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welcome-to-the-gay-bar · 3 years

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So I we started to watch Attack on Titan again after many years and I’ve just finished season two and before starting season three I wanted to take a trip down memory lane and look at all my old favourite AOT fan fictions from 2014 (and see what’s popular nowadays that I may have missed, since wow, a lot has changed since I was last present in this fandom and compared to what’s happening in the current episodes season one was tame).

I’ve noticed a huge divide between fanon and canon and I kinda wanted to ruminate on this a bit.

Eren’s character in the show isn’t my favourite. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still fond of this brash idiot, but he’ll never be my favourite. He falls into this shonen protagonist trope of being hot headed and ill tempered. He doesn’t take advice, he’s not going to listen to plans or authority, he always thinks he’s right and only follows his moral compass, and to tie it all up he’s not even that strong. He can’t back up the threats that he’s laying down and yet he always rushes into situations with fists flying and never thanks or appreciates the characters (Mikasa) that get him out of those tricky situations. The only way to get through to him is to physically beat him down and even then it may not work if he hadn’t already somewhat respected you (Mikasa again). This character type is seen so often in shonen and I’m really not a fan, I like the cool and calculating protagonist better. Someone who has the power behind their threats and doesn’t rush into situations. Again, I like Eren, but I think it’s the other characters in the show that balance him out and the plot itself that makes me like Attack on Titan.

Compare this to fanon where his default character is happy ray of sunshine who’s a little bit naive. It’s a rather jarring comparison but I also don’t necessarily dislike it either. To me canon and fanon characteristics are almost completely seperate. If I had to always think a d compare fan fiction to canon I probably couldn’t read it. I read about happy fanon Eren and see canon angry Eren and to me they are two completely different characters - two completely different people even. If I had to read fan fiction about canon Eren I can 1000000% say that I just wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I’d be totally bored. As I said before, I like Eren but it’s the people around him and the plot itself that makes him bearable. I can watch a show about him because it takes less time and emotional energy, but I couldn’t invest in reading a book about him (which is why I haven’t read the manga either).

This isn’t even exclusively towards Attack on Titan. Back in my Teen Wolf phase I noticed how different canon and fanon characters were. Small secret - I was knee deep in the Teen Wolf fandom before I realised that I hadn’t actually watched an episode of Teen Wolf. One of my mutual’s reblogged TW artwork that was linked to a story and from that I never looked back. When I actually did get around to watching TW I can honestly say I was more than a wee bit disillusioned. Derek and Stiles are obviously not the main characters and I was prepared for that, but then they barely interacted, and when they did interact it was nothing like what I had read about - nothing like what their fanon characters or interactions were like. I can honestly say that I never made it past the first season - the show just wasn’t for me - but I was still thoroughly invested in the fandom for another year or two.

Something about fanon Sterek dynamics just did it for me, their characters and relationship was just so on point for what I wanted, and this is kind of when I came to accept that canon and fanon can be so different that it almost feels as if it’s two pieces of completely different media. I mean, fanon has its own set of rules, it’s own character tropes and story arcs that even completely different authors with completely different stories somewhat instinctively know to follow. I think that’s amazing, but it’s also a double edged sword. See these first two examples were of shows that I A) never watched/finished before reading fan fiction, B) don’t necessarily love love the characters in canon. That means that fanon is more appealing because it takes something I don’t care too strongly for and changes it to something more appealing. But what about when fanon takes something I love and cherish and remoulds it?

I want to briefly take this time to talk about something I’ve dubbed “the twink affect”. When you take a character that’s originally strong willed, self sufficient, and somewhat masculine and you pair the, up with someone EVEN MORE strong willed, self sufficient, and masculine - the “Alpha male” of characters if you will. I find that fanon is incapable of seeing two strong men together in a relationship and will eventually slowly twinkify one of them. Make them smaller, softer, lonelier, less self sufficient and more reliant on others, they need to be taken care of, they’re now a ball of sunshine that’s radiant and joyful, they’re cotton candy that melts on your tongue. You put them next to the pairing you ship them with and instead of seeing two strong men you see a bear and a twink. That’s definitely what’s happened to the two characters/pairings mentioned before and I honestly didn’t mind because I wasn’t protective of the source material, but when it does happen to a character I love it’s the most frustrating thing in the world, and I can’t even complain because I’ve already reaped the benefits from other fandoms. (I am going to complain though, this is my blog and I can do what I want mum.)

I’m going to talk about Mo Dao Zu Shi. Beautiful story that I love in (almost) all its various adaptations, but I’ve noticed the ever slow changing of fanon’s Wei Wuxian. For anyone reading this that hasn’t read MDZS (or if anyone’s reading this at all, I am expecting to just be shouting into the void at this point) Wei Wuxian dies - not a spoiler, it happens at the very beginning of the story - and comes back to life in the body of Mo Xuanyu. Mo Xuanyu is small malnourished and twinky - he even canonically wears makeup (or at least has it in his possession, I’m getting the various adaptations confused and I can’t remember if in canon Wei Wuxian woke up in Mo Xuanyu’s body already wearing the makeup or if he just finds the tin of makeup in Mo Xuanyu’s possessions). Wei Wuxian’s character is also a bit of a tease, and now he’s alive and unburdened by the past he’s much freer now than he was in the past, couple that with the fact that he’s pretending to be Mo Xuanyu (a character who is rumoured to be gay and also a bit insane) he goes all out in pretending to be a shameless flirt, and it’s honestly hilarious, I love his character. So in a sense he has all the makings of a canon twink and I’m really not here to shame on those who portray him that way while he’s in Mo Xuanyu’s body.

My personal issue is with the same extreme twink portrayal while he’s in his original body. In his original body Wei Wuxian is BUFF. He’s hunky, he’s in the top five most eligible bachelors, he’s *car honks* woof woof bark bark *whistles* puurrrr, he’s one of the most powerful cultivators of his generation, he’s a genius too. He’s hunky. He still has the cheeky shameless character, but when you compare him to the male lead Lan Wangji, they’re about the same size and strength. My favourite type of fan fiction in MDZS is fix it/everybody lives nobody dies/no war/etc etc. Basically stories where Wei Wuxian keeps his original body. The fanon twink portrayal of him being so small and soft and weak while in canon he’s one of the strongest and smartest urks me in ways I can’t explain. It’s not what I want, not what I’m looking for. I love him for who he is in canon and to see his character so distorted by fans of the original work is frustrating. I just want to read about Wei Wuxian as a jock with his equally buff and tall nerd boyfriend.

I want to pause here and say that I have nothing against authors that write him in a twinky way, I respect your work and your characters (and as I said before I’ve reaped the benefits of other fandoms twinky character portrayals numerous times), if I read a fic that I’m not happy with the characterisation I just close the tab and move on so absolutely no hate to anyone who enjoys this character type. I’m just ruminating on the fact that I’ve been seeing it happen more and more often lately to the point where I’ve kind of bounced the fandom and am sticking to other works like Scum Villain that haven’t yet twinkified too much (there will always be one or two stories in every fandom that twinkify and honestly? I respect that. Authors said twink rights ONLY, good for them).

Mo Dao Zu Shi isn’t the only fandom I’ve been in that I’ve negatively reacted to fanon. Another one would be Batman (I love Tim with all my heart and I love him getting treated nicely but damn I sometimes wish people would remember how freaking strong and amazing he is too), 2Ha is another I’ve started to see “twinkified” (although I don’t mind seeing Chu Wanning being soft and taken care of, he is canonically called handsome and masculine and he’s quite tall too), I’ve even seen the canonically “top” character (and that seems so weird to write oml) be twinkified by fandom because they want to see him get bottomed for ~equal rights~ because apparently bottoming is seen as a “woman’s position” to them and they’re trying to be woke by switching the sexual positions up but failing to see how misogynistic and homophobic that take is (imma stop myself here because that a WHOLE ‘nother can or worms to be opened right there).

What I’m trying to say is fanon is a double edged sword and I’ve definitely enjoyed some and hated some. I think it’s important to seperate the two. I do think it’s annoying for fandoms to be flooded with mischaracterisation when you actually do like the original characters and I wish there was some way to seperate fandom into “actual canon fans” and “fans of fanon”, but I don’t have a solution and I’ve definitely contributed to the problem in the past so for that I’m sorry.

I don’t know how to end this long ass rant, I don’t know what the goal was in writing this, but taadaa ~ here’s my exceptionally long take on fanon.

#rant #I don’t know if I should tag the fandoms mentioned in case I wake a sleeping bear #but I’m going to do it anyway in case someone has the tags muted #mdzs #aot fanfiction #AOT #mo dao zu shi #fanon #ao3 #attack on titan #ereri #wei wuxian

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petork · 3 years

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-105 please

NB i am told this was meant to say 1-50

thanks queen <3 here we go

1. Who is your favourite ghost?

lately? it's been kitty. and i'm contractually obligated to love the captain

2. If you could see the ghosts like Alison, which one do you think would come the closest to making you want to leave the house?

the obvious answer is julian but probably actually robin, i HATE being spooked (as the asker can attest xx)

3. How would you feel if you couldn’t see the ghosts, but knew they were there, like Mike?

i'd feel mad jealous even though i'd actually have it pretty good. the other person would be trying so hard to tell me how much it sucks and i'd just be like 'but... goast.....'

4. Would you want to see ghosts like Alison, or would you rather be ignorant to their goings and doings?

again my immediate answer is I WANNA SEE THEM but i also know that might suck in many ways. at least for a while. i am not a patient person so i don't know if i could learn to live with them like alison could. but on the other hand... the chance to actually talk to people from the fucking actual past... thinking emoji!

5. If you were a ghost living in the house, would you rather be upstairs with the main nine ghosts, or downstairs with the plague ghosts?

upstairs for sure, sorry to the plague ghosts but i do not want to hang out in a basement for eternity

6. If you were someone who died in the house would you rather be “sucked off” immediately, or would you like to hang around a bit and get to know some of the other ghosts before getting “sucked off”?

i would probably just end up staying forever because i'm scared of the void of death.... <3

7. Which ghost would you miss the most if they were “sucked off” in the next series?

UNBELIEVABLE question? i'd miss ALL OF THEM. but see question 1 also

8. Which ghost do you think you’d get along with the best?

it's hard to say. i think they would all get on my nerves because as said i am not very patient. but the one who would irritate me LEAST... maybe pat?

9. Which ghost would you say you’re most like?

captain. not to be a cliche but i'm gay and repressed. and also irritable and grumpy

10. Which ghost would you say you’re least like?

JULIAN

11. What is a (popular or not) fan theory that you love?

(pasted from prev answer) i don’t actually like ship it because he’s definitely older than her, but a couple of people have said kitty sometimes acts like she has a crush on thomas. which is cute to me even if she does need to get better taste (love u kitty xxx)

12. What is a (popular or not) fan theory that you don’t quite agree with?

(pasted from prev answer) not so much a specific theory but i disagree with the general idea that anything of consequence went on with the captain and havers. i think it was meant to come across as just a snippet of the captain’s poor sad gay life and, as several brain geniuses have pointed out, due to the timing of germany invading france + the captain’s medals the flashback must have been from a good few years BEFORE he died. and i think the flashback was the last time they ever saw each other, so i don’t think that a) havers has any link to the captain’s eventual death or 2) anything romantic ever happened between them

13. Favourite ship and why?

captain x my cute oc boyfriend because i've tailored it to my exact needs. why ship retail when you can ship bespoke?

14. Least favourite ship and why? (Please be nice though!)

patcap as we all know. like YES i'm a contrary bitch so i don't like things that are popular and i do think i'm better than everyone else... but really idk why exactly i just don't gel with it at all. and when i've tried to read fic in the past it feels to me like their characters are kind of flattened. and i think the captain is too much of a bitch. and i think pat is serving us normie heterosexual. it's the 'cinnamon roll' ship of this fandom and i can't STAND (metaphorical) cinnamon rolls. AND ALSO pat is not the simple soft dad cinnamon roll fandom often makes him out to be! like he is a very nice person but he's also fucked up and insane like all of them. anyway my brain charges extremely low rents

15. If you could go back in time and live in the house/on the property at the same time as one of the ghosts when they were alive, who would you pick?

captain. need to know wtf's going on with him

16. Would you rather inherit the house (and its ghostly inhabitants), or just visit?

realistically... visit. i think i would lose my mind eventually if i lived there

17. Do you think we’ll ever know how every ghost died? Do you think there will be anyone whose death we’ll never learn about?

i hope we do, but i also appreciate that isn't the sole point of the series, otherwise it would be kinda boring and discovering how they died wouldn't be as impactful. if there's anyone's death we don't find out about, i think it would probably be robin? lol what if it was so long ago he just forgot

18. What is your favourite Ghosts fanfiction?

so i'm stupid and i never use bookmarks on ao3..... i've read a LOT of different fics i like but do you think i can revisit them? no! because i'm stupid! so i cannot fairly pick an absolute fave sorry

19. What is your favourite Ghosts fan art?

THIS <3

all the babies and children on here talk about horrible histories the show being 'their childhood'........ put some respect on terry deary's name. and this artist did!

20. Tag 5 favourite Ghosts fandom content creators!

honestly i'm not good with like. knowing people. but here are 5 fanfics i've enjoyed (based on the author's replies in my inbox because, again, i am too stupid to use bookmarks)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28287567

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29868645

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28653192

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28067277/chapters/68761830

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957662/chapters/65795407

21. Are there any historical periods you wish we’d have gotten to see a ghost/ghosts from but didn’t?

(pasted from other post) not to be predictable but i would have liked to see a 1960s ghost. like a mod who crashed his scooter or something. we have enough 20th century ghosts though but i believe the us remake has some kind of hippie ghost…

22. What is something you’re hoping to see in a future series?

flashback to the captain getting some. like implied or whatever. i can't cope with him dying a virgin. he needs this

23. What is something you’re hoping to see in a future series, but know we probably WON’T get to see?

(pasted from other post) alison meets someone else who can see ghosts, and we get to see the ghosts at THEIR house…. i always love it when we see extra ghosts but i know they probably won’t make any recurring because it would come off as running out of ideas. but i still think they should add a 90s teenager named roy

24. Which lesser-seen characters would you like to see more of in future series?

tbh there's none i can think of that i think we should SEE more of, they get a pretty good balance. there are some i definitely want to learn more about though

25. Are there any characters you wish we’d see less?

don't make me pick a least favourite child </3 but also i think thomas could probably tone it down a bit.

26. Favourite one-liner?

I'LL WAIT FOR YOU, MY COMELY NUG - me whenever i order chicken nuggets on just eat

27. Favourite episode?

DON'T EVEN... i like 2x06 and 3x05 a lot

28. Top 5 headcanons for [insert character name here]?

i'm going to do the captain because obviously i am

- he may or may not have been lavender married

- he may or may not have had a drinking problem

- public schoolboy with domineering father, clearly

- IF he had a lavender wife then she spent all her time in the company of her 'odd' female friend who wore men's clothes, smoked cigars and drove a motorbike. the captain was obviously clueless

that's 4 so a cheeky one for fanny:

- she did a lot of medicinal coke

29. Whose costume is your favourite?

kitty. gotta love an ott ballgown

30. Whose costume is your least favourite?

that's an offtopic question. you have been stopped.

