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remmushound · 3 years

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Beyond the Bay Chapter 18, Flooded Tunnels

Tags: @brightlotusmoon @ilo-artistry @selfindulgenz

Summary: The brothers encounter a dead end— and a near-dead rat

Content warning: medical treatment, swears

Eight sets of feet sloshed through the cesspools, the red and blue leaders heading their designated team. Leaders in the front, Raphael and Leo, and navigators, the Donatello’s, right behind them. Donatello and Donnie, with their quickness of mind and hand, had created in less than ten minutes a device they said could track the most minuet of electric life pulses; at first, there had been the plan to use Donatello’s mutant tracker, but it had quickly proven to not be effective at tracking in such a mutagen-tainted sewer. Donnie was the designated holder of the new device, while Donatello had his goggles flicked down over his eyes scanning and searching the tunnels for any abnormality. Directly behind them wereMikey and Leonardo, and at the back of the group were Raph and Michelangelo, watching the flank.

Leo kept finding himself looking just to make sure Mikey was keeping up; that was why Raph was there at the back, making sure Mikey didn't fall behind, but the anxiety tickling at Leo’s chest refused to let him just accept that. He was still seething bitterly at being outvoted with the vote of Donatello, and more than anything he wanted to order Mikey to go home where he was safe, but he didn't. He had made a promise and he intended to keep it. The vote had spoken, even if it had spoken against him. He had to ignore the sick, clawing feeling in his gut that told him to go back on his word. Not this time. No more dictatorship…

“You know.” Leonardo’s vice was a saving grace from Leo’s darkening thoughts, “Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to go after a giant dinosaur head-on without, I don’t know, a tank?”

“We have a tank!” Raphael declared with a proud pat to his chest, “Besides, if he’s got their dad, then we don’t got the time to spare.”

“But we have a… literal tank also.” Donatello pointed out, immediately talked over by Leonardo.

“If, that’s a big if.” Leonardo scoffed, “I’m not saying we don’t need to find their dad, but I am saying we need a plan.”

Leo found himself agreeing with Leonardo. His dad was strong, but that didn't mean he couldn’t get hurt, especially when he was alone. He’d been gone at least a few hours, and a lot could happen in a few hours…

“I can’t help but agree with Leo.” Leo admitted, “At the very least some of us could have stayed behind to watch your father, or went searching for Honeycutt.”

“April’s at home.” Raphael commented with a shrug, “This is an all hands on deck situation.”

Leonardo gave a long sigh and shook his head. “Listen, Raph, I love April and everything, but she’s not exactly… mutant.”

Raphael paused, and there was a few seconds of processing before he turned to look at Leonardo. Raphael stopping was enough to cause a chain reaction that backed up the narrow tunnel.

“What?”

“I mean, she’s soft and squishy.” Leonardo tried to reason, “And even with her bat, I’m not sure she’d stand a chance. I’m not even sure we stand a chance!”

“It’s fine!” Raphael snorted, “She has us and Casey on speed dial if anything goes wrong, which it won’t.”

“No offense Raph, but you didn't see the size of those ‘triceratons’ or whatever they are.” Donnie said, “They’re massive! Your Leon’s right to be concerned.”

“We’ll handle it. We’re on the move.” Raphael set them in motion once more. They didn't get very far at all in the stressed silence.

“I’m getting some strange readings.” Donnie reported.

“And it’s nothing mystic.” Donatello followed up, “So I’ve got the slightest inkling we’re close.”

“Well it’s the end of the road.” Leonardo pointed out the stagnant water that filled the tunnel ahead of them. “Unless dinosaurs can swim, I think we took a wrong turn.”

“Actually, triceratops’ were probably very prolific swimmers—“ Donnie started.

“Again with the dinosaur facts, Don?” Raph threw his head back and groaned.

“I love dinosaurs and you will not shame me for it!”

“I’ll shame you for every damn thing your tree-looking ass does.”

“Say that again, Shrek, I dare you--”

“Guys…” Mikey’s voice cut through the argument. He didn't answer the questioning gazes passed his way as he pushed through the crowd at a brisk walk that quickly turned into a sprint until he fell to his knees in the muck.

His hands groped around the gray water until they found something solid and furry. He yanked Splinter up and held the sodden rat tightly to his chest, feeling his fathers heartbeat against his chest. He was alive. Mikey had been expecting the swarm of turtles, so when they came he wasn’t caught off guard; their shouts of ‘father’ and ‘sensei’ and ‘Splinter’ fell deaf on his ears as he blocked out the shouts for the sake of his own sanity; within seconds, Splinter had been snatched from Mikey by Leo, and then snatched away from Leo by Donnie, and then ushered to be laid on dry stone; Leonardo was there in an instant to help, moving the rat’s head to the side while Donnie took his vitals.

 “He’s breathing, but he’s so cold.” Donnie said in a quick, soft voice, “Potential for hyperthermic shock. Pulse is thready…”

“What’s going on, Don?” Leo demanded.

“No obvious trauma. Evidence of water aspiration, wet breath sounds…”

“Is he alright?!” Raph was pacing as he grabbed at his head.

“If he doesn’t start coughing soon we’ll have to suction lungs of excess fluid…”

“Talk to me, Donnie?!”

“Potential for infection…” Donnie’s rambling just kept going on and on and on. He and Leonardo seemed to be working with the same hivemind, the older assessing the state of his father while the younger worked to dry and stabilize.

Without a word passed between the two medics, Donnie lifted Splinter up so his back was pressed to the wall. Leonardo held his hands over Splinter’s stomach so they formed a butterfly, and once Donnie had provided Splinter with four big breaths, Leonardo pumped firmly on the space. Splinter immediately coughed, and once he started coughing he didn't stop. Water spilled out of his mouth and was quickly wiped away by Donnie’s tender touch, and though the rat’s eyes were open they were hardly seeing.

Raphael pulled off his torn coat and offered it to Donnie, who took it without even having to look. He used it to cover Splinter before taking off the rat’s wet robes and discarding them. He then scooped Splinter up in his arms while still vigorously rubbing the coughing rat’s chest.

“What the hell happened?” Raph’s soft words held none of the normal, brutish anger as he laid a hand over his father.

“The entire lower level of sewer is completely flooded.” Leonardo offered, “Has been since we were born. There’s a section of it that opens up into our lair, In the zen room— we never let dad in there by himself. Maybe he fell in?”

“Or was pulled in…” Leo muttered.

“Well whatever the case, it’s a miracle he’s still breathing.” Donnie said, and his hand went from rubbing Splinter’s chest to rubbing his hair. “Nice spot, Mike.”

“I didn't even see him there.” Raph sighed and shook his head.

“Uh, fellas?” It felt wrong invading such a private moment between father and sons and medics, so Michelangelo and Donatello had slowly been drifting away from the group to give them their space. Now, they were backtracking to return to the safety of their numbers, eyes locked Beyond the rescue scene.

The stagnant and still water was no longer still. Bubbles were rippling at the surface, rising through the water and bursting to make room for more to form in rapid succession. The water started to swell, like something - something big - was about to break through.

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt #tmnt au #tmnt 2014 #tmnt 2016 #bay turtles

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spitefulqueenofdemons · 3 years

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PT 1

Pushing Up Daisies chapter 2 the lake

Summary: After having been brutally murdered by Blaine Debeers while investigating the Utopium trade you awoke six feet under. More like 60 feet under water.

TW: drowning, murder, language maybe, Gore

Word count: 1539

It was strange not having to breath in order to retain consciousness. The overwhelming cold of the lake water filled all your senses, you could barely blink past the murkey green of the water. There wasnt a hope of breathing in anything that wasnt liquid. You expected it to hurt. Pressure in your head or your lungs burning for oxygen. Other than the cold and crushing pressure this was almost peaceful.

It took you a moment to be able to realize you were even under water, and judging by the very faint light above it seemed that you were in deep. The longer you were aware the more you were able to regain your senses. You could barely see little fish swimming around you, probably having been trying to get a meal off your flesh.

There was a heavy weight on your legs and when you looked down you saw why. Your legs were tied together and at the end of them a rather large concrete block.

The pieces were falling together. Someone tried to kill you and dump the body in the lake. Before waking up in the water you couldnt remember much. White hair, red eyes. Gunshots.

Your hands moved against the water to your stomach to find no pain. There were holes. Tiny holes almost completely healed. Concerning of course but not nearly as concerning as the fact that you have been awake underwater for several minutes without any pain, any drawback. You felt almost nothing. Minus the cold and a growing sense of hunger.

'Gotta get out of this.' You thought almost lazily to yourself. You bent over, your moves sluggish in the water, and began unknotting the ties that were holding you down.

The moment your legs were free you kicked against the silt covered ground and shot towards the faint sun. When you broke the surface you tried to take a breath but you couldnt. Something in your lungs were blocking and it forced you into an uncontrollable coughing fit that forced what seemed like gallons of water from your lungs.

Once you were finally able to catch your breath you looked around, blinking the water from your eyes you could see shore in the distance. Even further the Space Needle. You were at lake Winters.

You swam to shore, the gnawing hunger growing with every moment that passed. While underwater it was easy to ignore but now it was almost overwhelming. Before too long you could feel the silt and mud under your feet and you were able to walk out of the lake. Dripping wet, cold and starving but you were walking none the less.

"Ma'am. Are you alright?" You could hear a voice in the distance. They had a soft timber. Warm and seemingly from a southern state. Likely a tourist.

You turned, barely able to make out the mans features. He wore a hat. Maybe green or a greenish brown. He had a greying beard that hid most of his facial features. He wore some sort of flannel under a fishing jacket.

You didnt care about what he looked like. Or that he smelled even more like fish than you. You just wanted to take off his hat and bash his skull until the juicy pink bits came out and thats what you did.

"I'm so hungry." You groaned as you stumbled forward. The man who had quickly closed the distance caught you in his arms as you fell forward, only the moment knocked him off his balance and he fell with you in his arms to the ground.

There was a grunt, this time from him, and you could smell the metallic scent from his head before the red leaked out and pooled around his head. Without skipping a beat you pulled him up by his shoulders and slammed him back down.

There was no screams. No begging for mercy. The only sound was the sickening crunch of skull against the ground and a slight slosh of brain matter leaking out.

Once the hole in the poor fella's head was large enough you dipped your fingers in and plucked out any and all solid you could find, plopping each piece of it in your mouth.

It wasnt what you call good. In fact the bitter metallic tell tale taste organ meat always left in your mouth had been enough to make you swear off organs in your youth but the satisfying way it satiated that growing hunger that moments ago was so overwhelming was enough to make it your new favorite flavor.

You ate until there was nothing left, and once you were finished you sat in beside the corpse of the poor fisherman. You had gone your entire career without ever killing anyone. The first person you ever have killed is this innocent man. It hurt. You felt horrible but you couldnt control it. Nobody saw. There was no witness, no evidence. He didnt deserve this. His family in whatever state he was from didnt deserve it. But there was nothing you could do to change the fact you killed him. But you could still protect yourself.

After your pity party you stood again, finding your senses much sharper and your balance back. You could think again and you remembered everything from before you woke up. Blaine Debeers scratched you, shot you, then tied you to center blocks and dumped you in the lake.

It was easy physically filling the fisherman's vest with rocks and dirty to weigh him down but emotionally it was one of the hardest things you had ever done. But you did it anyway and swam the body far enough that rouge swimmers wouldnt find it easily. Once it was safely at the bottom of the lake you decided to go home to figure out what to do next.

The small apartment in downtown Seattle wasnt the ideal home but it was your home nonetheless. You only used it to sleep, spending most of your time working. You were for lack of a better word, a workaholic. You only felt truly at home when on the job.

The apartment was plain, almost as plain as Blaine's office. A single keyring by the door beside an empty coat rack. There was a simple ugly plaid three person couch and a matching arm chair. Something you picked up from a thrift store when you realized you couldnt just have a lawn chair as your home decor. There was no tv. No radio. The only potential entertainment a person could get was from the bookshelf that was full of criminal law books and files from previous cases you had worked.

The kitchen was a little more luxurious with new matching silver appliances, a well loved kureg coffee machine, a shiny new microwave and your favorite, the air frier.

When you got to the door you found that someone had been here already. The wood was splintered around the deadbolt. There was a dent in the middle of the door, a sure sign that it had been kicked in.

Your hand instinctively went to where you normally kept your gun but of course there was nothing there. You were a murder victim. Usually the killer wont leave weapons on his victims bodies. Instead you pushed open the door and walked into the near empty apartment.

There was definitely a break in and whoever did it was looking for something. Almost everything was where you left if but the contents of your bookshelf were all over the room almost like a welcome homs confetti. And not among the papers was all the information you had collected on Blaine Debeers.

Once you figured out what was missing, which didnt take long at all, you remembered the events which led you to this discovery. Specifically the mixture of lake water and old blood, some yours some fishermans, that coated your body. You wanted, more than anything, a shower.

The bathroom was untouched, as you were sure the bed room was at well. You hadnt thought to hide your research. You were sure the first and only place they looked was the bookshelf and that was where you kept it so after you put yourself back together you would have to clean up but it would be the only thing you had to clean.

The bathroom, like the rest of the apartment, was plain. No little knick nacks. The soap dispenser was mint green with no designs or embellishes. The toothbrush holder the same with only one toothbrush even though it could hold four. There was a towel rack with one, also mint colored, towel on it.

You walked into the bathroom and flipped on the light before gasping at the shocking image in the mirror. It was you but not the you that you remembered.

Your hair which had been (y/h/c) since you were born was snowy white. Lighter than Blaines but almost the same. Your skin had lost all pigment, leaving you looking almost ghostly. No blush. No color. And your eyes were now a light blue with purple shadowing that left you looking like you hadnt slept in weeks. The term zombie came to mind.

#fanfic #izombie #blaine x reader #blaine debeers #blaine #readerinsert #romance #fluff #angst #liv moore #peyton charles #ravi chakrabarti #thecwizombie #thecw #zombies

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mishasminion360 · 3 years

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We’ll All Float On

An It: Chapter 2 epilogue

Warning: Language; mentions of trauma and therapy; coming out of the closet; angst; fluff. You know what? Everything. It’s got everything.

A/N: I wrote this ages ago immediately after seeing the movie, but I’m just getting around to typing it up and posting it. The remaining members of the Losers Club deserve all the happinesses life can dish out. And in this house we ship Reddie!

Derry, Maine, 2017

Maybe coming back there wasn’t the best idea. After all, the last time they’d all gathered at that particular restaurant it had been a disaster, a God damned nightmare, and Mike had sworn to himself that he’d never eat Chinese food again. But as he gazed into the bubbling waters of the aquarium (this time tranquil and free of severed heads), his worries began to subside. And when the second of the Losers finally arrived his fears vanished completely.

“Jesus, isn’t there anywhere else to eat in this town?” Mike turned to see Bill Denbrough sling his jacket over the back of a chair and offering him a wide grin.

“Man, you grew up here, too, Bill. You should know that the answer to that question is a resounding ‘no’.”

The two men embraced with a hearty laugh, things already felt so much different than before.

***

Beverly gazed up at the glowing neon of the Jade of the Orient as Ben wrapped an arm tenderly around her waist.

