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soshadysoquiet · 5 months

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TUA fanfic WIP: Sibling Beach Trip

I've recently devoured @assaily 's WIP posts and you know what, why hoard all of my WIPs when I may never finish them and people might enjoy them?

Having said that this isn't a snippet so much as it's a 2 thirds done fic that I've lost inspiration for the ending for so grab yourself a drink and enjoy!

Working Title: Beach No Beach. Love a working title

Length: 6k. Self control? Who is she?

Premise: Post apocalypse a family beach trip is proposed. Five has his reservations and is finding real life hard to adjust to, but he'll go if that's the Sibling Movement of the week. This is basically a slice of life fic that I'm pretty sure was going to build to Diego needing to save Five from drowning at the beach, because of course it was, but I think the rest of this has enough low-level angst and family moments to be entertaining on it's own.

Warnings: This fic discusses body dysmorphia in small detail and has underage drinking from Five.

It was embarrassing. More than embarrassing, really.

Shameful.

But Five couldn’t swim.

They’d had what constituted as ‘lessons’ when they were kids, apparently. Five had very limited memories of life before the Apocalypse, and often they seemed more surreal than anything.

‘We did?’ He asked blankly, barely looking over his morning cup of coffee to Viktor and Klaus.

‘All the time bro!’ Klaus replied breathily, laughing, eyes just a little wide in the thrill of memory, or possibly at Five not remembering something. ‘You don’t remember the pool? I’m pretty sure Dad blocked off the door after we started sneaking down there to play.’

‘I remember.’ Viktor nodded along, smile curling his lips so that his face lit up. ‘That’s how we found about Diego-‘

‘And his creepy fish power!’ Klaus looked ready to implode with hysteria and even Viktor bent to the table with a snort before looking between them.

‘You really don’t remember that?’

‘Diego isn’t a fish…’ He spoke slowly. He was talking to children after all. Or maybe he was hallucinating again. It happened. Hiding his grimace, Five took a sip.

‘Yeah! Yeah he can really hold his breath, come on you have to remember that, we teased him for weeks!’

‘Yeah that was kinda mean of us.’ Viktor grimaced a little into his own coffee. Probably for no reason, Viktor at that age wouldn’t have said Boo to a goose.

Hold his breath? It almost was a memory. Someone laughing, Diego pouting, then throwing a fit.

‘I think I’d remember us finding out about that.’

‘Maybe you blocked it out, it was pretty horrible at the time.’ The tone shifted after Viktor’s words.

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me.’

‘What doesn’t surprise you?’ Diego.

‘Speak of the devil!’ Klaus chorused, Five flinched a little at Diego’s hand falling briefly onto his shoulder as he passed. But it was barely noticeable now, he’d almost got a hang on it. ‘We were reminiscing about the time Dear old Dad decided to test out our underwater endurance.’

‘You mean when he held us all under the water until you all near passed out and I beat all your asses.’

‘Definitely would have remembered that one.’ Five murmured, covering up the chill skipping over his flesh.

‘Technically you didn’t beat my ass, since I wasn’t included in How to Drown Your Kids 101.’ Viktor replied with a darkly amused smirk and the sort of steel satisfaction that only true trauma inspired.

‘Well I’d have beaten you too.’ Diego retorted, confident as he went about fetching some ungodly looking juice concoction from the fridge.

How many different fruits went into just that, how many vegetables? The math wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth the pang of mixed dread and desire it inspired in him.

‘And then we all called you, ah, well, never mind eh?’ Diego’s glare had silenced Klaus.

‘For the record, we’re sorry.’ Viktor offered, voice so gentle and meaning.

‘I’ve got nothing to be sorry for.’ Five retorted. He wasn’t there after all, and he was above childish name calling. He had found more creative insults.

‘Well you got off the hook easily anyway, you weren’t even there.’ Diego chimed in, but did take the time to nod to Viktor in a passing sense of camaraderie. He sat heavily at the table and looked at them all as he took a drink. ‘What brought this on anyway?’

‘We’re trying to convince little Fivey-‘

‘Older than you!’ His insistence was soundly ignored.

‘To come to the beach with us all at the weekend.’ Diego hastily swallowed the mouthful of his juice. What could all those ingredients even taste like together? Five shook his head at the sight.

‘Hell yeah you should come! You don’t get out enough.’

‘I get out plenty.’

‘To the library maybe.’ Klaus mumbled, twiddling with the buttons undone on his shirt.

‘Come on Five, it would be fun!’

‘Would it really?’ He sighed, wished he’d just blinked back up to his room with the coffee.

‘Its the beach bro.’ Diego’s voice was so deadpan that Five managed to feel insulted.

‘There isn’t even anything there! It’s all dead anyway!’ One of his hands gestured with the coffee cup for effect as he complained but the others were staring at him and, oh, right. Nervously he cleared his throat. ’I mean-‘

‘No, no what is it?’ Klaus was too gentle. They’d started doing this recently, paying attention to him rather than responding with their own drama and pushing what he said aside. Five didn’t know what to do with it. And it only took a few rapid equations to work out the cheapest way out of this situation.

‘Fine I’ll go. But don’t expect me to enjoy it.’ He blinked away. But not far.

Paranoid.

‘Alright alright.’ Five muttered quietly at Dolores’ imagined critique from where he sat in the pantry, listening.

‘Well, that was surprisingly easy, only took ten minutes.’ Klaus sounded both pleased and a little disappointed. Had he not wanted Five to come after all, or had he just wanted to do more wheedling?

‘What do you think he meant by it being dead?’ Viktor asked, voice contemplative and too damn observant.

‘I swear to God Klaus, if you making him go to the beach causes another apocalypse-‘

Diego and Klaus devolved into childish squabbles and Five blinked out of the pantry.

The beach huh. He hadn’t seen it in decades. He’d only been the once. If they’d ever done any missions by the sea as children Five certainly didn’t remember it.

It could be nice this time.

‘We can’t swim Dolores.’ In the emptiness of his room, the reminder drifted lifeless. He’d learned that one the hard way. ‘And only you can float.’

A weekend beach trip sounded like hell to Five but apparently he was one of the few. Yet it was interesting that the closer they got to the date the more cracks appeared in the others’ armour.

Diego would boast about his abilities, but when Luther had guffawed ‘oh my god! Fish-Boy!’ Their knife-wielding vigilante had begun to stammer on and off when they talked about the ocean. Allison had bitched at Luther down the phone for it, as had Klaus in person. Five had been listening in on parts of the phone call.

Because he liked to hear their voices, not because he was paranoid, Dolores!

But it wasn’t just Diego.

Allison had sounded hesitant, and wanted to bring Claire, but remained nervous about mixing Claire with their family. Five usually made himself scarce on the rare occasions that Allison brought Claire around. It had only been twice, but no matter how much he wanted to meet her, Five didn’t have anything to fall back on when interacting with people outside his siblings. Unless they were a threat, or it was for less than two minutes.

Three minutes fifteen had been his record, at the library where he went to practice. And after that he’d had to go hide in the bathroom stall and have a minor panic attack.

With people that mattered it was harder. Because there was only so long Five could talk to someone who mattered before he fucked it up. He’d only been able to say ‘Hi, nice to meet you’ to Claire before becoming overwhelmed by her childlike open-stare and making an excuse to run away. But he wasn’t the only reason for Allison’s hesitance.

Five thought she was worried about the crazy rubbing off.

During last month’s visit Klaus had told Claire the story of Dead Uncle Ben after she’d caught Klaus talking to what looked like thin air. Five had overheard on the phone call the week after how Claire had begun ‘talking to Dead Uncle Ben’ at school. For a custody battle situation, it was understandably a nightmare.

Diego always had knives on him, and children had sticky fingers. Claire kept trying to pull them out from Diego’s pockets and holsters and fingers. It wasn’t as if Diego encouraged or approved of it, but he had offered to teach her before he’d caught Allison’s look. And even at the beach Diego would probably be packing at least three knives. Probably more.

Luther had been fine at first, and was Claire’s favourite uncle. But then the Holy Trinity of Stupid; hitherto named Klaus, Luther and Diego, had loudly reminisced about the all the times Luther had accidentally injured them during training when they were kids. Even Five had joined in; Luther smacking him hard enough into the wall after a mis-timed jump and cracking his arm during combat training were ironically some of his clearer memories. Allison trusted Luther with Claire’s life, but she had looked a little green around the gills as they all laughed about it.

Viktor hadn’t done anything to directly inspire worry, but Allison had told Luther she was worried about Claire finding out what she’d done to her sibling when they were children. Five had stopped listening to the phone call once Allison started crying, feeling more than a little guilty about his eavesdropping.

So, Allison was apprehensive about Family Fun-Time at the Beach because it involved Family Fun-Time. Otherwise known as ill-facilitated chaos.

Klaus worried about taking Ben to the ocean and Ben being sad about only being able to be so-corporeal in the ocean. A guilt Five felt Klaus didn’t need to put on himself, given that without him there would be no beach for Ben. But he’d been told he had a rather unsympathetic view on things and asked to leave. It didn’t help that Ben was apparently desperate to go to the ocean and also sad about it, apparently.

Or so Five could tell from what he’d heard when he stood nearby Klaus’ room at night, or followed him at night down the street, or when he was hiding in the pantry eating fluffed-nutter sandwiches and just listening to his siblings being alive.

Friday lunchtime and Five thought that most of the pre-beach drama had probably run its course, that said nothing for what would blow up when they were actually there in typical Hargreeves-style. And he counted the journey to and from as a separate nightmarish entity altogether, but at least this time he was one of the cats to be herded, not the one doing the herding. Small mercies.

They were just lucky that Lila had decided not to come. Apparently their powers ‘gave her a headache’ whilst she was pregnant. Five had gone to visit her out of boredom and sibling duty, and swore to report back on the idiocy for her, and had somehow gotten roped into shopping.

‘Just zap us all there, I want to feel alive again.’

‘You could do it yourself.’ He pointed out, and she groaned and grabbed his hand. They did that a lot, held hands. Five had actually come to enjoy the brusque contact with his most violent sister. There remained a certain comfort in the knowledge he was holding the hand of another killer.

‘Don’t be a prick.’ She groaned. He waited, brow raised. ‘Look you’re more practiced than me alright! I don’t want to jump there and find out little Lila Junior is all over the floor somewhere else!’

‘Okay that’s disgusting.’ He’d blinked them just to stop the conversation, but not so quick that he hadn’t seen her wicked grin at his pain.

And, of course, after jumping that far, he didn’t have the juice to escape.

‘Do you even own anything that isn’t some god-awful dark academia bullshit?’

‘Rich coming from a punk.’

‘You’re going to the beach not a banquet-‘ They’d snapped and bitten at each other whilst grinning through their shark teeth and Lila had forced him to buy a pair of truly heinous swimming trunks about the length of the Academy shorts he’d used to wear. At least until Allison had dragged him out shopping again.

‘You wore that nice suit in the Sparrow timeline, you do not need to go back to looking like a prep-school kid.’

At least Allison had taste.

And secretly, Five had been glad that someone had made him do it. Old routines were the hardest to break for him when they seemed so ultimately unimportant.

‘Sunglasses!’ Lila belted out, breaking his musings and dragged him roughly over to a stand. She’d fussed over trying on shades and insisting on him doing the same and Five had allowed himself to pick out a pair he actually quite liked.

They suit you better than those goggles. Five huffed a smile at that. Dolores always had deplored his apocalyptic wardrobe.

‘I just, I want to be out there, but I’m not sure I’m ready to be out there.’ Five’s head popped up over the sunglasses stand.

‘Viktor? Luthor?’

