#fun fact: i came up with this storyline literally TWO days before midnights so i think im psychic now lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

immortalarizona · 11 months

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if you're interested i always wanna hear about oota npcs...! how'd you approach topsy and turvy?

heyyyy!! sorry it took me so long to reply, I was trying to do the responsible thing and finish my homework Before I got to do fun things on tumblr. (I still have a math project left to do tonight, but it's only due at midnight, it's fiiiiiine.) this is probably going to be another long one, so I'll just put a cut here right now :)

okay, so!! the Tinsplitter twins (yes I made up a surname for them, same as I did for Buppido and Derendil and Jimjar, because No One Can Stop Me):

they're somewhere in the range of 15-20, age-wise. not children in the same way Stool is (they are a whole two months old, I have decided), but definitely not adults either. I started by having them always whispering to each other about something, with Topsy coming up to one of the surface-er PCs (might have been the rogue?) to ask her if she remembers what day it is (and therefore what phase the moon is in, because I've decided that a lunar cycle is three tendays for the sake of my sanity). the twins refused to elaborate on why they were asking, and after they received their answer, they went back to debating between themselves. I had this whole other foreshadowing planned out where Topsy would struggle with kleptomania and Turvy would struggle with even worse paranoia due to their wererat instincts, but I was also trying to juggle the Sarith foreshadowing and Jimjar foreshadowing and Ront's storyline with the barbarian and Shuushar Stories and Stool getting adopted by the fighter, so that particular idea fell by the wayside, alas. still, in a bit of text-based RP between sessions, the rogue and the bard had a little chat with Jimjar where they shared their theories on the twins (as well as the secretly dhampir barbarian) and bet on when one of them would "cause a commotion." (Jimjar is literally my setting's moon deity in disguise. of course he fucking knows when the full moon is coming, and of course he won that bet. this is another bit of foreshadowing that I'm trying to set up :D)

just last session was the full moon, and oh boy, was it tasty. the ranger had cast alarm around the camp and had included the twins in the list of people that could set it off, so he was immediately pinged when the twins snuck off in the middle of the night. they left the following note scrawled on one of the walls in ormu pigment: Sorry. Must leave. Not safe. Do not follow. Thank you. -T&T.

they had taken all their stuff with them, indicating that they had no intentions of returning to camp. it was this, plus the fact that they're fucking children, that convinced the ranger and the fighter to go looking for them. Jimjar dragged the rogue along (they had that fun long-term madness due to a night spent in faerzress where they were each other's lucky charms), and Buppido and the bard also came along, if I recall correctly. (I think Ront had already died and the barbarian had been fucking kicked out of the party during some truly terrifying-for-me-as-a-DM RP at this point, hence the barbarian's absence. fun fact, the artificer in my PC art post is the player's replacement character, and I'm so excited to finally meet him.) the group easily passed the survival check to follow the twins' trail (the droplets of blood from where Topsy had been clawing at her own skin didn't exactly make it hard) and came across the twins in a small cavern overlooking a 60-foot cliff. (the cliff was my failsafe in case things started looking like a TPK. thankfully, we didn't need it.) Turvy begged for the party to run, because Topsy was in too much pain to speak, and then they transformed, and it was time to roll for initiative!

the last thing I wanted was a death match, so I played the twins as fighting more out of animalistic fear and a perceived need for self-defense than anything, which fits with the wererat lore I later established in the homebrew mechanics doc I sent out to my players for review. this did allow for the bard to give the party a safe exit from the cavern with a peace offering of food and a very good animal handling check--but not before Turvy bit the ranger in like round one and the ranger rolled a 9 on his con save. (I had him roll another con save at the start of his next turn to see if he would start transforming because what the fuck do you do in this situation the DMG never covered this, and, well. . . nat 1.)

in the morning, when the detransformed ranger led the similarly detransformed twins back to camp, Topsy and Turvy were absolutely miserable. they felt horribly guilty for having passed on their curse, and they were fully packing up their bags and preparing to leave the party because they believed that the party wouldn't want them around anymore. "We're monsters, aren't we?" they said, and Ront would have absolutely said yes if the barbarian hadn't eaten him the day before.

anyways, thankfully, the party was able to convince the twins that yes, they still wanted them around, and they really wished that they would've said something sooner so that they could've helped them sooner and maybe avoided all of this. I've got it tentatively in brain that the twins have some sort of Emotional Issues relating to parents (perhaps they lost their father at a very young age, and perhaps they originally fled home after being bitten so that they wouldn't hurt their mother), so all this genuine (or, well, seemingly genuine in the case of the bard, that stinky stinky bastard man) kindness had them even more in tears than they already were. the session ended with a group hug, and the next few days of out-of-session RP largely followed the ranger very consciously taking the twins under his wing and swearing to find them a cure for their curse, even before finding a cure for himself. Topsy has already sarcastically called him "dad" when he expressed a desire to protect them from whatever the fuck is going on with Buppido, but trust me, it'll be genuine soon enough.

I loooove language itself as a mode of storytelling, so I set up this Thing where svirfneblin generally don't teach their mother tongue to outsiders, something which Topsy and Turvy explained after the bard asked if there were any lullabies they found soothing that he could use to try and soothe the rats within and they sang one in Gnomish--or the namneblin, as I've termed it from cobbling together D&D Gnomish with Tolkien Gnomish to get what I want. at some point, the twins are going to start teaching the party the namneblin, which is their way of emotionally claiming the party as family. (this is gonna make it ALL THE MORE tasty and devastating when the Cool Uncle bard reveals that he's actually a murderous little meow meow who's been manipulating mansplaining manslaughtering this entire time, and I CANNOT WAIT.) they may even start calling the ranger a term which they refuse to translate, but which Jimjar will--a term that translates to "father." I fucking love found family. I am having a blast.

unfortunately, now we're way beyond the characterization given in the module. they don't really have any personality beyond "secretly wererats," so I'm still working on who they are now that that furry little secret is off their chests. they're both pretty curious, but thus far, I think Turvy is actually the more adventurous one of the two. he's expressed an interest in flying, something which Topsy finds absolutely terrifying, and he's also a bit less mature than his sister. (he laughed when the rogue made a "these nuts" joke during one of the bard's stories, and laughed even harder when Stool was like "I don't understand. What's a 'these nuts'?", while Topsy smacked him.) I'm thinking Topsy is just a few minutes older, and as such, she has that Older Sibling Protective Instinct in her. Topsy and Turvy are almost identical on a mechanical level, but now that the party has leveled up again, I've chosen to give them different survivor talents (see Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft for reference; I'm kinda just making things up as I go along) to showcase their different personalities. Topsy has the Desperate Scream talent, while Turvy has Adrenaline Surge, hinting that she's more of a fighter while he prefers to stay out of the fray. (they both each have a dagger and a sling, but I think I might let the player controlling them in combat know that Topsy prefers the dagger while Turvy prefers the sling.) I'm also tossing around in my brain different interests each of them could have, just to differentiate them further. I'm thinking Topsy could really like shiny things and collecting rocks and fun facts about rocks, while perhaps Turvy really wants to feel what it's like to soar through open air. or maybe he really likes plants!! who knows. I am definitely open to suggestions for hyperfixations to give each of them :]

so yeah, the Tinsplitter twins!! resident party children (alongside Stool) and catalysts of a found family dynamic that brings so very much joy into my heart and that the bard and I are going to heartbreakingly destroy at some point in the future of this campaign <3

#screams from the void #road trip to hell #dnd #oota #out of the abyss #topsy and turvy

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lilydalexf · 3 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with tatooedlaura (Laura Sprys)

Laura has 28 fics at Gossamer, but the big treasure trove of her stories is at AO3, where she has 193 fics. Thank goodness for the richness of the X-Files and for talented, creative people like Laura who can find so many interesting ways to tell tales in the show’s universe. Big thanks to Laura for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

Maybe reading mine but reading older fic in general is something I still do and something I still find entertaining. I do wish i could get into my old fics and post a warning that some of those were written before the author: ever had a drink, ever had sex, ever had a boyfriend, ever lived on her own, ever had a real job, or ever experienced much of anything in the real world.

Then again, fanfic is a perfect time capsule for the age and it’s always fun to see where the originals started and how they’ve grown.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

Back in the day and up and through today, it has always been a fun experience. From it, I’ve learned to love writing. I’ve learned that fans are crazy, weird, wonderful, generous, talented, committed, passionate, and imaginative. In a fandom, you can think whatever you wish and write about anything you like and because I’ve been around so long, I’ve gotten to watch the storylines shift and the relationships change ...

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

Originally, I never had much interaction with people other than ones who sent emails commenting on my fanfic … the internet at my parents house was dial-up and I had to access through the AOL free disks that arrived in the mail so, for the most part, I didn’t have the bandwidth or the connection speed to do more than upload stories and download episode guides.

Good lord, I remember submitting a story and having to wait upwards of two days to two weeks before the new batch of stories was posted ... then ephemeral came around and you could actually have your story up in under a day ... all ya'll who started on tumblr and ao3, you have it great, let me tell you :)

One thing that stands out in my mind still (and I’m still friends with her on Facebook) was a woman from western Canada who I stumbled across somewhere while looking for the blooper reels. She offered to send me her copies on VHS for my collection. I don’t think she asked for payment and one day, a package arrived from a lovely woman near Lethbridge, bloopers playable, tapes labeled in clear printing. I still appreciate that 20 some odd years later :)

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Fandoms are crazy places. Tread lightly at first but enjoy what you want, ignore what you don’t, rewrite what you hate, and write what you love. Don’t be an asshole when you don’t agree with someone … when you do, tell them …

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I was on board from the first episode. It was a show about two people who you felt were destined to be together but weren’t, and wouldn’t be for years. It was a cop show about aliens and a monster show with cops. I was in the right place at the right time in the right frame of mind and there was just something that clicked and I never looked back. Friends were not allowed to call me on Friday night and once it switched to Sunday, I made sure that my parents got us on early evening bowling league so we’d be home in time to watch. Even my boyfriend (eventual husband) knew to shut the hell up from 9-10pm, even if he was sitting next to me on the couch (with my parents in their chairs watching as well)

Also, my 56-year-old dad had a crush on Scully from the start so that was entertaining as hell as well

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I have been writing stories in my head for literally as long as I can remember. Watching some episode, I honestly don’t remember which one, I suddenly had an idea for a story about Mulder and Scully. I had never written a story with pre-existing characters before and it was totally foreign to me. How do you write a character with a current storyline. It was weird, it was difficult, it was some of the most fun I’d had writing up to that point.

