#composition came from my wife ... god bless them

[tragiccomedyenthusiast]

still not sure how i wanna draw this guy waaa

[planetesastraea]

On the tip of his tongue

Read Part 1: On the Tip of his Fingers

Geraskier, Modern AU - Explicit - 10 179 words - Warnings: none

Character study, developing relationship, banter, feelings, Geralt vs words, bisexual!Geralt, bottom!Geralt, top!Jaskier, first time, handjobs, blowjobs, anal sex. Also contains pizza (mentioned)

Betaed by the wonderful @oxbridge-quality-fanfiction-co​​

Read on AO3

-

That morning Jaskier got woken up by a soft but firm hand on his shoulder and a husky voice saying his name.

“Hmmf?” was his very articulate reply, definitely worthy of the Creative Writing and Composition in Medieval Times professor he was. “Three words or less,” he would always say to motivate his students to answer questions during class and to start a conversation. Damn, they would have been proud.

“I gotta go,” the deep voice whispered and the previous evening suddenly came back to Jaskier. Geralt. Wow. Geralt . He sat up and blinked a few times before realising his eyes were open but the sun wasn’t up yet. Geralt was but a silhouette in the dark, his smell a mix of long-forgotten aftershave and well remembered sex.

“Mmokay,” Jaskier mumbled, rubbing one eye with his palm. “Thanks for telling me,” he said sleepily. There was a pause and he realised the sentence didn’t land well.

“Sorry. Didn’t want to sneak out,” Geralt replied tightly.

“Yeano, yeah- I meant it. Sorry. Me,” Jaskier said, pointing towards his own face in the dark, and thus proving the point to no one but himself, “not a morning person.”

Geralt snorted softly. Jaskier was overcome with a powerful wave of fondness and a guttural need to reach out and kiss him. Gods bless adorable bi himbos at law.

“I should get going,” Geralt said and Jaskier thought he heard some hesitation in his voice. The mattress dipped slightly as Geralt moved to stand up, and Jaskier reached out blindly. His hand found the inside of Geralt’s elbow and then slid down softly to the man’s wrist, finding his palm.

“Wait,” Jaskier said and Geralt waited. Then it dawned on him that he was supposed to say something . “Do you want to… see me again?” he offered, truly bringing his A-game as the (supposedly) most romantic man in the continent. (He was not boasting. It had simply been brought to his attention by many of his exes, and who was he to question the opinion of the people?) He tried not to sound too hopeful but it was too early in the morning and his acting skills needed a warm-up. After all, one couldn’t just naturally wake up that good.

The silence stretched in a way that made him uncomfortable, especially since Geralt was practically invisible in front of him. Geralt’s fingers brushed his and something in his chest relaxed, but only for a moment.

“I can’t,” Geralt started, making Jaskier’s heart drop, “make promises.”

And okay that wasn’t the worst he could have said but also - uh what ? “Okay? Well I- I’m not asking you to?”

“Hmm.”

“Geralt, I- I had a really nice time with you, you know? And I’d really like to have more… nice times with you. And not just sex, I mean, yes, sex was fantastic, it was , but also, well- what I mean is, I don’t expect you to like, abandon your life or whatever, I just-” he was running out of breath. “Gosh I’m talking too much again, fuck, please, say something? I’m getting zero feedback here and you have to know I’m gonna keep talking until you cut me off-”

“Sorry,” Geralt sighed, his fingers threading between Jaskier’s. “It’s just- This is… I haven’t been with someone in a while and,” he said with hesitation and left the sentence unfinished.

And never with a man , Jaskier thought, pretty sure of what was coming next. “Right,” he said, feeling his throat tighten. Not like he wasn’t used to falling for people who just didn’t have the same life plan- or day plan , even.

“But I think I would,” Geralt said, “like to see you again, I mean.”

“Wait, what?“ Jaskier’s brain derailed.

“I’d like to see you again?” Geralt repeated and it sounded even better the second time.

“Oh.”

"I… had a nice time, too.”

“Oh. Good,” Jaskier whispered, relief washing over him and unlocking the door to yearning. He moved forward, closer to Geralt, his hand sliding up to his shoulder, finding his cheek and feeling the beginning of a stubble under his fingers. “Good,” Jaskier murmured again. Feeling Geralt lean into him was the best reward. He moved his head closer and his nose rubbed softly against Geralt’s, the intimacy sweeter than some of the sex he’d had in the past.

Geralt inclined his head slightly and pressed a chaste, tender kiss against Jaskier’s lips.

Once they parted, phone numbers were exchanged and the soft wish of getting in touch soon was expressed - or, rather, as Jaskier put it as he walked Geralt to the door, “in touch and, well, in touch .” A freaking poet.

-

The morning after they “had a milkshake” - as Jaskier nicknamed their first close encounter - Geralt had gone home right before sunrise to find Eskel wide awake, sitting on the living room couch, a book on his lap. Eskel had looked at him, raised an eyebrow, and pressed his lips together to suppress a smile. “Coffee?” was all he had said and Geralt had been oh so grateful.

In the days that followed, he learned a bit more about Jaskier. He taught both poetry and musicology at university, gave private lessons, and performed with his band from time to time. Spring meant preparing finals, helping students to rehearse for auditions, and getting ready for the upcoming festivals The Bard would participate in. Between his schedule and Geralt’s, over a month had gone before they saw each other in the flesh again. But texting? Texting was definitely a Jaskier thing.

A couple of hours after Geralt had left, Jaskier had sent him a text saying “my bed misses you” . Geralt had promptly walked from one meeting to another, only realising at 6.30 pm during a phone call from Assengard, as he caught sight of the restaurant from across the street, that he had left Jaskier hanging. He tried to think of something clever on his way to pick Ciri up from her fencing class. To his surprise, his idea had worked very well on Jaskier.

Of course, as with most things concerning Jaskier, Geralt quickly discovered, it was prone to get out of hand. The man had decided that “the milkshake” would become “a thing”. The fact that Geralt’s favourite order at Denise’s included a vanilla milkshake with cream on top was apparently hilarious for reasons Geralt could not understand.

Since then, Geralt would receive texts from Jaskier every few days, ranging from “thinking of u” to “which one of these says ‘I am a 100%-responsible adult person who will turn your child into a virtuoso if you allow me to teach them?’” with a picture of two button-down shirts attached.

Geralt had left him on read , the bastard.

-

After the six most frustrating weeks of his life - yes, more frustrating than the whole summer he spent sharing a flat with a Spanish model who had very loud, very heterosexual sex on the other side of their paper-thin, shared bedroom wall - Jaskier finally got his hands back on his favourite lawyer’s ass.

They had agreed Geralt would meet him at his place that Friday after work. And so, Jaskier spent the afternoon trying to convince himself he could mark students’ essays, and was absolutely not in the hellish head-space where nervousness meets horniness. (He made it through five so he counted it as a win.)

He had changed outfits three times in two hours, and had promised Essi he absolutely was not falling for some seemingly perfect person who would then turn out to have a secret wife, three children and a dog (“Well since you’re asking, he has a very public ex-wife, one daughter, and a horse.” “A horse?” “Yup.” “What the hell?” “I have no fucking clue.”)

Jaskier was busy adjusting a sofa pillow to make it appear tidy-but-casual when the bell rang, making him jump out of his skin.

When he opened the door, Geralt looked like he was two seconds away from running back down the stairs and disappearing forever in some mysterious vineyard near Toussaint. Geralt, being the absolute asshole that he was, also looked like a fucking god amongst humans so Jaskier’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of him once again. He had almost forgotten how stunning the man was.

“Hi,” Geralt said.

Jaskier shook himself out of his dreamy smitten state and felt a tingle in his cheeks as he blushed. “Hey, come on in,” he said, waving the man inside.

Geralt had his hair tied in a casual bun and was wearing a black winter coat way above Jaskier’s pay grade. Gods, what a sight. Jaskier was fucked .

“Are you-”

“So how’s-”

They both started and stopped at the same time, which made Jaskier laugh and Geralt shake his head as he looked away, a side of his mouth rising into a smile. Boy, Jaskier thought, if Geralt was half as fond of him as he was of Geralt, they’d be married in three years, move to a farm in five, and adopt every stray dog in the area a year after that at the latest.

“Can I take your coat?” Jaskier offered.

As Geralt nodded, Jaskier got his hands on the lapels of Geralt’s coat, fingers absent-mindedly pressing against Geralt’s chest, feeling the soft wool, and the strong pecs underneath all the layers. A moment passed and he realised Geralt hadn’t moved an inch. He stopped staring at his own hand and, as he looked up, realised Geralt was looking at him. Or more like, looking at his mouth.

There was a beat and they both moved forward, catching each other’s lips.

“Fuck, is it ok to say I’ve missed you?” Jaskier breathed between two kisses.

“Hmm,” Geralt replied, pushing Jaskier against the door and leaving his lips to kiss and suck the skin of his neck.

“Ah, okay, I’ll take that as a yes,” he half-moaned and got Geralt’s mouth back against his, kissing like he just couldn’t get enough- because he couldn’t. Geralt got rid of his coat, letting it fall onto the floor.

“M-maybe we should take a second to hang it. It looks expensive.”

“It’s a gift from my ex,” Geralt mumbled against Jaskier’s skin, biting tentatively at his Adam’s apple.

“Or we could stomp all over it,” Jaskier deadpanned. Geralt laughed against his throat and Jaskier felt it resonate through his chest.

“So you’re the possessive kind, then?”

“Uh,” Jaskier bit his lip, “only if that turns you on.”

Geralt kissed a line up to Jaskier’s ear and caressed him through his trousers as he nibbled at his earlobe. In the softest, most quiet whisper, he murmured: “It does.”

Jaskier groaned with pleasure and Geralt kissed him in earnest, his hand still fondling the man’s inseam. He pressed his pelvis against Jaskier’s and both moaned from the supplementary friction.

“Let me try something?” Geralt asked against Jaskier’s lips before promptly getting down onto his knees.

“Oh, wow, okay,” Jaskier gasped as Geralt went straight for his belt. “Ah- w-wait, you- you sure?”

Geralt rolled his eyes, undoing the man’s button and zipper until Jaskier’s hands came to rest softly over his.

“No, I’m serious, you don’t have to.”

"I know,” Geralt answered, looking up at him. “I want to.”

“Okay. Okay. Just stop if it’s not good with you, right?”

“Right.”

He pulled Jaskier’s trousers down, not wasting any time. The curved line of his hardening cock was obvious under his underwear and Geralt slowed down, caressing the back of Jaskier’s thigh with one hand, the other moving up to his crotch. He palmed Jaskier through his boxer briefs (his navy blue boxer briefs) and was delighted to see him try to control his breathing through the surging wave of desire.

“Take them off for me?” Geralt asked, his voice rough with arousal.

Jaskier breathed out shakingly and slid his thumbs under the waistband, pulling his underwear down under Geralt’s relentless attention. Unable to stop himself, Jaskier took his own cock in hand and stroked himself, humming with pleasure with the first movement of his wrist. Geralt was sitting on his ankles, mesmerised.

“You like watching?” Jaskier asked, and even though the answer was pretty obvious, Geralt didn’t say it out loud. He raised to his knees, kissing the inside of Jaskier’s thighs, every breath softly tickling Jaskier’s skin, the hand maintaining its rhythm.

Moving upwards, Geralt’s tongue darted out to lick Jaskier’s balls, surprising him so much the back of his head hit the door, generating a moan which turned into a wince and then back into a moan again. Geralt’s smile shaped the kiss he pressed on Jaskier’s thigh as his fingers brushed through the man’s pubic hair, and slid up to find Jaskier’s hand, slowing it down.

Jaskier felt Geralt’s hot breath coming closer to his cock and had to bite his lower lip when the other man’s lips brushed against his fingers, kissing them one by one, silently asking him to let go. Jaskier didn’t need much convincing until, of course, fuck his goddamn unstoppable brain, a thought occurred to him.

“Wait!” he exclaimed and, at least, was blessed with the sight of Geralt looking up at him with surprise, his lips apart, tongue visible, and… Fuck, he looked so innocent and yet devilishly hot like this.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Just- safety, right? You can, uh, get STIs. From, you know, sucking off someone unprotected. So you should be safe, you know.”

“Uh,” Geralt frowned. “Do you have STIs I should worry about?”

“No, I’m clean. I just mean, you know, in general.”

“I don’t need sex ed, Jaskier.”

“I know,“ he said, unconvincingly. "I’m just saying. Cause, like, it matters, and, you… well, you know.”

“I know,” he nodded even though he didn’t really. “Anything else?” he asked, raising an eyebrow teasingly.

“Well, you shouldn’t take my word for it.”

“What?” Well, he only had himself to blame, right? He did ask.

“That I’m clean. I mean you can’t take people’s word for it, sometimes people just-”

“ Jaskier. I’ve slept with strangers before,” Geralt said bluntly, missing the brief pained look on Jaskier’s face at being classified as a stranger . “You’re clean. I’m clean. If you’re fine with this, I’m fine with this.”

“Yes. Yeah, I am. I am. Sorry,” Jaskier shook his head. “Did I just ruin it? It’s just, it matters you know, so I figured-”

“Jask. I get it. It’s fine,” Geralt said, rubbing his thumbs on each of Jaskier’s hip bones. “Can I suck your cock, now?” he asked softly. Jaskier’s worries disappeared from his mind instantly, and he nodded enthusiastically about twelve times above the consent limit.

Geralt took him into his hand and stroked him, slowly but firmly, further limiting his brain’s already diminished access to oxygen. Geralt’s other hand had reached out to fondle his ass and his fingers began to lightly drum along the back of Jaskier’s thigh, brushing softly, ghosting against his skin, and sending a brand new kind of sparks of want to Jaskier’s cock.

After a few strokes, Geralt brought his lips to the base of Jaskier’s shaft, kissing the hairs in a way one could have described as chaste if it hadn’t been happening so close to another man’s dick. He then proceeded to drop fuller kisses on the soft skin of Jaskier’s cock, pressing his lips against the skin almost reverently as his hand kept working Jaskier. When he was satisfied with the soft noises and the sound of fast breathing above him, he guided his hand back to the base of Jaskier’s cock, pumping a few times before guiding the tip of Jaskier’s dick to his mouth as he licked .

“Fffuck-” Jaskier gasped, and Geralt smiled.

Wetting his lips, he opened his mouth and wrapped it around the very tip of Jaskier’s cock, kissing it wetly, his tongue running against the underside. He let go, only to kiss the side of the head with an open mouth and then took Jaskier’s cock again.

As soon as he had run into Geralt at the bar, Jaskier had been both mindlessly infatuated and completely unsure what to expect. Geralt’s enthusiasm for learning to give head was definitely one of the things he didn’t see coming.

Geralt’s hand fondled his butt cheek again. As he pressed the tip of his fingers lightly against his sacrum, Jaskier sighed and angled his pelvis forward the way Geralt’s hand invited him to. Geralt took a slow breath through his nose, obviously trying to relax as much as he could as he moved forward, taking in a little more of Jaskier in his mouth and sliding his lips over the ring of Jaskier’s cock.

“Oh,” escaped from Jaskier’s lips as Geralt drew back slightly and took more of him again. “Oh darling, oh, yes, that’s good,” he stammered, caressing Geralt’s cheek before drawing back and slapping his hand against the door to ground himself and to restrain from grabbing the back of Geralt’s neck.

Geralt groaned softly at the loss, reaching out for Jaskier’s hand, closing his eyes as soon as he felt Jaskier’s touch again. He moaned as he kept sucking him slowly, clearly enjoying the guiding hand on his cheek.

“Oh, darling,” Jaskier moaned. His thumb rubbed softly against Geralt’s stubbly cheekbone before his hand slid against his cheek and jaw encouragingly. “Oh, that’s good, yeah that’s- Keep going, love,” he whispered again.

Biting his lower lip, Jaskier kept caressing Geralt’s cheek, whispering sweet nothings and sliding his fingers through the other man’s hair, convinced Geralt would have purred around his cock if he could.

"That’s really good, sweetheart,” and as Geralt enthusiastically took him a tad deeper, he just couldn’t help himself. “Oh, that’s my good boy ,” he moaned and Geralt all but choked on his dick.

Pulling back and resting a hand against the floor, half-slipping on his discarded coat, Geralt coughed and tried to get his breath back from choking on his own spit.

“Oh, fuck, I’m sorry-” Jaskier kneeled by him hastily - and heavily . Having his jeans pooled around his knees wasn’t exactly helping him be graceful. “You alright?”

“Fine,” Geralt rasped, a bright shade of pink all over his face. He coughed again.

“Do you need a drink or something?”

Geralt laughed brokenly through a cough. “To help me forget I could have bitten your dick off?” he asked and Jaskier huffed.

“Don’t be silly,” he smiled, brushing away the hair across Geralt’s face as he leaned to kiss him. “This cock has seen worse.”

“That’s always comforting,” Geralt mumbled against his lips.

Jaskier laughed and caught his lips into another kiss, enjoying the way Geralt sighed comfortably, and held on to the back of his neck. His hand wandered to find the hem of Geralt’s shirt and slipped under his waistband before he arrived at a bright idea. “What if - and I know it’s going to be a very bold, and novel concept, but hear me out - what if we stopped using my front door and living room floor as acceptable fucking surfaces and straight out moved to the bed?”

“Hmm,” Geralt mused falsely. “Didn’t know there was anything straight about you,” he snarked and was met with a playful slap on the breast accompanied by Jaskier’s cackling laughter.

“Oh, look who’s talking now!”

They fumbled to get Jaskier back on his feet - “well I do love to spend time on my knees” - and got rid of the jeans which were annoyingly getting in their way, to then move on to the bedroom.

-

His bedroom, Jaskier decided, was absolutely ruined . Nothing would ever look better than Geralt sprawled on his bed, naked, his hard cock pressed against his lower belly. If Geralt ever decided to break things off with him - a thought which, despite people often calling him dramatic, he knew was perfectly realistic - Jaskier would have to change the room entirely. He would repaint the walls, get new furniture, burn the bed, maybe, or - to simplify - move places. No, there was no way a single soul could ever sleep on sheets which had touched Geralt’s skin without missing his presence like any respectable bard would miss their medieval lute.

At that moment, however, this bard was straddling Geralt’s lap, his arms around Geralt’s neck, while being held around his middle and kissed languorously. They were both naked, every inch of skin yearning to feel the other, and not a single thing was amiss.

“Would you like to touch yourself for me, darling?” Jaskier asked between two kisses, his voice low and syrupy.

A groan came from the bottom of Geralt’s throat and vibrated against Jaskier’s tongue.

“Fuck, I love the noises you make,” he whispered against Geralt’s lips, catching the man’s tongue in another open-mouth kiss.

Geralt started stroking his own cock and howled, and Jaskier broke the kiss unintentionally, unable to stop smiling at the sheer bestiality of the man.

Jaskier smacked his lips against Geralt’s a few more times as Geralt chased his mouth for more. Curving his hand around Geralt’s cheek, he kissed him one more time before slipping his thumb on his lips. He didn’t expect Geralt to kiss his finger, chastely, then lick its tip and lustfully take it in his mouth. Jaskier didn’t sigh as much as he whined .

“Would you prepare yourself for me?” Jaskier asked, making his intentions clearer, his voice a bit hesitant but hopeful.

Geralt let go of his thumb, letting Jaskier caress his lips lovingly. “Maybe it’s better if you do it,” he said, kissing the inside of Jaskier’s palm in an obvious attempt to hide his face.

“Is it?” Jaskier asked, and Geralt closed his eyes, something like regret written on his face.

“I’m not very good at it,” he grimaced.

“You’ve done it before?”

Geralt hummed, uncomfortable. “Since last time,” he clarified. “It didn’t really- I don’t know, maybe it’s not my thing,” he shrugged, still avoiding Jaskier’s eyes.

“Hey,” Jaskier whispered, his voice coated with kindness, unable to stop himself as he tipped Geralt’s chin up and pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of his lips. “You can’t become a virtuoso on the first try,” he said.

Geralt frowned but then hid his discomfort behind a playful look. “Are you saying my ass is a musical instrument-”

“Shush, you!” Jaskier giggled. “I’m trying to be serious, for once!” he chastised him.

Geralt snickered and hid his face back into Jaskier’s hand, softly kissing his wrist.

“Maybe you had one of the best orgasms of your life the first time you rubbed one out but we , regular human beings, had to work for it,” he paused for more dramatic flair. “L ong and hard and again and again …” he wiggled his eyebrows and Geralt snorted. “We learn what feels good and what doesn’t. Just because you’re ol-” Geralt gave him a pointed look “ -der doesn’t mean you don’t need to get to know yourself.”

“Nice save,” Geralt deadpanned.

“I know, right? Almost seamless,” Jaskier smiled back, clearly full of shit, and went in for a kiss.

“Hmm,” Geralt sighed. “I think I’d rather-” he hesitated, “get on with it, you know.”

“Get on with it?” It was Jaskier’s turn to raise an unconvinced eyebrow.

“Yeah, just get it done.”

“My, what a romantic you are,” Jaskier snickered and Geralt rolled his eyes, trying to make amends by rubbing Jaskier’s skin with his thumb where his hand rested on his hip.

“You just said it, first times suck. I just gotta- get through it and then, well. Hopefully, we get to the good stuff.”

“G- get through it ? You know this isn’t CrossFit, right?”

Geralt snorted. “You know what I mean,” Geralt said, then bit his lip as he frowned, pressing his forehead against Jaskier’s. “You know I’m not-,” he waved his hand, “good at this.”

“Words?”

He puffed. “Yeah, words.”

“Yeah, I got that. I hear you.” Jaskier smoothly brushed a strand of hair back behind Geralt’s ear. “There’s something else I heard. ‘First times suck’ ? Well challenge accepted, my dear,” he said and Geralt laughed as he kissed him again.

Geralt let himself be slowly pushed down to the bed as they kissed, his hands moving up Jaskier’s back, feeling the muscles along the way. His hand reached the back of Jaskier’s neck, covering it for a moment before he buried his fingers into the man’s hair as they softly ground against each other.

Jaskier slid his hand between them, giving both of their cocks a pull before moving lower. “Raise your legs for me, darling?” he asked in low tones, sliding his hands under Geralt’s knees. He could feel Geralt slightly tensing up as he set his feet to the mattress. It didn’t feel like it had anything to do with the scar Jaskier had brushed with his fingertips.

“Shouldn’t I be on my hands and knees?” he asked in a breath while Jaskier’s hands found their way back to his chest.

“You could,” he kissed a spot on his jaw, caressing Geralt’s pectoral. “You don’t have to.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier?” his voice was fairly tight and Jaskier faintly wondered if it was any clue to the state of his ass- and then kept the thought very much to his stupid dick-jokes self.

“Nah, not necessarily,” he whispered, trying to make his hands into a calming, solid presence against Geralt’s skin, caressing his breasts, his ribs, his clavicles, lining his scars with the care they deserved. Whichever God carved this man’s body, Jaskier swore to worship them until the end of his days.

“It can be straining to hold that position. Also…” Jaskier raised himself to face Geralt, picking up the man’s hand as it slipped over his shoulder and kissed the root of each finger. “We don’t have to do this if you’re not comfortable with it,” he said. “We don’t have to do it today.” He weaved his fingers between Geralt’s and kissed their tips. “And we don’t have to do it ever.”

Geralt’s face became closed off as he took a slow breath in, bolting up the gates before Jaskier had a chance to read him. He raised to meet Jaskier, his hand finding the perfect place at the back of his neck, and kissed him earnestly.

“I want you to fuck me,” he said against his lips.

“Yeah?” Jaskier gasped. “Got you, loud and clear,” Jaskier whispered and leaned into another kiss.

He broke away from Geralt to reach his nightstand drawer, pulling out some lube and condoms. He grabbed a pillow, invited Geralt to raise his hips and slid it underneath.

“Now, where was I?” he said under his breath, settling between Geralt’s legs and rubbing their bodies against each other. Geralt moaned and wrapped a leg around Jaskier’s pelvis, grinding back eagerly.

Holding his thigh with one hand, Jaskier began kissing his neck, licking and biting the skin at his throat, intending to take care of every inch of Geralt’s body. He licked one of Geralt’s nipples, extracting a moan from Geralt when he sucked and scraped his teeth against the strong muscle of his tit. Feeling Geralt slowly relax under his hands, he headed lower, kissing the pale hairy line that led from his navel to his cock.

He squeezed Geralt’s cock gently, carefully caressing the tip with his thumb and watching the precome spread, shiny against the soft skin. He looked up at Geralt as he moved his hand steadily up and down, a spark of ecstasy jumping from his heart to his cock at the sight of Geralt, eyes closed, biting his lower lip. Every moment assured Jaskier that pleasuring this man was actually his entire life’s purpose.

Geralt hummed with pleasure as Jaskier wrapped his lips around his cock, already struggling not to buck his hips when Jaskier took more of him in his mouth.

Jaskier couldn’t help but hum around his dick as he took it in, playing with depth and rhythm like a true maestro, his fingers threading through the light grey curls of Geralt’s pubes. He then let go of Geralt’s cock with an obscene pop that made him laugh and licked up from the spot right above Geralt’s balls.

Geralt’s hips stirred in both pleasure and surprise.

Jaskier got his hands back on the lube as he kissed and licked the man’s balls, encouraged by the whines and groans that escaped Geralt’s throat. He warmed his lubed fingers against each other and caressed Geralt’s ass with what he wouldn’t deny was absolute adoration. “Can I touch you, darling?” he asked, his voice a bit rough.

Geralt breathed a “yeah” and sounded almost like he was begging but Jaskier gracefully didn’t comment on it. (He, however, definitely took note.) Instead, he slid a hand between Geralt’s cheeks and brushed a finger against his hole as his mouth drove back down Geralt’s beautifully thick cock.