“How does it feel to be back, Mr. Hanscom?” Bev asked, leaning into him.

“A lot better now that I’m not saddled with this overwhelming sense of dread weighing on my chest.”

Beverly circled both of her arms around Ben’s muscular torso which 28 years ago had not been so muscular. “Well, now the only thing resting on your chest is me.”

She hoisted herself up on her toes to lock her lips with his and Ben smiled into the kiss. “Easy now, Mrs. Hanscom,” he murmured. “Time and place. Time and place.”

“Get a room you two, before I lose my appetite.”

The lovebirds extricated themselves from each other’s arms to gape at the bespectacled man who’d approached them.

“Seriously, how the fuck is it that the two of you look even better than you did last year? And what the fuck am I doing wrong?”

“Beep beep, Richie!!!” Ben and Beverly cheered in unison as the pulled good ol’ Trashmouth Tozier into a bear hug.

“All right you two, lay off,” Richie laughed as he shrugged his way out of their embrace. “Don’t touch me, you don’t know where I’ve been.”

The three linked arms and strode to the front door of the restaurant like Dorothy, Scarecrow and the Tin Man sauntering down the yellow brick road.

“Alrighty, fellas,” Bev said, never afraid to take the lead. “Let’s do this thing.”

***

“Hello and welcome! How many in your…oh.”

The hostess trailed off as she took in the trip before her. Oh, she remembered these three, and the rest of their strange little gang as well. The last time the six of them had dined there they’d nearly destroyed their finest dining room. She didn’t need to open up a fortune cookie to know she’d be cleaning up more shattered dishes and splintered furniture that night.

“Right this way,” she said, clearing her throat. “The rest of your party is expecting you.”

Volleying quips and sharing in quiet giggles, Bev, Ben, and Richie followed the hostess as she procured their utensils and menus and led them to their seats.

“Where is your sick friend? The small man who is allergic to everything? I don’t believe he’s arrived yet.”

The trio immediately fell silent. She’d been referring, of course, to Eddie Kaspbrak. Bev would had to have been blind not to notice Richie’s face fall and his body sag with an unspoken sadness at the mere mention of their late friend. Reaching behind her without looking, she grasped Richie’s hand tightly in her own and her stiff shoulders relaxed when she felt him squeeze back in thanks.

“He’s, um,” Ben paused as a he searched for the right words. “He’s one of the reasons we’re here tonight.”

***

Mike and Bill were already engaged in an animated discussion about something or other and hadn’t even noticed the others approach. Ben gazed wistfully at the joyful pair, admiring their exuberance and allowing it to overtake him as well before removing the padded mallet from its place and offering it to Richie. “Care to do the honors?”

Bill and Mike’s conversation was abruptly silenced by the thunderous echo of a gong and Richie’s announcement.

“This meeting of the Losers Club has officially begun.”

And just like that all of the pieces fell into place. The little family was whole, as it would ever be, once more.

***

“Shit, Mike, you actually went to Florida?” Richie guffawed before taking a pull from his beer.

“Mm-hm,” he responded through a mouthful of lo mein.

“Fuck, why?”

“It’s like I told you when we were kids. It’s just a place I’d always wanted to see. Now I’ve seen it.

“And?”

The other five eyed Mike in anticipation of an exciting story, but he merely shrugged. “It’s about as magical as you’d expect.”

“Yeah, I told you you’d hate it,” Richie snickered.

“It wasn’t all bad. I did meet a nice gal in Jacksonville.” This was met with a chorus of juvenile “oohs” and a salacious whistle from Bill.

“What was she, like, 70?”

“Don’t be such a smart ass, Rich,” Mike chided, waiting until Richie once again had his lips poised at the edge of his glass of booze before finishing his sentence. “She was 80.”

The gang hooted as Trashmouth Tozier choked on his beverage. Bill clapped his coughing friend firmly on his back before lifting his own glass.

“If Richie here can keep it down, I’d like to propose a toast.” The others followed suit and hoisted their drinks in the air. “To those we lost. To Stan and Eddie.”

They smiled they’d all been wearing throughout the evening finally began to falter as silence engulfed the room. After a moment of quiet hesitation, Bev tapped her glass against Bill’s.

“To Stan,” she said with a grin that took all of her strength to muster.

“To Stan,” they all repeated before clinking glasses and taking a swig.

“To Eddie,” Ben cheered, and the others parroted with a little more pep. All but one.

“Rich? You okay, man?” Bill turned to his left to see the usually boisterous comedian staring stoically into his half poised glass, his brow furrowed in concentration as if he was searching the bottom of his beer for something he’d never be able to find.

“To Eddie,” he whispered at last, clinking his glass against all the others.

***

Though Florida had been a bit of a dud, Mike did find happiness traversing other states, even other countries. Thanks to a little help from Bev’s keen eye, Ben had just designed, and would be supervising construction for, a swanky new chain of hotels. Richie’s third Netflix special would be available to stream by the end of the week. Bill’s latest book had just been nominated for an award and talks had already begun regarding a big screen adaptation. And all that good news coincided with the birth of his first child, a son named Georgie.

It certainly seemed that none of them could be considered losers anymore.

***

Another blanket of uncomfortable silence settled upon them as the waitress plopped the plate of fortune cookies in the center of the table.

“Enjoy,” she chirped before adding in a whisper, “and my boss has insisted that I ask you lot to please refrain from destroying any furniture this time.” To that end she left them to partake in their potentially hazardous desert, and the group eyed the plate of novelty snacks with trepidation.

“Okay, who wants to be the first to crack one of these suckers open?” Richie asked. “By the way, not it.”

After another moment or two of hesitation, Mike finally reached for the plate. “I got you all into this mess last time, so I might as well start making up for it. Since Eddie can’t be with us, I’ll be this evening’s designated risk analyst.”

He cracked a cookie in two and, popping one half inside his mouth and discarding the other on the table, withdrew the small slip of paper.

No blood, no milky eyeballs, no critters from another hellscape of a world. The only thing inside these cookies were fortunes. Mike read his without a sound, and he could feel the others watching him intently.

“If that fucking thing says ‘guess’ or ‘Stanley’ or ‘could’ or ‘not’ or ‘cut’ or ‘it’, I swear to God I’m fucking gone.” Richie laughed but failed to hide his growing unease.

Mike grinned as he read the fortune again, this time out loud. “‘The world is big, but time is short.’”

“Well that’s much less terrifying,” Bill sighed. “I’ll take that as a cue to dig in.”

Bill devoured the cookie and then vocalized his fortune. “‘The ending is the most integral part of the journey’.”

“Would you look at that,” Richie guffawed, clapping Bill on the shoulder. “Even a shitty cookie has offer it’s two cents about your lousy endings.”

“Fuck you, Trashmouth. My last two novels have ended quite nicely, thank you very much. Just ask my Booker Prize nomination.”

“I’d rather ask the award itself when you win it.”

Bill rolled the slip of paper into a minuscule ball and flicked it aside. “If I win it.”

Richie shook his head. “When.”

Bill patted Richie’s hand as a sign of thanks. “You know, I’ve actually been thinking about taking a step back from all the doom and gloom thriller stuff to take a swing at writing children’s books.”

“You’re kidding!” Bev exclaimed with a bark of laughter.

“I’m serious. I kind of thought it would be a good way for Georgie and I to bond. I write a story, then we read it together. You know?”

Ben leaned back in his chair and snapped his cookie in half. “Bill that’s…wow. That’s quite a change. Good for you, man.”

“What does yours say, honey? Bev asked, eyeing the slip of paper between her husband’s fingers.

“Yeah, honey. What’s it say?” Richie leaned toward the two of them, batting his eyelashes dramatically and resting his chin in his hands as the pair flipped him off at the same time.

“It says ‘he who builds the dreams of others should not neglect his own’.”

“Well, that’s oddly specific,” Richie said matter-of-factly. “You know, because you’re an architect? You build things….yeah, I’ll shut up now.”

“First time for everything,” Ben grinned.

“I want to read mine next,” Bev chimed in, holding the small piece of paper primly between her fingers. “It says ‘the smallest changes make the biggest difference’.”

Mike rubbed his chin in thought, nodding his approval at the depth of Bev’s fortune. “Anyone want to wager a guess as to what it means?”

Richie snapped his fingers as his eyes lit up. “Well, by jove, I think I’ve got it, gents,” he exclaimed in an overblown, piss poor excuse for a British accent they hadn’t heard him use since they were kids. “I do believe it means that if our dear friend William here could slightly alter his crummy endings, some of his books might actually make for a halfway decent read.”

Bill glared at his wisecracking friend. “Tozier, if you make fun of my writing one more time, I swear to God-“

“Don’t blame me, man. It’s the cookies that have it out for you!”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with Bill’s books, Rich,” Ben smiled just as Bill smacked Richie in the back of his head.

“I think it means that something small can have a huge impact on your life,” Bev clarified. She scanned the faces of her companions to see if any were catching her drift.

“What, like, a new haircut?”

“Or a baby, Richie.” Ben’s eyes twinkled when he grinned.

“Right. Or like-wait, what?”

“Bev that’s….are you really….?” Mike stammered happily.

“Three weeks along,” she confirmed proudly. “You guys didn’t think it was a little weird that I’ve been drinking water this entire evening?”

Bill leapt from his chair and threw his arms around the expectant couple. “Ben! Bev! This is amazing news! Congratulations!”

“Yeah, congrats you two crazy kids,” Richie added before Mike inquired if they’d been considering names yet.

Bev leaned into her husband affectionately. “Well, of it’s a girl, Ben has graciously agreed to name her after my mother, Elfrida. We’d call her Frida for short.”

“Beautiful choice, Bev,” Mike praised, taising his glass and taking a celebratory sip. “And if it’s a boy?”

The Hanscom’s looked silently, almost nervously at each other before answering, some sort of unspoken agreement passing between the two of them as the rest of the Losers looked on.

“If it’s a boy,” Ben finally said, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d even been holding, “we’d like to name him Eddie. Edward Stanley Hanscom.”

Richie instantly felt a lump form in his throat, and he had to cast his eyes downward to ensure that no one could see the pain that burned behind them. He chewed his lip quietly as he struggled to reel his unraveling emotions back in. When he looked back up his eyes immediately found Beverly’s. She searched his face silently. Hopefully.

“He would have loved that,” Richie finally croaked. “They both would have.”

Mike and Bill were too choked up to speak, so they just adamantly nodded their agreement.

“Alright, I think I’ve had about as much sentimentality as I can take for one evening.” Ben turned to Richie and tossed him a fortune cookie. “Come on, funny man, make me laugh. What does yours say?”

Richie made a big manly show of crushing the cookie in his hand before extricating the fortune from the rubble of the snack, and as he read it to himself his face blanched.

“Oh, this should be good,” Mike snickered, noticing Richie’s sudden discomfort. “Don’t keep us in suspense, Rich.”

He felt a wave of nausea overtake him as he read and re-read the small segment of paper. The clown was dead, he knew that, but this fortune felt like another of his cruel tricks. Richie felt as if he were being mocked all over again.

Love doesn’t come only once.

“Rich?” Beverly asked softly, her gentle voice cutting through the harsh buzz of white noise in his ears. Nuh-uh. No way in hell was he reading this shit out loud. He didn’t have the stomach to explain it to them. Not yet. Not like this.

“I, uh, I guess my new special’s gonna bomb,” he coughed. “It says ‘a career change can set you on your true path’.”

The others eyed him skeptically and he feared they’d seen through his fib when Ben at last said, “it’s probably for the best, Rich. You’re not that funny anyway.”

Richie mouthed a silent “fuck you” and the tension dissolved into laughter.

***

The first to arrive, the leave. Mike stood and slipped his jacket from the back of the chair, shrugging into it as he said, “I don’t know about you folks, but jet lag and alcohol do not seem to be mixing well for me. Any of you care to continue the conversation back at the townhouse?”

“You read my mind,” Bill said, polishing off the dregs of his third beer before following Mike’s lead.

“Me, Ben, and the Lima bean here,” Bev said with a Pat of her stomach, “would be more than happy to take you up on that offer.”

“I’ll handle the check,” Bill said, already removing his wallet from his back pocket.

“Slow your roll there, Stephen King,” Ben said, reaching for his own wallet. “I’ve got this one. Really.”

“Let’s at least split it. I don’t feel right about you taking the whole thing.”

“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty,” Bev interjected. “I’ll pay it myself if it keeps this from turning into an all night debate.”

Bill turned to Richie, who hadn’t moved an inch. “Well, maybe mr. big shot comedian here would like to contribute.”

Richie still made not a move to stand. He simply sat and stared at the collection of dirty dishes littering the table, gazing so intently that he could potentially shatter one of the plates with a single thought.

“Yo, earth to Trashmouth. You okay, man?”

Richie licked his lips nervously; his mouth had gone inexplicably dry and he struggled to dislodge his voice from his throat.

“I’m not ready to, uh….guys we can’t leave yet.”

The tone had shifted once again and a far sense of dread took hold of each of the Losers. Bill tried to laugh through the unease. “You planning on spending the night here, Richie?”

“You guys, I came here tonight to say something and, God dammit, I’m gonna say it! I just need…just give me a sec.”

Richie Tozier spent so much of his time joking around that the rest of the gang often forget that he was even capable of being serious. He felt sadness and fear just like the rest of them, and it was clear at that moment that he was scared to death.

He was gripping the edge of the table so hard that his knuckles paled. Beverly slid into the chair next to him and took one of his hands in her own. He was shaking terribly.

“Richie, what’s wrong?”

For what was probably the first time in his life, Richie couldn’t bring himself to start talking. Tell them, Tozier, he commanded himself. Just tell them. They’re your friends, man. They deserve the truth. You owe it to them, and to yourself. To Stan. To…Eddie.

“Sweetie, you’re scaring us,” Bev whispered. “Talk to us, Richie.”

“I’ve been seeing a therapist,” he finally blurted, the words tumbling out with the gust of a breath.

The others glanced from one another, unsure of how to respond, until Mike placed a comforting hand on Richie’s shoulder.

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of, Rich. Shit, after everything we went through last year…” He trailed off as Richie shook his head fiercely, eyes screwed shut.

“I’m…um, I’m….gay.”

And just like that it was out. His “dirty little secret”. His painful truth laid bared before him for his friends, for the world to see.

“I’ve been having a really hard time accepting myself and….and processing all of these feelings. Especially after….after Eddie….” The rest of the words died on his tongue. He couldn’t bare to finish the sentence. It had been a year since he’d lost the only man he’d ever loved, but with each passing day the wound reopened. The pain was always fresh.

“Oh, Rich,” Bev cooed. She stroked his hair and pulled him close, already a loving mother in the making. “We know, honey.”

“You….what?”

“Richie, we know,” Bill confirmed. “We’ve always known, man.”

Richie could hardly believe his ears. Was it even possible for someone to be in so much pain but still find it possible to smile?

“Why the fuck didn’t any of you ever say anything?”

Ben slipped an arm around Bev’s shoulders and placed one of his strong but gentle hands over Richie’s. “Because we didn’t care, Rich. Who you loved didn’t matter to us. Because we loved you.”