Suddenly, I didn’t have to explain or describe the characters, think of jobs and mundane things … they already had those … and it was great.

Honest-to-God, my first fic was written, in pencil, on a yellow legal pad by flashlight while lying with my head at the foot of my bed so I could see my parents coming down the hall if they happened to wake up at midnight to go to the bathroom. Later fics were written by the light of an 10” TV/VCR combo with me still lying with my head at the foot of the bed. I still have those old legal pads somewhere and I remember having to type them in secret, having to wait until the house was empty for 20 minutes to an hour at a time. Uploading them was always unnerving because of the slow dial-up and the fact that I didn’t have my own email address, but had to use my dad’s. I’d have to make sure to check it whenever I could, intercept the feedback I’d get off gossamer.

I was such a damn rebel.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Well, I now know how to interact with people given tumblr and AO3 but it hasn’t changed much. I contribute a little more now that I understand posting on social media but mostly, I still just write like a fiend and post, read voraciously and give kudos and likes often, comment some and reblog.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I dabbled and have a favorite ‘Fringe’ fic … I tried to read a Harry Potter fic once … I type ‘West Wing’ occasionally in ao3 and tumblr ...

And nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever caught me like the X-Files did in regards to the fandom experience.

I have shows I watch and re-watch and re-watch but no two characters have ever had me writing and thinking and planning like Mulder and Scully. No other combo has ever made me write upwards of 300,000 or more total and still have plenty of stories to tell.

I’m okay with this.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Aside from Mulder and Scully and the gentlemen three of Frohike, Langley, and Byers … I love all Scully’s nieces and nephews in my ‘Life’ series … I also love Corduroy (picture books), Harold (purple crayon fame), Neville Longbottom, the characters from my own novels, Katniss (book not movie), Anne Shirley, Elnora (from the Limberlost), Will Stanton/Merriman/Barney/Jane from ‘Dark is Rising’ and 10,459 others …

I’m a children’s librarian so most of my favorite books are those written for the younger and YA crowd. I like my job :)

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I watch this show all the damn time. I will think about Mulder and Scully when I have nothing else to think about, normally writing and editing whatever story I may have in the hopper at the time about them.

My husband laughs when I have the show on. He knows all the episodes with me and it’s one of my comfort shows that I don’t have to pay attention to when it’s on. During it, I have edited books, decorated cookies, been sick, been recovering, simply wasted a perfectly good day because I could.

My 17-year-old daughter keeps it on while she does homework and works out.

It’s a staple at our house and no one is allowed to make fun of it, even though we all know that parts are completely ‘make fun-able’

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I read fic all the time … I have worked my way through AO3 starting from the beginning and if it was more easily readable on a phone, I’d work my way, once again, through gossamer.

Restated from above: I dabbled and have a favorite ‘Fringe’ fic … I tried to read a Harry Potter fic once … I type ‘West Wing’ occasionally in ao3 and tumblr ...

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I have all kinds of favorites on tumblr but right now, I honestly don’t remember most of the names … I pretty much read everything that comes through my dashboard and every few days, i read through the newest posts on AO3 … I love you all!!

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Of X-Files fics, I love my newer stuff … I read “Life” and its sequels every few months … ‘Your Place or Mine’ is another one I will read … actually, I’ll just say it .... I read all my own fic over and over again …

With fic, you get to write the characters as you want to see them and write situations that you want to see … I write for myself most of all and I love to read what I wrote :)

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I write them all the damn time. I have tons of snippets and half-finished that I occasionally glean things from but while sometimes, old stuff morphs into new, sometimes, it just needs to gather that dust and live a quiet little forgotten life in some backhand folder on my dropbox account ...

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

First question is answered above.

As for other creative work, I have published two YA novels, have the third in that series in editing … I have five other novels in the hopper in various stages of ‘good lord this needs an edit or twelve’ …

I am writing things constantly in my head or on my laptop … most is crap … stome sticks … some turns into fic and some turns into books …

But the point is, I am writing, in some form, at all time :)

Where do you get ideas for stories?

Some two sentence conversation will spark an idea … the line of a song will inspire an idea … a word will start a sentence which will turn into a paragraph which will tumble straight into a story … and sometimes, stuff just pops in my head for no damn reason at all ...

What's the story behind your pen name?

On gossamer, I am L. Sprys because that was my name at the time :)

On tumblr and AO3, I’m tatooedlaura because my name is Laura and I have, now, six tattoos (yes, I spelled it wrong in my handle but that’s life) … when I decided on the name, I think I only had two

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

They do now … it took me years to crack and tell them … my husband has never read them, nor have any of the people I have told (as far as I know)

Now, I don’t really care who knows … I’ll tell them I write smutty X-Files fanfiction and family-friendly X-Files fanfiction …

I am too old at this point to be embarrassed by what I like to do. If they laugh at me, I tell them they only get to laugh when they’ve published a book and I pull up my books on Amazon … I’ve only had to do that once and it shut them right the hell up …

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Gossamer: L. Sprys

Tumblr and AO3: tatooedlaura

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

I love you! I see you! I appreciate you! I hope you enjoy! Don’t judge me for my grammar issues! I will never be able to spell the word ‘excersize’!

(Posted by Lilydale on April 27, 2021)

#old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #tatooedlaura #laura sprys

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sweet-sappphic · 5 years

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Ghost Quartet synopsis and essay

Ghost Quartet is a song cycle about “Love, death and whiskey” written by Dave Malloy in 2013. It is unique in a number of ways, one of which being that there are only four cast members, Brittain Ashford, Gelsey Bell, Brent Arnold and Dave Malloy himself. Each cast member plays an instrument (Dave on the piano, ukulele and percussion; Brittain on the Autoharp keyboard and percussion; Gelsey on the Celtic harp, accordion, percussion and metallophone and Brent on the guitar, cello, dulcimer, percussion and erhu) and a group of linked characters. It consists of five interweaving storylines.

The main storyline is that of the original Pearl and Rose. We are not given a date for this storyline which, I think, is supposed to add to the mystery and surreal atmosphere. In this storyline, Rose falls in love with the Astronomer so she writes him a poem. The Astronomer, envious of the beauty that Rose sees in the world, steals her work and publishes it as his own. This makes Rose extremely angry and she refuses to have anything to do with him. However, she is still in love with him and flies into a rage after discovering that he is in love with her sister, Pearl. She asks if she wasn't smart enough for him and when he says that they were never involved she runs to a bear and asks him to maul the Astronomer and turn her sister into a crow and put them in a cave until the crow starts to starve and would have to choice but to peck out the eyes of her lover and eat them. The bear agrees on the condition that she brings him one pot of honey, one piece of stardust, one secret baptism and a photo of a ghost and gives Rose the ability to possess her incarnations, past and present, in order to do so. This is why this storyline affects all of the others. After returning with all of these things, she goes to the bear again and learns that he will not do what she asked as he is not "a murderer or a crazy person" and he just wanted the honey. Rose is so upset that she gets drunk and drowns her sister in the Miller's pond who fished her out and made a fiddle out of her bones. It can be inferred that Rose later married him as the fiddle is present in the camera shop belonging to one of her descendants. After this, in Hero, she realises how wrong she was and that she is really no different to anyone else and, therefore, should not have the power to decide anyone’s fate.

Stardust: In 14th century Persia, Sheherazade (A version of Pearl) is using stardust to create stories for her sister (A version of Rose) and Shah Zaman in an attempt to appease him so he will not have her killed. These stories are about Rose and Pearl. We later discover this is because, due to the fact that she is an “Ancient”, she remembers all of her incarnations, past and present and is trying to get her sister to remember too. In side three, in the song Tango Dancer, Dunyazad is dead and Rose uses this to convince Sheherazade to give her the remaining stardust by showing false sympathies, leaving her even more empty than before.

Baptism: The Usher storyline is set in the 1870s and is loosely based on Edgar Alan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” In this storyline, the youngest child of the Usher family, Roxie, grew up with an imaginary friend who is the ghost of Rose. Rose tries to get her to cross over but it does not happen. Later, when she is still quite young, Roxie has a child that she calls Starchild (Both she and the child are versions of Rose). Rose steals the child from her in order to perform the secret baptism, sending Roxie into a deep depression, which results in her death. She is buried in the family vaults but returns from the dead and attacks her mother (A version of Pearl), killing her.

Honey: In 1990s Sarajevo, Soldier (A version of pearl) has been given the task of guarding a pot of honey. She is depressed and no longer wishes to live. Rose seduces her in order to get the honey and Soldier gives it to her on the condition that Rose takes her into the alley and shoots her. Rose does so and leaves with the honey.

Ghost: This storyline is set in modern-day New York. Rose is waiting on the subway platform when Pearl is pushed onto the track and can not climb out. Instead of helping, Rose takes a photo of the “Ghost.” The guilt haunts her so she smashes her camera and goes to a camera shop, which is run by a woman who is both a descendant of Rose and an incarnation of Pearl, to get a new one. Here the woman shows her a fiddle made of bones and tells her the story behind it (The story of the original Rose).

