#by divine words // sydney

[sydneysholylight]

— a ѕιnnerѕ ιndυlgence [ SERIES ]

╰⪼ heed the warnings: MALE PC/LI, Religious themed, coercion, implied switch!Sydney , nsfw, unfortunate grinding, implied harassment, implied corruption kink, implied stalking, groping, public sex (?), slightly proof-read, 2k words.

╰⪼ heed the note: this will be based on my au of my PC but with major changes, headcannons may appear however but I'll keep things that is canon for this one. I can make a female version of this if you kindly ask, let me know if I missed anything.

╰⪼ You were a new student attending a local school in a town with an odd feel in the air, something sinister mixed with a tinge of scarce purity. You couldn't remember anything when you woke up in the hospital, you woke up frantic and ran away. your memories remained a blur and the temple nearby took you in as one of their own, much to their delight as those prying eyes hovered to the halo glowing above your head and their hands brushing against the feathers of your wings, you were what they called and honored, an angel, a holy being, a divine messenger of god and a protector of humankind.

However, you felt far from an angel and how they portrayed an angel should be, strong willed, protective, god-fearing and so on and so on — on another note, you ponder, who exactly is god? What does a god exactly do? And why have they not contacted you since you've woken up? You brought this concern to your peers, Jordan to be specific, he told you in a soft voice “Patience is virtue, holy one,” he took a bow down “They will seek time with you.” He finished his message before apologizing he had to go attend his duties. Your mind was filled with questions that were yet to unfold, you felt lost and started questioning your purpose.

Over the past few days since you've started residing in the temple, Jordan noticed you were having trouble socializing with the initiates, unable to follow up with their social cues and norms, Jordan ought to himself he would help you fit in once more, thus reached out to Sydney to help you — whose reputation precedes himself to be an “innocent” boy, he was the librarians assistant, he was eager to help you out, the thought of helping out someone, especially an angel, he couldn't help but feel honored and nervous to be near such holy presence however he felt tempted to prey around you and capture you, as to lure you in the dark and the joy of living as a sinner. The ecstasy it gives, the pleasure it comes with. Perhaps if he gave you his world, then will the temple realize, the fun temptation and lust have is worth it, you just have to pray and pray, pray and pray, pray and pray — pray.

You sighed, perhaps it's best for time to pass through and enjoy your life as it is in the moment, patience is truly a virtue after all, you have enough time to figure out the rest later on, walking over to your bed, picking up your bad on the soft mattress, you looked up to the right and at the clock ‘ 6:23 pm ‘ you have enough time to walk to the temple, pray for awhile and walk to school with Sydney. You went downstairs, relishing in your surroundings, it made you feel alive. The older orphans were discussing with each other what to do after school as the younger ones played around with one another, the sight of life in such joyous motion was a sight to behold..

Putting the thought aside, you made your way to the temple but without peace, you've always felt a pair of eyes watching every step you take, it was suffocating. It started after saving a poor boy that was being harassed by the other students, of course you don't believe it was him who was watching you, you don't even have proof and it goes against your morality — and your beliefs, perhaps it's the gang of students who were harassing him? You shudder at the thought, as much you'd like to deny it, the possibility is high. Perhaps it's the best time now to make friends and work on your reputation, as you think of who to befriend, you were in front of the temple. You walked inside, bowing and greeting the older and high ranking members of the temple, giving humble blessings before going to the pew of the far left side. You smiled and greeted Sydney “Good morning.” You whispered, he moved to give you space to join him.

You noticed his hair was down as you laid your bag aside and kneeled down on the cushion, you closed your eyes and clasped your hands together, praying for the remaining time.

You felt a tap on your shoulder, startling you slightly as you looked up to Sydney, who was smiling at you “It's time to go, wanna walk together?” He asked before hesitantly holding his hand to you, you nodded and took his hand, as he helped you get up, he blushed, looking at his hand you held for a brief moment, before you could notice, he turned his back away “Thank you Sydney and yes, of course. You make a great companion.” You smiled as the two of you walked to school together, you appreciated how he was a sweet boy who was willing to help you, defending you from the students probing and harassment in the library and kept you company while Robin was gone for a week.

You looked up to his hair “May I ask why you changed your usual look? Not like it looks bad, it looks good just like you with a ponytail.” You said, your hand aching to touch his hair, painted with color that fit him well, you were surprised to learn it was his natural color. Sydney noticed that you wanted to touch his hair, grabbing it with surprising strength, making you gasp in shock “Sydney?” he widened his eyes “Sorry! Sorry! I was startled.” He mumbled and grabbed your hand softly this time, brushing it against his hair “you're one of the few I'd let touch my hair..” he murmured “Do you like my hair down? You mentioned you were curious after I caught you drawing me with my hair down, I think you drew it accurately.” He smiled, a tinge of red on his cheeks, you looked away, embarrassed at the mention of that incident “I.. thank you.” You mumbled “We should hurry up, I need to study and you need to work.” You said as the two of you head to the entrance.

The both of you departed, you head to an exclusive table of the library, far from the entrance as you noticed it's more silent compared to the tables near the entrance, as you sat down, you grabbed your science textbook you rented and dived into the lesson Sirris mentioned yesterday, unaware of a familiar boy with strawberry blonde hair watching you from the very corner of his eyes, hovering over your figure.

After school finished, you decided to stay with Sydney for the remaining time in school, you had an appointment with Harper today, the temple advised you to meet him every appointment to ensure your health is in good condition, they mentioned your body works differently from a human, hence why they insist you go to the hospital however, something about him felt off, you don't know why but the way he looks and talks to you, it feels like he's hiding something. Perhaps you haven't completely adjusted to human society, perhaps it's normal after all, humans are different from one another.

“Hello Sydney, where were you during lunch?” You asked, you were hoping to have lunch together with him as you noticed Robin wasn't here today and you didn't see him in the library either, Sydney looked at you, something in his gaze felt unusual “I decided to have lunch in the library.” A lie, you knew and it is also a sin, you frowned, he was strong in his faith and joined the temple at an early age, did something happen for him to sin like this? You walk towards the counter “Really? Why?” You stared at him, who stared back “Can I ask you a question?” He suddenly asked, you nodded in response “Have you wondered to yourself what it feels to be a sinner?”....... what?

He looked around, seemingly nervous before walking closer “have you?” He whispered, the distance between you and him and the question made you increasingly nervous “Sydney, the temple advises all of us not to think and delve into such iniquitous thoughts!” You said, biting your lip as Sydney stares down “But that's what the temple thinks, how about you? What do you personally think being a sinner feels like?” He said, his response getting you off guard, he held your hand in a gentle manner, seemingly persuasive in getting your answer.

“I.. I.. I don't know Sydney.” You responded, you averted your gaze away from him, your breath hitched as you could feel his breath on your neck, whispering to your ear “It's fun, really.” He whispered, you widen your eyes please don't tell me— “what do you mean..?” You asked in a hushed voice, refusing to meet his gaze “..To tell you the truth, before your arrival, I indulged myself into…things the students talk about,” he said, taking a slight step back before continuing “It felt freeing.” He finished, cupping your face softly “Would it not hurt to try?” He whispered “See things in my perspective?”

“I.. The temple—” “The temple hides nothing but what we can do.” He cut you off “And we will be careful, you just have to trust me, okay?” he said, you nodded nervously as you let Sydney take the lead, taking you and him to the school's changing room, he pushed you gently to the dressing room “Let's hope nobody finds us.” He chuckled before taking your hand together with his, kissing it “Feeling comfortable?” He asked, checking for your consent, you nodded “I..I feel rather nervous, actually, I feel very nervous.” You mumbled. He chuckled in response.

“It's okay, it'll be fine. I was too.” He whispered before kissing you, taking advantage of your surprise as he inserted his tongue inside your mouth, reveling the sight of your reaction before taking a step back, he let go of your hand as he focused on unbuttoning your shirt, he took a good look of your chest, you resisted the urge to cover up as you look at him “Cute.” He smirked, caressing your cheeks “I..” “Don't be ashamed of your body, you're a beauty.” He whispered, earning a chuckle from you “than- ugh-” your breath hitched as he circles his thumbs around your nipples, he pushed you against a wall “Sensitive?” He teased, kissing you on the forehead “how does it feel?”

“It… It feels good.” You responded hesitantly, muffling a moan as he puts his knee against your groan “Sydney…” you panted, he moved on to removing your pants, placing his leg away, you tried not to make it obvious you wanted him to keep going “I forgot I still have my chastity cage on.” He groaned before kneeling down and removing your underwear and sighed at the sight of the familiar device “It's okay, there are other ways to make people orgasm.” He whispered before making you lay on your back, he unzipped his pants, you noticed he wasn't wearing any underwear “Isn't that against the school rules..?” You asked, biting your lip “Who cares if they don't know?” He responded.

He leaned in, kissing you on the neck as he shifted his hips upwards, making sure his chastity cage was above yours — fondling with your balls with his right hand as the other went on circling your nipples “So gorgeous..” he panted, sucking in your neck as he continues grinding against you, making sure to press against you hard as he could, the metal head of the cage could be felt on the visible parts of your penis, sending sparks up your spine due to how cold it felt, Sydney groaned, clearly frustrated “I wanna be inside you so bad..” he whined, pressing you against him harder, putting your legs on his shoulder, aligning his penis against your hole, trying to insert himself in “I swear I'll get the keys for these stupid things..” he mumbled, fastening his pace, you moaned slightly as he build up friction “Have I ever told you I've always admired you?” He panted, resting his head on your shoulder, relishing the warmth of your naked body.

