#i feel more in tune with my child self; like i feel like a grown up version of my 9 year old self and more confident

[southernvampire]

uterus has been yeeterused

[divinefeminine-card]

Pick a card: Your life two years from now

Hello everyone, it has been a while isn't it? I thought what should be the topic of my second pac. Then this idea came to my mind, not original but anyways haha. Now, before we head on I need you all to know that growth is different for everyone. Okay? And to be very honest, it is also as much fine if you feel you haven't grown at all, because I promise you have, it is inevitable. We are always growing.

To pick a pile now, choose whatever image attracts you first. Its fine if more than one image attracts you guys. And if nothing really calls you then this pac might not be for you, have a good day, lots of love and light to you :D

Piles:

1-2

3-4

5-6

Readings 🍒

Pile 1

Hello my Pile 1, what I am seeing is you guys, two years from now, would have gotten really experienced in certain areas of life. Like, you know the shit, alright? Combat, you are ready for combat. You are aware and awake. Ready to tackle any obstacle or whatsoever. The next two years are definitely very much significant for you guys in terms of emotional maturity. You guys will definitely learn to listen to your intuition. Let me tell you, it's NOT easy to listen to your intuition and not confuse it with other things but I am seeing you guys will be very much certain in this as well.

Uh-ha! Pile 1, you will definitely be doing some kind of work, job or creating something solid/stable by yourselves. Mark my words. You all will be so skilled omg I am so happy for you!!!! You all will be so meticulous in your craft, so expert! It's awesome!! I am getting the mature-independent vibes!!! It might be something you always had a talent of 👀

Going to get-togethers, parties, having your own standing. You know, you might frequent different parties, get-togethers, meetings. I am definitely seeing you all really standing your ground and own no matter what!! Just being confident in oneself.

Two years from now, you guys would have worked through many of your fears, mostly societal fear I believe. You will be your unapologetic self, love 🥺

If by any chance you are worried about your loved ones safety and security, fret not, they will be safe and secure :)))

I love you guys so much, hope you liked the reading.

Pile 2

Hello my Pile 2, Damn guys, majority of your cards are of Major Arcana!!

Two years from now, I am seeing you guys being more outspoken than ever before. Like, just saying whatever comes to your mind. It's kinda cute to be very honest (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

This is a very recurring typa theme in this pile, you guys will be your most balanced and in tune with yourself version of yours ever!!! I am seeing you and your lives to be very much at peace. Nothing too high, nothing too low. Things are going on calmly and peacefully. You will be connected to both your masculine and feminine side in perfect harmony. So happy. Your life and you, yourself will be so full of happiness and optimism, it would be contagious to the people around you. You will be blooming!!

You guys will be just and good. You will not be the type to be swayed by fake greed and flash. Protecting your peaceful life I am seeing. You will be the type to do your work quietly and retire to your chambers as soon as possible. Your coworkers will be very cooperative as well. You will be supported and looked after.

I see child-like happiness within you guys. You will be blessed and happy. You know that song Colorful World by Kathryn Ostenburg, that's what I am reminded of while doing this reading. I will link it here.

Lots of love and emotional time here. This can be a healing period for you. It might be a bit uncomfortable but trust it's gonna be so so good.

Pile 3

Hello my Pile 3!

Getting on with your reading, I am definitely seeing lots of competition, determination, using your resources, trying to be as quick as possible, preservation of wealth and defence of your own self.

Okay, so two years from now, your life will be quite in a moving state, like things are actively in motion. Situations and things are still building up. Resources are scattered so preservation is also very important. I am sensing that the environment you will be in two years from now will be quite competitive, and very very very opportunistic, selfish as well I think. Everyone wants to be at the top, but not everyone can be at the top here, so the brutal competition is.

Even though you will have secured your own position but I am still seeing the stance of defense and alertness here, ready to strike if anyone dares touch what yours truthfully, rightfully. Despite all of the harsh surroundings though, you still will be down-to-earth and humble at heart ❤️ Love that for you my pile 3. You are self-sufficient and happy in yourself.

Whenever you would feel seriously down, you would look at all the abundance you have, and be like "Oh, I have this, no need to be sad 💅🏻 🤓" haha, it's specific but boy do I feel it will be so true.

At times, the period might seem very bleak but always remember to hold your vision high my lovely pile 3, you all have got this okay?? No matter what, you all have got this! The answers you have been yearning for long will be given to you. Just hold on to the hope. Take these trials as the test of your commitment! You got this my pile 3! I love you 💖

Pile 4

Hello my Pile 4!! I am seeing a very fulfilled and happy life for you guys. Like, when I say fulfilled I mean, you would have the money, the wisdom and the love (both giving and receiving).

You would feel complete in ALL areas of life, my pile 4 I swear. You would not be afraid of being vulnerable either. Instead, I feel it will be something which will give you great strength in tough times. You would feel the success you have achieved after a period of growth. You will feel happy, pile 4, truly happy. You will be juggling different aspects of your life, most likely professional life and family life. It would be a difficult task but, oh aren't you a damn skilled juggler my pile 4?? Things will go up and down but you will skillfully balance them out.

You will definitely be fiercely protective of everything you have cultivated over the years, if something serious were to happen you wouldn't take a second to take the matter in legal hands. You are so cool for that! Never shy away. I am also seeing you might be in the position of leadership, leading people with wisdom and guidance.

Now, seeing the abundance of everything, some snakes might be growing themselves in your yard without your knowledge, in simpler words, someone close to you might not want your best and will try to sabotage you in some way. Look out for them.

Don't try to take too much in your control. If you are feeling so let it be, and if necessary so, let it go, let them go. Don't let pride get in your way. It's fine to sometimes just lower your guard down and be one with everyone. You and your loved ones are safe and sound, waiting for you to return home. Come soon ❤️.

Pile 5

Hello my Pile 5! So, I think it will be, what you can call a very balanced life. You know the ups and downs of life, going on and on and on in cycles.

I think two years from now, you guys will be in your healing era. Healing from the past wounds and preparing for the brighter future. Really proud of you guys. You know, healing is a process, a long one and sometimes a tedious one. So, these past wounds, rewiring your minds might keep you awake at night, thinking what you should or shouldn't have done, even if it seems like I promise it's not the end of the world. After this you all will be in a deep resting healing time. Like, genuine rest, not laying down and having all the lifetime crisis in a single moment.

When this all hard work starts showing their fruits, you will feel it, so my pile 5, two years from now, you guys will be embracing your femininity to its fullest finally, after needing to have kept it hidden. You will let yourself feel the emotions coming through you, to you. You will be secure and stable. You are like a young sprout 🌱, no matter your age, with a lot of potential to grow, and you will, watch my words. Two years from now, you will be comfortable in yourselves. Not taking shit from anybody finally.

You will start planting seeds for your better future. Carefully mending it. Looking forward to it.

I would also like to tell you, I feel you guys will get into a loving relationship or form a deep friendship with someone ;) whichever it will be, it will be healthy with boundaries, okay guys?? Healing is ultimately what you do, but you can never deny the environmental factors. This bond will definitely have a significant impact on you.

Have faith, look at the bigger picture and have fun. That's it! Bye pile 5!

Pile 6

Hello my Pile 6! The energy is quite dynamic must I say. It's all about taking back the control you were stripped off of or never had thought deserved in the first place.

The environment you will be in would be veryyyy competitive. It's like, even when you guys are doing the cheers 🥂 it will be a competition of who can do so the highest. There will be meaningful friendships but still competitive, no sabotaging though. There will be constant support from around.

The times will be quite chaotic. You never know when the rug would be pulled from beneath your feet. Unexpected things happen, one after another, no break or whatsoever. It will be like you are at the top of the world one second and the other at the bottom. Even though expected, it will always bring disturbance to you and your life. Things will seem like they are breaking down one after another. BUT WAIT!

You guys will be fighting (quite literally, academically, legally, physically, mentally (hopefully safely, don't worry)). Like, taking back what was meant to be yours. Working and practicing real hard, like REAL. And you will NOT be quiet about your strength my pile 6 😂 you will be like "I was gonna win. Told you so." It's fun. Anyways.

You will be so experienced during and after all this turmoil. You will finally gain the very much needed stability after all this time. You will reason with your head. Become a mature version of you, the version of desired. It's awesome!!

You pile 6, are definitely one sneaky fella :D you definitely know your way around your field and will get what you desire by hook or crook, good on you haha. You are the type to not attack from the front but rather from the side, neither are wrong though as long as you know you are doing well ;)

So guysss, the reading ends here. This is my second pac. Let me know how you like it, if you please. Any criticism or praise? Bring them on.

Hope you enjoy reading this pac as much as I enjoyed writing it! If anything, just more!

[muwapsturniolo]

✯𝐁𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐢✯

Matt x earthyboho! Reader (platonic only!!)

IN WHICH…after flaking on his friends 1 million party, Matt spends time with Chris’s girlfriend, Y/n.

WARNINGS: mentions of anxiety, self-deprecation, smoking, drinking, I think that’s it.

yall can thank @mattslolita & @thenickgirl because i didn't want this fic to see the light of day but they wanted it.

It was a late Saturday night and Y/n was currently in her living room having her annual wine night.

The sound of Pink Floyd’s money was flowing through the speakers as she danced around the living room, blunt in her mouth and wine glass in the other.

“I’m alright jack keep your hands off my st-'' She stops her singing when her phone rings. She smiles seeing her boyfriend’s name flash across the screen.

“Hi baby, everything ok?” She flops down on to her couch, wine glass still in her hand. Chris smiles seeing her in her eccentric state.

“Yeah everything’s fine I just have a favor to ask. You can definitely say no, but I thought I’d ask anyway.” She hums and takes a sip of her wine.

“So like, we have Tara’s party to go to tonight and Matt is supposed to come but he’s in a funk. He’s been like this all week and I’m positive it’s his anxiety. Do you think he could go to your tonight? I know it’s a big favor to ask because you two have never been alone, but I know you deal with anxiety and I just don’t want Matt to be alone tonight.”

The question throws her off.

She has never hung out with Chris’s brothers without Chris present. It wasn’t because she didn’t want to, she just didn’t see the need for it if Chris wasn’t there. However, Chris was asking her to do so out of love and she can’t deny him that.

“Sure, yeah that’s fine.”

The call ends after the two exchange plans and 'I love yous'. About an hour and a half later, her doorbell rings. She walks through the foyer, humming along to the fading music, and opens the door.

“Hey…” Matt trails off awkwardly. He feels bad having to show up at his brother's girlfriend's house like a child needing to be watched. He planned on staying home after dropping his brothers off, but Chris demanded that he go to Y/n's

So here he is.

“Hey, come in.”

She steps to the side and allows him inside. Usually, she would grab her stick of palo santo and cleanse him down, but she could tell that he doesn’t have a bad bone in his body and needs comfort, not an energy cleansing.

Matt kicks off his shoes and follows her through the big home. Matt looks around in amazement, he knew Y/n was a bit of a hippie, but not to this extent.

He feels safe in her home, surrounded by multiple shades of browns, greens, and oranges. The multiple paintings and posters on the walls, the vases of many shapes and sizes.

It was something out of a movie, but he loved it.

As they walk further into the house, he hears the tune of a familiar song he can’t place his finger on.

“Sorry for the mess, it’s my wine night. Did you want a glass? It’s blueberry!” Matt looks to the wine bottle on the table, accompanied by a bong, and a few other knickknacks.

“Don’t apologize, I intruded on your night. Not like you were expecting to babysit a grown man.” He mumbles.

Y/n frowns at his words, “I don’t see it as babysitting. I see it as you needing a friend. We may not actually be friends, but this is a chance to start.” He smiles softly at her comforting words. He eyes the orange beanbag in the corner and immediately wants to sit on it. It was huge and looked more comforting than his own bed ever had. Y/n sees him eyeing the bean bag and motions to it, “You can sit on it. Make yourself at home.”

Matt doesn’t have to be told twice, immediately sitting down on the bean bag. Oddly, it seems like most of the pressure on his shoulders has been released, the softness of the on-ground chair aiding in that.

Y/n watches silently as Matt closes his eyes and fades into the beanbag. She could tell he had a lot going on in his head, and she hated it for him. She knew all too well what it was like to be fighting your own thoughts, and she felt like she owed it to Chris to help his brother.

She stands up from the couch and walks over to her vinyl's, getting ready to switch them out. “You have a lot of vinyl's.” Matt’s voice rings out.

“I’ve collected a bunch over the years, I blame my mom and dad for the obsession...Chris got me a few of these as well.” A smile graces her face as she thinks about her parents, she decides to call them soon.

“Did you want to pick one?” She offers. Matt stands up from the bean and walks over to the collection of crates.

He sees a few familiar artists, never listening to their music but recognizing their faces. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really know any of these people.” She hums and looks at the crates before looking back to Matt, “Did you want to hook your phone up and play music? I won’t mind but, I will request something soft. I’m not a fan of loud music when it’s late.” Matt nods and the two immediately hook his phone up.

He clicks on a playlist and the soft sound of Fleetwood Mac fills the room. “Oo good choice. I love Stevie Nicks.”

Matt lets out a sigh of relief hearing her words. He was a bit self-conscious when playing music for other people, scared they would judge him. It wasn't like he listened to rap every day, he tended to branch out at times, finding solace in the slower songs.

“Did you want a glass of wine?” She offers once again, already pouring herself another glass. “Sure, I don’t think I’ve ever had wine before.” He says sitting up.

Y/n pours him a glass before handing it to him, “This is my favorite. It’s cheap but it tastes like juice.” He smells it before taking a sip, humming at the sweet taste.

A few glasses later the two are laughing and talking, the conversation flowing easier now that their heads are heavy and their bodies are light.

“How come you didn’t want to go to Tara’s party?” It’s as if her words flip a switch in Matt’s brain, his body tensing as he falls silent.

“Why are you asking? I know Chris told you why.” His words come out a bit snappy making Y/n tap her leg anxiously. “Well, he did... But I want to hear it from you…I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or like I was all in your business.”

The two sit in a pregnant silence before Y/n speaks up once again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

It takes a moment for Matt to speak,

“I'm sick and tired of fighting. I wasn’t born to fight, maybe a small part of me is but I can’t do it anymore….I want to run away from the thoughts in my head and the problems in life but it's like I'm stuck, my legs no longer working, leaving me to be crushed.”

Y/n listens closely to his words, not wanting to interrupt him. She figures it’s best for him to speak his mind since it seems like he’s never able to.

“I wanted to go to Tara’s party tonight, but I just freaked out. The idea of being around so many people who are screaming, drinking, and smoking just made me want to vomit. I haven't always been like this but at the same time, I have. I used to be able to go out with Chris and Nick when we were in Boston, sometimes getting anxious...But it seemed like when we moved to LA, it just got worse. I feel like I’m putting my friends and family through hell by not wanting to do certain things or go anywhere all because of this fucking anxiety.” He rubs over his face in exhaustion, just the thought of being in a crowded room with drunks taking a toll on his body.

“I understand completely. I’m not much of a party person either so I usually stay in the solitude of my own home. Although I’m not living it up like every person in LA, I think what I’m doing is considered living. You’re only ruled by the vibe you’re serving yourself. Don’t feel bad about it.”

He listens to her words closely, finding them to be comforting but also confusing. “But is it considered living? When you hear people say they are living life, you don’t picture someone in their home, you picture parties and trips.”

Y/n takes another sip of wine, “that’s true, but everyone has their own perceptions of things. What I may consider living, others might not. But like I said, you’re only ruled by the vibe you’re serving yourself.”

“But what does that mean? Ruled by the vibe of serving yourself?” He sits up on the bean bag, crossing his legs and arms as he only becomes more confused.

“It means that if you are content and happy by being alone and doing what you want to do, aka serving yourself, then that’s all that matters." Matt furrows his brows.

He doesn’t know if it’s the wine making her not make sense or if her words truly aren’t adding up.

“That doesn’t make sense though. I’m not happy staying inside because anxiety is what’s making me do it. It’s not like I’m choosing to be alone, I want to go out like everyone else and have a good time.”

“And that’s the issue-" she pointed at him.