There are a few songs that take place out of these storylines such as; I Don't Know, Any Kind Of Dead Person, Four Friends, Prayer and Midnight. Some serve a specific purpose. For example, I Don't Know gives us an overview of the themes covered within the song cycle, Prayer serves as a reminder of where everything went wrong and Midnight provides closure to the Stardust storyline. However, others are simply fun filler songs, such as Any Kind of Dead Person and Four Friends.

On the Genius website, Dave Malloy wrote that he created Ghost Quartet as the simplest answer he could possibly give to the question: Do you believe in ghosts? There is a lot of confusion amongst the fans of Ghost Quartet concerning what exactly his answer to the question is but I have a theory. I think he believes in ghosts in the sense of holding on to the past but not literal spirits. My evidence for this is that, throughout the song cycle, whenever a ghost is present, it is usually due to some underlying reason. For example, when Rose is haunted by the ghost of Pearl, it is likely due to the guilt she feels for not helping her and using her death for her own selfish gain. When Brent and Dave ask if the ghost haunts her, Gelsey simply replies with "She sees her when she closes her eyes… She is always screaming" implying that it is not a physical ghost that haunts her, only the thought of her.

More evidence to support this is the man who can talk to ghosts, mentioned in The Astronomer. He can be inferred to be Shah Zaman due to the fact that he "hasn't spoken to anyone alive in forty-two years" and Shah Zaman says that, after killing Sheherazade, he will "keep drinking for forty-two years" due to his immense regret about killing the woman he loved. The relationship between Shah Zaman and Sheherazad is likely abusive especially due to the reason for her execution being that she lost her temper with him.

This idea is further shown in the song Monk when the character David spends his days playing the music of Thelonious Monk, even though it causes him excruciating pain, in the hope that his ghost will wake and give him a reason for his suffering. This could be a representative of the fact that he can not remember his past and is desperately searching for any hint of who he was before he came to this inverse reality. This becomes even more clear in the fact that, in Midnight, the moment he remembers who he was, he walks away from the piano and simply talks with Brittain about their future together, signifying that he no longer is focused on the past and is hopeful for the future.

An opposite which contributes to this theory is the lack of ghosts in the song “Soldier and Rose.” In fact, the only time that Ghosts are mentioned is in the opening where Soldier states that Ghosts don’t bother her anymore as she is used to death. This is an interesting contrast to the rest of the characters, especially as Soldier is the only character in the song cycle, other than David, who has no explained backstory and, unlike him, is not trying to find it. Her sole want is to end her life and when she finally gets this, she promises that she will not come back to haunt her killer. This is likely as there is nothing left for her in life, so none of the reasons for coming back listed in “Midnight” apply to her.

This symbolism makes for a complex, thought-provoking musical, unlike any I have seen before, which is likely what adds to its appeal. Many of the themes and emotions explored in this song cycle are relatable to the audience, however unorthodox the presentation may be and, even though the audience is small, attracts a diverse and creative group as its fans.

#Ghost Quartet #brittain ashford #gelsey bell #brent arnold #dave malloy #malloysical #musical #essay #analysis #i read too much into this

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s-jatpfic · 4 years

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Green (New Years Eve and love confessions)

Alex x Reggie, Luke x Bobby

Green is some kind of separate reality focusing on Reggie x Alex in a love is overrated let’s just vibe way. The stories work perfectly fine without each other and every single one can be read as a oneshot, yet there is a storyline visible.

this part: is part of the storyline

moodboard, playlist

3280 words

warnings: underage drinking, underage smoking, being drunk (kinda), jealousy, a few swear words, message me if you think i should add something else

———

It’s December 31 and the boys have zero to do. They actually should be at soundcheck for a small pre-midnight gig but the promoter of the club found out that Sunset Curve is still underage and that on New Year‘s Eve could get him in major trouble, so the gig got canceled last minute and now the band hangs in the garage super unmotivated. Alex behind his drumkid but more of gently brushing the drums with his sticks than actually smashing them the way it’s supposed to be, Reggie laying on the couch, strumming his bass which makes obnoxious noises, Luke angerly scribbling in his songbook but crossing out every word he wrote and Bobby the only one who isn’t super depressed about it, watching the other ones going insane.

“Guys c‘mon. I know this sucks. We don’t have money and we live in a garage. Clearly not the optimum. But we can’t change anything about that now, so get your shit together and get over it. This won’t be the last time we get rejected that doesn’t make us any less worthy okay? We’re still Sunset Curve. We still can reach our dreams. This club was stupid anyway, tomorrow is a new day, a new year and a new chance. So snap out of it and let us clink our glasses. It’s New Year‘s Eve. There’s no time for being sad now”

With that, Bobby grabs himself a can of beer out of the fridge and throws one at Reggie. For the boys it’s Reggie and Bobby drinking alcohol only, just as they have a smoke before their gigs together at some point of the evening they always end up with a cup of beer. Although Alex indeed was drunk a lot the past couple of months while his late night rendezvous with Reggie, this was a secret between him and Reggie and him and Reggie only. Luke is the only one in the band that has never and without lying about it like some blond haired, pink hoodie wearing other band member, just had a sip of alcohol yet in his life but he was ready for his first beer now. Alex shrugs just thinking about this bitterly brew. He once tried it with Reggie and almost felt like vomiting. Beer wasn’t his thing, rosé was but wine was something Reggie really couldn’t stand, so they either bought separate drinks or agreed on stronger things. Whiskey was something they both enjoy and they both really had a thing for gin.

“I’ll stick with water for now, maybe switch to beer when the evening goes on” Alex answers Luke as he asks him if he wants one as well, knowing perfectly fine he’ll never in a million years just sniff a beer.

“I bought wine as well. Just in case someone feels like it”

Alex knows Reggie is talking about him just with the way he stretches out the ‘someone’ and Alex tries to hide his excitement. It isn’t only his obsession for wine that causes Alex mood turning better, it was mostly the fact that Reggie, the boy he fell in love with to add, though about him while buying their drinks. It doesn’t seem like a lot but for Alex it feels like a lot since they still never openly addressed what they are and it doesn’t seem like Reggie wants to change something about that.

“Don’t want to disappoint you with being the sober one” With that Alex gets up his stool, grabs himself the green bottle of white liquid and ends up sitting across Bobby and Luke on the floor, Reggie joining them after putting away his bass.

“Cheers to 1995. This is gonna be our year”

As they all start drinking, Alex couldn’t not grin about Lukes grossed out facial expressions when gulping down his beer. Maybe he turns tipsy enough today to share his wine but for now he wants to see Luke suffering for a little longer. He sure will continue on drinking beer, he has too much pride to admit this tastes disgusting.

It is visible for everyone in the room that Luke doesn’t enjoy his beer at all but they all have much more fun laughing about him than actually offering him something else, so while the boys chatter there is always at least one of them having to hide a suppressed giggle every time Luke brings the can to his lips.

“Thanks for the wine or I’d be looking like Luke now, if not even worse” Alex whispers at Reggie, always making sure the other two are distracted enough with themselves or their alcohol.

“You always had weird taste A. You like me though” Reggie giggles as an answer causing Alex to roll of his eyes. This was a bad joke, but Alex can’t deny it. He likes Reggie, a little bit more than he should, and his bad jokes might be another reason why.

“Here, try this” Alex changes the topic by talking to Luke and handing him his wine. Luke inspects the green bottle of wine sceptical, not sure if this is a nice offer or if Alex has a ulterior motive but he can’t find something odd about it so he ends up trying and actually liking what’s inside.

There’s not even half of the bottle left and Reggie and Bobby are already at there second beer and while neither those two nor Alex feels the alcohol in their bodies, Luke already starts getting jittery so Alex decides it’s a good call if Luke is left with the rest of his wine whereas he gets himself a new one and grabs a beer for Reggie as well when he’s up anyway.

Maybe his body doesn’t feel the alcohol but his mind starts getting thoughts that his sober brain would never have. Luke and Bobby across them all cozy and cuddled up as the good couple they are and he has to be two feet apart from Reggie.

It is depressing and he feels bad for being jealous at his best friends but he just can’t help it. They were never too much into PDA, it almost was as if they are nothing more than the best friends the four of them are but now that Luke is drunk, he gets all touchy and it starts to annoy Alex how happy they seem and how they stare into the other ones eyes just right before their kisses. How it’s always Bobbys look drifting down to Lukes lips first, yet it’s always Lukes lips moving forward to actually touch Bobbys and how they can’t stop smiling at each other. Maybe Alex eyes them up a little bit to intense but what else shall he do, sit there and watch them being in the happy relationship he wants to have with Reggie? Sure what they have, the hiding and sneaking around, is something Alex wouldn’t want to trait in for anything, but Bobby and Luke are their best friends, why can’t they at least know about how happy Reggie makes him? Or watch them being head over heals for one other? Is this really too much to ask? And without realizing it, Alex freshly opened bottle of wine is gone in almost one go, gaining all the lads attention but no one dares to say a word about it. If Alex goes full drunk then he should. The boys are a safe space so if he wants to get pass out befuddled, then that’s fine with them. Little do Bobby and Luke know that besides Alex look, he isn’t light weighted. A bottle of wine won’t kill him. He just hopes to get those murdering thoughts out of his brain.

They make him feel like his throat is drying out – the wine not helping with it – and his heart stops beating.

Intoxicated by the wine he decided it’s now a good idea to tease Reggie. If Reggie isn’t gonna give him attention on his own, maybe Alex has to give his destiny a little rush.

“Do y’all remember last New Years as you dared me to kiss Luke? Bet Reggie still thinks I have a crush on Luke since I came out just two weeks after that. He was so sure I realized I like boys while that kiss and honestly, I can’t blame you, Luke is a really good kisser” Although the first part of his sentence is dedicated to the group, it’s pretty obvious that he’s talking directly to Reggie with the last part and Bobbys “can’t disagree with you” isn’t really helping curbing Reggies anger that slowly boils up inside of him with the thought of sharing Alex. But Reggie isn’t stupid, he knows what game Alex starts playing but this is a game for two.

