#like with will shakespeare he saw there the potential maybe he already known about what all he could write and would become the classic

[beaulesbian]

Can you hear it?

[kordeliam]

introducing ..   NORAH BARDOT  as  CORDELIA  !! 

i  can’t  even  begin  to  put  into  words  how  excited  i  am  for  this  group.  i’m  honestly  still  in  shock  i’m  here ??  i’m  super  passionate  about  every  aspect  of  this  group  already  but  ANYWHO  i’m  nica  ( 20 in the cst. chaotic writer and english student )  and  i’ll  be  writing  the  naive,  gentle,  miss  bardot  --  scholarship  student,  whiz  kid  photographic  memory  extraordinaire,  mom  friend  to  all  of  your  chaos  children.  an  endless  resume  covered  in  flowers.  her  pinterest  can  be  found  HERE   which will  give  you  a  good  aesthetic  summary  because  i  know  her  intro  might  be  a  bit  wordy ??  i’m  also  going  to  put  up  a  connections  page  and  post  her  letter  separately  soon  but  please  message  me  for  norah  ramblings  and  plots !!  

character inspo :    hermione granger ( harry potter ) ,  lucie manette ( a tale of two cities ) , eponine ( les miserables ) ,  jo march ( little women )

you never knew opulence  --  no razor sharp collar bones framed in pearls nor soft silk on softer skin  --  no, certainly not in the traditional sense. but your life was wealth in abundance, if you knew where to look. love overflowing. two warm parents, nestled in a warm apartment tucked away in an unassuming, cold south london borough. a carousel of family pets, usually strays you plucked from the streets, desperate to nurse back to health. your mother blamed that   hero gene   you inherited from your father. a moral code so completely spun into your dna that sometimes it would feel inescapable. you would do what’s right, no matter the cost. your mother blames your family’s poverty on the hero gene, too. when she mentions it like that, with her face straight and voice so flat, you aren’t sure it was ever a compliment. 

you always questioned if it was inherited as much as it was taught, the good parts of you, the selfless parts. it was, after all, your father who ran the soup kitchen just down the block, who brought you with him nearly every weekend to help serve.  look, look at those that have it so much worse, and you will know why i do not want.  ( and if this mantra, so instilled in you it’s whispered almost like scripture , makes you see the other students at ashcroft a little differently, could you really be faulted ? )   

it was in the kitchen your family first noticed your potential  --  your genius  --  a quiet girl with a brain like an elephant.  you do not forget .  you could recant shakespeare like you had hamlet open in front of you, and you loved to spoil the children with words, with stories, with the same escapism you used yourself  --  but must never admit.  do not want .  you memorized charts, recipes, sonnets with a glance. you skipped your fourth year, advancing so rapidly your parents didn’t know what to do with you besides gawk. it was your memory, photographic, and your work ethic, scrupulous, that set you apart. but it was your heart, your conscience  ( gentle, PURE )  that truly defined you. 

DEATH TW. CANCER TW.  if only you had been smart enough to detect the signs of cancer in your father, before it was too late. you’re stubborn, and from a young age you think you’re smarter than you are. gifted. there’s no way you could have known, your mother would tell you this, and the bills? can you imagine the bills? she’s right, of course, and fate is cruel, but you are resilient. you don’t give up on the soup kitchen, even with the memory like a knife. it’s what your father would have wanted, and all you crave anymore is to make him proud. build a life for your mother, a better life. maybe, without him around, it’s okay to want  a little. 

your life changed after that. your mother pulled you out of school; home school would suit the two of your needs better, anyway. you were smart enough to handle it. your mother seemed to think so. and you could work odd jobs, keep your home lest that be pulled from beneath your feet as well. but high school became nothing but a fantasy, something you saw played out in movies. boys in varsity jackets and girls in cheerleading kits. sneaking out through the window only to sneak into the bars. you wouldn’t know rebellion, you couldn’t afford to. naive innocence brushed across your forehead, branding you different. 