‘Five!’

‘Lila?’

‘There’s the boys! No Klaus?’

‘He was, um, what are you doing here?’ Luther stumbled the words, other than Klaus and Five, the siblings were still somewhat awkward around Diego’s partner. Lila didn’t let it show, but Five thought the distance there bothered her. Five certainly wasn’t the one to know what to do about it. Klaus had told him he ‘imprinted’, like a duckling, and that had been enough ‘friendship’ talk to last another lifetime.

And he got embarrassed enough by Diego’s obvious happiness at him taking the time to include Lila.

Five held up the shorts he was being frog-marched into buying.

Not that there was a point, because he wouldn’t be stepping foot in the ocean ever again.

‘Apparently this is required dress code.’

‘Oh, same.’ Luther grinned a bit, before his face fell. Viktor, who’d been the one talking earlier, looked a little sullen.

‘No offence, but me and my spawn are going to walk away from all this.’ Lila gestured and excited stage left back towards the child section where, embarrassingly, Five had just come from to get the shorts in his hand. She had meant that their powers were bothering her, a weird pregnancy side-effect, but the pair of them looked a little slapped in the face.

‘What’s up with you two?’ Five asked, coming around the sunglasses stand to eye them up and down better. ‘Was it Diego? It’s usually Diego.’

‘What? No.’ Luther insisted. Viktor cleared his throat.

‘It’s just,’ Viktor paused for a breath and looked to Luther, who nodded encouragingly. ‘It’s hard to, cross some hurdles, with the dysmorphia.’

‘It’ll get easier, or I hope it will.’ Luther’s half-encouragement was half-hearted but well meaning, and Viktor offered him a small sad smile. Five just frowned at them.

‘Dysmorphia?’ He rolled the word around, squinting. ‘The medical condition?’ He frowned harder. In a sense, Luther’s ape-like physicality could be called that. But Sloane had gone a long way to helping with that. But she wasn’t fully welcomed into the loving disaster that was his family yet, so she wouldn’t be at the beach. Maybe that was the problem.

He’d said the wrong thing, Luther was flushed in embarrassment and Viktor put a hand on his arm before cutting in.

‘No, well-‘

‘Sort of, in my case. Both I guess.’ Luther spoke over Viktor, seeming to pull in his confidence with a truly remarkable strength. Strength of character that their father had always failed to measure. Much like Viktor’s patience.

‘Body dysmorphia. It’s when you might feel like the way your body looks isn’t how you think it should be. It’s how I felt, before. And somedays there’s another new hurdle to cross.’

‘It’s not comfortable, the idea of being on show like that.’ They managed their words with aplomb, but Five was somewhere between them and himself.

Maybe that was selfish, but he found himself looking at his own hands as they spoke, jaw a little slack.

Dysmorphia.

‘Oh.’ He didn’t have many more words for them, but the silence suggested he should, so he pulled away from himself and looked to them again. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

Taken aback a little by the blunt question, they looked at each other. Viktor found his voice first.

‘We were debating between making a ’t-shirts are ok’ pact or a-‘

‘’Skin or nothing’ oath.’ Luther finished. Five didn’t think he had the skill set to say the right thing.

You do. Dolores insisted softly. You’re kinder than you think.

‘Well, let me know what you decide.’ He offered, hoping he was somewhere on the track to wiping the misery off their faces. Three apocalypses and it’s still the human condition bringing us all down. ‘I’ll join you.’ Decidedly he nodded, and turned to make sure Lila wasn’t getting caught shoplifting. Honestly her skills needed some improvement. Although she would probably say the same about him.

Viktor and Luther’s seaside-problems Five could understand maybe a bit better on a personal level than those afflicting the rest of his family, because there was a certain degree of dysmorphia to all their bodily situations that didn’t bother dwelling on but couldn’t not be dwelt on at the beach. It wasn’t like he enjoyed looking at himself in the mirror, so on some level he got it.

He’d bring a t-shirt in case.

Despite their united worry, and Five’s pessimism, the Hargreeves family all descended on the mansion Friday evening for their trip to the beach the following day.

Five nearly blinked to the roof when Claire ran up and hugged him, standing with his fists clenched throughout and then vanishing behind the bar. As in hidden behind the bar. He had long ago sworn to Allison that he wouldn’t drink in front of Claire. They could at least both agree that she was a child.

Luther and surprisingly Viktor got drunk on the other side of the bar and Klaus merrily joined in.

Lila dropped Diego off to stay overnight since they had an early start come the morning, and Five contemplated blinking into their car to escape whilst Diego shouted at her to not do anything criminal while he was gone.

Allison escaped to smoke twice in between fretting about which sibling to entrust Claire to in the meantime, and quickly decided to just put Claire to bed instead.

Five listened to it all hidden behind the bar. Klaus knew he was there, he kept passing his glass down for Five to refill. Five left a shot out for Ben as well, because it felt polite, Even if apparently Ben disapproved of alcohol.

All too soon, they were turning in for the night in dribs and drabs.

Five hung on until the end. Surprisingly with Luther and Viktor.

‘Ahem.’ Luther cleared his throat and knocked a little sloppily on the bar top as they were turning to go. Five had been humming ‘Dream a little Dream of me’ for Dolores for the last few minutes and hiccupped himself to a stop. ‘For tomorrow, no shirts.’

‘No shirts!’ Viktor chorused loudly and very, very drunk, toppling a little from the sounds of it.

‘No shirts!’ Luther joined in and the pair stumbled up for the night.

‘No shirts.’ He toasted to the air, took his last swig and went to pick up Dolores-

But she wasn’t there. The shop had thrown her away.

In a flash the martini glass he’d been drinking from smashed against the bar where he’d thrown it.

You’re gonna have to clean that up now.

‘I know, I know.’

He ignored the catch in his voice as he moved to do just that, craving to hold her and getting glass shards instead.

—

‘Get up Five! Christ, there’s always one.’

‘And it’s usually him, or you. Actually it's usually you.’

‘Shut up and help me! Oh wait you can’t.’

‘Wow, low blow.’

‘Oh I can go lower-‘

‘Shut up.’ Five smacked his pillow at Klaus like a true teenager and glowered. His hair was ruffled and he smelt like a bar.

‘You look like some nasty little cat I found on the sidewalk and just want to put in a blanket,’ Klaus half-crooned, half sneered, grabbing his grumbling gremlin of a brother. ‘Now come on, get up and showered or Allison will have our asses.’

‘Have our asses!’ All three of them turned with slightly horrified gazes to see Claire standing in the door giggling, fingers pressed over her mouth and looking like she knew exactly what she was doing. The little tyrant. With a final giggle she turned and ran. ‘Mooooooom!’

‘No no no no no!’ Klaus abandoned Five to his fate and sprinted off after his favourite little terror of a niece. If she made it to Allison, they were all doomed.

She made it Allison.

Five managed to get himself somewhat presentable, down the stairs and into clothes. In fact they all did, more or les on time, it was a Hargreeves miracle.

‘Loving the shorts buddy. You needed more colour in your wardrobe.’

‘Keep talking and I’ll sk-‘ Five stopped himself, Ben snorted uncharitably behind Klaus’ shoulder as Claire looked eerily around at them, eyes wide and guileless. Klaus cleared his throat whilst Five’s brain seemed to re-wire itself, clutching his coffee for dear life and eyes shielded by shades. ‘Skkkunk you.’

‘Skunk you.’ Claire mouthed, hand benignly in Allison’s, eyes bright with hell-fire.

‘Skunk me?’ Klaus turned to Five again, disbelief and laughter battling for dominance in his chest. ‘That’s the best you could do?’

‘Keep talking, and you’ll find out.’ Five’s coffee got grumbled into and Ben guffawed behind them.

‘You’re both idiots.’

‘Shut up Ben!’

‘Dead Uncle Ben’s here?!’ Klaus shrivelled under the weight of Allison’s incredulous raised brows turning to him with the sweet promise of death as Ben ‘awwed’ behind him.

Allison had already had to put up with Claire having a tantrum about not being able to talk to Uncle Ben, and had thrown her hands in the air when Klaus had said Ben also wanted to talk to Claire.

‘Sure, why not! Let’s just wheel her right into therapy rather than window-shopping it!’ She had stormed to the back of the bus and sat next to Five, because he was currently the quietest and she saw the least of him.

Ben’s blue conjured form absolutely enchanted Claire, and her eyes swelled so large and happy and un-affected by rumour as she looked gleefully between Dead Uncle Ben and her Mom that it made Allison’s heart lighter.

Watching Ben form into what existence Klaus could give him was always a delight, if a bittersweet one, and Allison found herself relaxing a bit at watching the joint joy on her child and brother’s faces.

They had taken the bus to the beach, changed three times and by the time the ocean breeze was coming salty and refreshing through the window Allison’s hungover siblings had drunk enough coffee, water and juice to grace the land of the living. Viktor and Luther had woken from their nap enough to tease Diego about his upcoming life of parenthood. She’d berate them, or join them, but honestly they were just the warm up act for the terror Allison herself could inspire if she told Diego the truth of parenting. But she didn’t quite want to do that.

Something in her knew the horrors too well to joke about them right now, the emotions always too present. And some dark voice inside her said that she didn’t get to lord it over anyone. Not with the mess she’d made the first time round.

And probably was making, letting her kid talk to her ghost Uncle.

‘It’ll be fine.’ Allison jolted a bit, and glanced down at Five, slumped still somewhat bonelessly, dressed in a plain top and tropical beach shorts that were almost the same shade of yellow as Allison’s own bikini under her wrap dress. Five was alert enough to be verbal, which was good, but not quite enough to move further down the bus and put up with their family’s particular brand of unending bullshit.

‘What will?’ She asked, bewildered. ‘This family trip? I’m pretty sure its’ already gone way better than it should, which means we’re due for a tsunami at least.’ He snickered at that and she smiled at the rarely heard sound.

‘Well I won’t disagree, but I meant Claire with Ben. If anyone can talk sense to her, it’s the one who usually holds the brain cell.’

And Five was somewhat right. Despite the way he very awkwardly coughed and looked through his fringe out the window when Claire came to sit between them.

‘Mom, I’m sorry about pretending to see Dead Uncle, I mean, Uncle Ben at school. I know it’s a Serious Topic now.’ She nodded solemnly, and Allison felt her face crease up in adoration at the attemptive-adult look on her daughter’s angelic face. And the apology that she wasn’t sure she deserved, but couldn’t help melting over. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop talking about him because Uncle Ben and Death are important.’ And just like that, adoration turned to the sort of disbelief that only children could inspire. Five snorted.

‘Smart kid.’ He muttered, and Allison found her smile reforming.

‘Thank you Claire, and you’re right, those are important topics. We’ll have a talk about bluntness at, a much, much later date.’ Because there were only so many Serious Parenting Moments she could handle before 10 in the morning. She thought she had an easy out, but then Five was turning to Claire with a devilish look at Allison over his glasses and a truly awful smile. Her stomach dropped.

‘Whatever she says don’t listen to her, your Mom mastered bluntness at age Six.’

‘Six?!’

‘Six.’ Five nodded.

‘I think you should go talk to Uncle Ben while he’s here sweetie, Uncle Klaus can only keep him visible so long-‘

‘But I wanna talk to Uncle Five too!’

‘No you don’t-‘ Allison and Five flashed each other an awkward look at their matching words.

‘Hey Claire! Claire! Wanna see the octopus in Uncle Ben’s belly-‘

‘NO SHOWING HER THE HORROR!’ Allison shouted as Claire squealed and ran for a glaring Ben and shit-eating Klaus.