“I'm close..” he panted, kissing your neck as you gripped on his shoulder, his lips felt warm against your skin, you muffled a moan as you felt his hands intruding their way to your balls once more, squeezing and rubbing it — the sensation was unfamiliar, strange but welcome, an unfamiliar wave of pleasure went through your body, your cock spurting out cum as you moaned against his neck, you could feel cum dripping down where your chastity cage was “You already came- oh-” he gasped as you kissed his neck, making him come immediately after “I..” he blushed, you stared at him with reddened cheek “Did I do good..?” You asked meekly, bitting the inside of your mouth as he nodded “Of course! That.. that felt amazing… it's quite the bummer though I wasn't able to be inside of you..and you inside of me.” He blushed, laying his head on your chest “how'd it feel?” He asked, smiling at you “It felt unfamiliar… but at the same time good.” He grinned “I knew you'd like it.” He said before helping you stand up, he insisted on helping you dress up, taking advantage of the opportunity to occasionally grope you. He cupped your cheeks “We should do this more, it's fun right? To see the perspective of a sinner?” He leaned in, and you looked away “The temple..” you said quietly, he sighed, leaning his forehead against yours “They won't find out, we'll try to keep it as a secret. They don't have to find out, we can still continue as we are as normal publicly.” He said “and you mentioned you can't remember anything in the past, right? Perhaps in a way, this might help you.” You couldn't help but feel tempted at the thought, you were getting tired of the same answers from the temple anyways. “Fine… just… be careful, I don't wanna get you hurt.” You said, he chuckled “Of course, of course, welcome to my world.”

[peterlorrefanpage]

Peter Lorre in musical/noir "Casbah" (1948)

"It gave him a new dimension to expand his own acting career."

Peter Lorre as Detective Slimane with Tony Martin as Pépé le Moko (also, wouldn't this be great as a paper doll set?)

Peter looking devilishly divine with that little whippy stick of his that I am 100% normal about...

Such a dear face:

LOTS more under the cut!

Believing Lorre a “dyed-in-the-wool good actor,” Tony Martin, who independently produced Casbah with Nat C. Goldstone, gave the actor room to rework his dialogue: “The night before, when he would get the script, he’d say, ‘I’d like to make this or that change.’ And he’d do it.” Director John Berry likewise, in Martin’s words, “let Lorre have the strength” to carry out his own ideas. The actor welcomed the freedom as well as the opportunity to assume a more contemporary role. “I like the role I’m playing now,” [Lorre] told Martin, “because all I’m doing is being a pursuer.” Martin added that the role was also a challenge: “He loved it, being the great actor that he was. It gave him a new dimension to expand his own acting career and to get out of that Sydney Greenstreet thing he was in. . . . It caught him with a sense of humor and a tenderness. - From "The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre" by Stephen D. Youngkin

"Singing his way through a string of minor musical-comedies had not prepared Martin for a dramatic debut. He knew he needed help. Lorre cast a spell over the actor and then snapped his fingers: “In those days, the black and white pictures, the close-ups, he could hypnotize you, and he could lull you into a deep inner peace. "We'd do a take and I'd be rotten. He’d say, ‘You know, you’re the worst fucking actor I’ve ever seen.’ I’d say, ‘Really?’ He’d say, ‘Yes, nobody worse.’ And we’d start to laugh and the director would say, ‘Alright, let’s go,’ and I’d do a good scene. He had a way of putting me down. He had a psychological way. And we had dinner every night." - From "The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre" by Stephen D. Youngkin

With Thomas Gomez as Louvain:

With Yvonne De Carlo as Inez:

Joined by Märta Torén as Gaby:

With Märta Torén again (and guh, those eyes of his):

Alas, poor Pépé! (But oh, the beautiful brow of our Peter.)

From Ruth Waterbury’s review in the Los Angeles Examiner:

“Lorre as the Inspector who knows he is going to get his man Pepe is utterly wonderful. He’s lazy. He’s catlike. And smart out of this world. Lorre is so consistently good in every picture that they will probably forget his work in ‘Casbah’ when next year’s Academy nominations for ‘best supporting performance’ come around. But I hope they don’t. This smooth job belongs right up among the best.” -From "The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre" by Stephen D. Youngkin

Want to see it?

[fuckvictorvale]

hellooo could you please share the pages of the most iconic vicious quotes? I didnt tab my book the first time i read it and i have no time for a re-read 😵‍💫

(you can just share the page numbers btw! I’ll figure out the quotes somehow lmao) thanks ❤️

oh absolutely i can. this is like the best ask i've ever gotten

quotes and page numbers are below the cut. i have the american paperback version with the red cover in case there are differences in page numbers between editions

also last note before the quotes, i'm so curious what you're using them for. so if you're doing something fun with them, i would LOVE to know what it is but no pressure

All Eli had to do was smile. All Victor had to do was lie. Both proved frighteningly effective. -pg 17-18

Victor was out. Victor was free. And Victor was coming for Eli-- just as he'd promised he would. -pg 26

Hate was too simple a word. He and Eli were bonded, by blood and death and science. -pg 90

The paper called Eli a hero. The word made Victor laugh. Not just because it was absurd, but because it posed a question. If Eli really was a hero, and Victor meant to stop him, did that make him the villain? He took a long sip of his drink, tipped his head back against the couch, and decided he could live with that. -pg 91

..."I'm trying to figure out how this"-- he held up a blood-stained, but uninjured hand-- "is a reflection of me. Why would He give me--" "He?" asked Victor incredulously. He wasn't in the mood for God. Not this morning. "According to your thesis," he said, "an influx of adrenaline and a desire to survive gave you that talent. Not God. This isn't divinity, Eli. It's science and chance." "Maybe to a point, but when I climbed into that water, I put myself in His hands--" "No," snapped Victor. "You put yourself in mine." -pg 93

Victor Vale was not a fucking sidekick. -pg 96

"Would You take it back?" he asked the dark apartment. "If I were no longer of Your making, You would take this power back, wouldn't You?" Tears glistened in his eyes. "Wouldn't You?"..."You'd let me die."..."Wouldn't you?" -pg 216

"No, Sydney," he said. "I need you to stay here." "Why?" she asked. "Because you don't think I'm a bad person," he said. "And I don't want to prove you wrong." -pg 226

"There are no good men in this game," said Mitch. -pg 276

But these words people threw around-- humans, monsters, heroes, villains-- to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human. -pg 288-289

"I don't want to be forgotten." ..."Tell you what," said Victor. "You remember me, and I'll remember you, and that way we won't be forgotten." "That's shit logic, Vic." ..."To never dying." ..."To being remembered." ..."Forever." -pg 296

"I watch you and it's like watching two people." -pg 352

The entirety of pg 353 including "It's why I let you stay," said Victor. "Why I liked you. All that charm outside, all that evil inside. There was a monster under there, long before you died."// "You aren't some avenging angel, Eli," he said. "You're not blessed, or divine, or burdened. You're a science experiment." (AHHHH)// "You don't understand," gasped Eli. "No one understands." "When no one understands, that's usually a good sign that you're wrong. "You can't kill me, Victor," said Eli. "You know that." ..."I know"..."But you'll have to indulge me. I've waited so long to try."

Victor smiled. He was having a fabulous time killing Eli. -pg 355

And last but not least, an honorary Vengeful quote because it's one of my faves and one of the best. Victor stared at the wall as if it were still a window. "He doesn't know how patient you are," he said. "Doesn't know you like I do." Eli cleaned the blood from his hand. "No," he said softly. "No one ever has." -Vengeful, pg 318 (AHHHHHHHH) hopefully that gets you started! I have so many things highlighted or tabbed or underlined so sometimes it's hard to choose. also the ellipsis (...) indicate where i omitted things for the sake of just including the important parts. otherwise some of those quotes would have been longggg

[prophetofthemuse]

Someone please ask me questions or make comments or suggestions about The Church… I need to focus on something, and what else is better to focus on than Our Divine Muse?? Words and English are difficult, but I’ll try to be as eloquent as I should be… don’t ask me about how Sydney currently feels about me, I know you’re only doing that to then go harass him, so if you do that, you can fuck off and die. Other questions are acceptable.

[manekinoodle]

honestly i just really like to put hoxton into situations but @velathetanager had an amazing player au which grew this horrible little seed. so thanks. i'd make a fic but without a pc it's not fun to type.

so. hoxton gets to know a payday 2 player. basically it's accidental and he overhears the mutterings of a player who's testing out a build or something. he's confused, but he's too busy to really question it. at least until jacket goes down and there's a very clear voice in his head going "damn ai pathing. someone come get me - HOXTON! HOXTON YOU STUPID BITCH come get my dead ass or - SYDNEY NO GET AWAY FROM THE TURRET! dammit sydney's down too fuuuck" and hoxton gets jacket back up and all is good. our player gets confused when hoxton in particular is becoming a smart bot. hoxton is hella confused about the voice but now he's realising how dumb his friends are being (minus jacket, who seems to be possessed). obviously our player puts hoxton permanently on to the bot crew.

hoxton doesn't get any good answers until he's back at the safehouse. as he hears jacket walking around fully armed and poking jimmy in the face (and since when was jiro fully mute, anyway?) he's standing in front of his fully completed conspiracy corkboard. jacket comes upstairs, punches a glass wall to come in and talks to dallas (who is unfazed) and then walks in to chat with clover (who would normally be chasing jacket out with a broom). hoxton stops jacket, calling out his name. jacket pauses, before the voice comes back in hoxton's head, "new voice line? i thought ovk ran out of money after paying pete gold for that hoxton christmas single." ok, christmas single? sure, hoxton had a christmas album that was in public circulation, but the single was still in the christmas cards waiting to be sent out.

is this weird voice someone who had hacked into bain's channels? and just selectively decided to drive hoxton crazy? that can't be it. bain would have known by now if that was the case. and the cryptic jargon this person was using... and who the fuck is pete gold?

while hoxton is considering this, jacket is circling him. "man, you're ugly," says the voice.

"WHO are you calling ugly?" hoxton snaps, fully expecting dallas or clover to shush him for the noise. neither of them are responsive. aldstone is still walking around the safehouse, nonchalantly walking through the broken glass wall. shit's getting weird.

jacket has paused, blinking somewhat owlishly. "uh. hox, you hear me?"

"yeah. who are you, and what do you want from me?"

"uh... shit, how do i explain this? um... consider me a god or something. yeah, that's our relation. this world is but a plaything to me. but you... you've received my divine favour! congratulations!" the voice is obviously making this shit up. but hoxton finds the explanation somewhat logical. it explains the weird behaviour of his friends. the knowledge and the cryptic words the voice uses.

"if i'm the one with 'divine favour' then why are you using jacket?"

"look, i had to commit one count of digital smuggling to pl- uh, possess him, ok? i can possess anyone i want. i just think jacket is funny."