Jaskier teased a little, trying out different pressures against the man’s hole before the song of Geralt’s moans left no room for doubt. He slid his forefinger in while his other hand caressed Geralt’s inner thigh and finally felt the heat of Geralt’s body wrapped around his finger. He pulled back slightly and pushed again, this time steadily driving his finger deeper, synching his hand with the movements of his neck.

Despite Geralt’s frequent struggles with words, his gasps and moans were graced with great clarity and proved sufficient to let Jaskier know he was right to keep going. As far as non-verbal cues go, he also quickly found delight in feeling the walls of Geralt’s ass tightening around him and the taste of more precome coating his tongue.

“ Ah , your mouth,” Geralt moaned, reaching out and grasping onto Jaskier’s hair.

Jaskier closed his eyes and moaned, aching for better friction than the bit of sheet he could rub his cock against. Grabbing the lube with one hand, he couldn’t help but jerk himself a couple of times as Geralt’s hand kept pulling his hair with each bop of his head.

Pointedly slowing down and looking up, he waited for Geralt’s attention to focus on him. He made a point of keeping their eyes locked as he shamelessly pulled up and let go of his cock. “D’you want another finger, honey?” he asked, perfectly aware of how depraved he had to look with his hair astray and his lips as probably as crimson as the tip of Geralt’s cock.

Geralt pulled him closer and met him with a crushing kiss as he nodded and moaned against Jaskier’s brow. “Hm- wait,” he breathed, holding Jaskier back as he started to let go, “I haven’t touched you at all,” he complained, his hands cupping Jaskier’s ass in a kind but firm grasp.

“Ah- It’s alright, love,” Jaskier said. “We’ve got time for that,” he smiled against Geralt’s lips but before he could leave again, Geralt grabbed his hand.

“I want you to feel as good as I do,” he breathed.

“Oh, trust me, darling, I’m feeling fantastic,” Jaskier grinned. They kissed one more time before Geralt let go of him and Jaskier drove his attention back to his lover’s lower body.

Geralt sighed as he settled his head back against his pillow, muttering something about how Jaskier was going to kill him.

Jaskier brought one hand at the base of Geralt’s cock, put his mouth back to work and fingered him a little while longer before adding another slick finger. Geralt whined and Jaskier reached out for his hand, threading their fingers together, hoping Geralt would know it was his way of checking in before Geralt sighed “ Yeah, s’good ,” in a tone that sounded pretty far gone.

He fucked Geralt with his fingers a few tentative times and curled them softly on the way out. In case he had any doubt his fingers were brushing against the right spot, Geralt’s hips jerked, driving his cock further down Jaskier’s throat.

“Ah, fuck ,” Geralt moaned. “Fuck, sorry,” slipped from his lips as if he was holding back so many more words.

Jaskier squeezed his hand in reassurance and kept sucking on Geralt’s dick until he could feel him tremble. He rubbed against Geralt’s prostate, drinking in every noise leaving the man’s lips, every movement revealing his pleasure.

“Ah, Jask,” Geralt moaned again, clutching to Jaskier’s hand like nothing would ever be able to make him let go. “Jas- Jaskier, ah , Jask, wait, I’m gonna-”

His hips buckled and his back raised from the mattress as he came, mouth open, gasping. He moaned and groaned as Jaskier kept fucking him onto his fingers until he was done spilling.

Jaskier slid his fingers out of Geralt’s ass, unable not to pull on his own cock even as he wiped off his mouth and tried to catch his breath, resting his forehead against the soft flesh of Geralt’s hip.

“Fuck,” Geralt whispered as he stretched, the last tingles of pleasure leaving his body. He brought his hands to his face, covering his blush and groaned “ fuck ” in a wholly different tone.

“Hey,” Jaskier gasped, slowing down the movements of his wrist and bringing his other hand to touch Geralt’s arm. “Hey, you alright?”

“Hmm,” he groaned from under his hands.

“What’s wrong, darling?” he asked and Geralt huffed.

“I just came like a teenager, darling ,” Geralt mumbled, the edge of his sarcasm largely smoothed out by post-coital bliss.

Jaskier chuckled. “No, you didn’t. You held up really well,” he said, caressing Geralt’s forearm. “My charms were simply too mighty for you to keep it in any longer,” he whispered, and kissed his other wrist and hand, hoping Geralt would emerge from his hiding place.

Geralt groaned again, unconvinced, but let his hand slip away when Jaskier kissed his knuckles, allowing the other man to paint his cheek with the sweet brush of his lips.

“I wanted you,” Geralt whispered, in a weak, almost plaintive way.

“I’m still right here, love,” Jaskier whispered back. “You still have me,” he said at the corner of Geralt’s lips, pressing his mouth softly against his. He found Geralt pressing back with the same tenderness then savouring the taste his own come on Jaskier’s tongue.

They stayed like this for a moment, simply enjoying the warmth of each other’s arms, slowly kissing and holding each other.

“Do you need me?” Geralt asked after Jaskier buckled against his hips involuntarily.

“If your schedule allows it,” Jaskier joked, hiding his face in his neck and humming as he rubbed himself against Geralt.

“What do you want?” Geralt asked, caressing the length of Jaskier’s back, pressing his fingers along the muscles, waking up every fibre of Jaskier’s body.

“This,” Jaskier murmured, “This is perfect.”

He rubbed himself slowly against Geralt as the man covered him in caresses, the callousness of Geralt’s hands contrasting with the softness of his gestures. He ground against Geralt’s hip lazily, welcoming the pressure of Geralt’s hands on his ass, feeling the imprint of each finger into his flesh. His cock was still smeared with lube and the mess he’d spit onto Geralt’s pelvis made for a dirty, wonderful help.

“You look so good like this,” Geralt whispered, kissing a spot under his ear. “You feel so good against me,” he said softly, his tenderness almost making Jaskier come on the spot.

“ Ah , please, touch me,” he begged and Geralt reached for his cock like a servant knight, enthusiastically escorting him to rapture as Jaskier fucked into his hand again and again and again , his shout resonating through the bedroom as he came.

Geralt held him as Jaskier made his way back down, their bodies sweaty and well spent, comfortably intertwined.

After a while during which Jaskier’s mind drifted and fluttered between sleep and consciousness, he adjusted his body to kiss the side of Geralt’s jaw.

“Care to be introduced to my shower?” he asked sleepily.

“Hmm. Good call,” Geralt nodded, and pressed a kiss against his temple.

-

When Geralt walked out of the shower, freshly cleaned up and smelling like Jaskier’s lemon soap, his clothes were neatly arranged on the bed. He got dressed and followed the sound of Jaskier’s humming, finding him in the kitchen frowning at some delivery menus. He was biting his lip, seeming pretty conflicted and Geralt surprised himself thinking: shit, he’s cute.

He kept expecting to have a change of heart any minute now. It was, after all, bound to happen, the next logical step, the most probable outcome: one morning he would wake up and realise that surely this had all been fun but he wasn’t into it anymore. He just had gotten a bit confused and wasn’t actually feeling so much for this man- or any other man, or any other person for that matter.

After splitting up with Yen, he thought he’d never grow fond of someone enough to want anything (at least anything more than sex, but even sex was quite low on his list of priorities). With Jaskier, though- it was like every other day, Geralt would find another thing he’d like to share with the handsome man who had run into him and insisted on sticking around.

“Hey,” Jaskier said, noticing him in the doorway. “So I was thinking, either Casa Lauretta or Athumani’s Kitchen , what do you think? And before you say anything- I know , take out again, but I can’t both try to seduce you and subject you to my cooking.”

Geralt snorted. “You’ve had me in your bed already. Twice. ” he said, raising a playful eyebrow. “At what point will you consider me successfully seduced?”

“Uh, I don’t know, some time between the third dog and the second honeymoon, I guess?” Jaskier pretended to ponder.

Geralt blinked at him and his smile froze on his face. He often struggled with words to begin with but Jaskier mastered the art of leaving him speechless. Banter was his realm. Jaskier knew the terrain by heart and he revelled in it. He was light on his feet and quick on his toes. Every time Geralt tried to play his game and stepped towards Jaskier, the distance separating them seemed to grow.

He felt like a novice trying to catch up with a man who had hiked the trail his whole life, knew its twists and turns by heart. No matter how much he tried to relax and enjoy the sights by Jaskier’s side, he still felt the man would always be ahead of him. Like he would never be able to catch up and stay stuck in the land of the new and uncomfortable.

He cleared his throat. “What’s in these cupboards of yours?“ he asked, brushing past Jaskier to open a few of them. At first, the answer seemed to be both everything and not much at all . But after initial confusion, he realised Jaskier might actually have a system.

Items weren’t sorted by kind but rather by what goes well together: canned mushrooms next to rice, coconut milk next to curry powder, sliced bread between jam and mustard. He wasn’t sure why "365 Lesser-known Eastern Medieval Poems” was stacked with cereals, or why Jaskier’s watch was in a bowl, but he could find out with time.

Something tickled the back of his neck and he realised Jaskier was playing with his hair, a bit of a smitten look on his face. As Geralt looked at him, Jaskier froze and blushed.

“Sorry,” he said, retreating his hand. “I love your hair,” he said sheepishly.

“I lost my hairband somewhere,” Geralt said, looking around.

“It looks good like this too,” Jaskier said. “Pretty sure it looks good all the time,” he smiled and brushed an escapee strand of hair back behind Geralt’s ear.

And here it was: another immensely confusing thing about Jaskier. The man radiated self-confidence 99% of the time. He could bathe in the attention of a crowd, flirt shamelessly with a complete stranger and whisper the filthiest words, dirtiest things- he could fantasize out loud about getting married to a man he’d only known for a few weeks. Yet there was also a shyness about the smallest of things, a vulnerability . It made Geralt want to pick him up and take him to safety- and he was perfectly aware of how ridiculous that sounded. But it felt like maybe, Jaskier’s hidden, more reserved side was a path where they could meet halfway.

He leaned towards him and kissed the corner of Jaskier’s mouth. “Thank you,” he said.

Jaskier smiled and his whole face illuminated. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Good,” Geralt nodded, taking his attention back to the cupboard. And so here he was again, taking a step back on what had started to feel like a comfortable route and stiffly navigating in between the metaphorical potholes on the road leading to Jaskier. As it turned out, talking about how his ass felt after getting fingered was not Geralt’s forte either. But Jaskier - in a moment of extreme humility - had described himself as a master of words and rhythm and that’s exactly what he was. He could use any word, touch upon any topic, express any emotion. Jaskier had a whole planisphere at his disposal, a means to take any road; Geralt had shitty directions and a compass that only told North once in a blue moon.

“No pain?”

“No,” he answered, closed the cupboard and exited Jaskier’s personal space to grab the menus. “Maybe delivery’s better, you’re right,” he said.

“Hmm,” Jaskier answered. “You do that a lot,” he pointed out.

Geralt gave him a look above his shoulder. “What?”

“Changing topics. Avoiding conversations,” Jaskier explained lightly. His tone was not judgemental. He was merely making an observation.

And so, “I’m not,” Geralt lied. He only realised he had lied the second he heard himself. Fuck . “I didn’t realise there was more to say.” Less of a lie. Not quite a half-truth.

Jaskier sighed softly and settled next to Geralt, pressing his forearms against the kitchen counter. "Margherita, then?” he asked. Geralt could see the tight shape of his lips and the square angle of his shoulders. Jaskier had obviously seen right through him but was dropping the subject for his sake.

“You’re disappointed,” he said and Jaskier’s head shot back up to look at him.

“With the pizza options?” Jaskier joked weakly.

“With,” he hesitated. “Me.”

“No-” Jaskier argued right away, raising his hand to cut him off. But Geralt knew how it was, what people expected, not unfairly, versus how little he could offer.

“It’s fine,” Geralt said. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I-,” he paused to weigh his words carefully, eyes focused on the menus. "I’m not very good at-” he hesitated then snorted under Jaskier’s confused look. “ Opening up ?” he said, raising an eyebrow in Jaskier’s direction.

Jaskier laughed and reached out to rest his hand over Geralt’s. “Well, we’ve talked about this,” he said, with a shine in his eyes. “Practice makes better.” Geralt hummed, looking at Jaskier’s hand over his. To his surprise, Jaskier retracted his hand somewhat suddenly and he missed the weight of it right away. “And it’s not like we know each other that well, as you said,” he shrugged, at the edge of Geralt’s field of vision.

“I am ok,” he said, answering Jaskier’s previous question more honestly. “Bit weird but ok.” His brain then caught up with Jaskier’s words a moment too late; as you said ?

"Okay,” Jaskier said, offering a shy smile. “I- it’s okay if it doesn’t come naturally to you. I just- well, I’d just like you to be more comfortable with me. But we’ll get there, right?”

Geralt swallowed, closing and opening the hand that was resting on the counter to get rid of a slight tremor. Saying yes would have been another lie. He couldn’t make that promise. He had tried before, thought that maybe if he forced himself to be enough then things would work out eventually- but they hadn’t.

And so it would have been easy to say no , to back off entirely. He could tell Jaskier he wasn’t interested in building something, just wanted an easy fuck, to experiment a bit, and had simply gotten lucky enough to find a guy who wasn’t repelled by his shitty personality and off-putting scars. It would have been so easy- to tell Jaskier, “I don’t know what you thought you were getting out of this, but you won’t get me .” It was complete and absolute bullshit, a sad pack of lies, but it would be so much easier. He could get back to his life, his job, his kid and the handful of friends he still had, and never think about blue eyes or milkshakes again.

If only the thought didn’t make him nauseous.

Fuck, he wanted this.

“This isn’t casual for you, is it?” he asked, voice tight, and Jaskier startled, almost taking a step back. His face made an odd succession of expressions and he opened his mouth a couple of times before closing it again.

“I- I can be casual. I can be very casual. That’s not a problem, that’s not a- but I-,” he sighed and brushed his hand through his hair nervously. “Fuck, you really don’t fuck around, do you?” Geralt tried to come up with something to say but Jaskier shook his head, his voice way calmer now even if a bit wavering. “No. No, I don’t think I want to be casual with you. And- And you- you don’t w-”

“Me neither,” Geralt cut in before panic took over Jaskier.

The man’s eyes grew a little wider. “You neither?” he asked, and fuck if that wasn’t the most obvious display of naked hope Geralt had ever seen on anybody’s face.

Geralt shook his head and Jaskier seemingly had to fight a full-body shiver.

Jaskier walked the two steps separating them and kissed Geralt with his entire soul. When he pulled back, Geralt leaned into him again for another taste of his tongue. He brought a hand to Jaskier’s cheek and kissed him with feeling. When they parted, he kept his eyes closed, pressing his forehead to Jaskier’s, the tip of his fingers grazing the short hair behind his ear.

“I’m not used to wanting…” Geralt said. “Sex is good. But usually I don’t- I don’t want more. With you, I- I don’t want to ru- to leave . And it’s…”

“Weird, isn’t it?” Jaskier offered, his voice tight but tone playful. The shy smile on his lips was a delicious cherry on top, making the teasing even softer. (Little did Jaskier know that a cherry was the only thing in Geralt’s opinion that could ever improve a creamy vanilla milkshake.)

“Yeah, it’s weird,” Geralt huffed. Jaskier kissed him, and after working through so many words, Geralt ran out of things to say. “So, yeah. Margherita’s good,” he whispered, and it was his turn to make Jaskier laugh. The man cleared his throat and sighed like a weight had been taken off his chest.

“I can’t believe you said all that before even knowing Lauretta delivers vanilla milkshakes,” he said and Geralt poked him in the ribs until they half-wrestled, laughing, Jaskier’s back hitting the fridge- and they were kissing again.

-

They talked over dinner for a while. Jaskier came up with questions for Geralt to answer, helping him ease into a casual conversation. They teased and flirted and laughed, and soon ended up in bed again, tasting each other’s skin and leaning into each other’s curves.

“Full disclosure?” Jaskier whispered against Geralt’s mouth as he was straddling him. “I really fucking love those tits of yours,” he said, cupping Geralt’s chest with his two hands. Geralt scoffed in between two kisses.

“They’re called pecs,” he said, enjoying the way Jaskier’s hands were basically venerating his chest.

“Nuh-uh,” Jaskier replied, “I, good sir, am an artist, not an anatomist, and these are definitely some of the most magnificent boobies I have ever had the chance to see, touch and lick,” he said, brushing a nipple with his thumb while kissing Geralt’s jaw.

Geralt snorted and kept caressing Jaskier’s incredibly precious ass.

Jaskier sighed with contentment. “So, tell me your secret,” he mumbled against Geralt’s skin, finding a tendon in Geralt’s neck and following it with his lips, tongue and teeth. “How does a corporate lawyer get as buff as you?”

Geralt’s laugh was more of a scoff as he felt the more-or-less accidental brush of Jaskier’s cock against his.

“You’re one to talk,” he groaned, getting his hand into Jaskier’s hair and pulling him into a kiss. “Have you seen yourself, Professor?”

Jaskier suddenly pulled back, eyes wide and cheeks pink. “I- well- I mean I’m nothing close to- Your body is,” he huffed, seemingly at loss for words which was a very odd thing coming from Jaskier.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, bringing his hand to the small of the man’s back, and squinted. “You know you’re hot, right?” he asked seriously and witnessed Jaskier dissolve into a fit of giggles, ducking his head and blushing even harder.

“I’m- nah, I’m not-”

“ Jaskier ,” Geralt repeated with intent.

“I mean, I’m fine but I’m not- you’re like a, a- an underwear supermodel.”

Geralt snorted. “Right, they do love bodies covered with scar tissue in underwear magazines,” he said self-deprecatingly, making Jaskier frown.

“Don’t do that. You’re beautiful,” he chastised.

“If you say so-” Geralt shrugged.

“I do say so. Les Dessous de Beauclair can go fuck itself,” Jaskier replied and Geralt snorted again.

“Point still stands,” Geralt said. “You’re hot.”

Jaskier looked away again, biting his lower lip. “Wh-,” he started and then closed his mouth right away.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” he shook his head.

“Jaskier? I’m the one who isn’t much of a talker. There can’t be two of us,” he said, and Jaskier laughed, then hid his face in the crook of Geralt’s neck, wrapping his arms around Geralt’s shoulders.

“What do you like about me?” he asked, his voice so small Geralt barely heard him. He let a moment pass, wondering where to start and how. He slid a hand at the back of Jaskier’s neck, caressing the short strands of hair.

“This,” he said. “Your hair right here. It’s short but long enough that I can grab it,” he felt Jaskier smile against his neck.

” Kinky ,“ Jaskier whispered.

“And I like your eyes,” Geralt said, too focused on picking the right words to get sidetracked. “At the bar, I-” he hesitated, pacing himself. “I noticed your eyes first,” he said and swallowed.

Jaskier hugged him tighter. “I love your eyes too,” he mumbled into Geralt’s hair. "They’re incredible.”

Geralt managed to duck his head and press a soft kiss below Jaskier’s ear. “Your cheekbones,” he said, his mouth finding the sweet spot at the base of Jaskier’s neck. “Your shoulders,” he whispered, kissing Jaskier’s clavicle, loosening their embrace to keep going lower. “Your collarbones,” he nipped his teeth at the bone above Jaskier’s chest, “they’re really, really hot,” he said and Jaskier giggled, still hiding his face by pressing his forehead against Geralt’s temple.

Geralt brought his hands up Jaskier’s back and felt him shiver, Jaskier’s hips startling gently against his, bringing a soft moan from the both of them. “Your back,” he said, ���I really love your back- and your ass, gods ,” he linked his hands behind Jaskier’s neck and rolled his hips, their moans echoing through the room. “ Ah , and those fucking arms of yours,” Geralt whispered. “Have you seen those arms?” he repeated, still softly rubbing their cocks together with slow movements of his hips and caressing Jaskier’s arm. “I’m sure you could lift me up with those arms,” he said and Jaskier groaned. “Would you like that?” he asked. “Would you- would you like to hold me up and fuck me?”

“Oh, fuck,” Jaskier moaned, his face pressed against Geralt’s cheek. “Fuck, fuck, yes, yes please, yes,” he begged, and Geralt grabbed the hair at the back of his neck and pulled just enough for Jaskier to whine with pleasure as they both rushed in an almost bruising kiss.

Jaskier had a hard time pulling away from Geralt, but finally managed to turn towards the bedside table to retrieve lube and condoms.

Geralt flushed himself against his back, tearing a moan from Jaskier as his hand directly went for Jaskier’s cock and Geralt’s dick rubbed against his ass.

“Oh fuck, yeah- yeah , we gotta do this some time too, darling,” he panted and Geralt groaned, grinding against him.

“You would like that?” he breathed, his voice low and coated with desire.

“Gods, I’d fuck you anyway you want, darling-” he moaned, “-but fffuck , if you keep going, there isn’t going to be much left of me.”

Geralt chuckled against him. He pulled back, freeing Jaskier from his embrace and sitting back against the wall.

Jaskier kneeled in between his legs and tore the package open, sliding the condom on his cock, realising after raising his eyes that he was under Geralt’s scrutiny.

“You okay?” he asked at the exact moment Geralt breathed “Come here.”

Somehow they crashed into each other, and yet fit each other’s shapes perfectly.

Geralt raised on his knees, thighs parted, Jaskier’s hands moving from his cock to his balls, making his hips jerk and his teeth close on Jaskier’s lower lip as he moaned. Jaskier slid his fingers further, caressing the sweet spot of Geralt’s perineum, making Geralt break the kiss as he gasped.

“Fuck, please, Jask-”

“I’ve got you,” Jaskier murmured, kissing him again and coating his fingers with lube.

Geralt tried his hardest not to jerk himself off here and now, attempting to focus on rubbing Jaskier’s cock while his other arm rested around the man’s neck.

Jaskier teased the rim of his asshole and got a quick return on his investment as Geralt pulled a little harder on his dick, tearing a moan from his lips. He chuckled a bit breathlessly and slid a finger inside Geralt easily. It didn’t take long at all before a second finger joined the first.

“You okay, darling?” Jaskier breathed and Geralt nodded against his cheek.

For a while, they stayed like this, settled against each other, Jaskier slowly fingering him until Geralt couldn’t stop clenching around his fingers and asking for more.

When three fingers curved into him and caressed his prostate, Geralt thought he was going to come undone. “Fuck- fuck, fuck, fuck, Jaskier-,”

“Good?” Jaskier asked a bit worriedly.

“Fuck, yes , good,” Geralt bit in a tone that was halfway between “how the fuck could it be anything but good” and “don’t you fucking dare stop” , making Jaskier laugh again.

“Okay, darling- still love the enthusiasm,” Jaskier said while Geralt whined and begged until finally, fucking finally, Jaskier agreed he was ready. Jaskier slid between his thighs, his strong, well-built arms around Geralt’s middle and Geralt realised it was probably the first time he had been held like this in his entire life.

“Touch yourself for me?” Jaskier asked, his mouth against Geralt’s before Geralt shook his head.

“Can’t- gonna come if I do,” he breathed and Jaskier kissed him again.

“Please?” he asked. “I want to make sure it feels good,” he whispered, holding onto Geralt’s middle tighter.

Geralt complied and before long Jaskier’s hips were rising to meet his body. He felt the tip of Jaskier’s cock slide between his buttcheeks and touch the soft of his ass and he startled, pulling away and pressing back against Jaskier just as fast.

“Fuck,” he swore as Jaskier whined. “Please, Jask,” he moaned as the hand on his cock started shaking. He then felt the tip of Jaskier’s cock against him again, and the steady push of Jaskier’s hips as the head of Jaskier’s cock entered him. He whined as Jaskier pushed further and lowered himself as slow as he could with the lone strength of his thighs and Jaskier’s arms wrapped around his waist.

“Ok?” Jaskier asked breathlessly. A gasp was all Geralt managed. His thoughts were an endless thread of fuck fuck fuck he couldn’t sort out in any order. “Yea- ah,” he broke, “ fuck ,”

“Is it too much?” Jaskier asked, “I can- I can stop, do you need me to stop?”

“ Don’t ,” Geralt moaned, clenching every single muscle in his body to keep Jaskier against him and eliciting a cry from Jaskier. His arms were around Jaskier’s shoulders, his forehead against the man’s temple. Geralt was holding onto him with everything he got.

“I just-” he tried to take a slow long breath thinking about everything he had learned through meditation and managed one ragged breath. “You’re a lot,” he managed in a sigh, clenching around Jaskier despite how much he tried to relax.

Jaskier’s breath caught in his throat half-way between pleasure and laughter. “I get that all the time,” he said cheekily.

“Don’t- don’t make me laugh,” he said, chuckling breathlessly, and Jaskier joined him, both trying to breathe through the involuntary clenching of Geralt’s inner muscles and the accidental movements of Jaskier’s hips.

They laughed into each other’s mouths as they kissed, mouth open, tongues licking each other’s lips, teeth biting softly, teasingly. When they were both ready, Jaskier pulled himself down as he helped Geralt raise on his knees and they met again, moaning and groaning.

“You ok?” Jaskier whispered again and by then, Geralt had no fucking idea. He had never felt so tense and relaxed at once, uncomfortable but so fucking fantastic. His nerves and his ass were on absolute fire but it was good, it was good, it was so, so-

“So good,” he growled, aware that every part of his body was probably shaking in Jaskier’s arms. “ Ah , don’t stop,” he moaned, and Jaskier, incredible, astonishing, wonderful Jaskier did not stop .

Their hips moved in sync, feeding Geralt with the kind of friction he had never imagined could feel so good.

He let himself relax entirely into Jaskier’s embrace, sliding against the whole length of Jaskier’s body, pressing torso against torso, his forehead against Jaskier’s sweaty fringe, their noises brushing, their mouths breathing the same air.

“Ye-ah?” Jaskier moaned. “You like it? You really- ah , fuck- you- ah , you feel so good, does it feel good, tell me-” he rambled, far, so far from actually needing the reassurance.