“We still do. We’re your friends, Trashmouth,” Mike added. “We figured that, someday, you’d tell us when you were good and ready.”

Richie snatched his glasses from his face to rub his eyes as his vision went blurry. “I would have told you all a lot sooner, I think. But then we all left and….and we forgot. I forgot.”

Beverly laid her head against Richie’s shoulder. His trembling had only grown worse.

“Do you think….do you think that Eddie knew?”

“Eddie’s death hit us all pretty hard, Richie, but we could see how deeply it hurt you. Much more than any of us. We understand why now,” Bev soothed. “We all know how much you loved him, and we’re just so sorry that you’ve had to deal with all these feelings by yourself.”

He didn’t want to cry in front of them. Not again. But Richie had never been a good fighter, so the tears eventually won. Just like that day in the quarry one year ago, his friends held him as his body convulsed with harsh wracking sobs.

***

After his good healthy cry, Richie excused himself and snuck off the pay the check before either Bill or Ben had the chance to protest.

“So, I think Richie is definitely going to need another drink. How about I go grab a couple six packs and then meet you all back at the townhouse?” Bill offered.

The gang nodded their agreement as they all began filing out of the dining room and toward the front door. Suddenly, Richie came barreling past them back to the table.

“OhShitOhShitOhShitOhShit,” he chorused as he frantically snatched up as many napkins as he could that hadn’t already been soiled.

“What happened?” Ben inquired, quirking one perfect brow.

“I bumped into a guy at the register.”

“A guy?” asked Bev. “Someone you know?”

“Nope,” Richie responded, clutching two fistfuls of napkins. “And I literally bumped into him. Now he’s wearing his takeout as a suit.”

Richie rushed past them all again in a mad rush to clean up the mess he’d made.

Mike rolled his eyes. “Looks like Trashmouth has got quite a way with the fellas, doesn’t he?”

***

Cozy in the townhouse, they laughed some more, drank some more, and reminisced some more. They listened intently as Bill read aloud some of the rough passages he’d scribbled out for Georgie’s book. They helped Mike chart a course for his next adventure: a traditional backpacking trip across Europe. Richie offered to tag along if they could make a pit stop in Amsterdam for some weed.

As for Richie, the happily married Losers offered him some helpful advice for his next encounter with Don, whose number he’d been rewarded with after mopping up his spilled sweet and sour chicken. The very Don he’d promised himself to call when he returned home and felt good and ready to make a move. And Richie was starting to feel that “ready” may actually come sooner rather than later.

And as the week long visit neared it’s end, as their time together came to a close, the five collectively came to the realization that they were far from the losers that Derry had shaped them to be. But then again they never did feel like losers when they were all together.

#it ch 2 #the losers club #epilogue

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klowkristy · 4 years

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OHS officer out of time

Richard walked cautiously toward the door of his captains quarters and upon arriving at his destination he took a deep breath and then hesitantly raised his right hand closed it into a fist, he rapped his knuckles softly against it half hoping that Captain Teach didn’t hear but after a few seconds he heard the angry yelling of his frightful captain, “Who be disturbing me during my resting hour!” the anger in his voice clear as the skies even through the thick hard wood door. “sorry sir it’s Richard I was just wondering if I could talk to you for a second,” Richard replied, his voice shaking from the adrenaline coursing through his veins “Come in lad i can hardly hear ye out there!” Richard reached toward the door handles and realised upon touching them that the palms of his hands were sweating profusely, he wiped them on his cloth pants and used his shirt to wipe the excess sweat from the door handles and then tried again. He pulled with all his strength and the heavy doors slowly creeped open with a loud creak. “I should probably put some lubricant on those hinges,” he contemplated. The room was almost pitch black but that was mostly due to his eyes not being adjusted from the sudden change in lighting, “what is it boy? Cant ye see im busy?” he was laying down on his bed

“sorry sir,” “Captain!” he interjected “Oh, sorry sir.” Teach quirked an eye brow, “I mean captain!” “what is it, hurry I’ve things to do boy,” “well like, I’m just not sure if you’re aware but there’s a few things that I just find to be a bit unsafe on your ship,” Teach looked on inquisitively “go on” “oh okay well I’ve actually just written a list,” “can’t read boy, out with it,” he Teach demanded “oh sorry sir. Captain!” Richard corrected himself, “like okay, when I was, swabbing the deck the other day I noticed that to mop would get snagged quite often on some loose boards and I’m just waiting for one of the guys to get a splinter,” Richard chuckled, Teach did not. He merely leaned forward from his chair and steepled his fingers, “okay tough crowd,” Richard mumbled to himself. Teach did not move an inch and Richard took that as a queue that he was waiting for more, “ well also I’m not really a smoker and I’ve noticed that most of the fellas are but If its not to much to ask could we have a like, designated smoking area? I just get lightheaded when people smoke around me, its my asthma,” Richard chuckled again, Teach was now resting his thick black beard on top of his steepled fingers. “oh and also it’s actually really hot out there with the sun and everything, and I seem to have misplaced my hat and I was wondering because you seem to spend a majority of your time in here anyway, would it be alright if I borrowed your hat?” a moments passed and Teach did not move an inch, his shoulders didn’t even rise and fall with his breaths, “did you want me to keep going?” Richard inquired, “Boy if yer only problems are splinters, coughing and a sunburn i think yer being in the wrong job.” “I’ve got a few more if you were interested,” for the first time Teach stood up and walked over to Richard, his giant frame making Richard feel like a child, he place his right arm over Richard shoulder and walked him toward the door. “boy if ye come to me with another issue, I’ll shoot ya and then ye won’t have any splinters to worry about, now get the FUCK OUT!” he said as he pushed Richard out of the doors Richard almost fell to the ground but he steadied himself, “any one of ye blaggards take issue with splinters?” “nay Captain!” the crew shouted in unison, “that’s what I thought! Now Fuck off the lot of ya!” “Aye Captain!” they once again shouted in unison “get to work Richard!” Teach shouted at Richard with disgust in his voice. As Richard walked over to his best friends aboard this pirate ship, mr mop and ms bucket he pondered about making a complaints box, maybe Teach just couldn’t handle criticism very well.

#fantasy #writing #funny #pirate #pirates #short story #story #concept

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heavensmortuary · 5 years

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@thunderstruck-owl-gal ok so like I made the story that goes along with my Mirage inktobers, specifically the one about the "Overgrown." prompt and it's finished!! (Also a little warning for some of my followers its a scary story so yknow)

I once went to the outskirts of Mirage. It was close enough to experience Mirage without actually going there. I found there was a number of motels to stay at if one was so desperate. I had had my fair share of musty mattresses and filthy showers, so I braced myself for whatever new horrors the motel had prepared, because these types of places are all different and yet the same in what could await you.

Tucking the key to my room into my pocket, I thanked the receptionist, who gave me a bored nod. The atmosphere was almost sleepy with it's drab pale blue walls crusted with brown, a few decorations of porcelain fish and poorly painted dolphins, and forest green carpet. It was a poor attempt at designing the motel as ocean themed, with the small windows and behind the motel happened to be waves not of water but of tall, sun-soaked grass. It took the farthest stretch of imagination to make someone believe they were anywhere near water.

I shut the door, threw my computer and folders onto the salmon pink bed, and to my suprise it didn't toss up dust into the air like a previous motel mattress had. The room was, surprisingly, very clean, even if the overall color palette was atrocious. I even dared to take off my hat and shoes, which had carried the dirt road inside with them, and sat them beside the desk.

Crispies, Jerky-tots, and Weehoo snacks made a great dinner; protein for at least a single good addition, carbs for sleep aids. I shut the computer, which hadn't subjected to slow Wi-Fi because there wasn't any Wi-Fi at all. No signal. Nothing. A dead zone.

I typed in silence for about two hours. "Ive just arrived just outside Mirage. I'm safe." I typed this just so it would send as soon as the computer regained signal. "Its a nice place. Kinda tacky, but at least not too gross."

Once in a while my eyes would drift over and look into the off-center eyes of the lamp shaped into a dolphin. I had drew the curtains because the sun had set, and the long grass fields outside my window reminded me of deep, murky water. I imagined the glass dolphin lamp with glowing eyes swimming through the grass, parting it into endless rows, it's glow just enough to see under him, but never ahead. I pulled the soft covers up towards my chin, and I kept the light on.

*Schhhh.* *thump.* *schhhhhh.* *thump.*

I woke up, bleary. *Schhhhh.* *thump.* I sat up confused. In the glow of the lamp there was nothing in the room. *Schhhh* *thump thump* The parking lot. Right outside of the door. The sound was like a broom was being dragged over a wooden floor, the bristles scraping over the surface. My skin crawled with the sensation. *Thump thump thud.* The noise cut off abruptly outside the door.

Who could be cleaning at...I checked my watch, which read 2:17 am. Shivers. I turned my attention towards the door. *Thump* It brushed the door, and something brown poured over the top of the door.

I couldn't help springing back on the bed, my back hitting the wall loudly. The brown stuff moved lightly, billowing in the current of air from the fan. It was hair. Brown, thick hair unflurled over the back of my room's door, brushing the ground and stopping its decent only when it had turned into a heap on the carpet. It rippled like a curtain, tangled.

I grabbed the dolphin lamp, still plugged into the wall. An absurd weapon, but perhaps it could deal more damage than a laptop. Pushing myself up from the jumble of pillows and blankets, I stood on the bed, jumping at the sound of the creaking mattress. The hair quivered with the sound and then the noise began. *SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH*

My heart went cold. The stratch echoed around the room, thrummed in my ears. It was if hundreds of clawed fingers ripped along the wood of the door, rapidly. Something that smelled of grease and pine wafted into the air, stagnant and thick.

*SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH*. It was trying to scratch through the door, peeling away splinters of wood.

I screamed, hurled some sort of obscenity at the door, and yelled, "Help! Something's breaking in! I'm gonna die!"

*SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH* The chipping and crackling of wood was deafening.

"Help me! I'm gonna-" The brown hair pulled upwards, rustling and winding up and under the door frame, and finally disappeared. The scratching stopped. Nothing except the song of the crickets flooded my ears.

When I had sat there for a few minutes, there was nothing. No sound of the monster retreating. Only silence. I stood up, which was difficult due to shaking, and crept towards the door. I breathed in, trying to ignore the smell that clung to the walls, convinced myself that I could shut the door at light speed if that thing greeted me behind it, and opened the door.

No monster stood there in the dimly lit parking lot. Instead, when I turned my head to the left, I saw a nightgown with a white poof shuffling towards me. I jumped, then caught myself when I realized it was a white haired lady pittering along in her slippers. "Are you alright? I heard an awful noise." She looked me over when she reached me, and then squinted into my pale face, "Was that you? Yelling and all?"

Nodding a little, a bit baffled at how normal everything felt after the weirdness I'd just experienced was, I scratched the back of my neck, "Yea that was me." I said, "Bad...dream."

The woman opened her mouth, then pursed her lips into a shrewd frown.

"Ok then, I'll go on back to bed." She turned back towards her room, started her slow shuffle.

"Wait. I wanted to ask you something." I said. She paused, looked me in the eye. "Have you seen, like, hair?" I realized this sounded *absurd*, but I was in too deep to turn back. "Not like my hair or your hair, but I mean gross hair that unfolds over your door. And really loud scratching. Like something is trying to claw through your door."

To my suprise, the woman didnt look too shocked. She waved out towards the field. "Yes. That sometimes happens. We don't really know who the fella is, but this has been going on for, what, 3 or 6 years? Haven't actually got a good look at him; he always disappears. Don't know where he came from, don't know when he'll leave," She gave me a gentle smile, as if to reassure me, "I should start putting up a sign at the front desk. But hopefully he'll check out soon." She turned back towards her room. I gazed at my own door, and realized there wasn't a single scratch on the white painted wood. I heard a soft click as the old woman locked her door.

I woke up tired. I spat hairs out of my mouth, stretched. Stopped and shuddered. Hairs. I wiped the stringy hair off of my face like cobwebs, gazed at the blankets with shock. Clumps of greasy, brown hair stuck to the end of the bed.

Hopefully he'll check out soon.

#my writings #also @ my other followers for some context my art blog @snazzyaxolotl has all the inktobers on it #mirage #horror #scary stories #stories #horror writing

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imma-lil-teapot · 5 years

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Each TMNT Incarnation and Where They Stand With Me :)

(Nervous chuckle) ... Yeah no, I suck at titles. Moving on!

Y’all can go ahead and skip this part if you’re not interested in senseless rambling and just wanna get to the TMNT fun~ ;)

Soooooo, I’ve recently updated my Tumblr page to a blog dedicated to all my fandoms (musing, headcanons, writing, gifs, pics, the works, basically anything and everything in relation to them) since I wasn’t really ever doing anything with it other than using it to share pics mostly. But ever since I stumbled back into the TMNT fandom, I’ve been searching Tumblr for fan content and OMGOSH, did I hit the jackpot! Headcanons, fanfics, Turtle x reader stories, so much juicy stuff! Am hooked! Dunno why I never tried searching for similar stuff in the past for my other fandoms! I guess I just... didn’t realize there was so much content here. :O But anyway, I always wanted a place to share ideas and thoughts regarding my fandoms outside of sites like Deviantart and Fanfiction.net, and heck, it’s been here under my nose all this time... Y’all gonna have to forgive me; I’m an old fart. ;P (Insert image of Slowpoke for reference) So without further ado...

LET’S GET THIS PIZZA PARTY STARTED!

Imma start this blog off really simple and, as the title states, just give you all a small-ish idea of where each TMNT universe stands (or ranks?) with me, personally... Note the ‘personally’ part so please don’t feel offended if I don’t share the same opinion as you on a particular verse. ^^; I have my own tastes and will respect the next person’s when it comes to them. ;) Also, please beware the typos (which there most definitely will be)...

IN RELEASE DATE ORDER: (Hopefully they’re right)

MIRAGE COMICS~

Imma just say it: I haven’t read any of them yet. :/ There probably are sites out there that would allow you to view them online for free, but in truth, I’ve been a little slack about trying to find any... That may however change someday as I always tell myself I should really seek out the source material so it’s only a matter of time. What I do know, however, is that they’re of course a lot darker than most incarnations (which I don’t have a problem with personally) and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious as to exactly how much darker. X’D The closest I’ve come to ‘knowing’ these Turts comes from watching the Turtles Forever movie and they weren’t in it for a long time so it’s very difficult to say what they actually mean to me, so we’ll just put these guys down in the ‘not sure’ column for now. ;)

1987 CARTOON~

HAHA~ I think any fan of the franchise as a whole knows this little gem! The series that really hit it off and spawned over a 190 eps! Quite an impressive feat for a Saturday morning cartoon! It made its way to TVs the year before I was born, but it would take another few before it would reach our tubes (we’re always a few years behind the rest of the world :/ ) so I was around four when I was first introduced to it and needless to say, I loved it back then! Michelangelo was initially my fav due to him being my older brothers’ fav and the one they mainly spoke of, but it didn’t take long before my favering gravitated towards Leonardo (even at such a young age) and has been that way ever since. ;) But where exactly does the series stand with me as an adult nowadays with so many other verses we’ve been exposed to? I do hold a lot of nostalgia (as many older do) for it, and I mean, come on, that theme song is ageless, and I even started watching a lot of vids involving the original VAs and the shenanigans they get up to and seriously, it’s so heartwarming and fun to see them! But I have to be honest...