31. If you could do a complete redesign of one of the ghosts’ costumes, whose would you change and how?

i would give thomas his double denim

32. If you could play any of the existing ghosts, which one would you want to play and why?

i think i'd be good at playing mary. meek weird girl who says things that don't make any sense? omg she is LITERALLY me

33. Which ghost would you least like to play and why?

julian, i'm not getting my pussy out

34. What one thing would you miss most if you became a ghost and had to live by the same rules as the Button House ghosts?

FOOD. food. eating and food.

35. How do you think one or more of the ghosts whose deaths we haven’t seen died? Or, if we know the cause of death but not the reason for the death (like Mary being burned as a witch or Humphrey being beheaded), why do you think they were killed?

i think mary's execution might have had something to do with her husband's death and her being unfairly accused or something. also like, she just acts kinda weird, and we know how that often played out for women back then...

and i think the captain died in some really boring mundane natural causes way (congenital heart attack or something) but he's stuck around because a) he's never come to terms with the whole h*mo thing and 2) he was just really mad that he died so boringly

36. Favourite [insert character name here] moment?

CAPTAIN GETTING KITTY TO SMILE

37. What do you think [insert character name here] was like when they were alive? Do you think they were exactly the same as they are now, or do you think there were any major or minor differences?

ok i'll do fanny for this one. i think she was less domineering when she was alive, in death she clearly thinks of herself as above the other ghosts and bosses them around, and when she talks shit about george it's not like he can get back at her in any way. but it would be interesting to see how they interacted when both were alive

38. It’s your turn to pick a movie for film club! What are you watching?

(from prev post) i haven’t seen any movies errr….. maybe austin powers because it’s so sad that julian died just a few years before it came out because he would love it and get really annoying about quoting it all the time and it would be really funny for the captain (who thought the movie was unironic) to have to deal with that. and fanny would NOT COPE.

39. Would you rather share a room with Thomas (constantly sighing and reciting bad poetry) or Fanny (falls out of the window screaming every night)?

fanny. men be quiet challenge

40. If you could do some kind of historical swap (i.e. place a ghost in a different period from their own), who would you choose and what period are they from now?

i would like to give kitty the chance to be a 20th or 21st century girl. maybe an era like the 60s or 80s that was known for daring fashions, i think she would luv it

41. Let’s settle this once and for all. Who’s the real leader, the Captain or Pat?

fanny

42. If the ghosts could eat, what is one food you would like to share with them that they might not have tried before?

doritos tangy cheese, mountain dew baja blast, 4loko. i would make thomas try a jalapeno. i would also make them try my cooking experiments because i do that to anyone i live with

43. You’ve heard rumours of a tenth upstairs ghost who doesn’t often venture out of their room to visit with the other residents of the house. Who are they? (i.e. make up a ghost OC. I know i’m putting you on the spot. I just want to see what you come up with.)

it's george button and his bitch ass is too scared of his wife to come down. his downfall comes when he finds out there's another gay ghost and simply has to clap them cheeks (he fails)

44. Tell me a song you think [insert character name here] would like, or a song that reminds you of them!

i think alison's probably already introduced him to them but thomas + anything by the smiths. i would also make the captain sit quietly and listen to a tracy chapman cd (for my lover...)

45. What song(s) do you think would annoy certain ghosts the most?

the smiths would annoy everyone except thomas. literally they'd all be trying to re-kill him

46. Who is one actor you’d love to see guest star? What kind of character would you like to see them play?

steve coogan as like. anyone. preferably a ghost. a roman centurion ghost if you wanna get cultural. but seriously i just want alan

47. If you could have one Horrible Histories song in Ghosts (either sung by a ghost/ghosts, or playing on the TV or computer for them to watch), which one would you want it to be and why?

that song about how no 'british' stuff is actually british. like tea. i want julian to melt down

48. What do you think the ghosts’ jobs would be in a modern living-human AU where they’re all just chaotic housemates?

captain & kitty: have their own wedding planning company

julian: still a politician but instead of an mp he's like a parish councillor. handforth antics

fanny: headteacher

robin: cool off the shits teacher at same school who undermines fanny wherever possible. deals weed to students

mary: runs a shop selling like healing crystals and incense and dreamcatchers

humphrey: customer service supervisor who actually likes his job because he takes no shit and just fucks with every single customer

thomas: unemployed podcaster

pat: dogwalker

49. What is one modern invention you think [insert character name here] would be surprised or confused by?

fanny would be so baffled by any Feminine Products. when she discovers tampons it's all she can talk about for a week. the mooncup made her go into a coma

50. Name an AU you haven’t seen someone create content for, but which you’d love to read a fic or see some art for.

not to be the way i am but i'd love if anyone ever drew art or something about my au which is a modern-day au where fanny and captain are alison and kitty's divorced parents, julian and robin are captain's brothers and alison's wack uncles, mary is their childhood nanny, thomas is a student lodger at button house, humphrey is a cat and pat is just some guy. but yeah in the past i've had a couple of anons on here mention it and i did melt into a puddle... i think if someone did art i'd explode and die. in a good way like

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thepropertylovers · 4 years

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Feature Friday with Jorge Valencia and Morgan King

Happy Friday, y’all. After a few days of bad weather, we’re looking forward to enjoying the sunshine this weekend with some trips out to the land to get some fresh air and let the kiddos run around. Any fun plans you’re looking forward to?

Today’s Feature Friday is a beautiful couple who takes turns answering questions and discuss their coming out stories, what their environment was like growing up, and where they see themselves in 5 years. We loved getting to know Jorge and Morgan and we think you will, too. Check out what we mean below…

What is your favorite place that you’ve ever travelled to and why? Zermatt, Switzerland. We went there on our honeymoon because we love skiing together and the food is incredible, too. The slopes there are really amazing and we really improved our technique.

Where did you grow up? What was your environment like? Jorge: I was raised catholic and I would go to church every Sunday with my parents when I was a kid. But at some point during my early teens, my brother and I started questioning and disagreeing with a lot that we would hear the priest say. We eventually stopped going. My parents were very respectful of that and never forced us to go. Mexico City is like 99% catholic so we didn’t get to experience a lot of other religions or denominations, so iit wasn't until I moved to New York City that I realized I could find another church that aligned better with the way I think.

Morgan: I call myself a recovering evangelical. It’s almost like waking up after years in a different reality where women couldn’t be leaders, education was an afterthought, and I could never, not in a million years, be with a man. Now, I’m only about 1000 miles away from my hometown but it feels like a whole different world.

How did that shape who you are as a person? J: My parents are both scientists, so that for sure had an influence on my interests and on what I do now. Besides science, they were also very vocal about trying to be as happy as we can by surrounding ourselves with people we love, doing something you’re passionate about and being healthy. That’s been stuck in my mind since I was a kid.

M: The (one?) good thing about evangelicalism is hope. I have hope for a better world, a better future, and even though I view the world really differently than I once did, that hope is still very much alive.

What is one thing you love about yourself? J: I think I am very determined. It might take me some time to make up my mind about something but once I decide I want to do something I won’t stop until it’s done.

M: My enthusiasm about little things.

What brings you the most joy in life? J: Little traditions that Morgan and I have like going to the Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving or re-watching Gilmore Girls (only!) in the fall even though we end up disliking Rory even more every time we watch it.

M: Those simple days when life together is just plain good.

How old were you when you came out? What was your experience like? J: I was 19. I told myself I would come out when I was in a relationship and that’s what I did. The night I decided to come out to my parents I couldn’t stop crying. My parents found me in my room and, after a few hours and many tears, I told them.

M: I was 23. I had always been attracted to men, but I didn’t realize (or hadn’t seen, really) that actually loving a man might be an option. My first few months at seminary, I realized that being gay was a gift and part of my call to mininstry. A few months later, I wrote a 10 page paper explaining it all to my parents, hopped on a plane to Paris, and just got away from everything for a week.

How did your friends and family take it? J: I was lucky enough to have a very supportive family who has shown me a thousand times that they would do anything for me. Seeing them interact with Morgan is one of my greatest joys.

M: My parents didn’t come to our wedding this past December. I still love them. And I believe they love me, too. But love is complicated. Needless to say, I don’t see anyone from home much.

What did you learn about yourself in the coming out process? J: I spent most of my teen years angry at myself and at life. At the time I didn't know why I felt like that but looking back it is probably because I knew I was different, but I didn’t know if I would ever have the courage to come out and be myself. But once I did, I let go of all that anger as well.

M: I learned that being different is dangerous, but also that it doesn’t have to be that way.

What would you tell today’s LGBTQ youth who are struggling to come out in fear they won’t be accepted by family, friends, society? J: Coming out is one of the best things you can do. There’s nothing compared to that feeling of freedom that you get after doing it. It is liberating. But it is also very hard depending on your background, so I would say make sure that you have a support system. If you’re worried your family is not gonna react the way you want them, make sure you have a friend or someone to talk to before coming out to them. And also remember it takes time for them to adjust and get used to the idea. Give them time.

M: Acceptance is important, but finding the ability, somehow, to not let anyone else define you might be even better.

What is a difficult or challenging obstacle you've overcome in your life or hope to overcome? J: turns out getting a PhD in biomedical sciences is way harder than I expected. It involves facing a lot of frustration, self-doubt and more anxiety I ever thought I would have to deal with.

M: Some days are more difficult than others, trying to balance my pride and love of my life with Jorge and my commitment to my family even when they aren’t supportive.

Who is your biggest inspiration and why? J: My parents because I am where I am right now thanks to them. They went to grad school while my brother and I were in elementary school, and now as a grad student myself I don’t know how they raised two kids and got their PhDs. They even held down jobs at the same time to give me and my brother everything we needed. Also, Morgan’s strength and love inspire me everyday. It is easy to give up on relationships after you’re hurt or when you don’t exactly get what you need out of a one, but he chooses to work on them instead of taking the easy way out.

M: My mom’s dad (“Granddady”). He had an alcoholic father and was barely able to go to school because of having to help around the family farm. Around age 16, he left for the “big city” (Chattanooga) and ended up being the first in our family to go to college. He’s one of the kindest, most generous people I know [and, yes, of course Jorge is one of my heros, too :)]

Where do you see yourself in five years? J: I’ve lived in different cities since I started college but I have really fallen in love with New York so hopefully we will still be living here in 5 years even after I finish my PhD. I also see a puppy in our future.

M: We’ve actually both lived many places. I’ve moved 12 times in 8 years to 5 different cities. I am ready to find a more permanent home somewhere in New York with my husband.

Thank you so much Jorge & Morgan! We hope you have a beautiful weekend, friends and stay safe! xx

P&T

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elysiumwaits · 5 years

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Hey! For the 100 ways to say I love you prompts, I’d love to see what you’d do with no. 89 - “I noticed.” For Sterek, Stucky or Merthur, whichever speaks to you. Thank you!😊

I went with Merthur. I shot for 500 words and ended up with 1200 instead, which is pretty par for the course for me. Also, I don’t know anything about marriage or relationship customs in Camelot so I made it all up.

In which it suddenly occurs to Arthur that, in this day and age, he is allowed to love Merlin the way he wants to.

Your Warming Smile on AO3

Rated G, no real warnings apply, but tags are: Arthur Comes Back, Love Confessions, Marriage Proposals, Fluff, Light Angst, Discussions of Past Relationships, Past Gwen/Arthur

Arthur adjusts to modern life with all the grace of a toddler learning how to use a spoon. That is to say, it’s a necessary thing, but it’s painful for everyone involved thanks to the mess and general frustration. It helps that he’s actually a remarkably smart and competent person, despite all that Merlin’s ever said otherwise, so he adapts to the new structures of society very quickly, even if it takes a little longer to get him to understand things like electricity or the merits of cars over horses.

He likes the iPhone Merlin gets him, especially after Merlin puts all of the Angry Birds games on it. Once Merlin teaches him how to use Wikipedia and YouTube, Merlin’s job of explaining how things work is pretty well done. Arthur will still ask him to explain certain things, but for the most part, they both figure out rather quickly that the Internet has far more patience for explanation than Merlin does.

It’s after Merlin’s gotten home from the shops, bags in hand, when Arthur follows him into the kitchen, phone in hand. Merlin’s not bothered - sometimes Arthur watches something and needs some context, or finds a gaming channel and mistakes it for actual events (honestly, it was a little heartbreaking telling Arthur that Skyrim was not a real place). Besides, after centuries being alone, Merlin is finding it hard to balance time-with-Arthur and time-without-Arthur because, if given the choice, he’d never have any time-without-Arthur at all.

“Men can marry each other?” is what Arthur says, though, instead of any of the questions Merlin was expecting.

Merlin very carefully doesn’t drop the milk. They’ve talked about it in passing, and Arthur’s never been a bigot, even back in Camelot when it wasn’t something that was necessarily talked about openly. People were gay, of course, people have always been gay, but it was never mentioned, just… accepted. Arthur had mentioned a couple of nobles who had married, produced a single heir, and then spent the rest of their natural lives enjoying time with their ‘best friends’ instead.

In this day and age, Merlin had simply told Arthur it was more openly accepted now, that couples like that were at least not illegal anymore, even if they did face such things as violence and bigotry. All Arthur had said was that ‘no one should be hunted for loving someone, that’s absurd,’ with a strange look on his face. Merlin had quickly changed the subject, after that, not wanting to remind Arthur of Guinivere or anyone else they’d lost.

All this to say that Merlin really has no idea where the intensity in Arthur’s expression is coming from.

“Yes?” Merlin says as he puts the milk in the fridge. “And women can marry women? It’s a fairly recent development, actually, I think.” He screws up his nose and tries to think - time is strange for an immortal sorcerer after all. He doesn’t think getting into the spectrums of gender and sexuality will do any good here either, so he’ll probably leave that for another day. “Let’s see, homosexuality was decriminalized here in the late 1960s, and then marriage was made legal, what, five years ago? I told you it wasn’t illegal anymore, Arthur.”

“It wasn’t illegal in Camelot.” Arthur waves the phone, and just generally looks bewilderingly upset. “Magic was! Divorce was… not illegal, but hard. Adultery was illegal.”

Merlin puts the rest of the bags on the counter - there’s nothing cold in them, they’ll keep - and turns to give Arthur a confused look. “I really don’t know where you’re going with this. Marriage laws haven’t really applied to me, so I haven’t paid much attention.”

“I was already married by the time I figured it out!”

“Figured what out?”

Arthur takes a deep breath and shoves the phone in his pocket. “I noticed, Merlin.”

“You’re not making any sense.” Merlin shakes his head a little, goes to head past Arthur and back into the living room to take off his jacket.

As he passes, though, Arthur grabs him by the arm and drags him back those few steps, until Merlin is once again against the counter. This time, though, Arthur’s got him trapped by bracing his hands on the countertop on either side of Merlin. He could shove Arthur out of the way easily enough, of course, they’re both long-past thinking Merlin is harmless or weak.