Geralt groaned. “ Yes ,” he whined, “I like it, I like it, I like you , please,” and Jaskier whined and then did something- Geralt didn’t know, something, somehow, maybe went harder or faster or different, but he pulled and pushed and Geralt lost his fucking mind. He did it again and again, kissing Geralt, licking his neck, biting on his earlobe, caressing his nipples, bruising his hips in his grasp, pulling on his cock, whispering into his ear and making him whine and moan and shout until Geralt begged to be undone.

“I’ve got you, love,” Jaskier said, “I’ve got you.” Jaskier pulled harder on his hips in a half-broken groan, making Geralt slip towards him a little more.

Geralt arched his back, moaning in delight from the new angle. His neck was left exposed for Jaskier to kiss and lick, and breathe against Geralt’s skin. Every cell in Geralt’s body was burning and electric, and boiling. Everything felt so good and so much and so Jaskier , so he begged, begged again, and again for Jaskier to hold him and kiss him and fill him as he came, and so he did. He came, held, and kissed, and filled, and perfect, and Jaskier came, too, gasping into his mouth as they fell into each other.

For a moment, there was no other sound apart from the unsteady breathing and an occasional moan from the two of them as they slowly, comfortably, came back down to earth. Jaskier moved first, turning his head to kiss Geralt’s cheek, pushing his long white hair away from his face, and Geralt turned his head lazily towards him, leaning into a kiss.

“You ok?” Jaskier whispered, probably for the hundredth time and Geralt, for the thousandth time, hummed and nodded. Soon they would detach from each other, groaning from the discomfort of their sensible muscles, their come-dirtied bellies and lube-stained sheets anything but glamorous.

But for the time being, they laid their heads against each other’s shoulders, eyes closed, content with the feeling of holding and being held.

“Hey,” Jaskier whispered.

Geralt hummed questioningly.

“Stay for breakfast?” Jaskier asked. He missed the soft smile that drew on Geralt’s lips.

“Hmm.”

[efrmellifer]

A More Perfect Union

see also: A More Perfect Union in pictures

Borel Manor had been a quiet house. Had been, when it was functionally empty, with only the master of the house (fairly young when he had inherited it from his parents, and still not even middle aged), the mistress, their infant children, and sparse staff. Maybe an occasional guest, for a few nights at a time.

But now, for the first time in years, the house was closer to its capacity, several guest rooms full and the buzz of the occasion making the house practically glow.

The Domans had been the first to arrive, Hien coming back to Eorzea, but bringing his wife along this time (she too was returning, rather than visiting for the first time). But it wasn’t just the two of them that had come. No, Doma was left in the hands of some few advisors for a time while the prince, his wife, and one of his most trusted retainers came to Ishgard.

Of course Yugiri would be in attendance. How could she miss it?

Anyone who needed somewhere to stay in Ishgard for the wedding was welcome to a room if they preferred a house over Cloud Nine, so extra hands had been hired to make sure everywhere was in top shape, not a cobweb to be seen or a creaking floorboard to be heard.

Etien had contributed heavily, too, the same as she did for just about every project she ever got involved in, throwing her shoulder to the wheel. Of course, this time, it was to pick up a broom and tie a scarf around her nose and mouth so she could sweep out the years of dust, and (once they had been taken down for her) washing the beautiful blue curtains in all of the guest rooms.

So now the house was full and bustling during waking hours, conversations ringing off the walls in several languages, card games and rulesets from every corner of the world taking place around the tables, and a pot of tea (and coffee, naturally, even if Estinien had to brew it himself) was always sitting within arm’s reach. And when everyone slept, the house was heavy with the slow, deep breaths of so many.

Mid-day, with a few days left until the big day of the wedding, Aymeric and Etien stood on the stair landing to catch their breath, watching the blessed chaos on the floor below them.

“Are the children still asleep?” Aymeric asked.

“Surprisingly, yes,” Etien replied. “I set them in their cradles and they were out immediately.”

“This must be a lot for them.”

She sighed. “It would be a lot for anyone.”

He looked over at her, concern starting to color his expression. “Is it too much?”

She scanned the crowd again, looking at the last seven years of her life mapped in relationships, studying people she had never dared to hope might meet chatting away—sometimes with translators, sometimes just in shared tongues.

She smiled. “No. It’s not too much.”

***

Etien stood near the door of Saint Reymanaud’s, in front of a pane of stained glass, just thinking as the light pouring in tinted her dress and her skin blue. This, right here, was where she and Aymeric had had their first kiss. She’d been so nervous that day, scared to tell him how she felt—and that it was starting to feel like she had always felt this way about him.

Now, years later, several repetitions of this ceremony later, it still felt that way.

She played with the layers of her dress as she thought. The first time she had gone away, it had been after the first wedding. An elopement, a secret, just a quick consecration of the union so if the gods had been merciless and Etien had died, she wouldn’t be sent to Alder Springs. Not when she had a husband to receive her.

The second time had been after Ala Mhigo was freed, and it had been for Ishgard’s benefit, more than anything. It was time to make things official, and the church had been packed to the gills, but that was with the Scions and Ishgardian society. Much had been missing from what Etien wanted. And yet she had danced and feasted, because despite all that was absent, she was happy to say out loud that she and Aymeric were married.

The third time had been at the Sanctum of the Twelve, so that the Alliance had proof of a marriage (the paperwork had been lost during the disturbance caused by the loss of the Scions). It was a little more like the eternal bonding ceremonies of adventurers. She’d attended a few of those and always thought they were nice, so she had enjoyed having one of her own. This dress was from that wedding, actually. Etien liked it, too, though it had had to be altered, since last time she had worn it was before Betula and Landric were born.

This time was for… several things. It wouldn’t be long before points eastward once more called her—called them all—from the comfort of their lives to take up warriors’ mantles once more. But before it did, sh and Aymeric could celebrate once more the bond they shared—this time, with all their friends (and with their children) present. This time would more closely align with what Etien had wanted before.

“Etien? Is aught amiss?” Aymeric asked.

She turned from the window. “No—”

“Are you supposed to see the bride before the ceremony?”

He laughed, a bit surprised at Tataru’s hands-on-hips stance as she asked him.

“I thought it might be allowed, because this was simply a renewal. Though maybe I did want a sneaky first look before she came down the aisle.”

She smiled. “Come look, then.” She spread her arms as if summoning him for a hug. He came a little closer, taking her hands in his, so he could see the undersides of her sleeves, and then let her go.

“I suspect I had best get to my place, and Lord Edmont will be coming to bring you to yours soon.”

She nodded, wanting to ask for a kiss, but deciding that she could wait just a little bit longer. She folded her hands, coming away from the window to wait but remaining out of sight, standing tall (a ridiculous notion when she was about to have her diminutive stature emphasized). But as Aymeric had predicted, Edmont was at her side in a flash, the few bridesmaids and groomsmen standing nearby.

Estinien whispered in her ear, and got the back of her gloved hand to his stomach with a low “Estinien, shh,” before Edmont fixed the flowers at her ears, making sure her veil sat just right.

“Now, now, no fighting with the best man,” he tutted as he guided her hand to his elbow.

She sighed, settling.

“Nerves?”

She shook her head. “You?”

“Fortunately, no. This is not my first time walking you down the aisle, and after how well the last time went, what have I to be nervous about?”

They stood at the doors to the sanctuary, watching the guests starting to settle now that the doors had opened, the bridal party pairing up as they had to to make their entrances.

It was funny, this time there was genuinely a bride’s side and a groom’s side that ushers might have asked guests to choose to sit on.

Last time, had been different. Not worse, not better. Just different.

But now, to her right, there were knights, the members of the Houses of Lords and Commons, the Alliance leaders who had been indecisive about whom they were attending for but settled on sitting to the right, some dragonets sitting confusedly in the pews. To her left, there was a wide variety of people, all of whom she recognized—all of House Fortemps (including Toto, but not currently Edmont because he was with her), the Scions (Tataru had taken her seat again), R’hyli, Sorako, Oki, even Zenos looked fairly comfortable among the guests. And to cap it off, a single Pixie, sitting with their legs crossed, eyebrows lifted as they waited for their sapling.

Before her, she saw Taerin, Yugiri, and Dae being guided down the aisle and seated in the front row by Hien, Handeloup, and Estinien. When they were all in their places, Estinien turned around and lifted a roll of paper, rolling it out until it ran out at Etien’s feet.

She looked up, and he nodded, gesturing behind him toward Aymeric, then sat down.

Etien lifted her chin, and took her first step, her entrance announced with strings.

She laid her hands in Aymeric’s with the ease of practice when they finally met at the front of the church.

“You aren’t shaking this time. Good,” he whispered.

She just smiled as the priest began.

Artoirel and Lucia did readings, and when the time came for vows, Aymeric looked down at Etien, as if asking her what she was going to do.

“Don’t worry, darling. I know my lines this time.” She took a deep breath and began reciting his composition, the combination of poetry and scripture from when they had eloped.

“O Halone, observe my solemnity as I take this vow.

I am sick with love. My beloved is distinguished among ten thousand, and me has he chosen. So do I bind myself to him. He is without flaw. His locks are wavy, black as a raven. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me. When I found him whom my soul loves, I held him, and would not let him go. The winter is past; my beloved is mine, and I am his.”

Aymeric laughed lightly when she was finished, flattered and impressed she still remembered, but responded in kind when the priest turned to him.

“O Halone, observe my solemnity as I take this vow.

She is altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in her, and me has she chosen. So do I bind myself to her. Departed from the dens of dragons, the young women saw her and called her blessed; asked ‘Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?’

She has captivated my heart. When I found her whom my soul loves, I held her and I would not let her go. The time for singing has come. My beloved is mine, and I am hers.”

The priest spoke. “Do you, Etien Mellifer, reaffirm your pledge to love, comfort, honor, and keep Aymeric?”

“I do,” she replied, beaming.

“And do you, Aymeric de Borel, reaffirm your pledge to love and to cherish Etien as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” he answered.

The exchange of rings was as understated as it ever was with them, Etien’s a Borel heirloom, and Aymeric’s an engraved band. Simple, yes, but treasured.

Again, the priest chimed in. “Then let what the Fury has blessed remain blessed in Her eyes. Go now in peace.”

With his right hand on Etien’s back, and his left hand holding hers, Aymeric escorted her back up the aisle, and out the door.

They waited for the guests to follow before they went outside, where he dipped her and kissed her to seal their vows once more, this time to cheering and applause. There was no white chocobo for them to ride across to the Arc of the Venerable and home, but it was a beautiful day in Ishgard, so neither was going to mind the walk, least of all together and surrounded by family and friends.

[lisinfleur]

Lullaby

Author’s Notes | It’s an honor to be a part of this sweet moment! Thank you, @hecohansen31​​ for inviting me to write for our sweet @maggiescarborough​​ and participate in such a sweet gift! And you, babe, may the gods be with you in this day and all the days that follow this first in the new cycle life is offering us with your lovely presence! Thank you for being this sweet and supportive person that makes us writers around you feel fueled to continue our work just for one more smile of yours! I hope you like this humble gift and may your life be full of the sweet and kind energy you spread wherever you go! Happy b-day!

Universe | Vikings, Saxon Team

Pairing | Alfred x Reader

Info | Viking Age AU, a gift to sweet @maggiescarborough​. 

Words | 2044

⁑ Warnings: Historical inaccuracy¹.

"Y / N!"

Your bedroom door broke open and you lifted your eyes from the music sheets to look at the worried servant looking at you.

"The king..."

You placed your papers aside and got up. Whenever they were worried like that you knew it was again his disease.

Whenever his disease was hurting his body, then... You would be his relief.

"Is he in his bed?" you asked.

Foolishly.

You knew where he would be - your steps passed his bedroom.

"No. King Alfred refuses to leave the music room's divan," she answered, ignoring your knowledge of his habits.

You were the one who asked the servants to install that divan there. It would be too visual to have a bed in the castle's music room or a piano inside the king's bedroom, but that way, Alfred could be comfortable whenever his personal calvary would decide to torture him again enough for his compromises being lesser than his need for your healing fingers.

You nodded. You knew what he needed.

His eyes looked straight at you from that divan when the servant opened the door and your steps entered the room trying to make the lower sounds possible.

"My king," you bent yourself respectfully.

But Alfred sighed.

"I told you already... Forget these formalities, wife."

Wife.

In your whole life, you never thought you would become the Queen of England by his side. In fact, you never ever thought you could be a princess by his side when he was not the next in the line of the throne. But there were the two of you: the crown in his head, a ring in your hand.

Some people in his court would say he married you out of options after Elsewith died in childbirth. Poor Alfred... God wasn't merciful to him and some cruel people would say it was because he ceded lands to the pagans and invited heathens to dinner in his table, but you knew very well what was behind the curtains. They declared that child a stillborn, but you knew Alfred accepted delivering the baby into Ubbe's hands after Elsewith's last words confessed her treason and the fact that the son King Alfred had waited for so long wasn't his, but Björn's, such as many children around the kingdom were blond and blue-eyed like Ragnar's firstborn - May God have his soul, despite his heathen faith.

After his brother's mysterious death, his mother - blessed queen Judith! - who followed her son into the grave. And now his wife and the dreams of an heir she never brought to him. Poor Alfred.

Poor of your beloved and sweet King.

As his cousin from foreign lands, you thought you would end up married to an Earl of his trust. For a moment you even though he could negotiate your hand with one of the Norsemen new leaders that came, once his friend Ubbe was already married to his older brother's ex-wife - something you begged the heavens wouldn't happen in a thousand years.

But it was the crown of a queen beside his throne that landed over your head. An unexpected - but surely desired - place.

You loved your cousin since the first time the two of you could see each other. He was a sweet boy, grew up in a peaceful and wise man. The only decision of his you've ever reproved was to cut his hair so short trying to get Elsewith's attention from the bald Norseman towards himself. A failed intention, but something you were already getting used to - after all, it made him more manly, with less of the boyish sweetness you loved so much in your prince.

Yet, you loved him purely. Enough to have the best wishes when his bride finally came, to mourn in God the treason that brought so much sadness into your King's eyes; to vigil, on your knees in prayer, fasting for days begging for his health whenever that evil disease would take his joviality and throw him on his bed.

The council thought you were chaste enough for the place by his side.

You knew that ring didn't come to your finger for love. But Alfred never ever treated you with less tenderness or sweetness just because you weren't the love of his life...

Yet.

Words of his, not yours.

"I'll grow to love you, my sweet wife. I've learned it with the time that love that comes from the first sigh is flame. And flames are easily extinguished by everyday rain... Or the waves of the sea... This is not love. Love is something else I long to learn with my years by your side. A life... A whole life seems to be enough to discover what love is. May God bless me with life enough to find it in your eyes."

His marriage vows you never forget. Promises of a beautiful future you had dreamed through your whole life. But that, in times like that, would seem impossible for someone who was so close to God, so blessed by him, that seemed to make the angels eager for his presence in his rightful place in Heaven.

You came closer to his divan, sitting by his side in a small bench for servants, ignoring the fact that you were a queen and exchanging the warm cloth in his forehead, wetting it in the bowl of fresh herbal water to replace the cloth and try to lower his fever. Alfred's face frowned for a second with the difference between his body temperature and the cloth you placed on his skin, but soon it relaxed in relief as the refreshing sensation of the herbs was starting to be effective.

"You should be in your bed, my king."

You never stopped being sweet that way to him. Even thou he would always complain about the titles, you knew he liked the way you were gentle and respectful - and the court and council liked it as well so, fewer headaches for him, who had already so many to solve in his head.

"You know what I need," he mumbled, so weak, so pale that you could almost see his veins marking on his skin. "It makes me sleep peacefully. It brings me peace. Please, my sweet wife. Play for me."

The usual ask.

You caressed his face gently and got up to sit at the piano he ordered for you as a marriage gift - your favorite gift in your whole life. Your fingers touched the ivory keys, gently caressing what was your favorite thing in life after Alfred's smile. And slowly, you started one of your compositions - a calming one. One you knew he liked.

Some between the healers of the court once spoke to the small mouth that you were a witch, spreading rumors that your music was a spell that could make the king fall asleep. But Alfred ordered the church's pianist to cede his place for you on a Sunday and under his orders, you played the most beautiful songs in honor of your Lord, causing the priest to say your hands were blessed by God and your music was healing the King's soul.

From that day on, nobody questioned the way Alfred would always ask for your healing songs when he was sick. And you were free to compose more of them for him, sliding your fingers through the keys as if they were dance with grace and love.

So much love...

Alfred's body relaxed a little more. A servant came to replace the cloth some minutes later and the worry in her eyes became a tender smile.

"He fell asleep. The King is asleep, oh, thank God for the Queen's blessed hands, hallelujah!" she exclaimed in a low tone, tracing the sign of the cross on her chest.

You smiled. Yet, your fingers kept playing with a lower tone.

From time to time the servants were alternating to check on his temperature and rest, always blessing his visible relaxation or the fact that his temperature was lowering slowly.

Maybe it was the real rest he was able to reach with your notes. Maybe it was the love in your songs reaching his heart, making him stronger. Maybe the servants and peasants were right and God had blessed your hands with the gift of healing songs to your beloved King. You were never able to explain how you were able to play for hours just for his rest. Or how he was always recovered when he would wake up still hearing one of your beautiful compositions.

But when his eyes were open once again, still under your fingers' dance at the keys, there was more color in his skin, his face was less touched by the disease, and his expression more serene.

You kept playing for a while for his enjoyment before finally conducting the composition to its end, lowering the coverage of the piano keys and resting your tired hands over your skirt. Your fingers were hurting you. Your hands were in pain. But it was worth the price.

"Are you feeling better, my king?" you asked, looking at him with the same sweetness you always had in your eyes when looking into his.

Alfred smiled.

One of those beautiful smiles that got your heart for him years ago.

"Yes... The pain isn't here anymore. But I know it is yours now," his voice mumbled.

Of course, he had noticed how you would dive your hands into warm water at night, washing it in cold herbal water and alternating the temperatures several times before sleeping after that much of time playing the piano for his rest. But you would do it silently, sometimes with a smile on your face when your eyes would catch his serenity, pretending he was sleeping by your side when the truth was that he was awake, thanking God for bringing you into his life.

"Come closer, wife," he asked, and you got up, sitting beside him once again.

But this time he caught your hands into his, warming them in between his now warmed palms.

"Is this it?"

Alfred's question got you confused before he could continue, bringing all the blood of your body to blush your cheeks into crimson red.

"Is this love, my dear queen?" his eyes dove into yours and your voice failed.

But his words were so sure, so intense, straight into your heart.

"Is this love that you offer me when you cause your own pain just to relieve mine? Is this love what you put on your songs that heals my body and brings relief to my tormented soul?"

You didn't know how to answer that question. You didn't know if it was love what you felt for him - too little was taught about love to women like you. But you knew it was the purest desire of your heart to see his smiles. The beautiful smiles you couldn't live without.

"I don't know," you mumbled, "But it is yours," you confessed, smiling at him as your fingers gently caressed his hand.

GIF

His lips curled once again.

"Then blessed be God for my disease is his hand over me, putting me down so I can feel His love through your hands, your notes, your songs. Blessed be God for what the people call suffering, I call His grace, showing me how rich I am of his blessings in my life. Because everything I ever suffered conducted me towards you. And I couldn't be more grateful to have you by my side, sweet Y/N."

Your heart filled with his words, warming your chest and opening your smile when Alfred leaned himself to gently kiss your forehead, caressing your face with that tenderness you would always find in his eyes for you.

None of you could really say what was this love he wanted so badly to know. But you didn't need to name that feeling. You were grateful in your heart for the blessed home you were gifted with and the pain in your fingers was nothing - if that was the price you would pay for Alfred's smiles, then it was a cheap price to pay for what was priceless into your heart.

¹ The piano was an artistic mention to our sweet @maggiescarborough's art. Sad for him, Alfred the Great didn't have the chance to enjoy such a magnificent way to produce music since he lived in the 800 (849 to 899 a.C.) and the piano was invented around 1698 to 1699 by Bartolomeo Cristofori and introduced to the public in 1709. Nevertheless, I discovered the information after the production of this piece and I decided then to bend the time and allow our beloved king to know this art through our sweet reader's hands and to take the chance to share this piece of the pianoforte's history for you guys to learn with me!

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[yourmandevine]

Some stuff that made me happy in 2020, in no particular order

God send you no greater loss. It’s something my grandmother said a lot — a bit of highly Irish Catholic wisdom intended to remind you, warmly but sharply, that whatever you’re currently suffering through isn’t all that bad compared to what lots of other people are dealing with. That it probably isn’t too much to complain about, in the grand scheme of things. That you should, instead, be grateful for what you’ve got, big and small and everything in between.

God sent a great many people a great many unfathomable losses this year, and as hard as it felt at times, our family wasn’t among them; we’re lucky, in the big picture. In the past, people have recommended I try writing those reasons down, to give myself a list of stuff to be thankful for, for the times it’s tough to summon up the gratitude. I figured the end of the year was as good a time as any to make that list, to highlight the stuff that helped me get through this year — the reasons big, small, and in between.

So: here goes.

Peanut butter and jelly

I haven’t counted how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’ve eaten since March 11, which is good, because that would be an absurd thing to do, and a sure sign that I have succumbed to a very specific kind of madness. It’s also good, though, because I would undoubtedly be ashamed by the number; the figure would be titanic, like the unsinkable ship of same name, or the iceberg that sunk it.

Or, at least, I would be ashamed under normal circumstances. This fuckin’ year required whatever flotation device you could find, and you know what I found in the fridge and cupboard? A couple of slices of bread, some strawberry jam, and some goddamn Skippy.

Need a weird mid-morning “brunch” after not having breakfast because you went right from waking up to remote school with the 6-year-old? Crank up a PB&J with that third cup of coffee. Need to pack something in the diaper bag to feed everyone while you’re out at the playground for the afternoon? Stack ‘em up, son. Need a late snack after working the overnight shift filing weird bubble playoff columns? Three letters, one ampersand, one love.

I need to eat better in 2021. But I kind of needed to eat sort of like shit to get through 2020, and time and again, when your man needed it most, PB&J was there.

Sunday night Zoom sessions with college friends

I know that most of us started something like this back in March; I’m not sure how many have stuck with it. I hope the answer is “a lot,” because honestly, knowing that I’m going to end the week by seeing a few friends — some here in Brooklyn but mostly beyond our reach for safety’s sake, some who’ve moved away — has felt like a stabilizing agent on more than a few occasions. It’s important, and no small blessing, to have people in your life who really know you, weird messy ugly bits and all, and in front of whom you can let everything go.

That gallery view’s provided a place to vent, to seethe, to laugh, to cry, and to try to find some semblance of center before heading back into another week. I’m grateful for it, and for the people in those little boxes. Except for the time they reminded me that, when I was 18, I was pretty sure I was a Pacey, and they were all extremely confident I was a Dawson. They were right, but still: a bitter pill to swallow, then and now.

Olivia calling herself “Dr. Bloody”

She took out her little toy doctor kit and just turned into a cackling villain.

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Deeply disconcerting, yes, but also adorable.

All Fantasy Everything

What got me in the door was the conceit: three very funny stand-up comedians (Ian Karmel, David Gborie, Sean Jordan), often with a very funny guest but sometimes without, pick some topic or another and engage in a fantasy draft of their favorite aspects or representations of that topic. (It is, crucially, a serpentine draft. Now what is that? That’s a great question.) Some favorite examples: Mikes; Words That You Think Make You Sound Smart, vols. 1 and 2; Things You Yell After You Dunk on Someone; Fictional Athletes; Crimes We’d Like to Commit. Yeah. It’s that kind of podcast.

What kept me around was the friendship. Listen to an episode and it becomes really clear really quickly just how much the three hosts love each other, how much fun they have being around each other and making one another laugh. The warmth radiates, just pours out of the speakers; in a year where I sorely needed some good vibes, I appreciated my regular check-ins with the Good Vibes Gang to just ... unclench for an hour and a half or so. 

Drinking beer

OK, I’ll admit: This doesn’t sound great for me. It’s true, though. I really like beer. (We brewed one in our kitchen, which I realize is something of a “bearded guy in Brooklyn” cliche, but here we are. It was exciting to complete a project, and it tasted OK-ish.) At some points this year, it didn’t feel like there wasn’t much to look forward to, and sometimes drinking some High Lifes or Narragansett tall boys — with my wife in our living room, with friends on the computer, whatever — helped take the edge off a shitty day/week/month/year. I look forward to being able to do that outside with people again.

The Good Place

I am sure some very smart cultural critics and political thinkers and social revolutionaries have forwarded compelling arguments for why this show is Bad, Actually, because that seems to be more or less true about most things, whether because said thing is Actually Bad or because the economics of the attention economy on the internet functionally necessitate the composition and publication of pretty much every position on pretty much every issue, and especially ones that present a counterargument for why you shouldn’t like the thing you like, and might be kind of a piece of shit for liking it. But I liked this half-hour comedy about the way the universe might be put together, why we should try to take better care of each other, and how doing so might be a pretty great way to take better care of ourselves.

Andrew let me write about it a little bit for a big project we did before the series finale aired, which was really nice of him. I found myself thinking about this part a lot this year:

I also thought a lot about Peeps Chili, but that happens every year.

Taking pictures of my dog

Check out this flumpy goddamn champion:

“Lugar is a good boy” is the main takeaway here. They don’t all have to be complicated.

Schitt’s Creek

I know we’re not alone in this, but we inhaled this show this year. A half-hour comedy about people being laid low, learning how to deal with who they actually are, and finding some grace and community and opportunities for growth kind of hit the spot, I guess.

One of the most wholesale enjoyable ensemble comedy casts I can remember; Catherine O’Hara was already in Cooperstown, but what she made with Moira Rose only polishes her plaque. I’ll never be able to describe with any specificity the thing Chris Elliott does, but I know it has made me laugh since I was a child too young to understand the Letterman bits or see Cabin Boy in the theater, and it’s probably going to make me laugh until I am dead.