“You’re not living by your own means, and let’s face it, that’s normal considering you’re a 20-year-old influencer in LA. You feel like you need to go out like everyone else, or else they are going to think you’re weird, or boring. You have this urge to fit in and that isn’t serving you by any means because that’s when the anxiety shows its face.”

It all starts to slowly make sense to him.

“So you’re saying by me trying to force myself to fit in and go to parties and go out, I’m making my anxiety worse?” He tries to clarify.

“Not worse per se, that sounds bad. Anxiety doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it’s not a good thing either. Some people are just natural introverts, but when they force themselves to do things they won’t enjoy, they get anxious and freak out. That’s when I think anxiety is good because it’s telling you to stop forcing yourself through something that’s just going to drain you.”

Y/n lets her words sink into Matt, watching as his face goes through different emotions as he deciphers her thoughts.

“I think I understand? So what you’re trying to say is that I’m most likely an introvert, and by forcing myself into situations that don’t benefit me, I’m making my anxiety flare up. And that my anxiety is trying to warn me to take it easy?”

A small smile forms on Y/n’s face, “and?”

“And that I need to start living life by my means and what makes me happy, because living life by society's means doesn’t benefit me?”

Y/n claps excitedly, “yes! Exactly! You got it! Live your own life and you will be happy!” Matt lets out a breath of air now that he understands her words.

The conversation helped him understand himself a bit more and his thoughts, no longer feeling bad about ditching Tara’s party. And now that he no longer feels bad, all that internal pressure that was ready to burst out of his body is gone.

“I feel so much better now, Christ you have a way with words…I’m sorry for getting snappy earlier.” Y/n waves him off and giggles.

“It’s fine, I tend to do the same at times, but you just need to work through your thoughts and feelings.” She stands up from the couch and claps her hands.

“Now, after that long conversation, I think we deserve a dance break!” Y/n holds her hand out waiting for Matt’s phone. He unlocks it and hands it to her, the girl immediately going to Spotify and loading up a queue of songs.

Y/n immediately bobs her head to the song, twirling around the living room.

“You’ve got to press it on you- Come on Matt everyone knows Gorillaz!” She dances over to him and pulls him off the bean bag.

Matt laughs out as he begins to dance and sing along to the infamous song with the girl.

“It’s coming up it’s coming up, it’s dare!” They shout the lyrics at the top of their lungs, not having a care in the world about how crazy they look.

they were having fun and that's all that matters.

This goes on for about an hour, the two dancing and singing their hearts away. They even recorded a few snaps that were posted of them dancing and singing.

The two collapse onto the couch, out of breath and tired from the workout. “That was tiring. I don’t know if I want to eat or sleep.” Y/n giggles and points to her kitchen, “Well luckily for you, food is next. You good with pasta? I made ravioli from scratch."

“That sounds amazing.” Y/n bounces into the kitchen leaving Matt alone in the living room. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a brown ball trotting into the living room. He gasps seeing the small ball of fur, and immediately picks her up. “You are so cute, what is your name?”

He looks at the collar and chuckles seeing the name

“Janelle meownet”.

He’s heard of the singer and with Y/n’s vibes, it made sense for her to like her.

He sets the kitten on the couch and begins to play with her, his phone soon interrupting them. He answers seeing it’s Chris and smiles at the camera.

The loud sound of the party fills his ears before Chris speaks, “Hey you good?”

Matt nods, “I’m good, I’m having a good time with Y/n.” He answers. Chris smiles, happy that his brother and girlfriend are getting along.

“That’s great! You feeling ok?” Matt nods once again.

“Yeah, Y/n and I had a talk and she really helped me see things differently it was nice….I really like her for you Chris.”

Chris smiles brightly, finding solace in Matt’s words. He knew his brothers liked Y/n, but hearing that at least one of them thought she was perfect filled Chris's heart with joy.

The phone is taken by Tara, " Matt I wish you were here!" He smiles softly and talks to Tara for a minute.

Chris takes the phone back and demands to speak with Y/n. Matt rolls his eyes and hands the phone to the girl who just walked back in the livingroom.

"Hi, are you enjoying the party?" She asks Chris.

The two talk for a few minutes before Chris lets her know that him and Nick are going to come over after. They get off the phone and Y/n hands the device back to Matt.

"The food should be done, ready to eat?"

They walk into the kitchen and Matt's mouth waters at the site of the ravioli in alfredo sauce.

They sit down and dive into the food, Matt scarfing his down. It wasn't every day he had a homecooked meal, especially ravioli from scratch.

The night ensues with more wine, painting, doing puzzles, and talking.

Matt felt himself genuinely forgetting about all his worries and problems that once held all the weight of the world on his shoulders. He enjoyed his night with Y/n, she was truly a breath of fresh air.

"This might come out weird, but I can see why Chris likes you."

Y/n looks up from her diamond painting, a curious look on her face.

"What do you mean?''

"It's no secret that most people in LA aren't...normal? Everyone is either trying to be famous, or they are famous and want to use people to climb to the top. Their personalities are fake, and they don't care about other people....You're different. You actually care about people, you're actually nice, you don't care about fame or money... you're a breath of fresh air..... Chris deserves that."

Y/n finds comfort in Matt's words, enjoying the friendly praises. "At first Nick and I were worried about you, scared that you were only going to hurt him, use him to get higher in social situations…But we realized you aren’t like that at all, and tonight confirmed that even more for me. You could have told Chris no when he asked if I could come over, you could have been rude to me all night, but instead, you welcomed me with open arms.”

She smiles softly at Matt, the same smile being returned to her.

“I had no reason not to welcome you with open arms. Besides the fact that you’re Chris’s family, I could tell you needed a friend. I know you and I aren’t that close, but I wanted to be another person you know you could count on when times got rough. Thank you for trusting me tonight….and thank you and Nick for trusting me with Chris as well.”

“Thanks for being another person on my team….I hope you and Chris last. I’ll actually beat his ass and disown him if he fucks this up.”

Y/n falls out laughing, Matt joining in as well.

The two adults fall into a comfortable silence, the only sound being the soft voice of Sade. This lasts for about 20 minutes before her front door is pushed open, Chris and Nick walking into the living room.

Chris’s eyes immediately land on the two adults sitting on the floor, "well you two look cozy." Chris drops his bag on the couch and sits down next to Y/n, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. She turns to him and smiles, realizing how much she missed his presence.

"Did you guys have a good time at the party?" Nick goes on a tangent about the party and how he got irritated a few times, but overall had a good night.

Not long after the tangent, Nick and Chris join in on the diamond paintings.

"I think this is the most silent Chris has been," Nick jokes. Hearing his name he looks up, putting his tongue that was sticking out in concentration back in his mouth. "Shut the hell up Nick, your painting looks like ass anyway! Right Y/n?" When the girl doesn't answer, Chris looks down only to see the girl sleeping, her hand propping her head up.

He smiles softly at her sleeping frame, "I'm going to get her in bed. There are blankets in that bin over there if you guys want to sleep in the living room. Otherwise, there's a spare room next to the kitchen." The other two boys nod and go back to talking quietly as Chris picks Y/n up, carrying her to her room.

He lays her down on the bed, changing into spare clothes he's left and climbing in next to her. He pulls her close, wrapping his arms around her tightly. Y/n hums and nuzzles her head into his chest. Chris could tell her eyes were open by the way he felt her lashes tickling his chest softly.

“Did you and Matt have a good time? I saw the wine on the table and multiple snap stories.” Her soft and sleepy giggles make Chris smile, his grip on her waist tightening. “It was really nice, I like Matt."

“That’s good, I’m glad…Thank you for helping out. I know I just kind of threw this at you last minute, but I’m really grateful you could help. I know you struggle with anxiety and I just thought you and Matt could work on things together.”

She looks up and gives a dopey smile at his words, “Don’t thank me for doing the bare minimum...I love you."

He trails a hand up her side before gently caressing her face, "I love you too baby-" He plants a soft and delicate kiss on her lips, enjoying the soft moment between the two of them.

He feels her slowly stop kissing back, making him pull away. He chuckles seeing she fell back asleep that quickly. " I got to put you on a wine limit."

He kisses her nose before falling into a deep sleep.

i hate this fic sm im so sorry if nothing makes sense. i did my best to explain my personal feelings towards anxiety and ik it doesn't make sense at times.

𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨 𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 🍑: @mattslolita @thenickgirl @guccifrog @luverboychris @zayyluvz @mrsmiagreer @chrisssluttywaist @78yaz @hoesformatt @freshloveforthefit @3lizaluvs @mattsturniolosgirlfriend @jetaimevous @luxy-nyx @ts-is-my-spirt-animal @iihrtsturniol0 @idontexistman @katw4shereee @madisturn @starlace111 @zivall @adoreindie @imwetforyourmom @sturnsxplr-25 @sturncakez @theyluvme-2315

[blurredcolour]

If You'll Be My Bodyguard | Part One

If You'll Be My Bodyguard, I Can Be Your Long Lost Pal Masterlist

Summary: Your assignment as Austin Butler’s bodyguard, masquerading as his personal assistant, begins after your boss’s successful pitch in Palm Springs.

Pairing: Austin Butler x Female Bodyguard Reader

Warnings: Threatening letters, Discussion of death threats, Firearms, Language, Vaping, Alcohol consumption, Body image issues, Rating – T.  

Author’s note: As stated on the series page, Austin Butler has an unnamed model girlfriend in this series. She is not based on anyone in particular, please do not interpret my descriptions of her and her actions as commentary on any real individuals in Austin Butler’s life.

Word Count: 4428

“…You think you were so very clever, you filthy satanist. That you got away with it. You should have let the dead stay at peace! God knows! God has seen you for what you truly are! A witch! A warlock! A necramanzer raiser of the dead. There is a special spot in hell reserved just for you, Austin Butler, and it is my god given, heavenly ordained duty to see you there right quick...”

You set the photocopied sheets down on your lap, knowing the letter continued on in the same vein for several aggressively written pages. The author had pressed the pen so hard into the paper that the letters made shadow-filled hollows and curled the pages. Hatred had been scribed into the very fibres of the looseleaf before being crammed into an envelope and sent to an actor you, like most of the world, had only a nascent awareness of.

The car took a tight corner, pressing you up against the muscled form of your colleague Marwan, and you quickly straightened with an apology.

“Don’t worry about it, but why are you bothering with those letters again?” He gestured to the black and white photocopies in your lap.

You shook your head with a sigh.

“I... some notion that they might help me to know them if I ever see them out in a crowd somewhere?” Your shoulders rose and fell beneath your simple navy blazer, a knee-length dress with an A-line skirt in a matching shade beneath.

“But we don’t even have the job yet…” Argued Trey from your other side and you huffed out a self-deprecating laugh because it was true, you were absolutely over preparing for a proposal.

“Don’t you dare go jinxing this for me, Treyvon.” The owner and operator of Lane Protective Services, Scott Lane, quickly rejoined from the front seat.

You smirked and elbowed Trey in the ribs for getting him started again. It had been a very long drive from Los Angeles to Palm Springs. While only two hours in time, it had stretched into weeks in experience the longer Scott expounded on the business theories he ascribed to. He had finally trailed off about fifteen minutes ago but was once again feeling the need to mount his soap box.

“Terrible as it is that this is happening, award season is the perfect time for us to work for one of the hottest actors for the year. The public at large will have no idea, but those who know, will know. Free advertising. More work than we can handle, that is what I can only dream of…”

You did your best to tune him out, feigning interest in the threatening letters before you once more. It wasn’t that Scott was a bad person, he was just a little blunt and monetarily focused. The rest of you, Ari the driver included, were in the business to help people. You had each acquired a unique set of skills through your life experiences that lent themselves well to standing between notable people and the threats against them.

You had grown up in a rural area, raised by a hunting family, giving you a familiarity and confidence with firearms. In the same vein, you had also been a highly energetic child and an early encounter with the sport of judo had proven to be a useful outlet for you. You were also born with an innate talent for it and had progressed quickly to the competitive level. There were serious discussions about pursuing Olympic level training, but you had seen what that had cost the professional athletes.

And so, when Scott had appeared at one of your college tournaments with a business card and an interesting proposition you had made the decision to get into personal protection. Lane Protective Services had guided you through the training and licensing processes, and this would, if Mr. Butler’s team accepted the proposal, be your fourth assignment with the company.

To everyone’s relief, Ari pulled into the parking lot of the hotel where the potential protectee was staying for a weekend of events, and where time necessitated Scott would be delivering the proposal. Trey slid out and held the door for you to follow him, and you stepped out into the sun with a grateful stretch. Sharing a backseat with two well-built men for two hours had been snug. You grabbed your bag from the trunk and followed the group up to the room Scott had optimistically rented for two nights.

It was his hope that you and Ari would be staying to immediately begin accompanying and driving Mr. Butler while Marwan and Trey returned to his home to begin setting up the protection detail headquarters and sleeping space in the guesthouse. After one final inspection of the group’s business casual attire, Scott led you back to the elevator and up a few floors to where the suites were located. His knock on the door was answered by a redheaded woman you recognized from the briefing file as Mr. Butler’s Manager and Publicist Kate Rosen.

The group was ushered in, and Scott set up his slide deck on his laptop, giving you the proposal booklets to hand out. You swallowed back your sigh at the fact that he was delegating that to you, the only woman in the group, and you passed one to Kate. You glanced to see if Mr. Butler had joined you just as he stepped over the threshold from the bedroom into the sitting room. You had worked with celebrities before. Breathed the same air as many of them before. But the tall, long-limbed, tanned man in a suit and white button up, with maybe half of the buttons fastened, who appeared before you still selfishly stole all the oxygen from your lungs.

Silently, you waited until he had assumed the empty chair beside Kate before offering the booklet to him and going to stand beside Ari. Ari who had shot you a look with both eyebrows raised that you deliberately ignored. Turning your attention to Scott as he began to speak allowed you to breathe again. You listened patiently to the well rehearsed presentation which centered on you acting as Mr. Butler’s personal assistant for as long as it took the various law enforcement organizations involved in the investigation of the threatening letters to resolve the issue.

“She has a 7th-dan black belt in judo, is fully trained in close quarter fighting as well as tactical firearms, and has a multi-state, non-resident concealed carry permit.” Your eyes drifted to your shoes as Scott reached your list of selling points, finding it all-together awkward to be summed up by your achievements.

“Wait…are you armed right now?” A soft, resonant voice that tasted like honied whiskey interrupted Scott’s litany of your achievements and you raised your head to look at the man who had posed the question.

“Yes Mr. Butler.” You nodded politely.

You watched as he tilted his head, looking over your outfit. “But where?”

“A better question, Austin, would be why are we putting the smallest person in the room beside you the most? I recognize your argument about the optics and definitely want to keep this whole sordid thing out of the gossip columns but, what if the person threatening Austin is huge like one of these men? Are we not looking for overwhelming force?”

“An excellent question Ms. Rosen.” Scott looked to you and nodded. “Full force takedown of Trey please.” There was hint of glee in his voice, and you knew you were a device to provide payback for his earlier doubt of the success of this pitch.

Nodding once, you undid the button on your blazer, walking up to Trey before feinting at him. His response was to lunge forward, and you used his momentum against him, throwing him to the carpet in a perfected judo toss. You pulled your pocket pistol from its holster on your inner thigh, pressing it against the back of his head.

“Oh.” Came a quiet sound of realization from Austin as you answered his earlier question.

“Well then…” Kate cleared her throat and nodded.

You quickly holstered your firearm, having never released the safety, and helped the larger man back to his feet. Straightening your dress, you went to stand beside Ari quietly, once again looking at your shoes.

“Shall I proceed?” Scott asked cheerfully and continued his pitch after a few stunned nods.

He laid out the rest of the plan to have Ari take over as Austin’s driver and for Trey and Marwan to ensure security of the house and be on protective duty overnight. As Scott wrapped up, hands were shaken and your group headed back down to the room to wait, passing what looked like a football team in the hallway. Surely the next pitch. Scott’s idea was unique, you just weren’t sure if it was what they were looking for.

The wait was not long. Forty-five minutes later Scott got the call, confirming the contract. The group headed back up to finalize the paperwork, and you noticed that Austin seemed a lot more relaxed in the presence of Baz Luhrmann and his partner Catherine. It could also have been the glass of whiskey on the rocks gripped loosely in one hand, or the vape pen dangling from the fingers of his other. All they did for you was provide a distraction by pulling your focus to his plush pink lips as they took in the glowing amber liquid or exhaled plumes of sweet smelling vapour.