“Bobby you’re in for a cigarette? I think those two could need some privacy” Reggie says, winking at Alex.

Oh the privacy part, no that’s not what’s triggering Alex, it’s the cigarette. Reggie knows Alex is only waiting for him to come up with an excuse so they can have a smoke together without the rest of the band noticing they do indeed have three smoking members and not just the two everyone expects.

So with Bobby and Reggie leaving for a cigarette or two, Alex gets up as well grabs a mixtape he knows Luke will not be able to resist dancing to and will use that for his benefits. If Reggie wants to play, Alex is going to win.

He takes of his hoodie, not only to rag Reggie, but it’s really getting hot in here due to the alcohol and also the tension between him and Reggie and now only in his shirt, Alex gets Luke stumbling around the the studio and just right on time, he had a lot of cigarettes in the past, he knows how long they last, he grabs Lukes arms and make them, accidentally, lose balance. So the first thing Reggie sees when he’s entering the garage is Luke and Alex laying all cozy and giggly on the ground, Alex hoodie right above his head just as if Luke was the one undressing Alex. Fake blushing, well probably red cheeks due to the amount of wine he had, Alex rolls Luke off his chest. Bobby isn’t as triggered by that as Reggie is although Luke and Bobby are literally in a relationship but Bobby knows his boyfriend and he recognizes the song, no way was there sexual reason behind.

Alex is sure he won this battle especially as the two feet of invisible border between them two disappeared. Reggie now sits there cross crossed, his knee touching Alex leg.

Alex doesn’t know whether to enjoy this little touch or tense up but after Reggie smiles at Alex yielding, he decides it’s gonna be enjoying.

For about and hour there where no further interruptions. Just four best friends having fun, talking about life and drinking some alcohol nothing to worry about. The more alcohol there is, the less tension is between Alex and Reggie, but one is for sure, Reggie wouldn’t let Alex win this. No chance.

“Shit”

Thats Reggie. Before Alex even has the chance to turn his head facing Reggie, Reggie is already standing up, his shirt in his hand. Oh this idiot, accidentally and out of clumsiness, emptied his beer on his shirt. Alex really thought Reggie relinquished but very clearly, he did not.

It’s not as if Alex has a choice, but he just can not not stare at Reggie and Reggie, obviously proud at being better at teasing the other one, stands there, a huge smirk on his face and winks at Alex.

At this point Alex is sure his face is about the same color than Reggies flannel, that’s still tied up around his hips. It’s not as if Alex has never seen Reggie shirtless, but today, in combination with the alcohol and the situation, it isn’t really helpful keeping a clear mind and not immediately pounce on Reggie.

“Don’t you- Don’t you want to put on a, a, a shirt a-a-again?” Alex stutters. He knows that was a very bad try, cause even if Reggie had planed to get dressed again, after seeing how big of an impact this has on Alex, he sure will not.

“Don’t you think it’s hot in here anyway? I think I’ll stay like that a little longer just to cool down. Unless it makes you uncomfortable?”

How does one breath again? Okay no, no matter what Alex tries, there isn’t even enough air in the garage to fill his lungs, that’s for sure. And with Reggie sitting down again, skin to skin with Alex, it just gets worse. Alex feels like his arm is burning where it gets touched by Reggies torso. But he also can’t slide away from Reggie. His body is addicted to Reggies. He is literally craving for his touch but only his arm touching Reggie is more torture than relieve. If Reggie isn’t gonna kiss him in front of the boys, he needs to get the boys away from them. Or get away from the boys. As much as he just wants to sit on the shirtless boys lap, press his lips on the boys ones and kiss him way to unrestrained to make it appropriate in front of their friends, he needs to find a better solution. So Alex activates all his acting skills and pinchly rests his head on Reggies shoulder. The naked skin feels like pinpricks on Alex fiery cheek. Is is to late to take a step back? Alex needs Reggie now, there’s no going back. To relieve his cheek from the lovely pain, he slowly slides his head down, now laying in Reggies lap.

“I feel dizzy”

Luke and Bobby are to busy with themselves to give the guys across them any attention but Alex now being uninhabited in physical touch, his hands on his tummy and saying he doesn’t feel alright? It’s more than enough for Reggie to worry about him.

“I feel like throwing up”

Alex voice is just a humming whisper but loud enough for Reggie to register it. Maybe Alex doesn’t take a bottle of wine as easy as Reggie thought, so Reggie sits Alex up very carefully as if he’d be about to break, gets up and then helping Alex to get on his feet. Alex clings at Reggies body, not able to put just one foot in front of the other one if it wouldn’t be for Reggie and like that, and with Alex hoodie that Reggie quickly picks up the ground, the two boys totter out of the garage.

“Some air will help” Reggie mumbles but as soon as they are out of sight from the other boys, Alex suddenly feels better again.

“You’re right. The cold air does a trick. Feeling so much better now”

Alex eyes are literally glowing and before Reggie realizes what’s happening, their lips touch. Their kiss is desperate and very passionate. The boys not able to tell if their chills are caused by the december areal or the hot atmosphere but one is for sure, it is the most lustfull kiss they ever shared.

Out of breath, Alex rests his forehead at Reggies, not wanting to lose their closeness. He only now notices Reggie wearing his significant pink hoodie.

“Not that I mind but what was that for?”

Reggies words tingle at Alex lips since they are still intimately close but Alex doesn’t mind, he finally got what he desired the whole evening.

“I just can’t resist you”

With this, there was another kiss, however, not even half as venereal as the first one this evening, this one is more of lovingly, amorous. It is soft and sweet yet screaming out how much they love each other.

“We should get back, we don’t want to worry the boys do we?”

Being in trance of the moment, Alex doesn’t realize Reggie pulling away and then grabbing his hand. His body just has to follow his lead.

Back with the couple of the group, there were no more boundaries now. Still not sharing kisses but filling that gap with snuggles and also a few wet neck pecks. Something changed out there and Alex is definitely not the one to mind. He likes this whatever it is and really hopes it’s not just the cause of the alcohol letting Reggie forget about their company.

This thought gets brushed aside as the four of them starts counting down till it’s midnight.

It was Luke starting counting.

The other boys now joining him.

They all start to get twitchy.

Honestly, they don’t even know if they are on time, the clock in the garage was broken for a while now.

But it doesn’t matter as long as the four of them were together.

For a life changing year.

Their big blow up, the bands big blow up.

No more worries.

Silence.

Not spoken out, said only in their minds.

Bobby and Luke having their New Years kiss and Alex and Reggie doing exactly the same. Alex was a little shook at first, but there is no time for doubts. All their emotions condensed into this kiss. Everything they ever wanted to do is now reality.

“I love you Alex”

It was still quite in the garage, too quiet, so Alex just assumed Bobby and Luke are already outside watching the fireworks but even if not, this doesn’t really matter right now. The only thing that matters is Reggie and what he just said. I love you.

“And I wish I could have told you earlier but I was scared. There is no solid excuse for this, I just thought I will not be able to make you permanently happy but everyday I’m just craving to feel your lips on mine and every night I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye. I just hope there will always be one more kiss, one more smile, one more day you make me feel like I belong somewhere”

Alex doesn’t realize there where tears falling down his cheeks but he couldn’t focus on them anyway. Reggies words are honey fixing his broken soul. Although he never thought he’d hear something like that, he also doesn’t want Reggie to stop.

“As things at home- as things with my parents got worse, you were the only reason I wanted to get out of my bed. Everytime I see you chatting with someone in the schools hallway I couldn’t wait for the night to come so I could be the one you ramble to about banalities yet I’m listening to every word you say cause when the words come out of your mouth, they are automatically special for me. You’re the only one that makes me feel alive. I’m not drowning in my own shadows anymore, and that’s only thanks to you. I am really, super fucking in love with you A and I hope that we maybe can show this love to the world.”

Alex is too overwhelmed to add something, he just osculates their lips again, the biggest smile on his face.

“Wanna go outside watching the fireworks with the boys?”

With that they get up, their hands intertwined and neither of them able to drop their smile. They both are happy, genuinely happy and no one could take that away from them.

“I love you too, Reg”

Green fireworks lighting up the sky.

~franky. can y’all tell i never was in love lol? cause, i don’t know what people do or how they act when they are. every experience i ever made about love is out of 1d fanfiction when bella finally realized that it was niall all along or zayn leaves gigi hadid behind in new york so he could start a new life with liam in la. yeah i got issues lol.

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thenightling · 7 years

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What is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman?

Explanation below.

Warning: Here there be Spoilers.

I fully admit that I, myself, am a late comer to the fandom of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics. Back in the 1990s many friends had recommended the series to me and or insisted that I would love “Death.” But no one gave me a proper explanation or summary of what I was to expect. I figured it had to have been an over-rated trend. I was too busy trying to get people to watch or listen to the Nightmare before Christmas soundtrack (which hadn’t yet become the cultural phenomena it became in the early 2000s).

The comics I read in those days mostly consisted of the likes of Morbius: The Living Vampire, The Midnight Sons, Legion of Monsters, Tomb of Dracula and the occasional Tales from the Crypt reprint when I could find it. I was lucky enough to have recurring access to a store called Dracula’s Comic Crypt on Long Island. But as a woman into all things Gothic (and most especially art in the style of Bernie Wrightson) I was recommended Sandman over and over again.

Part of what discouraged me was that I have always had poor eyesight. Today, of course, on a nice twenty inch computer monitor I can make the comic book images nice and big and keep physical copies mostly for collecting purposes. But mostly I just didn’t really know what Sandman was all about.