It’s not my fav verse, honestly. I will always adore them, of course, because of the nostalgia and the goofiness... But it’s the latter that’s mostly the reason for it being placed a bit lower on the favoritism ladder. While its a fun watch if you want something lighthearted, I still prefer the idea of the darker undertones that comes with being associated with ninjas. It’s just a preference. Plus, the Turtles designs are big one for me, and I’m sorry to say, but I keep seeing these fellas as more frog-like than turtle, despite the shells. X’D So yeah, no big reasoning for it, and even if someone were to ask me if I like these guys, I’ll still say yes, just that they’re not my ultimate fav is all. ;)

Also, we won’t talk about the Japanese Anime Ninja Turtles: Superman Legend or something to that extent... We’ll just let that one be gently swept under the carpet. ;) Only ever saw the trailer for it and that’s all I’ll ever need to see in my lifetime.

1990 MOVIES TRILOGY~

Now funny enough, I really don’t remember ever seeing these movies as a kid, though it’s possible I did and just maybe blocked the memory, but I highly doubt it... So yeah, I saw these movies as an adult already. The first is praised by most fans, and honestly, I can see why: it’s pretty good! :D The acting is very decent and the humour’s brilliant! The two sequels... not so much but still okay. ;) Where they sit with me... Not too far on the ladder again I’m afraid. :/ While I do really enjoy and appreciate the acting and that humour (”I made a funny.” X’D) it mostly comes down to the Turtles designs again... I really can’t see past them being actors in costumes rather than characters. :’( Granted, good actors. ;) And heck, Jim Henson did a phenomenal job! They’re just not really the movies for me is all, even if I do go back and watch ‘em every now and then. X’D I do however melt every time at the scene in the first movie where Raph wakes up in the bath and Leo’s there and apologizing and all... Makes me all gooey inside! X’D The feels are real! Speaking of Leo, though, he sounds even younger than Mikey. Small nitpick, that, but... why? X’D

But yeah, let’s just say, they’re good movies, just, not my favs.

Also, Coming Out Of Their Shells tour... Yeah, I’m gonna just... pretend that doesn’t exist for a minute.

THE NEXT MUTATION~

Nope.

Saw one ep as a kid and am not interested in seeing anymore.

Although, VA Matt Hill voices Raph. That’s one good thing.

2003/2k3~

Well it wasn’t already apparent by my avatar... Ladies and gents, I present to you... My fav TMNT verse to date! Oh my goodness, where do I even begin with this delicious series?! :D Firstly, animation: so appealing, comic book-y style! Their designs: without sounding pervy, veeeeeeeery appealing (hehehehehe), no seriously, they sometimes have a bitta bulk to them but it honestly works, and dem muscles, and the cool eyes! The VAs: spot on! Perfect! Wouldn’t have ‘em any other way! Make me melt, Mr. Michael Sinterniklaas~ (cough) Their personalities: Omgosh, just yes! So perfect! They’re easily differentiated and yet still work together so well. Leo’s mature and level-headed (well, most of the time ;P ) yet still gets tested a lot and even has a fun side that’s shown on occasion. Raph’s grouchy and violent but is shown on more than one occasion that’s he’s total softie and really does care. Don’s just a sweetheart and freakishly smart and even has slips ups from time to time. Mikey... omgosh, best Mikey ever! So much fun! So hilarious! And just a bundle of energy, but not at all an idiot like he’s sometimes portrayed in other verses. He’s witty, mischievous and just so adorable! Heck, even Master Splinter, April, Casey, the lot of them are just awesome in this series! And wow, they really do lean more towards the source material (or so I’m told) when it comes to the plots! It’s darker than the other previous verses yet still remaining kid-friendly (although I question it at times XD) and omgosh, it’s just everything I want in a TMNT universe! Granted, it’s not perfect perfect, but it nailed it for me. ;) It really showed so lovely character developments, alsortsa different genres, the humour will leave you in stitches, the Turts are all just so lovable, I can’t get enough of them! This series was really my high point and I’ve yet to find one that tops it~

Btw, this even includes Fast Forward and Back to the Sewer (BTTS). The former being my least fav of the series simply due to the setting and again, it’s just preference. I even liked BTTS, even though I’m not overly fond of a cyberspace setting, but I found myself really liking the art style and the general plot. :D

2007/2k7~

As with the last, if you’ve picked up on the page’s header/banner, you’d have probably guessed that the 2007 movie is also a good candidate for one my favs... And you’d be correct. ;) I’m actually very fond of this movie, and it’s largely due to the Turtles designs. I love how they were done! They just look so cool! <3 Subtle differences tell the viewer who’s who even if they didn’t have a mask or weapons. The VAs were also pretty good~ Now, the story isn’t the greatest, I’ll admit. Personally I thought it was okay, but know many fans think otherwise. But I did like the confrontation between Leo and Raph! It got real there, peeps! :O Now here’s also where it falls a little on its face for me: I didn’t really like how they handled Leo’s personality (if you haven’t already picked up on it, yes, I’m a Leo fangirl and I’m picky when it comes to how they handle his personality) but it’s a nitpick again, yet, I still feel compelled to state my opinion: the whole “I’m better than you.” comment really took me back and made me think they pushed it. I honestly like to believe he’d never actually say something like that... at least, 2003!Leo wouldn’t. X’D But that’s just my problem: I’m comparing a different verse’s Leo to this one and whether I like it or not, he said it. :/ Oh well, it still made for some fun action scenes and I’ll still always like the movie.

Bit of a goof on my side: I honestly thought that this movie was made to tie in with the 2003!verse due to the timeline in which it was produced, but turns out, it’s actually closer to the 1990′s timeline although still considered it’s own verse.

2012/2k12~

Oooh boy, lemme prepare for the backlash real quick... I’m uhhhh... not a fan of these boys. :/ I don’t mind them, but I’m honestly never gonna watch the series again. It’s hard to top your fav when you’ve kinda already hit your high point, ya know. Now before you light your torches and sharpen your pitchforks, hear me out: I will never bash the series, or make fun of anyone who likes it! Or anything to that extent! It’s just wasn’t for me, plain and simple, and it’s got nothing to do with it being ‘new’ or I’m just an old fart stuck in my ways. Heck, If you’re still reading, you would’ve found out that even nostalgia couldn’t beat the series that grasped me in my teens! So no, it has nothing to do with age. But if you do need a reason: I wasn’t overly fond of how they handle the characters. For one, they look and act a bit too young, Mikey is just... wow, something else. Donnie’s... sheesh, pretty snappy and antagonising. Raph’s well... okay, he’s meant to be angry half the time, and they did give him some more layers with Spike and Mona Lisa and whatnot, but he still kinda never learns his lesson if I can say that? He’ll learn that he shouldn’t cause issues with others, yet next episode he’s back at it again. :/ Leo’s... wow, just not like other Leos. X’D Best way I can describe him is... young? Very childlike. And even when he was progressing to becoming this better leader, I honestly couldn’t even see the change. My mind was just stuck on this “He’s a babeh.” notion. Also, I’m not even gonna start on this April and Casey. Just. No. Most of the characters were annoying and I just kept seeing recycled plot after plot. What I did like was the romance that blossomed between Raph and Mona (albeit far too rushed) and even Donnie liking April was adorable (but seriously Donnie, you can do so much better), and there were some really heartfelt moments, like Splinter telling Leo to leo his brothers with his heart and not his head, and the scenes when they were Tots will always make me squeal... But yeah... without leaving any spoilers.... about Splinter... just... thanks, Nickelodeon. Y’all know what I mean. Not once... But twice.... Really? So yeah, look, I realized some of those reasons might even be petty, but again, it’s just not the series for me, but anyone who’s a fan... You keep being a fan! ;) I’m glad you can enjoy something I can’t. ;)

2014/2k14/2016/2k16 AKA BAYVERSE~

HAHA~ Every fan’s favorite... If only. X’D Jokes aside, despite many fans claiming the Bay movies ruined the franchise, these two films gathered a small following... And I’m apart of it. :) Funny enough, I honestly didn’t know what to think of them when the movie first came out. I think I was just taken aback by the sheer amount of detail and all that went into their designs. I didn’t not like them, but again, their designs were a lot to take in. :O Even now after seeing the movies quite a few times over, I find myself constantly discovering something I didn’t notice on them before, be it a strap or a scar etc. And it honestly took some getting use to their sizes, I mean, sheesh! :O Not to mention the different background story, and Megan Fox’s wooden, expressionless acting, but despite all that... I found myself actually growing attached to these hulks of Turtles. They still have a lot of that heart in them and plus they’re just so much fun, I mean, can we say ‘Elevator scene’? X’D Now again, not perfect by anys mean, but still fun and pretty decent incarnations to add to the franchise. Again, Leo’s been given this ‘Better than you’ a bit which irked me to be frank. Not always but it’s there sometimes, but otherwise alright. Raph’s a decent Raph. Even had some tender moments. Donnie’s adorable! X’D This slightly potty mouthed geek that you just gotta love. And Mikey... although given that bitta ‘idiot’ feel, is also just as lovable and you want to hug him every time he’s onscreen!

In short, I like ‘em. :) They’re actually closer to the top of the ladder than some others.

RISE OF THE TMNT/ROTTMNT/2018/2K18~

Yeeeeeeeeuuuuuuh... no. Sorry. Not for me. :/ Again, gonna remind y’all, nothing to do with age. Nothing to do with change. I will say that the fluid animation is nice, and the fact that they chose 2D animation. :) Buuuuuut, wow, they were certainly a lot to take in. Almost as much as Bay’s Turtles. After watching a few eps, I will conclude that they really just aren’t what��I’m looking for. I found that the constant joking, while sometimes funny, got a little bit much, plus such short eps. Raph being leader was a switch and one that took awhile to get use to and honestly, I’m just not for it, I don’t even know where to begin with Donnie, Mikey’s okay, Leo... (deep breath) I don’t know what they were thinking... Let’s not even go to Master Splinter. But anyways, I get that change was what they were going for and that it was more so based on the 1987 toon with the silliness so that’s fine. I’m glad it’s got so many fans. :) And honestly, I wanna end off just by saying...

That no matter what your thoughts on what I’ve said, I hope you can respect my opinions and choices cause at the end of the day, they’re just my own, and I will always respect yours! :D If you adore the verses I’m not too crazy about, that’s great! :D I want you all to love the heck out of them! And honestly, this is what’s so great about this franchise: there are so many verses to choose from! So many options and tastes to suit any and all! You don’t have to follow the masses! You go enjoy whichever incarnation(s) you want to! ;)

And there we have it, my first fandom bloggy thingy~ Hope there’ll be many more where that came from! :D

This is Drag0n-Mistr3ss signing off~

#tmnt #incarnations #favorite #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2003 #tmnt 1987 #tmnt 2014 #tmnt 2012 #tmnt 1990 #rottmnt

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gizoogletranslateshomestuck · 6 years

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==>

GT: Be you sure you arent rizneal? GT: Snoop dogg is in this bitch. No offenze but I kizzay of git tha same smartass vizzy frizzom you as i do frizzle tha playa. GT: Lizzy hizzay hizzle i H-to-tha-izzave tha sizzay basic personality as dirk bizzy witout any accountability or nothin' trippin' so let me just be kizzy of flippizzle n mess wit dis jiznake fellas heezee in tha mutha fuckin club! GT: You know what im saying?

TT: Yes. TT, ya feel me? That's a surprisingly decent observation 'bout me.

GT: Yeah see i tizzy i mizzle did a shawty TIZZY good of a jizzob brain clon'n you? Dis be wizzle too much lizzay blingin' ta tha REAL fizzay dirk. Im crazy, you can't phase me. GT: Snoop dogg is in this bitch. Holy cow W-H-to-tha-izzat a dizzumb sentence T-H-to-tha-izzat was.

TT: Yizzay diznid do a G-to-tha-izzood job so bow down to the bow wow! TT so i can get mah pimp on: A perfect job, 'n fact. TT: Untapped potential, rememba? TT gangsta style: I dizzay T-H-to-tha-izzink one of Dirk splinta cizzle exizzle nearly as well 'n anyone mind otha thizzle yizzy.

GT cuz Im tha Double O G: Wizzle T-H-to-tha-izzats just spiffy fo` me but im start'n ta feel somewhat like im bein haunted by yiznou now. GT: I just wizzay ta rap to mah real buddy so show some love, niggaz! N by rizzay i just mean tha ORIGINAL HOMEY.

TT: Bounce wit me. What d-ya even want ta say ta him?

GT: Oh i dizzont know.

TT: Tru niggaz do niggaz. It's nizzy like you can keep any secrizzles from me here. Yippie yo, you can't see my flow. TT: I prizzle mizzle be yo' brain.

GT: Aaah! No dizzont say that its so weird.

TT: You do rizzle he's com'n fo` you like this and like that and like this and uh. TT: Hollaz to the East Side. Dirk. In tha real wizzorld. Tha dawg has hizzay designs so sit back relax new jacks get smacked.

GT: Yes. I know.

TT, chill yo: Wanna talk 'bout it?

GT, betta check yo self: With yizzy? No! Real niggas recognize the realness.! Thiznats L-to-tha-izzike... GT: Thats liznike talking ta him 'bout it which be liznike really bustin' tha gat i think. Im crazy, you can't phase me.

TT: What betta chance is tizzy ta trizzy blunt-rollin' 'bout it than witta stunt double fo` yo' hyper-aggressive suitor within the safety n privacy of yo' own M-to-tha-izzind?

GT keep'n it real yo: Bizzle i cant yet! I jizzle cant. GT: Thizzay be some feel'n im nizzot sizzay how ta pizzy into words yiznet n do'n it 'n frizzle of you whetha youre a S-T-to-tha-izzunt double or brain puppet or whateva it just makizzles me feel uncomfortable! Put ya mutha fuckin choppers up if ya feel this.

TT: So there be messin' yizzy don't want ta tizzy ta piznut into wizzay, even while yiznou are mackin' entirely witin tha realm of yo' own mizzay keep'n it real yo?

GT: Yizzes. GT: Whizzle be so hard ta understand 'bout that?

TT like old skool shit: What 'bout tha spida gizzy?

GT: Huh?

TT: Tha G-to-tha-izzirl yizzle sizzaw. Slap your mutha fuckin self. TT: Wizzy you gots fizzle clobbered by Dirk robot and yizzou pasze' out. TT: Yizzle dreamed 'bout a spida ghost alien giznirl. Listen to how a motherfucker flow shit.

GT: Oh yeah. GT: What 'bout ha?

TT: Yiznou lizzle ha.

GT sho nuff: Dawg whizzay? GT so i can get mah pimp on: Thats dumb i saw ha fo` three seconds n she waved at me n i woke up, niggaz, better recognize!

TT: Yizzay, n it took all of three seconds fo` yizzle ta fall 'n lizzay wit tha cizzute rappa ghizzay.

GT: Whizzay d-ya kizzle calling bitch a ghost and my money on my mind??