Hands were shaken again before Kate gave the keys to Austin’s house to Trey and he left along with Scott and Marwan in a rental car to make preparations. Ari went to have the town car the five of you had driven out in cleaned for the award ceremony that night and that left you to build a relationship with protectee. It would be crucial to keep him safe over the next while.

“If you’ll be my bodyguard, I can be your long-lost pal…” Baz sang in your direction, making you smile softly – after all, as far as most people would know you were a personal assistant, and stoicism would not suit that appearance at all.

“I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me, you can call me Al!” Austin joined in, making you swallow thickly at the smooth, caramel quality of his voice.

“Baz, pleasure to meet you.” The world-famous directly shook your hand warmly as you introduced yourself in turn.

“No, no” Austin punctuated his statement with playful jabs of his vape pen and you finally became aware of the fact that he had button his shirt up the rest of the way and put on a tie. What a shame.

“I think that’s perfect. Betty. My personal assistant Betty.” He finished with a grin.

“Certainly, Mr. Butler, Betty is an acceptable cover name. Thank you.” You nodded.

“But you gotta call me Al, then.” He playfully pouted a little and you pressed your lips together to prevent too wide of a grin.

“I’m sorry Mr. Butler, I am not able to do that.”

“She can throw me across the room, but she can’t call me Al.” He teased, earning a chorus of laughter from Baz and Catherine.

Kate pulled you aside and took you through his schedule for the next few days – awards ceremony to start in two hours, after party, followed by brunch the next morning and then back to LA for a cocktail event.

“We’ll get you set up with the full thing later but for now, carry mine. Here’s the bag I use. He cannot walk the red carpet with his personal effects, they have a terrible habit of getting lost in all the hugging and interviews. I’ll have you carry them too, unless that interferes?” She looked to you with a tilt of her head, and you shook yours in response.

“Not at all, Ms. Rosen, I just might have to drop the bag during an incident.”

“Right ok…well I’ll pick it up then. That’ll be my thing during an incident.” She cleared her throat. “Scott said you would have a wardrobe? This looks good, blazers, dresses…if we go to the Oscars, they’ll want you in a gown but the rest this or a pant suit will do.” She nodded.

“I will call our wardrobe specialist when we get back in town day after tomorrow.” You nodded and she smiled in relief.

“Good…and you’ll keep him safe?” She looked into your eyes seriously.

“Yes ma’am, that is why I am here.” You replied earnestly.

“Good.” She beamed and bustled off to try and round up the trio who needed to get going.

As they finally made their way towards the door, you strode quickly forward.

“I will have to go first, is that all right?” You asked, quickly wedging yourself between Austin and the door as he reached for the handle.

“Oh uh, yeah, of course…” He nodded, pulling his outstretched hand back to rub the nape of his neck.

You offered a small smile and lowered your voice so that only he could hear.

“We’ll get better at this, Mr. Butler.” You nodded softly, smile widening as his stunning blue eyes met yours and crinkled at the corners.

“Yes, we will, Betty. Yes, we will.” He nodded warmly and gestured for you to proceed.

You nodded warmly and opened the door, doing a quick scan of the hall before stepping out, letting Kate hold the door and bring up the rear. Two town cars waited at the curb, and you led Austin over to where Ari stood holding the door open.

“I’ll sit up front.” You nodded to Kate and Austin, making sure they got into the back before sliding in beside Ari.

It felt somewhat silly to drive just two blocks over to the Palm Springs Convention Centre, but it was the ‘done thing’ and safer regardless. On the ride over, Kate gave you a crash course in how to be an assistant on a red carpet. Climbing out first, you surveyed the area as you moved to open Austin’s door before holding the bag open for him to hand over his personal effects. He smiled and squeezed your shoulder, and you could not help but notice the slight tremor in his hand.

“You’re going to do great, Betty.” He murmured and you nodded softly.

“You, too, Mr. Butler.” You tucked the bag on your arm before leading him up to the entrance to the red carpet and there your paths diverged.

You kept pace with him behind the row of reporters, noting the quickest path to him every few feet you moved towards the door of the building. You were reassured that Kate was permitted to be right up there with him and nodded to her every time her eyes sought yours. You barely knew the pair of them, but you could already tell they had a deep bond.

Inside the lobby, Austin retrieved his wallet, vape pen, and phone from your bag before heading inside to be seated. Kate spoke to one of the organizers who found you a space along the back of the room to stand, with a fairly good view of Austin. It was not ideal, and you would have a conversation with her about future ceremonies, but it would have to do for now.

A few hours in, however, you were starting to regret the heels. You would have a conversation with Shyla, the wardrobe specialist, about flats. Once Austin received his award, Kate came to lead you on a rather circuitous route to the press room where he and Baz were being hailed with camera flashes and questions from the assembled reporters. The two men were so very charismatic that it was tempting to allow them to distract you, but you found the professional fortitude to focus on the room, assess the threat, find the person who could not spell ‘necromancer.’

Once you were satisfied that individual was mostly likely not in that room, you were able to relax into a watchful patience. There was an afterparty before the very tipsy pair of men were herded back to the hotel. You made sure that Austin was safely in his room before retiring to the room you shared with Ari.

You used the steamer from the closet to smooth the wrinkles from your light gray dress and blazer from your bag to be ready for the brunch tomorrow. Locking your gun in the safe, you were nearly asleep by the time Ari returned from securing the car for the night.

Arriving at Austin’s suite at nine am, you sat down with Kate to go over the schedule.

“So, the hardest part for me was the separation during the ceremony. I am aware that it’s impossible for me to get tickets but is the back of the room really the best we have?” You asked carefully.

“Would it reassure you to know how difficult it is to get inside these things? Especially the rest of the ceremonies moving forward…Nonetheless I will see what I can do. Maybe you can have my spot for the ceremonies as long as I can remain nearby for the press moments. Stay tuned, ok?” She offered and you nodded.

“Thank you, I appreciate that.”

“Oh no, call the authorities, what are you two conspiring about…” Austin rasped from the doorway behind you, making both of you turn to look at him.

You swallowed roughly as your eyes landed on his loosely tied robe, barely concealing his tanned skin with only his boxers underneath. The morning light glinted off the chain around his neck, highlighting the soft, golden dusting of hair across his chest.

“Good morning, Mr. Butler.” You said quickly and looked back to the schedule. “Thank you very much Ms. Rosen.”

“Austin, get dressed before you kill Betty. Brunch starts at eleven and I’m assuming you want some coffee?” Kate stood as Austin nodded. “Betty what’s your order, I’m going to Starbucks for the good stuff. We’ll send you in the future, I suppose, but you should get to know that boy…maybe you can teach him how to button his shirt.” She smirked and you bit your lip to hide your delight at her jibes.

Once she was armed with a full Starbucks order, Kate headed out, the door clicking softly in the silence in her wake. You turned back to the schedule in front of you, drafting an email in your phone for items you would need from both Shyla and IT. You looked up as the door to the bedroom opened again to reveal a fully dressed Austin.

“Better?” He drawled with a smirk, and you let out a short huff of laughter despite yourself.

“Yes, Mr. Butler.” You grinned and watched as he settled into a wide-legged seat on the couch.

“Can I ask you a question?” He asked, his long fingers stroking along his jaw, momentarily distracting you from his words before you managed a nod.

“Of course.” You replied as you moved to sit on the plush chair to his left, tucking the skirt of your dress underneath your butt before sinking into the cushion.

“Why does this person wanna kill me?” The voice asking that question seemed to come from someone much smaller and much younger than the man sitting beside you and you felt your throat clench.

“Well, I…I won’t claim to have any expertise in behavioural science, but it very much seems like an unstable person who has decided to fixate on your achievement.” You replied carefully, smoothing and pulling at the hem of your dress.

He exhaled slowly in response.

“They think I…summoned him from the dead or something?” He shook his head. “Makes me sad…”

“As far as I understand the police are making headway in the investigation. Hopefully, this won’t go on much longer and everyone can move on with their lives. And they can get the help they need.”

He nodded thoughtfully, those elegant digits of his moving to trace the contours of his lips.

“So where are you from, Betty? I want to get to know you…”

You smiled softly and happily indulged him, answering questions about yourself and posing them back to him in return. You were so ensconced in the conversation, that Kate’s return startled you a little. You accepted your beverage gratefully and retreated to the table as she moved in to go over his schedule with him for the day, which ended with the W Magazine & Louis Vuitton awards season dinner.

“So, we need to be in the car driving back to you house by three, ideally, to give you time to get changed and get you and your girlfriend loaded into the car and onto the next event.”

“Understood.” He acquiesced with an innocent smile, and you had a sneaking suspicion that time was an ongoing issue.

Over the course of the brunch, it became quite apparent why as, though gentle and soft spoken, Austin was also kind and affectionate and seemed to thoroughly enjoy connecting with people. He was also very much in demand at the event, with so much buzz around him that people were lingering in informal queues to get a chance to just shake his hand and congratulate him on the movie. You could only surmise it made the threats even more bitter as they tainted such remarkable success.

The four of you, with Ari behind the wheel, were not driving back to Los Angeles until four-thirty and Austin was frantically texting his girlfriend with apologies while Kate was on the phone making sure everything was set for an upcoming appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. You took the opportunity to have a small nap in the front seat, confident that Ari had the situation under control and equally confident that it would be a long night.

As Austin dashed inside to get ready, Kate grabbed her car and headed home, and you went to deposit your bags in the guest house you’d be sharing in rotation with Marwan, Trey, and Ari. There was a living room with pullout couch, small kitchen, bedroom, and a simple bathroom. You found a place to hang your clothes and stash the rest of your things, freshening up and eating something quickly before you and Ari headed out to wait for the couple.

And what a couple they made. Both equally tall and thin, strikingly beautiful, youthful…you swallowed the bitter taste of envy that flooded your mouth and smiled warmly to Austin’s girlfriend as he brought her over to make introductions.

“Very nice to meet you, miss.” You nodded professionally as you shook her delicate hand and tried not to take it personally as she barely looked at you before hugging Austin’s arm.

The lithe, long lines of her arm only served to make you acutely aware of every bulge and ripple of muscle beneath your clothes. With mere proximity she reignited every insecurity you had ever felt about the body that diligent judo practice had built. You were Hulk Hogan in a dress.

“We gotta get going, babe.” She reminded him and Ari moved forward quickly to open the car door for them to climb in, blessedly yanking you out of your descent into middle school angst.

During the drive to the dinner party, you respectfully kept your eyes forward and your ears closed to the hushed, intimate tones of conversation in the backseat, punctuated by husky laughter or feminine giggles. Accidental, unintentional glances in the rear-view mirror told you they were huddled together, heads bowed close, hands clasped. A stunning pair of human specimens that, for the first time in your career, left you feeling utterly out of place.

You were grateful for the quiet intimacy of the dinner, the bench at the back of the dinning room for you to wait, the low security risk. You found excuses to go over and check on Austin, but otherwise scanned the room and kept an eye on things from a distance.

Not only were they a beautiful couple but they were a favourite as well, with many of the other guests stopping by or rotating through the chairs near them once the formality of the courses broke and mingling resumed. A glance at your watch told you it was well past midnight, and you praised the foresight that had led to your nap in the car. Nevertheless, relief flooded you as Austin sauntered over to let you know you’d be heading home as soon as his girlfriend returned from the washroom.

“You must be starving!” He exclaimed softly, suddenly casting his eyes around for something to satiate hunger he thought he perceived in you.

“It’s all right Mr. Butler, I had something to eat while you were getting ready.” You reassured him and found yourself briefly blinded by the brilliant intensity of his smile loosened by alcohol.

“Oh good, can’t have you dying on the first day, Betty.” He smirked and elbowed you in the arm playfully, causing a chuckle to tumble from your lips.

“Second, technically…” You smirked but trailed off as you watched his statuesque girlfriend, with her rich hair and striking eyes reclaim control of his arm.

You saw a veil fall over his eyes…creating an invisible barrier between you as she drew his focus like a high-powered magnet. As though you simply ceased to exist in that moment. In her presence. Turning sharply on your heel, you began to weave your way out of the dining room, only glancing back to be sure they were keeping pace.

The consummate professional, you saw them safely to the car and into the house before going to take a shower and sitting on the small patio outside the guest house to eat some pizza the night shift had bought. The rustle of the Santa Ana winds through the palm fronds above worked its magic, capturing the tension in your body and carrying it away towards the Pacific Ocean. At last, you felt ready to retire for the night.

Standing to make your way inside for some proper sleep, a very distinct and enthusiastic female cry reached your ears from the main house. It only served to hasten your steps and you sent an earnest prayer out into the universe that the unstable letter writer was found sooner rather than later. Because this was going to be a very trying assignment.

Read Part Two

If You'll Be My Bodyguard, I Can Be Your Long Lost Pal Masterlist

[bewitchedleague]

“Not at Home” Ch. 5

pairing: tsu’tey x reader

words: 8k (ops..)

summary: After being raised in the Metkayina, you're suddenly placed in the middle of peace talks. Where your responsibility is to understand the Omaticaya way, to embrace the culture, and to make friends. It surprises you to find yourself suddenly involved in things like love, war, and suffering. Will you succeed and adjust? Or will your tale end differently than you had anticipated?

Chapter 6.

slow burn romance.

     You eased yourself into sleep promptly, and morning arrived quickly and effectively. It wasn't hard because you were worn out and mentally exhausted after a long day, and the night flew by in an instant. You laid in your bed, content and glad to finally be able to enjoy some peace, and yet you couldn't even recall when you did fall asleep. 

When you finally awoke, you felt incredibly rested. You thought you could complete the entire training session from yesterday three more times. The hometree had taken on an almost comforting aspect; it was a place you knew would offer you safety and warmth at the end of the day. Even if yesterday at the hometree Sylwanin shared with you one of her worst sorrows, a sorrow that was deeply entrenched like the tree they called home. It made you feel a little better since it proved that she trusted you enough to express her sentiments to you. You've now heard all sides of the tumultuous love story.

Two na’vi: one who advocated for it vehemently and one who fought against it.

Both sides were easy to grasp, yet you couldn't help but feel more in tune with Tsu'tey. It was hard to imagine yourself living his life after hearing his narrative first and knowing the expectations he had when he was a small child, so you were more empathetic with him. A part of you questioned whether you needed to establish any guidelines for acting like a chief's daughter, some sort of credo you had to adhere to at all costs.

All you could see when you turned around was the na'vis getting out of bed and enthusiastically descending the spiral root. None of Neytiri, Sylwanin, or Tsu'tey could be seen. It was unusual to not see a familiar face right where you woke up, because now, you had no idea where you were meant to go or what you were meant to do. You stepped out of the cocoon bed and stretched your limbs to give your body a break from sleeping all night. You had grown to adore it since the plant, in addition to being cozy, it was also a lot of fun to interact with. That's what you thought it was, at least – a plant.

“Good morning.” A feminine voice came from your side, startling you slightly. 

They left before you had a chance to respond. Realizing it was the first time an Omatikaya na'vi had spoken to you of their own volition immediately caused a smile to spread across your features. Even if it happened too quickly and you couldn't even see their faces, it made you feel good anyway. They would most likely be here tomorrow as well if they were here to greet you this morning. And if you listened closely enough, you might be able to hear their voice again.

Nevertheless, the simple words made you feel warm inside; the sense of being accepted by someone else somehow gave you self-assurance. You walked down to the hometree's main area with your newly gained confidence. Eyes scanning the others around you to see what they were up to, each of them seemingly busy in finding what they were meant to do. You still weren't sure exactly what your part in all of this was; some were assigned chores to patrol, some were given tasks to hunt. None of the na'vi who were meant to look after you had been seen by you. Even if you had the confidence, you couldn't help but feel disoriented. 

“What worries you, my child?” Mo’at asked, approaching you slowly.

You simply smiled at her, an attempt to comfort her worries. “I haven’t seen Neytiri or Sylwanin yet.” 

She seemed to think for a second, before she was speaking once again. “I am sorry for my daughters, it seems I have failed in teaching them basic courtesy.” 