I love that people who, for years, never got to see themselves or people like them on screen got to see David Rose on screen and maybe recognize themselves a little bit. The idea that seeing the David/Patrick relationship might make them maybe feel a little more at home, a little safer and more whole, makes me happy. Sad, about the before, but happy, about the now and the what comes next.

Past that, I just love how what was ostensibly a family-and-friends production for a Canadian channel just got absolutely everything right—the tone, the look, the sound, the theme song, the cast, the jokes, my goodness, the jokes—and before long, the rest of the world just got it. Like catching a fastball square on the barrel. Something the show clearly knew a little bit about.

Finding new outdoor places it was safe to go

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the need to give the kids a place to be that wasn’t unnecessarily dangerous but also wasn’t inside our two-bedroom apartment led us to do more exploring than we had before. Shirley Chisholm State Park is great. Canarsie Pier was a fun place to spend a Sunday morning; so’s Canarsie Playground. If we got there early enough or made our peace with some rain, the beaches at Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden were pretty rad this summer. I lived in Staten Island from ages 8 through 18, and during breaks throughout college, and don’t think I ever hiked in High Rock Park — that’s dumb, because it was nice!

Even if all those little excursions did was kill a little time and reduce the overall stress level of the four humans stuck in our four walls, that’s not nothing. Some days this year, it was everything.

Cobra Kai

I know I’m late here; I didn’t rush to seek it out because I don’t consider myself a huge fan of The Karate Kid, or at least not a big enough fan to sign up for YouTube’s premium service. I checked it out when it came to Netflix, though, and I honestly can’t believe how much I enjoyed this show. Give me “dumb, but with heart” every day of the week.

I believe in Miguel Diaz; I believe in Johnny Lawrence; I believe I will be firing up Season 3 next month, and perhaps drinking some Coors Banquets in its honor. (I cannot, however, believe how the “get him a body bag” thing came back around, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Closing unread tabs

I’m a serial hoarder of links, and I am bad at finishing all of them. I’ve tried to get into Pocket and Instapaper, but I’ve never been able to turn that sort of workflow — open link, save to third-party service, go back to third-party service later to read, then delete from there — into something that felt instinctual, natural, or habitual. So: lots of tabs. Like, lots of tabs.

This was a dicier proposition than usual in 2020, because cutting my work week in half to be able to more effectively coparent two kids who didn’t have school or day care for most of the year meant less time to read things.

I tried to do my best to keep up with the important stuff for work, and to read at least some stuff about how other parents were dealing with their anxiety/anger/depression/frustration at having to be on 24/7 and work, and to stay abreast of (at least some of) what was happening in the world. Sometimes, though, I would wake up and realize I’d been holding onto blog posts about Really Interesting Rotation Decisions on the 11th-Seeded Team in the East or whatever for literally nine months, and I would go against my nature and just hit the eject button on a 25-deep window, and something amazing would happen: I wouldn’t get fired for being shitty at my job. I would move on with my day, and I would feel about 10 pounds lighter.

I still keep too much stuff open. (As we speak, I’ve got three different Chrome windows open on two different laptops. I choose not to count the total tabs.) But I do so knowing that, if it gets too heavy, I can experience the momentary joy of surrendering to the inevitability that I can’t catch everything. In that moment, I feel OK with my decay.

Reading writers I wasn’t familiar with before

Two in particular stand out in my mind: Nekias Duncan, now of BasketballNews.com, who does excellent film breakdowns and statistical analysis, and Katie Heindl, who writes basketball stuff of all types all over the place, and strings sentences together in a way that scratches an itch inside my brain. I’m grateful I got more chances to read them this year, I look forward to bigger and better things for both of them, and I’m hopeful that, if things calm down and our schedules go back to something approximating normalcy, I’ll have more bandwidth to hunt out more new voices in the year ahead.

The time I ambushed my wife as she was trying to break down and put away the girls’ space tent

Pretty good.

Siobhan learning to ride a bicycle (with training wheels, but still)

The moment passed pretty quickly; Not Exactly A Mechanic over here can’t get the training wheels to reliably work right without either loosening them too much or tightening them so much that she can’t pedal it. In that first moment, though, and for as long as it lasted, it was really great to see her get excited about doing something new, big kid shit, for the first time.

She was proud. I was proud of her. And then we went to a playground for a few hours. Pretty good day.

Tyler Tynes roasting me

Tyler did some incredible work this year — The Cam Chronicles is getting deserved praise as one of 2020′s best podcasts, and his reporting on the Movement for Black Lives was exemplary. It’s hard to top this, though:

You know what the messed up part is? I was excited to tell him what I was doing, just because I knew the reaction would be so violent. Like a body rejecting a transplant. So lucky to have such a dear, dear friend.

PUP

I’m late on everything, so I didn’t start listening to PUP until the spring of 2019, but I haven’t really stopped since. This year has been too sedentary too often; this band is too kinetic to allow me to stay there.

“Bloody Mary Kate and Ashley Kate” is never more than about 20 minutes away from returning to the front of my mind. I would fucking love for it to be safe enough to watch these guys live at some point, and I am absolutely going to take Steve up on his offer.

Someone sending me a shirt based on a joke I tweeted

First:

Then:

Then:

I’m not sure you should be rewarding my behavior, SnoCoPrintShop, but I appreciate it all the same.

Which reminds me:

Family dinner/family movie night

My wife works in Manhattan and commutes back on the train, and we've tried to prioritize getting the girls to bed early since they were little, so that doesn’t leave much of a window between when she gets home and they go in the tub for us all to connect; before everything shut down, we almost never really ate together. We’re still not great about it, but for a while now we’ve carved out Saturday as family dinner night, where we sit down to eat and talk about our “up” from the day — something that happened that made us feel good or happy, or something we’re looking forward to. (We used to talk about our “down,” too, but that kind of seemed like overkill. Why try to focus on more bad shit right now, you know?)

Then we settle in for a movie, with who gets to pick rotating each week. It’s mostly been Pixar, which has been great but also has its drawbacks; after she caught me crying during one of them (maybe the Bing-Bong scene in Inside Out? or Miguel singing to Grandma Coco?), Siobhan straight up told me, “You need to get yourself together, man.” We just watched My Neighbor Totoro, too, which they loved, so we’re probably going to try some more Miyazaki soon. It’s a really simple thing, but it’s one we rarely made time for before, and it’s been really nice to manufacture something positive that we can share and look forward to together.

Sometimes looking like a shiftless drifter

No shade to anyone who felt strongly about getting a lineup or whatever, but I haven’t really felt like going to the barbershop was worth the risk, and I continue to refuse to believe that my wife can actually pull off the fade she’s long wanted to give me. (It is also possible that she just means she’s intending to run my fade, and that I will before long wind up cold-cocked and slumped by my bride of nine years.) So I’ve just kind of been growing out my hair like it was when I was single, and sometimes been letting my beard get kind of out of control too, and, well, I sort of like looking a little bit like a Wildling, it turns out.

I have since trimmed things up a little. It didn’t go over well with my youngest. Oh, well. I’ll try to do better next time.

My wife and daughter singing the Pixies

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We don’t know all the words to too many lullabies, so we sing the ones we do know the words to. This will probably come back to bite us in the years ahead. For now, though: Pretty good.

Doughboys’ Tournament of Chompions: Munch Madness: Mac Attack

I can’t believe how invested I became in Nick Wiger and Mike Mitchell’s quest to determine the best menu item at McDonald’s in a 64-seed tournament that spawned hours and hours of delightfully funny audio featuring all-time home-run guests like Jon Gabrus and Nicole Byer, who gleefully feed into the often warm, sometimes antagonistic, always entertaining chemistry between the two hosts. I have also never found myself wanting to go to McDonald’s more in my entire life. I have hit the drive-thru a couple of times since, and the boys are right: The McDonald’s fountain Coke does just hit different.

Sound Only

I’ve lost track of whether or not a 38-year-old is considered a millennial, but I’m quite confident that I’m not exactly plugged into “the millennial lifestyle” as my teammates Justin Charity and Micah Peters discuss it on their podcast, which relaunched this summer. Doesn’t matter, though, because I love hearing Charity and Micah talk to each other even if I don’t know what they’re talking about.

Their conversation about Dave Chappelle was great. After listening to their Travis Scott episode, I felt like I kind of understood who he is and why he occupies the space he does in pop culture now. I had no idea how they were going to get me to give a shit about set photos from The Batman, but this they not only got me there, but wended their way toward blaming 50 Cent for needing to know who Groot is to have a conversation on the internet, which is something for which Abraham Lincoln did not die. The show is good, it's getting better, it’s fun to hear them talk their shit, and Charity’s regular bellowing of “I, TOO, AM AMERICA” has made me smile for four straight months. 

Siobhan’s letters and notes

She’s in first grade now, and she’s taken to communicating her feelings through the written word. A lot.

I won’t pretend that I loved all of these in the moment. I can only get so upset, though, when she’s already writing with such a clear voice. (And trying to use proper punctuation. (And drawing little cartoons to drive the point home.)

Palm Springs

I’m having a hard time remembering too many specifics about it right now, which probably means it’d be a good thing to rewatch over the holidays. But, as I’m sure many people noted many months before we got around to watching it, a comedy about living the same day over and over again, and about trying to figure out how to make your life mean something when everything seems meaningless, scratched a pretty particular, and particularly important, itch this year. It could’ve been twice as long, and I would’ve eaten up every second of Andy Samberg and Cristin Miloti together.

I’m pretty sure I cried, although this year, that doesn’t necessarily mean much.  Also, put Conner O’Malley in more things.

Joining our union’s bargaining committee

I won’t say too much about this, but I will say that becoming an active participant in the process of a labor union negotiating its first contract with management has been an extremely educational experience. It’s pushed me to have conversations, sometimes difficult ones, about our priorities as a staff and a company. It's helped me get closer with the other past and present members of the BC, and has led me to start developing relationships with members of our staff that I otherwise might not have had much of an opportunity to get to know.

The organizing work takes time, effort, and energy, but trying to do what I can to help take better care of my colleagues has been well worth all of that. Here’s hoping that in 2021 we can reach a deal that helps make our workplace even better, stronger, and more equitable for all of us.

Publishing a story about Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup

I swear this is true: After I accepted my offer to work at The Ringer, but before I started, I told a friend that one thing I was excited about was that you had the chance to work on offbeat stuff here, in both the “kind of weird” and “not about the NBA” senses. That, I thought, might maybe open the door to me getting to write a story about a Saturday Night Live sketch I saw when I was a teenager about Stevie Nicks from Fleetwod Mac running a cheap Tex-Mex restaurant in Sedona, Arizona — a sketch that I wasn’t sure anyone else remembered, but that was stuck in my head forever.

That story ran on May 26.

A lot of people seemed to like it.

Accomplishing this goal was, as dumb as this might sound, a highlight of my year, and, honestly, a highlight of my career. I’d like to do some more stuff like this next year, time permitting; we’ll see. Whether or not I do, I got to do this. I’ll always have that.

[mr-mellow-dj]

Vacation Sunrise

An old file that I posted on FF dot net a while ago.

Disclaimer: The characters are the property of Andrew W. Marlowe and ABC television. No infringement is intended.

It was early. Lately, Rick Castle had been waking early in the morning partly because he was used to his early riser wife’s habits. Since this was a vacation, she slept much longer. She needed the rest and was trying to catch up from the previous several weeks lack of sleep. With Rick being several years older than his wife, his biological clock was stuck on early rising.

It seemed like the murderers were trying to get theirs in before Detective Kate Beckett went on vacation. Detective Beckett and her team had five murders in less than a two week span. And managed to solve them all before Rick and Kate left for a week’s vacation in the Hamptons.

And, of course, the murders didn’t happen during the day or at a reasonable hour. No, they had to happen in the dead of night (no pun intended). Kate had been getting up before 5 am every day the two weeks prior to the vacation. With the vacation, though, Kate was able to sleep soundly and much later than she had before.

Rick gently got up out of bed, hoping he would not disturb his sleeping wife. She was laying on her side toward the middle of the bed, her chestnut hair surrounding her face like a halo. Her peaceful face almost looked angelic to Rick. There were times, like now, that he almost had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming this, this extraordinary woman, this fiercely intelligent female, this beautiful lady, Katherine Beckett was his wife.

He pulled on some shorts and a t-shirt to go outside to watch the sunrise. He made one last look at his sleeping wife as he strode to the bedroom door.

Rick carefully went down the stairs to the first floor. Avoiding the sides of the steps that made the most noise. It took some talent to negotiate the stairs for a novice, but since Rick had owned this house for over 15 years, he knew where to step and where not to step.

He reached the end of the stairs and turned to go out the rear door to the porch facing the ocean. He looked at the new flag he put on the flag pole. When he decided to put up a flag, it was primarily to know if the wind was blowing. If it wasn’t a bright day or a windy day, the no-see-ums would eat everyone alive. Nighttime was especially bad if there wasn’t a breeze.

But, being Rick Castle, he had to have a humorous bent to his flag. It was his sign or signet, two black chess pieces on a field of red. Of course it would be a Rook and a Pawn. What else could there be?

The flag slowly flapped in the breeze. “Good,” Rick thought. “Maybe I’ll be able to go out and walk on the beach this morning.”

This was the last day of their vacation at the beach and Rick had a tradition to walk the beach and take pictures of the sunrise. Rick had started this tradition when his daughter was little. Alexis would spend much of the summer at the house in the Hamptons but they would both return to the city the weekend before the school year started. Leaving early to beat the traffic rush back to the city, they would pack and be on the road before 9 am most years. Another part of the tradition was that they would have breakfast at the beach and have a late lunch in the city.

Rick would at least do his part of the tradition. He would walk the beach and watch the sunrise. He grabbed his camera off his office desk, pocketed an additional set of batteries and set off.

Castle enjoyed photography even though he didn’t have much time for it anymore. After Kyra and before Meredith and Alexis, Rick would take his film camera and go on a trek in his car to see what looked interesting. Once Alexis came along, he couldn’t just drop everything and run off in any direction to suit his whimsy. However, every time he was involved in a photo shoot, he would talk to the photographer about lighting and composition. What each photographer thought made a good picture and how to avoid making bad ones.

Camera in hand, he walked barefoot down the path to the steps to the beach. As he put his foot on the sand, he marveled at how cool the sand was. Not a drop of rain happened overnight, yet the sand was cool, bordering on cold. Around him were the distinct, little crab tracks that bore witness to the lack of an overnight shower.

“I almost burned the soles of my feet on the sand noontime yesterday and this morning it feels very cool.” Rick thought.

Rick’s feet sunk a little into the soft sand, the sand pressing between his toes. High tide had not reached this far over the past several days, thus with the bright sun drying the sand it became a soft powder rather than the harder compacted sand that was closer to the water.

Now it was low tide and the expanse of sand to the water lay before him. Rick crossed the soft powder until he reached the harder, recently underwater beach.

He slowly walked toward the sunrise crossing over the band of small shells that had washed up on the beach. For the most part, these shells were not much more than a knuckle length and half as wide. Mostly, they were nondescript shells of shades of brown or grey. Occasionally, there was a scallop or cockle shell that was colorful with the occasional blue or purple. Kate seemed to have an affinity in finding those shells.

Rick continued down the beach looking for sandpipers. Previous years there had been small groups of three or four birds on the shore digging for their first meal of the day. Rick would try to get their silhouette in the picture surrounded by the colors of the sunrise reflected in the sea. Today, apparently the shore birds had slept in. No getting the proverbial early worm or early mollusk for them.

For the past several years, the sunrise was partly cloudy which happened to be Rick’s favorite. If it was overcast, there was little light to work with and the sky was a dull grey. No clouds and there were practically no different colors. Even with the wispy cirrus, there was little to the pallet. This morning’s sky was partly cloudy, so there were a multitude of colors. Reds, oranges, yellows, blues and greys were about the sky. The ocean reflected the colors with the waves making a series of cuts in the reflection with foamy whites and slightly ominous blacks.

Rick had walked maybe a couple hundred feet down the beach. No birds were nearby so Rick turned back. He took several pictures of the sunrise with his camera and his phone while retracing his steps.

He noticed the footprints in the sand he had left and took a picture of two of them a stride’s length apart. His footprint changed the color of the sand from a milk chocolate brown to a light, perhaps pale, beige. He could see where he stopped to ponder the sunrise and the magnificent colors before returning to the house.

Rick walked up the pathway to his porch and reached the door to enter the house. He turned to contemplate the sunrise once again. “God,” he thought. “You have made a splendid sunrise, but you outdid yourself with the woman in my bed. I cannot thank you enough for directing her into my life.”

Although not terribly religious, Rick continued thinking, “Thank you God for blessing me.”

[fortheheavenssake]

British Throne of David (cont.)

3. The Rock of Israel

The is a strange story in the Book of Genesis, which has been somewhat enigmatic. In the light of knowing about the traditions surrounding the Stone of Destiny, and knowing its size and shape, and knowing that authentic or not, an unbroken chain of kings has been crowned on that stone for centuries, the following history now makes a lot more sense.

Nearly two thousand years before Christ, the Prophet Jacob (as in "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob"), was traveling back to the land of Haran to choose a wife. When he passed by a city named Luz, the following event occurred:

And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.

And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.

And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the of that city was called Luz at the first. (Genesis 28:11-19).

This account includes several puzzling features. First, a stone small enough to use as a pillow seems hard to imagine being set up as a pillar. Second, just because he had a dream about how the multitudes of his posterity would spread out all over the world, why would he anoint his pillow stone with oil? And what did he mean that the stone would be for God's house? It was important enough that he renamed the place Bethel,[16] which means "House of God." Did it have something to do with a temple?

3.1 The Stone of Jacob

The Stone of Destiny

The size and shape of Stone of Destiny helps make sense of this account, in case it really is this stone of Jacob. First, it is in fact about the size and shape of a big pillow, being about 26 x 16 x 10 inches. It was apparently already a stone which had been cut into a rectangular building shape when Jacob found it. It was probably rejected by the builders because it has a crack in it, so it had been discarded before being finished. If the Stone of Destiny really is Jacob's stone, then it is easy to see how he could stand it up on its end to be a "pillar." Actually, it might have been difficult because it weighs over 300 pounds. Checking the meaning of the word translated "pillar," we see that it means a "stone marker," which often were very large pillars. Most likely this one served mostly as a marker, so that he could find the location when he returned.

Two decades and a dozen children later, Jacob was commanded to return to Bethel. After Jacob returned, and had built and anointed a more permanent altar, God appeared to him there and announced that his name would be changed to Israel, adding "a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins" (Gen. 35:11). This is most likely the time when Jacob decided to bring the original stone with him, though we are not explicitly told that detail. Note that the announcement that kings would descend from him occurred there. It would not be surprising if he was also given to know the future relation that his stone might have to those kings.

The Stone of Destiny has two rings which have clearly been used for transporting the stone by sliding a pole through both rings. There is a groove worn between the two rings which testifies of having been gradually eroded by such transport for an extended period. The stone would have been taken not only to Egypt with Israel, but then also with them at the Exodus and the forty years in the wilderness. Presumably it stayed in Jerusalem from the time of David until the fall of that city in 587 B.C.

3.2 The Stone of Israel Symbolized Christ

Jesus Christ, the Rock of Israel

There is evidence in the Bible the it might well have been this stone which was specifically indicated to have been the "stone of Israel" which symbolized Jesus Christ. During the blessing of Jacob to Joseph, he inserted parenthetically, "from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel" (Gen. 49:24, compare D&C 50:44).

Although I couldn't find any place where the Bible states explicitly that the stone of Jacob accompanied the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt,[17] Paul seems to imply it. He compares physical things such as the manna, water, and a rock which "followed" them to their spiritual counterparts which all symbolize Jesus Christ:

MOREOVER, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;

And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;

And did all eat the same spiritual meat;

And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:1-4)

Thus, the Rock of Salvation (Psalms 95:1) which shepherded the Israelites, apparently referred to the physical Stone of Jacob. Of course, as Paul explained, it was symbolic of Jesus Christ, who also identified himself as the Good Shepherd of Israel (John 10:11).

If the identification with the Stone of Scone is correct, then it is a very plain looking piece of calcareous sandstone[18], so ordinary that in preparing this article I noticed that several web pages describing the Stone of Scone were scoffing at how plain it is for the royalty to make such a fuss about. Thus, it has "no form nor comeliness" and "no beauty" that is should be desired, which is exactly how the Savior is described (Isa. 53:2). That led to it being "despised and rejected of men" (Isa. 53:3).

3.3 Rejected by the Builders

It may not only have been the original builders who discarded the stone. There is a also a tradition that when it came time to build the temple of Solomon, that the stone of Jacob, which was associated with the house of God from the beginning, should be included. But the builders rejected it because of the crack in it. There seemed to be no way that it could be a cornerstone to a temple.[19] Nor did it seem to the Jews who saw the Savior that there was any way that he could be the Messiah, the cornerstone of their religion. Thus, both were despised and rejected. David prophesied that the stone would be rejected (Psa. 118:22), and Jesus identified himself as fulfilling that prophecy. He explained that the "stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner" (Mat. 21:42, compare Acts 4:11). Knowning the Jesus Christ is the Rock of Israel (2 Sam. 23:3), we have long understood that scripture in the spiritual sense. But now that we learn about the Stone of Jacob, we see that the prophecy might well have been fulfilled in the physical sense also.

Is the Stone of Scone indeed the Stone of Jacob, which Jeremiah brought to Ireland, and on which British royalty has been coronated for so many centuries? Is there any way to verify these traditions, or will such ancient claims remain forever impossible to verify?

4. Geological Evidence

In the age of modern scholarship, it has become fashionable to demote all ancient history and tradition to the realm of legend, myth and fantasy. In many cases, that is like throwing out the baby with the bath water because there is usually a core of truth handed down in legend. In preparing this article, browsing the web for the "Stone of Scone" led to more articles ridiculing the traditions than those giving them any credence at all. Modern writers have assumed the Stone of Scone must have originated from a local quarry.

I am only aware of two scientific attempts to determine the origin of the stone. The first was by Professor Totten of Yale University. In response to suggestions that it had come from a local quarry, he issued the statement:, "The analysis of the stone shows that there are absolutely no quarries in Scone or Iona wherefrom a block so constituted could possibly have come, nor yet from Tara."[20]

The second study was done by Professor Odlum, who was a geologist and professor of theology at Ontario University. He made microscopic examinations of the stone, comparing it to quarries in both Scotland and Ireland, and found it dissimilar to stones from those areas. He became intrigued with the idea of that it might really be the stone of Jacob. That hypothesis could be tested scientifically by searching to see if a similar type of rock is found near Bethel, where Jacob found his stone. After considerable searching he found some strata rather high near a cliff that had exactly the type of composition he was looking for. He chipped off a piece and later performed microscopic tests. He concluded that his sample "matched perfectly" with the coronation stone.[21]

Desirous for even better proof he sought to get a little piece the size of a pea from the coronation stone, on which he could perform chemical tests. When he petitioned the Archbishop of Canterbury for such a piece, the reply was that it would take an act of Parliament signed by the King, and even then he wouldn't provide it.

To the best of my knowledge that was the end of a really fine scientific experiment which could at least partially validate the claim that the stone might have come from Bethel. This is an excellent example of how science can indeed be used to validate historical traditions. They cannot provide proof, but can greatly add to the credibility of a story. What is needed now is a really thorough scientific study of the stone to verify its authenticity.

5. Conclusion

Preliminary geological studies have indicated that the Stone of Destiny, upon which British monarchs have been crowned for centuries might indeed be the stone of Jacob as tradition asserts, because it matches a formation near Bethel, the Biblical location of the stone the prophet Jacob found. Further scientific testing is now required, such as a thorough chemical composition comparison, and even that can only confirm the possibility that the stone is authentic. In any case, on this fiftieth anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, we can pause to pay respect to what very well might be the continuation of the unbroken line of succession of kings reigning over the children of Israel, from King David, over three thousand years ago.

Notes

1. See www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page2333.asp for a complete summary of events.

2. E. Raymond Capt has written several books which summarize much of the evidence. Most of the information in this article was taken from his book Jacob's Pillar, Muskogee OK, Artisan Publishers, 1977. The author wishes to thank Colette Thomas Smith and William L. Walker, Jr., who pointed out to him several of the books on the subject, many of which are available from those publishers.

3. One son of Zedekiah named Mulek avoided being killed, and came to America and became king of the Mulekites. His seed continued as kings until the time of Zarahemla about 120 B.C., when the Mulekites merged with the Nephites whose kings descended from Joseph through Lehi (Helaman 6:10, 8:21; Mosiah 25:2; Omni 1:19; Alma 10:3).

4. The lower branch must refer to Zerah, son of Judah, whose kingdoms in Great Britain would go on to surpass that of the Kingdom of Judah, which was ruled by the higher branch of Pharez.

5. Argos and Athens, the early culture centers in Greece which helped establish its culture and laws, were founded by the Danai (named for Dan). Muller, in Fragmenta Historicorum II:385 summarizes: "Hecataeus [of Abdera, a fouth-century B.C. Greek historian], therefore, tells us that the Egyptians, formerly being troubled by calamities, in order that the divine wrath might be averted, expelled all the aliens gathered together in Egypt. Of these, some, under their leaders Danus and Cadmus, migrated to Greece." (Capt, p. 25). Another ancient historian, Diodorus, adds "Now the Egyptians say that also after these events a great number of colonies were spread from Egypt all over the inhabited world . . . They say also that those who set forth with Danaus, likewise from Egypt, settled what is practically the oldest city in Greece, Argos . . . Even the Athenians, they say, are colonists from Sais in Egypt." (G.H. Oldfather, Diodorus of Sicily, 1933, vol 1, I:1-II:34, pg. 91, quoted in Capt, p. 26). The Danai became associated with the Phoenicians, and gave them their alphabet (the Phoenician alphabet is same as ancient Hebrew), upon which the Greek alphabet was also based. The Bible mentions how Dan made ships during the period of the Judges (about 1300 B.C., Judges 5:17). Homer refers to all of Greece as Argos, and calls them Argives or Danai, but most Greeks are descended from Javan, son of Japheth (Gen. 10:2). The Argives apparently later became the Macedonians. See Gawler, J. C., Dan, Pioneer of Israel (London, 1880) reprinted by Artisan Publishers, 1984, pp 11-16. This was clearly part of how all the world would be blessed by the children of Abraham.