“I noticed,” Arthur says, quiet and intense. “But I was married, and I loved her, too. Not… not the way she loved Lancelot, or the way that I felt about… but I still made vows.”

Merlin swallows as he realizes all at once what Arthur is talking about. “I never…” he trails off, looks everywhere but Arthur’s face. “I never expected anything from you, I never would have wanted you to be unfaithful. I wouldn’t have asked that of you. I wouldn’t have done that to Gwen.”

“Did you know, though? Did I ever…” Arthur places his fingers on Merlin’s chin, tilts Merlin’s face back so that he’s looking at Arthur once more. “Merlin, tell me you haven’t gone all this time thinking that I didn’t… that your feelings were unrequited.”

Merlin did enough lying back in Camelot, he says, and so he won’t lie to Arthur now. It’s damn tempting, though. “I didn’t let myself think about it for a long time, certainly not while you were alive. It didn’t seem fair to either of us to dwell on it. Your friendship was enough for me.”

“You’re a better man than I ever was or will ever be.” Arthur still sounds distressed, but his hand is still on Merlin’s jaw. “What about now, Merlin? Have all the years… changed anything?”

Merlin is struck dumb for a moment. Arthur looks like Merlin’s never seen him, an almost desperate longing in his eyes, and Merlin wonders about Arthur noticing all those centuries ago. What had he seen? Every little act of love Merlin had done? A light in Merlin’s eye? Every single moment that Merlin had forced himself not to read too much into?

“No,” he finally manages to choke out. “No, you idiot, of course nothing’s changed. I still love you, I always will.”

Arthur nods, slowly at first like he’s thinking, and then once more, decisively. Merlin’s still not sure how they got here from whatever article or video Arthur had stumbled onto, but he finds he doesn’t much care when Arthur suddenly surges forward and kisses him, like he’s been waiting to do it forever, like he’s never wanted anything more.

“You’ll marry me, right?” Arthur asks once he’s kissed Merlin within an inch of his life, until Merlin was practically begging for oxygen or mercy or for Arthur to never stop.

“I’m not sure either of us technically exist in the legal system here,” Merlin says, breathless. “And it’s awfully rude of you to propose without a ring.”

“We’ll do one of those Druid weddings.” It sounds like a promise when Arthur says it. “You’re a Druid, right? I’ll get a ring.”

“I don’t know if I can officiate my own wedding!” Merlin laughs, head spinning. “What are you talking about? We’re living the rest of our immortal lives together, I don’t think an official marriage is going to do much to change that.”

Arthur snorts, but there’s an insufferably pleased twinkle in his eye. “Well, excuse me, I’ll try to reign in my feelings of devotion,” he says, and presses another quick kiss to Merlin’s lips. He pulls away again, and adds, seriously, “I love you.”

“I noticed,” Merlin says with a cheeky grin, and Arthur rolls his eyes before leaning in to kiss him again.

#merthur #this became more of a dialogue prompt than anything #but the words do what they want i'm just the vessel #fanfiction

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mythvoiced · 5 years

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@enchcntd - THE OG GAYS, OFC — ultimate ship meme!

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Send in two (or more) names and I’ll fill all this out about the ship!

General:

How long will they last? - Uh? Forever? Obviously?

How quickly did/will they fall in love? - I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight but it was definitely “good god, this is something”, at first sight (at least for Patrick) so I’m thinking it didn’t take that long, they were infatuated pretty early on, and they both feel Very Strongly, SO HERE THEY ARE

How was their first kiss? - It had the intention to become steamy because at first Patrick thought “yes, this’ll do it, this’ll show him my feelings” but then their lips touched in that random-ass bathroom stall in the men’s toilet at a gala event organised by one Anthony Sullivan, and it was just... slow sparks, it was the “we have to pull away after a literal second because neither of us can believe this is happening and oh god this is what i’ve been missing all my life, isn’t it”

Wedding:

Who proposed? - The absolute idiot that is Patrick Finch (said, of course, affectionately) he just kinda suggested it and well, hey, once you’ve put it out there, all you gotta do is get a ring and PUT IT ON IT because I’m mad Pat didn’t show up with a ring right away >:( but then again, it wasn’t exactly a planned proposal

Who is the best man/men? - We haven’t discussed this yet BUT ALLEN’S DEFINITELY THERE, I don’t know who’d apply for Spencer so feel free to scream the names at me <w< I don’t think either of them would want people who aren’t like, super close to them, though, right?

Who is the braid’s maid(s)? - Not applicable, but to be honest Liv should be IF yknow

Who did the most planning? - Patrick struggled a bit here because he’s used to planning things SOLO (comes from having a naturally strategical mind AND being alone for so long and all the time) but he wouldn’t want to just leave Spencer out of it when he’d know he’d feel bad if he couldn’t participate, so they probably balanced it according to their abilities... And then Pat’s mum Susan flew in and had to be physically restrained by Allen because planning a wedding is on her bucket list and she adores Spencer so she literally is usually sitting there, in a corner, waiting until she can help with something

Who stressed the most? - This would go to Spencer, right? Patrick does his own fair share of stressing on the daily (can’t he rest) but he having Spencer nearby calms him down ALSO because he wants to be calm enough to help Spencer when he’ll start stressing (this is probs the planning only, because I feel like if we’re talking about the idea of marriage itself, Patrick wouldn’t sleep for a week, but I dIGRESS, Allen is here during that period, he’ll smack some sense into him, don’t worry)

How fancy was the ceremony? - Back of a pickup truck | 2 | 3 | 4 | Normal Church Wedding | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Kate and William wish they were this big.

Who was specifically not invited to the wedding? - Anthony Sullivan, Reginald Finch, and Patrick put off inviting Robert until his mother ripped him a new one

Sex:

Who is on top? - They both are... ON TOP OF THE WORLD because they are very deeply in love with one another

Who is the one to instigate things? - They haven’t worked their way up to that topic/situation yet and they both seem fairly comfortable with just letting it rest wherever it may be for a while longer, lmao

How healthy is their sex life? - Well, healthily nonexistent, LEAVE THEM ALONE Barely touch themselves let alone each other | 2 | 3 | 4 | Once a couple weeks, nothing overboard | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | They are humping each other on the couch right now

How kinky are they? - No Straight missionary with the lights off | 2 | 3 | 4 | Might try some butt stuff and toys | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Don’t go into the sex dungeon without a horse’s head

How long do they normally last? - Fellas, I don’t even know if Spencer masturbates, I know Patrick doesn’t even do that, HOW AM I SUPPOSED-

Do they make sure each person gets an equal amount of orgasms? - Hypothetically speaking, because this is literally all we’re doing here (I’m tryna swerve this section, not gonna lie) the answer would be YES, although Patrick would be more inclined to take care of Spencer’s because for obvious reasons

How rough are they in bed? - Softer than a butterfly on the back of a bunny | 2 | 3 | 4 | The bed’s shaking and squeaking every time | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Their dirty talk is so vulgar it’d make Dwayne Johnson blush. Also, the wall’s so weak it could collapse the next time they do it.

How much cuddling/snuggling do they do? - No touching after sex | 2 | 3 | 4 | A little spooning at night, or on the couch, but not in public | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | They snuggle and kiss more often than a teen couple on their fifth date to a pillow factory.

Children:

How many children will they have naturally? - None! Biology doesn’t work that way!

How many children will they adopt? - AT LEAST one, I don’t feel like they’re thinking of adopting another at the moment, BUT DEFINITELY one! Her Royal Highness Samantha Finch

Who gets stuck with the most diapers? - Sammy didn’t use diapers anymore when they adopted her!

Who is the stricter parent? - Patrick! Outwardly! He tries to be! He’s a big softie but he’s also terrified of losing her

Who stops the kid(s) from doing dangerous stunts after school? - BOTH! They’re quite apprehensive BUT at the same time, Patrick believes if a kid’s feet aren’t dirty at the end of the day, have they really lived the day? Falling of a low branch off a tree every so once in a while is okay, it depends entirely on what Sam can handle, because she may be on the spectrum, but he’s not made out of glass neither should she be treated as such, mic drop LMAO

Who remembers to pack the lunch(es)? - Kitchen is Spencer Terrain! Therefore, by extension, SPENCER!

Who is the more loved parent? - She loves them equally for different reasons! You can’t really compare them, because they’re two completely different beings and she adores them for who they are as individuals.

Who is more likely to attend the PTA meetings? - Patrick would make it a habit to be around for them CERTAINLY because he wants not only to be there for Sam, but also for Spencer the first few times, thinking the idea would stress Spencer out. Not to mention, Patrick has a deep-rooted passion within him to go against every and all systems out there, so he’d want to be there right away if the school Fucked Up because that’s his daughter they’re talking about (but he’d also try to get Spencer to come every time because it’d be important to Spencer as well to be there, right?)

Who cried the most at graduation? - To be honest they probably spent 20 minutes just all three of them crying into the best family hug in the history of all family hugs

Who is more likely to bail the child(ren) out of trouble with the law? - Patrick, because he INVENTED trouble with the law, NAH omg hopefully neither

Cooking:

Who does the most cooking? - Spencer! Patrick can cook well enough to keep himself alive, but Spencer is basically a CHEF at this point and well, it’s his thing :3

Who is the most picky in their food choice? - Maybe Sammy? Patrick isn’t picky in the slightest, he’s very likely to eat something he doesn’t like either (at the end of the day he always be “everything’s better than trench food, so”) and Spencer doesn’t seem very picky? So if anybody had to pick that title, it’d probably be some child-pickiness

Who does the grocery shopping? - Who happens to! Depends on schedules and such, but I also believe that Spencer is more likely to, also because he’s the cook so Patrick would be constantly calling him anyway

How often do they bake desserts? - Any time Spencer would feel like it >:)

Are they more of a meat lover or a salad eater? - Well, Spencer is a vegetarian so there’s that, Patrick definitely enjoys meat

Who is more likely to surprise the other(s) with an anniversary dinner? - SPENCER! Although, it depends, are we talking a dinner out or a dinner in, although it’s a dinner in either way right, SO SPENCER! Because he cooks. Patrick would surprise him with something else.

Who is more likely to suggest going out? - PATRICK! But he means... OUT out, as in out into nature, on a field, for a picnic, or to star-gaze, he’s more likely too because if he can’t breathe fresh air at least once a day, he withers away (like a dog, yknow)

Who is more likely to burn the house down accidentally while cooking? - NEITHER!

Chores:

Who cleans the room? - BOTH!

Who is really against chores? - NEITHER! I can see it being rather relaxing for both of them, just getting things done around the house

Who cleans up after the pets? - WHOEVER HAPPENS TO!

Who is more likely to sweep everything under the rug? - APPLE! Lmao

Who stresses the most when guests are coming over? - SPENCER! Because Patrick is just gonna boot them out if he doesn’t like them, he’s a master at skillfully kicking people out of places, but also because he’s taken to trying to be calm during situations like these so that Spencer can rely on him, so even if he WAS stressed, he’d probably get over it

Who found a dollar between the couch cushions while cleaning? - SAMMY! It’s her Treasure

Misc:

Who takes the longer showers/baths? - SPENCER! For the sole reason that Patrick’s showers are fast as lightning lmao and he doesn’t take baths

Who takes the dog out for a walk? - THEY DON’T OWN A DOG!

How often do they decorate the room/house for the holidays? - THEY DON’T MISS A SINGLE ONE EXCEPT FOR THANKSGIVINGS PATRICK DOESN’T PARTICIPATE IN THAT ONE LMAO

What are their goals for the relationship? - EVERYTHING THEY GOT RIGHT NOW TBH

Who is most likely to sleep till noon? - NEITHER! Both seem pretty early risers

Who plays the most pranks? - PATRICK! I’m kidding IT’S APPLE

#enchcntd #a writer and his wolf;patrick & spencer #TOOK ME A THOUSAND YEARS BUT HERE WE GO #actually jokes on all of us i usually take much longer #;queue

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mz-hide · 5 years

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Trick of Might - Chaper 7

Aka: a Dragon Ball Z slash fic.

Chapter 7

The calm before the storm.

Summary: An ancient enemy makes a sudden comeback into Goku’s life. Long-suppressed memories surface again and it’s no longer possible for the young saiyan to ignore them. Warnings: Dubious Consent, (because of drug use) Ships & Pairings: Bulma/Vegeta, Goku/Vegeta, Goku/Turles, Goku/Turles/Vegeta, Turles/Vegeta, Raditz/Turles, Nappa/Turles, Nappa/Raditz/Turles, Daiz/Turles Contains: Threesome - M/M/M, Group Sex, Polyamory, Aphrodisiacs, Secret Crush, Confessions, Enemies to Lovers, Love Triangles, Oral Sex, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Gay Sex, Biting, Scratching, Boners All Around, Feral Behavior, (just a tiny bit), Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Content

You can find the rest on my AO3 page (username: originalmonkeyhydes)