Her statements had a faint edge to them, suggesting that she harbored some bitterness. And it was only confirmed to be true by the way her ears dipped a little when she spoke. You suddenly felt small, afraid of getting her daughters in trouble because you simply couldn’t be by yourself. What if you had just utterly failed their training, which consisted of being left alone? You gave it some thought. You twisted your head to the side, feeling a twinge of embarrassment, as if you had just fled from people your own age to beg for your mother's protection.

“I’m sure they are by the training grounds.” In an effort to calm Mo'at down, you raised your head and smiled softly at her.

“I hope so, for their own good.” Mo’at said, then turned to you and offered a gentle smile – contrary to her scary words. “Off you go.” 

The touch of her hand pushing you on the back made you move forward instinctively, your tail hitting her gently on the way. You nodded at her words, and took off to the path you remembered in your head now. Where the pa’lis resided, and where the young warriors were trained – surely you would find Tsu’tey there at least. And it wasn’t like anyone besides him was actually training you, so not finding them didn’t worry you that much. What worried you was the possibility of Tsu’tey also being gone. But again, you thought the situation was unlikely since he held a lot of expectations on his back.

After moving towards the clearing, you briefly peered over there before spotting Tsu'tey. Seeing him in his normal place brought a grin to your face. Your arm was suddenly grasped, jerking your entire body in the direction of the unknown force. Your eyes first encountered a haze of blue. The na'vi clutching your arm, however, propelled you into a sprint before you could even adjust from the blowback of being pulled with such power. Your body was screaming "danger" and your heart was pounding with panic, but you were more concerned with staying upright than trying to get away from the stranger. 

Once you stopped, you were slightly out of breath and the forest around you was thick and unrecognizable. Your eyes finally landed on the perpetrator of all this, the familiar face of Neytiri coming into view made your shoulder slightly relax a little.

“By Ewya…” You breathed out. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“Did he see you?” 

“What? Who?” – confusion struck you.

“Tsu’tey.” 

“No.” – You answered firmly, yet still completely confused by her behavior.

Neytiri twitched her ear, listening carefully all around her for any alarming sounds. You became a little uneasy about what she was doing when you suddenly realized that her actions were reminiscent of when she originally tried to sneak away to the sky people.

“I’m taking you to see the sky people.” 

She spoke the dreaded words, sending a shock of apprehension through you. Your mouth was unable to utter anything as you made every effort to come up with an argument against her suggestion. To meet them, you weren't prepared. You were aware of the obvious fact. If something went wrong, you had no idea what perils the woodland may hold, what the night might bring in terms of threats, or even worse, what might happen if those dangers discovered you. There was a wide range of potential problems.

Neytiri swiftly grabbed your arm again, to lead you in the direction she knew the sky people were. 

“No!” – You broke free from her grasp, falling back into the grass with a thud.

At the unexpected outburst, her eyes penetrated yours with intrigue. Neytiri had never before heard your voice lose control. She scowled at you while attempting to comprehend your worries. She knew exactly why you were scared, but the knowledge that she had repeatedly gone there and returned safely must have given you some sense of security, right? Neytiri was a formidable opponent who would protect you if the unlikely event of something occurring did occur. Did you have any faith in her ability or words?

“You are Tawukoi’s only daughter. Are you really afraid of the sky people?” – In an effort to inspire some sort of boldness in you, Neytiri made the decision to challenge you.

You wanted to say, "I'm not Tawukoi's daughter," but a small scoff came out of your mouth instead.

“Who isn’t?” 

“Me.” Neytiri spoke confidently, her shoulders held high and her chest puffing out, obviously proud of that fact.

“I’m not you.” You said simply, almost hissing at her. 

“That’s why you’re here. To learn to be like us, to be like me.” Neytiri approached you, offering you her hand to help you up to your feet. “Are you not?”

It was true. That’s what you were here for. There was no challenging her words. But even so, the fear you felt was still there – unchanging. But a part of you still knew that she wouldn’t let anything happen to you, not when the whole Omatikaya people thought you were Tawukoi’s daughter – his only daughter. They wouldn’t simply let you get hurt, not when it could lead to both clans relationship’s to worsen extremely so. And you were sure Neytiri knew of the consequences if you were hurt. 

“Fine.” – It was a simple agreement, laced with an underlying anger to it.

By extending your hand to her, you allowed her to help you stand up again. You were troubled by the question: Did she already mention the sky people about you? That you came from somewhere else from Pandora? Neytiri was tugging you along with her once more, so you didn't have time to dwell in your thoughts. This time, you were better prepared and easily kept up with her pace while bumping into leaves and other objects along the route. You took some time to take in your surroundings, hear the sounds of the creatures, and watch them flee as you and Neytiri drew near. The more you hurried following Neytiri, hopping over boulders and branches, the thicker the forest became. A silent signal of the unknown land around you.

Fear was gradually being replaced with nervousness and a want to see what was in store for you. You had never even heard of the appearance of the sky people, so you had no idea what they may have looked like. They rode enormous weaponry, so perhaps—were they taller than your own species—was all you had to conceive. Your dread is being slowly consumed by your curiosity. To seek information for you was contagious; it was like a fatal disease that infected your thoughts. You became fearless and reckless as a result, frightening those around you as well as, occasionally, even yourself.

An unknown sound suddenly filled your ears, it sounded like the beginning of a thunder strike, followed by the feeling of the earth shaking. Neytiri stopped running, quickly going into a prowl position and pulling you to the ground to do the same. Her eyes stared ahead of you, through the bushes – and you eagerly did the same. 

The sight that welcomed you was alarming. Giant machines, gray colored – running down the beautiful trees of the forest. Leaving nothing but the ashes of a beautiful memory. You turned your eyes to Neytiri, who was still watching the scene with a look of pain in her face. There were numerous things you could feel from only seeing her face, the pain, the anger and the suffering. You didn’t blame her, she was seeing her home – a place sacred for her people, sacred to Ewya – be destroyed so easily, without any type of remorse. It made you sympathize with her, because you could imagine this happening to your Metkayina, to your little haven. 

“Neytiri.” – You reached your hand to place it on her shoulder, trying to break her away from the scene.

But it didn’t work. Neytiri’s eyes were locked on the scene before her, all the pain they were giving to Ewya. She could only sympathize with the creatures before her eyes, trying to flee for their lives away deeper into the forest – some making it, while others unfortunately getting caught by the cruel machine. A hiss was building up in her throat, wanting to fight for them – fight for her home and her people. But she knew she couldn’t, she had to be smart about this. The only way to win whatever war was this, was to befriend the enemy, to lower their guards, to strike them where it most hurt. Or, the more unlikely outcome, they could change their ways and leave Pandora alone.

But the chances of that happening were slim, even to Neytiri’s eyes. 

“Neytiri!” 

The loud noise made her snap out of her daze, quickly looking over to catch your eyes looking at her with worry. She mentally cursed herself, ears flattening in self anger as she stood from her prowl position – taking quick steps to the direction she knew the scientist’s meet up spot stayed at. While doing so, her focus was in ignoring the commotion happening on her side, the sounds of breaking wood and the machines noises. Neytiri wanted to cry, to scream. But she knew she had a reputation to withhold, even more with you around her. 

Neytiri only had one duty to accomplish, and she was determined to succeed. For the benefit of her own people as well as herself. This included instructing you and allowing you to learn everything you could about the Omatikaya and the sky people. So you could play your own role, to be a bearer of the news to the other tribes in the ocean. If anything went wrong – the Metkayina knew what to expect. But Neytiri wasn’t going to let that ‘if’ become a reality, not when she was around to prevent that.

“Stay by my side, do as I say.” – Neytiri spoke with certainty, no space for any type of compromise.

She didn’t even turn around to look at you, barely looking over her shoulder while saying the words.

“Yes, of course.” You said meekly, feeling slightly intimidated by her presence.

Since you initially met, you hadn't seen Neytiri in this light. Now standing in front of you is a demeaning and powerful individual who comes out as brutal and unafraid. It wasn’t like the usual Neytiri, the one who kindly took care of you in the flight to the hometree, the one who helped you get courage to your first steps on top of a tree. No. Neytiri, the chief's daughter, was here. One of the two na'vi who stood in for the entire Pandora to the sky people; this one couldn't afford to slip up and ruin their productive relationship. You were aware of the significance of these interactions even in the absence of Neytiri's words or any other explanation.

Once you stepped out of the bushes, you saw them. Short, dull-colored, wearing strange clothing and holding what you remembered as, death raining machines, in their hands. Neytiri spoke to them in a language unknown to you, and while she did that, you took in their appearances – focusing on the details. They were a simple, almost shorter version of your body, but seemed less slim. They didn’t have any pointed ears, nor a tail. And their hands had an extra finger on them, you pondered if they needed an extra finger to control the machines everyone feared. 

The moment your gaze connected with the sky person chatting to Neytiri, she immediately ceased speaking. After frowning, she moved toward you, passing Neytiri, her expression showing the undeniable look of curiosity.

“This is scientist Grace.” Neytiri spoke in the language you knew by heart.

Grace, the sky being, circled you while paying attention to every detail that set you apart from Neytiri. You didn't even turn to look at her, but hissed once as she touched your tail as a warning. She didn't touch you again after the silent warning, so it appeared to be effective. The last thing you needed was them swarming all over you because this was already nerve-wracking enough. You pleaded in silence as you met Neytiri's eyes; you didn't want Grace to be close by or paying close attention to you in particular.

Neytiri's eyes averted as Grace spoke, her tone beginning serious and then shifting to one of humor. For a brief while, they flickered similarly to her ears, as if Grace had just said something unexpected or that she didn't want her to say. A silent hiss directed towards the individual standing next to you only served to increase your anxieties as she refused to make eye contact with you following the words. Whatever was spoken was undoubtedly about you, which frightened Neytiri to the point where she felt remorseful looking into your eyes. 

“What did she say?” You spoke out, trying to ease your fears with a simple answer.

A few seconds passed in silence.

“You’re a different type of blue, are you important, or somethin’?”

The unknown voice met your ears, and your eyes swiftly shifted to Grace. A smile on her face that soon turned into a smirk as she stared at your shocked expression. Her way of speaking was rusty, like she had just learned the language, but you could still understand her quite well. 

“But I suppose the hostility does answer my question.” Grace looked at Neytiri’s agitated body language.

“Leave her.” – Neytiri spoke harshly, moving to your side to pull you away from the smaller individual.

How could she be so dumb, she thought to herself. It wasn't surprising that they would be interested in your distinctions. However, Neytiri was only able to sense a protective feeling for you. She knew Grace would be interested in you, but she wasn't quite ready to allow the scientist to get too close to you. Suddenly, she felt bad about her choice to bring you along with her. Neytiri had permitted scientist Grace to examine her, touch her skin, take her hair, and sample her saliva, but she wasn't about to permit her to subject you to the same treatment.

Sincerely to say, Neytiri was well aware of the urgent need for those details among the sky people. Grace had given her a thorough account of everything, being nice enough to inform Neytiri that they were trying to reproduce their species in an effort to connect with Ewya. Neytiri and everyone else who was aware of this found it difficult to believe that was their sole motivation. Whatever their strategy, it probably involved disguising themselves as inhabitants of Pandora in order to deceive her people into thinking that stranded Na'vi existed in the forest. However, she made the decision to act foolish and do her part to make herself look like a dumb dog to them, as if she were unaware of the dangers and opportunities presented by their possessing a na'vi body.

But something she was unwilling to give, was putting you and your people at risk. They knew nothing of the sky people, nor did the sky people know about your people – and Neytiri wished to keep it that way.

“Touchy subject.” As she nervously laughed, Grace turned away from you.

The scientist's eyes pierced the troops who were standing behind Neytiri, and she observed as their grips on their weapons tightened in response to Neytiri's abrupt voice shift. Their rifles were lowered into a more relaxed position as they each stared at each other. Grace was aware of the influence she possessed within the corps, and she meant to make the most of it. While she tried to win their favor, no Na'vi were to be hurt. She knew she had a mission, one she heard about daily – being repeated towards her by Coronel Miles over and over, like a broken record. Just at the thought of his protracted conversations and his not entirely empty threats against not only her but also the entire scientific team did she utter a tired sigh. She could really go for a cigarette now.

Did that man know nothing besides violence and impatience? 

Impatience. 

Right, she was here for a reason.

“Neytiri, I only need one thing from you today, quite simple.” Grace said, while approaching the na’vi.

Neytiri, in response, lowered herself into one of her knees. 

“I need to get a video of your queue.” – Grace spoke, reaching for her recording device at her hip.

While Neytiri rapidly carried out the order, you could only truly focus on the gadget Grace was holding in her hands as you merely gawked at the situation with a hint of fascination. No matter how hard you tried to figure out how it was doing it—mirroring whatever was in front of it—you could not in any way comprehend it. However, what caught your attention the most was the reflection of your image on the device's screen when she raised the device just above her shoulder. It vanished like lightning as soon as you noticed it. How could you have seen yourself on the device if it was pointing forward? You frowned in disbelief at whatever had just occurred. The confusion hits you like furious waves in a storm.

They started speaking in their alien tongue once more, leaving you alone with your perplexed thoughts. Grace bid Neytiri farewell in a courteous manner, and Neytiri simply nodded her head in her direction while gazing down with an emotion you couldn't possibly fathom. It was a mixture of wrath and worry. Maybe some resentment of some kind? You heard a huge noise coming from the clouds, and as you turned to look, you noticed another machine, gray in color, just like the other sky people's equipment, falling down from the sky slowly – as if floating in the air. You used your arm to keep the brisk breeze from stinging your eyes as it blew violently in your direction.

Once the noise was gone, you finally moved your arm, looking up at the sky to see the gray colors slowly fading away. Where were they headed? What where those machines named?

“Bringing her was a stupid idea!” – A sudden hiss made you jump slightly, staring at Sylwanin angrily jump out of a branch she was hiding at.

A scoff escaped Neytiri, staring at her sister in what you assumed to be disbelief at her words.

“This idea was yours to begin with.”

“It was. But I didn’t actually bring her!” Sylwanin retorted, approaching both of you.

She was agitated, you could see that. Fearful and anxious about the encounter that just unfolded. 

Sylwanin briefly looked into your eyes before she resumed ignoring you. It was only a matter of time before the sky people's interest only intensified once they had seen you, and soon they were demanding to see you in exchange for peace. The whole school discussion was more of a demand, one that she was ready to comply with out of fear of the consequences of defying them on her own. She had a part of her that was scared for you as well. She was sickened by the thought that the sky people may regard you as a unique na'vi to the Omatikaya and that, with you, they would have control over the entire clan. It wasn't entirely untrue; you were significant to the Omatikaya as of right now, but not for the reasons that they would believe.

“It is already done.” Neytiri hissed towards her sister, ears flattening in annoyance.

“Did you even tell Grace about the school?” – Sylwaning breathed out annoyed, both of their emotions surfacing.

The deadly glare Sylwanin received from Neytiri gave her the answer, she had not told them. 

“I saw myself on the device she was holding, what does it mean?” – You decided to speak your words clearly, making sure they understood what you were talking about.

“What?!” – It was Neytiri who hissed out, approaching and grabbing your arm rather harshly at your words.

You let out a short cry of pain, and she immediately released her hold on you. She muttered a brief apology before looking around her, apparently distracted by her own thoughts. Whatever you said had both sisters respond negatively, as they appeared to be terrified of your words - almost as if they were trying to ignore your comment but simply couldn't.

It was Sylwanin that approached you this time, a soft touch on your skin that almost made shivers run down your skin.

“Are you sure?” – She whispered out, part of her hoping for you to be mistaken.

“Yes.”

Your remarks caused Sylwanin to exhale heavily in defeat, as if she had just received devastating news. Her arms hung aimlessly next to her torso, removing all of her touch from you. She appeared bewildered and terrified, which just heightened your uneasiness. You questioned yourself if this meant that the sky people had identified you as a danger, a barrier to their intended objective that needed to be removed. Fear sent shivers down your spine, and you felt a pang of homesickness as you missed your friend's reassuring touches – a reassuring embrace, encouraging words, and sympathetic looks.

Things that, in the Omatikaya, you knew no one would offer to you. Simply put, you weren't that close to any of them, and right now, you needed those delicate interactions the most.