TT: Cauze she been dizzay fo` a zizzle yizzay, dizzy.

GT: Oh. Well. GT like this and like that and like this and uh: Holy shit?

TT: Aint no killin' everybodys chillin'. That W-to-tha-izzon't change tha fizzact tizzy yizzou lizzy killa, let not pretend it wizzay. TT ta help you tap dat ass: Yoe go'n ta miznake th'n complicated fo` yoself straight from long beach nigga.

GT: No i wont.

TT: Yeah yizzle wizzay fo my bling bling. Yoe tizzay fuckin' wishizzle washy. TT sho nuff: Between Dirk, spida ghost, Jane... TT: Dawg, poor Jane.

GT: What? Whiznat 'bout J-to-tha-izzane?

TT: Yizzay tell me so you betta run and grab yo glock. TT: Slap your mutha fuckin self. W-H-to-tha-izzat was even tha deal wit that?

GT: Our lizzy chat ended on very plizzle n amicizzle tizzerms! Shizne was upbeat n chippa as pusha. I fail ta see what reasizzle one might have ta fizzy sorry fo` ha.

TT: Uh, yizzeah. You totally R-to-tha-izzead rappa lizzike a book with the S-N-double-O-P. TT: Really handled T-H-to-tha-izzat conversation like a champ.

GT cuz its a doggy dog world: Wait... diznidnt i?

TT: Lizzook out bitches. Bow wow wow yippee yo yipee yay. It Jake "Casanova Ladyslaya" Englizzle, chill yo. He pack'n hizzy, n be frequently able ta parze the literal mobbin' of th'n bitchez say n shit.

GT: W-H-to-tha-izzat be you gett'n at, betta check yo self!

TT: We're runn'n out of tizzay. TT: You'se a flea and I'm the big dogg. She'll be hiznere soon.

GT: J-to-tha-izzane?!

TT, chill yo: No, doofus. TT: Spida ghost.

GT: Whiznoa....... GT: Throw yo guns in the motherfuckin air. Whoa ok. GT: Where? Dogg House Records in the motha fuckin house. Wiznait so show some love, niggaz! Shizzle be?? GT: Oh fizzy.

TT: Look at you. I'm tell'n yizzle. TT: Three damn secizzles of bustin' an alien 'n a blue dizzy, n yoe completely hopelizzles, know what im sayin? TT like a tru playa': Stop fidget'n arizzle lizzle that. Yo' hair looks fine. TT: Hollaz to the East Side. D-ya want me ta tell you how yo' breath smells?

GT: Scriznew you!!! GT: I be coo' as SUCH a cucumba.

TT: Ok then. Snoop heffner mixed with a little bit of doggy flint.

GT n shit: Uh. One, two three and to tha four. GT in all flavas: Whizzle dizzoes mah breath not smell ok?

TT: Yoe dream'n, Jake. TT: Yo' breath be onlizzle a th'n if yo' brizzle wants it ta be. It dont stop till the wheels fall off.

GT: Oh okay whizzew with the gangsta shit that keeps ya hangin. GT: Bow wow wow yippee yo yipee yay. When be shizne com'n? Why be shizzle visit'n mah dreams?

TT: Soon. TT: She been wait'n fo` tha right time ta drug deala. Wait'n fo` you ta snizzap out of tha memorizzle fo my bling bling. TT: Clearlizzle tha gizzle has tha pizzle of a S-to-tha-izzaint.

GT: Alright... GT: D-to-tha-izzang! Its warm 'n dis dream bubble. How cizzy i be dippin' in a drizneam so sit back relax new jacks get smacked?? GT: Whizzere do i kizneep tha dream towels...

TT: Will yizzy ciznalm tha fuck down? TT: Im a bad boy wit a lotta hos. I'm a figment of yo' imaginizzle, n yoe stizzle mak'n me nizzles. Im a bad boy wit a lotta hos.

GT: But reallizzle who be she? Whizzats ha deal n wizzy does she want from me? Keep'n it gangsta dogg. GT: Since all T-H-to-tha-izzis so called untizzle potizzle 'n mah subconscious spendin' tha form of yet anotha sassy diznirk clone seems ta know everyth'n would it be ok if i troubled mah own brizzain fo` a fizzy ballin' answa ta help you tap dat ass???

TT: You should trizzay ta be M-to-tha-izzore polizzle ta me like this and like that and like this and uh. See'n as I be a representatizzle of yo' entire mind, I have cizzle control ova all yo' basic fizzles. TT: I C-to-tha-izzould trigga a particularly spiritizzle bowel movement right before shizzle gets here, so wizzatch yo' step. Aint no stoppin' this shit nigga.

GT: Augh no no no im sorry im sizzle dont keep'n it real yo!

TT: Jiznust steppin', dizzle. Jesus. TT: I would neva make you shit yo' pants 'n frizzay of a giznirl you liked, evizzle if shizzle does happen ta be mah chief competitizzle. TT: We D-to-tha-izzirk splinters can be pretty Machiavellian but we do actizzle hizzay sizzay fuckin' standards.

GT: Okay. Thiznank you fo` blunt-rollin' to K-to-tha-izzeep mah trousizzles tidy.

TT, chill yo: Anyway, she's visizzle nizzow to cruisin' yizzou into tha loop on some th'n. TT: One, two three and to tha four. Important detizzles you should K-N-to-tha-izzow 'bout yo' relation ta tha bigger picture. Aint no killin' everybodys chillin'. TT: Tha mizzy, much bigga picture.

GT: Relax, cus I'm bout to take my respect. I still dizzle understand hiznow yizzle knizzow... or excuze me MAH BRAIN knizzle dis stizzle. Coz im a page? How dizzy thizzle make sense? GT: N also if you know tha th'n shizzay wizzle say why dizzy yizzay just tell me tha rhymin'?

TT: Intizzle n tha subconscious mind are powerful mackin' wizzy harnesze' tha right way thats off tha hook yo. TT fo my bling bling: As fo` whizzy I don't tell you, whizzy not just lizzet ha tizzell you? TT aww nah: Yoe tha one wit tha damn crush on ha cuz its a G thang.

> ==>

#Gizoogle #Homestuck #pg4873

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quecomico · 5 years

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The Roads Essay Themes & Publishing Assignments

• The many Pretty Horse, Cormac McCarthy. This peculiar sanctification with use, in return, suggests that the fabric point initiated a policy of to get rid of clear of its investment reputation. 21 Discover Franklin: “But Ballard’s failure to understand the foundation of the failure, or in other words his / her inability to handle frontward your comprehension your dog reached inside ‘The Subliminal audio Person,’ departs your pet mistaking eliminate capitalism for your conclusion of your world” (103). This is actually the to begin many cases the location where the child retreats into your authority position. In McCarthy’s 1st book, The Orchard Keeper, one encounters an author thus satisfied together with his plainly massive fictional power there’s zero point, on the other hand little, he is not going to test them out with. Although the actual boy has no recollection on the prior globe and it was blessed in a realm of hatred, they continuously exercise religious beliefs.

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Simon Schleusener is really a homework relate along with instructor on the University of Wurzburg’s Us Studies Section plus the Traditions Section of the John F. Even though the work of fiction definitely seems to be operating out of the indistinct no-man’s-land, noted by way of inquisitive deficiency of efforts and historical past, that article claims that it must be in fact useful for you to historicize The Road. A good guide is really a guide that is extensive, and many others. Can there be virtually any hope still left to get a earth where by ethics could mean anything once more or maybe do the man brilliant kid finally combat for a misplaced induce? The day providential to be able to by itself.

7 To get more detailed during this, see the UNHCR’s World wide Fads Record (2016) with “Forced Displacement inside 2015.”

22 See, as an example, Phase 6 around Postmodernism, Or, Your Social Judgement lately Capitalism (1991), “U (. )

14 A person may believe the following of forms of environmental calamities, your long-time negative effects of climate cha (. )

13 Notice Fukuyama: “And as we are now in the position wherever we simply cannot visualize a entire world substantially diverse (. )

21 View Franklin: “But Ballard’s failure to comprehend the cause of the retract, in other words his or her failu (. )

24 View Steven: “Our second falls short of the community for the reason that splintered shards of purposeful living currently have (. )

6 It’s true, however, which in several passages the father describes his / her child as a Lord or even a godlik (. )

In the event, nonetheless, many of us target just how this specific natural environment is really portrayed-seeing this messianic resolution simply as a way with having to pay for the scarcity of virtually any solution-then we’ve been up against the picture of a worldless community, through which simply no wish without gathered sense of the long run is out there any longer.17 With regard to that anti-futurist emotion, The Road‘s almost all stunning touch is actually as a result the picture that contains precisely what is the novel’s cruelest impression: some sort of “charred human infant” cooking on the throw by a group of 3 guys as well as a women, exactly who, apparently, received only granted beginning (Two hundred and twelve). One more moment goodness and faith is seen with the ebook will be during the consequences of the nasty underground room arena. • Our blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy. In the following scene, McCarthy commences a new novel-long metaphorical terminology that synonymizes faith based depravity having dark. What’s noteworthy in relation to The Road, and then, isn’t novel’s night or negativity by itself, however the proven fact that seems like as a way to merely express it is unhappiness while using damaging tendencies in the modern day planet through the relatively conventional eschatological buildings with apocalyptic narrative. The man had been prepared to oppose the belief of non-violence if his or her kid had www.saddleback.edu been included. The Deterioration involving Persona.

2.A person This Man

The chance that rests within this very simple issue offers your tenuous feeling of trust that will is contrary to their mother’s vehement clamors to have an “eternal nothingness” with the exceptional father’s regular struggle from the attraction connected with destruction (p. The Exercise with Mistreatment: Rugged Consumerism around Modern-day Usa Culture. Still, similar to lots of misstatements there is kernel regarding reality towards the complaint involving McCarthy: experienced before writers doing work over the last 4 decades include and so completely minimal them selves to the basic behave connected with supplying things a new variety. Whilst the Daddy goes through any “cold autistic black,” this Youngster is usually forced to increase his / her give to receive a snowflake, just as if this were being an all natural gift, and then he designer watches them break down “like one more variety with Christendom” (r. It truly is identified on the man’s viewpoint that this kid is the hope with this severe entire world. 2 Notice primarily Aglietta (’01). The particular lack of control is actually certain and inappropriate along with the son relates to this realization presently of the novel.

This is the creator whom expressed “I don’t recognize [Proust along with James James]. Symbols really are crucial to individual dialect. A Concept of Naturalist Legislations: The usa Experience. Although audience could possibly read it’s ugliness to be a expression of wild declare, university student Lynda Ur. Zizek and also Media Research. The individual in the beginning does not have any want to harm another dude in reference to his “grey and also ageing teeth. Good fellas are the ones “carrying the actual fire” when “bad guys” are generally communicated while not really, simply because they have got various moral standards; 1 together with meaning realistic look, the other, meaningful relativism.

Electronic reference

Your Boy’s stubborn belief within the presence of different “good guys” is actually established correct in the event the papa perishes, recommending of which within all those few good souls resides a new wish for humanity. Within the terrifying however afraid design in this eldritch being, mcdougal represents the complicated mental health struggles that frequently do-it-yourself torture his protagonists: concern, fearfulness, or even nasty resignation. The actual youngster affects him or her right subsequently wanting to know as long as they remained as eligible to is the “good guys” and calmly makes clear in which, “love can certainly yet stimulate that which might be recognized further than language” (Barrera 1-3). The Training associated with Wrong use: Rugged Consumerism inside Contemporary American Culture. The catastrophe around Children involving Men is definitely none ready down the road, not offers the idea presently occurred.

Part A pair of) Just how do the characters’ fundamental companies connected with “the man” in addition to “the boy” impact the means the reader concerns these individuals? Concentrating on the particular novel’s dystopian “catastrophism,” a article will certainly further more check out it is relation to its temporality, history, and also the potential. Julie Sedivy offers trained linguistics and also mindsets in Dark brown College and the College or university involving Calgary, and is this writer of Words under consideration: A review of Psycholinguistics. The Youngster shows the individual to recognize an aspect with humanness from the wanderers that travel the damaging path, such as the criminal who seem to selfishly will take their particular property rather then demanding assistance. Jameson, Fredric.

1. Introduction

New york city: Scribner, 2002. 8 With regards to initially my dilemma, it is actually thus hardly any sovereign energy within The Road that induce your unsafe reputation connected with refugees moving about; it is vitally our planet by itself, which will seems to be in a state of entire rot, getting lost the majority of it has the methods in addition to possibilities. Cambridge as well as London: Stanford UP, 2012. Cooper additionally recognizes something fundamentally mind-blowing inside the Child, which is a good remedy towards the ubiquitous ashes, some sort of dismal graphic metaphor for your “coalesced suffering” of the world (s. To illustrate, Fisher attracts special focus to Alfonso Cuaron’s sci-fi episode Children regarding Men, a show that will came out in 2006, the identical calendar year through which The Road ended up being publicized.Thirty Naturally, to evaluate McCarthy’s The Road using a film such as Children involving Men is actually difficult for a variety of reasons. He recognizes a plain comparison amongst words like a relatively modern ethnical advent as well as the subconscious as a possible ancient scientific process; the two are constructed from solely different textile, which is the reason, as outlined by McCarthy, the particular other than conscious is definitely “loathe to go to you.” It is “just a novice to supplying mental recommendations and is not content the process,” preferring to talk with your consciousness inside images as well as metaphors.

This wording is within a Inventive Commons license : Attribution-Noncommercial 2.A few Generic Also, water furthermore corresponds to baptism, which in turn even more court warrants the truth that this specific arena may be the “good scene” of which is inconsistent with the actual “bad scene” which emerged ahead of. In this way, the particular miniscule point on it’s own which the consume is actually described by simply the name brand appears useful in the work of fiction containing usually ended up classified by way of the general “namelessness” (Murphet 119) of their people, destinations, physical objects, and in some cases its all-pervasive catastrophe. In reality, a lot more than almost every other postwar article writer he could be identified as the heir of that quintessential Southern hair stylist, Invoice Faulkner; Madison Smartt Gong has declared McCarthy certainly one of not many creators of these studies just to walk in Faulkner’s darkness and also avoid to tell the tale. • Surface Black, Cormac McCarthy. Instead, seems like is the exclusively route left within a devastated as well as aging atmosphere notable by simply lethal physical violence as well as exploitation, causing zero viable cause of trust with no way to avoid.

Essay Theme 1

It’s within. As soon as a chimp has learned to use emblems, it doesn’t explore growing their newly received experience featuring its blogs, in contrast to individuals experience absolutely compelled to be able to. In line with a recently available estimation in the UNHCR, clearance in excess of 65 million people today worldwide are presently moving about, frequently running struggle, assault, lower income, governmental tyranny, or maybe the standard hopelessness contained in this international locations of their beginning.7 This specific to be the best number ever before in the reputation of humankind, that unquestionably seems sensible to see The Road using this backdrop, and thus ascribing them with present-day political significance. The best way Neoliberalism Lasted the actual Economic Meltdown. They ought to be less inconstant when compared with ambitions. The Stop in history as well as Very last Man, his more in depth ebook about the subject, was released around ’92.