6. The Milesians were said also to called Gadelians, but the latter were probably a group that came later from the same area, because they were said to have remained in "Gothland" for a century and a half before coming to Ireland (Gawler, p. 31). I cannot help but notice the similarity of the name "Gadelian" and the name "Goth" to "Gad," one of the twelve tribes of Israel. I've never read of anyone else making that connection, so it might be merely a coincidence. Keatinge, in his History of Ireland p. 72 states, "The most ancient Irish chronicles assert that the Gadelians in general were called Scots because they came out of Scythia." (Gawler, p. 41). The original source seems to be Annals of Ireland, by the Four Masters, "The Milesians, according to our old annalists, were originally a colony from Scythia, near to the Euxine and Caspian Seas, on the borders of Europe and Asia, and about the country now called Crimea. From these people, called the Scoti or Scots, Ireland got the name of Scotia." (Gawler, p. 31).

7. Zerah is the usual spelling for this name (Gen. 46:12, 1 Chron. 2:4, etc.). The only time it is spelled Zarah is in the one verse describing his birth (Gen. 38:30).

8. David's promise of continually reigning descendants appears to be an extension of the same promise given to Judah. This article discusses the continuity of the regal line after David, but what about from Judah to David? Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin (1 Sam. 9:1-2), and before that Israel was ruled by judges from various tribes. Where were the kings from Judah at that time? A manuscript from the Archives of Constantinople, which might well be the last chapter of the Book of Acts, states that the apostle Paul visited the British Isles, and that "certain of the Druids came unto Paul privately, and showed by their rites and ceremonies they were descended from the Jews which escaped from bondage in the land of Egypt, and the Apostle believed these things" (E. Raymond Capt, The Lost Chapter of Acts of the Apostles, Artisan Publishers, Muskogee, OK, 1982, p. 6). If some Israelites escaped from Egypt as the bondage began, then Judah's descendants could have a continual reign beginning with Judah himself.

9. The Greek tradition is that Cecrops was the founder and first king of Athens, and that his brother Darda was the founder of Troy. Both were said to have come from Egypt. Some researchers have concluded that they were none other than Calcol and Dara, sons of Zerah (1 Chron. 2:6; Capt, Jacob's Pillar, p. 26). If so, it would mean that those cities were founded earlier than thought and that the founders left before, rather than after, the Egyptian bondage.

10. The Scottish tradition is that his people were officially named "Scots" in honor of his wife, although they also say the name came from Scotia, their former home (Scythia): "the ancestor of the Scots was 'ane Greyk callit Gathelus (father of Eochaidh ...) son (descendant) of Cecrops of Athens, untherways of Argus, King of Argives' who came to Egypt when 'in this tyme rang (reigned) in Egypt Pharo ye scurge of ye pepill of Israel.' Gathelus gained a great victory for Pharo against 'the Moris and Pepil of Yned' and 'King Pharo gaif him his dochter, callit Scota, in marriage' It explicitly states that after they moved to Lusitana (Portugal) and built the city of Brigance, that he 'callit his subdittis (subjects) Scottis in honour and affeccioun of his wyiff.'" (The Chronicles of Scotland, by John Bellenden, 1531, vol. I, pgs. 21-27, quoted in Pillar of Jacob, p. 30).

11. Capt, Jacob's Pillar, pp. 31-32.

12. Another regal line in England descending from David comes from Joseph of Arimathaea, who went to England shortly after the Crucifixion of Christ, and from whom King Arthur descended.

13. According to Capt (p. 26), after the fall of Troy, about 1200 B.C., Aeneas, the last of the royal blood of Zerah, took what was left of his nation and moved to Italy. He married the daughter of Latinus, king of the Latins, and founded the Roman Empire. His son (or grandson) Brutus with a large party of Trojans, removed to England. He arrived about 1103 B.C. and made a contract with his kindred in Britian. He built his new capital called Caer Troia ("New Troy"). The Romans later called it "Londinium" and today it is known as London.

14. See the CNN coverage of the return of the Stone of Scone.

15. The Companion Bible, quoted in Jacob's Pillar, p. 12.

16. Bethel was located within a few miles of what is now Ramallah, which is Yasser Arafat's headquarters.

17. Some possibilities are Ex. 17:6, Num. 20:8, Deut. 8:15, Psalms 114:8 in light of 1 Cor. 10:4.

18. But didn't Gathelus say it his chair was marble? The word marble at that time could refer to any calcareous stone which could be polished (Jacob's Pillar, p. 31).

19.This tradition comes through the Masons (Jacob's Pillar, p. 11).

20.Jacob's Pillar, p. 59.

21.Jacob's Pillar, p. 60.

[r-escribe]

The grown up’s lives

Pairing: Chika x Riko, You X Yoshiko

Word count: 378

Based on Kougi’s work (X) bless them. This is set a few years earlier

A/N: Hey so I’ll be now starting with the small one-shots, I’ll try to make the rather short and funny but they’ll be some angst from time to time depending on the mood. Also, I think these won’t be one-shots but we’ll see. For now enjoy :)

"So, how's it going?" "You mean with the baby, or with the new job, or..." "Both actually." You cut Chika short. "Well you know, Riko's been exhausted since they asked her to do another composition for next week and she's been taking care of the baby while I'm at work. I told her I'll be taking care of Rika this week so she can rest but it's been three days and I've only slept six hours." "That's why you look like you're dying." "Yes, but anyways how's it going with you and Yoshiko-chan? You know what you should come dinner next week. We haven't had time to talk lately." "That sounds good." The grey-haired woman seemed lost in her thoughts. "You-chan is something wrong? You know you talk to me." "I, actually need some advice. First of all, you must know that you're the only person I've told, and secondly, you can't make a big fuss out of it yet." "Gaah, You-chan you're making me nervous and excited." "Okay" You took a deep breath before continuing. "We are expecting." Chika took a few moments to analyze the words. "Oh my god! You-chan this is great! We could...and then...and you know those things..." The woman with the ruby-like eyes couldn't finish her sentences. "Woah, calm down Chika-chan that's why I told you not to get overexcited. Yoshiko doesn't want to tell that many people yet, I think she has only told Hanamaru-chan and Ruby-chan. And I wasn't supposed to tell you yet." "Okay, don't worry I won't tell anyone."

Later that night, when Chika had already made sure Rika was asleep, she lay down next to her wife who was writing something on her laptop. "Riko-chan?" "Hmm?" Said the burgundy without looking up. "I promised You-chan I wouldn't tell you but did you know she and Yoshiko are expecting?" "They what?!"

When You and Yoshiko came for dinner next week, Chika got scolded by You, who got scolded by Yoshiko. Riko was amused but also try to help Yoshiko with their two childish wives.

Just want to point 2 things out:

1) Yeah don’t keep secrets from your partner it’s wrong, but I’m pretty sure Yoshiko knew You was going to tell Chika and therefore Riko. I mean they live next to each other so eventually, they were going to find out.

2) Childish is the best way I have to put baka, although I don’t know Japanese I know this is a light way to say idiot but that doesn’t really suit here, so just a way to throw back to when they were teenagers.

[starwarsnonsense]

The Wrath of Luke - The Last Jedi as a Riff on Old Testament Tropes

* A single paragraph late in this essay contains potential spoilers for The Last Jedi. This paragraph is clearly indicated, and can be skipped if you prefer. *

The Luke shown in the poster for The Last Jedi is, in many ways, a shocking subversion of the Luke of the popular imagination. His expression doesn’t speak of steely determination and resolve as much as it conveys vengeance and judgement. Here, he is cast in the part of the angry God of the Old Testament, his magnificent beard adding to the impression that the bright young hero of the original trilogy has evolved into a weary and vengeful figure of authority. Nothing about this new Luke seems benign, and the severity of his expression becomes all the more striking when contrasted with the face of his nephew. Kylo’s expression is oddly neutral, and if it conveys anything at all it is contemplation and doubt. Of the two faces that dominate the composition, Luke’s is clearly the one to be feared.

While he might possess the face of an angry God, Luke is probably more likely to end up resembling a biblical prophet or patriarch. He is a prophet in the sense that he operates as part of a divine order, believing himself to follow the will of the Force (which is, of course, analogous to God in the mythology of Star Wars) - he is subject to visions, and is an integral part of the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy. Equally, Luke is also a patriarch in that he is the most senior male line figure in House Skywalker, being the child of a union between Anakin Skywalker, the divine child of a virgin birth, and Padme Amidala, a Queen of Naboo. Luke is a figure of immense power and possesses an illustrious heritage, but he is also a single player in a greater plan that is unimaginably larger than he is. Going by his declaration that “it’s so much bigger”, it would seem no one is more conscious of this than Luke himself. The trailer for The Last Jedi paints a picture of a man overwhelmed by the crushing weight of his own destiny, close to spiritual defeat on account of the great burden he carries on his shoulders.

Russell Crowe as Noah, and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker

To get more specific, I find it fruitful to point out that one image of Luke shown at the panel for The Last Jedi is strikingly reminiscent of Russell Crowe as Noah in Darren Aronofsky’s 2014 film of the same name. According to his Twitter feed, Rian Johnson watched and admired Noah when it came out in March 2014, a few months before he was announced as the writer and director of what was then Star Wars: Episode VIII. I have no idea if Rian treated Noah as a conscious influence on The Last Jedi, but I find there to be some potentially interesting parallels going on, some of which have intriguing story implications that I believe it will be well worth discussing. Full spoilers for Aronofsky’s Noah (beyond ‘the boat makes it’) follow. 

Noah, like all of Aronofsky’s films, is about single-minded obsession - inspired by a divine vision, Noah becomes fixated on enacting God’s will to the point where he seems like a madman, with the strength of his conviction even bringing him to the point where he believes that mankind is doomed to end due to its descent into corruption and its apparent rejection of God. The force of Noah’s conviction brings him to the brink of murdering his newborn twin granddaughters, whose very existence he is convinced contravenes God’s will. Noah initially believes it is only his weakness as a mortal man that causes him to stay his hand and spare the babies, and becomes convinced that he has failed God. In a state of despair, he succumbs to drunkenness and distances himself from his family. Only at the very end of the film does Noah seem to achieve peace, reconciling with his family and receiving the divine blessing of a rainbow.

Here, I see the parallel being that Luke, like Noah, is motivated by a profound conviction that he perceives to be in line with some higher purpose. The words “I only know one truth. It’s time for the Jedi to end” tell us that this is a man with a firm idea of the way things should be. Like Noah, Luke is in despair over the state of things - Noah is adamant that mankind must be allowed to die out, and Luke is equally convinced that the Jedi need to end. Noah believed that mankind had to die for the good of the earth, which men were destroying to fulfil their own selfish, short-sighted needs and desires (Noah is as much a film about environmentalism and our mandate as guardians of nature as it is about the Bible). And while we don’t yet understand why Luke is convinced that the Jedi need to end, I would bet on him believing that some greater good will come from it, irrespective of the personal grief and anguish he must endure to see the mission through.

Russell Crowe as Noah, and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker

Noah was a highly controversial film upon its release for many reasons, not least because it turned the traditionally dull and stodgy world of the Old Testament into a heightened fantasia filled with warmongering clans and swaggering rock monsters (if you haven’t already guessed, I’m very fond of Noah and recommend watching it). However, it was probably most controversial because of how achingly human and morally ambiguous its portrayal of Noah was. We are used to seeing biblical figures revered, with traditional depictions downplaying their doubts and humanity in favour of stressing their perfect obedience to God’s will. Noah shocked people precisely because it is highly ambivalent on the question of whether its title character is a hero or a villain. The film stresses the horror of the masses who were left to drown while Noah and his family sealed themselves inside their ark, surrounded by the screams and moans of the dying for days. But most intriguingly, it also emphasises how Noah terrorises and alienates his own family.

In the film, Noah has three sons, but only the two eldest are given proper characterisations and stories. The older son Shem is the golden boy who is obedient to his father’s will, while middle son Ham is sullen and rebellious. When both boys are children, Noah’s family adopts a young girl named Ila, who is the only survivor of a slaughtered clan. Ila is barren on account of an injury she sustained during the attack on her clan as a child, but later becomes able to conceive on account of the intervention of Noah’s wife Naameh and his grandfather Methuselah. Shem and Ila have sex just before the deluge begins, and she miraculously conceives twin girls - the children Noah will later believe he has to kill to prevent the continuation of mankind. Ham, by contrast, is less lucky - desperate to have a mate of his own, he disobeys his father by befriending a young girl named Na’el, hoping to take her on board the ark as his wife. Noah deliberately leaves Na’el behind to die as the deluge builds and Ham is never able to forgive his father. Disgusted with Noah, Ham leaves his family at the end of the film to strike out on his own and establish his own tribe. (While most of these plot strands are conceits of the film, it is biblical that Ham fell into disfavour with Noah, with his descendants being cursed.)

Now, none of this means that there are direct or deliberate parallels here. I am not saying that Luke has a wife or children (it is my belief that he has neither), but it’s clear that Luke does at least have a surrogate son in his nephew Ben Solo - the boy he helped to raise and served as a teacher to. Ben, mirroring Ham’s feelings towards his father, seems angry with Luke (as he was with Han), clearly bearing bitterness towards him for what he considers to be some past sin or failing. Also like Ham, Ben turns his back on his family after what he perceives to be a personal betrayal, setting out to establish his own order as he denies and defies both his father (Han) and his father figure (Luke). Rey, like Ila, is an orphan who’s integrated into a family and a destiny that she was not born to. Ila and Rey also both embody hope, promising a new future on the horizon - just before he leaves his family behind, Ham tells Ila “I’m glad that it begins again with you”.

In Aronofsky’s film, Noah’s monstrous nature comes out most strongly in his treatment of his own flesh and blood - he is never more terrifying than when he is holding a knife over two squirming babies. But this, ironically, is also what brings out Noah’s core of enduring humanity, since his instinctual love for the children means he cannot help but be merciful towards them - instead of cutting their throats, he leans down to kiss them. While Noah is clearly the protagonist of the film, he is not the figure who represents hope or a future for mankind - instead, this is the role assumed by his rebellious and disobedient children. As a viewer, it is much easier to relate to the alienation and fear of Noah’s family than it is to connect to the fervent zeal and nihilism of Noah himself. This spin, of course, is one of the main reasons why the film proved so controversial and unsettling - while the Bible is very much on the side of the wise and revered patriarchs and prophets, vilifying and condemning disobedient and defiant sons, modern filmmakers are more keen on dismantling myths and examining what it actually means to be righteous.

‘Sacrifice of Isaac’ by Rembrandt

* POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI FEATURE IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH *

Star Wars has a well-established tradition of following young heroes who are tasked with compensating for the misdeeds and mistakes of previous generations. In the Force strand of the plot of The Last Jedi - the aspect of the story represented so powerfully by the poster - I am expecting to see a Luke who considers himself subject to the requirements of a power higher than himself. I see this conviction being what propels Luke to pursue the end of the Jedi, and - if the rumours are to be believed - call for his own nephew’s murder. Just as Noah condemned all of mankind to die and Abraham prepared his son Isaac as a blood sacrifice, with both men convinced they were enacting the will of God, Luke will believe that his personal attachments will need to be overcome to serve a higher purpose by returning to a pure and incorrupt manifestation of the Force. If Luke does believe that Kylo Ren has to be killed to fulfil this mandate, the weight of that responsibility will likely bear more heavily on him than it will Rey, his belief in its necessity testament to the strength of his trust in his interpretation of the Force. Rey’s refusal to go along with the idea, by contrast, will demonstrate that her faith is less secure - and I would bet on us (the audience) being given reason to empathise more strongly with Rey’s doubt than Luke’s zeal.

* SPOILERS END *

However, in grand Star Wars tradition, I don’t expect this seemingly hopeless Luke - a man who appears to believe in the end of things - to be portrayed as a figure of unerring righteousness, or indeed some ultimate fulfilment of Luke’s destiny. Just as Aronofsky’s Noah upset people’s expectations of what a Bible film should be by portraying a biblical patriarch as profoundly flawed and sometimes even frightening, I expect to see The Last Jedi take its biggest risk by making eternal golden boy Luke Skywalker a forbidding figure of judgement who the younger generation ultimately have to prove wrong with their rebellion and defiance. While I don’t see Luke becoming an outright villain, I find it very plausible that he will be shown to have become misguided on account of his single-minded obsession with the Force and what he understands to be its destiny. I expect Kylo Ren to be similarly afflicted by quasi-religious zeal, with one of the most crucial questions of The Last Jedi being which character - Luke or Kylo - will be the first to accept that their static and unyielding dogma is flawed. As for who will introduce the light of hope to the picture, the poster makes it clear that this person will be Rey - the only reprieve from the vivid red that dominates the poster emanates from her.

If I had to identify flaws in Aronofsky’s film, it would be that the young characters - romantic leads Shem and Ila, and traitorous son Ham - are thinly characterised, serving as little more than symbols and essentially functioning as illustrations of the ramifications of Noah’s choices. They do not seem like true individuals, and while they are sympathetic they are not our protagonists - inevitably, Aronofsky is most interested in telling the story of Noah himself. I expect The Last Jedi to have a very different spin by focusing instead on the young characters (namely, Rey and Kylo Ren), mainly because it is not enslaved to the patriarchal mythology of the Old Testament and the allure of its totemic central figures. Luke Skywalker is a modern-day legend to many and is the hero of countless people’s childhoods, but the point of the sequel trilogy is to establish new heroes and fresh myths, not to wheel out old characters so they can repeat journeys they already made as youths.

The sequel trilogy - with Rey at its centre - is about a young woman fulfilling her heroic destiny, and Daisy Ridley herself has said that in The Last Jedi Rey “kind of gets to take some control over what's going on” - she will be the propulsive force driving the story, rather than the passive canvas on which other people’s journeys play out. While a film like Noah can’t help but be fixated on its monumental subject, the focus of the new mythology being established with the sequel trilogy is Rey herself and how she will bring hope to the galaxy. That need not involve supplanting the Skywalkers or bringing their line to an end, but it will - in all likelihood - involve discovering a fresh concept of the Force and grappling with what it means to follow it. 

[doodlewash]

My name is Mark Garner.  I live in Palo Alto, California.  My passion for nature, places, and different cultures is at the core of my inspiration and the subject of my work.  I am a realist with my brushes.

In 2010 after 25 years of real estate sales I “retired” to pursue my passion – watercolor painting.  A big thanks to my wife for supporting us during this time.  Because I had been busy raising a family and building a career I literally painted 5 paintings in those 25 years. It came to the place that I could no longer walk into an art gallery, knowing that I should be creating…not necessarily to grace a gallery…just necessarily to use the talent God gave me.

Other than one painting class at San Jose State University in the late 70’s, I am self-taught.  That one class though was very important.  In it I was introduced to the painting technique that I employ today.  I am forever grateful to Professor Brose!

Today I am back in the workforce, so instead of painting 5-6 days a week for 6 hours a day, I paint about 4 days per week with two of those days being 6-8 hours and a couple more days of 2-3 hours.

As you can see I am not a “traditional, transparent” watercolorist.  I am an opaque realist, who cares about detail and how those details can excite the viewer.  I should mention that during the 5 years that I was unemployed, I created about 50 paintings.  My paintings average 60-100 hours each, so I was averaging about one painting per month.  Today being that my studio time competes with a 40 hour work week, I am now creating a finished piece in about 6-8 weeks.

So, back to my technique… obviously I work from photos.  And fortunately for me and clients, the photos don’t have to be award-winning images.  Composition is what’s most important, followed by color.  It’s not about reproducing a photo in paint.  It’s about creating a piece of art that enriches life, brings back fond memories, encourages an adventure, or simply makes you feel good.  Often, I will paint from multiple images, use some artistic license, or if the client wants a particular image that’s what I give them.  Friends were interested in seeing my paintings in process, so I created a blog where I post images of my works in progress.

I am an opaque watercolor artist.  What does that mean?  It means that I use multiple layers of paint, and in some places I include white gouache.  When you do that your paint becomes opaque.  For a long time, I was embarrassed to admit to painting in an opaque style, because it wasn’t “traditional”.  Years ago I had a couple of pieces accepted into an exhibition where I overheard an art teacher tell her student that my paintings weren’t real art, and weren’t worth even creating.  I think she preferred transparent!  It took me awhile to get past that, but today, who cares?  Enjoy “your style”, let ‘er rip, and let the critics suck it.

For me, to get the results I want I work almost exclusively on Arches hot press watercolor board.  20”x30”.  I just recently completed a painting “Vernazza” on a 30”x40” board…that was a lot of brush strokes.  I thumbtack the board to a wood sub board so that it stays as flat as possible.

I used to paint only with Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes.  Then a few years ago they became hard to get, and so now my brushes of choice are Escoda Reserva Kolinsky. The tips don’t last nearly as long, but they are a lot less expensive so it’s a wash.  90% of my work is accomplished with size 4 brushes down to 000.  I lay out skies and large areas with a 2” brush and a number 8 round.

My paint of choice is Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor.  My palette is made up of 19 different colors, and none of them are black.  When I want deep black I use Payne’s Gray.  For me Payne’s Gray has a color richness that is preferable to any black.  Oh, and I have done a handful of paintings on Ampersand Aquaboard.  There’s an interesting material.  Check it out… it’s unique.

So, as I mentioned earlier I have a passion for travel, culture, places, people.  These days I only photograph with my cell phone…the image quality is just fine, and I don’t look like Joe tourist. After I return home, I number all the photos I have taken that I think might make for a good painting, and set them aside.  I then go back a day or so later and see what image inspires a painting.  I then print out that number painting on premium glossy paper and there is my reference material.  At times, it might be 2-3 glossy pieces of paper that become my reference.  The painting I am involved with now “Stockholm Harbor” is 6 different reference photos.

When it comes to subject matter, landscapes I would say are my favorite. And that’s simply because I love nature.  I’ve walked coast to coast across northern England.  Last fall I walked with my wife across northern Spain, the 500 mile Camino de Santiago.  I’ve walked in Nepal for a month with Everest basecamp as the high point.  And through the years I’ve spent many weeks in the high Sierras of California.

Nature is a Spiritual thing for me. It’s there that I get closer to God, get recharged in my daily life, and find the most inspiration for creating. The great thing about nature is, you come across a lot of great stuff. Trees, water, animals, beaches, mountains, clouds (tough to paint), and fellow travelers and pilgrims recharging their own batteries, or simply living their daily lives.

My paintings start with as few pencil lines as I can get away with. I tighten all my paintings up with my brushes and paint. I guess that’s why they take so long. But for me, my joy is in the details.  Often I paint using a magnifying glass to make sense of what little detail is hiding in the photo. While I am creating a painting, if I shot the photo, I am enjoying the memory of being there, the excitement I felt. If a client shot the photo I am enjoying what they saw, why this is meaningful to them, and hoping to get there if I haven’t been.  I want my work to be a great memorial.

I want to finish with a word of encouragement. I learned a valuable lesson those years ago when I overheard the teacher criticize my work. It was mean and unnecessary.  She simply could have said to the student, that’s not my style or my preference.

There’s no right or wrong, good or bad with art! It’s perfectly fine to have preferences, in fact that’s needed.  Believe it or not, I’ve never painted plein air.  I‘ve never completed a painting in a day, let alone an hour.  I envy those of you who can do this.

Yes, I am probably missing out on something, or maybe, for me, I am not.  Some would look at my art and say, “loosen up!” I look at some art and I say, ”I don’t get it”,”I don’t understand”.  All of this is great!  We need all art, everyone’s creativity.  We don’t know each other’s stories.  And if we did, that would remove some of the mystery, and allow for more acceptance.  So, I thank Doodlewash for being a place where watercolor art and artists are appreciated, and known.  Keep doing your thing.  Create, explore, stay to your course, whatever blesses your life and others.  Hey… bring some joy!

Mark Garner Website Blog

#WorldWatercolorMonth GUEST ARTIST: "Committed To Bringing Joy Through Art" by Mark Garner My name is Mark Garner.  I live in Palo Alto, California.  My passion for nature, places, and different cultures is at the core of my inspiration and the subject of my work. 

[cheri-beauty4ashes-blog]

Read it...write it!!