The Tree of Might was an enchanting enigma, one its ever consuming, demanding nature made it all the harder for him to study. No matter how long he’d been spreading its seeds across the galaxies, watching it feed on entire planets and then absorb their energy himself, through its fruits, it seemed as if its potential was bottomless. Its existence was an endless mystery, perpetually enfolding. Ever since he’d found it on his path, Turles had lived just to prod its most hidden essence, in awe of its many secrets. After all the time he’d spend feeding of its power, stumbling upon something new like that was truly surprising. He had tried eating its sap before, but somehow it had never crossed his mind to do when it was in bloom. Had he regretted not having thought about it before, surrounded by its sweet scent and warmth, flared nostrils and delight filling his lungs with every greedy breath. He’d almost risked not making it out the experiment alive, so long he’d lingered on the doomed dwarf planet, delaying his departure as much as possible to indulge the pleasure of his latest discovery. He had to repeat the experiment as soon as luck allowed it. It wouldn’t have helped with his primary research but “for the hell of it” was a good enough excuse for his newly ticked interests. Luckily finding a planet that mediocre in size was an easier feat than finding one apt for the tree’s final stages. It didn’t take him long to figure out how to recreate the perfect conditions for the magic to happen and once he did, he would seek out all the perfect planetary candidates, order his crew to wait for him at the other side of the planet and retreat on his Tree to celebrate in solitude. There was nothing sweeter than reaping what he’d so lovingly sowed. It didn’t take him long before the idea of sharing his new discovery started to tickle his fancy. He’d just started wondering who to share it with when the answer come to him. Specifically, it came in the form of one of his crew members, following him to the Tree, too curious too see what their leader was up to to obey his orders. He’d waited to reach the thickest part of the Tree’s crown before acknowledging the observer’s presence. “Disobeying my direct orders, Daiz?”, he’d called out. The man behind him audibly flinched. “I know you’re there. Come out. Now.” His minion was wise enough to recognize a command when he heard one. “How-?” “You forget I’m a saiyan”, the pirate said, not deigning to turn to the intruder just yet, “I might not have a scouter on but I can still smell you.” “C-captain, I-“ “You were following me, were you not?” “It’s just that… For some time now you’ve been choosing odd planets to plant the Tree. This planet is not a good candidate for it to bear fruits. It’s highly likely that it won’t resist much longer before crumbling apart. And you come here alone, without armor and without a scouter and I-” “You were curious to see what I’ve been doing up here all this time. Correct?” “Well…” “Answer me. I asked you a question. Am I correct?” “Yes, Captain.” Turles took a long, dramatic breath, inhaling the scents around him and a dangerous smirk bent his lips. It was time. His eyes caught sight of a dark, wound-up bud. He reached out to grasp it. Thick, juicy petals unfolded in his grasp, releasing a gush of rich, crimson sap trickling down his elbow. He brought his arm to his face and licked the liquid off. His nostrils twitched in delight as a familiar heat started spreading through him. He could feel the other’s tension as he watched him, taste the apprehension that took hold of him, ignoring what was about to happen. And it was delightful. What luck indeed that it had been Daiz the one to follow him up there. He was going to make the best out of that situation and he knew just how to. “Curiosity kills, Daiz. Isn’t that how the saying goes?” “I didn’t mean to-“ “Hush. No need for apologies. After all it’s just normal that you would follow your gut. After all, I should know. I’ve followed mine across the universe in pursuit of answers. We’re not that different, you and I.” He let another pause of silence fall between them as he intently sucked his fingers clean, feeling his suit grow tighter around him. Only then did he turn his head to look at him. The sight of deep, blue eyes blown wide with apprehension was a welcome one. The other’s mouth was pulled into a tense, thin line, his body stiff and alert. Turles studied his underling carefully. There was no doubt he had gotten wind of the heavy fragrance stagnating in the air, he wouldn’t have needed a saiyan’s keen sense of smell to detect that. To his disappointment, however, it didn’t seem to have any particular or significant effect on him other than elicit curiosity. But there was an anticipation to him that spoke of something other than fear and wariness, something Turles had his fun willfully ignoring so far, watching it increase over time as if nurtured by his neglect. Daiz had always struck him as an ideal servant, needy for praise, eager to obey, qualities a saiyan like him would have normally found demanding. Turles found it an enjoyable sensitivity to frustrate and tease. He’d had his fun in delaying and denying the satisfaction of his attention, of his praise, knowing it would only make his man’s needs grow keener. His indifference had kindled a desperate, voracious devotion. He could see it clearly bubble to the surface now, plain and evident, ripe for the plucking. The dark saiyan’s lips pursed into a knowing smirk, pleased by the way the smaller alien was looking at him. The Tree might not have affected him, but something else clearly was. “Tell me, Daiz…”, he finally spoke again, obsidian eyes growing dangerously intense, an airy flutter in his voice, “Our races look quite similar, don’t you think? The rest of my crew is fine and mighty, that’s for sure, but aesthetically speaking they’re an oddly assorted bunch. You and I, on the other hand… we always had a special connection.” He licked his lips and saw the other warrior shudder slightly, following the movement of his tongue. No doubt he’d caught a glimpse of his fangs. Daiz always seemed to enjoy the likes of them and Turles was far from oblivious to it. Just as he was far from oblivious to the alien’s subtle charm. Daiz was smaller than him, weaker, supple in interesting places and slender in others. The hue of his hair and irises, the asymmetrical pupils, the crisp, almost mineral scent of him… everything about him was entirely alien to Turles. And yet, entirely alluring in a lot of wrong, right ways. “Between you and me, I’ve always felt like the both of us would fit better together… if you catch my meaning…” “I think I do”, the other replied fervently. “I do know what you mean.” The captain found the way the youth was looking at him very much to his liking. “Very well, then, I guess you won’t mind me asking this of you”, Turles carried on, turning and standing in front of his crew member, the front edge of his pants tugged down and one hand shamelessly groping the base of his engorged sex. “How would I go about sticking this inside you?” The blue haired alien’s eyes blazed with eagerness, as he slowly crawled up to him and meekly got to his knees. “I would start from here”, Daiz murmured, disclosing his jaws. An elongated blue tongue stretched out of his mouth, sheepishly. Turles smirked. He put a hand on the back of his soldier’s head and took the advice, sliding home. He too found that was a damn good place to start.

Bulma had been so dumbfounded by Vegeta’s sudden interference she hadn’t recovered her wits in time to put some distance between herself and the ship. When the rockets went off, she was sent staggering backwards and lost her balance. She’d lowered the hand she’d shielded her eyes with and looked heavenwards, watching the fire trail scorching the terse, midnight sky. One last glimmer, probably occurred at the edge of Earth’s atmosphere, and the ship was out of sights. That unbelievable tool! She directed a ferocious glare at the sky that went sadly ignored. Not that it would have had any effect even if Vegeta had been able to see it. So, she directed her scowl towards the Namekian. The green alien had no trouble enduring the strong gusts of air from the ship’s departure, obviously. He also hadn’t moved a muscle to prevent her from falling backwards, butt down on her parent’s lawn. He stood tall and still, holding his precious, unconscious pupil in his arms, his disapproving gaze directed upwards where the ship had disappeared from view. Bulma let out an exasperated sigh and pushed herself back on her feet. She should have known better than to expect Piccolo to put her safety before Gohan’s. Her friend’s son was the only thing that could make the Namekian seem human. That devotion was almost moving. Too bad that, in any other department, he was just as infuriating as Goku and Vegeta. “Brutes and ingrates, all the men in my life”, the scientist mumbled, swatting grass off her clothes. “Mind explaining to me what was that all about?!” Piccolo didn’t budge, as if he hadn’t heard her at all. If the height difference hadn’t been so dramatic, she would have gladly yanked the Namekian by those long, green ears of his. “What did you do to Gohan?” That seemed to get through to him. The alien lowered his gaze on hers. He appeared tense. “I only knocked him unconscious.” “You say that like it isn’t a big deal!”, the woman exhaled, exasperated, bending down to examine the boy’s head. “If I hadn’t done it, he would have run after Vegeta and I couldn't have stopped him.” “I still fail to see how that would have been worse than letting Vegeta run after Goku on his own”, she huffed, “You could have least followed him. You seem to trust him as little as I do, after all.” “He insinuated that it would have been better not to follow along. Apparently, it’s saiyan business.” He grimaced as he said that. “Honestly…”, Bulma sighed, letting her eyes fall on the unconscious boy’s face. “Well… Vegeta’s gone and the only person who could go after him now is missing too. There’s only so much we can do at a time like this. We should take care of Gohan now. I can get a bed ready for him and get an ice pack or something-“ “Bulma, sweetie! What was that noise just now?” Her mother had stuck her head out of a window calling for her. “Nothing, Mom. Just Vegeta being Vegeta again. He took the ship for a spin. Got back to sleep!” “I would, but the noise woke the baby and he’s crying like a little demon!” “Just what I needed…”, Bulma groaned, running a hand across her face. “It took me a whole hour to put him to sleep earlier too…” “You seem to have your work cut out for you. I’ll take care of Gohan”, the Namekian declared, holding the youth against his ample chest. I wish Vegeta were half as considerate of his own son… “Chi Chi should be grateful you’re around”, she told him as he turned to leave. “You should remind her if she gives you trouble. She’s not going to be happy to find out her husband’s gone again and you knocked her precious boy out.” She could swear the alien had stiffened at those words. She had no time to confirm her sensation, however. In the blink on eye, the green-skinned warrior had flown off. Bulma was left alone with a crying infant and her own moping ruminations. “Here he goes again, blasting off into space without a “goodbye” or “thank you”… sometimes I wonder if he forgets I’m the mother of his own son”, she was mumbling, begrudgingly, as she rocked little baby Trunks back and forth to calm his crying down. “Your daddy is the universe’s biggest idiot”, she confessed her son, almost apologetically, as she offered him her breast to suckle on. “Sometimes I wonder what I ever saw in him…” If only she’d opened her eyes sooner, she could have tied the knot with Goku instead. Maybe she would have found herself cradling a sweet, dark-haired baby instead of a blue-haired one… The scientist shook her head. The late hour was starting to push silly thoughts on her. Goku had grown into a handsome man, there was no denying that, just as it was pointless denying she’d found herself fantasizing about her friend in that way multiple times. The thought was like a delicious, whimsical “what if” she entertained her fancy with from time to time, fully knowing it wasn’t anything she truly regretted. Goku was a total hunk, that was true, but he was also a clueless, careless boy she’d grown to cherish as a friend. And a good friend he had been. As a husband, on the other hand… she was certain Chi Chi would have had quite a lot to say on the matter. Not that I’m in any position to judge either of them, after all... Trunks finally fell asleep again. She carefully laid him down in his crib once more, turned the lights low and left the baby monitor on before leaving the nursery. She dragged herself back to her own room and let herself fall face down on the bed, wincing slightly once the smell of sex left on her sheets filled her nostrils. Ah, yes… that was the other reason she kept putting up with Vegeta’s nonsense. She grimaced. I’m such a weak woman… if I had a little more backbone I would just kick him out for good. But he’s a fine man, more than easy on the eye. And in bed… A sigh. She could feel air hitting her rear, cooling the wet smear of moisture she hadn’t had time to clean off her before having to get out and save the day. …in bed, he’s a treat I deserve to enjoy to my heart’s content. These idiots wouldn’t know what to do without me. I have all the right to indulge in something nice, for once. Vegeta is not all that bad, after all… Sure, he came to Earth to steal our Dragon Balls and is he the reason most of the gang died back then… But he’s come a long way since. If he would only stop running off after Goku all the time he could almost be reasonably likable. Saying that was wishful thinking on her part was extremely reductive. Vegeta getting over his obsession -because obsession it clearly was- for Goku was unlikely to happen. The other saiyan was the only true reason Vegeta had decided to stick around on Earth in the first place. In a way, she owed her lover to her friend, but at times it felt like Vegeta thought she owed him her friend, instead. She couldn’t clearly tell what the dynamic between those two was truly about. She always felt there was something more than rivalry, some sort of tacit undercurrent she wasn’t sure the two warriors understood either. She tiredly slipped the shoes from her feet and climbed into bed properly. I ought to give myself some credit too, she thought to herself with the slightest hint of self-satisfaction, as sleep crept up on her. I did my hardest to keep Vegeta falling into my bed all this time and it has always worked. That’s all my doing and it paid off big time. She fell asleep, listening to the dull throbbing of her well-used sex fading away into a remote corner of her consciousness.

“What a vulgar woman…” The Prince had found himself uttering those words more and more often during his time at Capsule Corp. It had started as a scoff, a reflex caused by the scientist’s shameless way of flirting with him, but it had eventually grown into a secret expression of endearment. It couldn’t have been otherwise, when the blue-haired woman gave him that hungry yet knowing look. That was the look that had him follow her into her bedroom for the first time. “Yes. And you love it”, her half-lidded eyes seemed to say as she pushed him backwards towards her bedroom. Vegeta let himself be swayed. The press of her warm body against his promised something very unambiguous. He could feel she was wearing nothing beneath her clothes. She had a red dress on with buttons all the way down to the hem. The first handful had already been strategically unbuttoned. The Prince easily imagined himself ripping them all open in one yank, sending them flying across the room. It would probably have infuriated her, if he had, and it was something he wasn’t willing to risk right there and then. The two of them did not always go along. They would get on each other’s nerves more often than not. She didn’t fully understand him, nor did he her. But they soon learned they could rub each other in the right way as much as they would in the wrong way. For such a weak creature, Bulma was ridiculously assertive. She was a frail human. He was saiyan elite. He could have easily blown her away along with her entire planet. And yet he turned meek as a sheep at her every wish and whim. It hadn’t taken long for the woman to seduce him. Despite his initial reluctance, the Prince had turned out to be an all-too-willing victim. He let her push him down on her bed, her mouth raining hot kisses across his own, his jawline, neck and chest her her hands nimbly hooked at the edge of his trousers, pulling them down his hips. Vegeta’s own hands went to the taunting, plunging neckline, unbuttoning further down, just enough for the woman’s generous chest to spill free from its cotton cage. As expected, she hadn’t worn anything underneath. Bulma gave him a sly grin as she slid down his body to kneel between his legs, glancing appreciatively downwards at his rapidly swelling erection. “Oh my, is this for me?”, she mused, cupping one of her cheeks with a pale hand with mock-bashfulness. “Depends. Are you gonna do anything about it?” “Depends. Am I going to get something in return?” “Why don’t you go ahead and find out?” Bulma lowered herself against his crotch, her bosom morbidly encasing his sex as her hands ran along his well-toned thighs. “Why don’t you ask nicely first?” Not chiefly to her surprising attractiveness, but rather to her confidence he attributed his downfall. He had always responded well to that. It was in his blood, after all. The woman might not have been a saiyan, but Vegeta could very easily imagine her as one. With his entire species wiped out from the face of the universe, she was the next best thing to an ideal mate. For the sake of his pride, however, he couldn’t fully show just how much he was willing to comply. He wasn’t sure he liked any of the possible implications his immediate compliance would have entailed. Nonetheless, he found it tough to appear annoyed when faced with that sort of display. “Are you trying to domesticate me like I’m some sort of pet?”, he growled, grimacing ever so slightly. “Only if you’d like me to”, she replied, coquettishly, “You’re fun to play with.” Then, he found his window. He leaned back on the mattress, on arm holding his torso up and the other draped across it. He knew his chest would have stood out that way and. By the look in the scientist’s eyes as she followed his movements, it had worked. “Then, by all means”, he encouraged, his voice sultry yet demanding, gazing at her from below half-lidded eyes, “play with me.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. He could tell she was disappointed for not having reduced him to ask for it the way she wanted him to. He could also tell the unexpected twist didn’t completely disagree with her. In fact, if her lips initially pursed into a pout, they disclosed for him soon enough. And not for rebuking. To his satisfaction, her hands were on him and her tongue soon followed, expertly coaxing him and moistening him up for what was to follow. The saiyan let his head fall backwards once she took him in her mouth. It didn’t take long before his breath started hitching. He sucked air in through his teeth, hissing, long-drawn out sighs hollowing his lungs as sweet suction enveloped him to the root. Her hands had been diligently repurposed, touching and teasing at his base and at his sack until he could feel his toes curl. If he hadn’t known any better, he could have sworn the woman had a cock of her own. She knew her way around one way better than she had any business knowing. His free hand instinctively went to reach for her but was swatted away before it could fist handfuls of blue locks like it wished. “No pulling”, she warned him, sternly, the shadow of a pleased grin bending her lips. “Hands where I can see them, buddy.” He settled for gripping the sheets instead, feeling his body tense up, fighting the urge to buck into that wonderful mouth. The interruption hadn’t thrown her off. She picked up her rhythm almost immediately, ripping guttural groans from her lover’s throat. The only thing that kept him for throwing his bead backwards was the mesmerizing sight she offered, flushed cheeks stuffed full with him and watery eyes gazing upwards to look for his. Whether it was watching him or knowing she was watched in turn what she liked, he hadn’t found out yet. It hadn’t taken him too long to find out that for him watching her was half the pleasure. And did she give him pleasure! But pride demanded his due too. Holding himself back was grueling. He could feel sweat started to bead on his skin. Waves of heat coursed through him in shivers. He felt like he was steaming from every pore. The velvety glide of her tongue along the underside of him, the tight hollowing of her cheeks and her accommodating throat… the bobbing of her head was far from from being relentless, but it was steady and committed. She knew exactly what she was doing; driving him insane. His sex throbbed eagerly. His fists clenched the sheets underneath him until he couldn’t hold back anymore. Only a fervent grunt warned her of his imminent release. The woman let him go just in time to avoid having her mouth filled with his seed. Spurts of warm spent hit her across the lips and underneath the chin, dripping sloppily on her voluptuous chest. For a moment, they stared at each other, wordlessly, both flushed and heaving. Bulma wiped her lip with her thumb, triumphantly, glancing down at his softening length. Vegeta, on his part, looked thoroughly appeased, glancing at the mess they’d made with approval written all over his face. “It’s nice to play nice, isn’t it?”, he taunted, smirking smugly down at her. He made a move to get on his feet and pull his pants back up but he was stopped in his tracks by her hand gently pressing him down to the bed. Vegeta frowned slightly watching the woman climb up his body like he was a tree. “What now?” “You’re not going anywhere yet, mister. We’re not done here.” “Oh?”, he quirked a brow, watching the scientist urgently settle over him, knees on either side of his face. She hitched her dress up. The scent of her arousal hit him, making his nostrils twitch. She wasn’t wearing anything under either. “Dig in, Princey”, she requested, imperiously, letting an eager grin bend her lips. “You make my lunch breaks worthwhile but I haven’t got all day.” “And here I thought you were just trying to be selfless there”, the saiyan commented, appearing unimpressed. “I was, wasn’t I?”, she retorted, bringing her hand down, spreading herself for him. “Be good now and maybe you can have seconds later. Nice to play nice, remember?” He gave her a sardonic smile. She shivered in anticipation. His hands went to her waist and pulled her down towards his grinning mouth. It wasn’t long before she was reduced to a disheveled, whimpering mess. She was fun to play with too.