She didn’t have one child, she had a whole bus of them.

The beach spray in the air wasn’t like he’d thought it would be.

Five watched the unreal blue hue of the ocean, heard the waves crash rather than slosh thickly, felt sand rather than trash and rubble under his feet.

It was beautiful.

‘So, we doing this?’

‘We’re doing this.’ He glanced to Luther and Viktor. They’d set up their family’s base-camp on the beach, and Allison was over at the nearby changing huts getting Claire sorted. Diego had set them up under one of the available umbrellas and was lecturing Klaus on sunscreen. Because of course he was.

Red rays from the too-hot sunlight burnt through the distorted atmosphere, piercing dust-and-storm clouds, lighting the grey sloshing water in an eerie light.

‘Don’t you want to swim? I always wanted to swim.’

‘Hey Five!’ Sand hit him in the face. Five spluttered and spun around. No crap littering the golden sands. Just his family and the blue tide. Disguising his shaky breath, Five glared at Diego. ‘You too, sun cream, come on line up.’

‘Sun cream Nazi.’

‘Want me to spray it in your face Klaus?’ Klaus just groaned, turning around obediently as Diego sprayed an endless can of aerosol ‘factor 30’ onto his pale skin.

‘Might as well get it over with Five. He’ll have his way.’ Klaus pouted.

‘That I will, alright, you’re done, come back in three hours.’

‘Alright Mom.’ Klaus mocked with a grin and escaped away, donning his brimmed hat and heading to the ocean.

‘You’re up.’ Diego beckoned him over and Five shook his head snorting.

‘The sun’s not even radioactive at this point.’ Diego stared and then grabbed him.

‘You’re the most in danger, young skin is important to protect.’

‘Get off me!’ Five snatched the can and roughly sprayed over himself before throwing it back. ‘Happy?’

‘That’s not how you apply sunscreen bro.’

‘Its literally what you just did.’

‘No sunscreen, no sun.’ Diego stated with an impressive amount of finality and pointed at the towels under the parasol where Viktor and Luther were lurking. Beyond them, Allison was running after Claire to the water.

‘Fine by me.’ He wasn’t swimming anyway, and he’d had enough of the sun’s harsh rays. Diego seemed appeased, and headed to the ocean himself.

Five settled down and, seeing his remaining brothers had already removed their shirts, did the same. Solidarity and all.

Job done, he settled back, and watched the ocean.

It was even more mesmeric now than it had been back then, thick with ash and ruined life, but the largest amount of water he’d seen in months.

He hadn’t washed in months.

Is it even real? Dolores laughed at him

‘Of course it’s real.’ Walking there had been a dream, heart thudding, shedding clothes along the way haphazardly, stumbling over ruble and Dolores in his arms, in a dream till the water sloshed over his ankles.

The sensation had sent shivers up his spine.

‘Hey, you swimming?’ Viktor nudged him back into focus and Five looked around him, glad of the sunglasses hiding his eyes.

‘No.’

‘Really? But we’re at the beach, and it’s pretty empty, even Luther’s in.’ It took Five a moment to notice that yes, he was. Tossing Claire up in the air and into the water as she squealed in delight. Diego looked like he was doing some pretty serious swimming while Klaus and Allison lounged in the shallows.

‘You go, have fun. I’ll guard the camp. Wouldn’t want us loosing our clothes.’ He got a frown at that, but Five had lost his Academy uniform that day on the beach and with it the only reminder of home he had left, the only identity he had. Not to mention the only clothes he’d had.

Just because he’d wanted to feel water and hadn’t weighed them down.

‘Well, come over when you’re ready. You’ll like it.’ He grinned in lieu of answering and Viktor shrugged and went off, both him and Luther bare-skinned from the waist up and wearing it with growing confidence.

Smiling a little, Five folded his arms behind his head and stretched his toes into the sand. It burned a bit, but the feeling was unlike anything he’d felt before. He kept doing it over and over, finally sitting up and admitting that he wanted to touch it.

Five settled off the towel and felt the sand all over, shivering, digging his fingers into it.

Dry and hot on top, cool and heavier underneath if he dug down far enough.

Golden, soft.

His fingers found a shell and Five took a while staring at the delicate pattern, mesmerised. He looked for more.

‘What are you doing?’ Five had to get a better handle on being snuck up on. He looked around to see Claire staring at him, rocking on her feet.

‘Finding shells.’ He replied.

‘I’ll help!’ She lay down next to the hole he’d dug and reached her arms in to tease through the sand. ‘They’re pretty.’

‘Uh, sure.’ Seeing how deep Claire had to reach into the hole, Five looked around and winced. Half of their belongings were covered in sand and to match the hole was a large mountain he’d moved aside, digging straight down mindlessly.

‘Is this one good?’ Claire pulled out a long, thin shell, poking Five’s knee with it.

‘Its great.’ He took it and tried not to feel her eyes on him as he looked it over. ‘It’s a razor clam shell.’ He offered, turning it over in his fingers and admiring the barred pattern. He put it in the ‘clam’ pile.

‘Really? What’s this one.’

‘A snail.’

‘And this one?’ Five glanced over from where he’d reached for another speck of porcelain white buried in the sand.

‘A crab claw.’

‘Where’s the rest of the crab?’

‘Given that that’s it’s arm, I’m assuming that it’s dead.’

‘Like Uncle Ben.’

‘Like Uncle Ben. Although, I don’t know if crabs have ghosts that stick around, that’s really an ethical and philosophical debate on the presence of a soul and frankly it’s exhausting.’

‘Oh.’

‘Claire! There you are, don’t run off like that!’ Allison looked vaguely harassed as she hurried to them. ‘Oh, Five, thanks for looking after her.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ He replied, somewhat guilty where he had moved to sit in the hole he’d dug, and hadn’t even noticed Claire being ‘missing’ in the first place. He’d been too focused by the texture of sand and delicate shells.

‘What are you two doing?’ The frown and amused quirk to her mouth suggested that this wasn’t normal.

‘Uncle Five’s collecting shells.’ Incredulous eyes turned his way, Five scowled.

‘I can stop.’ He snapped out.

‘No, no Five, it’s okay. People collect shells at the beach.’ Her assurance was swift but gentle, genuine. Claire was looking at him wide-eyed.

‘Oh. Okay.’ He replied, somewhat derailed from defending himself.

Prickly. Five ignored Dolores’ fond chuckle.

‘Impressive hole Five.’ Luther came up behind Allison and Five hopped out enough to sit on the rim of his sand pit. Claire squealed on seeing him and reached up to be lifted, she kept hold of the crab claw.

‘What is that?’

‘It’s Uncle Five’s dead crab!’

‘Don’t touch things like that!’ Allison wrestled it from Claire who pouted.

‘Uncle Five touched it!’

‘Well, he’s a heathen, not a lady.’ Five snorted, but didn’t deny it. ‘Let’s go wash your hands.’ Claire was led away with a plea of ‘but mooooooom’ and Luther took her place.

‘You’re not swimming?’

‘Apparently I’m collecting shells.’ Five gestured over to the neatly sorted collection he’d accumulated.

Dolores liked them.

‘I just thought you were digging a hole. Maybe we should make a sand castle.’

‘A what?’ Luther was already gathering the sand Five had piled up and grinned.

‘I’ll show you! I used to try and make miniature ones on the moon with the moon dust I collected, but we could make a really big one!’ The childlike enthusiasm was enough to stir Five’s eternal curiosity, he followed Luther out of his hole and felt the sun lap his skin as they began forming a ‘foundation’.

It was surprisingly enjoyable. Therapeutically technical.

It looks good.

It did, Five thought.

Give it a tower for me, like a princess would have.

‘It needs a tower.’

‘Good idea. And a flag.’

They built for a while before Diego came to join them and added himself in with a comment of ‘sick’. They stuck one of Diego’s knives in the top in place of a flag and Viktor and Klaus came by with a heaping assortment of lunch foods.

‘Feeding time at the zoo!’

Allison and Claire followed having been in the sea again, and Five got up and stretched from where he’d been hunched over. The water glittered in the sun.

Five thought he might like the beach.

‘Five, your back!’

‘What about it?’ Five looked at Diego askance but got pushed under the shade.

‘It’s coming up red already, I told you to stay in the shade.’

‘Such a parent in the making.’ Klaus teased. ‘What? I think it’s sweet, really!’ Ben, apparently, was getting involved.

‘I’m fine.’ Five protested, but was wrangled onto one of their sandy towels and he watched bemused as Diego wetted a t-shirt and draped it over Five’s shoulders. The coolness did feel good, he hadn’t realised how hot his skin had gotten. Sometimes it was hard to feel things.

‘After lunch, you’re putting sunscreen on.’ Diego warned with a raised finger and firm stare. ‘Now drink your water.’

‘You’re not the boss of me.’ But he wasn’t about to waste water, so he drunk what he was given and ate the hotdog passed his way and listened to their chatter. With the distraction of the sand gone, his thoughts ticked lazily back to the last ocean trip he’d had.

He’d been so hungry that time that he’d contemplated eating one of the rotting fish carcasses before deciding better.

#the umbrella academy #tua #five hargreeves #diego hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #luther hargreeves #tua fan fiction #tua fanfic #allison hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #ben hargreeves #family bonding #slice of life #wip

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meltorights · 3 months

Note

WAS the forbidden fruit a metaphor for sex?

in short, no--but,

god blesses humankind after he makes them, and sexuality is part of the blessing. the book of genesis is a patchwork compiled from four different sources. in particular, the creation account has two sources, the first "god said let there be light." in this account god makes humans after ordering the whole universe in seven days. he then tells them to "be fruitful and multiply."

but in the second (and older) story, God comes down to earth. he takes clay. molds it. breathes life into it. and it becomes the human. then he makes all the animals to be its companion. this is an image of god experimenting. failing, if we may be so bold to say. each time, the human names the animal, but cannot see them as its companion.

and then god puts it to sleep, and takes a bone, and makes the woman--here, the hebrew begins using specifically gendered words for "man" and "woman," and when the "man" wakes up, he says: "here is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," recognizing someone like himself at last.

and the account of the Fall is a continuation of this story. like many of the stories from the first few books of the bible, it's sparse in detail, it does not give motivations or elaborate explanations, it just narrates events. a man and a woman in a garden. two trees, one of which god forbids them to eat from. a snake (certainly not, in the human author's mind, the devil). a question. they eat. and they are driven out.

and on one level we should simply take this story at face value. we can't really reconstruct an "authentic meaning" without doing some violence to the text.

these books do not deal in complex metaphors or analogies. they do not skirt around sex--whether it is violent and contrary to the law or not. people "lay with each other." the wisdom books of the bible employ metaphor--whether it's the misogynistic warnings of sirach or the exuberant celebration of sex and bodies in song of songs--but these earlier text simply narrate. majestically and unconcerned about the questions they raise.

and these gaps leave for all kinds of explanations, filling-ins, that seem plausible! a man and a woman lead many people to think it must be about sex, or about seduction--that eve, being a woman, seduced adam into taking the fruit, and that he was to weak to resist her and impose his (god's!) authority. or that the tree of knowledge of good and evil represents our desire to make whatever we choose "good" or "evil" and thus impose our will on the world. but none of that is in the text.

the one hint of sex is that when they eat the fruit they realize they are naked. but the story is not so much concerned with nakedness as with shame. they make clothes from themselves to cover their bodies from each other, they hide from God, telling him they were afraid because they were naked.... the fruit is not some "Unchastity" or "Impurity," the fruit is what makes unchastity and impurity possible. before they were perfectly at home in their bodies, now they see them as a source of shame. they are alienated from their own bodies, in their shame alienated from each other and from God, even from the earth--now they must sweat in labor to eat.

you could think that in the garden the first humans had perfect sexual freedom, without shame, without inhibition, and without any kind of abuse of power or exploitation. and then they lost it all.

that's not in the text, but like i said, the text is sparse. if anything is sexual, it's these gaps the text leaves for us--they're erotic, like clothes that conceal just the right parts of the body. they're what invite us to penetrate the text, to meld with it, to be rough and passionate with it. i normally don't go in for the whole "text as orifice" metaphor: it seems a bit irreverent, a bit embarrassing, a bit try-hard at times, but here it's true..... the holes in the text can enable us to love it. so, in that sense, the fruit could be sex; as a gay person who grew up in a deeply homophobic catholic setting, I can certainly relate to such a reading, un-textual though it may be. we must recognize that we cannot read the text without doing some level of reading into, without penetrating--the text wants us to do so.

and for christians, of course, the text, the Word, the Logos, is God.