Well, fast forward over twenty years later... The TV show Lucifer has gained my attention and is both fascinating and fun for being different so I finally cave and decide to read the comics that he first came from... Sandman. I was particularly interested in the storyline where Lucifer quits Hell (Season of Mists) but I wisely decided to start from the beginning. I started at the beginning... It wasn’t long before I realized that I liked this thing... I really, really liked this thing. In fact I soon found I liked the protagonist, Morpheus, more than Lucifer.

My response was along the lines of “Why didn’t anyone tell me this was so good?” to which several friends practically shouted “WE DID!”

So for anyone who was or is in a similar situation to me, I’ll explain Sandman as best I can for you right now since no one properly explained it to me back when it was first recommended to me a almost a quarter of a century ago.

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DC comics has had three characters named Sandman. The first was a gas mask wearing Noir character named Wesley Dodds. The second was a golden age style superhero who later passed his mantel on to another, the replacement character called Hector Hall.

And now for the third, the most important of DC’s Sandman / Sandmen. The literal Sandman AKA Dream of the Endless, otherwise known as Morpheus. Ruler of The Dreaming realm. Master of both Dreams and Nightmares. First published by DC and later concluded by Vertigo (DC’s adult content label) Sandman was a very unique kind of story, set in the DC universe.

Morpheus (AKA Dream) sometimes changes his form but he’s fairly easy to recognize because he is always depicted with black talk bubbles with white text, originally intended to indicate a psychic form of communication more than actually vocal (but I think that idea was mostly dropped after the first issue and only hinted at again in the storyline called A Game of You).

During the very first storyline of Sandman comics Morpheus was captured by humans.

Later it is revealed in a stand alone comic that the universe (in an effort to balance itself out) granted Wesley Dodds certain dream based abilities. Dodds had something of a psychic link with Morpheus while Morpheus was in captivity.

Later two nightmares escape from The Dreaming realm and these two (Brute and Glob) manipulate the super hero “Sandman” and his successor, Hector Hall. They do this to create a dream dimension of their own since the one Morpheus ruled had fallen into chaos without him.

Morpheus / Dream is a member of The Endless and his full title (besides Sandman) is Dream of The Endless.

The Endless is a family of anthropamorphic personifications representing seven aspects or abstract concepts in relation to conscious life. It’s not as complicated as it seems.

The Endless are:

Destiny: Destiny is the eldest. He is depicted as a shrouded blind man whose wrist is chained to a book containing the past, present and future. Despite being apparently blind he can read his own book. His sigil (the symbol that represents him) is a book.

Destruction. Destruction grew weary of ...well, destruction when he saw humanity progressing toward increasing violence. Determining that each Endless actually represents a concept and it’s counter-part he quit his vocation and wandered off to try to reinvent himself as a creative force instead of destructive. His sigil is a sword.

Death. Death is Death incarnate, much like Death of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld but instead of resembling the traditional Grim Reaper Death takes the form of a pale Goth girl with an eye of horas tattoo under her right eye. You might think that she should be the most depressed or brooding of the group but no. She’s friendly and optimistic. She also loves films like Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid (Disney version). She wears an ankh pendant, which also is her sigil.

Now we have Dream AKA Morpheus. He is The Sandman of folklore. Dream is the middle sibling and he is The Sandman. He rules the realm of The Dreaming. He has wild “Robert Smith style” hair, bone-white skin and black eyes with small star-like pupils. Morpheus is also very tall and skinny. Dream’s sigil is his “Helm” - a battle mask he made for himself using the bones of two Lovecraftian “Old Gods” that attacked The Dreaming a long time ago. (He almost never gets to wear this helm in actual battle as Morpheus is not really a warrior character by nature). The helm is made from a large skull and spine and so it resembles a bone version of Wesley Dodd’s gas mask.

Desire. Now come the twins, the first of which is Desire. Desire is a genderfluid being that can be male or female (or both or neither) at will. Desire is very fickle and can also be extremely cruel but also (on occasion) can be helpful and once even saved the universe (even though Desire doesn’t remember doing it). Desire is slender, androgynous and has golden eyes. Desire’s sigil is a heart.

Despair. Despair is the twin of Desire though you might never know it. They look nothing at all alike. Despair is a short, very full-figured woman who has jagged tusk-like teeth, and almost never wears clothes. Despair’s sigil is a ring with a sharp hook attached to it.

Delirium. Delirium is the youngest of the Endless and very child-like. She used to be Delight but someone or something hurt or abused her a long time ago and she became Delirium as a way to cope. It’s implied that someday she might return to being Delight but as it stands that might take a whole lot of therapy. Delirium can be very sweet but if you are mean to her or try to touch her without permission she will punish you by driving you to madness. Her sigil was once a flower. Now it’s a rainbow blob or smearing of color.

And there you have it. The Endless in a nutshell. Now on to the basic plot of Sandman...

_______________________________

Sandman was first published in late 1988 and ran until 1996. It then had several spin-offs and one shots, a prequel novel set in Ancient Japan (Dream hunters), a collection of short story comics called Endless Nights (one for each Endless), and finally the gorgeous prequel comic Sandman: Overture (compiled as a graphic novel in 2016).

Since the first run of Sandman is over seventy five issues long I will only give a summary of the first story arc. Preludes and Nocturnes...

____________________

Preludes and Nocturnes:

A group of late Victorian / Edwardian era occultists known as The Order of Ancient Mysteries (Modeled loosely after the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn) is lead by their Lord Magus, Roderick Burgess. They use a grimoire known as the Magdalene Grimoire (which will later get use in Green Arrow) to cast a ritual spell to summon Death incarnate but instead of summoning her they accidentally summon The Sandman.

They realize their mistake but decide to keep Dream as their prisoner anyway.

A “sickness” occurs where several people end up with severe sleeping disorders because of the way Morpheus was taken. One woman ends up with “Sleeping beauty syndrome” where she would wake for brief periods of time but usually slept. Another goes into a coma. One young man in Africa dreamt of a cloud castle, as was his usual dream, but the castle crumbled and he became catatonic. A soldier would suffer a form of “Shell shock” that made him severely insomniactic. But in general most people continued to sleep and dream normally.

However in The Dreaming realm Morpheus’ absence was noticed. And over time things started to deteriorate. The vast library in The Dreaming started to disappear. Some dream entities vanished. Some Nightmare creatures escaped into the human world.

And Morpheus’ castle began to fall into disrepair. This all happened over the span of many years, mind you.

For over seventy-two-years Morpheus is kept prisoner inside a clear crystal-glass cage, surrounded by a magical binding circle in Roderick’s cellar. They take his helm, his pouch of dream sand, and his ruby amulet as magical trophies. They also take his clothes and leave him naked and caged. They don’t even bother to feed him and though he won’t die of starvation he does suffer hunger. The binding circle holds back Morpheus’ magick and psychic powers while the glass cage holds his physical body.

During Morpheus’ captivity Roderick grew old and died and his son took his place as Morpheus’ main captor. And eventually old age started to creep up on the son, Alexander. One night Alexander visit’s his prisoner (who has refused to speak the entire time of his captivity) and Alex’s assistant (and lover) Paul, accidentally brushes Alex’s wheelchair slightly over the rim of the binding circle, breaching it and it’s hold over Morpheus’ psychic abilities. But they do not notice this slight breach. Morpheus, however, does notice the breach in the circle holding him prisoner. Morpheus waits for his opportunity. As one of his guards has a brief day dream about a vacation on a beach, Morpheus is able to psychically connect with this dream to steal a fistful of the sand there on the dream beach and use this sand as he would use his pouch of dream sand.

Morpheus pretends to collapse within his cage.

Appearing to be dead, the guards call for their employer, and open the glass cell. Morpheus uses the pilfered dream sand to make good his escape.

The first thing Morpheus does is he enters someone’s dream about wearing a clown costume to a party and no one else is in costume. Here Morpheus (still quite naked) raids the buffet, even eating frog legs from a fried chicken style bucket held by Colonel Sanders. He’s too hungry to think about anything other than eating.

Once that’s done he conjures clothes for himself and seeks revenge on his captor...

Morpheus enters the dream of Alexander Burgess where he confronts him on holding him prisoner and how he treated him. Morpheus used to be a very cruel and petty being and his cruelty lingers long enough for him to punish Alexander severely. He condemns him to a dream of eternal waking, an eternal nightmare which entails waking up from a nightmare only to find he’s in yet another nightmare, just to wake up again and be in yet another nightmare and on and on forever while his body remains comatose and or may actually, one day, die while his soul could be stuck in that nightmare within The Dreaming for eternity. (Dream does eventually release Alexander Burgess though and forgives him).

Exhausted by this act of vengeance, Morpheus tries to make his way to his castle at The Heart of The Dreaming but faints in “The shifting lands” where he’s found by Gregory The Gargoyle. Gregory is the pet of Cain.

Cain and Abel are old horror host comic book characters from the 1960 and 1970s in the style of the Crypt Keeper, with Cain compulsively murdering Abel roughly once a night (Abel recovers each time as he’s immortal). And yet Cain and Abel weirdly love each other.

These characters originally came from the comic book series The House of Mystery and The House of Secrets.

The House of Secrets are the comics that first introduced DC’s Swamp Thing.

At The House of Mystery (Cain’s home) Cain is presenting Abel with a new baby gargoyle egg (this gargoyle eventually gets named Goldie. Originally Abel called the baby gargoyle Irving but Cain insisted that gargoyles need G names) that’s when Gregory (the large green Gargoyle) carries the barely conscious Morpheus to Cain. This is one of the only times in the comics where you out right see Morpheus ask for help. He’s a very proud character.

Cain and Abel set about nursing their king back to health.

Morpheus gradually recovers in Cain’s House of Mystery (Abel’s home is The House of Secrets) before making his way to his castle (now in ruins) in the heart of The Dreaming. Morpheus’ loyal librarian, Lucien, had been trying to keep things running in Morpheus’ absence.