some days the loneliness liked to make a home of your bones, pitch itself into the hollow of your chest until you thought you might burst. an ever growing desire to be known, to be loved, like you read in the stories. the ones you couldn’t forget. your academics were your only defense against that suffocation, working towards something so you didn’t fall back instead. you were compensating, but it worked, that day you received your acceptance letter to ashcroft. the scholarship.  “ we recognize talent when we see it. ”  you’re pretty sure you would have memorized the letter even without your photographic memory. it meant that much. 

the imperium society followed suit, a natural progression for someone as bright as you. top of your class, because you work hard and you care for nothing else more. even with the pressure of maintaining your scholarship weighing heavy on your shoulders, you did not waver. ashcroft, the society, they were the proof that you could make your own way. that one day, your mother would live happily on a farm somewhere, and you would continue on to medical school. you starved for the future you were paving for yourself like you hadn’t eaten in decades. 

you fit snugly into the imperium society. you didn’t make any enemies, not like the others. you would sooner be stepped on than cause any trouble. in some ways, it was you that was the glue, holding everyone together. keeping everyone at peace. you with your level head, your encoded morals, your perception. your soft voice that had a way of ringing louder than all the others. there was no room for emotion when it came to the diplomacy of the society. you made friends that felt like family, you fell in love, fell into bed. it was all coming together. 

and then octavia was murdered. you knew her well, everyone in the society did, but you practically lived with her. you spent late nights studying together in the library, long weekends galavanting through the city. the two of you were so different, but that was what you liked about her. she forced you out of the shell you didn’t know you were trapped in. and then she was dating lysander, one of your closest friends, one of the few who really REALLY knew you, and you  loved  her brother. it felt like a web you were undoubtedly entangled in, but a grief that wasn’t yours to bear. is it wrong that you still aren’t sure what hurts worse, the loss or the aftermath? 

you aren’t sure if you believe in ghosts  --  you always hoped and prayed your father would visit you and HE certainly never did  --   but it’s impossible to deny the tug in your gut that tells you this is real .  you have an annoying knack for always being right. you know you need to help, there’s no way you could ever forgive yourself if you let octavia’s death go unsolved, if you left your lysander to be imprisoned forever, but the hairs that stand up on the back of your neck tell you you’re biting off more than you can chew. 

[nimwallace]

Paradise Lost

Aziraphale felt that out of all things on Earth, his favorite by far, were the humans. What quaint and fascinating creatures, absorbed in themselves and material and others, obssessed with the holy and the sinful and the restless; humans are machines without function, and he loved them. He was, in all respects, quite human himself, however he didn't like to admit it. He was just as human as Adam, or Crowley. He was a Holy Being, but an Earthly Being also, with desires and selfish ambition and doubt. All the worlds a stage, as Shakespeare said, and Aziraphale certainly felt that the Almighty was watching Her plan play out like a Greek Tragedy. He wondered if, all along, She had planned for him to be friends with Cr0wley. If she put him near the Eatsern Gate on that day just so he could meet him. He didn't like to think too much of Her plans, though. Best not to question Her. Instead, he satsified himself with literature and music and art and the company of a certain wily serpent with a fondness for Queen. It was a lot easier to cope with all this if there was constantly a sarcastic yet lovely demon to talk to about it. Days went by, then weeks, and months. Soon, it had been a year since the Almost End of the World, and Aziraphale was tiring of fending off customors and and buying new shelves. Crowley was at the shop every day anyway, and that's where Aziraphale's next idea came to him. "Perhaps we should buy a house together." Crowley, who had been relaxing in an armchair, oblivious to the angel's fantasies of domestic bliss, looked up in surprise. "What?" "Buy a house together. Perhaps a little cottage, in the South Downs? I've been thinking, it might be nice." Crowley was still looking startled, but was now considering the idea. "I could have a library, and you could have your garden," Aziraphale pressed on. "Plenty of empty, county roads to race your Bentley down. Hooks on the ceiling to hang your vines." Crowley's eyebrows furrowed. He had been here every day since. . .well, since the end. It wasn't as if Hell would give him any trouble for it any longer. And he could pop over to London whenever he saw fit. "All right," he said. "Why not? Let's buy a house together."