There was a mighty pulse rippling through the air that made the world shake, powerful enough to reach him even in the depth of sleep. Somehow, he felt like it was raining down on him. Goku found himself floating somewhere at edge of consciousness. The air around him felt heavy and muggy, sickeningly sweet balm filling his lungs. His body was encased in humid warmth, beading on his skin and hair. Unshakable lethargy clung to him mercilessly, making it his eyelids weight like boulders over his eyes when he tried to open them and see. Around him, just dense shade and the dim throbbing pulse of eerie, crimson fluorescence, ever present at the corners of his vision. Where once had been the heat of touch, the haunting brushing of skin against skin, now there was only the ghost of contact slowly cooling. Turles wasn’t there anymore. He was alone. And everything was still. But he could have sworn he’d felt something. Something familiar. He could feel it in his gut. He couldn’t tell how long he spent waiting, keeping himself from falling back into slumber, chasing the nagging suspicion he’d just felt something he should have known well as the beating of his own heart. Then, he felt it again. This time he felt the ground below shake with him and the air above shiver. It was an aura, one he knew well. Vegeta. He could sense him now. He could feel him. There was no mistaking this time around. His rival was near… Then, as quickly as it had flared up, the aura disappeared, leaving him alone with the doubt he’d been chasing an elusive dream of his clouded mind. Even so, he clung to the wake of his straining conscience. He tried relying on his ears next, but even those felt plugged by honey. It took him a whole to hear beyond the slow, rolling wave of his own breath. He heard a heavy rustling sound, like the sea crashing on a sandy shore when the wind had started to rise. He heard the faint sound of something dripping slowly, pooling on the ground around him, like humidity falling down in the mouth of a cave. Then, over the soft symphony, he caught a sound, like a distant echo. Voices, distant like they’d been speaking to him through the ground itself, but real nonetheless. Unmistakably so. Raising and falling at times, peaking somewhere between pleasure and rage. The warrior closed his eyes again, his ears straining to listen to those distant, mysterious sounds until he could recognize the familiar timber. Vegeta! The sound was faint enough to be the whisper of a dream but he found himself responding to it as if it had been flesh and bones, insinuating in his ears, dancing on his eardrums, sinking into him all the way to his core. And there is stayed, spinning his nerves like threads of silk. Vegeta… If it were a dream, it was all too indulgent, catering to his heart’s whims in that way. Even if it were a dream, this was one he was willing to indulge in. The warrior closed is eyes once more, letting darkness behind his eyelids conjure up images to match what his ears were hearing. His hands ran down his chest and stomach, reaching down where heat and blood had pooled. The dull, pulsing yearning of his loins was tickled and stirred, until his head swam. The air around him seemed to grow heavier, the fragrance stronger and sharper. Every touch, every pull washed through him like a warm, honeyed wave of delight. A swelling tide rose within him until he couldn’t take it anymore. Pleasure burst through him, flooding his senses. The tension in his spine and limbs dissipated as ecstasy washed over him, leaving a dim, enjoyable numbness in its wake. He didn’t have time to think about what had just occurred. He was too blissed out to, breath slowing down and delightful tingles in his gut. The heaviness of sleep was upon him, weighing down in his eyelids, his mind clouded with joyful contentment. Around him, sound softened and his mind too. His consciousness slipped all too easily back into slumber, like a baby falling asleep, sated and content, with a belly full of milk.

For a failed experiment, Daiz had been anything but a disappointment. Turles had to admit, even though finding that Ambrosia had no effect on the other alien had been a let down, the results had been extremely pleasant nonetheless. He had no idea Daiz could produce such sounds, like low, throaty hisses and wails. It sounded like Turles was forcefully knocking the breath out of his lungs with his every motion. Calling it gratifying would have been an understatement. The sight the smaller, paler body, bent in pleading offering before him, quaking and quivering with every one of his harsh, unforgiving thrusts was absolutely, maddeningly satisfying. “C-captain… more…!”, the blue-haired alien was whining, hips shamelessly bucking backwards into his. “More- Ah!” He was cut off by a sharp blow on his rear, so hard it made his legs buckle. “I am your Captain” A dark hand fisted his hair harshly, yanking his head back against a snarling mouth. “You don’t give orders around here. I do. If you want something, beg for it.” Daiz appeared to have lost his ability to speak for an instant before he finally cried out eagerly, “More… please, Captain! Harder, please…!” A chuckle rumbled in Turles’ chest. “You’re a wanton slut, aren’t you?” Daiz’s head was pushed down and pinned to the ground, a large hand wound tightly in his hair, making his flexible back arch to its limits. His hands were shaking, curling and uncurling as he tried to hold on to something, anything. The dark saiyan was towering over him now, trapping him with his weight. Daiz wouldn’t have been able to get away from him even if he’d wanted to. And it was very clear the thought of leaving hadn’t even crossed his mind. The alien was glancing over his shoulder at him, his pupils blown wide open and glazed over with lust. His mouth was open, heaving and moaning like no tomorrow, drool trickling down his chin. He was completely out of it and loving every second. His wails grew higher and higher as he started moving again, slamming against him hard enough to properly pound him into the ground. Turles sucked air in through gritted teeth. It was a tight fit, made even tighter by other’s flesh clenching and throbbing about him. He was having the time of his life. “Daiz, you absolute freak…”, he hissed between thrusts, “You were wishing for this, weren’t you? You have been dreaming to have me inside you all this time!” “Yes… yes, Captain! Yes!”, the alien cried out louder and louder. One of his hands moved to reach in between his legs. The renegade caught sight of it and let go of his scalp to grin his wrists, lifting him up by his arms. “Don’t get distracted. This is what you wanted”, he growled, delivering a hard, emphatic thrust, “Now take it!” The alien’s whines were soon replaced by cries of encouragement once his Captain picked up his punishing pace once more. “Yes… YES!” He mounted him furiously, violently and Daiz came undone, just like that, without touching himself. And Turles was all too happy to turn him around and making him scream out for him again. He’d always had the feeling Daiz was a sucker for being kicked around. If only he’d known before just much of a sucker he was for being bent over and pounded like that he would have gotten him on his knees sooner. It was too bad Ambrosia had no effect on him. Since he was absolutely loosing his mind just from having Turles inside him, however, the dark saiyan couldn’t complain. Finding out his underling couldn’t wait to get underneath him was a sweet enough consolation price. He doubled him over, folded and twisted him in every possible position his sex-crazed brain could come up with. Any angle his mind would design for him, the other’s body would bend in. Maybe his enthusiasm got the best of him, maybe he did get too carried away, after all. Daiz burned out before he had the chance to fully sate his appetite. Turles felt the other’s body go suddenly lax and realized he’d passed out. “Is that all you got?”, he’d asked as he’d pulled away but got no answer. Daiz was sprawled before him, leaking his seed from both his thoroughly used holes. A welcome enough sight, as he took his own sex in the hand and painted his stomach white. I should have known. A lesser race couldn’t keep up with a saiyan, Turles considered, as he checked on the unconscious alien. He makes for a good toy. He should keep me well entertained while I go look for someone who could benefit from Ambrosia as much as me… He could feel an interesting idea tickling the back of his brain.

#vegebul #DBZ Fanfiction #daiz #turles #dbz #dbz slash #my fics #Trick Of Might

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knifeonmars · 6 years

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Comics that mattered to me in 2017

2017 has been a pretty rough year. I’ve spent a lot of the last year feeling increasingly burnt out on comics, wondering why I bother with something that frequent leaves me exhausted and disillusioned. Between Marvel’s endless train wreck of a year and the galloping moral outrage of DC digging up the corpse of Watchmen for a gobsmackingly stupid “sequel”, I’ve been profoundly put off this past year. . Despite my general sickness with the often flavourless slurry of corporate comics though, I still read a lot of really good comics, and some of them even managed to brighten my day.

Here’s a few of those comics, in no particular order. I would note that I’m talking specifically about stuff that I personally read this year, not stuff which was first published this year, so there’s some old stuff in there.

OMAC -

OMAC is one of those comics that I’d seen critics and writers talking about for years and which had always interested me conceptually, but I’d never had the time to pick it up. I finally did a few weeks ago and I couldn’t be happier with the decision. OMAC is buckwild; imaginative, energetic, and oddly prescient, and also angry as all hell. The thing that I really like about OMAC is that it present us with this somewhat horrific future and then actually pushes back against it, which contrasts it with the great but shortlived recent Prez series. The cliffhanger ending, which I really should have seen coming since this book is several decades old and I’ve had ample opportunity to find out about, is a bit of a bummer, but by no means spoils the energy and dynamism of the whole. What OMAC gets is that I don’t want to see a horrifically corrupt world reformed through optimism and cooperation, I want to see the whole fucking thing torn down, and while OMAC isn’t quite the rage fueled dance of destruction that I want, it’s pretty damn close.

Batman: Superheavy -

I was skeptical of the whole Superheavy angle back during the unfortunately short lived DCYou initiative, but this finally clicked for me at some point: Superheavy is Batman as a mech anime. It’s gorgeous and action packed and cool, and I’m disappointed that there’s not more of it. Commissioner Gordon as a hardluck everyman hero trying to live up to the impossible legacy of Batman was a suprisingly solid concept, and one which I’m disappointed to see dispensed with and forgotten so quickly. The ending to this all too brief era in Bloom is unfortunately somewhat rushed in my opinion and defaults to having the glorious return of Bruce Wayne solve everything in a way that I didn’t find particularly satisfying, but the initial Superheavy arc remains stylish and fun. On a personal level, I came to Superheavy at a time when I was beyond sick of the corporate superhero paradigm and it managed to make me feel that not everything was trash.

Deathstroke -

DC Comics has long been determined to make Deathstroke “happen” despite little real appeal or interest, and my own opinions on the character have generally trended towards “he’s like a really cool action figure” and “Hideo Kojima could make this interesting”. But Christopher Priest is an industry legend and so I’ve been following this series in trades. It’s great. It’s incredibly dense and at times a little confusing, but as someone who tends to tear through their reading material, it’s nice to have a series that makes me slow down once in a while. A killer redesign of the character and a willingness to embrace his role as a villain rather than some sort of tedious antihero have made this series genuinely one of the best the DC is putting out these days.

Secret Identities -

The thing about indie superhero comics is that the majority of them deal in analogues and standins. That’s not to say that the can’t still be good, but often times its extremely obvious which characters a writer was basing their own off of. Secret Identities doesn’t read like that at all. What I like about Secret Identities is that the characters do actually all feel fresh and original, and the idea that all of them are hiding dark secrets is a pretty great hook. Couple that with some great art, cool character designs, and solid writing, and Secret Identities is one of the better pure superhero books which I’ve read this year.

The Goddamned -

I mentioned that this year has been rough, and The Goddamned is a great comic for a rough year. It’s dirty, grimy, cynical, and brutal. It’s Mad Max in Bible Times, and it is absolutely great. Gorgeous art and designs which make the Neolithic technology and clothes of the characters look interesting and even appealing, and a spectacularly dark revisionist take on the setting of the biblical Old Testament make this a really unique and interesting book. It’s a good book to read if you find yourself looking at the past year and wondering if humanity deserves to live.

Extremity -

Daniel Warren Johnson deserves to a breakout star in the coming year. Extremity is his first monthly solo series, and it’s a delight. Johnson brings his incredible art to an original story that’s a lot more grounded and emotional that you might expect from a writer who’s been making his name as an artist, though the quality should be no surprise to anyone who’s read Johnson’s earlier work. Extremity is about the lengths that people go to for revenge, the death of the soul and the corruption of noble causes, and the cost of violence. It’s about an artist who loses her hand and becomes a warrior, and watches her father become a vengeance fueled and amoral murderer. It’s about a war machine deciding it wants to be something else. It’s gorgeous too. It’s Mad Max in the Valley of the Wind, and I highly recommend checking it out.

Apollo and Midnighter

The Midnighter series of DCYou was a favorite of mine, I just love a wrecking ball of a character tearing through things with style and panache, so I was extremely excited to see this sequel miniseries come out to complete the story and more fully flesh out Apollo, who tends not to be given as much spotlight as Midnighter. It’s great, and a suitable send off for versions of these characters who we’re unlikely to see again now that DC is cordoning the Wildstorm characters off in Ellis’ hit or miss imprint.

Hawkeye: Kate Bishop -

Despite a general predilection for ultraviolence and trauma, I do actually enjoy a lighthearted series every once in a while, and the first volume of the newest Hawkeye: Kate Bishop series is just what I needed at a point when I’m no longer sure if Marvel as a whole is something that I’m interested in. It’s fun, the art is gorgeous, and it balances comedy with a sense of gravity and consequence. It finally lives up to the promise of the LA Woman premise offered way back in the Fraction/Aja/Wu/Hollingsworth run on Hawkeye that never seemed to get off the ground, and I’m glad to have it.