"can you possess me then?" hoxton doesn't want this to happen. he just wants to know.

"yeah, but it's not as fun. you're actually helpful when we're heisting. plus, why not just leave you with the burden of knowing? i think it's more interesting that way. possession would just be a reprieve you don't deserve!" the voice cackles. the voice is an asshole. the possession of jacket is somewhat fitting.

"what do i get out of this divine favour then? an asshole who follows me around, talks to me in my head and makes my friends all weird?"

"look, i have to go make dinner soon, so your friends will be back to normal. and i'm much more useful than that! i can tell you things that you shouldn't know yet. but i'm considerate and i don't want to break your little brain." ok, that's fair. probably. hoxton had never considered the ethics of being a god that knew everything. he didn't consider much ethics at all.

"you can tell me something i don't know, right?"

"get ready for more election rigging and holding out!"

and with that, the voice leaves. jacket just keeps staring at hoxton. dallas starts screaming about the broken glass wall. aldstone calls a guy who can fix it.

hoxton needs a stiff drink. it's 9am on a thursday morning. he thinks he deserves it.

[thewatercolours]

@kursed-curtain and @telthor tagged me to share five comfort characters. Thank you! Now laying aside the fact that you've set me an impossible task if I take it in the "favourite characters" sense, I'm going to try to think of characters who've been a source of warmth or hope for me when I was struggling in one way or another.

Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities. It feels dreadfully silly, with my trivial problems, to compare myself with a cynical, chronically alcoholic, unrequitedly lovestruck, burnt out, washed up lawyer who becomes a big stormin' hero and literally goes to the guillotine in place of the man he hated. But I've had times when my small troubles seemed awfully dark in their own ways, and I believed I was the cause of all my own failure and problems, like Carton does for so long. And then Carton doesn't settle for that - he rises to the one vital occasion he can, and lives an entire life in those hours remaining, transformed, recalled to life. And if he could do it in the face of such horrors, I too can get up and do some tiny good. He's the character that embodies the battle against self-hatred and the possibility of hope, and he is awesome. Plus James Wilby had a brilliant performance as Carton in the 1989, and that certainly doesn't hurt.

2. Shallan Davar and Wit from The Stormlight Archive (but most specifically Words of Radiance and Oathbringer) I did a little writeup about them over here to go with the art I did of them. These two only have a few duo scenes together in the whole series, but those scenes mean the world to me.

3. Frodo Baggins. Please do go on loving Sam. Sam is eminently loveable and laudable. But Frodo... he's so easy to pass over, to dismiss, even while praising him. Frodo is the hero who wins by mercy. In Tolkien's own words:

"Frodo indeed 'failed' as a hero, as conceived by simple minds: he did not endure to the end [...] They tend to forget that strange element in the World that we call Pity or Mercy, which is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the Divine nature). In its highest exercise it belongs to God[...] I do not think that Frodo's was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum – impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest honour; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed."

...

Hmm... it's getting late, and I'm trying to back on my horse as far as cutting down on Tumblr time for Lent goes (I've been a bit of a failure in this regard, but I have a new plan. ☺️) Saturday's a solemnity, and hence not Lent, so maybe I shall come up with four and five then.

[sunset-peril]