Lucien AKA Mr. Raven (not to be confused with Morpheus’ spy raven, Matthew, who comes later) is another horror host from older DC comics and the castle he resided in (known as the “Ghost Castle”) turns out to be Morpheus’ own castle, which has appeared in both The Waking World and The Dreaming, much like Cain’s House of Mystery and Abel’s House of Secrets.

Meanwhile Morpheus’ usual groundskeeper, Mervyn (A Jack-o-lantern headed scarecrow) had taken to driving a bus in The Dreaming and had to be brought back to The Castle to return to his original duties.

Morpheus realizes he needs to get his property back- The pouch of dream sand, his helm, and his ruby dreamstone amulet (which is a conduit and amplifier for his powers) that had been taken at the start of his captivity and had drifted to different owners over time. The Hecateae (The triple goddess AKA The Furies AKA The Fates AKA The Kindly Ones) tell Morpheus that John Constantine had his pouch of Dream Sand. And so Morpheus goes to meet Constantine.

John Constantine (who is a practicing occultist and private investigator) figures out that a former lover of his his own has the pouch of self-replenishing dream sand (he, himself, was unable to pull the draw strings of the pouch). The exlover has tragically been using the sand to get high and several Dream entities have been feeding on her imagination when she does this. Her body is shutting down. By the time Morpheus and Constantine find her there is little that can be done but Constantine demands Morpheus do something for her and so Morpheus gives her a pleasant final dream before she passes away. Morpheus repays Constantine’s assistance by helping him with his chronic nightmares.

Next Morpheus has to retrieve his helm, which was taken by a demon. Morpheus is forced to visit Hell to reclaim it. Here he is guided by Etrigan The Demon (a demon that exists Dr. Jekyll and Hyde style with a human immortal host, Jason Blood). Etrigan deliberately takes Morpheus past an imprisoned former lover of Morpheus’ own, Nada. She pleads for Morpheus to rescue her but he tells her that though he loves her he has not yet forgiven her. (later we learn Morpheus left her in Hell because she rejected him back when he was a much crueler character).

Morpheus has started to change since his captivity. He’s becoming softer, less cruel. And though he does not rescue her here, he will eventually go back for her after his older sister, Death makes him realize that he had wronged Nada.

The demon who has taken Morpheus’ helm challenges him to a contest where each one has to out do the creativity of the other, inventing personas that would best the previous one conceived by the opponent. Eventually Morpheus wins with the simple phrase “I am Hope.”

This is later (much later) very bitterly sweetly elaborated on in the prequel comic Sandman: Overture, where Hope is revealed to have been a little girl whose ghost helps Morpheus but all he can remember of her is her name.

Side note: Lucifer (the main ruler of this Hell) becomes bitter and slowly makes up his mind to quit ruling there. He does not get around to doing this until the storyline called Season of Mists, in which Lucifer leaves the key to Hell to Morpheus when Morpheus came back, looking to rescue Nada. Lucifer also asks Morpheus to help him by cutting off Lucifer’s large bat-like wings for him. (Lucifer gets those wings back in his own solo comics, back to their original white, feathery Angelic state).

Eventually Morpheus gives The Key to Hell to two Angels who turn Hell into a place of redemption, and Lucifer retires to Earth where he opens a piano bar in LA called Lux but that’s a whole other story.

Morpheus’ ruby dreamstone amulet had been taken by the villain Doctor Destiny AKA John (or Johnny) Dee. (Not to be confused with Morpheus’ elder brother, Destiny personified). Doctor Destiny AKA John Dee was being kept at Arkham Asylum. Doctor Destiny happens to escape around this time as Morpheus is trying to reclaim his lost amulet. The amulet was in a Justice League of America storage warehouse. The amulet had been so corrupted by Doctor Destiny that merely touching it saps Morpheus of a great deal of his strength and he collapses, fainting in the warehouse, where it was being stored.

By the time Morpheus regains consciousness, he finds that Doctor Destiny has taken the amulet and Doctor Destiny had used the ruby’s power on a diner full of people (whom he has toyed with, driven to madness, and then ultimately killed or made them kill each other and themselves in very gruesome ways). Doctor Destiny and Morpheus have a confrontation where Doctor Destiny says he will kill Morpheus.

Morpheus tricks Doctor Destiny into following him into The Dreaming where Doctor Destiny destroys the ruby, believing it will kill Morpheus if The Dreamstone is destoryed. Instead of killing Morpheus, the power that was in the ruby dreamstone reverts to him, making Morpheus more powerful than he had been in centuries. The ruby had contained a small fragment of Morpheus’ very soul. Morpheus (who has started to change, becoming a bit kinder) shows pity on Doctor Destiny and instead of cruelly punishing him, he escorts him back to Arkham Asylum where he gives all the inmates a night of deep sleep and pleasant dreams.

Once Morpheus has gotten back his lost artifacts he restores his castle and library.

Now Morpheus feels restless and uncertain as to what to do with himself. He’s lonely and feels like he’s lost his purpose. So he goes to a park to feed the pigeons in order to try to cheer himself up.

(He loves birds and feeding birds is a comfort for him). Here he meets up with his sister, Death, who makes pop culture references that fly right over his head (Since he’s been out of touch for nearly a century and wasn’t very good at slang to begin with).

Morpheus loves and respects his sister and doesn’t understand why so many people fear her.

He considers himself far more terrible than she could ever be. She manages to cheer him up by simply being there. She has him accompany her as she makes her rounds through the city, escorting souls to where they are meant to go.

There are several adventures for Morpheus after this but this is the first story of the Sandman comics. Most of his adventures deal with Morpheus righting the wrongs of his own dark past and coming to terms with very human things such as loneliness, friendship, guilt and grief.

Marvel fans might notice that Morpheus AKA Dream has certain similarities to Marvels’ Nightmare character. And there are definite similarities. The biggest difference is Dream is essentially what would happen if Nightmare went on a redemption arc.

_________________________

Other adventures of note:

At one point Morpheus is summoned to help Calliope, the muse. Calliope and Morpheus had been married thousands of years earlier. She has recently been held prisoner by cruel mortals who use her for inspiration and have physically abused her as well. Morpheus tries to ask for her release and when that doesn’t work he’s forced to torment her captor with maddening, intensely creative dreams until he releases her.

Another storyline deals with Morpheus going back to Hell to rescue his abandoned lover, Nada, only to find that Lucifer has quit and Lucifer asks Morpheus to help him cut off his large bat wings (which he gets back as pretty feathery wings later in his own solo comics.)

Lucifer goes to Earth and decides to learn how to play Piano, among other things. His lover, the demoness, Mazikeen, soon follows, while Morpheus’ older sister, Death, tries to sort out what to do with all the newly displaced wandering souls.

When Morpheus is left the key to Hell, various supernatural entities, beings of folklore, and religion come to The Dreaming to try to claim it from him. One demon that arrives (made of many mouths) has Nada imprisoned inside of his very being. Morpheus goes inside the demon and rescues Nada and while he’s there he also finds and rescues the very demon that had once had his helm and challenged him during the first Sandman storyline, Preludes and Nocturns. Morpheus’ sense of compassion has grown.

In his pride Morpheus gives a flimsy apology to Nada for leaving her in Hell and she slaps him hard across the face.

He apologizes more sincerely after momentarily getting angry and tells her that she has a choice to make. Nada chooses to be reincarnated.

When she’s reborn in Hong Kong, Morpheus sneaks into the nursery in the hospital maternity ward, where he cradles the baby, (The baby is male), telling the baby that he’ll never forget her and that she’ll always be welcome in The Dreaming.

The key to Hell is ultimately passed to two Angels who choose to try to make it a place of reformation and redemption but somehow devise tortures equally as cruel (if not crueler) than what was there when Lucifer ran the place. In Neil Gaiman’s lore souls only go to Hell if they believe that is what they deserve and then demons take advantage of that there in Hell. In Lucifer’s stand alone comics it’s revealed that he was not given Hell as a punishment but as a place where he wouldn’t have to live in his Father’s shadow. It became a place of darkness and misery because of Lucifer’s own dark mindset. Lucifer now seems content on Earth and never returns to ruling Hell.

(Note: The current Devil / Satan of the DC universe is “First of the Fallen” (a different entity from Lucifer as Lucifer is “retired” and is not actually categorized as evil anymore.)

In current DC / Vertigo lore, a different being, “First of The Fallen” has taken the title of Satan while Lucifer has happily become a neutral character, considered neither Good nor Evil (though leaning heavily toward Good in his TV show incarnation). Lucifer is retired and categorized as Neutral in his moral alignment while First of the Fallen is categorized as Evil. Lucifer may have been the first Angel to fall from grace but he was not the first entity to fall from grace (by that list Lucifer is actually the fourth to fall) and so Lucifer does not actually have the title First of the Fallen in the current comics.

One sweet storyline in Sandman is how Morpheus met a man who ‘refused to die” (an immortal) and the man (known as Hob and later Robert) agreed to meet with Morpheus every century to tell him what it was like to go from being mortal to being immortal, how his life has been for the last century, and to tell him if he wanted to continue to live). In the 1700s they run into John Constantine’s Great, great, grandmother, Johanna Constantine, who mistakes Morpheus and Robert (Hob) as “The Devil and the Wandering Jew” and tries to capture Hob / Robert and Morpheus.

In the 1800s Hob confronts Morpheus on the fact that there are actually other formerly-human immortals around the world and Hob believes Morpheus only meets with him once a century because they are friends and not because he is curious to know how Hob handles his immortality. Morpheus becomes indignant and prideful, insisting that he doesn’t need friends.

He storms off and Hob calls after him that if he shows up next century he’ll know it’s because they’re friends and no other reason.