#sorry for writing an essay. also sorry for getting all vague and text crit on you. it's not the kind of thing i normally go in for.#de profundis #tep.txt

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sol-consort · 7 months

Text

Not over how Javik can read your emotions by a simple touch. How useful would it be if you're someone who didn't express themselves often? Maybe you don't even understand your own emotions half the time or recognition them, yet Javik can easily tell each wave going through you apart from its sisters.

Your tearless sadness, your joy with a lack of smiles, your unbotheted but secretly bothered expression. Any difficulty you might face when it comes to both traverse the bottomless oceans of your emotions, but also attempt to make something comprehensible out of them for others around you whilst battling the waves not to drown.

Because something we all come to terms with is accepting disappointment in love, that our loved ones simply can't read our mind, they can't know what we're feeling or thinking if we don't activity communicate it.

So we lower our standards, accept that mishaps and miscommunication will happen, become content with the imperfections of love.

Each one of us must have realised it at some point, that no matter how much you explained yourself to someone you care about, at times, they simply will not get it. It's one of the things in life you learn to get used to, a part of human nature to grow into.

Javik completely defies that law. He breaks out of the mould. Not only can he read your brain, but your emotions too! He senses your body, your flesh, your blood running through your veins and your heart beating so quietly in the middle of the chaos of chemistry and cell division happening around it. Holding so many secrets inside, so many untold things you simply can't choke out, so many unfulfilled dreams and desires.

Not only does he see them, but he feels them as well. For once, someone is truly understanding you, understanding how it feels, how intense it can get. No one but yourself in this life can share your own experience. No matter how hard anyone tries, it's simply impossible to fully understand someone else.

Yet he does it. With a simple touch at that, too. He feels your soul, connects to it for a second in time, and views the real you, vulnerable and bare from all masks you put around your loved ones, not to make them worry.

He is you for a second as he processes each single overwhelming emotion you've felt for so many years.

No wonder he constantly wants to touch people. It explains why he's the way he is, why his words are harsh, why his face is expressionless. He never had to fake it, he never had to communicate his feelings through all these unreliable ways. Protheons could simply press a finger against one another and get to peak inside each other's hearts.

Our clumsy ways just pale in comparison, we are primitive indeed.

How can we even compete with that? It takes a lot of effort to have the beginning of a beginning for a crack code to someone else's emotions, and they can achieve it in literal seconds. Something that would've taken us years of close bonds, time, and great attention to come close to.

He probably feels it too, the guilt and shame hiding in your bones from not being enough for his needs. How lonely he must be, constantly misunderstood by those around him who are stubborn in their old ways.

Is that why he doesn't like machines? can he not read them like organics, so he assumes they don't have a soul? Is he scared that his so called perfected method of communication, might also be just as flawed as the rest of ours?

Javik wouldn't acknowledge your fears with more than a single phrase about you not needing to concern yourself if you're not enough, he chose you so don't question his decision.

But oh you'll never know what goes in inside him, you will never feel the erupting affection at the fact you loved him so much you felt guilty for not being able to give him back what he has given you. You won't even be able to suspect how much his heart is fluttering in response for your worries about him, for your great care for him.

It's as equally sad as it is endearing, stuck in a cage of his own making for being simply too evolved.

Imagine if you went back in time to an era before humans learned to talk with words, and you had to adapt to everyone else's ways of using vague gestures and occasional grunts. Primitive, too much room for error, could not come close to how much talking expresses your feelings and thoughts with such precision.

That's what it must be like for him. But at least you're there, and he can tell your heart is true, your love is pure. And that makes it, just a little bit less lonely.

His world is a little bit less dim with you around, the only caveman who's paid attention to the words he's been using.

#☆Javik #☆character study #☆fluff #☆angst #mass effect javik #javik x reader #me3 #protheons

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put-me-out-of-my-destiny · 5 months

Note

Proposing V for the ask game, if you're still doing it?

My favorite thing about V:

On a narrative level, he represents the best quality of DMC5, it's fleshing out of Vergil. I love that deep down, underneath the fear-driven quest for power, Vergil is a soft goth boy who loves a particular poet so much he makes it his whole personality. Plus, I love the interpretation that he looks so young because Vergil lost so much of his life to being Nelo Angelo.

On a gameplay level, I love how you can make V constantly taunt while making his minions fight.

My least favorite thing about V:

On a narrative level, as much as I love his voice and design, it would have been so cool if he was a woman instead. Besides the Implications, it would be a neat way of nodding to his human mother. Also, I've been told that the literary character that Urizen is named after is a part of a dyad, the other half of which is a female deity. And DMC5 sorely fumbles it's female representation anyway, having a playable female character might have won it some points (though realistically, there's a good chance they would have fucked up her design, and the hate toward her playstyle would be so much more vitriolic).

Speaking of playstyle, on a gameplay level, I do enjoy playing as V, but the moveset definitely needs more development. I don't like that V's evasive actions require his familiars because you have to interrupt their combat (and even Griffon's attack charging) in order to use them, even though the whole point of V seems to be multitasking. Plus, the hidden range limit for the minions can really screw you, especially considering that Shadow's attacks can easily take it outside of that limit, causing it to teleport back to V's side and interrupt your attack strings. And what's sad is that due to unpopularity, there's a real chance that we won't get to see a new iteration of this playstyle.

(There's even a series in my pinned post all about a certain character ending up in this position, just saying).

My favorite line by V:

It's hard to say, since he has one of the best if not the best vocal performances in the game. I do like that he says "it's my turn to play with the Devil Sword" at one point.

My "brOTP" for V:

I love his friendship with Griffon. It's a shame it got no closure whatsoever because the writers decided they wanted to magically wipe away Vergil's trauma via DMC1 callback boss fight.

My "OTP" for V:

I don't generally like ships for Vergil, but one that I would entertain is one with Lucia. I see the humor in her meeting a man who's just as handsome as Dante but with none of the charm, and realizing she's actually fine with that. Plus, Vergil is far more comfortable with his demon side than his human side, and I think that would extend to Lucia. He would think her devil form is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and he'd be right. Lucia deserves a handsome loser boyfriend who loves the demon in her so much that she learns to love it too, especially since he also comes with a giant stoic tree man with sharp teeth and tentacles, and of course our favorite poetry-lover.

My "nOTP" for V:

Nero x V is sadly popular, even though they're literally father and son. And even when talking about just V, not Urizen or Vergil as a whole, I don't care for shipping him with Lady. She doesn't even fucking like him, nor should she.

A random headcanon about V:

I think his cane is tied to Rebellion in some way. Perhaps it simply contains some of the same materials, which is why it's good at conducting demonic power, and why it allowed him to reunite with Urizen.

An unpopular opinion about V:

While I am firmly in the "V and Vergil are the same character and that isn't a bad thing" camp, I am sympathetic to the wish that V was his own character. I cannot fault someone for loving V but not finding Vergil interesting, and I don't think it's worth getting mad at them over.

A song I associate with V:

Besides Crimson Cloud? There's a "combo mad" sort of video from time to time titled Void Violin, it features some good music.

My favorite picture of V:

That gif of him tripping and dropping his free taco.

#thanks for the ask!#devil may cry #ask game #vergil dmc #v dmc #quen speaking

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alllinesarebeautiful · 22 days

Text

Day 425 Art meditation, August 29, 2024,

”Vote BluePaper Dress of the Tree Ring Art Heart Art Brand Bundle”

Dear You,

Posting my “Vote Blue” paper dress for my ‘Tree Ring’ Heart Art Brand Bundle! YAY !!!

It’s 45 days late, but I had some deep, deep stuff to go through. Lots of terrifying honesty and heavy conversations have been happening … Lots of journaling of themes I want to flesh out into book chapters …

It’s a new day. 🙏

The center art piece (much like a logo) of the Vote art is still the abstract tree ring image, but art moves and grows if I stop trying to control it so much. I try to make my idea without over-thinking and see what happens in the stage of it. I am intentionally trying NOT to be perfect.

Even as I made this dress, I criticized my way through it. Stupid stupid stupid. The final photos, taken by my in-house photographer G, and who forces me to laugh in the “photoshoot” with his brilliant sense of humor, came out much better than I thought it would.

The main ideas that I want to convey is what happens to our heart-spaces WHEN we make any kind of art,

or when we speak up for ourselves,

or when we vote towards love,

or when we vote with our Hearts, not our Egos,

or and when we have the courage to stand up for BLUE truth and justice -

is that our very fragile inner heart space becomes STRONGER, and new ideas come in.

Love and art creates beautiful things our minds could never have imagined!

The whole point of the Blue Wave right now is to make LOVE bigger.

And for everything else, let God handle it. And if you don’t believe in God, then all I know is that there will come a moment in your life when you have to face yourself. Honesty has a way of catching up with us…

Two days ago I felt PURE JOY for about 2 minutes. TWO. Although, I will add, last night I made an entire 3 jokes in one night, in part thanks to the big glass of wine, but the fact that I made G laugh so hard, is proof they were good jokes. He only laughs when something is seriously funny. My usual joke rate is once a month, so was this a surge of healing??

This surge of joy made me ponder, I don’t think we know how MUCH we normalize being SUBDUED and JOYLESS.

I want the paper dress to remind us all that there is more joy, love and beauty. No hoarding is necessary. It just isn’t.

If all the men in the world who are creating war-separation-divide, would INSTEAD pick up a glue stick and colorful paper and a scissors, what a different world we would live in.

This should be a requirement if you want to get into politics. Art has a way of leveling the playing field. Art has a way of reducing your ego, especially since it is one arena where there really are no rules. If you set out to be GREAT, art has a way of having its own will and taking you down a notch.

For example, I remember when I took my only (blissful) oil painting class at Goshen College as an elective, in a dreamy art department which was a big sunny loft. My final project was to paint “like” an artist I admired. I picked Henri Matisse, and wanted to paint something like his Blue Nude.

What came out was so hideous. I remember being shocked, because some of Matisee’s art looks so easy to recreate / copy, I thought I would easily be able to recreate the joy Matisse creates in my heart. I still got a 90% grade, but I thought that was generous. It took a serious notch out of my ego. I wish I still had it and could show you.

The point, which I get now, and I could not understand 35 years ago, is that we ARE as unique as the art and heart-ideas that come with each of us. So, again, no stealing, or dominating, or hoarding is necessary.

My father loved the hideous stuff I made for that art class, plus the 2 art classes I took in high school. A few years ago I threw it all away, which is a shame, I realize now, but that’s my critical brain at work!

Now that this first paper dress is done, I can feel a kind of contentment, which I always try to remember this feeling and not let my sticky mind go backwards. Heart-space expansion!