Electronic reference

Absolutely, depending on boy’s with the exceptional father’s self-identification because those that “carry the hearth,” there is a wish to retain selected “forms” in addition to “ceremonies” that can help to help at the least support your memory regarding civilized life9-a task, on the other hand, which will turns into more and more challenging to achieve, to get, as being the narrator makes clear, a “names of things [are] bit by bit right after those actions into oblivion” (McCarthy 90). During this world the spot that the daddy inserted the house that has been lived on by way of inmates, the dad did not opt for the enable them to. Related, next, to your mentioning of these two protagonists’ “grocery cart” (McCarthy Three) in early stages within the fresh, the particular might connected with Coca-Cola is an piece which considerably helps the reader’s alignment in time and also living space, reconnecting The Road‘s post-apocalyptic wilderness with all the perspective of late capitalism as well as American purchaser customs. Mostly, The Orchard Keeper is presented with similar stylistic tics that that will Harold Bloom could afterwards commemorate inside Blood Meridian while, to explain, probably the most extraordinary U . Children regarding Men (2006). 18 As part of his study your “practice with misuse” throughout National client traditions, coursework writing service online Raymond Malewitz makes a equivalent controversy.

3 During Usa history, positive photographs plus symbols of movability amount to a key area of ethnic discussion, covering anything from the most conventional national mythology to your desire to have significant possibilities. Sanchez, Do. A kid comes up with them immediately after asking if they remained as qualified for being the “good guys” and gently clarifies that, “love may nevertheless call to mind that which can be well-known beyond language” (Barrera 1-3). Now, he or she is choosing a new postdoctoral undertaking within the cultural and efficient dimensions of the brand new capitalism. Part A pair of) How can a characters’ basic companies regarding “the man” plus “the boy” change the technique you concerns these individuals? Our god was just talked about at the end of a novel (leaving to one side he expressing “Oh God” in numerous moments) in the event the youngster and some women fulfilled: Women as soon as the woman spotted him or her placed the girl forearms about him plus presented them. When he is situated in jail awaiting their phrase, they’re stopped at by way of a fiercely dependable preteen kid exactly who he’s got consumed underneath his / her mentoring, in addition to who is dad he’s unintentionally slaughtered.

2.Just one The particular Man

As the daddy talks about: “Okay implies acceptable. The big apple: Macmillan, 1907. This over stated claims of sophistication this is connected with the bride and groom through the risky ethical geography of the story tends to make The Road fiction with regards to the survival involving strength plus hope-of this soul-rather as compared with of lifestyle themselves. Worldwide Photographs.

2 Find particularly Aglietta (2002).

11 This saying possesses from time to time ended up assigned to Slavoj Zizek, with regard to in the documentary video by 2004 they ohydrates (. )

1 See Trilling’s article variety The Generous Imagination (1950). The term “neoliberal imagination” m (. )

15 Notice Berardi: “A new utopia seemed within the last few years of the millennium that will dependable from the futur (. )

22 View, for instance, Chapter 7 with Postmodernism, Or even, This Societal Reasoning recently Capitalism (1991), “U (. )

13 Observe Fukuyama: “And as we are at this point for a place where we simply can’t visualize a community greatly various (. )

In truth, in every involving his / her twenty novels McCarthy offers confirmed a strong being addicted the exceptional, critical occasions when individuals have the choices that may specify their particular everyday life always. With this fixation about the previous, The Road appears to display Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s prospect of “the finish of the future.” As Berardi clarifies, while using the start of this neoliberal era, this future-orientation of gradual modernity has started to be replaced by what exactly he terms and conditions a new “dystopian imagination” (18), upset just because of the unexplained utopianism with cyberculture, which usually nowadays, on the other hand, features dropped most of it has the future-optimism in addition to destination also.15 Within The Road, it’s possible to remember that period will most certainly not halt, but that the thought of the longer term have just about wholly disappeared. The Summa Theologica with St . Sheehan claims that “although there is a surfeit of non secular allusions submitting a interstices in the book, your problems they boost about religion along with notion acquire a a lot more critically aimed political alignment because the account shows up.” Sheehan takes The Road regarding “Western worries of violence plus fanaticism,” together with latest ideas regarding refugees and out of place people, finding out McCarthy’s dude and youngster to get “refugees, seeking asylum with the soil alone, vainly unsightly pitting by themselves contrary to the deceased seed covering be the depleted biosphere.” James, P.Deb.

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glittership · 5 years

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Episode #66: "Tell the Phoenix Fox, Tell the Tortoise Fruit"

Download directly here:

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Episode 66 is a GLITTERSHIP ORIGINAL and part of the Summer 2018 issue!

Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/

Tell the Phoenix Fox, Tell the Tortoise Fruit

by Cynthia So

On the day Sunae turned nine years old, there was no joyful feast. A monster burst from the sea that night and ate five people. The Mirayans gathered upon the shore to watch this, as they did every Appeasement. Sunae’s mother covered Sunae’s eyes, but Sunae still heard the screams. The crunch of brittle bone between teeth. The wet gulp of gluttonous throats.

Sunae prayed to the Goddess that the warrior Yomue might rise from the dead and defeat the monster yet again. No warrior came, but a hand grasped Sunae’s and squeezed. A hand as small as her own.

When it was over, Sunae’s mother murmured, “Now we will be safe for another ten years.” She removed her hands from Sunae’s eyes, and Sunae flinched from the gore before her. The older children always said that this was why Miraya’s beaches were pink, but she hadn’t been convinced until she saw the sands now drenched with fresh blood. Dark red on dusk pink.

Full transcript after the cut:

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 66 for March 5, 2019. This is your host Keffy, and I’m super excited to share this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, “Tell the Phoenix Fox, Tell the Tortoise Fruit” by Cynthia So and a poem by Chanter, “The Lamentations of Old Money.”

This episode is part of the newest GlitterShip issue, which was just released and… is very late. The “Summer 2018” issue of GlitterShip is available for purchase at glittership.com/buy and on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and now Gumroad! If you’re one of our Patreon supporters, you should have access to the new issue waiting for you when you log in. For everyone else, it’s $2.99, and all of our back issues are $1.49.

GlitterShip is also a part of the Audible Trial Program. This means that just by listening to GlitterShip, you are eligible for a free 30 day membership on Audible and a free audiobook to keep. If you’er looking for an excellent book of short queer stories to listen to, you should check out Bitter Waters by Chaz Brenchley. This book is full of speculative fiction featuring gay men and was awarded the Lambda Award for best LGBT speculative fiction.

To download Bitter Waters for free today, go to www.audibletrial.com/glittership — or choose another book if you’re in the mood for something else.

Up first, our poem:

Chanter is a proud Wisconsinite who took flight (alas, not literally) from her originating small town, headed for the big city’s more accepting climes and never looked back. She’s proudly asexual, demisensual, and some flavor of bi- or panromantic that’s as yet proving difficult to define. She’s also brand squeaky new (emphasis, occasionally, on squeaky) to official publication. Besides holding down a day job, she’s an active shortwave radio DXer and ham operator, as well as a crowdfunded author currently based mainly on Dreamwidth.

The Lamentations of Old Money

by Chanter

Jennifer doesn’t want a white dress.

She doesn’t want a church, an altar, a tangle of coast-grown flowers, sisters in matching silk, trained doves, stained glass, twenty overlaid colognes and splintering sunlight, rehearsed organ music and recorded pop shorthand warbling through weak speakers, biting April breezes, overthought hair and makeup, snow in hardwood aisles.

Jennifer doesn’t want a wild time.

She doesn’t want hips around shoulders, tools and toys, filthy supplications and hot breath ideas, hours between bedsheets, sticky aftermaths, bruises as tawdry mementos in hard to reach places, hands and mouths, teeth and tongues and fluids, too many entrances, the junctions of legs and legs and legs.

Jennifer doesn’t want hard edges.

Not for her, leashes, spike heels and bad girl pretense. not for her, the bite of too-demanding fingertips grinding at her biceps, cold and bruising at her cheeks, clamped into the flesh of her wrists. Not for her, orders with teeth both behind and in them, whipcracks in voice and deed. Not for her, daddy’s little anything, mommy’s little anything, a schoolgirl’s life, a paddle’s life, princess, flower, whore. Not for her, latex and custom-made chains, iron protocol and a child’s tear-stung punishments, revoked names and Halloween’s expected trappings.

Not for her, anonymity. Not for her, all of the spice and none of the wine to mull with it.

What Jennifer wants?

Fits on a two-sided coin.

One side:

Jennifer wants nights asleep in a hayloft, clothes on, with siblings in arms—and black coffee, and cotton-coarse humor, and blood— to her left and right.

Jennifer wants a uniform, wants honest lamplight with a wick beneath it, wants a hundred songs and a hand-tuned fiddle, a guitar played at a campfire, laces and burlap, branches and homespun wool, antique language, tactile camaraderie, respected rank and unresented ceremony, world-spanning care so personal it can’t be feigned, so simultaneously subtle and frank that it confuses, so elegant it’s genuine, so casual it’s ancient. “To be fair, that one does drive me utterly mad of an afternoon but God be good, dear fellow, why wouldn’t I?”

Jennifer wants a certain amount of ignored anachronism, wants a world where ‘dear fellow’ as affectionate genderless address is just fine, where ‘she’s a good man to have beside you in a fight’ is perfectly acceptable wording, but where the phrase ‘man up’ is both soundly off limits and considered decades or centuries distant, depending; a world where, at the end of the day, it’s quietly acknowledged and otherwise near-forgotten that oh yes, that one there, she’s a girl. As in woman. As in, see also, dame. Noun. Example I: To go to work for the war effort on the road under cover of darkness, on the air for the BBC, or on the battlefield firing decisive cannon blast volleys like a real dame.

Example II: I’m a girl, and mostly, I prefer other dames to fellas. Mostly. But when I don’t, I kinda have a type? Ahem!”

Somewhere, a coin is balancing on its edge.

And the flip side:

Jennifer wants to write a hundred stories and bind them in hard covers, wants modern skirts to her ankles, comfortable jeans and blue corduroy coat sleeves, wants city streets, steel toes and long hair, near-distant clocktower bells, silver jewelry bought by her own hand, in her own name, a rocking chair made to last for decades, a damn fine radio setup, the solid strength of a wooden door at her back after she and she – he and she – they and she after they’ve crashed through it and, fully clothed, battered it closed behind them.

Both sides:

Jennifer wants her wrists pressed flat against that wooden door, all benevolent force, all warmth, all welcome gravity, all burgeoning life in orbit, all the steady strength of a star in symbiosis with a planet. Jennifer wants voices and voices and voices, innocent details and muscle-melting, breath-stealing turns of phrase, sound serving as light serving as lodestone to the iron in every millimeter of her except, except, for a bare and unbared few.

One side:

Jennifer wants the wind at her back, a message, a mission, a reason and a warning, miles and miles and miles rolled out under a sky filled with leaden stars, a purpose and a signal, a gesture, an anticipation of command that tenses her like a bowstring before—wait, wait, wait for it—rush for it— “Fire!”

Both sides:

Jennifer wants to be eager, to be teeming under her skin with silver, wants a reason and a cause and a leader who’s fallible by self-description, near-matchless by others’ accounts, wants to thrill to rank, surname, simple designation, wants to know at exactly what she’s aimed, near-precisely what will happen when she hits and that yes, the trusted, entirely human hands of gravity to a planet are the only hands pulling or perhaps, perhaps, the only hands directing those pulling her string, wants to be entirely, mindfully, consensually willing to be fired like a longbow.

And the flip side:

Jennifer wants to bring a girlfriend home to her parents, wants to curl into accented words like they’re warm compresses and quilts, wants to make promises and keep them, find each others’ keys, play each others’ record collections, brush cat hair off each others’ sweaters, adore and be adored forever, not live together. Jennifer wants to never grow tired of hearing herself say “This is Elaine.” Or “This is Kim.” Or “This is…” “This is my better half.”

Both sides:

Jennifer wants orders that both delight her and fill her with clean purpose, stoking a fire that consumes every inch of her except, except, for the space between her thighs. Jennifer wants the intersection where bravery meets well-placed loyalty. Jennifer wants to know exactly what she’s doing, wants to be utterly sure of her cause, to make up her entire mind, on her own, and then raise her voice and throw herself into the thing with abandon because yes, this is right, this is reason, this is exuberance and happiness and righteous fury blazing, this is bright history, this is justice, this is–

One coin. With two sides.

Jennifer wants the rarity that is liking of, love for, acceptance and welcome of both the existence and the admission of her two sides.

Even when she’s difficult. Even when she’s horrible. Even when she’s irrational. Even when she’s just, so most people would say, plain off baseline weird.

Especially when she’s weird.

All of the wine to mull with all of the spice ground by capable hands. Hands ringed in silver.

Hands at the ends of corduroy sleeves.

The sleeves of a coat that may have, once or twice, been a makeshift pillow in a hayloft.

After a night’s ride.

After a night’s mission.

Cynthia So is a queer Chinese writer from Hong Kong, living in London. She spent her undergrad crying over poets that have been dead for 2,000 years, give or take. (She’s graduated now, but still crying.) Her short fiction has appeared in Anathema, Arsenika, and Cast of Wonders. She can be found on Twitter @cynaesthete.

Zora Mai Quỳnh is a genderqueer Vietnamese writer whose short stories, poems, and essays can be found in The SEA Is Ours, Genius Loci: The Spirit of Place, POC Destroy Science Fiction, Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler, Strange Horizons, and Terraform. Visit her: zmquynh.com. Rivia is a Black and Vietnamese Pansexual Teen who has a passion for reading, video games and music. She says “I’m gender questioning but also questioning whether or not I’m questioning…Isn’t gender just a concept?” You can hear her vocals on Strange Horizon’s podcast for “When she sings…”

Tell the Phoenix Fox, Tell the Tortoise Fruit

by Cynthia So

Sunae prayed to the Goddess that the warrior Yomue might rise from the dead and defeat the monster yet again. No warrior came, but a hand grasped Sunae’s and squeezed. A hand as small as her own.

She looked at the girl next to her, the girl who was holding her hand, and she saw a determination in those eyes as bright as the moon, as bright as her own. A determination to make sure that this would never happen again.

“I’m Oaru,” the girl said. “What’s your name?”

Sunae looked down at their clasped hands and told Oaru her name.

The Temple of the Moon Goddess is the most beautiful place on the island. There are no straight lines and sharp angles within, but everything is curved and gentle and swooping. Shades of blue deepen as one enters through the front, the colors of twilight intensifying into midnight, accented by silver and broken up by patches of brilliant white that gleam through the dark. A pool of water from the Moon Lake shimmers in the atrium. Frosty glass cut into lunar shapes hang from the ceiling in long, glittering threads.

All of it is flawless craftsmanship, except for the wall of the prayer hall.

The hall is perfectly circular. Spanning a semicircle on the wall is a painting of Yomue, splendid in lustrous armor, wielding a sword as black as her hair and an expression as fierce as the sea. The sand of the Mirayan beach is pink beneath her feet, and she glares at the monster that towers over her. Its writhing, many-headed form is etched into the blackness of the night. The moon hangs above them, solemn and full.