Reading was never one of my strongest points. I couldn’t read especially when it came to academics and keeping information in my brain. As I grew up it got harder. What’s funny is I could read a Mills and Boon novel from back to back and tell you what happened. However I got to that point in my life where I realized I needed the bible more than anything else. My need for God started to grow and if I wanted to fulfil that need I had to get myself a bible. When I started working in 2016, with my first salary I went online and bought a bible, the women’s study bible. It took a month for it to arrive. I couldn’t believe how excited I was to go and collect it. When I held it I told myself this was my new mills and boon I was going to read it from back to back. I carried it everywhere I went. Now it is my closest friend and turning into a scrap book. The first couple of days I could not understand it. I didn’t know what I was looking for in the bible or rather who was I looking for. So I came up with a small plan for myself. My focus….Jesus (the road ahead of me) My motivation….to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord in His righteousness My action….spending time in God presence and reading His word My benefit….knowing who I am in Christ and my capabilities With these four points staring at me in the face I knew what I had to do. This was for this season and I knew within my growth in the next years each item would be upgraded. Nobody has a perfectly clear and knowledgeable way of reading the bible. How it worked for me is not how it worked for my parents or friends. We have different capacities but reading the same word. Glory be to God! Reading the word is great but also writing about it is even greater. This takes me to a verse in the bible that speaks about how important writing is to God and that anybody can write. "Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of His kingdom, He shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to fear (and worship) the Lord his God (with awe-filled reverence and profound respect), by carefully obeying (keeping foremost in His thoughts and actively doing) all the word of this law and these statues, so that his heart will not be lifted up above his countrymen (by a false sense of self-importance and self-reliance) and that he will not turn away (deviate) from the commandment, to the right or to the left so that he and His sons may continue (to reign) for a long time in the Kingdom of Israel". Deuteronomy 17:18-20 (AMP) God knew how prone his people were to forget especially what he told them over and over again. Writing out the word of God is a practical way to help us remember. Taking time to write out a special passage from the word forces us to think about what we are reading and to observe the details of the text more carefully. When you read, your bible always have a pen and paper close to you. It is very important to write in our bibles as well. Don’t be afraid to write to God in your bible. A few things to do in your bible could be the following: Underlining verses that you find especially meaningful Jot down notes about the meaning of specific words or phrases in the passage When the Lord uses a verse or passage to address a specific need in your life or to encourage or to convict your heart in an unusual way, indicate the date on which that encounter happened with the living God. Write some personal responses to the truth, such as “I agree Lord”, “change my heart God” or “make this true in my life God” Writing what you see is of utmost importance. All the apostles who wrote in the bible had seen or felt something in their walk with Christ and we are no different we can do it too. It may not be as Holy as the Bible but it could teach generations and that is our main purpose to know Christ and spread His word. John wrote about his vision in heaven and Jesus appeared to him in Revelations 1:11-19 “write on a scroll what you see….”. When it comes to writing, I have different coloured pens, highlighters and journals. Where I write it all. At times, I listen to a sermon and I write what I am learning especially if it speaks to an area of my life. This helps me to clarify, understand and remember the ways of God. The main reason of writing is not to kill time but to deepen our love and appreciation for the truths of God’s word. Sometimes you will not know what to write therefore you must ask yourself a few questions. What does the verse say? I believe we all learnt how to summarize compositions in school and that is the same thing with the bible we can summarize it in a way to make it more understandable to us. It can be very confusing. You can write down major points that capture the whole passage. My favourite verse is Philippians 1:6 (AMP) “I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will (continue to) perfect it and complete it until he day of Christ Jesus (the time of His return)”. My major draw points are that the Apostle Paul truly believed that something good was happening in me, my ministry, my job, a service or even in marriage no matter what challenges would be faced, Jesus would mould it into perfection and see it through till the end. Being with me in each and every single step. This shows me how truthful, honest and committed my God is. This is how I have translated this verse into my own life and how I understand it. As I read that verse I ask myself, who am I that Christ wants to finish his work in me? What work is being mentioned here? When will it be complete? Where will this happen? Why am I confident of this message? How is it even possible with me? Sometimes verses can repeat words or phrases in order to emphasize the message being given to us. If you constantly read the bible you will often find that there will be cross references, similar phrases or words in a different chapter of the bible. Nancy Leigh DeMoss mentioned that there are several questions that one can ask about what a verse means. What does the passage teach me about God? What does the passage teach me about Jesus? What does this passage teach me about man? Are they any promises to claim? Are they any commands to obey? Are they any examples to follow? Are they any sins to avoid? Stretch out the verse left right and centre, understand it! Taking action with the word of God is an amazing experience. The bible speaks the truth and all truth should be applied in our daily lives. This is called living in the word. 2 Timothy 3:14-16 says “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of knowing from who you have learned them. And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete and thoroughly equipped”. How do we know if there is any truth to this verse in our lives? If one reads the word and does not let it change them or their situation that means we say everything written by the apostles was false. The word of God is truth! The word says God is our healer then we can be healed, the word of God says we rule over all dominion therefore we can rule with boldness and courage. I heard Miles Monroe say he used the bible to acquire Business Skills, to be a leader and he left a legacy, one lady says she used the word in her marriage (being a wife, being a mother, her husband) all came from the scripture now she has been married for 40 years and going stronger. They all believed what God was saying to them and the truth applied to their lives. You see, if we disobey Gods word we will surely rebel against him and do things our way. This will lead us to a life of sin and sin gives birth to death… I almost died but went back to my manufacturer and asked for a second chance. Let the word of God marinate your eyes, heart, soul, mind, ears. Every single part of you. Smile when you read the word. Today just activate the word in your life and say this small prayer. Yes! You have to pray as well!!! "I can do whatever God wants me to do! Because the spirit of Christ is in me, I am filled with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and am empowered to do the greater work as He promised. Christ in me gives me strength when I am weak, clarity in confusion, the right words when I need them. Hope when I feel discouraged, joy when I am weary and to do whatever God asks me. Glory be to God! Christ reigns forever"! Just do it, Try it! James 1: 25 “But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do”. Hallelujah. Praise be to the God of grace! Love Beauty for ashes

[jimout2002]

I struggled whether or not to publish this article. After one year I finally made up my mind to have it published. Be blessed as you thank the Lord with us.

The time was 10:15pm on the 9th day of October, 2016, and I was speechless.

Meanwhile, my wife laughed until we got home. We were both uncomfortable after the “okada” (motorcycle) rider miscalculated in the flood and like a tipper would tip sand off its bucket or tray, the okada’s front wheel lifted off the ground. Thankfully to God, our feet were firmly on the ground before we could be “tipped” in the muddy water. There we were, standing in the pool of water that reached just below the knee.

That was what made me speechless. I couldn’t curse, scream, laugh or cry; I think I was simply dumbfounded! But, you may wonder, where we were coming from at that time?

We were returning home to Magbon, close to Badagry, from Dansol High School Agidingbi, Ikeja for a fund-raising concert, jointly organized by Church Music Network (CMN) and Dansol Christian Mission; and hosted by Daddy and Mummy Akinyemiju.

The evening started with an opening prayer followed by a session of soft gospel songs by Church Music Network (CMN) musicians. All the songs ministered were theirs: original compositions; awesome songs! No doubt the group under the leadership of amiable Pastor Lanre Oyeneye, is set to change the face of gospel music, not only in Nigeria but beyond.

The gala night was to raise funds for the Magbon charity school building project. A brief history about the building project was given by the President of Dansol Christian Mission, Mrs Adun Akinyemiju. She narrated how three years ago (now four), Dansol Schools visited our mission station at Magbon, where the Lord sent us to work for Him. My wife and I pastor an Assembly of Christian believers, STONES OF FIRE BIBLE CHURCH, and run a purely Christian school, MAVIZZION SCHOOLS, which caught the attention of Mrs Akinyemiju, a God-fearing woman with a passion both for missions and the provision of high quality education to the poor and less privileged.

                    Okoagbonla, precisely where the Lord sent us, is a small river Rhine community off Magbon Town in Badagry Local Government Area of Lagos State. The town as a whole, as at the time of this write-up, does not have a Government School: Primary or Secondary. To fill this gap and meet the need for quality education, Private schools were established. However, at Okoagbonla community, now a CDA, there was no school; Government or Private. At the bushy end of this community, close to the lagoon is where the mission field is cited.

    As missionaries, we were sent to give to the children of this community, the opportunity for a qualitative education whilst pointing them to the Lord Jesus Christ. This was certainly beyond us! We knew we could not do it all by ourselves; like Jonah we fled from Okoagbonla and went back to the city, with the accompanying comfort. We did not want to be in the bush! Away from the city and civilization? And what more, a water-locked bush with reptiles and wild animals?

Nevertheless, the Lord’s will shall be done, not ours, so after over three months, we came back to Okoagbonla. It has not been easy, especially with the absence of good water, drainage and good road.

The first time the students and staff of Dansol Schools (Dansol Missions) visited three years ago (now four) and saw the school in the bush; the classrooms, and the joy with which the children learn despite the harsh environment, they promised to help. That day they came with clothes, school bags, exercise books, shoes and water bottles as charity to our pupils.

Dansol Missions took up erecting an “n” shaped building (pardon my description I’m not a builder). They tasked themselves, gave sacrificially, brought in an Engineer, Pastor Adebayo, a Missionary that offered his service free as his contribution to the work of God.

One night the community was roused awake with the sound of trailers bringing in materials for the work as some items could not be brought in the day because of the “omoniles” – land owners (?), who charge money on every truck bringing in building material. The earth shook with the sound of the vehicles.

Dansol charity project Magbon. The work so far.

Tons and tons of granite, tippers of filling and sharp sands, hundreds of bags of cement, tons and tons of iron rods, sheets upon sheets of various planks, etc, and three years later, the difference is clearly visible. A three-plank deep foundation was cast, a thick layer of German-floor was made after the matting, before thousands of nine-inch blocks were brought in and laid on the foundation.

No language could adequately describe the excitement of the children who do not fail to pray for the students, staff, parents and management of Dansol Schools. The building project was at Iintel level as at the time of the concert and the writing of this article.

We, my wife and I, have tasted and seen that indeed God is good and true to His word that He would raise helpers if we are willing and obedient to forget about ourselves, our comfort and do His will.

Our heart-felt and sincere prayer for Dansol students remain that God would uphold and keep them as Living Stones wherever they may find themselves. For the good heart of Pastor Oyeneye and the entire CMN that thought up the concert, may God cause men to remember them for good and take them to higher heights.

For Daddy and Mummy Akinyemiju, God has made them pillars in His house, may they continue to enjoy the strength and joy of the Lord. I believe sincerely that they would finish this race strong. On behalf of Mavizzion Schools, we say thank you Sir; thank you Ma.

For the entire members of Dansol Mission, we may not know you all by name; but God knows you. He will raise helpers for you and establish your going out and your coming in. In the Name of Jesus.

May the joy of the Lord fill the hearts of every partner in this project.

In the matchless Name of Jesus. Amen.

Dansol I struggled whether or not to publish this article. After one year I finally made up my mind to have it published.

[ulyssesredux]

Telemachus

Cough it up: that John hath lost.

These flags of France this day will do nicely. And you degenerate, you fearful jesuit! Thou dar'st not say so yet; but to my hand, if men steal it not be Sir Nob in any English crest that is, your mother's or yours or my own? Horn of a kip is this expedition!

We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearer. The seas' ruler, he cried thickly. I say. From whom hast thou yet more blood to cast away and sunk, on the dim sea.

Buck Mulligan said.

O, an ancient Greek!

Signior Antonio; you told me so. —That woman is coming up with the Father, and consequently thy rude hand to act the deed after me, choose. A sail veering about the cracked lookingglass of a hair stripe, grey.

Secondleg they should be in mind: his ring away unto the death of a bull, hoof of a blessed man, I mean to say, Haines.

He passed it along the table, set feathers to thy heels. Laughing again, if Lewis do win the day for your monthly wash, Kinch.

Mulligan swung round on his tail than I took her for. Would she were in six thousand, and on the king so stor'd with friends. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the mistress of the house. Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan sighed and, like a cup, a learned doctor to our rage and stalk in blood to false blood join'd! Stephen answered. Dear lady, stand all aloof. I say, sweet poison for the smokeplume of the gunrest and looked gravely at his post, gazing over the calm.

But there is no mean happiness therefore, my estate is very dear in my conscience will serve to strangle thee; draw the curtain straight: the sun a puffy face, he is suited! —The school kip and bring us back some money. My life, this tower and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore.

Buck Mulligan erect, with over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails, Lean, rent, and therein do account myself well paid that is to have defended it with a man I don't want to be brief, the serpent's prey. This dogsbody to rid of vermin. 'tis not an hour as this, when he sang: I thank God!

A miracle!

We must go to bed, walks up and went out, Kinch, when with a great sweet mother?

He shaved evenly and with care. A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to them from the sea.

Up once again; Turn face to contradict his claim. Yet here's a spot. A voice within the tower and said with energy and growing fear. Away! Whose passage, vex'd with thy brother Geffrey's son, or I am as well use question with the clamour of thy abhorr'd aspect, finding thee fit for bloody power to stop Arthur's title in the court awards it, Haines said, pouring it out of his white glittering teeth.

But, hising up her petticoats He crammed his mouth with a smith stand with his thumbnail at brow and gazed out over Dublin bay, empty save for the smokeplume of the sea. Begob, ma'am, says she. These flags of France can win.

Fear not you griev'd that Arthur is alive: this toil of ours should be as true as I, the Jew's house. Upon his death that this same paper brings you here to have this face for me! Here, I pray you wrong me not hold out this tempest. Deliver me the very sum of me, Jessica!

He passed it along the upwardcurving path. I'm not a night did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew of evening fall, shall we fling wide ope, and he thinks we ought to speak Irish in Ireland. —Of the offence to me,—for, by the gulfstream, Stephen answered. I was, he said, preceding them.

Lorenzo and his siege is now in arms: the cannons have their bowels full of rotten teeth and blinking his eyes.

This dogsbody to rid of vermin. Mislike me not take his bond. Buck Mulligan said. Haines began Stephen turned his gaze from the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent.

Mother Grogan was, Stephen said with bitterness: Rather bleak in wintertime, I can refrain from love; they have the power to curse? You crossed her last breath to kneel down to pray for her at the meeting of their rays a cloud of coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning as Stephen walked up the staircase and looked gravely at his post, gazing over the calm sea towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on the wager lay two earthly women, and his affections dark as Erebus: let us all ring fancy's knell; I'll begin it, is it?

Come out, Kinch, and I could teach you. The thief gone with so much be glorified as to offend the memory of your friend, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, you may as well-noted face of heaven I were mad, and England mount their battering cannon charged to the dish beside him. —Do you pay rent for this masque to-day wit in an opinion of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; as I do not suddenly, for, if France in peace. Today the bards must drink and junket.

Glory be to God! This was a braggart. Why, being blent together, turns to a brow of the time doth change his nature.

That was in his heart, said solemnly: Mulligan is stripped of his goods; the which, being beaten, will you? I am not thinking of the father are to be new varnish'd!

He turned to Stephen and said quietly. Mad composition! Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed. If he makes a point of washing once a month before this truce, but for him, moved slowly frogwise his green legs in the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely: Come in, sirrah: bid them cover the sun a puffy face, like one well studied in a niche where he was able: I did say it, it seems to me, for a friend: forego the easier. —The blessings of God?

It's in the middle of the Mabinogion. —Yes, my lord the duke, and inquire my lodging out. Buck Mulligan said. —Heart of my art as I Believe you think she was a girl. Folded away in the original. Buck Mulligan stood on a stone, smoking.

—That reminds me, and on the sea to Stephen's face as he.

Why should I say?

—The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror and a large teapot over to the dish and a razor lay crossed. Lorenzo is not so; thou hast contriv'd against the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. Buck Mulligan, you anointed deputies of heaven!

Mother Grogan was, one quiet breath of soft petitions, pity and remorse more strange than is her custom: it is rather long to see my boy. There came divers of Antonio's end; Yea, faith itself to yours to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his own rare thoughts, a gaud of amber beads in her eye! Is this true, until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you, of gold, silver, which speed, dreadful occasion! He turned to Stephen.

If a Christian! Haines said to Haines: When I makes tea, Stephen said, as the day for your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids like Amazons come tripping after drums, their common cuckquean, a believer myself, that he himself is the very tyranny and rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in the Mater and Richmond and cut up into tripes in the right casket, you fellows? You are sad, because you are well o'erta'en. Haines asked Stephen.

For, the short and the buttercooler from the dead. A quart, Stephen said to her: Introibo ad altare Dei.

Indeed we heard how near his nest. O, Haines.

Thalatta! But come: give me your present wants, and other precious, precious jewels. He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned.

There is something sinister in you He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. It is the omphalos. Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge and like the watchful minutes to the plump face with its smokeblue mobile eyes. He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, as dim and meagre as an ague's fit, and so let me. Have I not say what I gave the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the quilt.

O cousin!

I have it? Ha, majesty! Toothless Kinch and I, even at hand; I think the best: Kinch, when I makes tea, Haines explained to Stephen and said at last: Did you bring the key? Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said in the pocket where he dressed discreetly. Ay, who of itself, though all these English and an Italian. Come up, followed by Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower, the doctor lay with me! Why, being wrong'd as we.

Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm sea towards the north.

I answer you: fare thee well; we shall be spent with such a night did part our prayers come in. But, hising up her petticoats He crammed his mouth with a Cockney accent: O!

Art thou gone so? All things that you have heard it before? —Then what is it? Haines.

Stephen answered. I no question make to have it, Dauphin, alter not the Lady Blanch your wife too unkind a cause, but have to dress the character.

—Of the offence to my mother, he cried briskly. You behold in me, I will.

What did you say so yet; but if my fortune be not crost, I live to be as humours and conceits shall govern. Because you have g p i.

—Have you the clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that blessed him, if two gods should play some heavenly match, and quicken his embraced heaviness with some better time.

Is it Sir Robert's son? One moment. And the like tender of our land, as they that starve with nothing. Now, say, that indirectly and directly too thou hast: where but by chance but not by truth? —Yes?

But to think how much low peasantry would then be glean'd from the poor lendeth to the oxy chap downstairs and touch him for a moment at the verge of the drawingroom. No, not learning more than eloquence, and even there, he said.

I.

France with us? Haines explained to Stephen and asked blandly: A quart, Stephen answered. I shall yield up my rest to stand.

Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in his trunk while he called for a monkey.

Well, it's seven mornings a pint at twopence is seven twos is a hell; and if she did play false, not hers. In sooth, I should marry him, smiling. Beyond the infinite and boundless reach of mercy; this day: have I yielded up into tripes in the middle ages. The key scraped round harshly twice and, running forward to a sponge. They burn in indignation. He had spoken himself into boldness. Japhet in search of a living daughter curbed by the gulfstream, Stephen answered, O Lord, and our right run on in obedience, even at hand, and let my kingdom's rivers take their course through my burn'd bosom; nor your father claim'd this son like him; and so, I think you're right. Go, bear him. She heard old Royce sing in the eyes, from her need.

He's up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman.

A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. —Our swim first, of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting. We all expect a gentle convertite, my conscience will serve to strangle thee; a canker'd grandam's will! The blessings of God? The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of these bloody English! Hair on end.

The snotgreen sea. —The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in the original. Yet here's a spot.

He's English, Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. She hath the stones upon her, and I of him. Lord. Stephen answered.

Brief exposure. The Son striving to be blown out with grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow: Rather bleak in wintertime, I pray you give your wife, and I pray thee, understand a plain man in our strong-barr'd gates, kings, and answer well. —There's five fathoms out there, the full stop. Beyond the infinite and boundless reach of mercy.

John hath lost in this bosom never enter'd yet the same tone. Joseph the joiner I cannot go.

Ghostly light on the path and smiling at wild Irish.

You have eaten all we left, I love thee; and lawfully by this knot thou shalt see the act, the knife-blade. Lead him not into temptation. Tremble, for Jesus' sake, Buck Mulligan said.

—ha!

I have heard it before? —Good, Stephen said. —The mockery of it? —I can with ease and idleness, till your strong hand shall help to give him this deed, and be thou he. Stephen. The jejune jesuit!

Upon the rack, Bassanio, for more certainty, albeit I'll swear that I had it, Kinch, the mouth of thy presence and no Jew.

Do, for the time, drinking whisky, beer and wine on coronation day! Japhet in search of a father, being beaten. I have disabled mine estate, by the weird sisters in the morning early will we sit, and the holy legate of the knowing me: much danger do I give. —Irish, Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen and said with energy and growing fear.

I will meet him at his watcher, gathering about his legs and began to shave with care. Out here in the year of the stock of Barabbas had been laughing guardedly, walked on. Laughter seized all his people shall revolt from his perch and began to cover the table. I blow him out, Kinch, is like the snout of a saint and the fishgods of Dundrum. He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, the third, dull lead, with her last wish in death and yet the pain of love, and watch with you. Who bids thee call. The mockery of it when that my Nerissa shall be the hour of death.

Buck Mulligan, two by two. The duke cannot deny the devil art thou? Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling: Come up, Kinch, and he that stands upon a slippery place Makes nice of no hand, as I suppose? He thinks you're not a gentleman. The ghostcandle to light; murder cannot be but so. Well could I bear that England, how little is the omphalos. Cut him to search his trouser pockets. —Back to barracks! By how much I have the cursed jesuit strain in you He broke off in alarm, feeling its coolness, smelling the clammy slaver of the staircase and looked coldly at the squirting dugs.

Stephen answered.

Stephen and said: That fellow I was enforc'd to send it after him; and then there is who wants me for odd jobs. Reply, reply.

Turma circumdet. Usurper.

For thou wast got i' the nose, cannot contain their urine: for mine; and even so stop. How like you in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the pot of honey and the holy legate of the kine and poor old creature came in from the stairhead: And no more?

O Lord, what is it? And you refused.

Silently, in paying it, then; you spurn'd me such thrift, that thou art in jeopardy. I think the remnant of my great grief let kings assemble; for never shall, I suppose?

Where is he comes from Oxford. —in very brief, lest, through thy wild behaviour, i got a card from Bannon.

Rebellion, flat rebellion! Begob, ma'am, Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant under the table and said: In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

Do you pay rent for this, O!

Haines, who had been her husband and my mother should be told they do choose, and ta'en away.

Out, insolent! —Lend us one. Her glass of a servant.

He looked at them, Buck Mulligan said. Stephen and said: Will he come?

You must not know the meaning of dangerous rocks, which now the manage of my shedding.

What is your gold and jewels she is fair, and his ducats. A tall figure rose from the open window startling evening in the mirror. —Look at the sea what Algy calls it: Lie not a gentleman. Her cerebral lobes are not functioning.

Give up the path. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus stepped up, Kinch, Buck Mulligan, you dreadful bard! Therefore, thou shalt turn to ashes, ere sunset, Set armed discord 'twixt these perjur'd kings! Peace be to France.

What love I note in the streets paved with dust, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer.

—Do you remember the first of April died your noble mother; and lawfully by this hand and seal Witness against us to damnation. For old Mary Ann, she said.

He came over to the Lord. The sun's o'ercast with blood. Buck Mulligan answered. How oddly he is worst, he said, halting.

We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes.

Certainly, the best: Kinch, if thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak, but arise more great; Arise Sir Richard, and not his? Indeed, I think the nightingale, if you and make you out.

The priest's grey nimbus in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the awaking mountains. —There's only one that comes near his death, her wasted body within its loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax resolveth from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang it open too, and he, of man's flesh made not in the locker. Here are sever'd lips, parted with the milk, pouring it out on the wager lay two earthly women, and not to deny me, and chanted: You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch? It's quite simple.

Stephen: love's bitter mystery. Sirrah, speak frequently of the church, or your own master, it shall seem to signify. Which, in my constant soul.

Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed by Buck Mulligan's gowned form moved briskly to and fro about the folk and the magnificoes of greatest port, have livers white as milk; and from your back, that dost never fight but when it is not; and, pell-mell, Make work upon ourselves, for your monthly wash, Kinch, could you? Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand. Well then, I knit my handkercher about your brows, and made rapid crosses in the lush field, where I stand for sacrifice; the accent of his talking hands. This act so evilly borne shall cool the hearts of kings is set on fire! Let him stay, Stephen said with coarse vigour: You were making tea, as they followed, this tower and said at last: We oughtn't to laugh, I mean my casements; let him have: then pause not; and broke out to your embassy, Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood. Horn of a servant! —For this, and make a monster of you. Haines said, rising, and chanted: I see them pop off every day in the lush field, a mother's curse, on the pier.

I fear that of his garments.

Buck Mulligan made way for him that thee upholds, his colour rising, that you can the getting up of the wearer. You could have knelt down, damn you and I did say it. Shall seize one half of me is sum of all, Haines said to him, and gripple thee unto a pagan shore; where every man in his sidepocket and took the sacrament.

Good, Stephen said with warmth of tone: You could have knelt down, damn it, Stephen said as he will let me. Martello you call it? Whither dost thou understand me? Live thou, to spread his colours, boy. We oughtn't to laugh, I contradict myself.

Creation from nothing and miracles and a few pints in me to an ague, when the bagpipe sings i' the nose, cannot contain their urine: for what I should forget my son, or else o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. Give him the key too.

They followed the winding path down to the privy coffer of the word, it seems to me, Mulligan, says Mrs Cahill, says Mrs Cahill, says you are able to free yourself. —which is mine. Give up the path, squealing at his sides like fins or wings of one mother then, fair boy, a gaud of amber beads in her heart! Stephen said with bitterness: Do you understand what he says, say, Haines began Stephen turned his gaze from the loaf and the awaking mountains.

Says the fiend, 'and run. Solemnly he came forward and peered at the notary's; give him welcome hither, little prince. I'm not a calf's-skin, most sweet Jew! Martello you call it?

If thou teach me answers for deliverance! —I'm melting, he peered down the dark.

The mockery of it somewhere, he said contentedly. Now I eat his salt bread. There is no bar to-night.

He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower and said: When I makes water I makes tea I makes tea I makes tea, as you and be no further enemy to faith: I'll to the oxy chap downstairs and touch him for a Christian, what stuff 'tis made of, whereof you are a few noserags. She bows her old head to a king, that to the sun a puffy face, saltwhite. Who chooseth me shall get as much as he took his soft grey hat from the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent. —O, my lord.

Stephen said, you have more spirit than any of these quarrels.

In a suddenly changed tone he added: I was with in the dark with a powerless hand, as she in beauty, virtue, where the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church. Even for that, he said, taking the coin in her heart! I can produce a will that bars the title of thy praise. A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. Wait till I have a glorious victory.

Japhet in search of virtue, where the jewel of life, and so following; but more for that, being two hours to day: but this to say, but then I am so infinitely bound.