Sending oodles of love,

Anne ◎

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hiswordsarekisses · 23 days

Text

“So, he committed adultery. Big deal! It doesn’t mean he murdered his wife. It doesn’t even count in the course of this trial!” The big city lawyer thundered.

But the man had indeed murdered his wife.

And while I agree that adultery doesn’t equal a murder, it did matter in the course of his life. Today, we’re pretty loose about adultery, marriage, divorce, and the covenants of God. But that doesn’t mean God has changed His mind.

In a little book in the back of the Old Testament of Scriprure, God talks to the Priests first, the he tell the people why

they are losing favor with Him, why He won’t accept what they want to give Him. It’s because you’re unfaithful to each other!

One God created you, but you’re unfaithful to each other. Why?! He is a witness to husbands and wives of their youth. God has made you One in the spirit, through

a sacred holy covenant with Him,

in Him a joint spirit.

I feel this the longer I’m married.

We become one flesh through covenant

sexual relations, to bring godly offspring into the world, as a gift to the one we married, as a service made for marriage. That’s why purity and virginity are valuable.

They are part of a sacred covenant.

Do you hear that very often?

I bet not.

Now, most of the time, we read that

“God hates divorce” from this passage.

He does, but the Hebrew text goes

deeper linguistically.

God actually calls divorce a

“hateful thing” in His eyes, that it renders you covered in “violence”, from hurting

the very one you were given to protect!

That’s the true depth.

Here, I think He highlights something we don’t often speak in Christian circles.

The violence of divorce.

The hatred of divorce.

The twisted undone protection that comes in unfaithfulness.

The loss of God’s favor.

The witness of God watching over marriages and seeing a home full of the violence of divorce, the hatefulness of unfaithfulness.

I found it profound and interesting that as God was speaking to a nation, He was sorting out the husbands, who were to be the high priests of their families, and the reality of what unfaithfulness means to our relationship to God. Malachi lived in a culture that divorced wives, just because they wanted a newer model.

God wanted it stopped.

How does God see divorce?

As a hateful violent act against the ones

we are supposed to be protecting.

And God grieves.

Marriage is holy ground.

When Jesus is asked about it while on earth, He says it happens because of

the “hardening of our hearts”.

So, one of the things I think is of utmost importance in a marriage, is to watch

that your heart doesn’t harden against

your mate.

Don’t let bitterness gain a footing.

Keep communication open and fights finished.

Get help when you need to get help.

Invest in each other, and keep a check on your critical attitude.

Should hurtful sarcasm and snarky intimidations stand between you, you are risking a hard heart, a costly adultery

and a hateful divorce.

Violence to your home.

Now, if you were the one who didn’t commit adultery and did not want the divorce, please note that this does not apply ….to you.

You are deeply loved and God will get

you through what’s been done to you.

It likely won’t be in your timing or your way.

It will cost much shame, guilt, anger and pain, because those are part of sin.

But please don’t waste time thinking you are all to blame.

I’m sure the person leaving has hatefully filled you in, as you try and explain to confused children what’s happening,

while you don’t even understand.

I just don’t want us to forget:

Divorce is still a tragedy.

It’s still a terrible sign of hate.

Adultery is still horrendous,

no matter how you rename it, or how fabulous it looks on a movie screen.

That’s a lie. But also know:

Both are also forgivable sins.

If you have come to Christ after a

hateful divorce, God knows.

Keep growing in grace, and make right what you can, then move forward in faith.

God will be faithful to you.

But yes, while I know this is a hot topic,

less debatable and more acceptable

than ever, I’m speaking

to those who are Believers.

I’m saying what God said:

Be on your guard.

Do not be unfaithful to each other.

~AnnStewartPorter

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take-me-to-valhalla · 2 months

Text

Author Questionnaire Tag Game

Tagged by @ladyniniane! Thank you so much, it was very fun to do!

About me

When did you start writing?

I know exactly when and it’s a good story.

Sowhen I was 13 our Lit teacher wanted us to write a free-subject essay. I decided to write a short sci-fi story (it didn’t make the cut, but what matters is that it was the first time I was allowed to write on a free subject). Later in the year, he asked us to write an incipit for a book. I dug up this sci-fi short story, and I wrote a few more, thinking I was just getting ahead of the assignment...and then it dawned on me that I could write even if no one would tell me to do it. And I could write whatever I wanted.

It all started from there. In hindsight I think this teacher knew exactly what he was doing.

Are there genres/themes you enjoy reading different to the ones you write?

I read a bit of everything. Fiction, non-fiction, comics, fantasy, classics... The last book I read was A Moveable Feast, and it’s really far from what I write. I do it because I’m curious (and I feel like I’ve exhausted most of the great fantasy books...what a shame) and because it’s great to read great writing.

But I enjoy writing fantasy because it’s a way to explore fun stuff without being restrained by silly little things like « accuracy* » and « vampires don’t exist ».

* I say that and then will read 62105 books to see what people would eat for lunch in 1820.

Is there an author you want to emulate, or one to whom you're often compared?

When I started writing, I wanted to write like Pratchett or Gaiman (...alas). Pratchett because it’s genius, Gaiman because I loved the way he said very good things in a very plain style (...maybe that’s why I loved A Movable Feast. I think I’ll read some more Hemingway) and that’s something that’s hard to achieve when you’re just a 15 years-old who just discovered how to tell stories.

Recently, Marguerite Yourcenar sucker-punched me with Memoirs of Hadrien. But I could never hope to reach her level D :

Now, I don’t want to emulate anyone. Finding my own voice is enough.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space?

I have a dedicated study/art room (perks of being a single homeowner) and on my desk are dictionaries, thesauruses, grammar books, etc. along with several notepads that help when I brainstorm. But I write wherever, be it at work, at the library, etc.

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Listening to dedicated playlists. Walking. Driving. Fleshing my characters enough so that they can do stuff on their own and I just have to put them in situations.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

I don’t think so. But maybe I wouldn’t write so much about old cities like Paris or London if I had actually lived there ?

Are there any recurring themes of your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Running from things, changing names and identities. Loss. Justice, in its many forms. The way it can become distorted, perverted. Magic shaped by beliefs and superstitions. Angry women (and sad men). Also sly feminism.

It’s been there ever since my first attempt at a novel when I was 14. It's a mystery, even to me.

My Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favourite character?

Since I’m living in his head at the moment : Polidori.

He’s an edgelord’s dream : a feared, skilled vampire assassin. But he recently had a very, very bad day, lost all he had, and gained a very, very inconvenient awareness of his former life. Ever since, he’s on an ongoing indentity crisis (the inside of his head sounds something like this, on loop)

He’s not a good character. Really not. He did horrible things and plans to do others. He has no soul and cannot feel genuine love. But he has to come up with a solution to his problems, and will maybe learn a few things along the way.

All in all, a complex, but compelling character to write, and I really want to see him through his character arc.

Which of your characters do you think you’d be friends with in real life?

I do like Dante, who is basically me-at-15-but-as-a-boy. He would be unsufferable, but I could forgive him. Raphaëlle would be nice to hang out with too, I think. We'd go to cafés and museums.

Which of your characters would you dislike most if you met them?

Characters I wrote to be unpleasant, like Losim, who is an unrepentant egoistical dick, and Matthias, who is not bad, just very irritating.

Tell me more about the process of coming up with your characters.

Either they come up when I need a certain character for the story – like the five runaways in the story I am writing – and I let the story flesh them out as I write…

Or they are characters I invented when I was 13 and who, Ship-of-Theseus-style, became something else entirely. (oh, Raphaëlle, how you’ve grown).

Oh, and sometimes it’s entirely unplanned. Like Sid. He started as a joke character drawn for a comic. And I decided to write him in the novels, and here he is now. Traumatized and deserving better.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

Women are angry, men are sad.

More precisely, women are always fighting for something either big (fighting the unfair government for Armoni, fighthing patriarchy for Isadora) or small (fighting to prove she can do everything on her own for Raphaëlle), while men tend to have terrible lives that they will overcome. Hopefully.

Probably because I like writing angry women ? Even when they are angry about petty things.

A third category would be « bastards ». Because these are always so fun to write.

How do you picture your characters?

I can draw some of them (and I take full advantage of it) but sometimes it’s hard...like Lionel is supposed to be astonishingly-good-looking, but I’m not good enough to picture him right. Some of them have a pretty defined physique, while others not as much. The longer I write them, the more precise their features become.

My Writing

What’s your reason for writing?

Because if I don’t write, I die.

More seriously, I don’t feel good when I’m not writing in a while. I have all these ideas and all these characters, and I really want to be able to tell their stories and share them with people.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

Sometimes I get fanart. This is like straight up heroin for me.

But most of the time I am happy when I managed to really get a reaction. Like YES tell me how this scene was so sad and horrible and that it made you feel so bad, that means I did a GOOD JOB.

Writers are sadistic.

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work?

I want to be seen as a good writer who writes good stories with great characters.

And who sometimes draws funny yokoma-type comics to go along with the greater story.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I’ve been told that I have a good, professional writing style. I also feel I am good at tying different plots and timelines together (not as good as, say, Brandon Sanderson, but one step at a time)

How do you feel about your own writing?

I feel like I’ve come pretty far. I know I write well – though it took some time accepting it –, but I’m worried it might never be « good » or « marketable » enough for it to reach a lot of people. But that’s something I cannot control. The best thing I can do is continue writing.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

YES.

I often joke that I am my own fandom. So it wouldn’t change a thing for me, really.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? if it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

I write for myself, so I write purely what I enjoy. I couldn’t ever be one of these writers who chain-write formulaic books that sell. Kudos to them, that sounds like a lot of work.

I don’t care about what’s popular or cool, I just want to have fun putting my homemade blorbos in situations.

I tag @searchingforakeythatdoesntexist, but if you see this and feel like answering it, feel free !

#writing #tag game #writeblr #writer #ramblings #it took some time to do but I loved it

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sowninchrist · 1 year

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heart-check: relationship with Christ ♥️🕊️🌱

Something that I love about having a relationship with Jesus is not what He can give me but who He is, I still remember what my youth pastor said about this, “we don’t praise a response from the Lord, but we worship Him because He is God and period.”, and I completely stand by that.

How we treat others is the reflection of how our relationship with Christ is. If you constantly get mad with others, or the quite opposite, you constantly love to see others joyful, if we pray constantly we lose that anger that fills us up but if we don’t pray; we lose patience and love for one another. I always heard this when I started my walk in Christ, but when you set your heart on Him, He shows you everything that you ask Him that align with His Will. One of the most beautiful things is a heart that desires what He desires, those hearts are pure hearts at that, and that’s extremely rare.

Pardon that I write from experience but I still remember before I congregated I’d cry into my mom’s arms questioning God in her arms and telling her, “doesn’t He know I love Him? Can’t He see how much I’m suffering for His presence?” the want for Him to hold me, not as the Invisible God but presently physically there, my mom’s arms didn’t give me that fulfillment. I write this because God reminded me of this on Friday and He made me realize that any person who comes into your life, you can love them all you want, but ultimately it’s Him who decides the end. This is exactly how He saves you and me, when He comes into your life, and we ultimately decide to accept Him or not, Hebrews 3:7-8 ESV, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts—…” and in the end it’s Him who saw the intentions of your heart because He had already known you (Jeremiah 1:5).