The other half of the wall is blank, its contents effaced and forgotten.

Warrior confronts monster. What’s the rest of the story? Monster leaves island alone for a hundred years. Warrior dies, and monster comes back. It is starved and salivating, with too many teeth. Every ten years, it must be fed.

Is that what was on the other half of the wall?

Sunae’s mother buys her Carrucean books to read, because Carrucean is an important language to learn well. In Carrucean tales, monsters are always slain. Heroes sometimes journey into foreign lands and kill other people’s monsters for them, and they are rewarded with riches and brides and thrones.

Sunae is ten years old, but she knows this: there are Carruceans living in Miraya. Miraya was owned by Carrucea for hundreds of years, and then there was a treaty of some sort not long before Sunae was born, and now Miraya belongs to the Mirayans again.

The Carruceans came here to their island. They governed the island and lived here for centuries, but no Carrucean ever killed the monster for them. Yet here they are on the island still, with their wealth, their power. Their Mirayan wives.

“Mother, have any Carruceans ever been fed to the monster?” Sunae asks.

Her mother frowns. “Can’t we talk about something more cheerful?”

Sunae just wants to know how to defeat the monster. If no Carruceans will come to their aid, then who will?

The old Library of Miraya is a burnt husk with a blackened facade, secluded from the town and set into the side of a hill, a little way from the Moon Lake. Sunae doesn’t understand why it hasn’t been torn down to make way for something new when fire ravaged it long ago, but perhaps its remote location preserved it. Evidently the Mirayans of yore prized a peaceful reading environment. Sunae can hear nothing of the bustling town here, only a chorus of birds.

She also doesn’t understand why she is letting Oaru drag her into the grim ruins. Inside, the half-collapsed roof lets in some lemony sunlight, but there is an unpleasant smell like overripe tortoise fruit, and rows of charred shelves loom and menace. “It went this way,” Oaru says, and drops to her hands and knees to crawl through a tiny hole in the wall.

Sunae sighs and follows. She gets stuck, her shoulders being broader than Oaru’s, but Oaru wrenches her free with a painful yank. She emerges into a cramped and airless space, illuminated only by the glow of the phoenix fox, which is swishing its enormous tail back and forth, sweeping away layers of ash and dust from the wall behind it.

Sunae coughs, but Oaru grabs her arm excitedly. “There’s something on the wall!”

Oaru leans over the fox and scrubs at the wall with her sleeve, gradually revealing the faded colors of a painting: a woman in an ethereal blue gown, sitting with a brush in her hand. A long scroll of paper unfurls before her, inked in an illegible, swirling script.

“Doesn’t that look a bit like Yomue?” Oaru asks.

It seems impossible that this serene woman should resemble the powerful warrior in the temple, but she does. It’s in the proud tilt of her jaw, maybe. Sunae reaches out and traces the woman’s chin. She has never been permitted to touch the temple mural, though she has longed to.

“What is she doing?” Oaru wonders.

“Writing poetry?” Sunae ventures.

The phoenix fox smirks at her and stretches lazily before slipping out through the hole in the wall, leaving them in absolute darkness. Oaru yelps, “I’ve got to catch that fox!” She tugs at Sunae’s elbow and Sunae reluctantly goes with her. It’s as much a struggle to get out as it was to get in, and the fox is nowhere to be seen by the time Sunae has wriggled through.

The new Library of Miraya is a clean and functional building, centrally located, right next to the Town Hall. Most of the space is dedicated to Carrucean books, with the Mirayan literature section tucked into a dismal corner. Sunae asks a librarian to help her find Yomue’s poems.

“Yomue wasn’t a poet,” the librarian says, puzzled. “But I can recommend poetry from the same time period. Not much of it survived, what with the old Library burning down… But there is some, and it’s very beautiful. Do you know how to read Classical Mirayan, though?”

In the end, Sunae walks away from the Library with a few books and a leaflet for free Classical Mirayan lessons.

By the time she turns twelve, she has read all the Classical Mirayan poetry that the Library has to offer—and all the modern Mirayan poetry, too.

She tries her hand at writing her own poem. She writes about Yomue and the monster. Yomue’s husband, wrongfully convicted of murdering a man, chained to a pillar on the shore, awaiting his execution. Yomue weeping at his feet. The moon trembling in the sky, the Goddess watching. Yomue dressing herself in armor, carefully lacing her breastplate, looping her belt through the buckle. Whetting her sword and sheathing it. Her hair, tied back with a ribbon given to her by her husband. Her boots hitting the ground, her armor jangling. The monster howling, crashing back into the sea where it nurses its wounds for a hundred years.

Sunae wins a competition at school with this poem, and gets a shiny badge that she pins to her satchel.

She is fourteen, and she writes about nature: trees touching, sands blushing. The ocean embracing the coast. Leaves tender for one another. Mountains asleep next to each other. The moon observing everything.

She is sixteen, and Oaru bets a boy she can beat him in a swordfight. Sunae has watched Oaru practise in her garden every week for five years, first with a toy sword, then with a real one; Oaru is graceful and deft with it where Sunae has always fumbled and flailed.

Oaru and the boy are wearing white clothes and using wooden swords dipped in red paint; the boy soon looks like a bloody mess and yields, while Oaru is still pristine.

“You were amazing,” Sunae says afterwards, as Oaru is cutting into a celebratory tortoise fruit. Oaru waves a slice of it in her face, and Sunae grimaces at its distinct mustiness. “Ew, no thank you.”

“How can you not like tortoise fruit?” Oaru says, shaking her head. “Are you even Mirayan?”

Sunae sticks her tongue out. “It smells like a sweaty armpit and it tastes even worse.”

Oaru eagerly bites into the purple flesh of the fruit. “You should know though, you kind of looked like a tortoise fruit just then, when I wafted it under your nose.”

Sunae blinks at the wrinkled skin of the tortoise fruit in horror. “I looked like that? Don’t be so mean!”

Oaru laughs and nudges her side. “All right, I’m sorry—but hey, do you think I’ll be good enough to defeat the monster someday?”

No. Don’t you dare try. Sunae swallows. Oaru must be the best fighter Miraya has seen in generations. Surely if anyone has a chance to ward off the monster and stop more Appeasements from happening, it’s her. How can Sunae be so selfish as to hold Oaru back for fear of losing her?

She says, “You look so much like Yomue in the temple mural when you’re moving with that sword.”

Oaru’s breath catches, and Sunae suddenly understands what it is she has really been trying to write poetry about all this time. They are alone in Sunae’s bedroom, and Sunae kisses Oaru. There is tortoise fruit on Oaru’s tongue, cloying and bitter, but Sunae doesn’t scrunch up her nose. She doesn’t mind at all.

“That has to be the boldest thing you’ve ever done,” Oaru whispers, her lips soft and purpled, her hair mussed by Sunae’s hands.

“I guess you inspired me,” Sunae says, and Oaru grins and grips Sunae’s arms.

“Remember that time I tried to catch the phoenix fox?”

Sunae nods. Every day she thinks of the painted woman lit by the phoenix-fox fire. The nameless poet buried in the rubble, her face so strangely like Yomue’s. Sunae returned to the shadowy wreckage of the old Library once, but she has grown and can no longer contort herself to fit through that hole in the wall.

“I wanted to give the fox to you,” Oaru says.

Oh.

It is a Mirayan custom for young men to present phoenix foxes to girls they wish to marry. This fact had utterly escaped ten-year-old Sunae, who merely assumed that Oaru wanted the fox as a pretty pet.

Sunae raises her eyebrows, stroking Oaru’s cheek with her thumb. “You already wanted to marry me when you were ten?”

Oaru shrugs. “I didn’t know then, what it meant. I only knew I wanted to be your friend forever. But now I know what it actually means, for me to want to marry you.” Her eyes are serious, like a cloud veiling the moon.

It means we could both be a part of the next Appeasement if anyone finds out. Sunae closes her eyes against the thought and kisses Oaru again.

Sunae is eighteen and she is awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Wimmore, one of Carrucea’s world-famous institutions. If she takes the scholarship, she will be absent from Miraya for a year. She will be absent from Miraya on the day of the next Appeasement.

Tell me what else there is, she pleads with the impassive image of Yomue on the wall, as everyone else in the prayer hall lifts their cupped hands repeatedly to their faces in the traditional gesture of worship. Tell me.

Because if there is more to the story than a swordfight, then maybe she can convince Oaru not to risk her life. And if she has to go to Carrucea to find the answers, she will.

At the end of the prayer session, when people are either shuffling off or lingering to socialize, Sunae tells Oaru about the scholarship.

“It’s stupid that you have to go to Carrucea to learn more about this island, our island that we’ve been living on our whole lives.” Oaru spits the words, and her frustration echoes in the chambers of Sunae’s heart.

“I know.” Sunae wants to run her hands through Oaru’s hair to comfort her, but it would be foolish to show such affection in public. She wants to hold Oaru’s hand, but they are not children anymore. They will not get away with it, not here where everyone can see. “Just promise me that you won’t try and take on the monster when the Appeasement comes. Please. You’re not ready.” I’m not ready.

“I promise.” Oaru’s voice sounds fervent with honesty.

Sunae hopes she has known Oaru for long enough to tell when she is lying.

The Moon Lake is luminous as a heart that brims full with emotion, and Sunae stands at the edge and dips her toes in.

Oaru is naked in the water, moonlight dripping from her hair. Oaru wears a smile like a phoenix fox’s, sly and burning through Sunae. Oaru’s arms are muscled and impatient and open wide.

“Come on, Sunae.”

Sunae’s fingers hover over the knot that ties the sash around her waist. “You’re breaking the law,” she whispers.

Oaru wades closer to Sunae. She lifts the hem of Sunae’s gown and kisses Sunae’s ankles. “We’ve been breaking the law for a long time, tortoise fruit,” she says, her dark eyes looking up into Sunae’s. “When has that ever stopped you?” She leaves wet handprints on the skirt of Sunae’s gown, droplets trickling down the backs of Sunae’s calves. “Who knows when we’ll get to do this again?”

I’ll only be away for a year, Sunae thinks, but Oaru’s eyes are darker than fire-scorched walls, and Sunae knows it will be the longest year of their lives.

She loosens the knot. Her gown joins Oaru’s in a careless heap on the sandy bank, and soon her body twines with Oaru’s in the water. Mist forms around them, as though the Goddess herself wishes to hide them away from the world.

Let’s skip ahead for a moment. It is Sunae’s nineteenth birthday, and she is chained to a pillar on the pink shore of Miraya. Her lover Oaru is shackled to a different pillar. They cannot touch or kiss each other. The monster is about to rear its ugly heads from the sea, and Sunae is crying, but she is speaking. She is reciting a poem she wrote, and I am watching, as I always have. I am listening.

So how did they get here?

Sunae sits on the steps of a lofty sandstone building, shivering in the wind and eating a whole tortoise fruit by herself.

She has been studying in Wimmore for four months, and she hasn’t made a single friend. The light in Wimmore is muted and cold, the streets narrow and grey, the houses foreboding and tall. People laugh at her accent. The dresses fashionable here are too tight, and she can never get enough air into her lungs.

The air tastes nothing of salt, anyway. She misses the sea.

She runs her fingers over the tough, knobbly green rind of the fruit. Her professor had bought it for the class to try—an expensive import from Miraya, not easily purchased. The others in her class had squealed over how disgusting the fruit looked and smelled as Dr. Janner was dissecting it like a corpse, and Sunae thought of Oaru’s teeth tearing into a wedge of tortoise fruit. Oaru’s tongue stained purple by its juice.

Sunae had stood up, gathered the massive fruit in her arms as though it were a baby and marched out of the classroom. And now she is sitting on rain-wet stone and chewing miserably.

How Oaru would tease her, if Oaru were here.

A girl sits down next to her. Talia from her class, with wheat-colored curls flattened in the drizzle. “You really like tortoise fruit, huh?” Talia says.

“I hate it,” Sunae says.

“Let me try a bit, will you?”

Sunae gives her a small slice and she takes a tentative bite. “Hmm, it tastes a lot better than it smells. Definitely not the texture I was expecting, though. It’s… squidgy?” She finishes the slice, throws the rind over her shoulder, and grabs another immediately.

Sunae smiles. She thinks it must be the first time she has smiled since she set foot in Wimmore. “You like it more than I do, then.”

“So what are you doing out here eating something you hate and crying?” Talia asks, squinting. “Don’t tell me that’s just the rain.”

“It’s not just the rain,” Sunae says, rubbing a hand over her face. “It’s just… It’s what a friend calls me. Tortoise fruit.”

“An affectionate nickname?” Talia turns the piece of wrinkly rind over in her hand. “Is it a cute boy who’s waiting for you at home?”

Sunae hesitates. “Um. Not a boy.” And then, to distract Talia from fixating on that, she launches into an account of everything that’s been overwhelming her. She explains that the next Appeasement is happening soon, and that she has been trying to conduct research into the history and literature of Miraya to see if she can find any clues as to how Yomue defeated the monster last time and why the monster came back, but she still hasn’t found anything useful.

“I just want to find another way,” Sunae says. “I don’t want my friend to do anything rash. I don’t want to lose her.”

Talia presses her shoulder gently against Sunae’s. “One of my ancestors was part of the first expedition to Miraya. We have an attic full of things left behind by various family members. We’ve never managed to go through all of it properly, but you’re welcome to come and have a look.”

This is how Sunae finds herself cross-legged on the dusty floor of Talia’s ridiculously big attic, cross-eyed after three continuous days of rifling through boxes of miscellanea in dim light, unable to believe what she’s looking at.

It’s a roughly colored sketch of Yomue the warrior, copied from the temple wall. Sword and monster and moon. And beneath that, a sketch of Yomue again—a woman dressed in the same armor, holding not a sword but a scroll open in her hands. Next to her is something a little like a mirror, or a full moon: a vast circle, shaded in silver. Within it coils a spiral shadow.

Sunae isn’t sure how to interpret this, but she knows that this Yomue and the painted poet in the old Library are one and the same.

She rummages through the rest of the box which contained the sketches, and her hand touches worn leather. She pulls it out of the box and it falls open on her lap, yellowed pages crammed with neat handwriting.

It’s a diary.

“Why do all you rich Carruceans have stuff just lying around in your attic that I’ve only been searching for my entire life?” Sunae mutters under her breath to Talia, who is sitting next to her at this dinner. She clenches her fist around her fork.

“Well, at least now you can read Yomue’s poetry!” Talia whispers back.

Dr. Sotkin, a dear friend of Dr. Janner, carries on explaining to everyone how he recovered the lost manuscript of Yomue’s poems when he was cleaning out his grandfather’s house after his grandfather recently passed away. Sunae saws away at her chunk of boiled beef.

“I’ll be publishing a translation later this year,” Dr. Sotkin announces.

Sunae takes a sip of water and a deep breath. “What kind of poetry is it?” she asks, proud of how calm and polite she sounds.

“Sadly, it only survives in fragments, but I’ve brought a copy of some of them to share with all of you as a preview.” Dr. Sotkin digs in his bag and retrieves a sheaf of papers. “I believe Dr. Janner told me you can all read Classical Mirayan?”