A century later Morpheus arrives and Hob admits he had not thought he’d come and Morpheus tells him that he had been told that it is rude to keep one’s friends waiting. It’s sweet.

In the lore of Sandman Morpheus is the father of the mythological Orpheus, the musician who went into the Greek underworld to retrieve his dead wife. Orpheus’ mother is the muse, Calliope. Hades agreed to let Orpheus have his wife back if he did not look back at her until they left The Underworld, proving his trust in the Greek God of The Dead. Orpheus made the mistake of looking back at her at the last second and so lost her just before they could exit The Underworld. Orpheus was then later torn apart by zealots and since he was condemned to immortality he was stuck as a severed head. Shortly before going to The Underworld Orpheus had denounced his father, Morpheus, for refusing to help get his wife back from The Land of The Dead. Hurt and angry, Morpheus refused to help him other than to send some priests dreams about Orpheus so that they and their descendants would tend to him (as he’s just a severed head) for centuries to come.

In the early 1990s, when Morpheus’ youngest sister, Delirium wants to find their lost brother, Destruction, Morpheus is forced to go to Orpheus to find out where Destruction is. Orpheus bitterly greets his estranged father and tells him that he will give him the information he needs but only if he does him the one mercy he has been pleading for, for centuries. Morpheus does not want to do it but finally out of mercy he kills his own son, reuniting Orpheus with his wife in The Underworld. But Morpheus is left with a deep remorse over how he treated his son and for Orpheus’ death. Morpheus retreats to his private rooms in his castle where he weeps, alone.

Morpheus eventually gets mistaken as the kidnapper of baby Daniel ( a child who, while fetal, spent an unusually long time in The Dreaming realm. Daniel is the son of Hector Hall, the second superhero Sandman who passed away). Lyta, the baby’s Mother, is lead to believe her child is dead. She calls upon the Kindly Ones (representatives of the crone aspect of The Triple Goddess) to seek revenge. They tell her that they cannot seek revenge for her son but an Endless is not allowed to kill someone of their own blood, nor is Morpheus allowed to kill at all except to protect The Dreaming. As Morpheus has violated these ancient rules, they can seek revenge over the death of Orpheus.

The end of the Sandman comics has Morpheus “die” sacrificing himself to stop The Kindly Ones from Destroying The Dreaming. Morpheus’ loved ones grieve him but it’s a little ambiguous as to if he’s truly dead. Morpheus had become weary of his role as ruler of The Dreaming but he knew that he could not just abandon it the way Destruction had abandoned his role. And he could not quit the way Lucifer had, though he does quote Lucifer about being so very tired.

The Kindly ones seek Morpheus’ death or the destruction of The Dreaming. Morpheus gives up his life to save his realm, allowing his sister, Death, to take him. As Morpheus “dies” all of his memories and power pass on into baby Daniel, who transforms and now wears an emerald with a small amount of Dream’s soul within it. Everything that was mortal of Daniel is gone as he is transformed into the new incarnation of Dream.

When Lyta had mistakenly thought Morpheus had taken her baby, Daniel had actually been kidnapped by Puck and Loki but Daniel was ultimately rescued by a Nightmare being known as The Corinthian, and Morpheus’ Raven spy / messenger, Matthew (who had been a human soul who died in his sleep and was allowed to remain in The Dreaming after his death as Morpheus’ loyal servant. Matthew (in his human form) had originally been a character of the Swamp Thing comics.

Daniel- now simply calling himself Dream- (which was Morpheus’ alternate name) took an adult form that looks much like Morpheus except with white hair instead of black. This can be seen as similar to a Doctor Who style regeneration however there are other things that make Morpheus’ death fishy and or potentially a false ending.

Hob AKA Robert (Morpheus’ immortal friend) has a dream of Morpheus in which Morpheus is with a man he does not know (Destruction) and both walk off together.

This can imply two things. 1. Morpheus could have faked his death very elaborately and is telling Hob (as he has told Hob things via dreams before) or 2. Morpheus did die and Daniel resurrected him as a Dream (which actually is one of his powers, to resurrect anyone who dies in The Dreaming realm as a Dream entity, maintaining free will, personality, and soul).

And that’s about it.

Though there are serious and complex parts, some of Sandman is fun and light too, such as when Morpheus allows Delirium to drive... in the human world...

And there you go. A crash course in what the Hell Neil Gaiman’s Sandman actually is. Despite the spoilers of this post, I assure you that the actual comics are much more enjoyable to read.

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rosesnlavender · 7 years

Text

Obsession: Mystic Messenger V Route

So this recently came out after Mystic Messenger got a whole new layout. The old layout was cute but the new layout has more of a space/ tech advance feel to it. If you’re interested in taking a peek at the old layout (there’s been 2 layout changes so far), take a look back at my 2016 Christmas Mystic Messenger Special post (it’s been almost a year and I haven’t even finished the post; I haven’t even finished all the routes for the special...).

Moving on, I have approx. 2 weeks until school starts so I have just the right amount of time to play through one round of the new route. Now if you’ve read my first Mystic Messenger post, you’ll know about my rant on V. I really wanted an Unknown route so I hope they’ll come out with that as well.

As I’ve started writing this post, I have not yet opened up V’s route. However, my mindset as I’m going through this THIS ROUTE WILL NOT CHANGE THE STORYLINE OR DIFFER IN STORYLINE. I SINCERELY HOPE that the story will continue as it was and that my baby Seven will also have a happy ending.

Here’s the promo vid if you’re interested.

youtube

I would not recommend reading this unless you already know what happens in this game and/or played this game up to both the secret ends.

I WILL NOT STRIKE-THROUGH ANY SPOILERS FROM THE CASUAL AND DEEP STORIES ON THIS POST BECAUSE I’M ASSUMING YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT’S UP.

Straight to the bottom is the TL;DR like usual but it’ll only appear after I’ve finished the post which is when I’ll finish the route.

This will be a long ass post with the usual format (if you’ve read these before):

Unlocking V’s Route

Beginning V’s Route

Finishing V’s Route

Endings Completed

Final Notes

TL;DR

Time Table

Unlocking V’s route

Alright, since I downloaded the new update at around noon, I’ll be opening up the sequence and going throughout the day and I’ll restart at midnight.

So first things first. Look at this new start screen.

I don’t know how the route is going to work but I personally don’t really like the idea of the MC being a second love.

The head and quote goes through a cycle of all the characters and their difference sayings.

That “Another Story” wording really scares me. I PRAY TO GOD IT DOESN’T STRAY FROM THE ORIGINAL STORY.

On the side note, HOLY HELL 300 HG! Thank god I have barely enough saved up.

I KNEW IT. “This story unfolds 2 years prior to the original story.” It’s going to be a different story. Though surprisingly, I’m not too mad about it. Two years prior means everyone is blissfully unaware and my baby Seven hasn’t been hurt. Hmm. How long was it since Rika “died” before the original story? Kind of looking forward to this. That “Other surprising content” though.

80 CGs?! GETTING MY MIND READY. I really hope the artwork is the same as the original story and not like the weird occasional change in style like in some of the specials. It’s also cute how V’s album now has special photo squares unlike the usual ? logo.

Umm jumping ahead cause I’m really excited about this,

GUYS. GUYS. GUYS.

THERE’S AN UNKNOWN ALBUM.

CAN I HAVE HOPE FOR AN UNKNOWN ROUTE.

Beginning V’s Route

Anyways, moving back, I will now official start the route (before I restart it at midnight later tonight).

Look at this new layout. Green backgrounds means that there’s a new status.

There’s a shit ton more CGs which I really hope are in the original artwork style. There’s also a shit ton more guests. Like literally doubled the amount that was there before. If it took 5 routes to unlock all those guests, I wonder how big this party will be this time around.

I’m also really liking the MC profile.

So my hunch was correct, the story is set around half a year after Rika’s “death”.

OH MY FUCKING GOD.THE PROLOGUE SOMEWHAT BROKE THROUGH THE FOURTH WALL. PLUS WE FINALLY GOT UNKNOWN’S NAME! I mean not his REAL name but like an alias like most of the other characters have.

So the premise of this route goes like this: You are technically kidnapped by Ray (Unknown) and taken to what probably is Mint Eye HQ. You’re essentially locked in another room to “test” out this messenger game that Ray supposedly developed. The messenger game concept is literally like inception. Ray even gives you the promo poster picture of all 5 main targets. He tells you they’re AIs and that you’ll have to plan a party. The same game concept. Except in the dialogues, you can somewhat flirt with Ray. But while I say flirt, there’s a hint of a ummm manipulative atmosphere where Ray will sometimes flirt back but it’s basically just to play with your feelings and keep you there to use you. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is how it turns out later.

On a side note, Ray’s emojis are so cute. But I’m not sure if I’m liking his whole fuchsia/magenta Victorian aristocrat outfit. It’s a different look then what we’re used to in the original story 2 years down the road. I wonder what happened. Or is it just because he needs to manipulate the MC that he’s wearing this? His hearts are also in that fuchsia/magenta color.

Back to the game, although the format is the same as the casual and deep stories, there will be more appearances from Ray hacking in. You really interact more with V and Ray in this route. I know it’s suppose to be V’s route but I’m all about flirting with Ray right now. Even though I know it’s probably not gonna end well.

On another side note, they weren’t kidding when they said HG for 24 skips vary.

A whole 165 HG to skip 24 hours ON THE FIRST DAY. I’m quite curious as to what to expect next.

On a whole new other side note

The phone calls now come with a whole new contacts section WITH 2 EMPTY BUBBLES. OMG WHO ARE THEY FOR?

Finishing V’s Route So I went through the bad ending for common route 3 (or so it’s labeled in the history chat, which is just missing all the chats before the branch after day 4) and restarted it. I didn’t exactly read them yet since I was kind of salty going through it. I’ll probably read them after I’ve finish the normal/good ends.