I wanted to write this based on my experience but always with the Word, something I personally don’t understand is when someone says they love a verse from the Bible that is tied to defending one another, but does the contrary when it comes to their brother or sister in Christ (John 21:21-22). To be extremely focused on myself is already a hard task, but that’s what we’re meant to do, just as Jesus told Peter to focus on himself, imagine heart-checking yourself every single time if you’re doing what God wants you to do, or regretting saying something when you knew it was crossing a boundary. One of the things that impacted me and changed my view to this day is, I remember scrolling through social media, and truthfully I see a lot of social media that involves the Word of God so this was impactful when I started, I remember when a Christian blog said, “Don’t write something that Jesus would ask you to see what you’re writing on your phone.” But it was more expanded, and I still remember just sitting there, mind blown, I wasn’t attacking people but I still remember thinking, “no way, my friends gotta see this!”, and that’s something that stuck to me, so now, I’m constantly making sure I’m not only seeing something related to God, but also making sure I’m not speaking in the flesh, always making sure I’m meditating on Him.

I’m excited about this topic because something that’s always stayed in my heart, because I heard this from someone was, “if we get told to confess that we aren’t Christians to live, I’d deny being Christian.”. I still remember getting so upset and saying, “I’d give my life for Jesus in a heartbeat.” It just came out super casually and I remember telling my mom how sad that Jesus came, openly and how much shame He brought on Himself for people to live Him secretly and deny Him (Matt 10:32-33, 1 Peter 4:16, Romans 1:16). Personally I find someone like that to be an embarrassment. Jesus went on the cross, baring a lot of flesh, taking our shame with Him on the cross and just for Him to get denied.

Our relationship with Jesus matters not only because you’re telling Him, i love You, i want to spend forever with You. You’re my Love.

But also because the enemy wants you to deny Him, to deny every single beautiful thing Jesus did for you and me.

If we live faithful to Him, He’s faithful to us and even when we aren’t faithful He’s still faithful, in Lamentations 3:22-23 AMPC, “It is because of the Lord’s mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions fail not. [Malachi 3:6] — They are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness. [Isaiah 33:2]”

Malachi 3:6 AMPC, “For I am the Lord, I do not change; that is why you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.”

Isa 33:2 AMPC, “O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited [expectantly] for You. Be the arm [of Your servants-their strength and defense] every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.”

He’s faithful enough to wake you up every day, keep in mind, even when we change, He doesn’t. This is what doesn’t get communicated to people out there and on top of that, the fact that He’s slow to anger because He doesn’t want any of us to perish, in 2 Peter 3:9 NLT, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about His promise, as some people think. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed but wants everyone to repent.”

He doesn’t regret calling you, His gifts and callings are irrevocable (Romans 11:29) — God can’t intervene with your free will, He can do everything to get your attention, but if you don’t open your heart that’s another situation and that’s not only for nonbelievers but also followers in Christ who have yet to open their hearts to Him, He doesn’t regret calling you and neither does He take what’s meant to be yours, away from you, only if you decide you don’t want it only your decisions can make you fail Him and the promises.

When I see people using fear tactics to call those who are rebelled against God, I openly tell them they’re doing a really bad thing, and this is why I choose not to be quiet, not because it’ll “get me points”, God forbid anyone ever thinks that way, but because as peacemakers, as the salt in a bland world, as light in the darkness; we children of God, as Paul mentioned, we shouldn’t judge those outside of church but judge righteously those who are in church (1 Cor 5:12-13), and the reason I can’t stand to see when a follower of Christ does this is because we’re helping the Lord bring back those who got lost, those who got hurt by the church, those who were led astray due to temptation.

Instead of communicating God’s power, many communicate hell to start off. And It never gives off the right impression, I still don’t know why people use this tactic and honestly it bothers me especially because I remember this girl telling a person who got hurt by church that they were going to be burning in hell and that the saints would be in heaven enjoying them burning in hell. The anger it gave me reading that comment, I immediately started telling her off and apologized to the person who was hurt by the church for that sort of behavior she had encountered. The follower of Christ apologized in my messages for coming off the way she did to the other person and mentioned that she was only 16 and still learning, honestly if someone apologizes and continues with “but”, it’s not an apologize, it’s a justification. this is why having a relationship with Jesus is so important, because when your heart is set on Jesus’ desires for the lost sheep, you teach with genuine godly love and reverence for the Lord, that only comes from the Lord. If you’re teaching people that they must love God or they’ll burn in hell, you’re trying to have them think that their actions will save them instead of experiencing a relationship with Jesus.

One of my favorite verses to tell nonbelievers is Romans 11:8 ERV, “As the Scriptures say, “God caused the people to fall asleep. God closed their eyes so that they could not see, and He closed their ears so that they could not hear. This continues until now.”

Romans 11:17 ESV, “But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,”

That’s why God closed the ears and eyes from the Jews, so He could save us, Gentiles. He closed the eyes and the ears of His people, just so we can be saved… that’s incredibly beautiful, the other is

1 Tim 2:3-6 NLT, “This is good and pleased God our Savior, (4) who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth, (5) For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity — the man Christ Jesus. (6) He gave His life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time.”

God wants everyone to be saved, and this is something beautiful, I didn’t get evangelized by my family, I was extremely invested in a life I thought was right for me, but instead when Jesus called me, He didn’t start talking to me about hell, if I had hardened my heart as the book of Hebrews says, when He called me, I wouldn’t be here in this timing. But I know that if someone had first told me about being sent to hell as evangelism, I know for a fact I would’ve grown distant from God. Jesus knew how to evangelize me and the way He did for me, I always ask Him to help me evangelize online to others the way He did for me. That’s why it’s important to have a relationship with the Lord because you run the risk of twisting the Gospel into sounding that you’re forced to love God, instead of teaching them why having a relationship with God is amazing. One that the enemy can’t break, one that we choose to give thanks to the Lord, not force a thanks to Him.

I can’t imagine Jesus saying, “I’m forced myself to come on earth to die for you.” He never did, the Father gave up His only Son so that we could have a relationship with Him, just imagine Him thinking of ways to reconcile us again after Adam and Eve. I can imagine the Father just thinking of ways to show those who are faithfully loving Him how He can show them His love without us exploding like confetti.

Everything He did from the start to now, I don’t think any bad moments are the end nor do I think He’s trying to remove us from His presence, I have the firm believe that God is allowing bad moments to help us grow, it’s we who give up on people, we are the ones who are stubborn, its we who go based off of our humanly sight and feelings, not God. We’re the problem and yet Jesus uses us to help or heal others, that’s the privilege, we just need to show those who are lost, those who are confused, those who left, that because we need to remind them that God is a God of justice and redemption in His own timing. Everything is possible with Him (Matthew 19:26).

To have a relationship with the God Almighty, our Creator, our Savior, that’s a privilege, an honor, a gift that’s yours.

Romans 10:21 AMP, “”All day long I have stretched out My hands [in compassion] to a disobedient and obstinate people.””

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septembersghost · 2 years

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Why do you think all shippers are desperate to make Maroon about their ship? Are they ignoring the line where she says what it was a cheap imitation of real love? Personally, I would not claim this song for my ship so it makes me laugh so hard. Midnight rain is right there and Tom fans were smart and snatched it when in reality he is farthest from the actual inspiration.

help i haven't the faintest idea why or how this has become a debate, not only because she couldn't have made it any more obvious, but also for the reason you said - it seems a little like some people are hearing it differently than what it is. yes, she loved him in a formative way, but it was also shattering. none of the described red/burgundy/scarlet/maroon things are ultimately positive - it's a spill/stain, it's a flush (her blushing could be desire and shame...again see atw10), it's miscommunication, it's hopeless (the double meaning of maroon - she's marooned without the place she called home that she thought she'd found with him). i think a lot of the misinterpretation has to do with the passion in it. the song sounds very heady and almost covertly sexy in a mature way, but that's...the point. the rush and the yearning is there, but also a tinge of bitterness and a bruised hurt. she's describing a romance that seemed to mean everything but ultimately was a loss, like you said, a cheap imitation of real love, something corrosive (rust between telephones). her calling his memory hanging over her a "legacy" isn't a compliment, even if she reclaimed it in a positive way with her music. which is why i've brought up sad beautiful tragic and the last time and i almost do and babe and better man and atw10, it links into all of those, a love that felt so vast and deep, but ended up burning out and leaving her in the smoke.

also if it's about "shipping" that makes me uncomfortable because she is a real person? i know we analyze her songs and we break down the context because, for better or worse, these relationships and times in her life are part of our collective knowledge of her, and to some degree that's unavoidable when discussing her work within the frame of her experiences, she very much shares that in her diaristic writing, but...she is with her partner and has been for over six years, and beyond lovingly supporting she and joe in that (and yes, i love them and wish them happiness because i've followed taylor's journey for 14 years, through many beautiful ups and painful downs, and hope the very best for her because she's been so important to me that i care about her dearly even though i don't know her. that's just an unavoidable part of having an artist touch your heart and impact your life and empathizing with them), "shipping" a very real flesh and blood woman with ex-lovers or ex toxic friends or whomever is unsettling. i'm clearly a fan of h's too and thus think it would be nice for them to be friends because they seem like caring and artistically sensitive people, but obviously that's their business, and if it's not possible, that's totally okay. i wish them to both be happy and healthy and fulfilled regardless of whatever else.

regarding midnight rain...i adore tom too, but my goodness, HOW did he get mixed up in this? our girl was not "chasing that fame" when she met him, she was drowning in it and starting to break trying to escape it. additionally, the references to her hometown and "he wanted a bride," it's so clearly a what-if about her life if she hadn't pursued her music career, and a "regular" boy she knew when she was very young (connected to: there's just one who could make me stay, all my days; and with someone who is charming and endearing and close to her mother and talks business with her father and being "comfortable," but she "wanted" that pain, the idea of that life wasn't fulfilling for her). her fame was white hot and excruciating in 2016...i don't want to be mean at all, but i'm begging for some common sense...the ttds/dorothea to midnight rain pipeline is far removed from not only tom but anyone connected to the industry (he's a private citizen, but like. we know who. when debut is re-recorded, maybe everyone will see?). she made these stories very easy to decipher as far as the "who," so that we can understand the deeper meanings of the "why" and "when."

somewhat aside topic, but tom is very famous too, and was at a particular height of pop culture fame when they met, and i think the vicious scrutiny was as harmful on that relationship as anything else. yes, it was a rebound and an escape, and yes she was already in love with someone else (but didn't think she could or should pursue him at that moment, or didn't know if she would ruin things, or didn't know how to let a kind, loving man into her life without the worry of potentially destroying him, etc), but the media around them was unfair and unhinged. tom seems like an absolutely lovely man as well, but that was understandably too much, even without her not being his to lose. (and he's happy with his own family now, and i'm glad!) that's not a "one that got away" situation or life unlived for either of them. certain fans make fun of joe for not being "famous enough" (whatever that means, tbh it's gross), but consider - taylor kept dating ultra famous men whose own issues got in the way or seriously hurt her or made her feel small and used. then she met someone who still approached her like a whole human being, who could bring her home to his family and let her recover there quietly, while he loved her and held her hand in private, who is also content to let her sparkle. it seems obvious to me why that would be not only romantic, but soul affirming, after everything she'd gone through. she can have everything in the world that she wants. she's built an incredible career. she has enough money to access basically anything. she can have every drop of glitz and glamour at every moment. she can go to the fanciest places, any designer, any red carpet. basically every door will just open for her name. but her name isn't her. none of that means a thing if she's going home empty (as she describes in yoyok and dear reader, reflecting how she's felt at various times, i'd say particularly during 1989), if someone doesn't love her for her. it's why "you must like me for me" is so vulnerable and such a big deal for her on rep. "do i really have to tell you how he brought me back to life?" when not only did she feel diminished and trapped and dead inside, but also (imo) commodified, and then he helped her change her course. she could go to any gala, any club, and she has. they'll roll the carpet out for her. there's a reason why she runs home to his sweet nothings - when you can have anything, what matters most in the world is the intangible, being held and loved for who you are, quietly and steadily, by someone who chose to stay. that foundation and those choices makes all the difference. and that's part of why she can process past heartbreaks and traumas now, why she can express the lasting impacts, and the uncertainty with constantly going back and forth or leaving, and the pressures put on her, and the things that felt like love but weren't true (you never called it what it was). she's done a lot of work and healing, and she knows the real thing now.

i do wonder if some listeners are still adjusting to midnights being many retrospective stories and thus having a mix of muses, and the way it recontextualizes and illuminates a lot of other things in her catalog (including folklore and evermore). fans are still kind of used to one muse™ overall, even though nearly every album has some mixed inspiration (and joe has been central for five albums now in varying ways), this one intentionally covers many. and she described that and laid it out for us as a premise, but it still really asks us to understand and hear her and catch on to each of those moments/inspirations if we're going to analyze it from her point of view.

this got slightly off-topic lol but i do find myself confused as to why some of these conversations are even happening. this is such a deep, introspective, revealing album overall and it feels like we've still only scratched the surface of it, and the way it's in conversation with her past work, and i think it would be a bit easier to get into that if we weren't having to defend positions about "who" and were accepting taylor's truths at the face value she's presenting.