BPRD -

I ended up reading a lot of emotionally exhausting books this year, and BPRD certainly ranks among them. It’s also one of the best. I poured through the entirety of the Hell on Earth mega arc after seeing it on a digital sale, and it was immensely rewarding. It’s a story about the grinding horrors of conflict and keeping hope alive, that always managed to balance being emotionally serious with the kind of world where its totally plausible and enjoyable to have an arc that features giant kaiju fights.

Hobtown Mysteries: The Case of the Missing Men -

I spotted this number is a book store one day, and had to return to pick it up when I realized that the creators were local to Halifax. It’s a really cool and unique read, drawing on a Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys teen detective influence combined with Twin Peaks, in a way that doesn’t feel derivative or like it’s trying too hard. While I didn’t grow up in the kind of small town that’s at the focus of this story, I certainly spent enough time in and around them growing up to have a nostalgic appreciation of the setting. It’s totally unlike anything else on this list, and absolutely worth a look.

Virgil -

One last book, an angry, raw exploitation action comic about a gay cop on a tear through Jamaica. It’s my jam, and JD Faith is a wonderful artist.

#comics that mattered #words

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the-end-of-art · 7 years

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Nothing better than similar friendships

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination Harvard Commencement Speech 2008 by J.K. Rowling (Text as delivered)

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. I wish you all very good lives. Thank-you very much.

#J.K. Rowling

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twistednuns · 5 years

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June 2019

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

A (very) sunny day in London. Seeing a seal in the Thames, right under the Tower Bridge. Walking through St. James’s Park, eating ice-cream. Taking a beautiful picture of Laura in Covent Garden. Finally getting out of the underground. A tiny rainbow reflection in the sky over Greenwich.

Playing badminton in the evening with Frank. Sitting by the river, making new friends (duckies).

Micha. Meeting in Thalkirchen after I had just seen a half dead mouse. Walking along the river, finding a nice spot across from the zoo with a bunch of musical hippies playing the drums on the other bank. We got drunk on Toro Loco and Grasovka in ice hockey cups until he kissed me in the middle of a sentence. It took quite a while until I noticed I was just kissing my first man with a tongue piercing. At some point I re-erected a knocked over portable toilet (does drunk me have superhuman powers?) and we walked to the subway together. Such a gentle weirdo.

Making breakfast for someone other than me. Sharing an apple. Eating out of the same bowl.

IKEA has veggie hot dogs now. Excellent. I also got a new cutting board. And that’s ALL I got. I’m virtually patting myself on the shoulder right now.

Christoph and Lauren’s wedding was pretty chill. We squeezed into a car, went up a very steep hill to attend the ceremony and spent the rest of the day around a camp fire drinking gin and tonics or dancing to very bad music. I loved getting to know Michael’s boyfriend of 4 years. I always received gay vibes from him… good to know that my gaydar isn’t broken.

Taking polaroid pictures in the beautiful afternoon light. I also loved Christian’s outtakes of the theme music quiz. One of them honestly looks as if I’d just won a beauty pageant - we have a host, two ladies with jealous side glances and me, all excited, open mouth, in front of the mic, waiting for her tiara…

Spending a few hours in my mum’s garden. Doing dangerous yoga exercises in the grass. Walking barefoot. Marveling at the lush roses everywhere. Watching a blackbird taking a bath under the cherry tree. Very entertaining.

I want to learn Spanish and this video gives me hope - apparently I can heavily rely on my French vocabulary.

Why the men I like usually look the same.

Hanging out with Martina, Tobi and Diego the dog at the Thalkirchen campsite. Watching the rafts go by (horrible music), driving them home with their car right before the apocalyptic thunderstorm.

The perfect dessert: berries or peaches with fresh cream. The perfect dinner: Truffle pasta.

The concept of eclecticism.

Spending the afternoon with Franzi at Maria Einsiedel. Meeting baby Elise for the first time. Hopping into the Eiskanal, turning my body into a freezer for five minutes. Eating tiny lemon ice-cream and galia melon.

Meeting Catrin and Andreas at Brillengalerie in Altheim. Really good cappuccino (he’s an optician AND a latte artist). I loved trying on those gorgeous glasses and talking to Catrin about the Latte Art championships and rude customers.

Our trip to the Bavarian Forest to make a cake tree for the wedding. We visited Lena’s uncle who turned a tree trunk into a three-tiered cake stand with his chainsaw. We helped. I really want to get a chainsaw license now.

Once again: roses. They are incredibly lush this year. I don’t know why exactly but climate change seems to have one tiny upside.

Drawing. Portrait practice. Filling my sketchbook from idee. Polychromos coloured pencils.

Using Instagram’s story feature for the first time. I love editing pictures and adding gifs and colours. Immature and tacky but fun.

Looking trough old analogue pictures. Finding lots of my dad looking like the perfect Millennial. 90s fashion really IS back. I still loathe fanny packs though.

I found someone who’s coming to India with me!! I’m going to travel with Bibi this summer. So excited!

Unfortunately: the Solitaire app on my phone. Unhealthy obsession. You know you’ve got a problem when you’re getting REALLY good…

The smell of dill pickles reminds evokes vivid memories of my grandma. She used to make them herself, in heavy stoneware next to the wash room in the cellar.

Spending the evening with Bibi at Kulturdachgarten (having Ginger Spritz as a sundowner in the late afternoon sun), eating Israeli mezze at NANA in Haidhausen and seeing Rocketman at Rio cinema. My colleague works there so we got discount tickets and free ice-cream. Taron Egerton is a fabulous actor. If I had to describe the film in one word it’d be flamboyant. Also, I’d have loved to be the costume designer for this.

Iglo veggie love frozen meals. With Hela curry ketchup. Nom.

Extremely cute new rockery plants (who will have to do with regular potting soil I’m afraid).

Meeting Andre at Thalkirchen. Spending the evening on an Isar gravel bank, drinking the beer Martina brought from Croatia. Joining the… eh, what’s the Mile High Club for people who prefer water to air travel? Catching the last train home. Taking dinky photobooth pictures because we still had ten minutes to spare. That fake photo strip makes me happy instantly whenever I look at it.

Getting better at asking for what I want.

The character Moe in the Netflix series Trinkets. To me, she’s so much more attractive than Tabitha. And I love her attitude. And her hookup in episode seven. What a pretty man.

Manu making me realise how much I look like my dad. “At least jawwise!”

Spending the evening with Tom. Pre-theatre Spritz, Melancholia at Kammerspiele, Isar-beer near Müllersches Volksbad. Talking about our insights and issues.

It’s fascinating to see the lupin in front of my balcony door open it’s blossoms gradually from bottom to top. This plant has such an interesting structure and geometry.

Salad season. Somehow I only like salads in the summer but then I eat them passionately. With strawberries, Black Forest tofu, peaches, blueberries, mangoes, olives. Those nice, firm Roma tomatoes you only get during the summer months. I made a huge bowl of Tabouleh the other day and had it for breakfast, lunch an dinner.

Going home in the morning, smelling of another person.

Booking flights to India. 5 weeks. I’ve never been gone for so long and then I chose India of all places… I feel a mild panic attack coming but I’m also super excited.

Artificial cherry flavour.

A day trip with Lexi. She brought crisps and a fun Mexican dice game which we played on the train. Spending the whole afternoon soaking in the warm water at Therme Bad Aibling. Discovering the amazing acoustics in the various domes. Making a new duckie friend. Weird mirror selfies with hairdryers. Dinner at a Bavarian restaurant in Rosenheim. Teaching le Sash some obscure Bavarian words.

The word obscure, come to think of it. Uncanny is a close second.

Jupiter being so bright in the night sky. I always notice it first as soon as it’s dark.

Librarians are secretly the funnest people alive.

So many things, really. I’m feeling quite happy at the moment. My only problem is that I keep gaining weight. Somehow enjoying myself is adverse to the strict regime I need in order to stay perfectly healthy.

Random things: Schweppes Fruity citrus and orange lemonade. Tomato sandwiches with fresh basil on olive ciabatta. That squirrel running over the garage roof in the morning. Dreaming of ferry rides through US rivers. And intercourse with a panther. The Garner Ambre Soleil natural bronzer spray with coconut oil. Nice colour, good smell, minimal chipmunk effect. And of course me regular Garnier sun oil. It’s the bottled essence of summer.

Filling in for someone in the Natural 20s pub quiz team. Being invited to a pen and paper round with feline characters only. Meeting Sophia who, I realised later, played Rosencrantz (or Guildenstern?) at Entity Theatre’s production of Hamlet last year.

My complete and utter obsession with Phil Collins’ version of You Can’t Hurry Love. I think it’s going to be my next karaoke song.

A desire and drive to be creative. Making collages out of dried leftover paint. Drawing on the window panes. Getting out gouache, pastel chalks, oil pastels, those weird 3-in-1 coloured pencils which create such a nice texture. Drawing first thing in the morning. Spending hours drawing owls for the coffee roasters. Using coloured pencils to draw portraits of all the cool girls of Instagram.

Oh, speaking of art. I don’t want to jinx it but I might get the chance to write a book soon! I met an editor who works at a publishing house for lifestyle books and needs someone to make a book about portrait drawing/painting for her. So. Excited. They’re also looking for a trainee in the graphic design department. I really hope I get to collaborate with them in one way or another.

Cute summer outfits. Good colour combinations. Accessorizing. Wearing pretty clothes with a creative twist. Actually putting some thought into putting together an outfit can be a lot of fun. After all it’s just another way of making a collage.

Polarized sunglasses providing me with the bluest skies and rainbow-tinted tram windows.

The Croatian man who sat down next to a visibly pregnant Bavarian woman on the subway and started telling her about his daughter Persephone and the abduction myth connected with her. I keep reading and hearing about Demeter and Persephone lately, for example about Baubo and the vulva presentations / Demeter worship.

Carmen Rohrbach’s Unterwegs sein ist mein Leben. I was very impressed by how much she has seen and experienced. How much she knows about nature and animals. I mean, she’s a biologist, too. Reading this book made my days a little more special because it gave me a sense of how much more there is to discover on this planet.

Eating vegan ice-cream (pumpkin seed and ginger-turmeric) with Micha. Sitting on the balustrade in front of the Art Academy. Staring into these insanely pretty blue eyes all the time. Looking for the toilets, roaming through the hallways. I love the architecture of that building.

A ladybug escaping the subway train through an open door. Freedom!

I love how the characters resemble each other so much in the different generations in the TV-series Dark. Uncanny. And they feature very nice colour contrasts, too. I guess I like their production designer / cinematographer.

Late-night Isar strolls. Drinking red wine, lying down, watching the stars surrounded by fireflies! (which are quite rare where I live so I was lucky - the strangest thing is that I had drawn a firefly into my sketchbook earlier that day, feels like I manifested it)

Tollwood gin and tonics, forgetting to go home, ending up in a gay club at 3am. Nice Thursday.

Making up for the lack of sleep on Friday afternoon. Waking up late. Releasing my inner Julia Child at 2am by making sushi rolls, taboulé and Bergsteigerbrot, something like super tasty vegan granola bars with lots of nuts and honey.

A little bike tour with Frank along the river. Pseudo-meditating on a log, eating some snacks I brought. Floating with the current. His alliterations (“further fodder for future followers”).

#personal #present perfect #things i love #june #2019 #june 2019

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emma-what-son · 7 years

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A collection of Batb reviews

Click on the links to read the full review.

Collider: Too Much of a Good Thing: It’s a shame that the central relationship doesn’t really work because there are flashes of brilliance surrounding it. Everyone in the cast seems to care deeply about what they’re making, but some actors are ultimately more successful at finding the balance between the new version and the animated original.

Gamespot: You'll undoubtedly hum along as the jovial song Belle opens the movie, even if the radiant Emma Watson's uneven performance still somehow manages to keep the princess a 2D character in a 3D world.

Hollywoodreporter: Maybe it’s just the presence of Watson (who’s okay but not great), but there may be an intentional touch of Hogwarts, too, in the impossible, Escher-like staircases that also evoke the gloom of Frankenstein’s laboratory — a realm that played such a key part in Condon’s breakthrough work, Gods and Monsters, another story about a gay man (McKellen) in love with a straight guy and loveable “freaks.”

BBC: Buried as he is under layers of computer-generated imagery, Dan Stevens manages to make the Beast his own by finding the pathos in his aristocratic awkwardness. Ewan McGregor puts some oomph and ooh-la-la into Lumiere the candelabra. As for the rest of the cast, Emma Watson is prim and petulant as Belle; Emma Thompson’s Mrs Potts is no match for Angela Lansbury’s, who was as warm and soothing as the tea she brewed; and Kevin Kline is painfully mannered as Belle’s wittering father.

CBR: Belle is also underwhelming. Watson seems content to keep this Disney princess nice and lovely, never bothering to spark the part with the side-eye, smirks or sass that urged the cartoon character to boot Gaston from her home, or rage back against the Beast’s outbursts. Essentially, she missed out on the rebellious essence of the character. Without it, this hapless heroine feels less aspiration and exciting.

IBTimes: Sadly, Watson is the film's weakest link (aside from McGregor's dreadful French accent). So many of Belle's progressive attitudes seem to match Watson's own, but she doesn't quite sell the character's warmth and fiery nature. Nor can you really buy her as an oddball who would be ostracised by everyone who knows her.

Nerdist: Watson, a noted talent and card-carrying heroine of her day, feels curiously out of place as a doe-eyed yesteryear princess like Belle, much in the way a Beauty and the Beast this beholden to its forbearer’s genetic code feels to the big screens of 2017.

People: The movie also has a few problems with its Beauty. Emma Watson’s performance is sweetly unaffected, which helps keep her afloat in such heavy sauces. She also has that same look – searching and skeptical — we know from her years as Hermione. This means in the end she seems not so much to surrender her heart as to solve a problem that needed concentrated thinking.

Movieweb: Emma Watson looks very young in this part. Her voice is lovely and acting more than capable, but I was constantly aware of her youthful appearance. Belle is obviously a teenage girl, but the Beast and Gaston look old enough to be her father. The fawning suitors are clearly adult men, while the object of their affection is childlike. It struck a weird chord with me. It may by a strange critique on my part, but this was not the case at all in Cinderella. Those characters had an age appropriate feel. The leads in this film do not.

Cinemarunner: I’m sorry: maybe it’s that I only recently saw Christophe Gans’ take on this tale, but after watching Lea Seydoux as Belle, I find Emma Watson is not as engaging. She dutifully plays the part, but never really turns the character into anything; the obligatory Sound of Music homage is undercut both by her underwhelming vocals and the obviously fake hilltop from which she delivers it.

HeyuGuys: In this setting it’s the big musical numbers that do stand out, and Watson’s vocals impress in that regard. Her performance less so, but thankfully given how aesthetically grandiose this tale is, and just how much there is going on, her lack of nuance is less detrimental, and less notable in this instance.