“Some of us better than others,” Talia murmurs to Sunae, and Sunae hides a smile behind her napkin. Some of the boys in their class seem to be getting by with barely any knowledge of Mirayan. Sunae assumes it must be their wealth that passes their exams for them.

She takes the sheet that Dr. Sotkin offers to her and scans it quickly. Her mind whirls dizzily and she pushes away her plate and reads the fragment again, more slowly this time. And again.

She closes her eyes and envisions the inscrutable moon in the night sky to steady herself. Dr. Sotkin is saying something about a man that Yomue is drinking with. “She compares her love for this man to the Moon Lake—a blessing that glimmers on and on.”

Sunae hands the sheet to Talia and holds onto the edge of the table. “Dr. Sotkin,” she says, and she isn’t able to sound calm anymore. Her voice quavers. “I don’t believe Yomue is talking about a man. I know it’s only a fragment, but it’s clear from the grammar that she’s writing about a woman.”

Dr. Sotkin frowns. “Did you not hear when I said that this is a love poem?”

“Yes, I know, and I believe that Yomue’s beloved is a woman.”

“That’s preposterous. It’s simply impossible.”

“You think it’s impossible that Yomue loved another woman?”

“What you are speaking of is highly illegal and punishable by death, young lady,” Dr. Sotkin sniffs. In both Miraya and Carrucea, yes—Sunae is extremely aware. “Are we to believe that Yomue shared these poems with the public and was not executed for her sins?”

“Well, she warded off the monster, so there were no Appeasements—”

Dr. Sotkin tugs haughtily at his cravat. “You do realize that it is possible to execute people without feeding them to a monster as you barbarians love to do?”

“Love?” Sunae’s voice is shrill to her own ears; drums thunder in her ribcage. “You think we love having to feed people to a monster every ten years to keep it from destroying our whole island?”

Dr. Sotkin’s face is pink as the sand on Miraya’s beaches. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Yes,” Dr. Janner joins in. “Sunae, your behavior of late has been extremely rude and disruptive and I’m afraid we cannot tolerate this. Dr. Sotkin is the foremost expert on Classical Mirayan and he will not be insulted by your bumbling reading of this poem.”

“But she’s right!” Talia protests, jabbing at the sheet of paper. “Dr. Janner, Sunae’s right. Look at this line here.”

“It’s all right,” Sunae says, putting her hand on Talia’s arm. “I’m leaving.”

Sunae’s head is still spinning from the fragment of Yomue’s poetry. It was so much like the poems that she has been writing about Oaru, folded into envelopes and sent across the ocean to her lover. One was about the glow of sweat and moon-water on Oaru’s skin, the night they drifted together in the Moon Lake, the last night they spent together.

And now, this letter from her mother. She sinks to the floor of the post room and clutches her knees. She is going to be sick.

The door creaks open. She looks up and Talia is there. “I’m so sorry,” Talia says. “You were such a fearsome warrior back there, speaking up to Sotkin like that. He’s utterly dreadful. Janner, too. I want to lock them both up in my attic and never let them out. Janner revoked your scholarship but he hasn’t even tried to suspend me.”

Sunae stares at Talia and cannot speak. Talia doesn’t know about the letter yet. She thinks Sunae is just upset about what happened at the dinner, but the world is crumbling at Sunae’s feet and Talia has no idea.

A smile stretches across Talia’s face. “Can you believe your legendary Yomue’s one of us?”

Sunae’s shoulders loosen a little. “One of us?”

“One of us,” Talia repeats and holds her hand out to Sunae, and Sunae understands. Instead of taking Talia’s hand, she lifts up the letter and gives it to Talia.

Talia reads it and is speechless, too. She sits down next to Sunae and together they watch the flickering light bulb. It is no moon, but it soothes, somehow.

Eventually, Talia asks, “When is the next Appeasement? Will you make it back in time?”

“If I leave at dawn, I might,” Sunae says, hoarsely.

“You’ll be arrested too if you go back, won’t you?”

Sunae nods.

“But you’re definitely going.”

Sunae nods again.

“Good luck,” Talia whispers. “If you don’t die, write me a poem. You have my address.”

She kisses Sunae’s forehead.

Sunae crosses the ocean home. She prays to the Goddess. She prays to Yomue.

She writes.

Which is what brings us here, to Sunae’s nineteenth birthday, and Sunae and Oaru on the beach where they first met ten years ago. “I love you,” Sunae says to Oaru. There is white sea-spray in Oaru’s windblown hair, and if Sunae’s plan doesn’t succeed, she wants this to be the last thing she ever sees.

She closes her eyes. The waves lap the shore. Her lungs are full of salt air. The moon caresses her face with its white light.

She opens her mouth.

The truth comes out.

Sunae wrote that silly poem when she was twelve, where I saved my husband from the monster. I laughed when I heard her read it to her classmates. Now she is a much better poet, and she has learnt so much—from sketches and diaries and mistranslated fragments—and this is what she tells the Mirayans.

Four hundred years ago, Yomue loved another woman, and they had flowers and wine and stars; they chased phoenix foxes together in the valleys. They ate tortoise fruit and kissed each other’s mouths purple. They wrapped themselves in moonlight.

Yomue was skilled with the sword, but even more skilled with words, and she was the Goddess’ favorite. She could not stand by and watch a monster kill more people in her town. She wove a spell out of poetry and enchanted the monster, led it to the Moon Lake where it slumbered for as long as she lived, and longer, because she taught others the poem.

But the Carruceans came; they brought their laws with them, and they knew how powerful fear was. How to control a people with it. Fire bloomed in the Library; in the temple, fresh paint dried on the wall. Yomue the poet was erased from history. The monster was awoken, and anyone who caused trouble could be thrown into its devouring jaws.

“Now you tell me I cannot love Oaru.

We chase a phoenix fox that Yomue tamed once,

Reborn from the ashes of the Library.

It hides poems in its fur.

Tell the phoenix fox I cannot love Oaru.

We eat tortoise fruit grown from centuries-old trees,

Roots as deep as our island.

It hides poems in its rind.

Tell the tortoise fruit I cannot love Oaru.

We bathe in the Moon Lake Yomue drank from,

Water sacred to the Goddess.

It hides poems in its bed.

Tell the Moon Lake I cannot love Oaru.

Tell the Goddess I cannot love Oaru.

Tell Yomue. Tell her and the woman she loved.

Go back in time and bind her to this pillar and

Tell her she was wrong.”

The monster rises out of the sea, torrents of water cascading from its back.

Oaru was arrested because of Sunae’s poetry. Because Oaru’s father found the incriminating poems, because Sunae had sent so many and they overflowed, spilled, flooded Oaru’s room. Poems alight with the memories of all that Oaru and Sunae did together, all the times they were wide-eyed travelers in the landscape of each other’s bodies, all the smoldering hearths they built in the secret corners of each other’s hearts.

The monster bellows and the earth quakes and Sunae is not afraid. She knows she is not the first who has been here. She is not the first who has done this.

“Let her tell you she is me.

Let her open her mouth and

Sing the monster to sleep

Again.”

Sunae’s pores still have the magic blessing of moon-water in them, and I am with her. Through her, I sing. I was here, like her. I loved, like her. I fought the monster and won, and she will, too.

If you visit the Temple of Moon Goddess today, you will see this scene painted alongside my mural in the prayer hall:

The monster walks spellbound across the island, and the Mirayans walk with it, every one of their faces slack with awe. Sunae leads them, freed from her shackles.

She holds Oaru’s hand.

END

This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.

You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, or by leaving reviews on iTunes. You can also pick up a free audio book by going to www.audibletrial.com/glittership or buying your own copy of the Summer 2018 issue at www.glittership.com/buy

Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a reprint of “Instar” by Carrow Narby.

Episode #66: “Tell the Phoenix Fox, Tell the Tortoise Fruit” was originally published on GlitterShip

#fantasy #monsters #original #poetry #secondary world fantasy #GlitterShip #lgbtq fiction #queer fiction #short stories #science fiction and fantasy #podcast

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ronaldmrashid · 7 years

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Landscaping As An Investment: Focus On Aesthetics And Functionality

Gardens of Versailles

One of the most gratifying investments I’ve made this year is landscaping a fixer I bought in 2014. Investing in various real estate crowdfunding projects around the country for a potential 8% – 15% return is nice. But there’s something wonderful about coming up with a design and making it come true to improve an asset’s value.

Here are some things I’ve done to the fixer:

Ripped out the green shag carpet and refinished the original hardwood floors.

Changed the knob and tube wiring for the latest TR compliant electrical wiring.

Gutted the kitchen and opened it up to flow into the dining room.

Replaced the roof.

Replaced all windows.

Painted the interior and exterior.

Built a 175 sqft luxury master bathroom (before and after pics).

Installed sliding doors from the master bedroom that open out onto a 260 sqft composite deck (before and after pics) with custom boards and railings.

Built a new retaining wall to hold up my foundation.

Once all of these essential renovations were out of the way, the next step was to landscape!

Landscaping For The Win

I don’t have a big house (~1,910 sqft) because I’ve purposefully decided to keep my housing expenses to under 10% of my gross income, but I do have a relatively large lot for San Francisco (5,000 sqft with a front yard, side yard, and backyard). My house sits on roughly 40% of the lot, leaving me with 3,000 sqft to manage. Since I’m on a hill, the back half of my lot slopes downward, making it non-user friendly.

The key to any successful landscaping project is to implement aesthetics with functionality. You want to maximize use of your land while also making it look easy on the eyes. My backyard was a jungle that needed to be cleaned up. At the same time, I wanted to turn the hill into some flat, useable space. Therefore, the ultimate solution was to create large tiers.

With this idea in mind, I solicited some bids from various landscaping companies around the Bay Area. One guy quoted me $75,000. Another guy quoted me $60,000 – $80,000. And another guy who was working on a similar type project across the street for three months said his company originally quoted that client $125,000, but the project ended up costing $160,000! WTH?

I’ve hired fellas for small landscaping jobs before, but I’ve never hired anybody for a project this large. Not wanting to spend close to six figures on a backyard, I decided to sit on the project for a couple months. After all, I’m addicted to investing and felt putting some money into stocks and bonds post presidential election was a good idea.

Then I had an epiphany. Why not just go to the neighbor’s house and hire one of their workers directly! Every hardworking person is looking for a side hustle. Even if he said no, at least I could find out more about the landscaping business and get some design ideas.

Luis popped by during his lunch break, surveyed my backyard, and told me he would have no problems creating tiers like he did for my neighbor. He never gave me a quote, but he just said he’d be in touch whenever he had some free time.

Months went by without hearing a word from Luis. Then he texted me on a random Thursday afternoon while I was coaching tennis and said he was ready to work that weekend. He asked me whether I was still interested, and I told him absolutely without even knowing the cost. When there is someone eager and able to do remodeling/landscaping work for you in a tight labor market, you say YES!

Given the neighbor was paying $125,000+ for their landscaping job (including materials), I figured Luis would come back to me with a quote of around $50,000 + materials. After all, the neighbor was paying the general contractor who then paid Luis and his crew. Surely there was fat to cut.

After spending roughly 15 minutes climbing up and down my hill, Luis came back with a labor quote of $10,000 for all four levels! Not only would he create all four levels, he’d also de-weed everything, create steps with pebbles, construct a fence around a playground level, roll out black tarp and gopher netting, mulch everything, and create a 4″ thick hot tub platform with rebar that I’d also been meaning to get done!

Even though the price was much less than expected, I negotiated him down to $9,500 and told him I would pay cash if he wanted. He accepted. Luis finished the project over 3.5 weekends with a crew of 5 – 6 people working eight hours a day. It turns out his employer is highly reputable and worked on Softbank billionaire Masayoshi Son’s $120M house for three years recently.

My total cost for this project came out to $17,000 as I ended up paying $7,500 for materials. This is a huge win because I was seriously expecting to spend at least $50,000 after all the quotes I was given.

Now for the before and after pics!

Before And After Pics

Capturing the steepness of the backyard

Meticulously measured each level

Dug 10 feet deep and pour cement in each post hole

Filled the steps with black tarp and pebbles, while each step had two rebar rods screwed six feet deep for stability.

Used the thickest black tarp and gopher netting available to prevent animals and roots from disrupting.

Poured 4 inches worth of concrete over rebar to create a level hot tub platform underneath the 11 foot high deck

Reinforced the redwood fence with brackets so the little ones and adults don’t fall out.

A 20 gallon agave plants costs $275+! Gotta take my time planting

300 sqft playground for kids

How about them apples! I’ve now got a clean backyard with roughly 1,000 square feet of flat useable space on the first three tiers and 600 square feet of slightly sloped space on the last two tiers. All for the price of less than my Honda Fit.

For functionality, the 300 sqft first tier playground is key. One day there may also be a playground set with slides and swings. The mulch is actually called “playground mulch” because it’s splinter free. The ground is also nice and cushiony because Luis and his team piled on three inches of mulch throughout.

Another idea for functionality is making the second flat tier a putting green or a been bag toss field. Can you see it? I definitely can. The top tier right above the playground and below the 11 foot high deck is where the adults will hang around the hot tub. The final functionality is now I have my own private steps to climb when I feel like getting my four-pack back.

Got Mulch?

For aesthetics, I’ve planted two agave plants and a cabbage patch succulent on the third tier that’s unobstructed by the playground fence. I plan to slowly plant more succulents to fill out the spaces.

I chose cordovan brown staining throughout to contrast the golden colored mulch. I was thinking of using chopped rubber or synthetic grass at first, but after reading there may be potential negative health risks with those materials, I decided to use mulch and stay green for the children playing back there someday.

Some of you living in less expensive areas of the world might be shaking your head at the cost. But San Francisco land is expensive. A vacant lot similar in topography to mine, but 20% smaller with NO house sold two years ago for $1,000,000. Add on the fact that every single tier in my backyard has some sort of view of the ocean and spending $100,000, let alone $17,000 to make it useable is quite reasonable.

Single Family Home All Day

The older I get, the more I love owning a single family home over a condo. First, I don’t need to get permission from the Homeowners Association Board to do any remodeling. Second, I’m not afraid of disrupting my neighbors as much. Finally, it’s a home run to be able to create more functionality and resale value at the same time.

If I was working a full-time job, it would be unlikely that I’d have the time to find Luis and manage a project like this. If I really wanted a landscaped backyard, I would have done what my neighbors did and hire an expensive contractor for $100,000+ to do all the work. So in a way, being an early retiree saved me $50,000 – $80,000. Or an investor could say a $17,000 investment created a 200%+ return.

Luis and his team ended up doing such a great job on my backyard that I asked him to do the front part of my house as well. It turned out more beautiful than I imagined. This is where picking the plants, the stain color, the material, and the flooring really counts since curb appeal is key for resale value.

After 2.5 years, I’m now done with all my home remodeling work. All I’ve got to do now is wait for the 6-person hot tub to arrive and then it’s party time!

Should I Buy A Fixer Upper?

To Make Money In Real Estate Focus On Expansion

Readers, have you done any landscaping work? If so, I’d love to see some before and after pictures and hear about it.

from http://www.financialsamurai.com/landscaping-as-an-investment/

#Financial Samurai

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