight crush on him, which was funny lol.... But it wasn't horrible. His photoshoot was really GOOD... He was airbrushed to the Gods lol, and they had him looking like a handsome Clark Kent lol. They sure did his photoshoot MUCH better than Chris Evans and his lackluster GQ cover and photoshoot lol. 😅🤣 (I STILL swear GQ did Chris Evans dirty on purpose lol 😅) BUT.... There were a few things that made me go: 😓 🤔🥴 I'll address some of those things here down below lol.....

Somewhere.... in the distance.... Sam Levinson weeps....

I take it JE's not planning on coming back to "Euphoria" S3 huh?? 🤭

.

🥴

Now wait a minute.... Some films are just escapes, and what's wrong with that exactly? 🤔 It's still art! Idk what he means by they aren't "universal", but whatever. Idk why he craps on his previous films like TKB so bad? It was just a Netflix movie. It was never supposed to be taken super seriously in the first place.

Well Dang..... 👀

Well gee.....thanks..... 🙄

I'm so sick and tired of foreigners putting down Americans and the USA in general. Usually when we go to other countries we're just so happy to be there....

It's interesting how people can make such wide-sweeping negative generalizations about the US just in general, when they've only been to a few cities or towns, or specific states, and don't realize that the country is VAST and varies widely by region...and sometimes even by town in the same exact state. 😏

But I digress.... I've got more to say later......

To Be Continued...

[zeezeepearl]

ok im going to #seriouspost for a second here. I don't think Harry Potter is a manifesto. I think it was a flawed passion project that millennials latched onto because of the fantasy of sticking it to their mean teachers and arbitrarily categorizing themselves (hogwarts houses; it's the thinking millennial's astrology). I think the fact that the series got popular when and how it did was very much a product of its time.

I don't think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR's bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn't to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn't give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.

She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don't know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!

This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you're above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.

No, none of you are as bad as JKR because you don't have her money or her power. You will likely never have the capacity for harm she does. But check yourselves. Do not affirm yourselves into thinking you always have the moral high ground. Watch yourselves; humble yourselves; check yourselves for signs of cult behavior and internalized prejudice. You are always learning. You will always be learning. Do not allow yourselves to get a power trip from brushing off marginalized voices.

[bookwyrminspiration]

god I would be UNSTOPPABLE if I was capable of consistently initiating tasks. just you wait. you'll be waiting a while but just you wait

[evenlyevi]

Goodnight.

[corrodedparadox]

We need more walkable cities. I am so tired of my transportation turning to aquatic life. It’s so inconvenient.

Prints

[mearchy]

my favorite genre of fictional character is like "i am terrifying to almost everyone, i'm very good at killing, i can endure anything, i've become exceptionally good at playing into my reputation, and if you try to give me positive social interaction i will react with confusion and cower in a corner like an abused animal. and i may try to shoot you. but there is also a chance i may imprint on you like a feral dog receiving its first loving touch! good luck."

[djungleskogs]

it’s crazy how absolutely blatantly luigi’s constitutional rights are being breached and people seem more concerned about his appearance than a real, scary view of the power CEOs and the healthcare industry have over the legal system. like yeah he looks good in those photos i can appreciate that too but can we focus on the fact that the media is absolutely treating him as if he has already been found guilty. this could happen to anyone. anyone could be arrested over the death of a wealthy, influential person and the precedent being set right now is essentially that the prosecution can run wild and create documentaries declaring your guilt. like that’s really serious and scary.

[pakchoys]

our secret

[wormspoodle]

compiled some things