To be comforted, to be understood.

What a shame.

You were nothing but an outsider, a nuisance – even, to some.

“Let’s go back, I’ll think about this.” As she spoke to Neytiri, Sylwanin gave her sister a consoling pat on the shoulder and a sympathetic look.

The exchange in front of you only made you feel more alone. It was almost a punch to your face when they started walking, brushing past you – only Neytiri giving you a glance to make sure you were following behind them. Tears threatened to fall out of your eyes as you made your way back to the hometree, the stress finally catching up to you. You missed home, missed not being under non-stop stress. 

Neytiri missed it as well. She was constantly second-guessing her choices due to the stress the sky people had caused her. Her home almost seemed like it wasn't hers because of the constant tension. And just now, the only thing on her thoughts was regret for including you in this. Neytiri wasn’t stupid, she could see it. She only needed to look into your eyes to understand the pain she had accidentally caused you. To be fair to her, she believed that going through this would make you stronger and a more respected member of the Metkayina. She didn't anticipate that she would feel fear for you. However, Neytiri couldn't afford to be sentimental in front of the daughters of other clans.

If she said that she had no sense of rivalry for you, she would be lying. It made perfect sense. You were graceful, patient, and proud of your land when she first saw you in the sea. Neytiri could only hope that you would feel the same way about her—that she was confident and courageous. Born to be a people's warrior. 

Sylwanin, on the other hand, felt stress not only for herself – but for her younger sister as well. They didn’t have much of an age gap, but she still saw Neytiri as a baby. She had to be scared for her, to look out for her in case any mishaps happened. When she first saw you there with Neytiri, talking to the sky people, she could only feel dread washing over her. She hadn't even attempted to show herself, ready to aim at the troops with her arrows if Grace tried anything out of the ordinary. 

No one could trust the sky people, not even Sylwanin herself. She only had to portray the part of seeming to trust them, to give the people of the Omatikaya some type of empty comfort. But that’s all that it was, empty words. Sylwanin was constantly trying to find a middle ground with the sky people, a way to keep both parties happy without any form of conflict. It was a hard task, something she didn’t know if she was doing right or wrong since there was no real answer to her question. 

There was a lot of stillness on the journey back to the hometree, and the atmosphere was tense since you were deep in concentration. The siblings were as well. You were all unaware of the sun lowering and gradually vanishing into the night. You ate dinner at this time, but you were still quite a distance from the hometree. The route home seemed to take longer than the one to the meeting place. However, it's also possible that it's all the worry about arriving late at home since you know they'll find out they took you to the sky people. A part of you anticipates that the entire family will be at odds with one another, with the chiefs accusing their daughters of being careless and irresponsible.

A sigh escapes you as the hometree comes into view, ready for whatever was coming. 

When you had first woken up today, you had felt confident, fearless, even. But now that almost seemed like ages ago, a distant memory that proved you to always be on your toes around the Omatikaya.

It didn’t take long for the first glimpse of hostility to make its way to Eytukan’s face. As soon as he saw you enter with his two daughters, he was well aware of where you three had disappeared to. Mo’at could only curse her daughters for their stupidity in her mind, they had won their father’s blessing to try and arrange some sort of peace with the sky people – and they had brought you along. It wasn’t just irresponsible, it was beyond understanding. 

Only Mo’at knew what would happen once Eytukan started speaking his thoughts.

“You two, with me.” Eytukan spoke towards his daughters, casting a small glance your way.

And you were left alone once again, in the circle where everyone was peacefully eating – blissfully unaware of the events that bittered your day. A deep sigh escaped past your lips, leaving your chest feeling a sense of emptiness at the end of it. You had no appetite, the smells and look of the food displayed in front of you did nothing to change that. 

From afar, Tsu’tey stared at you with a frown on his face. Even he could see how exhausted you were from all of this by simply your back. With a small huff of air, he started moving towards you – brushing past his fellow warriors, ignoring their calls of curiosity. Once he was close to you, he gently rested his hand on your shoulder, your eyes turning to look at him with surprise. 

“Let us sit.” – He spoke gently. 

The two of you did as he spoke, his hand still not leaving your shoulder. And to be quite frank, you were grateful for the touch. Even if it was a small one, it was exactly what you needed right now. Tsu’tey himself could tell that, by the way he could psychically feel your body relax under his touch, see with his own eyes as your back relaxed into a more comfortable sitting position. His eyes scanned your body quickly, in search of any injuries or scrapes he should be aware of. But thankfully, nothing.

“Are you okay?” 

And something inside you seemed to snap at those words, as silent tears started to fall from your eyes. Tsu’tey could only look in surprise, moving closer to your body so your bodies were touching while you sat next to him. One of his arms wrapped around you, bringing you closer to him – his chin resting on top of your head. The sudden hug made you only let out your sobs, quietly not to disturb anyone else around you – but loud enough for Tsu’tey himself to hear. It was an intimate moment, something you swore no one would give to you – and that realization only made more tears fall from your eyes.

You wanted to say sorry, embrace him back, and shoo him away all at the same time. You wanted to present a tough front so that people would see you as the admirable daughter of the clan chief you were assigned to portray. Neytiri didn't cry when she witnessed her own land being destroyed and taken by people she was helpless to stop, yet here you were crying out of stress and loneliness while surrounded by the Na'vi you were supposed to call home. In the arms of a friend you had just barely made.

“It’s okay.” – Tsu’tey tried comforting you awkwardly.

He wasn’t good with words, but he tried his best to give you some type of comfort. He knew crying was a big deal, that you were probably self-conscious of doing it. But Tsu’tey didn’t want you to end up like him, restraining all your emotions. He tried his best to ignore the wandering judging eyes towards the both of you, but they did make him feel self-conscious – afraid of appearing soft in front of the clan.

With one hand remaining on your shoulder, he then started to back away. You quickly wiped the tears from your eyes and put on a brave front once more after the sudden loss of contact. It didn't help that you could actually feel the eyes on you and hear distinct whispering among the clan at the recently concluded display.

Mo'at did nothing but stare at the situation in front of her, both feeling appreciative of Tsu'tey and proud of him. Despite the fact that she thought Tsu'tey's display of affection was a little strange, she was well aware of its meaning. He recognized himself in you and felt a sense of solidarity with you. Mo’at always knew Tsu’tey carried the world on his shoulder, but she never knew how to approach the subject nor how to voice out her worries to Eytukan or her own daughter, Sylwanin.

She could definitely sense Tsu'tey's resentment for them. It wasn’t visible, nor did he act upon it, but she could tell from the way his shoulders tensed whenever they were around. She could tell that whenever Sylwanin was there, he tried to keep a space between them by purposefully ignoring her. Mo'at regretted granting her daughter's wishes for her to mate with Tsu'tey and letting her do as she pleased. It wasn't that she didn't like him; rather, it was only that it made him feel more stressed. She assumed Tsu'tey must have had a similar feeling when Sylwanin initially enquired about the topic, which is why she was so determined to give Sylwanin her blessings.

But the more the days went by and she saw the dynamic, the more she blamed herself for allowing it to occur. What was left to be done? The only thing left to do was introduce themselves to Ewya as a couple as their relationship had already been made known to the clan.

With the manner Tsu'tey sealed his heart, something was undoubtedly unlikely to occur.

“I’m sorry, thank you.” – You said quickly, a small smile grazing your features at his compassion.

Tsu’tey only gave a nod your way, his mind elsewhere now that you seemed to have calmed down slightly from the stress. His insides burned with anger, a bitterness that has been growing for quite a while – ever since Sylwanin announced their commitment to each other. He blamed Sylwanin for this. She opened up to him, always, in hopes he would do the same, but he never had ever told her what went through his head. The only thing he made sure she knew about him was his complete unhappiness by being by her side. 

So he decided to take action. Standing up and moving away from your side, he followed where Eytukan and his daughters had disappeared to – the quiet place they often held their more serious meetings, away from prying eyes. Tsu’tey didn’t pay mind to the warning glance he received from Mo’at as he brushed past her, a scowl persistent on his face already at the mere thought of Sylwanin. He didn’t care he could hear Eytukan’s voice already scolding both of them, he, as the future Olo’eyktan, had to also give his piece of mind on the matter. He had always done so for past meetings and mishaps, this wasn’t about to be different.

“Tsu’tey.” Eytukan voiced out, acknowledging his presence in the room with a quick glance his way.

Sylwanin visibly tensed at the mere mention of his name, knowing what was already in store for her. It wasn’t a surprise to anyone how much Tsu’tey distrusted the sky people, Sylwanin even wondered if he deliberately hated the sky people because he disliked her – hating not only her but whatever cause she stood for.

“You took Tawukoi’s only daughter to the sky people?” – Tsu’tey hissed out, eyes shifting between Sylwanin and Neytiri. “Have you lost your mind?!”

Neytiri’s and Sylwanin ears flattened, as they casted a shameful glance towards the ground at his words. 

“We – “ Sylwanin tried to speak, but was quickly cut out by Tsu’tey.

“We what? Didn’t think about what could go wrong? Didn’t think the sky people could harm her because she was different?” – Tsu’tey went on.

Eytukan was standing by his side as he observed the situation; he was now immediately in front of them. Since he recognized that his daughters had disgraced the clan with their decision today, the current chief leader had no intention of stepping in to stop Tsu'tey from reprimanding them. Not only did they put too much trust in the enemy, but they also showed them an important person to the Omatikaya. They needed to hear this, they needed to feel the consequences of their actions – to really understand how much of a mistake it was.

“Didn’t think about our sister's feelings?” – Finally, Tsu'tey growled, his hand pointing in the general direction of your location.

Eytukan caught a glimpse of Tsu'tey out of the corner of his eye, noting the younger na'vi's restless posture. A feeling of content washed inside of him, a sense of pride giving him confidence that he had picked the right one to lead the Omatikaya one day. Tsu'tey was concerned not only for your physical wellbeing but also for your feelings. And Eytukan could think of nothing else he wanted from him.

Even if he didn't love his daughter, Tsu'tey was a wonderful na’vi in Eytukan's eyes.

“Feelings?” – Sylwanin scoffed, eyes still straining to the ground.

Then, in a quick shift of emotions, her feelings of shame were soon transformed into a blinding rage. She fearlessly looked into Tsu'tey's gaze, tears stinging at the corners of her eyelids. Even though it was the first time he had ever seen Sylwanin this upset, he hadn't even flinched at the sight of her tears; there was simply no sign of sympathy on his features.

“Because you care so much about other people’s feelings, right?” She breathed out, a mocking smile making its way to her face.

Sylwanin felt her sister's hands softly contact hers in an effort to soothe her down in a peaceful and meek manner, but she instantly slapped the touch away without even giving Neytiri a second thought. In a last-ditch effort to get Tsu'tey's attention, the resentment she had been harboring for his ongoing disregard for her emerged.

Tsu’tey felt nothing at her words, even though he knew they were meant to hurt him.

He was desired, but never loved. 

If she genuinely loved him as much as she claimed to, she would never have taken away the one freedom he had ever known.

“And you?” Tsu’tey asked her back, with the same venomous tone she had used. “Cared a lot about my feelings when you forced me into a loveless relationship, didn’t you?”

As soon as he finished his words, a hiss escaped her throat. Sylwanin felt attacked, but mostly, betrayed due to his actions. 

“I’ve only ever thought about what was best for you!” – She said.

“And how do you know what’s best for me?” 

The lovers stared at each other with what could only be described as hatred. The other two in the room awkwardly shifted in their places, tense to move but feeling ashamed of walking away from the fight now. Sylwanin scoffed at him, taking in all the words he had just said to her. 

“Also ‘sister’? It’s astonishing how you seem to care more about an outsider than your own mate!” – Sylwanin hissed out.

Tsu'tey regarded her from above, a scoff of amusement escaping his lips as a look of bewilderment crept across his features. Sylwanin seemed to be purposefully oblivious to what he had just said to her. She either had no way of understanding him or had shamelessly chosen to ignore the harsh truth of his disregard for her.

“Sylwanin. Watch your words about Tawukoi’s daughter.” – It was Eytukan who hissed out, finally stepping in to try and ease the situation. 

“Yes, our sister.” – Tsu’tey emphasized the word, his gaze never wavering from Sylwanin’s. “Has done nothing but treat me kindly, opposite from you.” 

Another hiss came from Sylwanin, but this time it was weaker – with no apparent strength behind it to fight against Tsu’tey anymore. 

It was bitter. 

All the love and effort she had invested in attempting to win Tsu'tey over to her seemed to have been in vain and had been a dismal endeavor. Sylwanin blamed him, how could her clear attempts be despised? When she first saw Tsu'tey and fell in love with him, she knew he needed a break. A refuge, someone who would support him whenever he needed it without passing judgment on him—while still honoring him as the legendary warrior of the Omatikaya. All she had ever done was for him, and she wanted to be that for him.

The peace attempts with the sky people were for him. 

Sylwanin knew that what brought him the most work was training the people for war. But if she somehow learned and led the people to peace, she could earn the rights to be by his side – to be seen as his woman. 

Unknown to her, Tsu’tey resented her views. 

He didn't need a break, nor did he require her to facilitate his work. He was prideful, and took great pleasure from accomplishing his own achievements – winning battles due to his leadership and bravery.

Tsu’tey never once said he wanted someone next to him, someone he could lean on. Even though he did want it – not in a single moon had he thought it would be a forced love. He was a simple man, he wished love would come naturally – wished to chase and win over his loved one’s heart with shows of leadership and admiration. But with Sylwanin, she hadn’t ever even asked him how he felt. The few emotional exchanges they had involved her being angry that he couldn't love her the way she did.

Maybe in another lifetime, in different settings, Tsu’tey would be in love with Sylwanin. 

Perhaps another story.

But not this one, Tsu’tey told himself bitterly.

“That’s enough.” Eytukan spoke out softly, feeling sorry for both parties. “Both of you.”

Neytiri awkwardly embraced her sister’s side, trying her best to comfort her in any way she could. She sent a glance towards Tsu’tey, silently telling him to leave. 

And he was more than happy to oblige. 

Eytukan's palm on the top of his chest quickly stopped him as his body twisted to go. As soon as they locked eyes, the touch was gone. A simple interaction that Tsu’tey knew the meaning behind – compassion. Tsu'tey gave Eytukan a slight nod before heading back to the hometree's main area. Now nearly empty, its occupants were making their way to their beds to peacefully wrap up the day. Blissfully oblivious to the ongoing conflicts in the chief's own family.

When you finally spotted him, his eyes were the first to catch your drowsy ones and yours appeared to sparkle with wakefulness. You quickly got up from where you were sitting and moved in his direction, meeting him halfway.

“Are you okay?” – You asked softly, voice low for only him to hear – even with no one around you.

Tsu’tey hesitantly nodded, choosing to not stress your mind further than it already was. You had endured so much already by simply living amongst the Omatikaya, away from your family and friends, only now to be shoved in the middle of the sky people. 

“You should go rest.” He rested his hand on your shoulder, his voice now gentle – coping the same tone as yours.

You were aware of the conflicts that had just taken place. Even if you hadn’t heard, or seen anything, it was evident by the tired look Tsu’teys eyes carried, the way his shoulders were tense when training had ended about hours ago. It was all a clear sign of the stress he had gone through, potentially another fight between him and Sylwanin. 

Your hands rested on top of his hand that was on your shoulder still, as you hesitated in saying your next words.

“I see you, brother.” – A simple breath.

You could tell Tsu'tey was surprised when you spoke those words by the way his gaze swept over your face in surprise. Even if you were genuinely nervous to utter them, he needed to know that he wasn't the only one going through this. That he would always have a friend or supporter by his side, and that you were one of them or at least willing to be. If he so wished for it. It was a little phrase with a profound significance. It's almost as if you're inviting him to be himself and to confide in you freely. 

A small tender smile made its way to Tsu’teys face, as once again, words failed him. 

Without wanting to make him uncomfortable, you were quick to pull your hands away – and Tsu’tey did the same, moving away the hand that was on your shoulder. He felt… thankful. It astonished him, never had he expected the first person to mumble those words to him to be from another clan. But he could only thank Ewya inside his head for giving him yet another peaceful moment with you. 