Being roomates with Crowley came, unsurprisingly, easy to Aziraphale. He was already used to seeing the demon lazing about in the sun or yelling at his plants, so there was hardly any change of routine save the location of it. Aziraphale found that, more often, people were mistaking them for a couple, not that he minded it, nor corrected them. He was often referred to as "Mr Crowley" by people in the neighborehood who assumed that he was married to a particular Anthony J Crowley, who had an affinity for human names. Aziraphale still did not know what the "J" stood for. He did not call Crowley Anthony, purely because it was not the name he had always known him by, and found using his third name to be more intimate by far. He had tried Anthony once, and found it tasted completely bitter to his tongue, and Crowley looked digusted besides, so that was the end of that experiment. The longer they lived in the Downs, the easier they became with each other. They had a freedom they did not have before. The first time Aziraphale told Crowley he loved him, it was a mistake. Crowley was about to go out for a bit, there was a concert he wanted to see that Aziraphale had no particular interest in, and he was heading out the door. "I'll be back around 3, yeah? See you, Angel." "Goodbye, my dear. Love you." Crowley froze, and Aziraphale felt his hands go numb on his book. "What was that?" Crowley hissed quietly. "I-I said I love you," Aziraphale said firmly, face bright red and neck warm. "Do stay safe." Crowley, speechless, just nodded, looking a bit dazed, and left. He came home nearly two hours early, threw his jacket on the ground, and kissed Aziraphale fervently. "'Love you too," he explained, and left Aziraphale sitting there, stunned and flustered.

Aziraphale asked about Crowley's days as an angel for the first time in 6,000 years on a warm, rainy morning in August. "Crowley, what was it like before you Fell?" Crowley, who had been lazily tracing the lines of Aziraphale's hands, suddenly stiffened. "Before I was a demon?" he said, somewhat hollowly. "Yes, my dear. If--if it isn't too painful for you. I'd like to know more about it." Crowley was silent for some moments. It is inevitable, as in all things in life, that at some point, you are asked a question so complex and terrible your throat closes and your heart stops. Trauma feels like war, and questions feel like bullets. Crowley, in this moment, nearly keels over like a wounded soldier, he has been struck again. But he does not flinch. Love is a vicious and powerful thing. Love conquers war, always. "I made galaxies," he said quietly. "I--I was a healer, an archangel. One of the big three." "An archangel!" Aziraphale gasped softly. He did not know Crowley had been so important during his time in Heaven. "And a healer, nonetheless. Oh, Crowley." Crowley didn't look at him, but focused on the ceiling. "My name, I--I don't even know if I'm allowed to speak it anymore--my name was Raphael. I don't believe we ever knew each other, then." Aziraphale could've wept, and in that moment, he looked close. "You were Raphael?" he choked quietly. "My dear." "I know. I--I was told I had a lot of potential, you know. But I--I asked too many questions, and I didn't like the archangels, and then, I Fell--" He had to stop there, because he was too close to crying. Crying, for demons, felt a lot like getting burned does to a human. Demons are unforgivable, and their pain, therefore, is excrutiating in all ways. Tears are like wax to them, only hotter and fiercer. "Don't weep," Aziraphale warned, placing a comforting hand on his cheek. "You'll hurt yourself." Crowley swallowed, collecting himself. "When I Fell, I still wanted to be Good," he said. "I still wanted to Heal people. I still do." "I know, darling." Crowley leaned in to his touch. "Don't ever Fall, angel," he said softly. "Not for me. Not for anyone." Aziraphale looked worried, but wanted to comfort him. "I won't, Crowley. It's all right." He was lying.