DenofGeek: Ms. Watson obviously lives up to the English translation of her Belle character, appearing quite ravishing throughout the film; she also likewise transfers her own intellectual gifts to the character, allowing the newly resurrected Disney princess to enjoy some of the thoughtful poise that Watson displayed before the United Nations, where she became as much of a role model for young girls as her beloved Hermione persona. But as an actress, she continues to struggle in adult roles with getting out of her own head and conveying the emotional core that drives her characters, and Belle is ultimately a blandly flat creation in this Beauty and the Beast, wise and more proactive than her 1991 counterpart, but also far more blank and unknowable—she’s paradoxically less alive in the flesh.As the film rests primarily on Watson’s shoulders, this can prove fatal during scenes where she must sell romance to a CG-created Beast.

WeGotthisCovered: As Belle dances with Beast, there’s noticeable rigidness between woman and monster. Mainly because one of them doesn’t actually exist in reality, and Watson has trouble selling her flat-faced counterpart. Watson carries herself as big-thinker Belle, but seems better suited for a role with a little more cynicism and bite.

#review

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twinflameshardcore · 7 years

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Post eclipse sensations - happiness and fullness

I loved this solar eclipse in my zodiac Pisces - the energy in the aether was amazing before and after 02/26. It has felt so balanced, good, blissful, light in the body, love in the air. Gaia has been rising its vibration and the Universe has been pushing its own from above so the entire amalgam feels incredibly delightful.

The same day I also participated in a group (remote) meditation for the first time in my life to release Africa from harmful masculine energy and victimized energy of females. I set a little bonfire, imagined that the (violet) flames of passion and love burn over the continent and that they make men and women come together again - that men understand and respect women’s love & surrendering as women give love naturally so men could learn how to open themselves and love the same way too. Love is everything humans need. Men cannot do without women, and vice versa (unless they’re both gay). Both parties will come asking for love in the end. I’m a fiery being, a fiery dragon and angel so I heal with, and through fire/passion. It’s a self-balanced passion without jealousy which can heal every relationship and this is what I commanded the fire to bring to Africa. Other people were meditating using the violet flame and pink light of the goddess but I’m not good in an idle meditation as most of Draconians & Reptilians (too reactive to the environmental distractions), so I just used something physical to focus on, outdoor ;) It looks like the meditation was a big success when a few thousands of people meditated at the same time and the vibration increased on Earth, thanks to humans this time; results are yet to come.

I’ve also felt very spiritually ‘full’ in the body, as if my spirit added more of itself to the human body and I’m more present here on Earth than in other dimensions. Or my bottom chakras healed/balanced or upper chakras made some important connections with lower ones, whatever the case, it feels very very pleasant, as if I matured! I’d explain it that my angelic/higher self’s essence (which has been existing somewhere up there, guiding and preventing from taking stupid actions) has ‘settled down’ in my human body-host better so now ‘the advanced I’ can live as an angel in the detoxified human body on Earth. This means we’re not going to the stars but we’re actually returning from the stars down to Earth, to healed Gaia, and our bodies are opening to permanently host our angelic selves, while the old human-related essence has been leaving us for good.

I’ve been experiencing 4D timelines, atmosphere and energy merging with 3D & 5D all together which results in dreaming awake. I’m visited in dreams by my deceased now soul mate who was never a spiritual person but seems to know what’s going on now with the Ascension. I was completely in love with him in a college, but he never chose me for his gf, we were too immature and shy to complete this ‘relationship’ so it stayed unfinished. Then he died in a car crash when he was 21 and he’s been visiting me in dreams on a few occasions since then. But only lately these dreams have become very conscious, his actions are as if deliberate, we express feelings for each other to feel liberated from that stuck love. I feel him excited and happy that he can feel me so directly and strongly once we’re going through the 4D zone. In dreams, he calls me by my back then nickname, asks me how I am. I can feel his energy assisting me during some days too, when I’m awake, to the point that I cut my finger twice when I felt him as if sitting inside of me, just like I feel my TF! It never happened before. I also realize that he can literately see me from where he is and it’s only that thin veil between dimensions which disallows us to see each other. But it’s OK, he’s not for me anyway ;) I often wonder how he would react if he was alive and saw me during a class-mates meeting after all those years, since I’ve changed for better, also visually. Back then I was almost invisible, I disliked myself for how 'unformed’ and ‘different’ I was, while other class mates were fully present, enjoying themselves. Overall, it’s like the entire atmosphere as experienced in my most common dreams is accessible now when I’m awake and some old dreams which I had 10 or 20 years ago then forgot, they pop up out of the blue.

I also come across synchronicities such as giants, cyclops, Minotaur, Merlin, djinns, and numbers such as, again, 11:11, 54, 55, 17, 22, 000 and 999.

My twin’s absent again, but I don’t blame him as he must figure out what he wants to do with his life next, he needs to say yest to a big desired change so he could feel personally happy, professionally wanted and overall to build himself a new future based on realistic ideas only. A new spark in everything. I’ve discovered my past and worked on my issues, but he was too busy with his job (or lack of) and survival to let the Universe touch his heart. Now he has time, he’s in a safer place, and I believe the Universe will be triggering him so he could discover and learn about himself better.

The Sun has been producing what seems an incredibly colorful light, full of blue, yellow/gold and red strips lately. I captured it several times in pictures taken near the eclipse days - it holds a very happy energy; if you open and grab it with your heart, you will feel it.

Yesterday, 03/01 I felt totally happy, 100% internally pleased for no apparent reason, as usually. My chakras felt aligned, healed and happy, filling up the body with a sensation of stability, grounding, yet passion and independence. All that emotional neediness towards my twin seems to fade away and I finally act ‘on my behalf’, planning, trying various things, opportunities, still digging into my soul & heart about my life purpose here etc. Obviously, the main purpose means living & doing things with the twin sometime next, but until we get there, there must be a new side-quest to do which I’ll enjoy doing alone :) In fact these new sensations felt in the body may be linked to the twin since we keep merging, so while I embody his attributes (said independence of doing things on one’s own without sharing, or looking for any acceptance, plus creative ideas) then he embodies what’s been mine so far :) It all calls me to BE, RADIATE AND FEEL with my heart that what is pouring from outside. The brain has no job right now, it must surrender to the heart so it can feel, feel, feel and feed the entire body with that amazing energy!

I noticed it a long time ago that there’s an axis of love-work between us - when he works a lot, my love gets stronger and I need him more. On the other hand, when I have more things to do, I feel his energy stronger, a sensation that my passion and activity fills him with pleasure and excitement thus he’s energetically attracted to me more. So after the solar eclipse on 02/26, for the first time in many years I felt ‘full’ and happy, as if some cycle of my life has been completed and there will be no return to it. Of course I never know what the hell it’s exactly about but I believe my soul handles all that stuff so I just let it happen. I believe I’ll learn more around the mid-March or in late April. I was hanging in the garden last night looking at Orion, Sirius, Big Dipper, Pleiadies, Arcturus and Aldebaran. Orion, a place of many galactic battles feels healed now and radiates a happy energy too. I sent my love to Alnilam star (the middle one in the Orion’s belt). Looking at the constellation’s shape almost brought a new re-memory of something, like a sign, a rune I could know a meaning of but again, my human memory couldn’t help me with it, yet. Blockage!

I’ve felt a big acceleration today 03/02 but it may be also due to a huge geomagnetic storm (the solar wind is blowing like 750km/sec now!) The energy is that of rushing, impatience, acting without hesitation: “I want it, and I want it NOW”, “Let’s DO it (and if you’re not ready, stay where you are and I’ll do it myself”, and similar themes. This is a perfect astro-weather for the ego to rage but if you’ve done your ego training like I did in previous years, you will be just productive, creative, uplifted, inspired, and active without having the ego triggered by any negative energies.

Venus is retrograding in Aries (March 4 until April 15, ends in Pisces again) which is also partly my zodiac (I’m on the cusp) and I always feel anything Aries much stronger than Pisces. Current energy as it feels is that of having an urge for excitement, for the newer and simplified, for taking charge of own (or somebody else’s, like an elder family member’s) things, for leading the way, carving a new path boldly and courageously without looking at too many details or blockages. It’s the physical energy calling out to ‘jump over’ the collective, leave them to their own devices and to focus on doing things which only interest own self, the spirit, the heart! If you’re driven by this sharp and get-things-done energy and have things to do, you’ll do them immediately instead of prolonging decisions for weeks. There’s no place for boredom now. I even thought it was a sexual energy because the Earth is also waking up (spring time) strongly in the northern hemisphere where I live, but it’s not sexual. It’s calling out for taking action physically but I verified its purpose by imagining a situation that my twin was with me in the physical and we were to make love driven by this high vibration. Then honestly it felt as if we would probably stop moving after 5 minutes realizing that we wanted to do something else, not with our bodies but with that energy :) Thus, it’s not sexual. It has qualities of turning on the solar plexus and sacral chakras but only for self-love and unconditional love for the other half, to make us feel good inside our bodies, happy in our environment, prompting us to make desired changes in own lives when we finally don’t worry, doubt or fear at the time being. It’s the energy of creation, of making things, materializing, ending stagnant issues which the heart no more resonates with, and jumping over problems leaving them behind as non-existing since they were illusions. This vital energy can be mistaken though, so you may be mislead to quit with the TF and enter another relationship, or to cheat, because people seem to be very attractive now when they felt lighter, happier, more liberated, wanting a big change. Gaia is almost liberated from the old, tired, repetitive energy, the love energy of goddess is also here, and every plant, animal and human can feel it, so we transmute and radiate around. I can already imagine how it’s going to feel when plants will start making leaves and they will be releasing love energy (that delivered by Gaia to their roots and other parts) outside around April and May! We’ll feel as if we’re doped! :) So if you’ve with the twin flame, then you know whom you belong to and keep it like that. This is time when the end meets the beginning, an old victim suffered/experienced enough and is forgiven then resurrected, Phoenix rises from ashes, the last and ignored becomes the first and most wanted, just like when an ouroborous eats/learns about itself completely - it is ready to be shifted on another level of self-mastery to start growing until it can eat his tail again. Unless there’s no more growing or repeating cycles and the humanity is entering one permanent cycle :)

Until next time.

This post is copyrighted by the author of this blog who prefers to remain anonymous. My posts must not be used for commercial purposes of any kind. Respect my work - ask first before you copy, always include a link back to my site when you quote a part of my writing!

#the new cycle #venus retrograde aries #4th dimension #energy update #march energy

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muscledemandsrespect · 5 years

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SEA TO SEA IN ISRAEL!

When first I visited Israel – a decidedly middle eastern country – I didn’t expect to find myself strolling amidst a Gay Pride parade with over 100,000 people revelling on the beaches of Tel Aviv. On my recent and second visit to Israel, I had the great honour of being invited by The Ministry of Tourism, who ushered me and two journalists on an equally unexpected – and remarkably broad – historical and cultural tour of this breath-taking country, called ‘Sea to Sea’. Israel is a delicious melting pot of religion, culture, people and food; where Mediterranean meets Middle-Eastern, and where modern meets traditional. On this expedition, I discovered some truly ancient sites, voyaged through one of the oldest cities on the planet, enjoyed exquisite Israeli restaurants, feasted my way through vegetable/fruit and fish souks, and languished in the intimate boutique hospitality of this country. The list of highlights is impractically long so I’ve listed my absolute key takeaways if you’re thinking of a trip – and at the bottom of the post, other things to do whilst you’re there, should you have time. This is an active trip to remember!

So, faced with the massive suite of possible highlights, my absolute favourite spots from the trip were Jerusalem, in particular, the Old City – as well as Masada and The Dead Sea. Tel Aviv is always something special to behold too! Here’s the list with some visuals to bolster the imagination…

Jerusalem

Visiting Jerusalem enabled me to tick off a major box from my ‘life bucket list’. It’s the capital city of Israel, one of the oldest municipalities in the world, as well as the Holy City for the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The narrow limestone walkways paved by Olive trees have been walked by some of the most significant religious leaders to have written history, and are the reasons as to why the world looks the way it does today. Jerusalem is a historian’s dream location, steeped with significance that you can almost taste in the air. The places to visit include;

1. Christian Quarter with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre This is Christianity’s most important church, located in the centre of the Christian quarter. It is the site where Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers.

2. Rebuilt Jewish Quarter and Cardo The ruins of the main street from Roman times.

3. Western Wall (Kotel) This is Judaism’s most sacred site. It’s a limestone wall built by King Herod in 20 BCE. For hundreds of years, people have prayed at the wall.

4. Best view of the Old City? Mount of Scopus (In Hebrew it means “lookout”) offers the best panoramic view of the city.

5. Mahane Yehuda market (Shuk) We visited the market during the day, and indeed a memorable imprint it left – tasting and eating your way through fruit, vegetable & fish stands. However, it was only when we chose to return one evening to experience the nightlife that this became an absolute highlight of the trip!

I’ve never experienced anything quite like it and was totally blown away. The atmosphere was electric. To wander through the market at night is to observe the very essence of a melting pot for people of all religions and ages. There where Orthodox men out on ‘date night’ with their wives, orthodox Muslims, bakers shouting selling their goods, whilst girls and boys were dancing on tables in the immediate vicinity to the tunes of live DJ’s. So many walks of life intersected here that it verged on the surreal and wandering through the streets with a drink in my hand, I couldn’t help but smile; it was exhilarating. I wished I’d partied there as a teen and not in some dark club sitting at a table.

6. Dinner? We enjoyed a delicious meal at Satya Restaurant in Jerusalem. The menu offers a real mix of foods which are perfect for sharing. I could happily just eat all the starters in Israel including herring with sour cream and cucumber salad, sashimi or sea fish tartar and plenty of vegan options like vegetables with shitake mushroom sauce and white rice. All super fresh and benefitting the wonderful climate.

7. Accommodation Situated in the heart of Jerusalem, The David Citadel combines a sense of heritage and modernity, fusing old and new with consummate style and understated elegance. I awoke rested in a spacious calming modern environment, and upon stepping out onto my balcony I could enjoy views of the Old Limestone Wall alight in the morning sun. I loved the garden terrace, full of birdsong, cocooned within the hotel walls whilst overlooking the pool and the Old wall – this was a favourite as was the exquisitely appointed spa, an oasis of calm in an otherwise bustling metropolis

What to do in Tel Aviv…

1. Stand-up paddle boarding This was such good fun, but I would observe, is materially harder than it looks; great for balance and core strength. The view of Tel Aviv from the ocean is totally worth it and the activity delivers a great, all-round workout too.

2. Stroll along the beaches The sweeping beaches flanking Israel dominate their 200km of Mediterranean coastline from Rosh ha-Nikra to Ashkelon on the Central and South Coast. It’s quite breathtaking to behold, and Tel Aviv offers as dramatic an oceanscape as I’ve seen with its skyscraper coastline peering out over Jaffa… There’s also the machine-gun-like barrage of ‘Matkot’ – a beachside racket game where two or more players just try to keep a squash ball alive with a wooden bat. It’s a bit of a national sport, and a stroll along any Tel Aviv beach will show just how popular it is!

3. Where to eat? Mantaray was exceptional with views overlooking the golden beaches. The Israeli cuisine is so light and healthy – fresh sun-drenched veggies, fruit courses, fish is preferred over the meat, & goats milk as standard. It has a relaxed aspect which is just perfect to take in the vibrant orange sunsets. As you walk around the city, you can see some stunning Bauhaus architecture brought by the European migrants around the time of the war.