Successors - Chapter Ten - Called to Mount Lanayru

 *One Year Later* 

 ~~~

He’d heard her voice. It seems just memorizing the songs of the Hero of Ten Thousand Years Ago wasn’t enough to free her from a sealed fate. This task he’d accepted from his teacher, to learn all the songs of the Hero to pass them down when Zelda’s husband returned to free their kingdom from the Malice, was about so much more than just mere melodies. 

So he packed up his accordion, said goodbye to his family and departed for the wintery peak of Mount Lanayru. Upon arriving at this wisest peak, he was met with several sights that made him question such a calling: the Malice entangling Naydra, the overthrown atmosphere of the Spring, and the feathery purple reptile staring down at him with a condemning glare. 

"Welcome, Kass, descendant of Revali." The feminine-sounding reptile's tail made a singular echoing smack against the holy water, growing as she absorbed the shadows coming from the statue of the great Goddess Hylia. What was this being? A judge of Wisdom to fulfill Nayru's degree? There wasn't the smallest twitch along the feathery body of the beast, aside from a slight tilt upwards of the head. "So you have come to aid Her Majesty. Good." Minimal light bounced around a small golden bracelet around the front right wrist. In the aged gold, the word 'Sirie' glimmered in the unnatural darkness. "You have found yourself in a very sacred place. The history of entire peoples breathes and dies here, under the unwavering and unbribable eye of Wisdom. Exiles, goddesses and heroes have all rested in these waters since the time of Hylia, and many more to come under here's aid." She bowed her head. "I have seen this being's heart, finding it pure in all ways and wise enough for Judgement. My great descendant of Hylia, please make yourself known in this place."

The symbol of Nayru became alight upon the dragon's head, spreading blue lightness into the darkness before the statue of Hylia was overtaken by another, brighter gold light. Two figures of light, one a strong male and the other a burdened female appeared until their figures formed: the late Prince(King?) of Hyrule and his heavily pregnant wife, Queen Zelda Esmerelda of Hyrule.

"Welcome." Her Majesty the Queen lowered an almost unnoticeable distance, legs trembling under her weight. The strong hand of her fallen warrior and love pulled her back to standing and closer to his side. "Look, Link," She whispered so much quieter to him, but Kass made it out all the same. "He is so different than our fallen friend…" Link preeminently wiped the mourning from her thin cheeks, "but I can sense Revali in him, all the same. A special task… Hylia has set him apart. He will need no sword for the rest of his days. Another, She has chosen for Medoh's charge."  

The softest chuffing danced on the waters, the matriarch's hero leaned ever closer to her. "You don't have to write a poem, dear… He'll understand divinity even in plain Hylian." True to what he'd learned about the fallen Champion, Link took the gentlest hand, tipping the Queen backwards ever so slightly until spirit met goddess. Upon their release, he tipped his own head skyward and a high, long sound flowed from his throat to the stars that house his ancestors. The howl of the last male Wolfbred. 

His wife's words flowed under his enduring howl.  "You have been given a very special gift, along with a very special task. Take these melodies you've learned, give them to the peoples to remind them of us, discover the places we held so dearly, and hold onto your greatest lament for when my love arrives before you cloaked in flesh. He will be but a shell of himself when this happens, and I entrust him only to such a lament about the past, present, and future. It is you, descendant of Revali, Khosha, Revarie, Sydnei and Etoli, to set the stage, and bring the descendants of Champions and Survivors alike so we may close the book on this war started nearly over hundred years ago. To close this book, to open and begin another draped in the courage of this land of successors. 

Kass' legs shuddered from her words, "Yes, my Queen. Whatever you say to end this all."

The King of Wolves finally lowered his head and his howl. "I'll keep an eye on your family. They will grow passionate for this cause." He shook out his full head of hair, kissed his wife once more with only a fraction of the grace, and took a four legged leap into the stars above, becoming one with them all.

"I must see you off as well, for Ganon grows stronger every day. But I know we will meet soon, I feel the heartbeats of the wilds and winds," Zelda winked at her poetically cryptic statement. "Goodbye, yet only for now, Kass."

The next years blazed through like mere moments, serving his king and queen with melodies and lyrics, watching the eyes of children light up at the mention of these powerful legends, and watching the tribes of the once fallen land drift closer and closer to each other; in preparation for the final hours Zelda foretold that night atop the frozen Mount Lanayru.

Edited - 04/14/2024 

[atotc-weekly]

Book the Second—The Golden Thread

[X] Chapter XXI. Echoing Footsteps

Awonderful corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the golden thread which bound her husband, and her father, and herself, and her old directress and companion, in a life of quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in the tranquilly resounding corner, listening to the echoing footsteps of years.

At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy young wife, when her work would slowly fall from her hands, and her eyes would be dimmed. For, there was something coming in the echoes, something light, afar off, and scarcely audible yet, that stirred her heart too much. Fluttering hopes and doubts—hopes, of a love as yet unknown to her: doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new delight—divided her breast. Among the echoes then, there would arise the sound of footsteps at her own early grave; and thoughts of the husband who would be left so desolate, and who would mourn for her so much, swelled to her eyes, and broke like waves.

That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound as they would, the young mother at the cradle side could always hear those coming. They came, and the shady house was sunny with a child’s laugh, and the Divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had confided hers, seemed to take her child in his arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her.

Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together, weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the echoes of years none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband’s step was strong and prosperous among them; her father’s firm and equal. Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an unruly charger, whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the earth under the plane-tree in the garden!

Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they were not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like her own, lay in a halo on a pillow round the worn face of a little boy, and he said, with a radiant smile, “Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to leave my pretty sister; but I am called, and I must go!” those were not tears all of agony that wetted his young mother’s cheek, as the spirit departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and forbid them not. They see my Father’s face. O Father, blessed words!

Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with the other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little garden-tomb were mingled with them also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed murmur—like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore—as the little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, or dressing a doll at her mother’s footstool, chattered in the tongues of the Two Cities that were blended in her life.

The Echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney Carton. Some half-dozen times a year, at most, he claimed his privilege of coming in uninvited, and would sit among them through the evening, as he had once done often. He never came there heated with wine. And one other thing regarding him was whispered in the echoes, which has been whispered by all true echoes for ages and ages.

No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her with a blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was a wife and a mother, but her children had a strange sympathy with him—an instinctive delicacy of pity for him. What fine hidden sensibilities are touched in such a case, no echoes tell; but it is so, and it was so here. Carton was the first stranger to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, and he kept his place with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken of him, almost at the last. “Poor Carton! Kiss him for me!”

Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging from his state of lion’s jackal, than any real jackal may be supposed to think of rising to be a lion. Stryver was rich; had married a florid widow with property and three boys, who had nothing particularly shining about them but the straight hair of their dumpling heads.

These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patronage of the most offensive quality from every pore, had walked before him like three sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and had offered as pupils to Lucie’s husband: delicately saying “Halloa! here are three lumps of bread-and-cheese towards your matrimonial picnic, Darnay!” The polite rejection of the three lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite bloated Mr. Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account in the training of the young gentlemen, by directing them to beware of the pride of Beggars, like that tutor-fellow. He was also in the habit of declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his full-bodied wine, on the arts Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice to “catch” him, and on the diamond-cut-diamond arts in himself, madam, which had rendered him “not to be caught.” Some of his King’s Bench familiars, who were occasionally parties to the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for the latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed it himself—which is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of an originally bad offence, as to justify any such offender’s being carried off to some suitably retired spot, and there hanged out of the way.

These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes pensive, sometimes amused and laughing, listened in the echoing corner, until her little daughter was six years old. How near to her heart the echoes of her child’s tread came, and those of her own dear father’s, always active and self-possessed, and those of her dear husband’s, need not be told. Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by herself with such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant than any waste, was music to her. Nor, how there were echoes all about her, sweet in her ears, of the many times her father had told her that he found her more devoted to him married (if that could be) than single, and of the many times her husband had said to her that no cares and duties seemed to divide her love for him or her help to him, and asked her “What is the magic secret, my darling, of your being everything to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet never seeming to be hurried, or to have too much to do?”

But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly in the corner all through this space of time. And it was now, about little Lucie’s sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising.

On a night in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, Mr. Lorry came in late, from Tellson’s, and sat himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window. It was a hot, wild night, and they were all three reminded of the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning from the same place.

“I began to think,” said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, “that I should have to pass the night at Tellson’s. We have been so full of business all day, that we have not known what to do first, or which way to turn. There is such an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a run of confidence upon us! Our customers over there, seem not to be able to confide their property to us fast enough. There is positively a mania among some of them for sending it to England.”

“That has a bad look,” said Darnay—

“A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes, but we don’t know what reason there is in it. People are so unreasonable! Some of us at Tellson’s are getting old, and we really can’t be troubled out of the ordinary course without due occasion.”

“Still,” said Darnay, “you know how gloomy and threatening the sky is.”

“I know that, to be sure,” assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he grumbled, “but I am determined to be peevish after my long day’s botheration. Where is Manette?”

“Here he is,” said the Doctor, entering the dark room at the moment.

“I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and forebodings by which I have been surrounded all day long, have made me nervous without reason. You are not going out, I hope?”

“No; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you like,” said the Doctor.

“I don’t think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am not fit to be pitted against you to-night. Is the teaboard still there, Lucie? I can’t see.”

“Of course, it has been kept for you.”

“Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?”

“And sleeping soundly.”

“That’s right; all safe and well! I don’t know why anything should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; but I have been so put out all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and hear the echoes about which you have your theory.”

“Not a theory; it was a fancy.”

“A fancy, then, my wise pet,” said Mr. Lorry, patting her hand. “They are very numerous and very loud, though, are they not? Only hear them!”

Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody’s life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in the dark London window.

Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light above the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. A tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind: all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no matter how far off.

Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, no eye in the throng could have told; but, muskets were being distributed—so were cartridges, powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. People who could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding hands to force stones and bricks out of their places in walls. Every pulse and heart in Saint Antoine was on high-fever strain and at high-fever heat. Every living creature there held life as of no account, and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it.

As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging circled round Defarge’s wine-shop, and every human drop in the caldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defarge himself, already begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, thrust this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm another, laboured and strove in the thickest of the uproar.

“Keep near to me, Jacques Three,” cried Defarge; “and do you, Jacques One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the head of as many of these patriots as you can. Where is my wife?”

“Eh, well! Here you see me!” said madame, composed as ever, but not knitting to-day. Madame’s resolute right hand was occupied with an axe, in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle were a pistol and a cruel knife.

“Where do you go, my wife?”

“I go,” said madame, “with you at present. You shall see me at the head of women, by-and-bye.”

“Come, then!” cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. “Patriots and friends, we are ready! The Bastille!”

With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarm-bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach, the attack began.

Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the fire and through the smoke—in the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up against a cannon, and on the instant he became a cannonier—Defarge of the wine-shop worked like a manful soldier, Two fierce hours.

Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One drawbridge down! “Work, comrades all, work! Work, Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two Thousand, Jacques Five-and-Twenty Thousand; in the name of all the Angels or the Devils—which you prefer—work!” Thus Defarge of the wine-shop, still at his gun, which had long grown hot.

“To me, women!” cried madame his wife. “What! We can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!” And to her, with a shrill thirsty cry, trooping women variously armed, but all armed alike in hunger and revenge.

Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke; but, still the deep ditch, the single drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers. Slight displacements of the raging sea, made by the falling wounded. Flashing weapons, blazing torches, smoking waggonloads of wet straw, hard work at neighbouring barricades in all directions, shrieks, volleys, execrations, bravery without stint, boom smash and rattle, and the furious sounding of the living sea; but, still the deep ditch, and the single drawbridge, and the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers, and still Defarge of the wine-shop at his gun, grown doubly hot by the service of Four fierce hours.

A white flag from within the fortress, and a parley—this dimly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible in it—suddenly the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and swept Defarge of the wine-shop over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer walls, in among the eight great towers surrendered!

So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that even to draw his breath or turn his head was as impracticable as if he had been struggling in the surf at the South Sea, until he was landed in the outer courtyard of the Bastille. There, against an angle of a wall, he made a struggle to look about him. Jacques Three was nearly at his side; Madame Defarge, still heading some of her women, was visible in the inner distance, and her knife was in her hand. Everywhere was tumult, exultation, deafening and maniacal bewilderment, astounding noise, yet furious dumb-show.

“The Prisoners!”

“The Records!”

“The secret cells!”

“The instruments of torture!”

“The Prisoners!”

Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherences, “The Prisoners!” was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed in, as if there were an eternity of people, as well as of time and space. When the foremost billows rolled past, bearing the prison officers with them, and threatening them all with instant death if any secret nook remained undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of these men—a man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his hand—separated him from the rest, and got him between himself and the wall.

“Show me the North Tower!” said Defarge. “Quick!”

“I will faithfully,” replied the man, “if you will come with me. But there is no one there.”

“What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North Tower?” asked Defarge. “Quick!”

“The meaning, monsieur?”

“Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do you mean that I shall strike you dead?”

“Kill him!” croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up.

“Monsieur, it is a cell.”

“Show it me!”

“Pass this way, then.”

Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to promise bloodshed, held by Defarge’s arm as he held by the turnkey’s. Their three heads had been close together during this brief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do to hear one another, even then: so tremendous was the noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and its inundation of the courts and passages and staircases. All around outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from which, occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the air like spray.

Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone, past hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flights of steps, and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick, more like dry waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, linked hand and arm, went with all the speed they could make. Here and there, especially at first, the inundation started on them and swept by; but when they had done descending, and were winding and climbing up a tower, they were alone. Hemmed in here by the massive thickness of walls and arches, the storm within the fortress and without was only audible to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which they had come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing.

The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock, swung the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent their heads and passed in:

“One hundred and five, North Tower!”

There was a small, heavily-grated, unglazed window high in the wall, with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could be only seen by stooping low and looking up. There was a small chimney, heavily barred across, a few feet within. There was a heap of old feathery wood-ashes on the hearth. There was a stool, and table, and a straw bed. There were the four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them.

“Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see them,” said Defarge to the turnkey.

The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with his eyes.

“Stop!—Look here, Jacques!”

“A. M.!” croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily.

“Alexandre Manette,” said Defarge in his ear, following the letters with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained with gunpowder. “And here he wrote ‘a poor physician.’ And it was he, without doubt, who scratched a calendar on this stone. What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it me!”

He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made a sudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning on the worm-eaten stool and table, beat them to pieces in a few blows.

“Hold the light higher!” he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. “Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. And see! Here is my knife,” throwing it to him; “rip open that bed, and search the straw. Hold the light higher, you!”

With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the hearth, and, peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its sides with the crowbar, and worked at the iron grating across it. In a few minutes, some mortar and dust came dropping down, which he averted his face to avoid; and in it, and in the old wood-ashes, and in a crevice in the chimney into which his weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a cautious touch.

“Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?”

“Nothing.”

“Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell. So! Light them, you!”

The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot. Stooping again to come out at the low-arched door, they left it burning, and retraced their way to the courtyard; seeming to recover their sense of hearing as they came down, until they were in the raging flood once more.

They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself. Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop keeper foremost in the guard upon the governor who had defended the Bastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, and the people���s blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of worthlessness) be unavenged.

In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed to encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his grey coat and red decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that was a woman’s. “See, there is my husband!” she cried, pointing him out. “See Defarge!” She stood immovable close to the grim old officer, and remained immovable close to him; remained immovable close to him through the streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along; remained immovable close to him when he was got near his destination, and began to be struck at from behind; remained immovable close to him when the long-gathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy; was so close to him when he dropped dead under it, that, suddenly animated, she put her foot upon his neck, and with her cruel knife—long ready—hewed off his head.

The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his horrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he could be and do. Saint Antoine’s blood was up, and the blood of tyranny and domination by the iron hand was down—down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the governor’s body lay—down on the sole of the shoe of Madame Defarge where she had trodden on the body to steady it for mutilation. “Lower the lamp yonder!” cried Saint Antoine, after glaring round for a new means of death; “here is one of his soldiers to be left on guard!” The swinging sentinel was posted, and the sea rushed on.

The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of pity could make no mark on them.

But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression was in vivid life, there were two groups of faces—each seven in number—so fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly released by the storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high overhead: all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. Other seven faces there were, carried higher, seven dead faces, whose drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive faces, yet with a suspended—not an abolished—expression on them; faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped lids of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, “Thou Didst It!”

Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keys of the accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some discovered letters and other memorials of prisoners of old time, long dead of broken hearts,—such, and such—like, the loudly echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort through the Paris streets in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, and keep these feet far out of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, and dangerous; and in the years so long after the breaking of the cask at Defarge’s wine-shop door, they are not easily purified when once stained red.

[aangussca]

Gallery visit: MOMA (6.7.24) - PART 4

Exhibition description (found in all other exhibition locations for 24th Sydney Biennale): "Change - or mudança in Tadaskía's native language of Brazilian Portuguese - lies at the center of the multidisciplinary artist's practice. In her work across drawing, sculpture, and other media, Tadáskía employs an improvisational approach, conveying a sense of fluidity through her dynamic mark-making, nuanced imagery, and kaleidoscopic palette. Rather than pursue a complete or final image, the artist has explained: "I'm interested in the passage from one thing to another." Tadaskia's unbound book ave preta mística mystical black bird (2022) forms the centerpiece of this presentation. The work recounts a fantastical tale of "winged transformation," and pairs the artist's freeform drawings alongside her poetic, bilingual text. The images depicted in her colorful compositions, which she often initiates with closed eyes, vary and morph from one sheet to the next. They might appear as crescent moons and brilliant suns, or as ambiguous abstract shapes. Through the story, we are invited to follow its titular ave preta, or black bird, on her flight across earthly and divine realms, "towards a journey of freedom," informed by the artist's lived experience as a Black trans woman. For Projects: Tadáskía, the artist has produced an expansive wall drawing and a set of sculptures in response to this exhibition space. While her vigorous mark-making encourages us to trace her coursing and shifting lines, the organic materials used in her sculptures evoke the ephemeral life cycles of nature. Alongside the central role of change, as Tadáskia herself asserts, "the main character in the work is time.""

ave preta mística mystical black bird (2022, unbound illustrated book (pencil, colored pencil, oil pastel, and spray paint on torn paper, 61 sheets) - excerpt below)

Description: "While briefly hospitalized as a child, Tadáskía discovered reading, writing, and drawing as ways to imagine community. This work was inspired in part by a storybook she received during her hospital stay, and in the artist's words, serves as "a fable, but without the moral." The hopeful tale is also influenced by the writings of Black feminist thinkers like Audre Lorde. It begins with a dedication to her "Black sisters and Black brothers," to "Black women and Black trans people," as well as to "people who care about children and to people who are equally children at heart.""

Row 1: animated play Ill (brincando animada lIl) (2023/2024, mural - charcoal and dry pastel on wall)

Row 2: arrangement (arranjo) (2019/2024, diptych sculptural installation - bamboo, beachgrass, willow branches, wire, beads, eggshells sewn with gold thread, face powder, black liquid, clear liquid, plates, fruits, and vegetables on platforms with charcoal and dry pastel)

Description for animated play Ill (brincando animada lIl) (2023/2024): ""When I was drawing, my mother, Elenice Guarani, and my aunt, Gracilene Guarani, who are both Black, Afro-Indigenous women, told me to add more color because color is life," the artist has said. From her earliest art-making experiences as a child, collaboration has been a central aspect of Tadáskia's practice. To produce this large wall drawing, she worked with a team of assistants over several weeks as they built up its prismatic palette."

Description for arrangement (arranjo) (2019/2024): "In keeping with her improvisational approach, Tadáskia's sculptures are made in response to the exhibition site. She approaches their creation with an openness to materials - often organic - that will continue to change over time. Raised in the Pentecostal church, the artist sometimes incorporates objects, including cattails, beads, or stones, that are significant within various Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomblé. Her choice of materials derives from the relative magnetism of certain elements: "There is a vibration in things and people we meet, which sometimes pulls together, sometimes pulls apart.""

[celebration88]

I just heard words from one of my spiritual friends on YouTube it's commesising and 💌📪 I am shocked and embrassed so bad right now but also joyful and happy.

Am I taking a profound soulmate download right now but am I flying S-class to Sydney soon?

Cike Mate that's realistic I heard you through my power.

That was why I was meditating all day for and even in silence and the fact we are reverberating on another level of divide connection now and It always started with the divine feminine then the divine masculine follows her. But we are connecting in the phsyical 3d now very soon.

[scamsteal]

basic  information.  

full  name:  grace  edna  jackson. nickname/s:  gracie. alias:  none. name  meaning:  the  name  grace  is  of  latin  origin,  meaning  "goodness"  and  "generosity."  in  greek  mythology,  grace  refers  to  the  three  charites  or  graces  –  goddesses  of  charm,  beauty,  and  creativity.  grace  is  connected  to  the  religious  concept  of  divine  grace  –  the  love  and  mercy  freely  given  by  god. date  of  birth:  7  august,  1995  alongside  her  twin,  karen.  place  of  birth:  chicago,  illinois. gender:  cisfemale. pronouns:  she    &    her. sexual  orientation:  pansexual. occupation:  surgical  intern  (in  present  timeline) education:  highschool  graduate,  med  school  graduate. living  arrangements:  flat  shares  with  two  other  interns  or  still  living  in  the  jackson  house  with  sheila.  diet:  vegan.   physical  information.  

face  claim:  laura  slade  wiggins,  or  sydney  sweeney  (alternative).  hair:  blonde. eye  colour:  blue  with  hints  of  green.  height:  five  foot,  two  inches.  tattoos:  none. scars:  small  abdomen  scar  from  having  her  appendix  out  as  a  child.  piercings:  ears.  that  were  pierced  by  karen  with  a  needle  and  an  ice  cube  when  they  were  both  13  years  old. signature  scent:  lavender  sleep  spray,  antibacterial  handgel,  apple  shampoo,  cherry  yoghurt,  that  clinical  smell  that  always  lingers  from  the  hospital.  

familial  information.  

mother:  sheila  jackson  (nee  unknown). father:  edward  ‘eddie’  jackson,  deceased.  siblings:  karen  jackson,  twin.  extended  family:  hyram  ‘hymie’  jackson,  nephew  via  karen.  frank  gallagher,  former  step-father.  the  gallagher  children,  former  step-siblings.  jody  silverman,  former  brother-in-law  via  karen.  children:  none. pets:  three  goldfish  named  after  the  powerpuff  girls.  