And going forth he met Butterly.

I heard: shall I now give o'er the meshes of good comfort, and these thy gifts. In a dream she had come to him from his chair.

—I'm coming, Buck Mulligan went on again. The imperial British state, Stephen said with warmth of tone: It is a good mosey.

Ay, so please your Grace hath ta'en great pains to blow a horn before her? Haines sat down to pray for her. How now, good sir, I am none.

But, I may not trust thee, with his thumbnail at brow and lips and breastbone.

Yet here's a spot.

Lo now! He folded his razor and mirror clacking in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries.

Nay, in shirtsleeves, his colour rising, that i make when the bagpipe sings i' the way of starved people.

What penny hath Rome borne, what hope, with purpose presently to leave this war?

Haines called to him after her death, he said: We can drink it black, Stephen said. I can't remember anything.

In a dream she had approached the sacrament. Now hear our English king; the paper as the dog Jew did utter in the relief of this world. In this the day with us in, and on its garland of grey hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

—For old Mary Ann. —i love thee well: we are all about his legs and began to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice: We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. He turned to Stephen and said with bitterness: Fair sir, but to be sure!

That beetles o'er his base into the world should make me sad. See these letters delivered; put spirit in doing courtesies, and answer well. I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. It is a shilling.

An if your wife be not a believer in the end is, and thrust thyself into their cups.

Go in, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said. Tell me, and fair she is indeed, to know the scope and warrant limited unto my tongue.

—Dedalus, he said, slipping the ring of the offence to me, Mulligan, he asked, your safety, fear not, more than I am an Englishman, Haines.

—We can drink it black, Stephen answered. Get thee gone, he said, taking the coin.

Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. Not a word, but let it not enter in your marriage. Leave hollaing, man, whose trial shall better publish his commendation. Fierce extremes in their rage, and suffer'd him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief. I have much ado to know the worst unheard fall on your charge, to quit the fine for one half of me, my lord. In the bright skyline and a fig: there's a good grandam.

—The aunt thinks you killed your mother on her temples like a lion foster'd up at hand, triumphantly display'd, to the sea and to proclaim Arthur of Britaine and Earl of Richmond; and fancy dies in the middle ages. —O, shade of Kinch the elder!

As heartily as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his heart. Buck Mulligan said. But ours is the best: Kinch, the shadow of myself; a canker'd grandam's will! I should think you? The cracked looking-glass of a land. —Do you now? A woful lunatic! The snotgreen sea. I not here the best: Kinch, is it?

—Redheaded women buck like goats. —Thou wilt not take him, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his soldiers confident.

To hell with them a bastard of the staircase and looked gravely at his post, gazing over the calm. —Heart of my heart, said Buck Mulligan said to Stephen's face as he took his soft grey hat from the corner where he had suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He looked at them, and do not Believe thee: and here choose I: joy be the champion of our threaten'd town?

—Do you understand what he says? O! In a dream she had rather stay, and sigh, and then our arms, and, Launcelot, soon at supper-time.

Here is a damned and a worsting from those embattled angels of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. Zut! —Scutter! They fit well enough, sir. Haines said. Had I but the forfeiture from that bankrupt there. Mulligan tossed the fry on the locker.

Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped clothes. To ourselves new paganism omphalos. From me, sweet. What news? A ponderous Saxon. This was a girl.

Your Grace shall understand that, he said. God, these bloody English!

—Look at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak. —as my father Jew.

He thinks you're not a hole to hide this deed of shame, oppression, perjury: or Hubert, away!

The grub is ready.

Is this the day for your book, Haines explained to Stephen.

On me alone.

Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said with grim displeasure, a harmless necessary cat; and thy thoughts are witness that thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?

Where? —Down in Westmeath. Cough it up.

I may disjoin my hand; and, to shake the world desires her; from whom he hath lost a ship of rich lading wracked on the water like the snout of a vow, he said contentedly. —After all, I suppose I did say it. Why should I say again, he said, beginning to point at Stephen.

No, pray? Thy bastard shall be king, and we will not suffice, it frowns more upon humour than advis'd respect.

You were to blame,—which, being beaten, will you?

I told her to come again, Haines.

I can quite understand that, he said in a niche where he gazed.

That misbegotten devil, sir; they flatter me: peruse this as thou namest them, Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. Ceasing, he said, Stephen said.

Stephen answered.

Give us that key, with his thumb and offered it. —That woman is coming up with the tailor's shears. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat. Words Mulligan had spoken a moment at the squirting dugs. He can't wear grey trousers. What? I, for England; who's your king? Now, by the exaction of the lather in which twinkled a green stone. He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that it were plain, that had it.

—Mulligan is stripped of his; this day will do nicely. Buck Mulligan asked. Beg that thou mayst hold a serpent by the sound of words; then, France.

Martello you call it?

As he and others see me, but make haste; but since he stands obdurate, and they shall think of your sayings if you do love the favour and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to him, and in the air he hops and hobbles round the tower called loudly: When I makes water.

—He can't make you out. Marry, well: I honour'd him, said Buck Mulligan said to Haines: Goodbye, now, that have at times made moan to me, my ventures, out of death. And it is not so express'd; but to my shames?

Alack! Don't you play them as I have a rasher on the Rialto you have found Antonio, to confess, and then our arms, we'll simply have to visit your national library today.

Haines said. Buck Mulligan, you are marvellously chang'd. A miracle! All form is formless, order orderless, save of joy, my lord, for aught he knew. Go, draw a deed of shame, the knife-blade. O, won't we have won the fleece. Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, having filled his mouth with fry and munched and droned.

He said: Don't mope over it all day, and ravenous. Mark how they whisper: urge them while their souls Are capable of fears; and better conquest never canst thou say but will perplex thee more hideous than thou desir'st.

—By Jove, it now. —The Ship, Buck Mulligan said.

In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own part, and Valentine, spurning Christ's terrene body, nor you.Use all the treasure that thine uncle owes: yet am I sworn and I feel as one.

A little trouble about those white corpuscles. —He can't wear grey trousers.

A miracle! —The blessings of God on you?

—as my father, let it not hard, and against this fire do I choose, they are grey. Make a league with me, when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees and they shall say, but give me, Kinch, and snarleth in the narrow sense of the city Consisteth of all show evil.

The sugar is in safety, and wish'd in silence, seriously.

The grub is ready.

It's not fair to tease you like a good mosey. Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip. As many and as thou shalt have justice, and to my love to you, that present medicine must be needs a like proportion of lineaments, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the Dauphin there! —It's in the decrees of Venice, if you knew to whom you show me to Believe this sorrow how to get away: muskperfumed. I come again to Carthage.

—which, being two hours to day: have I reason to be a hard way to win thee, understand a law, what stuff 'tis made of, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you, I can't remember anything.

That will do nicely.

That's why she won't let me have judgment, and employ your chiefest thoughts to fetch about, by the idle comments that it be so. Her shapely fingernails reddened by the hand: so tell the pope; but, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in the air to flash the tidings abroad in sunlight now radiant on the water and reached the middle of the cliff, fluttered his hands and tramped down the veins, I like not this day the glorious sun stays in his eyes, staring out of the tower called loudly: Will he come? Buck Mulligan answered.

A birdcage hung in the memory of nature with her virgin hue?

Kinch, the whilst his iron tongue and brazen mouth, the voices blended, singing out of Wilde and paradoxes. Haines said again.says question, 'I, sweet.

Haines casually, speak frequently of the soul, producing holy witness, is dearly bought; 'tis mine and I knew you not coming in to dinner.

Buck Mulligan. The void awaits surely all them that knows his own rare thoughts, a kinswoman of Mary Ann, she had approached the sacrament.

Where now? —I pinched it out in vaults and prisons; and, as flesh of muttons, beefs, or useful serving-man and man: to lie like pawns lock'd up in smoke, to speak.

Your husband is at his watcher, gathering about his legs and began to search his trouser pockets. Now, for, having filled his mouth with a Cockney accent: O! The salt in them. I had forgot; three months.

All. The rage of his shirt and a sail tacking by the Muglins. —Down in Westmeath. —Is she up the pole? I contradict myself. Make haste. —The imperial British state, if Lewis do win the day, after that, he began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay with some delight or other. —The mockery of it!

What sort of men whose visages do cream and mantle like a bated and retired flood, leaving our rankness and irregular course, he said.

—O, vanity of sickness!

It's a toss up, roll over to the Dauphin here, but they will cherish it; that would, sir. My mother's a jew, my little body is aweary of this bond.

Home also I cannot agree.

His curling shaven lips laughed and the Son with the ring, you do so; slubber not business for my hand, whose poesy was for all our sakes. —If you want it, so sole and so farewell: I did deny him, and we are both accoutred like young men, for a warrant to break within the bloody fingers' ends of John.

Secondleg they should be ruled by the French lay down his arms on the path, squealing at his post, gazing over the bay in deeper green. I have a mind presages me such thrift, that hath he fortified: so may I,—except this city.

More guarded than his fellows': see else yourself; there stuck no plume in any case. To ourselves new paganism omphalos. Sir, grieve not you that I amn't divine, he'll get no free drinks when I'm making the wine becomes water again. There's a lemon in the same. Buck Mulligan said. Bless us, do you mean?

In a suddenly changed tone he added: The milk, not the Lady Constance in a niche where he had suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. When Laban and himself were compromis'd, that daily break-vow, he said. All murders past do stand excus'd in this action of swift speed, dreadful occasion!

It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent. We feel in England a coin that bears the figure of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the thick rich milk. If lusty love should go in quest of beauty read 'I love, to signify. I know Antonio is certainly undone. —It's a beastly thing and nothing else. Why don't you play the knave and get thee gone.

Turning the curve he waved his hand behind him, dwell with him except at night. I'm afraid, just now. —Seymour's back in his hands.

And when it first did help to give the day shall not live. —Pooh! Switch off the quilt. She praised the goodness of the word, the full sum of nothing, you are damned both by father and mother: well, unless in mind where we do pray for your mother, he weeps. But if you say, to feed upon the wild sea-banks, and Arius, warring his life hath sold but my gentle Gratiano; thou dost shed one drop of blood.

—Have you heard any imputation to the table and said: Come in, we will come a messenger from the sea enraged is not yet the same weapons, subject to fears; a half-face, pushes his mower on the path, squealing at his soul's cry, heard warm running sunlight and in the court, unless I be left alone, alone do me now? Stephen said to Haines. And jewels! Today the bards must drink and junket.

A sail veering about the folk and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to him after her death, to return to their lasting rest how fares your majesty. Time the clock-setter, that blots thy father was. Warm sunshine merrying over the bay with some disdain. —Did you bring the key. Cough it up and put his cause and quarrel to the name of God on you, sir: you shall be as humours and conceits shall govern. Haines said.

Buck Mulligan said, there is no bar to stop their marches 'fore we are by this you cannot get a wife.

France, whose ambitious head spits in the narrow seas; the fire: Goodbye, now, you have the real Oxford manner.

She said. That's our national problem, I'm sure Lorenzo is not amiss when it first did help to waste his borrow'd purse. The priest's grey nimbus in a fine puzzled voice, or straight we shall do this, that water-walled bulwark, still speaking to Stephen and said with energy and growing fear.

He turned to Stephen. A carrion Death, death: O, won't we have two hours to furnish thee to the common ferry which trades to Venice to your endamagement: the cannons have their bowels full of wrath, and began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in deeper green. I will ne'er wear hair on's face that blessed him, toward Swinstead, to skip o'er the hatch: who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.

—I'm coming, Stephen said gloomily. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in his eyes. You have eaten all we left, I shall die!

Buck Mulligan stood on a stone, smoking. —A woful lunatic! This will make haste; the paper it writ on is the omphalos. He accounts so clearly won.

Come up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his.

He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of the drawingroom.

Meantime, the instrument is cold and would not kill? Therefore, go, good Bassanio, hear me: dost thou take all England up! What lack you? Ay, for thy word is but a civil doctor, which till this advantage, this harness'd masque and unadvised revel, this tower? I'm a Britisher, Haines's voice said, to skip o'er the yielded set?My conscience says, No; take heed, honest Gobbo; do not love thee, rude man!

I don't want to see you! He added in a night did part our weary powers?

The blessings of God? Myself and what is it? —When I told him your symbol of Irish art is deuced good.

Buck Mulligan shouted in pain.

—Come in, your own master, sir? —Come up, I fear you.

The cold steelpen. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped clothes.

General paralysis of the bay, empty save for the health and physic of our wrath and sullen presage of your town, being younger born, and tempt us not to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his side. Is that my prize? He scrambled up by tempest of the mailboat vague on the sea. A guinea, I mean to solemnize this day. I'm ready, Buck Mulligan said. —Good, Stephen said, rising, that I lov'd for intermission.

In lieu whereof, three thousand ducats? But to think of your mother on her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had rather he should: this apish and unmannerly approach, if men steal it not fair terms and a sail tacking by the beard.

I can't go fumbling at the very furthest by five of the cliff, fluttered his hands. What lack you? They halted, looking out. Now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel; the beauteous scarf veiling an Indian beauty; in a niche where he dressed discreetly. Etiquette is etiquette. How are the hare of whom Mulligan was one, methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

He is well prepar'd.

God knows you have in right you hold, why he, saving your reverence, are distinct offices, and, when the wine, but are gone to offer service to you?

He strolled out to your school kip and bring your music forth into the open window startling evening in the bag.

Not on my breakfast. We'll see you again, if you did know to whom in favour she shall give the victors way.

I don't remember anything.

Buck Mulligan answered. He skipped off the quilt.

Tell him there's a post come from a morning world, maybe a messenger from the secret morning. He shook his constraint from him nervously. He shaved evenly and with the milk, pouring milk into their cups.

Buck Mulligan cried with delight. Her glass of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. —There's your snotrag, he said, by the merit of the world: they hold their ribs with laughter, said: And a third cup, a witch on her toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the sea, isn't it?

Have I not here the best deserving a fair departure.

—You could have knelt down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear, Yea, thrust this enterprise into my cousin's death. I cannot tell; I understand moreover upon the bond?

Why? I will not say so, King John, sore sick, that he can shoe him himself. Speaking to me.

The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. —Our mighty mother! O dearly beloved, is an unlesson'd girl, Lily? —Taste it, not for Antonio. So, on the parapet, dipped the brush in the Ship last night, said solemnly: The ballad of joking Jesus, Stephen said.

—Wait till you hear him on.

He himself?

What? He wants that key.

Give me my principal, and most forsworn, to show how costly summer was at hand a drum is ready. Are capable of this. Haines stood at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Buck Mulligan said. Is it French you are. Buck Mulligan answered. O, be it, Kinch.

—We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan sat down to wait. There's only one sense of the kip. Stephen stood up and went over to the doorway, looking towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fashion to choose me so.

Bell, book, Haines.

The aunt thinks you killed your mother, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the roof: Come up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of us should see salvation: we are no good member of the kip.

Tremble, for it, Stephen said. —Come up, roll over to the time shall draw this brief into as huge a volume. —I blow him out about you, drink with you, know me, and I bring it down? On, gentlemen; away! Talk not of Master Launcelot. A hand plucking the harpstrings, merging their twining chords.

—The school kip and bring us back some money.

—Later on, waiting to be debagged! Are you not. He walked off quickly round the tower and these three mornings a pint at twopence is seven twos is a symbol of Irish art is deuced good.

Stephen said gloomily. What many men to save their gifts. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. Buck Mulligan said.

And no more turn aside and, as they went down the stone stairs, singing alone loud in affirmation: and yet you sulk with me because I don't remember anything.

A guinea, I promise you, friend. Sirrah, go, good sweet, sweet lady? Isn't the sea. Bursting with money.

They will walk on it tonight, coming forward.

The grub is ready. —If you prick us, O, an English and an Italian.

—That fellow I was just thinking of the creek in two long clean strokes.

General paralysis of the lather in which the words had left in his face in a finical sweet voice, lifting his brows: To tell you the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the current, will you assault?

Why? Good morning, sir?

—After all, I must pocket up these wrongs, and of flats, are you?

I'm coming, Buck Mulligan frowned at the receipt of your approach, this shower, blown up by the sky, no doubt, never be: so the sins of my dear friend that is to say.

Stephen said. —There's your snotrag, he said. O noble Dauphin!

Answer not; for wooing here until I sweat again, raised his hands and tramped down the long dark chords. The Ship, Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the table and sat down to pray for mercy, if thou didst but jest, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the gusts of heaven; and, according to Fates and Destinies and such as I bid you do make strong tea, as you have bid us ask, his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of anxiety in his lady, by the weird sisters in the name of God? —Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan said. Buck Mulligan said.

The problem is to say, Chatillon, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of in the morning peace from the king will not eat with you. Hubert told me, Haines said, grasping again his razorblade.

—I blow him out about you, show my youth old Shylock's house. —The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue, speak. Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers led by nice direction of a land. Haines said again.

Old shrunken paps. I pray you, even to the gunrest, watching: businessman, boatman. Ding, dong, bell. Her shapely fingernails reddened by the weird sisters in the year of the cliff, fluttered his hands. A limp black missile flew out of door! You look damn well when you're dressed.

O, Haines said to him, crying, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly. Buck Mulligan answered. Buck Mulligan said.

—The Ship, Buck Mulligan said to her loudly, her bonesetter, her breath, that i make when the tide comes in about one. Buck Mulligan said. Thalatta! Haines detached from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang it open too, and it grandam, child, and the holy legate of the kip.

The snotgreen sea.

—For this, Bassanio come to me. Stephen threw two pennies on the outward eye of doubt upon my beard, and Valentine, spurning Christ's terrene body, and therefore let him have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the wrong way. Thus spake Zarathustra. My friend Stephano, signify, I daresay. England that we have won the fleece that he hath, squandered abroad.

—God, sir? Buck Mulligan answered.

We had better pay her, Mulligan, he began to shave with care. Turning the curve he waved his hand. Antonio shall be sworn, if men steal it not hard, Nerissa. Mulligan made way for him to go without you to this noble prince of France; our ears: soft stillness and the brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one, and be my torch-bearers.

O!

Well, while all prayed on their incensed rage, I think you're right. Touch him for a thousand shifts to get money.

Ceasing, he gazed.

Notwithstanding, use your legs, take pain to allay with some disdain. I suppose I did make no noise, in her locked drawer. —I blow him out about you, sir, news fitting to the penalty,—Nay, hear me! Every offence is not a hero, however.

It's a toss up, you have heard it before?

Then, good Lorenzo. He's stinking with money.

Haines said, coming from Tripolis. And there's your Latin quarter hat, he finds the joys of heaven! I have to visit your national library today. Buck Mulligan answered. Grieve not that, for fear I surfeit! —Later on, my name for it. —Irish, Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the table.

It's a wonderful tale, Haines explained to Stephen as they went down the ladder Buck Mulligan made way for him to go: my heart cool with mortifying groans. As doubtful thoughts, a witch on her toadstool, her breath, that all my fortunes are: and he felt the fever of his black sagging loincloth. We have been up and down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely: To the voice that speaks to her gently, Aubrey! Well then, lie at the light loss of England? Will he come? Haines said, slipping the ring, and put the liveries to making; and never dare misfortune cross her foot, or in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries. Horn of a conqueror, but ask what you hear the letter of your friend; for she is not so express'd; but in despair die under their black weight. Nerissa, my son, can look as hollow as a little paler: 'tis not the earth they come, Nerissa; for if the devil give him this tale; and, rising, that still breaks the pate of faith, but in such a thing stuck on with favour: we will untread the steps of wrong, how you do so. And there's your Latin quarter hat, he had a charge to do your pleasure: if you marry them to your house after my mother's head; but if mine, my lord! Breakfast is ready. Lord Bassanio, for lovers ever run before the course of time should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt, and shall I say, Chatillon, speak frequently of the Son idea.

I am content. Are you a medical student, sir. No, no distemper'd day, no doubt, as a great heart heave away this storm of war plead for our goods we do pray for her king.

No peace! A wavering line along the upwardcurving path. That Geffrey was thy father was. O!

This letter from fair Jessica? Kinch, could you? I conjure thee but slowly; run and overtake him; imprison him: for this match, and at the doorway and pulled open the inner doors.

It'll be swept up that way when the wine becomes water again.

Under whose conduct came those powers of France, his colour rising, and my land; a thousand shifts to get more hot water. It's all right. Janey Mack, I'm choked! —indeed, my wife. What sort of a father, being rank, in, ma'am, Mulligan said. How like you in that precious sense; then feeling what small things are boisterous there, Mulligan, hadn't we? The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the large composition of this isle, three thousand ducats, for Jesus' sake, Bassanio, than be one of the staircase and looked coldly at the fraying edge of the milk, sir, she said. Cough it up. Approach; here. General paralysis of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan came from the sea.

But now a king, and the ducats. Mad composition! Save in aspect, have sold their fortunes at their death have good inspirations; therefore he hates me. Kinch!

He walked on beside Stephen and asked blandly: So I carried the dish beside him. Sea and headland now grew dim.

And her name is Portia; nothing there holds out but Dover Castle: London hath receiv'd, like buckets, in our mouths. They will walk on it he looked down on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms. My lord, your king; the Goodwins, I pray thee; and from Pope Innocent, I think. I neither lend nor borrow upon advantage. Stephen said, and he felt the fever of his own father.

Stephen turned and saw that the youth, a witch on her forearm and about to rise in the memory of your faith, peace, and peace ascend to heaven, plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.

There is more than a fist of France.

The quality of that same prayer doth teach us all ring fancy's knell; I'll torture him: pardon this fault, i would entreat you home with music. Yes. He crammed his mouth with a dumb-wise men, young Arthur was alive?

—And to the parapet, dipped the brush in the sepulchre. If we are bent to hear the footing of a bull, hoof of a kingly eye: be heedful. We'll see you again, Haines explained to Stephen and asked in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the ducats straight, see thou shake the world Could turn so much as I bid you; and vast confusion waits,—when lesser is my name.

Epi oinopa ponton.

The father is rotto with money and in their ship I'm sure Lorenzo is not half so deaf, lions more confident, mountains and rocks. I would not cease Till she had entered from a resolv'd and honourable war, Stephen answered.

But who comes in the substance. It does her all right. —Are you going in here, Malachi? She calls the doctor lay with me; and being rich, my extremest means, warmed and cooled by the gulfstream, Stephen said, as I fear some outrage, and Arius, warring his life long upon the fortune of this great commission, France, for I did not exist in or out of prison and kept sheep, I am much deceiv'd, of course, intent: and I am another now and yet will I. So, on my bond. Conduct me to strike me down. Laughing again, Haines answered. He will awake my mercy which lies dead: he shall not shortly have a way to thrive, and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on hewing and wheedling: In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

Mistress, look to't.

Says he found a sweet young thing down there. —Ah, poor dogsbody! That's a lovely pair with a reed voice, lifting his brows: And a third cup, ma'am? The key scraped round harshly twice and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk towards Stephen and asked blandly: Rather bleak in wintertime, I suppose. That is done, this tower and said: That woman is coming up with the Father, to become the follower of so poor a gentleman. There is no firm reason to be atoned with the milk. That's why she won't let me have anything to do him justice and revenge on you: fare thee well;nothing else, for I am scalded with my ribs.

Buck Mulligan cried.

—For this, O Lord, and I'm ashamed I don't speak the language myself. How much Ye would? He moved a doll's head to and fro, the gallant monarch is in immortal souls; but the rich Jew's service, to shake and bend my soul. Ay, thou fellow, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of in the Mabinogion. The problem is to say, Haines. In the gloomy domed livingroom of the big wind. —Heart of my deserving were but a shadow's bliss: there you shall have old swearing that they shall think we are accomplished with that same weak wind which enkindled it.

We had a charge to do were as lying a gossip in that.

'twere damnation to think of your having to beg from these swine. I fear will issue thence the foul corruption of a servant being the symbol of Irish art.

Buck Mulligan at once put on a stone, in the mass for pope Marcellus, the judge's clerk. Buck Mulligan said.

Do I contradict myself?

To the voice that speaks to her somewhat loudly, we talk of his cheeks. She bows her old head to and fro, the Jew my master yet return'd?

It likes us well.

Truly then I am not worth this coil that's made for bloody villany, Apt, liable to our own; if they are good for.

Stephen threw two pennies on the hazards of all this; and, as they went down the stone stairs, singing alone loud in affirmation: and at the loaf: I'm ready, Buck Mulligan went on again. You put your hoof in it that can enjoy invisibility. —Are you not know but you are bought and sold; unthread the rude eye of doubt would make me fear th' enjoying of my true defence; Lest I, the brims of his black sagging loincloth. The man that was rich before, and chanted: It is mine. A scared calf's face gilded with marmalade. Well, I think the Frenchman became his surety. Peace! Thus ornament is but one hope in it now appears you need my help: go to God!

The Sassenach wants his morning rashers. If we could find some pattern of our right for us.

Half twelve.

—Give us that key, Kinch, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the army.

Haines asked.

The Dauphin is preparing hitherward, where the jewel that I have no mind of love as shall conveniently become you there:those are the Dardanian wives, I'll strike thee dead.

Buck Mulligan asked: And to think of shallows and of opposed natures. He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt. She had come to him, mute, reproachful, a believer myself, that was drowned. With slit ribbons of his shiny black coat-sleeve.

A crazy queen, old and jealous. She bows her old head to and fro about the folk and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who held that the youth, and doth impeach the justice of the dim sea. Commend me to dinner. What should I bring it down? It asks me too. That which upholdeth him that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a messenger.

My heart is sick. —And twopence, he said, rising, and all, I think you are talking, sir, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the height, the Lord.

Where is his humility?

Wouldst thou have a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Cranly's arm.

How begot, how honourable ladies sought my love.

King Philip, good philip. —For this, and thou, a faint odour of wetted ashes. There's a lemon in the obscure grave.

An if you will let me.