“Thank you.” – He breathed out gently, his head bowing slightly to you in respect before he could stop himself.

You were quick to do the same, trying your best to adjust to whatever custom the Omatikaya had. 

“You should get some sleep.” Tsu’tey said once again.

But this time, you were happier to do as he suggested. You knew that your effort to help him in relaxing had been successful when you noticed some tension releasing from his shoulders and fatigue catching up to him. Being able to help the Omatikaya in any way fills your heart with pride; after all, it was your mission to do so. And Tsu’tey was one of the most important people to the Omatikaya’s future.

With a quick smile and farewell, you were off – climbing the main root that now felt familiar to you. It nearly felt like a soothing analogy to finally going asleep—resting your tired body after a long day of stress.

Unbeknownst to you, a pair of envious eyes blazed in the hometree's gloom.

How could you do this?

tag: @dumb-fawkin-bitch @bothersome-anon-pt2 @vane28282 @sweet-lilacwine @worksforthedevil @missroro @troubledfilm @grievedeeply @collaps3r @seashelldom @gracefulbumblebee @fandomsfanman @da1syvr @aeri4life @summe-rliu @fanboyluvr @landlockedmermaid77 @missroro  @tainted-artist4161 @hatakekakaaashi @wokvc @avatarzim​  @arschbohrer   @archenillo @ ssc7514 

[rickie-the-storyteller]

Meet the Writer Tag!

(Thank you so much to @mysticstarlightduck for tagging me! Sorry I took so long lol)

This is me!

(I don't normally wear this many accessories/jewellery lol. But I wish I did! I love it sm)

Three Fun Facts About Me:

I have never been in a relationship before. Ever. The only experience I have in that department is through other people's stories, not really my own. And by that, I mean that I'm used to watching my friends/people around me getting in and out of relationships, and listening to songs about romance and love and heartbreak... but not really relating to them due to not having any of those experiences myself (but it's alright, tho. It'll happen when it happens! In the meantime, I always have my made-up ships from my writing lol).

My favourite book growing up was "Matilda" by Roald Dahl. I thought Matilda was such a cool girl growing up lol. And lowkey relatable in a lot of ways. No, I wasn't a child genius. But she kind of fits into the archetype that I always found comfort in due to being that kind of person myself. Smart/intellectually curious, bookworm, introverted/independent, genuinely kind and has a heart in spite of being seen as cold by others (another example of this is Huey from Boondocks. Been rewatching some episodes of that show recently and wow... forgot how crazy it was lol. It's good, tho).

Christmas is my favourite holiday! 🎅❄️🎄I do get why some people may dislike it, I guess (like, my younger sister isn't a fan, and she's explained why... I get it. The over-commercialisation of it takes a lot of the "specialness" out of it, you know? Distracts from the actual meaning behind it and all. Plus, it can suck if you're just feeling sad and lonely during a time of celebration for everyone else. Aside from that, technically Easter is more significant if you look at it from the lens of which Christian holiday is most important). But I love the joyfulness and festiveness. Makes me feel all jolly and cosy inside. Plus, I love singing Christmas carols. And presents. And Christmas movies. I just love Christmas lol.

Favorite season:

Autumn. Or fall, as some others prefer to call it. That's when my birthday is!!

(Second place is summer because that's holiday season. Plus, that's when my sister's birthday is.)

Continent where I live:

I live in the UK, so Europe.

How I spend my (free) time:

Writing (duh)

Writeblr stuff (tag games, making OC playlists, answering questions, communicating with followers and having discussions with them about writing, etc)

YouTube (mainly watching videos... but I do want to start making videos myself at some point. Stay tuned for that, I guess)

Studying/school assignments (I'm in university)

Listening to music

Singing

Watching movies/TV shows

Reading

Eating lol

Are you published?

No. It'd be cool to be, though. Pretty sure I've mentioned this at least once before, but I want to self-publish the Stephanie Smith saga once I'm done with it.

Introvert or extrovert?

Introvert. 100% introvert lol. I feel most comfortable within myself when I'm by myself. As a kid, I was so painfully shy that the thought of going up to someone and asking a simple question would terrify me lol. As I got older, though, I was super duper lonely, and I realised that I had no real friends because I was keeping myself all closed off in a tight shell, so I'd literally force myself to open up and become more social and make friends with other kids. I practised it, like how you do with any skill. Now it's not so bad. I'd say I can carry a conversation with someone fairly well, even if I don't know them so well.

Favorite meal:

Ooooh.... this is hard. I love most foods lol.

I think I'll go with something a little bit more traditional. I'm Kenyan, and one of my favourite meals that I've grown up eating is chapatti and stew (any kind of stew, or soup. But my mum would usually make this stew with kidney beans. That was a big hit growing up). Haven't had it in almost a year, tho.

Aside from that, I love pizza. And Nandos.

Tagging: @clairelsonao3, @exquisitecrow, @mister-writes, @winterandwords, @mjparkerwriting, @e-everlasting-g, @erieautumnskies, @annethewittywriter, @writingwithfolklore, @ashwithapen

[saturdaynightghostclub]

Highway Hypnosis

Chapter 6: Moss

There’s a collection of massive rocks along the riverbank, upstream from the driftwood masterpiece I scaled before. They’re that kind of blue-gray you only find in the upper left-hand corner of the country, half shaded with spots of golden sunlight filtering through the canopy above. I climb without thinking, without questioning, searching for the highest point at which I can comfortably sit. The surface is rough and sun-warmed, radiating heat as if from the inside out. I stretch my legs out before me, letting every exposed inch of my skin press into it and imagining that the warm golden light of the sun is seeping into me from above and below. Jasper follows close behind, positioning himself beside me so that we’re looking out over the river together.

For a moment we’re silent. There’s a stillness that comes with age, a willingness however reluctant to just sit, to watch, to exist in your own skin without the incessant need to be more than exactly what you are. I think sometimes I could be a child again; I could slide off this rock right now and splash around in the river and throw things and get dirty just because I had the energy to. But then, I wonder if it would feel the same as it once did. If I’m too old, too tired and jaded, if I’d feel like the grown woman I am squeezing into the too-tight trappings of a life long since past.

“I don’t know how to say this exactly,” Jasper says, his voice soft with caution rather than nerves, “but I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Not just recently, I mean. Since you left.”

I nod, processing his words unconsciously before they land in the front of my mind. “And?” I ask, mostly because I don’t know what else to say.

“And I’m sorry,” he says, “and I can explain.”

Now I’m truly at a loss. Who apologizes for something that happened eleven years ago—what grown man apologizes for the behavior of his adolescent self? What grown woman expects him to? “Okay,” I reply.

Jasper exhales, like this was the response he was hoping for. “You probably could have figured this out,” he says, “but it was a crush. I don’t think I saw it for what it was at the time—I just knew that I felt funny whenever you came to town. It freaked me out, you know? And there was my dumbass brother and his friends, right? And they were on to me, teasing me, and I didn’t know what to do. So I let you go. I’ll never stop being sorry for that.”

“I know,” I offer him a small smile for his vulnerability, “just one of those stupid things kids do. No harm, no foul.”

“Right, but then you didn’t come back,” he says, and I can sense that this won’t be the end of the conversation. “I mean, I have no way of knowing if it was my fault, but the only thing that changed was me. So, you know, what was I supposed to think?”

I’m tempted to ask him to stop—it’s stressing him out, which is plain to see, but he seems to be gathering his courage to continue. “It wasn’t because of you,” I extend in the interim.

Jasper nods absently in acknowledgement. “I, um. I don’t know if Josh told you, but I ran away when I was seventeen. I felt completely out of place, I couldn’t get close to anyone. Who lives in a town of a thousand people and manages to be a pariah?”

“You’re asking the wrong girl.”

“I wanted to find my people, you know?” He continues as if I haven’t spoken. “I wanted to fall in love or something, I don’t know. But I didn’t. I made it all the way to Portland and never felt anything for anyone. I thought there was something wrong with me, I caught a ride back here on my eighteenth birthday and just cried the whole time. Forced myself to cry, you know, because it meant I wasn’t completely tuned out. Anyway, I ended up at Len’s place and he sort of took me in.”

“Is that when you started using the library?” I ask, physically straining against the urge to touch him in some way—to press my shoulder against his maybe, or to take his hand. I don’t know if I could bear it, were he to flinch away from me.

Jasper nods, his gaze fixed on an indeterminate point across the water. “He talked about you all the time, Andie.”

My breath catches in my throat. “He stopped calling.”

“So did you.”

“I’ll never forgive myself.”

“You should.”

I glance over to see that he’s looking at me. There’s not a hint of malice in his gaze; he’s completely earnest. The purity of it is terrifying and intense, and it occurs to me that I’ve never met a single other person who possesses this uncanny ability to express exactly what they’re feeling without shame or resentment. It’s concentrated, the beam of its focus trained entirely on me. “I know,” I begin carefully, “no use beating myself up over it now that he’s gone.”

“Len was proud of you until the day he died, Andie,” Jasper says, “he didn’t see it the same way you did, I don’t think. He told me once that you were figuring things out for yourself, that he just knew you were carving your own path—I think he saw it as more of an inevitability.”

“Oh my god,” I say, my voice strained and hoarse in anticipation of the tears pooling across my line of vision, “Jasper, I can’t—,” can’t believe I never knew, can’t imagine he actually thought that, can’t talk about it without crying.

Jasper’s no stranger to my tears, but he’s never been comfortable with them. His desperation to fix whatever was wrong always led him to bouts of helpless frustration, or worse yet, depressed resignation. It appears that the latter, at least, is a trait he’s maintained. “Oh, you know it kills me when you cry,” he says softly, surprising me with a brush of his knuckles across my cheek where tears have yet to fall.

“I’m fine,” I say around a shaking breath, “it’s just a little bit much, you know?”

“I know,” he says, “you can let it out if you need to, I’m—I’m here,” his delivery is a bit awkward, but the sentiment is sweet. I won’t subject him to another breakdown, though.

I shake my head, tilting my face to the sky and taking a deep, deep breath. “No, I’m really okay,” I insist, promising myself a good cry when I get home tonight. Desperate to change the subject, I turn the spotlight around on Jasper. “So. No luck with the ladies?”

Jasper lays his palm on my knee, letting his long fingers fall to the inside of my leg. He’s not looking at me anymore. “No luck with anybody,” he says, “I tried for a while. It was the trying that killed me.”

“It’s like selling yourself,” I say, “it’s exhausting.”

“Exactly,” Jasper breathes, “I want love, like I can’t tell you. I just want it to be completely transparent, I think that’s the hard part.”

He’s right. “I always end up with crushes on my friends,” I confess, “I guess it’s because they already know me, you know? They know everything that’s wrong with me. And they like me in spite of that.” I’ve incriminated myself here, and I know that. It seems like we’re going for radical honesty, though, so I might as well play along. It’s the truth; I’d like to believe I’m just a girl’s girl, and maybe I am, but the fact is that there’s something wildly, insanely attractive to me about a man around whom I have been my full, flawed self under the assumption that he has no intention of taking me to bed, and who chooses to be around me anyway. I’m no better than a man in that way.

Jasper’s fingers, which had been idly tracing circles on the inside of my knee, still. There’s nothing in his profile to give away a change in his mood, though, so I don’t say anything one way or the other. For a moment, there’s a terrible silence. It swells in me, the fact that I said too much, an avalanche of overjustification threatening to burst forth and change everything. Then:

“Are you feeling better today?”

I turn my head, silently pleading with him to look at me. Look at me, look at me. You’re already touching me, just see me. He doesn’t. “Yeah,” I say, “I think it was a fluke.”

The people refer to Jasper as Moss. Slow to grow on you, sure. Once it’s uprooted, it takes forever to grow back. It only really thrives on its own terms. He’s moss, definitely, but he’s also ivy and dandelions and an avalanche. He’s unnatural in that he is so completely of the world; he’s more plant than animal, an act of God sent to screw me up in all sorts of little human ways. There’s no subverting him; why would I want to? Jasper Stevens is my inevitable conclusion.

[soft-for-them]

I cherish such dances - Laena Velaryon x plus size reader

Summary: You always used to dance with Laena when you were little now you're grown you wish to dance with her once more.

Comments and reblogs are much appreciated and help more people read my works.

A/n: Written for a plus size reader but any femme presenting or female reader can really read it, this is just some self indulgent stuff for me.

No one had promised a dance with you before the music had begun nor had anyone asked you upright to dance all night, well no one apart from a distant cousin who was forced by his mother to do so for she was trying to set him up with you or one of your sisters, but apart from that no one at all even came your way.

You assume the worst thing first, that people don’t want to dance with you because of what you look like. The high waistline of the dress accentuates your chest but it makes you self-conscious about your round tummy, at least the big virago sleeves long and puffy that go down to your wrist cover the chubbiness of your upper arms, the combination of the big sleeves and high waist giving you a rather princess look.

The dress long and flowing is a light red, not a blood red or a dark marron like some of the other women wear but a red that evokes warmth. The embroidered flower patterns of reds and yellows took forever to sew on and you were worried that you wouldn’t finish the dress for tonight festivities.

Accents of gold shine on the trims hiding the fact that your family can’t afford to give you, one of their many children, actual gold jewellery. Though you don’t really care for the gaudy big pieces of gold and diamond like your grandmother wears around her wrinkled neck, though you do wish to own one more necklaces than you do for you only own this one plain necklace.

Around your neck lays the simple locket of your house’s emblem, along with a yellow stone that once belonged to you mother. The emblem is worn by all your family one way or another, some wear it on their belts others have sewn it on their dresses, you’re stuck with a hand me down necklace that is just a bit too small for your neck for it was made for a child (even so it was too big for kid you).

Along with the chain you wear the tiniest cream pearl studs with a matching chunky hair clip with small pearl details holding your up-do in place.

To think when the evening was just beginning you were too happy and amped to be invited and now you just feel dejected and alone.

You sit straight as you look out at the lines of couples dancing to the jolly folk tunes, families cast off to the side idly chatting whilst young children play way past their bedtimes. You feel like you’re being mocked by all the smiling faces in the large room filled with royalty and rich people alike.

“I’m feeling a bit tired.” You say to your chaperone and distant aunt, an older woman with greying hair filled with decorative hair pins and a cluster of sons to marry off to more rich houses.

“Aren’t we all child.” She says with a huff as her eyes trail to her four sons all tripping over their toes as they dance, their posture absolutely horrid and their wooing skills even more so.

All evening you have been the golden child in the eyes of you unsavoury extended family for all you siblings have either been married already or they are off fucking people ‘lower than them’ for any respect from the family. Then there’s all you cousins who are either too naïve or too idiotic to impress people with their social skills.

No, you the normally despised younger sister is the good person for tonight because you’re sat up straight, talking to everyone to try and pass the time and wearing a nice dress.

“If only someone would open their eyes and dance with you, then our family wouldn’t be such a laughing stock.” You aunt says as she visibly cringes at her eldest son trips over his dance partner’s dress.

Normally you’re the fat one of the family. The shy one. The one who is mostly forgotten but as all your single relatives get drunk of red wine, making messes of themselves, you the nervous and disappointed one is the good child.

“If only.” You sigh as your eyes wonder the room.

King Viserys Targaryen sits happily on his throne with his wife by his side, she looks rather unpleased but that doesn’t sour the mood. Princess Rhaenyra dances with her uncle Prince Daemon their hands wondering and their face way too close but then again they are Targaryens, so the idea of the two married people falling in love with one another despite being uncle and niece isn’t the oddest thing to happen.

And then there’s her.

Standing to the side with her two young daughters, she looks a thing of beauty. Her curly white hair is loosely held up on her head making it look like she has a halo and her dress a seafoam blue curves around her body like the crashing waves of the sea. All is held together by pretty gold and opal jewellery and such a sincere smile.

Oh, have you harboured a deep love for Laena Velaryon for so long.

You were just a small chubby child, not yet able to link words into sentences without messing up, when you first saw her. She was merely a child too, so short and most curly hair, always stuck by her brother’s side. Your house is small house but it’s one that lays by the sea, you family’s fleet of ships aided the Velaryon’s so there was always times when you saw her and somehow that childish crush turned into full blown admiration and love.

If you were a man you would become a knight to protect her, you’d give up all you ever had to sever her and only her, hell you’d do it now if she asked you too.