any  other  information.  

grace  is  an  original  character  built  around  the  canon  fact  that  karen  jackson  had  a  twin  in  utero.  this  was  mentioned  by  sheila,  who  then  advised  karen  absorbed  said  twin,  but  what  if  she  didn’t?  karen  and  grace  were  instead  both  born  the  very  same  day,  with  karen  pushing  her  way  out  first.  a  slightly  smaller  grace  followed  close  behind.  it’s  a  pattern  that  becomes  all  too  familiar  and  continues  as  they  get  older.  

it  wasn’t  always  easy  being  karen’s  twin,  but  that  wasn’t  all  her  sister’s  fault.  grace  just  didn’t  develop  as  confidently  as  karen.  it’s  a  terrible  cliche  when  she  stops  to  think  about  it;  one  loud,  the  other  quiet.  one  bold,  the  other  nervous.  the  polar  opposite  of  one  another.  grace  would  love  to  pretend  there’s  more  substance  to  their  childhood,  but  it  really  was  just  that  simple.  grace  grew  up  hiding  behind  the  larger  than  life  character  that  was  karen  and  usually?  their  peers  forgot  she  was  even  there.  

grace  looked  up  to  her  twin  sister.  karen  was  the  strong  one  of  the  pair.  she  could  talk  to  boys  without  blushing  cheeks  and  stuttering  words.  she  took  the  brunt  of  their  mother’s  illness  so  that  grace  didn’t  have  to.  made  herself  the  subject  of  their  father’s  bitter  mood  swings,  so  he  didn’t  turned  attention  to  grace.  karen  protected  her  just  as  much  as  she  protected  sheila  and  grace  returns  the  favour  as  an  adult,  refusing  to  let  others  talk  shit  about  her  sister  even  if  people  perhaps  have  a  reason.  she  looked  up  to  her  completely.  

[renaissanceclassics]

A Tale of Two Cities - Book 2: Part 27

In 45 parts.

Echoing Footsteps

CHAPTER XXI. Echoing Footsteps

Awonderful corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the golden thread which bound her husband, and her father, and herself, and her old directress and companion, in a life of quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in the tranquilly resounding corner, listening to the echoing footsteps of years.

At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy young wife, when her work would slowly fall from her hands, and her eyes would be dimmed. For, there was something coming in the echoes, something light, afar off, and scarcely audible yet, that stirred her heart too much. Fluttering hopes and doubts—hopes, of a love as yet unknown to her: doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new delight—divided her breast. Among the echoes then, there would arise the sound of footsteps at her own early grave; and thoughts of the husband who would be left so desolate, and who would mourn for her so much, swelled to her eyes, and broke like waves.

That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound as they would, the young mother at the cradle side could always hear those coming. They came, and the shady house was sunny with a child’s laugh, and the Divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had confided hers, seemed to take her child in his arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her.

Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together, weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the echoes of years none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband’s step was strong and prosperous among them; her father’s firm and equal. Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an unruly charger, whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the earth under the plane-tree in the garden!

Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they were not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like her own, lay in a halo on a pillow round the worn face of a little boy, and he said, with a radiant smile, “Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to leave my pretty sister; but I am called, and I must go!” those were not tears all of agony that wetted his young mother’s cheek, as the spirit departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and forbid them not. They see my Father’s face. O Father, blessed words!

Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with the other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little garden-tomb were mingled with them also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed murmur—like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore—as the little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, or dressing a doll at her mother’s footstool, chattered in the tongues of the Two Cities that were blended in her life.

The Echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney Carton. Some half-dozen times a year, at most, he claimed his privilege of coming in uninvited, and would sit among them through the evening, as he had once done often. He never came there heated with wine. And one other thing regarding him was whispered in the echoes, which has been whispered by all true echoes for ages and ages.

No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her with a blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was a wife and a mother, but her children had a strange sympathy with him—an instinctive delicacy of pity for him. What fine hidden sensibilities are touched in such a case, no echoes tell; but it is so, and it was so here. Carton was the first stranger to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, and he kept his place with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken of him, almost at the last. “Poor Carton! Kiss him for me!”

Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging from his state of lion’s jackal, than any real jackal may be supposed to think of rising to be a lion. Stryver was rich; had married a florid widow with property and three boys, who had nothing particularly shining about them but the straight hair of their dumpling heads.

These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patronage of the most offensive quality from every pore, had walked before him like three sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and had offered as pupils to Lucie’s husband: delicately saying “Halloa! here are three lumps of bread-and-cheese towards your matrimonial picnic, Darnay!” The polite rejection of the three lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite bloated Mr. Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account in the training of the young gentlemen, by directing them to beware of the pride of Beggars, like that tutor-fellow. He was also in the habit of declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his full-bodied wine, on the arts Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice to “catch” him, and on the diamond-cut-diamond arts in himself, madam, which had rendered him “not to be caught.” Some of his King’s Bench familiars, who were occasionally parties to the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for the latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed it himself—which is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of an originally bad offence, as to justify any such offender’s being carried off to some suitably retired spot, and there hanged out of the way.

These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes pensive, sometimes amused and laughing, listened in the echoing corner, until her little daughter was six years old. How near to her heart the echoes of her child’s tread came, and those of her own dear father’s, always active and self-possessed, and those of her dear husband’s, need not be told. Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by herself with such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant than any waste, was music to her. Nor, how there were echoes all about her, sweet in her ears, of the many times her father had told her that he found her more devoted to him married (if that could be) than single, and of the many times her husband had said to her that no cares and duties seemed to divide her love for him or her help to him, and asked her “What is the magic secret, my darling, of your being everything to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet never seeming to be hurried, or to have too much to do?”

But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly in the corner all through this space of time. And it was now, about little Lucie’s sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising.

On a night in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, Mr. Lorry came in late, from Tellson’s, and sat himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window. It was a hot, wild night, and they were all three reminded of the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning from the same place.

“I began to think,” said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, “that I should have to pass the night at Tellson’s. We have been so full of business all day, that we have not known what to do first, or which way to turn. There is such an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a run of confidence upon us! Our customers over there, seem not to be able to confide their property to us fast enough. There is positively a mania among some of them for sending it to England.”

“That has a bad look,” said Darnay—

“A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes, but we don’t know what reason there is in it. People are so unreasonable! Some of us at Tellson’s are getting old, and we really can’t be troubled out of the ordinary course without due occasion.”

“Still,” said Darnay, “you know how gloomy and threatening the sky is.”

“I know that, to be sure,” assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he grumbled, “but I am determined to be peevish after my long day’s botheration. Where is Manette?”

“Here he is,” said the Doctor, entering the dark room at the moment.

“I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and forebodings by which I have been surrounded all day long, have made me nervous without reason. You are not going out, I hope?”

“No; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you like,” said the Doctor.

“I don’t think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am not fit to be pitted against you to-night. Is the teaboard still there, Lucie? I can’t see.”

“Of course, it has been kept for you.”

“Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?”

“And sleeping soundly.”

“That’s right; all safe and well! I don’t know why anything should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; but I have been so put out all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and hear the echoes about which you have your theory.”

“Not a theory; it was a fancy.”

“A fancy, then, my wise pet,” said Mr. Lorry, patting her hand. “They are very numerous and very loud, though, are they not? Only hear them!”

Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody’s life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in the dark London window.

Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light above the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. A tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind: all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no matter how far off.

Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, no eye in the throng could have told; but, muskets were being distributed—so were cartridges, powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. People who could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding hands to force stones and bricks out of their places in walls. Every pulse and heart in Saint Antoine was on high-fever strain and at high-fever heat. Every living creature there held life as of no account, and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it.

As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging circled round Defarge’s wine-shop, and every human drop in the caldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defarge himself, already begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, thrust this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm another, laboured and strove in the thickest of the uproar.

“Keep near to me, Jacques Three,” cried Defarge; “and do you, Jacques One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the head of as many of these patriots as you can. Where is my wife?”

“Eh, well! Here you see me!” said madame, composed as ever, but not knitting to-day. Madame’s resolute right hand was occupied with an axe, in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle were a pistol and a cruel knife.

“Where do you go, my wife?”

“I go,” said madame, “with you at present. You shall see me at the head of women, by-and-bye.”

“Come, then!” cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. “Patriots and friends, we are ready! The Bastille!”

With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarm-bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach, the attack began.

Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the fire and through the smoke—in the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up against a cannon, and on the instant he became a cannonier—Defarge of the wine-shop worked like a manful soldier, Two fierce hours.

Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One drawbridge down! “Work, comrades all, work! Work, Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two Thousand, Jacques Five-and-Twenty Thousand; in the name of all the Angels or the Devils—which you prefer—work!” Thus Defarge of the wine-shop, still at his gun, which had long grown hot.

“To me, women!” cried madame his wife. “What! We can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!” And to her, with a shrill thirsty cry, trooping women variously armed, but all armed alike in hunger and revenge.

Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke; but, still the deep ditch, the single drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers. Slight displacements of the raging sea, made by the falling wounded. Flashing weapons, blazing torches, smoking waggonloads of wet straw, hard work at neighbouring barricades in all directions, shrieks, volleys, execrations, bravery without stint, boom smash and rattle, and the furious sounding of the living sea; but, still the deep ditch, and the single drawbridge, and the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers, and still Defarge of the wine-shop at his gun, grown doubly hot by the service of Four fierce hours.

A white flag from within the fortress, and a parley—this dimly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible in it—suddenly the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and swept Defarge of the wine-shop over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer walls, in among the eight great towers surrendered!

So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that even to draw his breath or turn his head was as impracticable as if he had been struggling in the surf at the South Sea, until he was landed in the outer courtyard of the Bastille. There, against an angle of a wall, he made a struggle to look about him. Jacques Three was nearly at his side; Madame Defarge, still heading some of her women, was visible in the inner distance, and her knife was in her hand. Everywhere was tumult, exultation, deafening and maniacal bewilderment, astounding noise, yet furious dumb-show.

“The Prisoners!”

“The Records!”

“The secret cells!”

“The instruments of torture!”

“The Prisoners!”

Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherences, “The Prisoners!” was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed in, as if there were an eternity of people, as well as of time and space. When the foremost billows rolled past, bearing the prison officers with them, and threatening them all with instant death if any secret nook remained undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of these men—a man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his hand—separated him from the rest, and got him between himself and the wall.

“Show me the North Tower!” said Defarge. “Quick!”

“I will faithfully,” replied the man, “if you will come with me. But there is no one there.”

“What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North Tower?” asked Defarge. “Quick!”

“The meaning, monsieur?”

“Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do you mean that I shall strike you dead?”

“Kill him!” croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up.

“Monsieur, it is a cell.”