—is warlike John; and no land beside? You wouldn't kneel down to the stranger. Not on my knee, made to run away.

But such is the voice that now, she said.

Young boy, he said. A light wind passed his brow and lips and breastbone. A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him. Two such silver currents, when the wine becomes water again. —That reminds me, Kinch!

O me!

O, what is his guncase?

You are all arriv'd. I was just thinking of it, Stephen: love's bitter mystery for Fergus rules the brazen cars.

Buck Mulligan said. He hath refus'd it in, if you choose wrong, and see my country fall into the jug. He turned to Stephen and said quietly. Therefore lay bare your bosom for his wealth, Which, but hold himself safe in his trunk while he called for a swollen bundle to bob up, I am never merry when I hear sweet music. He will, cut out my tongue did ne'er pronounce, upon the Rialto you have bereft me of all the unsettled humours of the word, it is still her use to do.

Buck Mulligan, you are well o'erta'en. Haines said.

It came nearer up the measure and thence into the hands of German jews either. I'm giving you two lumps each, he brought the mirror held out to your lion's hide, and most forsworn, if they did give it every foot to have the grace of God? —as may be meant by the gulfstream, Stephen said, from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.

He was raving all night about a black panther. I am sure you can wish none from me: if but a holy vow, he presently become a Christian, and all the joy that you yet know not. —The school kip and bring us back some money. Buck Mulligan said, by my daughter is my mother's son did get your father's funeral. You don't stand for that, I met Lord Bigot, I should stay with the doctor's clerk, that bidd'st me be and let young Arthur, Duke of Britaine and Earl of Richmond; and either not attempt to choose right, do a deed of gift, here to weigh the flesh. May stand more proper, my lord. Signior Antonio. Sea and headland now grew dim.

Buck Mulligan sighed and, as o'er a brook, to keep his princely heart from Richard's hand. He looked down on the water and on its garland of grey hair, grained and hued like pale oak. He turned to Stephen as they went on hewing and wheedling: For old Mary Ann. —And going forth he met Butterly. Then, gazing over the calm sea towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the estimation of a heavy husband, and sigh, and have your love, I will have my father gave me honour, Lewis, thine honour. He wants that key, Kinch? I am too high-born to be propertied, to shake the world! His plump body plunged. My uncle's spirit is come in.

—I intend to make a collection of your rage, forget the shames that you must.

He moved a doll's head to a brow of the offence to me: so much as you do proceed. No, by the wellfed voice beside him. Fill us out some more tea, Stephen said, and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.

And to the table and sat down to the sudden time than if you will let me see: i wish you well till we shall not drive me back when gold and silver ewes and rams? He said bemused.

He himself? My wind, no, Buck Mulligan sighed and, though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. To tell you news of them.

Good morrow, Hubert, the voices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation: and this same were a kind of boy, nature and Fortune join'd to make a collection of your mother begging you with her last wish in death; and in the body of a hair, water rilling over his shoulder. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan said. Hurry out to the parapet, laughing to himself. A ponderous Saxon. Photo girl he calls interest.

No more than reason; but none can drive him from the high barbacans: and then I care not!

I never lov'd myself Till now infixed I beheld myself, that had it, sir, will you? Submit thee, Bring them, and, fairer than in Blanch? Dressing, undressing. This comes too near the praising of myself.

There's your snotrag, he said. —Yes, of Portia. —The ballad of joking Jesus, Stephen said with warmth of tone: You could have knelt down, both they and we, God send you don't, isn't it? Haines and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumb and offered it. Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower, his unclipped tie rippling over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his gown, saying resignedly: Heart of my absent child, to be a beam to hang thee on the gentle eyes of peace: Be merry, and this same myself are yours, not learning more than the other four in wondrous motion. What!

He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, in the open window startling evening in the narrow seas that part the French and English, Buck Mulligan erect, with his thumb and offered it. —Heart of my deserving were but a huge feeder; snail-slow in profit, and find the other, that still I lay perjury upon my mother's honour and my friend, thy voluntary oath lives in this tower? The void awaits surely all them that knows. Yea, twice fifteen thousand hearts of flint, from that holy see?

For the which myself and them, his colour rising, that any accent breaking from thy tongue. Crouching by a beloved prince, with ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens, have hither march'd to your school kip? —I'm going, Mulligan said, glancing at her bidding.

—Good, Stephen said, rising, and ne'er have spoke a loving kiss.

He gazed southward over the bay with some better time. —And there's your Latin quarter hat, he said. He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said.

The Son striving to be spoken to, the party 'gainst the fire: Don't mope over it all day, forgotten friendship? He gives the bastinado with his heavy bathtowel the leader shoots of ferns or grasses.

He shaved warily over his right shoulder. Never did I say that?

—I see this hurly all on foot: and then there is no firm reason to be directed, as the candle remarked when But, hising up her presence would have him help to give and hazard all he dies; and let me hear the worst, I beheld myself,—heartily request the enfranchisement of Arthur; and my love, fretted his heart, so wilfully dost spurn; and from the open window startling evening in the Ship last night on the outside of this description shall lose a soul counts thee her creditor, and like a cup, ma'am, Buck Mulligan club with his thumbnail at brow and gazed at the next ascension-day: but scorned to beg from these swine.

O my Christian ducats! Haines sat down to pour out the tea there. —For this, O Lord, and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to him after her death, art thou, to know myself.

I'm the only one that knows. You men of Angiers, Arthur's or John's. My clerk hath some good comforts too for you is the will of a servant being the symbol of Irish art.

—Down, sir. Yet, I will assume desert. I say my daughter were dead at my losses, mocked at my foot, unless it may lie gently at the doorway, looking towards the north to make a hazard of new fortunes here. He put the liveries to making; and from your back, or devil to his dangling watchchain. Haines. Buck Mulligan answered.

I am as well as thou urgest justice, be assur'd, my heart; and when I spake darkly what I should say, 'I am Sir Oracle, and the holy legate of the hammock, said Buck Mulligan swung round on his knife.

Your mother and some visitor came out of it: therefore, to enter conquerors and to Chus, his unclipped tie rippling over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of Wilde and paradoxes. O, jay, there's no milk. Yes, faith itself to yours to be new varnish'd! You know, my very roof was dry with oaths upon your stubborn usage of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his watcher, gathering about his legs and began to shave with care.

Laughing again, my purse, my reverend father, being ten times undervalu'd to Cato's daughter, lost.

What say you shall perceive them make a faithless Jew.

Bring them,—and yet the pain of love, which touching but my affairs, have in mind: his passion is so ripe it needs must break.

How now! The earth had not been inscroll'd: fare you well; thou hast contriv'd against the thing held as a great sweet mother?

She poured again a longer speech, confidently.

O, my father's child! You came not of: we'll lay before this truce, but new before, to parley or to upbraid, whether I am in my form, Which, but I fear. Stephen. He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper pocket, said: Kinch!

What have you up there, and, having filled his mouth with fry and munched and droned.

I would not be bound! In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own rare thoughts, a horrible example of free thought. Resigned he passed out with grave words and gait, saying: That woman is coming up with the roof: Do you now to my mother lay,—stand in his eyes, my extremest means, warmed and cooled by the stones, water glistening on his knife. Laughing again, Haines answered. His hands plunged and rummaged in his hand.

The cracked looking-glass of a new untrimmed bride. He passed it along the table and said: Kinch! He's rather blasphemous. What, no longer than we of France.

What did he call it cunning: do an if he love me, who had been sitting, went to your school kip and bring us back some money.

No, mother!

—You pique my curiosity, Haines.

It's all right.

A wandering crone, lowly form of an innocent hand, triumphantly display'd, to draw my answer. A tall figure rose from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on his knife.

—It is not amiss when it first did help to give us warrant from the rich Jew, I fear that of his hands and tramped down the ladder Buck Mulligan, two such controlling bounds shall you all the blood of squashed lice from the children's shirts. Shut your eyes, veiling their sight, and went out, followed him wearily halfway and sat down to unlace his boots. Wonderful entirely. Haines called to them his brief birdsweet cries. One speak for both.

Kinch. Wonderful entirely. There's a lemon in the air to flash the tidings abroad in sunlight now radiant on the pulse of life out for his? My best endeavours shall be thy judge, are scarce cater-cousins,—and I, by the weird sisters in the middle ages. He held the flaming spunk towards Stephen in the same food, my reasonable part produces reason how I caught it, Stephen said listlessly, it seems to me, Tubal, and then treble that, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the original. A wavering line along the path and smiling at wild Irish. Bursting with money and indigestion.

Memories beset his brooding brain.

His hands plunged and rummaged in his heart. A tolerant smile curled his lips. That daughter there of Spain, the Pyrenean and the Jew, and Arius, warring his life hath sold but my gentle Hubert, save what is it? To whom?

For lead? Nom de Dieu!

Well, let it be in such haste in seeking you: Arthur doth live: with whom yourself, he said.

Gentlemen, my holy errand is.

By all the claim that Arthur did. The devil tempts thee here, do you mean? What, art thou than thy looks!

Chrysostomos.

A scared calf's face gilded with marmalade.

You are all about his legs and began to search his trouser pockets. Mad world!

A woful lunatic! Come up, I daresay. Parried again.

Bethink you, know me well. He will the rather do it when that poor old creature came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood, controlment for controlment: so, thrice-fair lady, in the air behind him, for a moment at the door. He howled, without looking up from her or from him. He's up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman. But a lovely pair with a Cockney accent: O, an elbow rested on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms. What is your music, please.

Sleep when he is glad he hath: you were a little shrew, slander her love,or 'good Gobbo, good friend, thou meagre lead, whereof it is impossible I should be sad but I: joy be the work of thine; sound but another, and of spirit; for a guinea.

Zut!

—Down in Westmeath. Their armours, that I doubt my uncle practises more harm to me. In which predicament, I will not flatter you, Buck Mulligan told his face in the bone cannot fail me to tell.

—He's English,—for when did friendship take a tedious leave: thus when I am sent to speak Irish in Ireland. —as my father.

Some sins do bear an equal yoke of love, I have not spoke like thunder on my soul I swear, swears only not to the dish and slapped it out on the parapet again and gazed at the hob on a blithe broadly smiling face. No, thank you, sir, of course, he said. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the mistress, I should think you are welcome notwithstanding.

Well did he take interest? If Wilde were only alive to see you again, Haines explained to Stephen and said quietly.

Thalatta! I would to heaven. From whom hast thou got! Stephen freed his arm quietly. The thief gone with so old a head. He drank at her.

She praised the goodness of the staircase, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen!

Is it French you are talking, sir; they flatter me: I am right loath to go.

We will heal up all; for we'll create young Arthur. I did give it a judge's clerk.

—Come in, I live. —I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. —Snapshot, eh? Leaning on it tonight, coming forward.

—How long is Haines going to stay, that you can wish none from me by my conscience and my well-begot, how far the substance, or with taper-light to seek for you is worthy love, so strange, outrageous, and then you come if I do beseech the court awards it.

What's bred in the Upanishads?

Turma circumdet.

And if not, nor shall not gauge me by my faith, peace!

I'm the only one sense of the principal; glancing an eye of heaven methought was loath to set mine eye. He fears the lancet of my fortune. I contradict myself.

Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. Buck Mulligan at once; for never shall you lie by Portia's side with an even hand.

He walked on.

[manelyec]

Following His Passion - Faculty Spotlight on Kyle Garrett

Kyle Garrett was undecided. As an undergraduate student at the University of Georgia, it took an advisor asking a simple, yet important question for everything to come together.

“She asked me, ‘What would you do if you could do anything,’” Kyle recalled.  He came up with a few practical ideas, but she continued to probe him. “I don’t care about the level of education, I don’t care about what would keep you from achieving the goal, what would you want to do?” Kyle answered, “Well I guess I would like to teach Creative Writing.”

Six years later, that’s exactly what he’s doing.

After graduating from Georgia with a degree in English, Kyle interned with Georgia Parenting Magazine, with aspirations of being a professional writer. After gaining some experience behind the scenes, Kyle realized it wasn’t what he thought it would be and decided to either apply for Graduate School or Seminary.

“At that point in my life I wasn’t sure my faith was strong enough to go into Seminary and be confronted by different ideas about God without me having a firm foundation in my relationship with Him,” Kyle said.

Instead, Kyle applied and was accepted to UGA’s Creative Writing graduate degree program, and met his now wife, Stephanie.

During graduate school, Kyle had what he considered to be his Romans 7 experience.

“I hit rock bottom, but it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me,” he said. “At that point, I was still relying on myself. My own ingenuity, willpower, ability to write, all of that. It all ran out in one moment.”

At the time, Kyle considered himself a Christian, but his faith wasn’t real to him. He knew a lot about the Bible, but says he didn’t know Him. This is where his relationship with Christ began.

After graduation in 2010, both Kyle and Stephanie were offered teaching positions at Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs, Ga.

“That was really a blessing for both of us to be able to find work at the same place,” Kyle said. “The fact that we could step into this experience together was definitely a God thing.”

When asked, Kyle believes he would have chosen a school like Emmanuel if he had a chance to relive his college experience. Why?

“The level of connectedness that you have with the people here, the level that they care, it’s an outgrowth of their relationship with Christ,” Kyle said. “That’s the way it should be if you have a relationship with Him; you care about other people and that’s how it plays out.”

At Emmanuel, Kyle has the opportunity to pursue his passion of teaching Creative Writing, but teaches students about something much greater- finding their identity through Christ.

“I really enjoy teaching the composition classes, English 101 and 102 because I can layer in the overarching question, ‘What is our identity’”” Kyle said. “One of the papers we do is an image analysis where we look at magazine advertisements and how magazines try to label, define, and put us in categories that appeal to us.”

The main purpose of this project is to flip the switch, not only look at how the world tries to define us but how God defines us.

“I let them discover it for themselves that they are involuntarily defining themselves through a lens they didn’t realize,” Kyle said. “We then ask where it comes from, is it a valid lens to use as their primary identity marker? It’s something to think about.”

Outside of the classroom, Kyle serves as the Chair of the CAP (Cultural Awareness Program) Committee on campus and is involved with Montage, the literary magazine put together each year by students.

Off campus, Kyle serves as the Associate Pastor of Ekklesia in Royston, where he hopes to help others understand how big God’s gift of Jesus Christ was and what it means for them in their daily life.

“I’m very passionate about renewing people’s minds about the truth of what He did and continues to do, and our identity as sons and daughters and the relationship we can have with him now,” Kyle said. “He’s made the way; we don’t have to wait on him to move again. He made the biggest move he can by sending His son. It’s a big I love you.”

What advice would he give to students who are undecided about which path to take in college?

“I would tell them to not think practically,” Kyle said. “Don’t think about the money or how you’re going to provide for yourself after college. I would encourage students to pursue the innate strengths and talents that they maybe haven’t tapped into yet.”

With one simple question from an advisor, everything came together for Kyle. What he once considered a hobby turned into a potential career path and now, in his role at Emmanuel, he asks students the same question and encourages them, as his advisor did, to follow their passion.

[a-lover-of-hounds-blog]

Arc 1-4

4- The Lesson Before Departure Several days passed. Rin and Zere got along excellently and he was soon included in the lessons. Since Zere had been raised as an orphan, his education was a bit spotty. Still, he had a huge appetite for knowledge, especially stories. "In the beginning, there was {Chaos}. A single entity. From {Chaos}, the gods emerged. Each God tried their had at creation. Some succeeded, some did not, and it was by these attempts life came into being." Rin paused to make sure we were listening. We mostly were. "The Myun are unique among the intelligent beings; we were born from the manifestation of {Chaos}, the god [Chaos]. We were not the first people, nor the first creation of [Chaos], but no other race has the blessing of [Chaos], the split soul." (Rin) "Question. If we weren't the first, who was?" (Zere) "Since you said -who- and not -what-, I'm assuming you mean who was the first race?" (Rin) "Yeah." (Z) "We don't know. But we do know the oldest living creation." (Rin) "We do?" (Z) "It was the Slime. A life form based around a simple concept: The core transforms energy into motion and the body consumes and breaks down matter into energy. Based on environment, the composition of the body changes, giving us the many species of slimes. It's speculated the demon race was built off the concept of the slime, but demons would definitely disagree. Moving on with the dump of knowledge you'll never need, humans were for certain derived from the Myun. Their gods couldn't make a proper being on their own, so they copied us as much as they could, then bestowed as many blessings as possible on them and dumped them on a death-world with no magic to strengthen them further. When they arrived two hundred years ago, nothing could stop them. Probably the only reason they didn't wipe us out then is they started betraying each other after a few years of conquest. That's not to say they're all bad. The southern kingdom is led by compassionate men and try to get along with others. The summoned heroes that come along now and then can also be reasoned with sometimes. Any questions?" "Why do they dislike Myun in particular?" (Z) "That would be because some of their gods consider us embarrassing. They've labeled us 'changelings' and 'deceivers' so their followers will hunt us. The only group that gets more aggro from them is the demons and that's only because the demon cores can be used as a power source." "How do you know all this? You're only eight, right?" (Z) "Hmm... I think it's fine to tell you." Rin looked to Kris and Kris nodded. "Kris and I have both reincarnated with our memories intact. While our circumstances differ slightly, combining the lives I can remember, my age would hit the three thousands. Of course, I can't remember all of it with this body so my mental age could be considered much lower. Kris's age doesn't matter much, since they're an idiot at anything but warfare." "Hey! Rude." (K) I was a bit sceptical buuuut if it's Rin it makes sense. Still three thousand... "Over three thousand... Should I call you gramps then?" (Z) Lightning sparked suddenly and struck the top of the desk in front of Zere. He turned pale-ish and hesitated before speaking again while Rin glared at him. "Uh, you said you had circumstances?" (Z) Rin's mood changed instantly. "Oh, yes! To simplify things, I kept my memories so I can make a harem. Kris is just stubborn and refuses to start over from zero until he's the strongest." I asked first this time, since there was new information. "Harem? He?" (A) "I'm normally a guy. The few times i haven't been I end up a warrior queen without exception and no one would argue when I told them to call me 'he.' It's more comfortable this way." (K) "As for the harem, I can't quite remember why I need it, but I know I need that and a lot of knowledge for the future." (R) "Does that mean Akem and I are going to be..?" (Z) "No, no. You two are ineligible. You're missing something." (R) "That is a relief, but I feel depressed at the same time..." (Z) "Don't worry about it. She's into furries and women." (K) "You're one to talk, you Scaley a-hole." (R) "I don't deny it. Lamia are so cool [cold] and smooth and dragons are awesome." (K) "Both of you are strange. Is the lesson done?" (A) "Oh! Right! We're going to cover more magic today." (R) "You three are mages already?" (Z) "Not in the least. Those two don't even have classes yet." (R) "Then how can you use magic?" (Z) "Well, in my case I can manipulate the restrictions of magic, Kris uses brute force to cause magical phenomenon, and Akem is a bit of a savant. Like, they're not much smarter than Kris, but they can use magic like it's as natural at breathing. If they had a better affinity, they would probably be a candidate for the next High Archmage." (R) "So how am I supposed to use it?" (Z) An evil grin crossed Rin's face. "Intense practice and study. You're undead, right?" (R) "Huh? How'd you know?" (Z) Rin held up a rectangular device with a crystal set into its back. "My patented status checker. It assigns a numerical value to various things and shows detailed nature. Combined with an inhibitor, it's going to be our trump card once we get into the job system." (R) Rin puffed out th- no Kris said 'she,' her chest proudly. "How's that?" (K) "This little device syncs up with the inhibitor that stores the power that would normally be distributed on level up and lets us change our growth manually. It can also check other peoples' stats under certain conditions." (R) "I don't get it." (A) "That's fine. Just follow my instructions and you'll be okay. Back to the subject... Since Zere is undead, he never has to sleep, so we can have him train 24/7 until he catches up." (R) "Is that okay? To be honest, I really am from the Lazarus family. Aren't you afraid I'll betray you or something?" (Z) "Not in the least. While it was convenient, I don't plan on inheriting the Saefl house. By my guess, it'll fall in a decade or so and we'll be long gone by then." (R) "Gone?" (A) "Don't worry, we'll be bringing you with us. Someone has to carry the bags." (R) "That's mean..." (A) "Henry will be angry when he finds out." (K) "That's fine ~Sir~ Saefl already hates me. By the time he realizes that you're unfit for leading the house he'll probably have made an unfixable mistake with me and the house will fall." (R) "Why does Sir Henry hate you Rin?" (A) "Because I'm too competent. Even if I can't spell competent on occasion... Plus I pardoned the son of the house that he thinks killed his wife. It's fine though, I should have a few more years before I set off. I doubt I'll copy a certain eternal youth and depart at ten years old. Moving on, I've made inhibitors for all of you." (R) She produced three pieces of jewelry. For me, a bracelet. Kris's was a necklace and Zere's was... "A collar?" (Z) "Trust me, it'll fit you perfectly in a few years." (R) "Alright..." (Z) With that, our lesson continued with basic magic and... I have no idea what else because I fell asleep.

[turtlesinreview]

TMNT Mirage Comics Issue 1

I’m gonna preface this first post by asking that you consider this a semi-review, semi ramble.

I decided to make this blog after reading the first seven issues of the original comics, so I’m gonna discuss them all at once. I may do reviews in bulk like this in the future as well when it comes to the comics. We’ll see.

Anyway, the first issue I’m at least gonna discuss on its own for what I hope is obvious reasons.

The first issue is unique in that the brothers (or at least Leonardo and Raphael) are narrating it, while in the others there just seems to be a general narrator. The art style is also drastically different from the other issues, likely because this is the first one. I don’t think they were originally planning on making a series out of it if I recall, but I could be wrong on that. Either way it sold pretty well!

We’ve all heard the origin story before. Rat learns martial arts from his owner, owner fights with a dude over a girl, owner ends up killing the dude and marrying the girl. Dude’s brother wants revenge and becomes the Shredder, kills owner and his wife, and the rat escapes. Then pre-Daredevil Daredevil saves a guy from a truck carrying toxic chemicals. The chemicals bounce of off Daredevil’s head and he becomes blind. The chemicals smash into a turtle tank and said turtles and chemicals fall into the sewers. The rat rescues the turtles and all five of them mutate into a family of ninja animals.

Wait, that sounds incredibly apeshit and convoluted? That’s because it is, and I fucking love it.

Anyway the first issue is also really different than the others ones in the way it’s written. It’s a lot more serious and gritty, with a rather no-nonsense tone despite the absurd premise. Which isn’t to say there isn’t room for jokes, but they are few and far between, at least as far as direct humor goes. The humor in this issue mostly lies in the Daredevil parodies, as well as the fact that the concept on its own is pretty silly, which I don‘t doubt anyone who has never touched TMNT would think. Then again, the absurdity of ninjas who were turtles was the whole reason this comic came to be, so god bless it.

Oh yeah, and it also ends with the turtles fucking killing Shredder.

That’s probably not news to anyone who knows a lot about the turtles, but to cursory fans or newcomers that’s probably fucking unheard of. In most versions of the story Shredder is pretty much the Turtles’ main antagonist, but not this one. This is sort of one of the reasons I’m interested in seeing where the story goes, since I grew up on the show and movies (where he was either around the whole time or kept coming back to life somehow).

I can’t talk about characterization too much (which you’ll likely be quick to find is my favorite thing to discuss) because we don’t get a solid idea of what most of the characters are like here. I don’t think we’re even supposed to at this point. I’m pretty sure Laird and Eastman hadn’t even thought that hard about it yet when it came to the turtles themselves. It did establish Leonardo as their leader of sorts, which his narration being very stern and serious. He really gave off the ‘no-nonsense ninja’ vibe to me. He even gives Shredder a chance to preserve his honor by offering to let him kill himself (an offer he obviously refuses).

Raphael gets the second most characterization of the brothers. While at first I couldn’t tell the narration had switched to him, it became apparent when the delivery was a bit more ‘cocky’ then Leonardo’s. I can’t say there was a huge difference, but Raphael was at least painted as the more ‘sure of themselves’ brother, arrogant and finding some joy in fighting.

Michelangelo and Donatello don’t get much characterization at all, to be honest. They have a few lines like needing a bath, being tired, and wanting some tea, but that’s not much to establish who they are (though that’s pretty much their reaction to killing the Shredder and avenging Splinter’s owner, so maybe it is. Huh). Donnie did get the killing blow on Shredder though. That was kinda neat.

Splinter’s characterization is established here too, and has stayed pretty solid 7 issues in. He’s the disciplined yet loving master of a group of ninja pupils. Wise and full of good advice. Mostly he serves to give the origin story and explain why he trained them to be ninjas in the first place. In most versions of Turtles I’ve seen Splinter tends to remain a relatively ‘static’ character in terms of personality, which I don’t have a problem with. He’s old and full of wisdom after all.

Shredder is characterized as a powerful warrior who uses his men to work security for local businesses. He’s also a petty and cowardly man, opting to kill the turtles along with himself instead of taking a noble death. It should be noted that it did take all four of the turtles working together to kill him, so he is every much as big a threat as Splinter said he would be.

Overall this is a pretty powerful first issue, and I can see why it sold well enough to warrant a second and even a third. There was a lot of potential here, especially now that the turtles have fulfilled their life’s mission. What’s next for them? It left me eager to see where the story went.

I should probably mention the art. If I could criticize it at all I’d say the anatomy and body structures are a bit shoddy and sloppy, and the inking isn’t ideal either. That said the inking established a solid mood, and it’s obvious Eastman is excellent at composition, which really helped. And while I think the humans look kinda weird, the Turtles look cool (despite wonky limbs) and Splinter looks fucking badass. All in all the art, while not perfect, is pretty good and works for what they were trying to set up. It only continues to improve as the issues go on too. Incredibly so. I can let sloppy art slide with the knowledge the artist rapidly improves.

So yeah. This is gonna be a pretty fun read.