It might be a silly thing to be so infatuated with her, especially when she’s married, but there are some feelings that you can never get rid of and one of them is your love for her. That and you refuse to become jaded and miserable like Ser Criston Cole, such a vile man.

As your mind wonders and your eyes unfocused, the song comes to an end and the dancers pause to breathe and to find new partners to dance with.

“Lady (L/n).” a child’s voice says.

“Huh!” you head juts to the side towards the person speaking only to have to look down at Rhaena Targaryen all dressed in blue and gold.

Rhaena must be about five or six years old, despite her dress being tailored to her size it seem to drown her, only little hands poking out from the straight embroidered sleeves.

“Hello.” You say in the typical adult talking to a child voice, “Do you need anything, are you lost?”

You worry for such small child up so late, her father drooling over his niece and her mother now nowhere to be found.

“No, but I did come over here to ask you something.” she smiles a bright smile.

“Oh! Is it a secret, I’m good at keeping secrets.” you have too many younger half siblings to count so you’re used to entertaining children.

Rhaena nods her head making her earrings jingle her small hand grabbing you bigger ones.

She drags you up, well tries as children do, and you follow. Your small black shoes clip clop on the stone floor as she weaves through much taller people little apologies flowing through your lips as the little girl giggles as she tugs at your hand.

With one last tug to your hand, her bright brown eyes look up to you as you halt to a stop.

She smiles and says “Here!”

You look up and around to see that she’s dragged you out of the ball room into a corridor only lit by torches and moonlight. For a moment your eyebrows knit together and your eyes land on a guard standing near by but then you spot two pools of water like fabric flowing down the hallway.

Pausing like a deer in headlights, hand still being tugged by Rhaena, you stare at Laena as she gets dragged by Baela, the older of the siblings talking to her mother as she drags her closer to you.

Baela, with the help of her sister, had convinced her mother to step away from the festivities for the young girl had seen you dreamily staring at her mother with longing heart eyes. All it took was telling her mother that she was scared to go to the bathroom on her own and there, she easily got her little sister to drag you out to the corridor for her plan.

“(Y/n) (L/n)!” Laena utters with the same bright smile both her daughters wear, “I would say ‘funny seeing you here’ but I assume it isn’t.”

She playfully scolds her children as she stops close to you, her dress swishing into yours, the heat in your cheeks like a roaring fire.

“Laena- I- Rhaena was showing me something.”

“Was she now?” she looks at her youngest with questioning eyes her next words aimed at her, “And why was that?”

“A dance mummy!” Rhaena happily cheers.

“Rhaena! It was surprise!” Baela whines as the so called plan is revealed, “We wanted you to dance with (Y/n) mummy.”

“Yeah, Baela said she saw you looking at (Y/n) and she hasn’t danced yet so, yeah.”

Laena guides her daughters back to the archway leading back into the ballroom her voice hushed as she talks to the two girls.

You freeze in place as Laena hands her daughters off to their grandmother, then she walks back into the cool empty hallway back towards you.

“I’m sorry- I-“ you begin not knowing why you’re really apologising.

“Sorry for what, I’ve been meaning to dance with you all night.”

It’s true, Laena hasn’t seen your face in years and upon seeing you sat still and not up moving like she’s used to seeing well, it made her feel off. Yes, you aren’t the same chubby child spinning around the dance floor in a jolly jig, you’re an adult looking to wed but seeing you so frozen in place made her decide to ask you to dance.

Though she hasn’t gotten to do that yet and her daughter caught onto it quite quickly thus leading to this.

“What…?”

Laena steps closer.

“Remember when we were little and you’d run up to me and ask me to dance.”

You remember those times fondly.

“I was but a child-“ you whisper with wide eyes.

“-and a child who always made me so happy at such tiring dances. The last time we danced I was twelve and my parents were trying to set me up with the king.”

You must have been seven or eight in a green gown like the colour of the warm ocean, the house necklace around your neck then too long and your hair too short to properly plat. You mother had told you not ignore the king when you were at the dinner he’d invited your family too but knowing he might marry your dear Laena, and being a petty child, you ignored him non the less which entertained him even more.

“You were so sad, I saw it but no one else did.” your eyes connect with Laena’s as you speak.

“Yes, that’s why I cherish such dances, that’s why I ask you now to dance with me.” Laena raise your hand in hers and kisses your knuckles, “I cannot stand seeing you so sad and still at such lively event, it’s not of the person I remember.”

“I’m a woman now Laena.”

“A beautiful one at that.” her lips linger on you knuckles, “Dance with me, please.”

"Yes, we shall dance."

.

.

.

A/N: This is like the second fic that is gay and about asking someone to dance dghgfdsdfg, I might do a part two to this.

[the1975attheirverybest]

A/N: I don’t fuckin know what this is. Nobody requested it or asked for it. It’s not a thing. It’s nothing. Here goes nothing.

Warning(not a warning. More like a an invitation. A dare, if you will): Arctic Monkeys.

A bit of Matty x live band member Y/N? Or maybe Matty x opening act Y/N? Idk.

—

She surveyed the club from her position onstage like a lioness keeping a watchful eye over her kingdom.

“Have they made it smaller? I remember the stage being bigger than this.” She turned to ask Adam, who stood next to her, tuning up a guitar and testing its sound.

“No, they haven’t.” He said, his eyes on the tremolo bar, itching to touch it. “Youth.” He added.

“Hmm?”

“It’s youth that makes everything feel bigger and more dramatic. That, and…being in the audience. Things look a lot different from up here.”

She simply nodded. That seemed to be the lesson of the evening. Adam had shown her around the establishment all night. A place she’d been to countless times before. As a young artist, dreaming of one day donning the stage, she’d scrape together whatever money she could afford to get tickets and see shows here as often as possible. But, getting the exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of the place, now, as a grown up and an artist, was a complete mind-fuck. Torn between the mechanical, technicalities of actually playing the venue and the child-like awe of wanting to believe in the inherent specialness of this building. The spirit of the music that has played here over the years. The symbolic significance that it has to the Manchester music scene. It was all overwhelming. That, and, the fact that, at 3 am, that it had been a long night already.

“Okay, try it now.” Adam took the guitar strap off, handing the instrument over to her.

“Thanks.” She held the guitar in her hands, but before she could even test it out, Adam intervened again.

“See? It’s too big for you. There’s a mini strat in my case back there. I’ll go get it.” He suggested.

“No, no. That one’s red, isn’t it?” She’d spotted Matty at the other side of the room. Her eyes fixed on him as he leaned against the closed bar, surrounded by chairs turned upside down and hanging by their respective tables. He was having a secret indoor smoke, talking to Ross about something, his sunglasses on his face to shield his eyes from the direct light blaring out from the box-shape lights in the floor- a ridiculous idea he’d had while stoned the night before, and somehow managed to talk the owners of the club into letting him do it.

“Why does it matter if it’s red?” Adam asked, but she was hardly listening. Her mind had already wandered back to fantasies of Matty finally shoving her up against the sweat-covered walls and kissing her. She swore there was a palpable spark between them. Or maybe it was all just in her head. If she’d gotten it wrong somehow, perhaps it was better not to find out.

Adam tapped her on the shoulder. “How about this one? It’s black, does that suit your aesthetic?”

“My man! Thanks very much.” She grabbed the guitar. Fiddling with the tone and volume controls.

“Alright, give us a little something. Let’s hear it.”

She nodded, smiling to herself and taking a deep breath. She took one last glance at Matty, then began to thrum a single suspended chord over and over. She grinned as she saw Matty’s ears perk up, his head turning to face the stage as he recognized the tune.

She clicked the microphone on, “there’s this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat. Until I fall asleep. Spillin drinks on my settee.”

An amused smile took over Matty’s face. He took his sunglasses off, placing them firmly in his slicked-back hair. He couldn’t quite explain why, but he was convinced that the way her mouth moved when she said “spillin’ drinks on my settee” was purposefully taunting him.

He made his way over to her, chanting in his mind “be cool, be cool, be cool,” and exercising every ounce of self-restraint in him to keep from speeding up his footsteps.

Her fingers continued to play the pre-chorus, though watching Matty, with his eyes in hers, made her go silent for a moment.

“Sorry, love.” Matty cocked his head when he was close enough to the stage “wrong artsy white boy. Arctic Monkeys play here NEXT week, actually.” He smiled when she put an abrupt end to her playing, crashing her whole hand against the guitar strings to silence them. “This is the 1975, so, we were looking for ‘The Sound,’ or ‘Paris’ maybe?”

A light flashed across her eyes, she repositioned her fingers on the fretboard and began playing the opening of ‘Chocolate.’

A series of chuckles erupted through the venue, making Matty smile, too. He shook his head ever so slightly “oh, now you’re just showin off.” He whispered, climbing the stage and standing alarmingly close to her. She struggled to keep her fingers on the correct strings, her breathing getting heavier. Was he going to kiss her? Why else would he be standing so close to her face? In all her daydreams about Matty, she hadn’t imagined their first kiss to be to ‘Chocolate,’ but so be it. Reality is always stranger than fiction. She prepared herself, closing her eyes.

Matty simply stole her mic, walking away to take his own position onstage.

Her eyes shot open, surprise and embarrassment overtaking her. She tipped her blushing red face back starring up and the ceiling and breathing rapidly, mouthing ‘fuck’ to herself.

“Now we run, run away from the boys in the blue” when she looked to the side, Matty was smiling, watching her from the corner of his eye. He SAW that.

“An my car smells like chocolate.”

[intcritus]

🕯️🕯️- fushimiiii

a warm, tender expression eases over itachi's expression. there's something about his husband that brings out the more softer side of his heart; that emotional part that is completely suffused with unfiltered joy at how much he loves him. how much fushimi has grown with him. every part of their journey is always there, in his mind, first and foremost. playing back like a camera reel. all the ups and downs, but most of all, the pivotal moments. the elation, exchanging vows, their first ' i love yous'. no one could ever replace these things that fushimi had willingly and selflessly given him, time and time again.

there no words in any language that could properly articulate what he feels for his husband. ❝ ━ sometimes when i'm surrounded by our children, i'm reminded of how much he fills up my life. how both of us have come so far, how deeply our families have become entwined. but most of all, of how if he needed my heart, i'd give it up just to know he'd keep breathing for our family. ❞ not that fushimi would be okay with that, but even so it makes him smile.

itachi doesn't feel adequate enough to continue to talk about how much. ❝ ━ some say that loving yourself before loving someone else is needed, but fushimi made me realize just how wrong people are. the way i love him ? the way he loves me ? it's the stuff that poets write about. why people are willing to sacrifice their own happiness. and even five years into marriage ? it still steals my breath away. he's diligent, a wonderful father, always hard at work as oyabun and no one is competing against him in how protective he is with me. he's just.....i love him so much.❞

❝ ━....some kids will never be as lucky as we all are. he's invested in each of our futures, in our worries, in how we're feeling at any time. a lot of kids will never get to say the same. ❞ toya is not ibuki with how open she is with her emotions, or seiji who doesn't have a filter with his mouth. no, toya is the one who often sits back ruminates in his emotion, not as a kimon child, but the child of two people who are so in tune with their child. especially fushimi, his papa made sure they could defend themselves. he made sure they didn't just give into rage, to hone it, to learn everything there was to learn. spoiled with affection and attention but they learned patience, self-confidence and how important family was. ❝ ━ papa is one of a kind. he's attentive, and a great listener. possibly the best father and simply cannot be compared to. he would destroy the world for us, without hesitation and i speak for all my siblings when i say we'd do the same. ❞ papa is king, just as okaasan is queen and our kingdom is secure, even when darkness threatens to creep in.

send me 🕯️to hear my character's inner thoughts about your character. / @nvrcmplt

[thirteen-31]

1 year. I really didn’t want to be here anymore. Everything kept going wrong for me over and over and I wanted to give up so many times.. But, the hard lessons I had to learn in my life, the hurdles I had to jump—Mountains I’ve climbed.. It’s all been worth it to find you along the way.

I’m not scared anymore. That is a BIG sentence for me. I’ve been scared for most of my life. In the past 6 months, I have grown more than I have in 10 years. I am more patient. I’m more at peace. I am taking accountability and learning to own up to mistakes. Spending less time on my phone and more time with my family. I want to be better. Everyday with you, I’m inspired to be the best me. And that’s what I’ve always wanted love to be.

To truly be given love the way you’ve always wanted.. Without having to ask or be asked. To be heard. To be spoken to softly in my darkest ugliest moments. To never be judged for anything. Always making sure my cup is overflowing.. My feelings are never too big or dramatic for you and you always know how to have me calmed down or laughing in minutes when I’m worked up. I have never felt like I’m “too much” or feel like I need to tone my personality down around you. You took me and my packaged deal of weirdo friends + family in without hesitation and they all love you and how good you are for me. Their blessing meant everything to me this time around.

But for you to see me? To really be seen.. That’s my biggest reason to love you. This has been an incredible, beautiful, emotional, terrifying journey. I’ve been loved unconditionally throughout all of my emotions I’ve encountered during my healing. I feel so safe to face things I couldn’t even unlock inside my head before because you allow me to be loved no matter where my emotions take me.

My inner child is healing because you have encouraged her to. You give me so much hope for a future filled with constant laughter and genuine love. And the kids get to see that. Every day. They always tell me “Mom, Matt makes you SO happy!” And I love that they have healthy love to learn from. And the kids get to see that. Every day. They always tell me “Mom, Matt makes you SO happy!” And I love that they have healthy love to learn from.

Discovering someone who is invested in knowing your soul, how you tick, how you like your coffee, what makes you happy, what triggers you, what traumas need to be worked through, what routines need tuning.. Finding someone who does all of that and more and just because they want to... You have given me all of that while being the most patient and gentle man through of the curves I’m going through as I repair years of putting myself last and helping me pick myself up after my last year of a deep depression.. I get comfort when I need it and solutions when I’m wanting guidance. I’m so incredibly lucky to have you.

Every day being better than the last.. Growing your bond stronger than most you’ve ever encountered in your life at an intense rate— Suited and sent just for you. That’s rare. And I guess I’m one of the lucky ones that gets to do this crazy fucked up life with my best friend.

You are someone who sees all of my potential inside but loves and will love me through all the versions I get to be while becoming my highest self.. All while seeing you do the same. I didn’t think that person existed for me. But he does.

Loving you is the easiest thing. I know I say that all the time but it. is. fucking. effortless. Loving you is breathing. I am so incredibly thankful and blessed to have been given the opportunity to love you today and every day after. No one could love me the way you do.

Our last life, this one, the next, 1905.. 2024.

I’m so relieved that it’s you I get to be weird with forever. ♾️ 🤍

[deerydear]

I reread that list of "autism signs":

I have been told that when I was a little baby kid, I wanted nothing to do with one of my caregivers. She seemed to hold a grudge about this, so it stuck in my mind as "something that I've been criticized for."

...but I contest the idea that this was "innate" or "genetically caused, therefore inevitable in my lifetime"

This quote makes me laugh. Imagine the roles are reversed:

I think that my actions were informed by the complexity of life... and a thousand-million-billion things moving all around, all the time. It wouldn't be "just one cause". It would be many, many things.

It takes a lot of drops of water to fill a lake-bed.

"Autism", to me, seems like an appealing hypothesis, as a self-diagnosis, because it locates the issue within oneself. I was often a rabblerouser. I wasn't ashamed of causing a problem over injustice, although at the same time I shied away from the image of "justice-seeker". Some people called me a devil.

I think back on Jesus.

Luke 2:41

There is another story:

In a culture, when children are weaned, they leave their parents' house. They are supposed to form a spiritual bond with another member of the village, and they go live with their 'spirit parent'. Sometimes, the soul-bond is made with the child's blood-parents. This is rare, but seen as a good omen.

If the child forms no soul-bond, then no one else in the village will speak to them. They do not look at outcast children. They are left to fend for themselves.

Children like this, who manage to survive to be twelve years of age are taken into the wizard's house, to be taught magic. "because the world wants them to be alive", is what he says when he is asked.

I think about this story sometimes. It is told in detail in the Tropic of Night.

I just shared the story of the boy who became L...

I remember someone else commenting: "oh my goodness, he doesn't know what a hug is! He's never been hugged!"