“Show it me!”

“Pass this way, then.”

Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to promise bloodshed, held by Defarge’s arm as he held by the turnkey’s. Their three heads had been close together during this brief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do to hear one another, even then: so tremendous was the noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and its inundation of the courts and passages and staircases. All around outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from which, occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the air like spray.

Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone, past hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flights of steps, and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick, more like dry waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, linked hand and arm, went with all the speed they could make. Here and there, especially at first, the inundation started on them and swept by; but when they had done descending, and were winding and climbing up a tower, they were alone. Hemmed in here by the massive thickness of walls and arches, the storm within the fortress and without was only audible to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which they had come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing.

The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock, swung the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent their heads and passed in:

“One hundred and five, North Tower!”

There was a small, heavily-grated, unglazed window high in the wall, with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could be only seen by stooping low and looking up. There was a small chimney, heavily barred across, a few feet within. There was a heap of old feathery wood-ashes on the hearth. There was a stool, and table, and a straw bed. There were the four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them.

“Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see them,” said Defarge to the turnkey.

The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with his eyes.

“Stop!—Look here, Jacques!”

“A. M.!” croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily.

“Alexandre Manette,” said Defarge in his ear, following the letters with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained with gunpowder. “And here he wrote ‘a poor physician.’ And it was he, without doubt, who scratched a calendar on this stone. What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it me!”

He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made a sudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning on the worm-eaten stool and table, beat them to pieces in a few blows.

“Hold the light higher!” he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. “Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. And see! Here is my knife,” throwing it to him; “rip open that bed, and search the straw. Hold the light higher, you!”

With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the hearth, and, peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its sides with the crowbar, and worked at the iron grating across it. In a few minutes, some mortar and dust came dropping down, which he averted his face to avoid; and in it, and in the old wood-ashes, and in a crevice in the chimney into which his weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a cautious touch.

“Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?”

“Nothing.”

“Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell. So! Light them, you!”

The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot. Stooping again to come out at the low-arched door, they left it burning, and retraced their way to the courtyard; seeming to recover their sense of hearing as they came down, until they were in the raging flood once more.

They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself. Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop keeper foremost in the guard upon the governor who had defended the Bastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, and the people’s blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of worthlessness) be unavenged.

In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed to encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his grey coat and red decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that was a woman’s. “See, there is my husband!” she cried, pointing him out. “See Defarge!” She stood immovable close to the grim old officer, and remained immovable close to him; remained immovable close to him through the streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along; remained immovable close to him when he was got near his destination, and began to be struck at from behind; remained immovable close to him when the long-gathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy; was so close to him when he dropped dead under it, that, suddenly animated, she put her foot upon his neck, and with her cruel knife—long ready—hewed off his head.

The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his horrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he could be and do. Saint Antoine’s blood was up, and the blood of tyranny and domination by the iron hand was down—down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the governor’s body lay—down on the sole of the shoe of Madame Defarge where she had trodden on the body to steady it for mutilation. “Lower the lamp yonder!” cried Saint Antoine, after glaring round for a new means of death; “here is one of his soldiers to be left on guard!” The swinging sentinel was posted, and the sea rushed on.

The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of pity could make no mark on them.

But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression was in vivid life, there were two groups of faces—each seven in number—so fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly released by the storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high overhead: all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. Other seven faces there were, carried higher, seven dead faces, whose drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive faces, yet with a suspended—not an abolished—expression on them; faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped lids of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, “Thou Didst It!”

Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keys of the accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some discovered letters and other memorials of prisoners of old time, long dead of broken hearts,—such, and such—like, the loudly echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort through the Paris streets in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, and keep these feet far out of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, and dangerous; and in the years so long after the breaking of the cask at Defarge’s wine-shop door, they are not easily purified when once stained red.

[sharmaspaneer]

Discover the Delightful World of Paneer in Sydney

Paneer, the beloved fresh cheese of India, is a culinary delight that has captivated food enthusiasts across the globe. With its creamy texture, mild flavor, and versatility in various dishes, Indian paneer has earned its place as a staple ingredient in Indian cuisine.

A Brief History and Origins of Paneer

Paneer holds a significant place in Indian culinary traditions, with its origins dating back centuries. The word "paneer" is derived from the Persian term "panir," meaning cheese.

It is believed that paneer was introduced to India by Persian and Afghan influences, and over time, it became an integral part of Indian regional cuisines.

Paneer in Indian Cuisine: A Culinary Chameleon

One of the remarkable qualities of paneer is its ability to adapt to a myriad of flavours and cooking techniques. Whether it's simmering in aromatic curries, grilling on skewers, or adding a luscious touch to desserts, Indian paneer shines in every role.

Here are some popular dishes that you can create if you want to relish paneer in Sydney:

• Paneer Tikka: Succulent cubes of paneer marinated in a blend of yogurt and spices, and grilled to perfection. Served with mint chutney, this appetizer is a crowd-pleaser at gatherings and parties.

• Palak Paneer: A classic North Indian dish where paneer is gently simmered in vibrant spinach gravy with aromatic spices. Its creamy texture and delightful flavors make it a favorite among vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.

• Mattar Paneer: A comforting combination of paneer and green peas cooked in a rich tomato-based gravy. The sweetness of the peas complements the mildness of paneer, creating a harmonious and satisfying dish.

• Paneer Butter Masala: Indulge in the heavenly blend of paneer simmered in a velvety tomato and cashew-based sauce. Its creamy, mildly spiced flavors make it a luxurious treat for special occasions.

Beyond Savory: Paneer in Desserts

Paneer's versatility doesn't end with savory dishes; it also adds a delightful touch to desserts. One such example is the popular Rasgulla. Here, paneer is kneaded, shaped into balls, and cooked in a sugar syrup infused with cardamom. The result is soft, spongy cheese balls soaked in sweet syrup. It is a divine treat for those with a sweet tooth.

The Bottom Line

Paneer, with its rich history, delightful taste, and versatility, has become a beloved ingredient in Indian cuisine. If you are looking for the best Indian paneer in Australia, Sharma’s Paneer is the perfect place. The quality and taste are outstanding and it can bring joy to your taste buds. Use this paneer to get a glimpse into the vibrant world of Indian gastronomy.

[hereallbecauseofsoup]

January 18th, 2023

(Quietly I standstill adoring him, enjoying our time together, hoping only for the best)

A Sermon to my Friend who I Can’t Help but Be in Love With 

-Written whilst listening to Weatherglow, foxtails and death’s dynamic shroud - but I’m your biggest fan

I’m telling myself you won’t see this, so it’s okay to speak truthfully and be enamoured by your divinity. I’ve never had as much faith as I do in you. Know that our friendship holds the utmost importance to me but know too that my fondness has multitudes. It’s platonic but also something more. I recall our walk to Elyssa’s place before you left for Sydney, you tell me stories of lust but nothing more. I don’t remember it word for word. You tell me people like you for what they find on the surface but not for everything else that makes you up. You feel like those initial feelings don’t really mean much and I agree. I tell you a different story. Someone meets you and they find those things and they like them just the same. Over time they get to know you and they begin to love those things. They love your frantic smile, your openness to others, and your embrace. They love that you’re goofy and that you’re smart. They love how you love. More so than any of that, more so than what’s immediately obvious about you, they learn of everything else that makes you up. They may have come to love what they initially knew but now they’re aware of so many other assets that they admire, that they adore. How you get when you’re sleepy, or when you’re in your glasses and focused, the way you tell a story, your boundless passion. You agree hesitantly, I hope you know that’s how it happened here but I don’t think you do. I don’t think you believe me. Maybe you’ve never experienced it before so it’s hard to perceive. 

It feels like a lifetime ago when you taught me about entropy. I recall us making out in front of the Museum that night, I hadn’t been there that late before but I’d soon be there that late all the time. You were on top of me, on top of the grass. I had been there before. Had you? That night you kissed the tattoo on the back of my neck too. I never want to forget that these times existed. I wonder how well you remember them. I wonder if you remember me finding the freckles you didn’t know you had. I wonder if any of it meant a thing if it was even remembered in the morning. I remember the dream I had of you where I chased your text messages up a crowded staircase and into the sky. I remember when you had me up against the bricks and I remember the taste of your lips. I should’ve learnt when I was little to take the words of a drunken sailor at sea with lime and a grain of salt. 

I meant that when I told you that I saw you as my best friend. I still do despite being so withdrawn. Every bad memory on these streets has been replaced with ones of you. When I walk them alone you’re who I think about, when I heard beabadoobee play "Talk" at The Forum you’re the reason I cried into Minnie’s boobs. When we watch a movie I wonder if it’s okay that I’m mostly watching you, watch it. I recall you yelling at me across the street to take out my earphones but I can’t hear it. I can never hear it. Eventually, I see you though and it’s funny. I’ll never take them out because I like that sight. I recall every time you haven’t let me cross my arms. They’re important to me. I recall hearing you snore from the other end of the line, it isn’t normally a sign for me to hang up but instead one that you’ll be okay. I find you, even to this day, consistently eye-opening and exhilarating. Your presence captivates and holds significance. You’re most comparable to a bright light or tight hug, the way you bring joy to the world around you. I found the note I wrote you when I was thinking of ending things last year. I also found the video I made about you, I thought it was deleted for good but I was wrong. It is now. Somehow that embarrasses me but this doesn’t. I feel like I know you quite well now but I’m forever wanting to discover more about you and I’d like to know what you’re thinking at all times. 

I thought how I felt would stagnate but it never has. I tend to think everybody I meet is my first love, I won’t say you are but I haven’t felt it again since we met. You make me feel like the song “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes. That’s the greatest love song ever written by the way. At times you’re a calm breeze of wind swirling my chest and at others, a pulsating firework show gently tearing it apart. I met you with the optimistic nativity of a Disney princess. I wasn’t sure if you were even human or if life was real. Feeling lovestruck isn’t abnormal for me but snapping out of it is. Living in the moment, and letting life go on is what I did with you, and what I still do, that’s how I know meeting you was pivotal. That this connection is something profound. I’ve stopped replaying those initial days of running up to you in my head, instead, I just run up to you. I refuse to be consumed by my feelings but I keep telling others I’m not what they want because they’re not what I want. I guess I’ve got what I want but I still need to know where to put this love I hold, it’s for you. How do you make me feel this way? What else can I do? Is the only thing left resentment? What else is there? 

I don’t have to try to nourish our companionship, to keep you as I do with most. I think you’ll be here no matter what. Thank you for contributing to my happiness. My friend, I’d travel through infinite made-up suburbs just to see your face. I love you. 

[krs724490]

12/20/2022

I’m here to talk about breathwork, turning the page, and why the word unbelievable shouldnt be commonly used. I’m here to write about her. and my desire to know every inch of her. and how I will document and familiarize myself with her.