The first actual game play I’m going through is just choosing the choices that I want. I don’t care if this ends badly or not. I’m still kind of salty about V. I’m really all about flirty with Ray right now. I think that since this is fairly “early” in the time period, I don’t think Ray has been drugged and brainwashed and as mentally unstable as he was in the original game. So I really feel for ray and I’ve been all about flirting with him. And honestly, while I don’t like how occasionally you’ll see his unstable ultra possessive state, I actually totally agree with him on this:

You can still see his deep rooted misguided hate for Seven through the fact that he doesn’t even mention his name but Ray actually does have a clear understanding of the RFA members. It makes you wonder how he found out about this or was he smart and clear headed enough to infer this from reading the chat logs when he hacked in.

Side note: The following is a rambling of a storyline for Ray inspired by the chat above and one of the prologue bad ends.

For a Ray route, I’m kind of thinking it could also be set 2 years ago from the original story line and the MC could still be kidnapped by Ray on the streets but it could be that the MC is actually an undercover agent tasked with bringing down Mint Eye. As they slowly interact with each other, the MC would see that Ray is just brainwashed and they would slowly fall in love but the MC can’t stay very long.

After uncovering the truth and bringing down Mint Eye, the MC would deliver Ray back to Seven (hopefully all the RFA members had their eyes opened, including V) for Ray to get the help he needs. But even though Ray gets help and recovers quickly because it hasn’t been that long that he’s been drugged and brainwashed, Ray is still very dependent and loves the MC that he uses his hacking resources to track her down. The RFA members sees this and decided to help him. MC is found to be president of a security company by day and underworld boss by night.

Since MC can’t leave, Ray decides to join her and Seven decides to follow. Seeing this the rest of the members follow (with Vanderwood because Vanderwood follows Seven and Seven’s original agency is afraid of MC’s company so there’s no problems). The members still hosts party with Ray as the party coordinator now. The only thing that’s changed is the RFA name.

This is pretty much my little imagination on a Ray route. It would be fun to see the MC actually have more of a background. It’s pretty weird how the MC is just roped into the storyline with no regards to her previous life. Does no one care that she just disappears?

Back to the first play, all I can say is Ray is too precious and my saltiness for V is starting to fade. It’s still there, but it’s fading. AHHH. Flirting with Ray gave me a bad end after Day 4 branch. I choose answers that flirted with him but at the same time I didn’t want to fucking join Mint Eye. Ahh. Time to restart. The second game play I finally got into V’s route. BUT I’M OFFICIALLY SALTY AGAIN. THE SALT DILUTED WHEN I WAS FLIRTING WITH RAY BUT IT CAME BACK STRONG WHEN I DECIDED TO GET THE GOOD END IN V’S ROUTE. His stupid pathetic ass is STILL hiding things from the members. He asks Seven for help but makes him go the round about. V wants to make everyone hate him and feels pathetic but he doesn’t deserves everyone’s hatred. He’s not seeing how he’s hurting them and only thinking about himself. The choices in the game is so annoying I want to smash his face. I seriously do not want to play this route. I just can’t with him. I’m only in it for Ray. If V wants to put a pity party for himself then go ahead but leave everyone else out of it. THEY’RE ALREADY INVOLVED. Keeping them out isn’t helping anyone! I especially hate how he uses Seven’s trust for when he knows Seven will feel betrayed when Mint Eye is exposed. In the original story, Mint Eye progressed by 2 years. TWO FUCKING YEARS he tried to do something on his own. AND WHAT DID HE FUCKING ACCOMPLISH? NOTHING. Honestly, I don’t know if I should continue for the good route or just do what i want to fucking do.

WHAT THE FUCK. I AVOIDED RIKA LIKE THE PLAGUE AND STILL GOT HER ENDING. WTF. Endings Completed

Bad Ends

Prologue 1 ‎✔

Prologue 2 ‎✔

Common Route 3 ✔

...

Normal End

Good End

Final Notes

The CGs are smoother than in the original story and honestly love them more than the ones in the original story.

TL;DR Time Table

#obsession #mystic messenger

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emilyslifeinlondon · 7 years

Photo

Monday April 24-Monday May 8

Some highlights over these 2 weeks:

-The Parent Trap House (23 eggerton terrace aka 7 Pembroke Lane) 🏠 -Phantom of the Opera 🎭 -Hackney 5.5K 👟🏅 -Wicked 🌵 -Prime Meridian ⏱ -Arsenal Stadium Tour ⚽️ -Maltby Market round II 🍩🎂

I finally made it to Hyde park and the Kensington Palace area! We saw the palace gardens and walked around the park exploring South Kensington a bit. After, Brooke, Delaney, and I made our way to The Parent Trap House! This was something on the London to do list, since I love the movie and the house was just in London! After we spotted 23 Eggerton Terrace, I exclaimed how happy I was that the gate was open. There was a man in a black suit standing nearby outside a car and I assumed that he might be a driver since this area was extremely wealthy. He chuckled with a friendly smile and said to take as many pictures as I wanted. I was going on and on about how much I knew about the house (I had stumbled upon an article when looking up the address) until Delaney or Brooke asked if he lived there; and of course, he smiled and said yes. I literally died laughing/out of embarrassment. The man was extremely friendly and I’m so glad I finally got to see the house!

We (Brooke, Amanda, Christine, Sitong, and I) booked tickets to see Phantom of the Opera on Tuesday the 25th and went to an Italian place for dinner. Instead of getting pizza, I chicken and potato fish with a mushroom sauce. It was fantastic!!! We had to rush through dinner in order to get to the theatre in time, but we made it. I had known the basic storyline of Phantom, but didn’t know any of the music and had heard it was beautiful. I was blown away by the whole experience. The set was amazing and the actors were incredible! I listened to the album on repeat for the next two days. It was nice to see a play that I hadn’t already seen/known since I had no expectations.

Becca came to visit that Friday since she had to leave the Schengen zone in order to not go over her number of days. We got to catch up over Pizza Union, of course. 😊 That night we went to Koko, a club in London that used to be a theatre. We danced the night away until 4 am when the club closed. The following afternoon, we got brunch and then explored more of Shoreditch. That night I went to bed semi-early (by midnight) since I had a 5.5K in the early afternoon. Christine and I took a train to Hackney (we were running the Hackney 5.5K) which took forever to walk to. The village was about a mile from the train station, and none of the staff seemed to know about the 5.5K since there had just been a half marathon that morning. After finally making it to the village, we checked in and stretched before our 3.4 mile run. I was excited since I had never run any type of marathon. We decided to start behind the jog line and soon enough, the run had started! I started to feel tired about a mile in, but the other runners kept me motivated. It was cool experiencing a race from the other side; I had some water about 1/3 through and was sigh every time I saw an incline coming. Before I knew it, I saw the .10 mile sign. I was so excited that I picked up my pace and ran as fast as I could until I crossed the finish line. Christine and I crossed at the same time and finished in 31:51. We ended up 214/215 out of 503 for women. We got our medals and a whole bunch of “free” snacks and drinks! The weather was perfect (cloudy with lots of wind) and I’m so glad that I challenged myself to sign up. I had a great time and hope to run a 10K within the next year.

Although my legs and feet were exhausted and in pain, we went out anyway. We only had one weekend left so why not?! Back to Koko it was. We had a lot of fun and were quite annoyed when the club closed at 3 am instead of 4 am the previous Friday.

Becca and I bought tickets on Monday morning to see Wicked. We got £125 tickets for £54! Like Phantom, I had never seen Wicked. I only knew a few of the songs, which included Dancing Through Life, Popular, and Defying Gravity. Before the play, a bunch of us went to Dishoom (a popular Indian restaurant that you have to book weeks in advance) and shared a bunch of small dishes. I know I say this about a lot of food, but it was really good! I’d only had Indian food twice before and it wasn’t my favorite. I was pleasantly surprised and as always, we were running late to the show. We made it (after making Becca run from the tube station) and were sweating profusely as the show started. We were halfway to our seats when the lights dimmed and Becca legit threw herself into her seat (I was trying not to laugh). I was a bit scatterbrained for the first few minutes of the show, but relaxed after I cooled down. I had not seen one bad play in London and I loved Wicked as well! The actress who played Elphaba was fantastic! I was blown away by Defying Gravity and enjoyed the storyline of the play as well. Next time I watch The Wizard of Oz, I’ll have some sympathy for the Witch of the West. Becca left very early the next morning, so we said our goodbyes and I passed out in bed I was so tired.

In my British Industrial Revolution class we went to some astronomy site and some garden (that ended up being closed, lol) and got to stand on the Prime Meridian. I was quite excited since I had learned about Greenwich and how to use the Prime Meridian in calculations in my Oceanography course. We took some class photos and a few of us got brunch on the way back. I opted for oatmeal with bananas which is probably the most healthy brunch I had gotten during the whole trip! Go me!

On Saturday, Christine and I had signed up for the CIEE Arsenal Stadium Tour but it turns out it had been cancelled since no one besides us had signed up. We decided to go anyway (and got a refund from the program) and I had a blast! It was cool seeing such a famous stadium where a premier league football team plays right in the heart of London. We got to see the directors box, locker rooms, press conference rooms, and field. We learned a lot about the history of the stadium as well as the fact that the Arsenal tube stop is the only stop named after a team. We definitely felt like Arsenal fans that day.

The following day Christine, Amanda, and I headed to Maltby market. I was the only one who had been before and it was by far my favorite. I had fish and chips (again) and Dhan Eggs (again as well- I really need to try new things) for dessert which were delicious! We stayed for a bit and then I went back to Chapter in order to work on my 2 final papers so that I wouldn’t have any work when Mary came!

The next blog post will be filled with all the sites/activities from Mary’s 5 day visit!

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