#this took me too long to type with my annoying and aggravated hand proving i still can't answer things properly yet 😭#my apologies to my anons i'm reading everything but answering is a different matter #anonymous #letterbox #taylor swift #midnights #maroon #midnight rain

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dwellerinroots · 2 years

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5 songs

Tagged by @dirty-bosmer to share 5 songs that remind me of my WIP/characters. Since I wasn't sure if there was a specific WIP in question, I went with Flesh & Metal because it's what I'm most likely to be pouring my consumable blood into for the foreseeable future. Anyway, Lil' Blocky Freak reporting in! Let's do this!..

1. Heroes - David Bowie/Philip Glass/Aphex Twin (Orchestral/Experimental Pop)

So, Flesh & Metal is a story where Life on Mars would be cheating, right? But in truth, this is actually much, much more relevant to stuff. We're starting with a song about - heroism. Let's call it that. But this rendition breaks down, it's experimental, it's weird, the sound tears and glitches; I think that serves as a perfect flyover for a place, built by people, who are flawed and ensnared by their own works, which they've made by their own hands. And the story is about that; the distrust and difficulty in surviving when you can't say you care for or trust anyone you know, not even a little. The song, however, isn't about heroism - just an act of it, in regards to two lovers. Maybe that'll be important, too. In the fading dreams of the cover, someone wants to be a hero; and if they can do that, then, perhaps... 2. 2 HAL 9000 - lasah/sasakure.UK (Electronic Pop)

A conceit I'd make is this: Villains are those characters in our fiction who are not human, and who deprive us of human joy. All other things - justice, kindness, moral good, all of that is irrelevant. What matters to readers, to viewers, to people is - 'is this thing human, does it look like me, and if not, does it give me all the joy I want from it?' And if the answer is no, it's a villain. I might be a bit misanthropic, but perhaps I'm selling that short, here. Maybe I'm even more misanthropic. Anyway, regardless of how I feel about villains and AI (actual), this is a pretty relevant piece. Maybe I'll do a character study where a certain character is listening to this on their period-inaccurate ipod nano. (I love stupid bits like that, and I've no shame!) 3. Crimson and Clover - Tommy James & The Shondells (Psychadelic Rock) I love Joan Jett, don't get me wrong, but this is the one. Personally, I think juxtaposing hard science fiction with psych rock/pop is one of the greatest things I'll do. I can pass on now, my time is done... Come to think of it, if I had to pick one (1) song to be the 2010 AMV trailer for my corpus, it'd be this. Just - roll over completely fields of swaying strands, fine and red, whispering in a world without breeze, flowing like tiny bladegrass on the inside of an artery, with the corpse of the sun leering down... Also, it's a classic. Unbeatable. 4. The Damned - The Day We Died (Djent Metal/'Argent' Metal)

The main difference I wanted to have in my first two works was, one has a protagonist who prefers anything but direct confrontation, and the second - might also prefer other methods, but does not believe they are even a possibility. Sometimes you just wake up really angry, and if you aren't dyed in infernal hell-ichor, what's even the point.

5. Comme Si L'Amour - Shine (Melancholic Pop)

'le coeur vert fait siennes quand il cherche, a tout prix à croire à tous les contes de fée de l'enfance'

Every story I write, on some level, is a romance. Maybe not a romance between people, or even a romance that is reciprocal; I think the distant romance of separated friends, or the unknowable romance of an insurmountable plateau are as beautiful as all other loves, in all the world. But everything else is irrelevant; it's what I come back to. And I wanted to write a story about someone trying very hard to believe they're the person they want to be, seizing on a once-in-a-life-time chance, perhaps, to be a hero - just for one day... Even if they were never accepted for that small desire, is it so wrong to try..? And what if they were, and are..? Bonus: Realm of Darkness - Mili (Experimental Electronic) oh it was POINTLESS

I really just wanted to pump this one, it's been on repeat since I first heard it. Ah, that lovely moment when a song makes your hands twitch, your palms hesitate against the air... May or may not count as spoilers. We'lllllllll seee... I could do one of these for everything I've ever written, I love this one, I hope you lot had as much fun as I did! Might even self-reblob it later for other pieces... Not gonna tag this one because I don't wanna miss you, and I feel like I've over-tagged people as of late. If you do wanna do it, do it? Tag me?! I wanna hear your SONGS nerds, gimme 'em...

#dirty-bosmer #ask games #my writings? kind of?#this one was incredibly fun; I loved handling it!#i might possibly do more copies of it every few weeks or so #time permitting if I catch the time to breath!#it's a great exercise too!#hope it was a bit fun - maybe introduced something handy...!#lil' freak signing off I am so tired... 'least I filled the queue for once #queued

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abrahams-rib · 2 years

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SUBMISSION.

This testimony is for my sisters. I came into the truth about 3 years ago. As a woman I thought that The Most High would be enough for me. I stopped having sex, I stopped masturbating and watching porn. I changed my eating habits, no more shrimp or catfish. I cut off friends and got baptized under Israel Of God church. I was keeping the commandments and truly believed that I was becoming a woman of Yah, a daughter of Israel. The funny thing is Yah tends to cut in right when we think we have some type of control or understanding over our lives. I was still following my own will, believing that I didn't need to be married believing that Yah being my covering was enough. In my own world I had myself convinced that I was a righteous, submissive, and a humble woman. At heart I like to think I was, but in practice I was not. Yah had to correct me in my misunderstanding. I met a brother and we got married, I was his second wife. It all happened so fast, but I knew that it was Yah placing me in his life. This marriage showed me what I refused to see about myself while I was alone. I was hurt. I was disrespectful and held a hatred for men due to my trauma, I never dealt with anything. I was not submissive or humble, at least not how I thought I was. I was a hinderance in my child's discipline and growth and I was constantly making excuses. I was ashamed to discover I wasn't who I thought I was. I became depressed and before I accepted my own flaws I ran from them. I projected them, I miscommunicated my thoughts and intentions and my actions seldom lined up with my words. Yah had to humble me because I would not choose to humble myself. Submission is truly a woman's super power and I convinced myself in that marriage that submission made me weak. Now divorced, being asked to leave, I realize what Yah was showing me. Even though I thought that I was better because I knew the truth that didn't make me a good woman, wife or mother. That was hard to accept. I had to learn the true order of things. I had to be brought low, I had to feel shame in order to get the true healing that I desired. I appreciate the humbling I experienced because now I honor covenants more, I understand what it is to be meek now. I know what it looks like to allow a man to lead, I know how to properly discipline my child now, I know how to remain in my place as a woman now. Most importantly I am comfortable in my place as a woman. I love it here. Submission, meekness, and humility are truly super powers for a woman. Yah showed me how when you accept your lesson and pass the test that He will give you the Baraka (blessing) that is on the other end. HalleluYAH for His longsuffering, grace and mercy. I see many of my sisters fighting against their humbling and not wanting to feel shame but also at the time not realizing that on the other side of that is true healing. Yah has now baruch (blessed) me with a man that he molded me specifically for because I accepted and learned my lesson. I passed that test by killing my flesh and laying down my own will and accepting my shame I brought on myself. Now I can be submissive because it is in my nature and character to be so. Now I listen more than I reply, now I am teachable and had I not been brought low none of this would be possible. I thought I was worth something when I first came into this Truth but I had not ever truly experienced pressure from Yah and therefore I was nothing but a stone. After the pressing, I can see the edges of rubies shining through me. Through correction and the practice of submission I am becoming that virtuous woman spoke of in Proverbs 31. I have learned it's not just about can I cook or clean or work hard, it's about can I listen and submit. These are what creates the whole package and these qualities require work if you are anything like me. I was raised by "strong, independent' women, who did not respect men and did not value marriage. I am here to break generational curses, what about you sis?

#submission #israelites #hebrew israelites #sisters #growth

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winterbrrrd · 8 months

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More than my sins

I could write another negative poem,

Coming live from the depths of hell,

Beckoning Satan with a megaphone,

Like I have a soul left to sell.

But Persephone rose

And she learned about home,

The way that it holds and, like vines,

How it grows

From a seed in the grass to autumnal mosaics

That smother the siding in orange, red, and gold.

And Persephone rose and she wandered, she roamed

Like a bad bumper sticker you see on the road.

She is wild, not Strayed-like,

But fully unhinged.

She is feral,

Ungraceful, so much like

A kid.

She has pushed and she’s pushed

With two hands that spread fire,

She has tortured the rapists,

The users,

The liars.

Her torture felt noble -

Felt moral and right -

For a hypocrite can’t see herself

In twilight.

I am seeing you now, dancing soft in your light

How you’re less like a life raft and more restored sight.

For the past 14 years, I have wanted to die,

Kept alive the last five by a sweet ______

Who emerged in this belly I’m trying to shrink,

Though it’s soft and it’s padded my fall from the brink

Of despair into dirt, where they’d bury me well

To ensure that I would not emerge and raise hell.

Endless shame emanates from the pores of my skin

All the holes that I’ve carved,

All the ink spilling sins.

And they see and they know who I am,

Where I’ve been.

I don’t keep secrets well

Problem is

I can’t tell

when they’re true,

When they’re false,

When they’re bent like thumb nails,

Stretched and formed and deformed

Until no one can tell

If I’m lying to lie

Or convinced of my tales

Spun by spiders of

Paranoid thoughts

And self-doubt.

And then you.

Yes,

You.

You emerged from your shell

And I swiped right on you from

My Florence hotel

And each time we unite

On the weekends, I swear

My brain changes,

Unravels,

Revealing what’s there

but what’s

Hidden by layers of shame,

Booze,

Shaved hair -

It is ——

Really ____

And she loves and she cares

About you and her daughter,

Her family,

Strangers.

And she’s scared, not of you,

Not of them,

But herself.

And I’m scared because I can’t decide why I’m like

The most unstable creature on the near north side,

Why I hide in my head and I turn out the lights,

Cutting out all my friends,

Convinced I wont survive

If I lose what I gain to the cold mortal strain

That reduces our flesh

To the dust of termites.

So I open my mouth and shoot acid.

So I open my hands and spread fire.

So I hold onto truths that make sense in my head,

But aren’t true,

So they think I’m a liar.

I’m not trying to lie,

Just survive.

And my head wants the bad thoughts to die.