4. Explore Old Jaffa Here you’ll find craft shops, art galleries, and stalls selling antiques and jewellery at the lively Jaffa Flea Market. Landmarks include the Clock Tower and St. Peter’s Church, while the Ilana Goor Museum shows Israeli and international art.

Check out Caesarea…

It was so interesting to see some Roman architecture in this part of the world, and learning about the history of that ancient civilisation, as well as how it influenced Israel; most unexpected! An ancient port built by King Herod, which at the time was one of the largest & most important cities in the Roman world. It acted as the capital of Judea during the time of Jesus, as well as a crusader fortress along the road from Acre to Jerusalem. This used to be a large entertainment venue with 10,000 seats, called a hippodrome, where horse races were conducted. There’s a beautiful amphitheatre and make sure to check out the remainder of Kind Herod’s bathhouse too.

The Dead Sea

We visited the iconic lake and one of the most amazing wonders of the natural world, the Dead Sea; yet another big fat tick on the bucket list. For thousands of years, the Dead Sea has attracted visitors who come to enjoy its health-promoting properties. The mineral-rich mud contains the likes of sulphur, magnesium, calcium, chloride, sodium, bromide and potassium, creating a natural body & face “mask”. The mud stimulates blood circulation & is thought to help skin diseases (Inc. psoriasis, arthritis & dermatitis). The mineral composition of the body of water itself, including the 30% salt content, makes you exceptionally buoyant so that you simply float on the surface! The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, set at 430 meters below sea level, landlocked by the Jordanian desert mountains. It is an otherworldly place to visit, and quite incredible.

Hike Masada

If you can, and people generally recommend that you do, hike up Masada mountain at sunrise. We arrived at noon, and amidst the relentless 40-degree heat, opted for the cable car to save a punishing and futile ascent by foot.

Once you arrive at the crest, the views are spectacular – looking down onto The Dead Sea, the desert and the Judean mountains. It is a panorama which is forever sered into my mind!

Other places to visit include…

Discover what life is like on a Kibbutz – I spent some time on Ma’agan Michael, which was founded in 1949 and is a collective community, traditionally based on agriculture.

See Akko (Acre) – a beautiful ancient Phoenician & Crusader seaport and a U.N.E.S.C.O. World Heritage Site. Check out the Old City, Hammam, Crusaders Knight Halls & the Green Mosque!

Grottos – Cable-carring to the sea-carved grottos…

Haifa – Israel’s third-largest city and second-largest port, on the slopes of Mt. Carmel…

Abu Ghosh, a town outside Jerusalem, an Arab-Israeli village.

The Sea of Galilee (a.k.a. Lake Tiberias) – is a mega 230 sq. km & is cocooned by the hills of the Galilee and the Golan Heights super magical to behold

Tiberias – the capital of the Lower Galilee.

Decks Restaurant Tiberias – Such a beautiful view overlooking the Sea of Galilee, and a great atmosphere with music & dancing.

Hope you enjoy planning your trip

Faya x

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sissearchkittpu-blog · 5 years

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Online dating for guys

Top 10 Online Dating Profile Examples & Why They’re Successful The proposition can be frustrating and intimidating, especially if you don't know what's out there or where to start. How it works: is built for more interaction and engagement. It roughly takes about 45 minutes to an hour to complete, so the dating site is for men who are serious about finding a partner. A lot of dating websites offer free trial periods to give singles a taste of what the interface is like before they subscribe. How it works: Filling out the Elite Singles questionnaire is a long and lengthy undertaking.

A Guy's Perspective on Online Dating Most people I know enjoy those things. Girls fancy mystery as long as the truth gradually comes to light as the relationship progresses. This list of the 13 Best Online Dating Sites for Men is definitely a good place to start! Dating websites take a lot of time, from filling out your profile to crafting a flirtatious message. Then you want to mention something authentic. Those messages made me run far, far away from online dating. I was taught Reiki in Romania, where I lived for two years. What Does This All Mean For You? A woman's perspective on this dating profile: This guy is a walking dichotomy.

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Best dating sites for men 2019: Find love, a hookup, and all the rest This means the men and women who are on Elite Singles are generally in their mid-30s to late-50s. Then you might have some leeway. If you win my sweepstakes, you will automatically win a chance to do these things with me as well. Online dating is the perfect primer for learning how to sell yourself. These details can be exclusionary or affirming depending on who is reading your profile.

amolatin reviews Archives As with everything in life, balance is the key to a happy, satisfied life. The personal description is nice and concise, covers lots of really intriguing things such as places travelled and what he does to keep fit. Women will look for the one bad one and decide not to email you because of it. In dating, attitude is everything, so wallow a little with us and then get back out there. A mix of seriousness added in would make these profiles perfect! Also, I would love to be blessed with the lady of my life. Things To Consider When Dating Online Few people realize that most dating sites keep all users listed indefinitely, and some refuse to purge their database of old members, even if said former members have found love and deactivated their account.

A Guy's Perspective on Online Dating Personally, I think there is so much more to be gained from talking with someone face to face — you are able to read their body language and listen to intonation in their voice, which are much better indicators than online messages or profiles. I do have a bone to pick with his profile, well a few bones. Both of these will act as great conversation starters and attract like-minded women. Again thank you for your advice. A few things important to me: Jesus Christ, God, music, movies, laughter, sex, and peace of mind.

The 6 Ugly Truths of Online Dating Moreover, Match is considered the blueprint for all other dating sites that came after it. So Happn is there to be your wing-man or should we say wing-app to meet the people you find attractive and interesting in the real world. Rather we chat, talk, engage in conversation to get to know each other instead of us reading through a long page in this section about each other. You just sign up with your existing Facebook account and the dating site populates your likes, personality, and photos so all you have to do is match with potential lovers. If you're a single man and you're continuously striking out on Tinder, then maybe you should consider leveling up to the gold standard in online dating.

Dating Tips Do you want to travel to all the continents? All to be met with no reply or other acknowledgment for it. Everyone jumps the gun, telling you to personalize each message you send. But, you see, I was an of OkCupid. This guy does a great job at putting the girl at ease. I got some In the online dating world, sometimes a picture is the only thing you have to create a great first impression.

Online Dating Tips For Men I find the opposite is true Tony. Romantic gestures, affection, good communication and mutual consideration keep things alive. He finds a way of standing out by incorporating an anagram in his profile—very witty and original. I should note I'm a bit older than the average, highly-desirable range for ladies of 29-35, so younger women may get even more. With no response it compels us to do zany things to get your attention and prompt a reply — even if a negative one. Then, yesterday, I read this really great profile. Well, you need a fantastic profile that really showcases your strengths, attractiveness and wants in a partnership or relationship be it casual or long term - the process is the same.

Online Dating Tips for Men There are pitfalls and potholes on the way to finding love—in his first piece for us, David Oragui helps us navigate the bumpy terrain of online dating. The dating site is also responsible for thousands of lifelong matches and marriages over the last 20 years or so. Enjoy keeping fit — played rugby for 20 years and try to keep in shape without being too fanatical about it! I have a neglected 12-string-guitar named Calypso, who now only has 10. These guys have revealed very little about who they are, in a sense. It seems restrictive, but is so confident with their intelligent matching system that they do all the hard work for you.

#A #Guy's #Perspective #on #Online #Dating

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poisonedpan · 7 years

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My Life In 336 - 01/2016 - Section 31

Three Thirty Six. I would’ve never pegged this number to eventually mean something to me. This number now replicates poor life decisions, the best memories, and the start of the path that symbolizes where I wanted to go in life. Three Thirty Six is a number that changed me.

It didn’t take long for me to meet all my roommates.

Brandon/Andrew - depending on who you talk to, has different names. He’s probably one of the only chill roommates I have. He cracks me up all the time. He talks a lot about sports and girls.

Ray - more quiet. He spends most of his time playing basketball games in his rooms. His room is full of framed jerseys that hang on his wall. You hear him scream “fuck” whenever he’s not doing so good at the game.

Dapo - Dapo is my fraternity roommate. Sounds lit, right? He’s pretty cool once he stops bitching about the mess that he never helps pick up. He’s a huge dude though.

Trevor spent a lot of time at the house. I was a little comfortable with having friends over here. I didn’t feel weird about bringing people over here, it was my house. I didn't have to hide my life anymore. I was a little nervous about how they would act when they realized how gay I was. People in Fresno aren’t as open and accepting as they are in San Francisco - but fuck it. I used to live in Indiana. I could handle this.

I was starting to hangout with Gabriel more. I thought he had one of the best personalities ever. I could be having such a dull night, and we’d watch a movie and smoke. I thought that it was nice to have some real friends again. They weren’t just people that I had to get fucked up with or just fuck. He was genuine.

Gabriel had a best friend named Leila. They both had slowly started to become my saving grace. I thought that their humor and their personalities would keep me afloat - even when my life sailed in dark waters. Leila and I went to school together, and I would see Gabriel most nights out of the week.

On Tuesdays, since school started, most of us hungout. Turn up Tuesday. Most of everyone got off of work and school around the same time, so we’d go to Danny’s house. Danny worked with Gabriel and Trevor, and lived close to me. It all worked out. Our day was spent smoking out of the bong, taking the beer bong and playing kings cup. This was the kind of life that I wanted to be living. I felt relaxed, but focused. I felt sane. I wasn't getting into anything too crazy, and I wasn't doing anything too bad. The countdown to my 21st was into full gear though, as it was approaching.

Fresno City College is where I spent most of my time. For a while there, I thought that school was the most important thing to me. I tried to make some new friends, hoping that this semester would fly by. There was something different about the way that I viewed school than in the past. I wanted to learn now. I wanted to grow.

I made some random trips to see my cousins down in Clovis. Or I would make random trips to San Francisco to see some of my friends. LIfe was good. I had a balance that started to get me somewhere okay in this world.

At least for now.

I had started writing again. I was working on my second novel “Lost” which was a sequel to “Imperfect.” It had been hard for me to get back into writing mode, as I was having to write for a character that I coudlnt relate to an any emotional level anymore. I felt replenished letting my soul spill link ink within the pages. I felt calm.

I’d stay up late listening to the wind creep into my window as I left the door open. It was peaceful to me. At this moment, everything was peaceful. I had finally found my way that I felt like ‘this is where everything is supposed to be at.’ Everything that happened in my life was fine. I made it here, alive. I was going to meet people here. I was going to find myself lost within books and within writing. I was going to find myself invested in television shows again, and not just live my life behind a glass pipe. I was trying to feel things again. I wasn't trying to hide behind distractions so I wouldn't have to get hurt again.

This time things were real.

I went to San Francisco. ONe of these guys that were after me is named David. David was a little older. He was nearly 36. He looked like the guy from the movie ‘Split” David was kind of a generous dude. He bought me clothes, lots of them. Also gave me a new phone. I wanted to go home to Arizona for the weekend, and he was going to pay for that too.

“I’ll spoil you, master,” he said, purring in my ear. It was a little weird that an old man was calling me master. I didn't say no though.

We went to this place called Steamworks. Steamworks was this gay place, where they had hot tubs, saunas, streamrooms, showers, bedrooms to rent and of course everyone was naked. I walked past dudes that were rock hard, as their cocks brushed up against my leg. This place didn't feel legal. It felt like it was full of HIV and STDs. That didn't stop me from having some fun though. I sat in the hot tub trying to enjoy myself. All of tehse old men trying to grab my cock under the water. It didn't bother me. I thought it was flattering. I didn't hook up with any of them. I went to one of the rooms with David - who was tweaked out of my mind.

“I want you to own me, I want to be your slave. Yo ucan spit on me, punch me, burn me, hurt me,” he said. “I want you to brand me. i’ll do anything for you.”

That was fine to hear, but it was another thing to do. He begged me to burn some metal and shove it against his skin until I left marks. I’m a pretty soft, genuine person for the most part. I wanted to be great to everyone. I had to play the game though, it was the only way I knew how to get through life.

David bought me Christian Louboutins. They cost around 2k without tax. David must’ve seen that I was supposed to be living this lavish life and doesn't know why I haven't started yet.

“You’re not going to get through life with only your looks,” I heard my mom say in memories. Little did she know, that’s exactly what I was doing.

Although, reality strikes in sometimes. David was borderline unhealthy. I could tell by the way that he talked to me. I could tell by the way that he wanted me to burn him. He wanted me to call him names, degrade him. Act like he was just another piece of shit scum that I found on the sidewalk. He wanted to come meet my friends so they could watch me torture him in front of them. There was somethings I didn't want to do. I didn't want to get my friends caught up in this life. I felt like it would make them uncomfortable. Just thinking about it, made me feel that way. I was fine with going along with it behind closed doors. I just didn't want to do that in public.

The trip to Arizona was exactly what I needed. I let myself get out of my head a little and think about what the fuck was even going on. Regardless of how much effort I put inot this time with David, it becomes exhausting. David wasn't just a sugar daddy anymore. He was a full time job. I just couldn’t believe that it was working out the way that it was.

I saw the new puppies that my parents had gotten. Bentley and Begley, they brought warmth into my confusing chaotic life. They followed me everywhere I went. I did some online homework in the office with my mom. She worked from home, so I used this time to spend more time with her. My sister and I hungout when we saw each oher. We had really good days, and then we’d have bad days. We’re just siblings that annoy the fuck out of each other sometimes. At the end of the day, I’d play cards with my dad. Which had to be my favorite thing to do with him. It was just a time to talk to him, about life, about everything.

There’s something almost therapeutic about going home for a bit.

One of the days that I was there, I published my novel. I did it through Amazon. My first novel was something that I wrote my senior year, around the time that I was dealing with depression. It was fiction, but correlated a lot with my life. Jasper Henning, a socially awkward outcast who suffers from a metnal illness. He meets the light to his dark life, named Adrianna. She’s full of light, beauty, and passion. The characters fall in love all Romeo and Juliet style. Their from two worlds, and it pushes them apart until one of them breaks. I don’t want to spoil anymore so just go buy it. Imperfect - Chance Conley

Anywho, my first novel. I was pleased with myself. I saw people sharing it on Facebook. I thought I had done something that people were highly impressed with.

I felt okay.

Okay. Content. This was a small moment of success for me. I felt like I reached something that I've always wanted to do. The feeling didn't sink in, it stayed in my soul like I had finally done something that i’m proud of.

I went to Rue 21 with my sister after that. I liked shopping with her sometimes. She usually has way more money than I do, so shopping isn't fun when you’re just watching someone buy stuff. My sister is pretty good at life, and money, and having a good head on her shoulders. I never tell her that enough. Since I was rolling big because of David. I wanted to buy some clothes too.

There was something so healing about coming back home for the weekend. It was nice to get out of my head about certain things. I’ve been sitting in my head for a couple weeks now, trying to decipher if this thing with David was actually worth it. I wasn’t stressing anymore. Life was going to fall where it did. I was making money. I was in school. I felt free. I had to just keep rolling.

#personal #poison #chance conley #arizona #drugs #san francisco #journal #writer

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