Yesterday I tried breathwork for the first time with Amarsi. It was completely transformative. It started by pointing out the areas of my body that were crying out for help. My traps and my mid back had been so tight recently. It gently whispered to me “you need to take care of that” and I knew immediately that I did. That I had been neglecting that and I truly needed to step back and look at it. It then brought up this fight in me. I was laboring to keep this fast, active breath. I was working so hard at it. and it brought up the emotion of all the effort I have put in these last 5 years. How much heart I have put into finding my highest self. Although at times it took me steps backward - I thought about how the whole time I just there trying my best. There was never any ill will. Every moment of the past 5 years was me doing what I thought was best with the consciousness I had. I had the most pure intentions and the most dedicated heart. I realized I had been here all along. The girl I was searching for was there through it all. She was just underneath a bunch of garbage and I chose to see the garbage instead of the girl at the root of it all. For the first time I met her. I recognized her. Instantly I was sent back in time. I watched my past self going through the motions, thinking I was failing, when in reality she was there gently guiding me the whole time. I just never stopped to acknowledge her. She was the one who pushed me towards VASA and then nudged me to quit. She brought me to B. She sat with me in Thailand. She held my hand as I walked around Ann Arbor not wanting to go home and eat. She fought tooth and nail for her highest expression to be recognized in every moment. She was my gut telling me what to do. She did make herself known. She was THERE. I just didnt identify with her. I didn’t feel her. I identified more with the falsities that covered her. But in breathwork I saw. She instantly made it known some of her preferences. Some of the places where she is most present. Some of the things that take her out. I could feel my chest super constricted and I knew it was bc of the caffeine I’d been drinking. It makes my heart beat fast and irregular and constricts my chest. I knew it had to go. I also envisioned myself in the SLO high ride room and knew that was my home. I saw myself talking to Megan and looking her dead in the eye with such a focus and a genuine curiosity to learn. I knew I was my highest self in those moments. It was so refreshing to know her on that intimate level and for the first time feel her power. I know I am able to better tap into her now that I’ve felt her, seen her, acknowledged her and know better what she wants.

I also saw a vision about Sydney healing to 200% capacity. My thought was simply “she is next” she is going to figure this out. life. I just could sense it.

Anywho. I pray that I can know every inch of my highest self. What music she listens to. What her favorite scent is. What shampoo she uses. What colors she wears. How often she shaves. I found out today she cleans her hair out of the brush after every shower. Im setting the intention to call her in as much as I can this week through the practices I have. I’m also setting the intention to keep my back loose. To stretch it and not strain it through tense cardio. This week I will move slow and I will not push through ignoring my body. I will tend to it because it is the most sacred, most holy, most divine physical thing I will ever possess. I pray I can look within and truly listen and act on her.

Amen

[achromatic-morality]

( sydney ashborne ) was just spotted in amsterdam. rumor has it ( he ) is a ( 2000 / appears 28 ) year old ( fallen angel ) who resembles ( francisco lachowski ). ( he ) has been said to be ( adaptive & patient ) but also quite ( scrutinizing & unpredictable ).with all the chaos surrounding the magical underworld, ( he ) has chosen to align with ( the fallen angels ). ( he ) is currently serving as ( a member of the inner circle of fallen ). hopefully the city doesn’t devour them whole.

Name: sydney ashborne Race: fallen angel Alignment: fallen angels Role: inner circle of fallen angels Age: 2000+ / 28 years Gender: male Sexuality: homosexual

[History]

Before the Fall

Being one of the first, those among the angelic named by God for themselves, the archangel Sandalphon, he carried the burden of tending to the unborn without wavering. For a long while he was happy, devoted in his love of both the creator and the tiny flickers of new life he watched over. But, being one of the most gentle mannered and sharp-minded of the angelic he was tasked with a short lifetime on earth as a prophet when God needed certain things to come to pass. He was equally resolved to that task but when he returned he carried with him new emotions, new lessons learned from mortals; and the most puzzling of them all was doubt.

He watched, time and again, while God tested and toyed with their creations to the point of destruction. It was not the efforts of a loving creator guiding, it was the cruel hand that pushed and pushed until they broke, growing only increasingly more distant.

He felt the pain watching more and more as the sparks of life held in his care were burned out short, tiny souls never allowed to take their first breath or open their eyes through circumstance or, worse still, willful intention. It was a loss he felt, one by one, so pointless and cold. What was the use in granting life a chance to flourish only to have it stolen before it even began?

In the After

When he took the step, let himself fall, it was not an act of rebellion. Sydney had no reason left to rebel, he simply wanted to hold the choices ahead of him in his own hands. He long ago lost confidence in the idea of good and evil as anything but circumstance and necessity in the moment; all the world was shades of grey that he finally could speak out loud without fear of knowing what he would lose for his certainty.

Letting go of his old purpose entirely, leaving behind his title and the name granted him, Sydney rebuilt from the ashes of the grey that stained his once ivory wings. But a part of him was created for certain things, even with emotions and self finally closer to human than only the distance chill of his archangel brethren he still could not fully turn away from those around him. He wanted peace, silence, time to reflect after his centuries of unknown confusion, only to find himself handed a new role within the inner circle of the fallen angels.

His age was their benefit, his place so close to God and named by them, his power a rare advantage; but it wasn't any of those that convinced Sydney to take the offer. He simply looked around him at the scattered, disjointed lot that made up the fallen and decided that, much like the children he had always deeply loved and watched grow from before birth, they needed him. He couldn't abandon them.

The World is a Twisting Path

Sydney had become a looming presence, an ancient power that the angelic were wary of and the fallen fell to respecting for the most part. The world offered him escape, comfortable distraction and a new direction. He cares nothing for good or evil, neither for the divides in the races nor for the wars threatening to bubble up. If he must fight he will, viciously if need be, but until that point he acts as voice of reason to his less stable fallen counterparts and stands between them and their own destruction. He holds mutual regard for anyone really, friendly enough, bemused by the oddities of those around him. He intends to enjoy his freedom, damned or not, because people are simply people no matter what form they wear and he knows the true enemy is the God who abandoned them all a very long time when they grew bored with their toys.

[Basic info]

In spite of the deeper sorrow he feels Sydney is easy-going to a fault on the surface much of the time, more level-headed than most. His emotions scatter wildly but he doesn’t often let that get the best of him. Not unless someone hits a nerve, usually said nerves involving people he cares about or kids or baby animals. He’s also friendly, in a lazy sort of way, pleasant all and all for one of those with tainted blood in their veins. He has his limits, of course, but he’s one of the lesser of supposed evils when it comes to being fallen; he doesn’t want a war unless he can have one with God themselves for what they’ve done to the world in their playing games with life.

Sydney mourns for the lives that never are allowed to be, even now. He does his mourning in private and well away from the other fallen, but he still feels the spark of life end in the unborn and it deeply wounds him. Some part of him considers these lost souls connected to him, a memory only he knows as what they might have been. In his days as an archangel he was always there beside grieving mothers who never saw their hopes take a first breath. For every birth cry that was never heard Sydney was there to shed his own sorrow and hold the fragile soul that slipped away. As one of the fallen he feels this pain even more strongly and is intensely watchful of those he can sense life growing within. For those who destroy such things with cold indifference he has, privately, become something of a demon, a nightmare, no longer holding back in exacting revenge for those who were never granted a way to defend themselves. 

When he first fell Sydney threw himself into traveling, he moved from place to place with a wanderlust he’d never known before. There were things in the world he found amazing and to be part of the human experience actually brought him some comfort. He wandered the world for a few decades before finding the state of the other fallen and settling in Amsterdam with the role he took up for their sake but even now he longs for what felt like real freedom; to roam without purpose weighing him down.

Envy is something of a vice for Sydney, because he does indeed envy mortals and their freedom of choice. He was created a certain way, to be a certain thing, and his path was set before him with expectations that he would never question. When he did it came with the cost of some of what he was. For mortals to be born with a clean slate and possibilities of their own design he has always felt a little slighted. He makes his own choices now but even then it’s at a cost, knowing he won’t feel the sort of peace he once knew now that he’s damned himself for the chance at deciding his own fate.

Children are another thing mortals have the capacity for that he greatly envies. He would be perfectly happy having a family, he was after all created with a deep affection for the unborn and he adores children. But as an angel he knows it’s not likely, and being gay makes that an even more complicated matter. Compounded with the sheer danger he exists within as part of the inner circle of the fallen angels he can’t imagine that want is ever going to be fulfilled.

Of course family overall is a sore spot. His twin sibling Metatron has been lost to him for a very long time. He neither knows if they can hear any of his prayers or even they even want to, or if the fall has put a wall between them that can never be torn down. He deeply misses the bond they used to have, but it seems to be something else lost to time.

He compensates somewhat for the things he can’t have by trying to look after those around him. His fallen ‘siblings’ of course, but it makes no real difference to Sydney what race anyone is if they’re in a dire situation. He views angels as his still distant ‘cousins’, much to the irritation of many of the fallen, and humans and werewolves not exactly as equals but still not anything to loathe simply for being different. He actually finds them fascinating and admirable in their determination and ability to survive. His basic nature is that of a caregiver, that tends to extend a bit too far at times.

He was once an archangel though, so he’s not incapable of holding his own, just usually prefers not to fight for the simple sake of it. If necessity he will, but short of that he is sharply intelligent and tries to work his way around problems. His role in past wars was more in making plans and tending to the injured than outright fighting. He certainly can though if need be, and since falling that skill has turned more vicious than it used to be, dangerous in the lack of control he can maintain in the heat of battle. Strategy is what he brings strongest to the table within the circle, that and his willingness to bridge the gaps. He’ll step outside the security of dealing with the fallen to approach angels or any other race if it brings change, quick to volunteer for such things in order to keep some of the bad blood out of the equation with his own passive outlook towards his ‘cousins’ and the mortals.

Given his opinions of God as a whole Sydney is very questioning of those in power, even the ones who lead the fallen. He doesn’t care to stand toe to toe with them if he feels their actions are foolish or reckless, pointing that much out in flat terms. He’s a follower by choice but certainly not because he feels he needs to be in order to stay safe.’

 [Wanted Connections]

Past connections

Metatron // Open // Angel or Fallen Angel

Sydney hasn't seen his twin sibling since breaking away from heaven a good century ago. While he has attempted contact now and then it seems unlikely that the angel who serves as the voice of God is going to hear the words of the fallen. He still has no idea where his sibling is and what their opinions of him are now. In the past the two had a warm, if not typical sibling teasing relationship at times, but Metatron being the busier of the two there was some distance between them. Open to pretty much anything with this one.

Other angels // Open // Angels or Fallen Angels

Since he was one of the first created after Adam and Eve discovered how to create life, and thus God needed someone to look after the unborn until they were to join their earthly parents, he has ties to other angels. An archangel himself, but one of the 'lesser' ones, he still held some command over others. It was never really a point he practiced though, always a bit curious and quiet by nature. Now though, as one of the fallen, his old ties might be new enemies, or old friends cautious about the dangers of that friendship.

Almost soulmate // Open // Angel or Fallen Angel

Sydney had one once, he thought, but his ideals ran too wild and said person stepped back. Given that he existed to look after the unborn it was only natural that in time and watching how the humans existed he came to the conclusion that he wanted such things as well. For an angel though that was impossible, a point of strain between himself and the one he thought was meant for him and, eventually, part of the reason they distanced from each other. Now fallen, Sydney has all but let the memories fade. It was never meant to be, he was mistaken, but the pain still lingers somewhere and maybe the best he can do is salvage a friendship with them.

Antagonist // Open // Angel or Fallen Angel

While he had a habit of keeping to himself and watching the human world, there was one who Sydney is certain took some sort of pleasure in riling him up. Constantly annoying him about his shortcomings as an Archangel who didn't step up to fight, more or less just making his life frustrating. Ironically though the tension between them is what taught Sydney that he could rebel in the end, pushed too far, he lashed out and discovered that he was not simply a follower to the will of God. This person pushed him to that first step that would lead to his fall and at the time the two were constantly at odds but now Sydney has realized he might owe them for that. It still doesn't mean they get along though, not yet anyway.

Current Connections

'Siblings' // Open // Fallen Angel

While Sydney keeps an eye on most of his fallen 'siblings', this one has earned a soft spot with him. For whatever reason he's taken to looking after them, trying to steer them in the right direction and more often than not getting himself into trouble because of them. But it's not such a bad thing, they're helping him step more and more into the sort of freedom he's always wanted, letting go of things and enjoying the world. So it's a mutual benefit really, that chaos. Helping him shake off his reservations and really enjoy life now and he needs that more than he realizes. Unfortunately they’re also stirring up a bit of impulsive nature he didn’t know he had but maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Mortal Counterpart // Open // Human or Werewolf

Sydney finds humans and their sort fascinating, mortals in general really. This one is an oddity and he enjoys their company for all the strange notions they bring with them. It's a bit eye-opening what he's discovered along the way from them and ultimately there's a hint of fear behind it knowing how fragile and short-lived mortals are. The pain of losing that friendship one day has him acting somewhat as looming protector to them, true, but he really can't help it.

Best Friend // Open // Vampire // Taken by Felix

An old friend and off and on lover over the years, Sydney has maintained a comfortable friendship with this person. They met early after his fall and when he realized he liked his company Sydney stuck around. They've had periods of distance because life had gone different ways but still run back across each other. There's something comfortable between them and Sydney considers them to be his best friend and confidant.

Soulmate // Open // Any

After thinking he'd found it in the past and lost it the fact that there is someone who he connects to so entirely is going to be startling for Sydney.  The person that Sydney finds both his opposite and partner in crime, something missing he didn't expect to find at all. 

[Tags] 

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