But they’re deep in my bones,

This belief that I’m both

The grim reaper and god’s rectifier.

I am the death that I’m bringing.

I am the hate that I spill.

I am the fear driving my friends away

When exposed to the mentally ill.

I am also the mentally ill.

Joseph K on a quest to be killed,

Searching caverns and crannies for men who will take me to swallow

My own poison pill.

There is grief and it’s grief that I caused.

And a sorry would barely give pause

For a sorry is trite in the shadow of light

That’s so bright it can’t see its own claws.

I want life,

I want life.

I want love.

I want to praise the light of my child.

Praise the light, stoke the light

Like a fire late at night,

Like a chance that I had but I lost.

I want love,

Want your love.

You’re not god, you’re not my own Jesus.

You’re a lens,

105,

I shoot macro,

So tied

to the details,

I’ve tried but I can’t

See my life.

You see things that I don’t and I like it.

You see ways that I see what’s not there.

And you’re calming my nerves

Shooting down the disturbed

Thoughts that keep me from welcoming care.

Love me hard like the day on the side of the bridge,

With your hand on my back as I navigate cracks

And you warn me against falling in.

Not a savior,

But you know who is:

It is me,

Tossing out my old lens.

And I’m gaining back life

When I see through your eyes,

Realizing I’m more than my sins.

#poems on tumblr #spilled poetry #poem #my writing #confessional poetry #epic poetry #dr suess

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dfroza · 1 year

Text

“just as it has been since before He created time, may it continue now and into eternity.”

Amen.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 1st and only chapter of the letter of Jude:

Jude, a slave of Jesus the Anointed and a brother of James, to you, the ones whom God our Father loves and has called and whom Jesus, the Anointed One, has kept. Kindness, peace, love—may they never stop blooming in you and from you.

Friends, I have been trying to write you about our common salvation. But these days my heart is troubled, and I am compelled to write to you and encourage you to continue struggling for the faith that was entrusted to the saints once and for all. Vile men have slithered in among us. Depraved souls who stand condemned have made a mockery of the grace given to us, using it as a pretext for a life of excess, lived without any thought of God. These poor fools have denied Jesus the Anointed, our one Lord and Master.

You have heard the stories many times, and the Spirit has enlightened you about their meaning, but you still need to be reminded. Remember when the Lord saved our ancestors from the land in Egypt? He breathed life into their earthen lungs and took back the life from those who did not believe. And God has kept the rebellious heavenly messengers bound and chained in utter darkness—shadowy gloom—until the time when His judgment arrives, because they failed to keep their rightful positions and abandoned their appointed realms. Sodom and Gomorrah and all their neighbors were defeated by their own sexual perversions as they pursued the strange and unnatural impulses of the flesh. Let these who went their own way and are experiencing the eternal heat of God’s vengeance—a punishment by fire—be a warning to you.

These stories are examples to help you understand the fate of those dreamers who have slipped in and defiled your community, rejected those in charge, and insulted the glorious majesty of the heavenly messengers. Even their chief, Michael, when disputing with the devil over Moses’ body, did not offer his own taunting judgment against him. Michael simply said, “May the Lord’s rebuke fall on you.”

The deceivers among you despise what they do not understand; they live without reason like animals, reacting only with primal instincts; and their ways are corrupting them. Woe to these deceivers! They are doomed! They have followed in the footsteps of their father Cain, sold their souls for profit into Balaam’s deceit, and suffered the devastation of Korah’s rebellion.

These men are cold stones on the warm hearth of your love feasts as they glut themselves without fear, thinking only of their own benefit. They are waterless clouds, carried away by the wind; autumn’s lonely and barren trees, twice dead, uprooted; violent waves of the sea breaking over the bow, foaming with shame; lost and wandering stars destined to live forever in gloomy darkness.

During the seventh generation after Adam, the prophet Enoch said, “Look! The Lord came, and with Him tens of thousands of His holy messengers to judge wicked men and convict the impious and ungodly for all they have said and all the hard things they have done against the Holy One.” These men are complainers who look long and hard to find the faults of other men. They are led by their own lustful desires like fools down the path of destruction. They are arrogant liars who want only to get ahead of others.

But you, friends, remember the words of the emissaries of our Lord Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King: “At the end of time, some will ridicule the faithful and follow their lusts to the grave.” These are the men among you—those who divide friends, those concerned ultimately with this world, those without the Spirit. You, however, should stand firm in the love of God, constructing a life within the holy faith, praying the Spirit’s prayer, as you wait eagerly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus the Anointed, which leads to eternal life.

Keep being kind to those who waver in this faith. Pursue those who are singed by the flames of God’s wrath, and bring them safely to Him. Show mercy to others with fear, despising every garment soiled by the weakness of human flesh.

Now to the One who can keep you upright and plant you firmly in His presence—clean, unmarked, and joyful in the light of His glory— to the one and only God, our Savior, through Jesus the Anointed our Lord, be glory and greatness and might and authority; just as it has been since before He created time, may it continue now and into eternity. Amen.

The Letter of Jude, Chapter 1 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 7th chapter of the book of Ezra with Ezra’s journey:

More than 50 years had passed since the temple was completed by the first group of exiles, and Artaxerxes I was ruling Persia. Ezra (son of Seraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, son of Shallum, son of Zadok, son of Ahitub, son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Meraioth, son of Zerahiah, son of Uzzi, son of Bukki, son of Abishua, son of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the chief priest)— this Ezra traveled from Babylon to make a request of the king. Ezra was a scribe, a scholar of the law of Moses that the Eternal God of Israel had given, who had the support of the Eternal God; so the king granted all his requests that more Jews (including laypeople, priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, and temple servants) be allowed to return to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes’ reign.

On the first day of the first month of Artaxerxes’ seventh year as king, Ezra traveled from Babylon and arrived in Jerusalem on the first of the fifth month. Ezra’s exodus from this foreign empire was successful because he was supported by his True God. He was a second Moses, and tenaciously studied, practiced, and taught the Eternal’s law to Israel.

King Artaxerxes gave this copy of the letter to Ezra, the priest, teacher, and scholar of the Eternal’s laws to Israel.

Artaxerxes’ Letter:

To Ezra, the priest and teacher of the law of the True God of heaven:

May you have perfect peace. I, Artaxerxes, the ruler of all kings, have decreed that any of the Jewish exiles, priests, and Levites residing in my empire may go with you to Jerusalem if they want to. I, the king, and my seven cabinet members are sending you to investigate how Judah and Jerusalem are following your True God’s laws, the laws which you study and teach. You will take the silver and gold—which we are freely offering to the True God of Israel who lives in Jerusalem— all the silver and gold in the province of Babylon, and the freewill offerings of all the people and priests for their True God’s temple in Jerusalem. Use the money to buy bulls, rams, and lambs for burnt offerings and sin offerings, and offer the grain and drink offerings on the altar of your True God’s temple in Jerusalem. Use any leftover money as your True God intends for you and your fellow returning exiles to use it. Deliver all the new vessels, which I have given you to use in the services of your True God’s temple, to the True God in Jerusalem. Whatever the True God’s temple requires, the Persian royal treasury will pay for it.

To the treasurers in the provinces west of the Euphrates: I, King Artaxerxes, command you to obey Ezra, the priest and teacher of the law of the True God of heaven, and give whatever he needs to support the temple sacrifices for 2 years— up to 7,500 pounds of silver, 600 bushels of wheat, 600 gallons of wine, 600 gallons of oil, and salt. Whatever the True God of heaven commands, do it eagerly for the True God of heaven’s temple so that He will not be angry with my empire. Also do not charge taxes, tributes, or tolls to any priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, priests’ and Levites’ servants, or temple servants.

Ezra, appoint officials and judges over everyone in the province west of the Euphrates, including the Jews who follow your True God’s laws, as the wisdom of your True God motivates you, and teach those who do not know His laws. Anyone who does not follow your True God’s law and my law will be judged harshly and punished by death, exile, foreclosure, or prison.

Ezra: Eternal God of our ancestors, may You be blessed by the praises of Your people for motivating the king to fill and beautify the Eternal’s temple in Jerusalem. You have blessed me with Your loyal love and strengthened me with Your motivation as I stood before the king and his cabinet and his princes. Because of You I was able to convince the elders of Israel to accompany me back to Jerusalem.

The Book of Ezra, Chapter 7 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Thursday, march 30 of 2023 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons about the “inner fire” of the heart:

From our Torah for this week (i.e., Tzav) we read: “The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not be extinguished” (Lev. 6:12). The sages say do not read “burning on it” but rather “burning in him” (בּוֹ), referring to the heart of the priest. And where the text says “it (i.e., the fire) shall not be extinguished” (לא תכבה), read instead “extinguish (תִכְבֶּה) the negative (לא)” by trusting in God’s promise for our good, despite any temporary setbacks or apparent failures. The Holy Spirit imparts the fire of faith that fills our hearts with hope (רוח נכון), affirming with “tongues of fire” words of life and light that vanquish darkness. As it is written: “Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; He is gracious, full of compassion, and righteous” (Psalm 112:4).

Spiritually speaking, the first step is to find hope... The Divine Light is seen by means of the eye of faith (עין האמונה), and therefore we find strength by trusting in God’s Presence, even though we cannot presently see Him (2 Cor. 4:18; 5:7). "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Know Him in all your ways, and He will straighten your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil" (Prov. 3:5-7). Wait on the LORD and He will strengthen your heart....

We must keep courage, remain steady as we fight the good fight of faith. As it is written, "The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evil men attack me to devour my flesh, when my adversaries and enemies attack me, they totter and fall. Even if an army is deployed against me, I do not fear; even if war is rises against me, I remain full of trust" (Psalm 27:1-3).

The Midrash says, “The Holy One Himself, as it were, made light for the upright. Thus it says, “The LORD is my light and my salvation” (Psalm 27:1) and “When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me” (Micah 7:8). While I sit in darkness in this world, during these latter days before the promised return of Yeshua, when troubles may afflict me and lawlessness may abound – then God’s light will shine brighter still, for the LORD is gracious to all who put their hope in Him, and this favor and love will be manifest for me.

Let us affirm our confidence: The darkness of this world forever is swept back before the overmastering radiance and power of Yeshua, the King of Glory, the Root and Descendant of David, and the Bright Morning Star (Rev. 22:16). Those who believe in Him are given the “light of life” that overcomes the darkness of this world (John 8:12).

[ Hebrew for Christians ]

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Psalm 112:4 reading:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm112-4-jjp.mp3

Hebrew page pdf:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm112-4-lesson.pdf

3.29.23 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

March 30, 2023

Once for All

“For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” (Romans 6:10)

The Greek word ephapax translated “once” in this verse actually means “once for all.” Christ did not have to die again and again, a new death for every sinner. He died unto sin once for all, His death being sufficient to take away “the sin of the [whole] world” (John 1:29).

The word ephapax occurs only five times in the Bible. Our text is the first, confirming that His once-for-all death for sin was sufficient forever; He now lives wholly “unto God.” The second confirms the reality of this permanent resurrection. In Jewish law, a factual claim was considered confirmed by the principle that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established” (Matthew 18:16). Paul recalls that the resurrected Christ “was seen of above five hundred brethren at once” (1 Corinthians 15:6). Two or three would have sufficed, but He had five hundred witnesses. These saw Him alive once for all, and their lives were forever changed.

The other three references are in Hebrews. “[He] needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once [that is, ‘once for all’], when he offered up himself.” “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once [‘once for all’] into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12; 10:10).

Once for all He died for sin, then with His own shed blood He entered into the presence of the Father, sanctified us forever, and was raised from the dead by impeccable testimony, once for all. HMM

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