I've been the same way... but my mother always mournfully said: "I tried to love you, but you wanted nothing to do with me! You told me to stop singing to you! 'Don't hug me!'"

I think this would make nearly any mother upset.

As I have grown older, I've seen how this desperate seperation has also left me deficit. I ran away from warmth, but I needed warmth. I wanted a mother as much as I rejected her.

I've also been pregnant. It changes the way that you think. The hormones and instincts literally change you. So I understand motherhood a lot more now. I don't begrudge my own mother so much, anymore. Life changes the liver. As you go down the road, you will see what is around you.

I read 1984. The children are turned against their own parents, with promise of brotherhood in the political Party, the society that surrounds them.

"What can my mother give me, that all these other people won't?"

From the book:

See, it isn't just one thing. There are motives, mysteries to be unraveled. History didn't begin 30 years ago.

The Council of Pecans:

Science... science... how far behind are our tools? What have we "proven", and what is the truth?

Does a human create the truth?

"See, I am like this because I am strange. There is something solely in me that makes me different. If I were able to adapt to the society around me, then I would feel no dissonance. I would be happy.

It isn't that there is something pervasively wrong with the attitudes of other people.... no."

Although, at the same time, a lot of autism self-advocacy does not seem to be of the tune that I just described. It is different.

I suppose I was describing the internal dilemma of the self-diagnoser who is simply reading about disorders, comparing the branches of her own life.

Luke 23:

[gmwsuperfan5467890]

Paper Girls

I read the comic in one day and binged the show in two days and let me just say, I am obsessed. I love all the wonderful, complex characters, the beautiful artwork, the engaging plot and of course, the wonderfully built-up main sapphic relationship. Because I read the comics before watching the show, I think I was a bit too critical of the show at first (especially because there were so many changes) but after the first two episodes, I began to fall in love with the show as well. There were some changes the show made that I loved and some that I did not like so much.

Changes I loved:

1)The development of Dylan and Alice. In the comics, he is referenced quite a bit and the audience can infer that he is a douchebag but other than that and the one interaction with Mac where he calls her a “butch” ,we don’t get much from him. But in the show, we see that he is a changed man, who has acknowledged how the trauma of the abusive home he grew up in has shaped him and how he in turn added to his sister’s trauma. He has grown and has apologized for his mistakes and loves and misses his sister. In fact, his sister’s death is what inspires him to change his life for the better and break the cycle of generational trauma. He treats both his kids and little sister so gently, the complete opposite of his dad. It was so heartbreaking when Mac had to leave her brother and the better life he could have provided for her behind.

Alice’s portrayal in the comics is heartbreaking. She doesn’t seem to care for Mac as much as Mac cares for her and is an absent parent. While the show seems to keep the same tune at first, we later find out Alice stepped up and took care of Mac and Dylan after Mac was diagnosed. Her love for her stepdaughter is abundantly clear, shown by how brings flowers to Mac’s grave on her birthday and her absolutely grief-stricken and hopeful expression upon catching a glimpse of her step-daughter in the graveyard. I absolutely love that Mac got to see that there were people who loved and cared about her (although they showed it too late). Overall, it was a beautiful and poignant plot line.

2) Erin’s martyr tendacies due to her being parentified as a child cause her to self-destruct. Erin was forced to take a lot of responsibility as a child because if her father’s death and because her mother couldn’t speak English. She made taking care of people her whole personality and pushed her own wants and needs to the side. When her sister and mother became more independent, Erin felt hollow and lost because she had no dreams and aspirations of her own, thus when her mother became sick, Erin subconsciously jumped at the chance to play the martyr/caretaker role again, feeling like she should have to handle this on her own and not realizing that her sister would also want to take care of their mother. This was definitely a more nuanced approach to Erin’s character and I loved the complexity that was added to Erin and Missy’s relationship, whereas in the comics Erin’s jealousy of Missy’s perfect life was only slightly hinted at.

3) I also loved Erin being angry at her future self and that being delved into a bit more.

4) I loved Erin and Mac’s friendship. We didn’t get enough one-on-one scenes of them in the comics.

5) I loved that they made Mac a cancer, partly because it’s also my zodiac sign and partly because it’s such a dark joke.

Changes I didn’t love:

1) 1999 Tiff wasn’t goth enough. And her bf wasn’t goth either. I also disliked that they used the fact that Tiff was adopted as a shocking secret. I preferred to have her know that she was adopted from the start like in the comics. The comics hinted that she had some abandonment trauma with her bio mum, I wish that was explored instead. I just feel like the whole secretly adopted plot twist is cliche and also implies that being adopted is a shameful thing and that’s why parents don’t tell their children that they’re adopted, which is a horrible thing to imply.

2) I’m sad that they cut out the plot-line of the girls saving Wali and Japho. I get why they cut it but I remember finding out that Japho was the Grand Father after they saved him and I was gobsmacked and flabbergasted, it was such a good plot twist.

3) I’m sad that they got rid of homophobic Mac. Once again, I get why they did it, I can’t imagine a child saying slurs would be greenlit on any tv show and the scenes where she’s homophobic to KJ are downright painful but it was so refreshing how they made they more stereotypical butch character have internalized homophobia and it paid off in the end when Mac accepted that she was gay and she wasn’t homophobic anymore.

4) Larry was there. I did not really care about Larry, although I got super pissed when he yelled at Tiffany twice. I was also really worried that he was going to be adult Erin’s love interest (which would have been weird and horrifying), luckily their fake dating scene hilariously showed that they are definitely not going to date. I’ve also noticed that the best scenes are when the paper girls are alone (or with their future selves) Larry doesn’t add anything to the story.

I adored the show and I actually loved that they made such huge changes. It keeps the suspense alive. There better be a season 2!

[turnpage]

send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ��867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

[silenthillmutual]

soft prompt: Murky can't get to sleep so Artemy tries humming to her. bonus points if Daniil is also there and starts singing a nursery rhyme he knows from the capital

I’m so sorry this sat in my notes for the longest time! I hope you’re still out there, anon, and that you enjoy!

--------

The writing is on the wall before the sun even sets. Murky has been restless all day, tip-toeing around the house, looking for something to do to keep herself occupied. This happens sometimes, when the weather is unreasonable: the rain comes when it shouldn't, cool drafts or warm winds. Artemy has grown accustomed to nights like this, but he had been hoping things would sort themselves out before the night fell.

Anxiety twists in his stomach the closer midnight approaches. He's barely paying attention to Daniil's story - smiling, nodding, but not really absorbing any of it. It's not often his colleague comes to visit, he really should be putting forth more effort, and yet...

Leather slides gently across his bare forearm, and he notices that Daniil has stopped talking. He has no idea how long the silence has stretched between them, but his conversational partner doesn't appear annoyed. When he manages to catch Artemy's attention, he merely tilts his head to the side. "Something seems off," he comments softly. "Normally you'd have rolled your eyes by now. Told some awful joke."

Artemy tries to smile, but he's afraid it comes across more as a sneer. He knows the moment is coming. He can hear bare feet on the wood floor, just outside the room.

"Aba." Her voice, as always, is quiet. Mumbled. He wonders if she feels self-conscious with the Bachelor here - she turns away from Daniil when he looks over at her, eyebrows raised. "The ghosts are back."

To his credit, Daniil does not laugh. For a moment, Artemy actually thinks he sees Daniil freeze. But it’s not like him to express hesitation over something supernatural; from Artemy’s recollection, he did believe in something beyond the physical, but dealt in abstract concepts like fate and destiny. He didn’t have time for steppe myths (though his tune had certainly changed of late) or ghost stories, scoffing at the tall tales their patients would weave about mysterious injuries.

What a pity that he’ll have to ask why he froze some other time.

“I’ll be right there, Mishka,” Artemy promises. He redirects his gaze at Daniil, lips prepared to offer him an apology, but Daniil isn’t looking at him. Daniil is still looking at Murky.

“Would you like a lullaby, pumpkin?”

The question takes Murky by surprise as much as it does Artemy. The gentility surprises him. In the time Artemy has known him, Daniil has always been soft-spoken, but his words were often terse and anxious. He was snarky with the teenagers who hung around him, and though never exactly cold, Artemy could not have predicted he’d offer an action so generous.

Murky’s fingers twist in her nightgown, uncertain. “Aba usually hums for me.” She drops the hem of her dress, looking at Daniil’s knees as she speaks. “He’s not very good at singing.”

Daniil laughs quietly. “I know a song from the Capital. Something my mother used to sing to soothe my troubled mind and ward off evil spirits haunting my dreams.”

“They’re not evil,” Murky says after some consideration. Daniil nods for her to continue, though she’s still not quite looking at him. “They don’t scare me. Nuh-uh. But they won’t let me sleep.”

“I see.”

Artemy wishes he could get a glimpse of Daniil’s expression. He’d been worried that the man would have no patience for the children, easing him slowly into their dynamic by inviting him over when the kids were otherwise occupied. Now, he can’t help but imagine what Daniil was like as a child. Was he always so serious, so reserved? Did he cry for his mother to chase away the spirits, or was it the preemptive actions of an overprotective parent?

Daniil takes his movements slowly, brushing off his lap and preparing himself to stand when he could just as easily have snapped to attention. “Could you show me where the ghosts are, Murky?”

Murky looks up at him - though Artemy doubts that her gaze goes past his navel.

She doesn’t answer with words, turning on the balls of her feet and leading him into the hallway. Artemy gives them a few second’s head start, curious to see what they will do but not wanting to crowd.

Sneaking is difficult with the age of the house, the creaking floorboards, but if the two notice him following behind they do not care. When Artemy approaches, Daniil is standing in front of her closet with his hands on his hips, listening to her talk. And Artemy knows this concern well, as she has explained it many times - that there are things inside her wardrobe, ghosts that haunt her clothes, that wake her up with songs. Daniil responds, too softly for Artemy to make out what he is saying, but he watches Murky nervously twist her fingers around before she shrugs.

He prepares to be called to. Murky tends toward discomfort with those she does not know well, and though Daniil has spent more time in their home as of late, his interactions with the kids have been scattered. Artemy is then surprised to watch her crawl back into bed as Daniil returns to her side, crouching to reach her as he starts to sing.

Hush now, ghosts who live here with us give us our sleep we’ll give you no fuss. When dawn breaks and our problems are few you may come back and we’ll start anew.

His voice is...not bad. It might even be pretty, if louder, and certainly steadier than Artemy’s warble. 

Artemy retreats, hoping not to disturb them, and waits near the entrance to what passes for a sitting room. Daniil moves much quieter than he does, on his toes now just as Murky had been. He looks up at Artemy, eyes distant a second before they return, lips pulling into the slightest of smiles.

“Her wardrobe is haunted, you know,” he whispers, “though I believe most closets are.”

“Is that a Capital superstition?”

Daniil shakes his head. “Professional opinion.” Artemy doesn’t understand. The far-away tint to Daniil’s eyes is gone, but he has the feeling that there’s a story waiting to unravel somewhere in the future. He won’t press just yet. There’s more that waits to be uncovered, stories he knows he will hear when the time is right.

[phoenixyfriend]

Re: the AU where Anakin, Ahsoka, and Rex are stuck on Tattooine pre-TPM, how much of the truth does Shmi know? Is she aware that Local Weird Mechanic is her baby boy all grown up?

I addressed this in a previous ask but Shmi is the first person to know they’re time-travelers and, for three years, the only person to know.

Base Post

Anakin didn’t actually think to give a fake name at first, because he wasn’t aware that he was in the past, and assumed that between his Very Famous face and Rex’s Very Recognizable armor, people would just know who he was on sight, even on Tatooine. I imagine that Tatooine, despite mostly ignoring the war, had a lot of the lower classes being very eager for information on the Jedi General with a slave name. Like all else aside, That’s One Of Ours.

So Anakin doesn’t bother with a fake name, and by the time he realizes what’s up with time-travel, it’s too late. He’s already cemented himself in the memories of at least a handful of people that, for whatever reason, he needs or wants to stay on good terms with.

[more under the cut]

The next issue is that Anakin doesn’t want his mom to have her choices taken away. She has friends on Tatooine, despite everything. A husband, in the future, that he understands she genuinely loved. Anakin doesn’t know for sure that his mom would want to leave the planet. He wants to give her the choice, but if she wants to stay on Tatooine, then he needs to free her the “legal” way, by buying her (and little Ani’s) freedom, because otherwise she’ll have to be on the lookout for Hutt Law Enforcement who are looking to get Watto’s property back for him.

If she wants to leave the planet, then it’s easy enough to steal in, deactivate/remove the slave chip, and smuggle her out. They’ve done that before. It’s fine.

But it has to be Shmi’s choice, and Anakin is very adamant about that.

This means that he needs to, you know, talk to her. And ask her what she wants. And the thing is, if he just asks “Hey, can I talk to your slave for a bit,” Watto will have very specific assumptions about what Anakin wants, gross ones. Shmi is also likely to have those assumptions until Anakin clarifies what’s going on. If he just asks her the questions about slavery without a specification as to why he cares, then there’s a solid chance she might assume that he’s there to trap her in questions she can’t answer because he’s been hired to find runaway slaves, and that’s just a mess of its own.

What it really comes down to, for Anakin, is that he has to go to his and his mom’s hovel, where Watto can’t interfere OR make assumptions out loud that have Bad Connotations, and talk to Shmi one-on-one (probably he brings Ahsoka to distract little Ani). His options at that point are two versions of the truth: 1. Former slave who is looking to free her and other slaves, and is contacting her at this point because he wants to prioritize those with children 2. Just telling her that he’s her son from the future

But this is Anakin, who often puts his emotions before his logic, and also really misses his mom. He is a dramatic mess who shows up at her door with a hood to hide his face, says something dramatic but with like... whatever code makes it clear that he used to be a slave and is there for that business, and tells her “here, my teenage apprentice can distract your son while we talk.”

And they sit down, Anakin feeling very awkward, and then he just... takes her hands and lets her feel him in the Force because I imagine Shmi was at least a little Force-Sensitive, if only because it’s more convenient for me if she is. Anakin proves that he is the future version of her adorable six-year-old, and he explains the choices and his plans, and Shmi firmly tells him that if he’s a Jedi now, and doesn’t have an official obligation back on Coruscant, then he can help a LOT more people by staying on Tatooine and joining a freedom trail of some sort. People need help, there’s no war to fight, and Anakin can do as much good freelancing at home as he could going back to Official Jedi Work. She’ll stay to help since she’s got more contacts than he does.

Anakin’s like “yes, absolutely, I will do whatever you say” because he can’t say no to Mom.

They have to come up with a cover story for Anakin and Anakin having the same exact name, especially once Little Ani grows up enough to look like his older self, so Shmi and Anakin work out a plan to claim that she once had a younger brother named Anakin, whom she was separated from years ago, when the brother was a child and she was a teenager. She heard through the grapevine that he’d died, and a few years later had a child that she named after the little brother, as one does. Turns out the little brother isn’t dead, he was freed and joined an army of some sort, got married and picked up an apprentice, and is now back on Tatooine to Free His Sister (and also everyone else).

The “I am my own uncle” cover story will not hold up without Shmi’s full involvement, which is fine because Shmi is willing to play hardball in this situation. Big Anakin is a trained Jedi and war general, and Rex is very good at logistics, and Ahsoka’s a sneaky little shit. They are a great addition to the network of freedom trails on Tatooine, especially since the mix of skills they have is pretty much guaranteed to provide a solid cover for a lot of what they do. Anakin is an expert mechanic, Ahsoka is good enough to proudly claim to be his apprentice, and Rex’s logistic management of the paperwork is good enough to hide a lot of the more secret money that flows through once Hutt Tax People show up.

Running a space mechanic shop means it’s really easy to excuse basically any large ship that stops by. That freighter is just here to get a tune-up, sir! It’s definitely spice they’re hiding in the secret cargo holds, not three dozen escaped sentients.

We have all this medical equipment because of the number of burns we get welding things into place, or the incidents where someone slips and gets cut on a saw. Definitely not there for removing slave chips.

Those shipping manifests are definitely just here so we can project our possible income in the next few seasons by guessing who’s going to be coming through the city, and not us trying to figure out how many of Jabba’s goons we can sabotage without getting caught.