When Aziraphale Fell, the Heavens didn't weep for his loss. Gabriel gave Uriel a look of "I knew this was going to happen" and Sandelphen only shrugged. When Aziraphale Fell, the only person who wept was Crowley, who bent over his angel's crippled and mangled form and wept harder than he had in his existance, so hard that he could feel his skin burning off and he was trembling all over. Aziraphale lay on the ground, unconscious, bloodied. His ichor had turned an inky black instead of gold, and dripped onto the ground like dew from a foxglove. He had known he was going to Fall, in a way, he knew it since he first guarded that Eastern Gate. He was too much for Heaven, he supposed. He loved too much, and all the wrong things. For a start, Crowley. The final straw, the one that landed him here, had been asking for Crowley's forgiveness. He didn't know quite what he expected to come from it. Maybe that somehow, Heaven would take him back. Instead, they threw Aziraphale out. "If you want him to be like you," they said, "go join him."

He first opened his eyes to meet Crowley's. "I'm sorry," Aziraphale said. And the stars trembled.

[luckyspike]

more GO fanfic because i can’t decide which colors of yarn to use for my next project

Crowley made it a point to visit Adam semi-regularly, about monthly, after the Nah-pocalypse. He justified it to himself by telling himself it was because he was making sure the kid kept his Hellish instincts in check, but that wasn’t really it, not if he really was honest with himself*.

-

* Which he rarely was.

-

Deep down, it was mostly because he actually liked the kid. And, well, there was a part of him that felt bad for him. Crowley had sprung into existence right at the Beginning, with a vague idea of identity but no real idea of what the Heaven was going on. But he’d been given orders - they all had - and he followed them for the most part. Until, well, until he hadn’t. Because, he had reflected, he really didn’t know what was going on, what was at stake, until it became abundantly obvious that just because you don’t know what’s going on doesn’t mean you ad-lib your way through until things seem alright**.

He couldn’t imagine being dropped into that suddenly, at the age of 11, so young and new and without any real concrete identity. Poor Adam. The kid had learned his true nature, learned the whole truth about Heaven and Hell and the Universe, about destiny and the Ineffable Plan, all in the space of 1 afternoon, and then rebuked all of it. Cast it aside. 

Crowley felt, deep down somewhere, maybe where his soul had been once, that that wasn’t really fair. And that maybe, with enough gentle guidance and someone with ... if not a better idea of what on Earth was going on then at least experience making it up as you go, that he could help Adam avoid some nastier mistakes.

So he kept up with the kid. Once every month, give or take. They met at Anathema’s cottage, because while Adam’s inherent spiritual Teflon was probably enough to keep people from asking questions about the tall man in the sunglasses who visited on occasion, the safe ruse of visiting Newton and Anathema was less fraught with potential disaster. Nobody every really noticed the classic Bentley that was always parked outside.

“How old are you?” Adam asked one time. It was around his birthday, and it was clearly on his mind. “Like, really?”

Crowley hedged. “Uh, well. It’s - well, it’s tricky.” He glanced to Anathema and then back to Adam. Shrugged. “Hard to measure the bit before time got invented.”

“Huh.” Adam considered that. “Like, a long time before?” He nodded when the demon spread his hands, the universal gesture of ‘I don’t know’. “So you’re like the oldest person I know.”

Anathema chimed in. “Unless Aziraphale is -”

“Oh, right, Aziraphale!” Adam put his head to the side while he thought, and then sipped his lemonade. “Who came first, you or him?”

“I honestly don’t know, Adam,” Crowley admitted, staring into his coffee with an expression of consternation. “It was all muddled up in the beginning. Without time everything sort of - there wasn’t a first or a last or, you know, any kind of like, ah, linear measurement of whatever.” He saw Adam’s expression of confusion, and then shrugged. “Listen, the Beginning was really weird, there was a lot going on and then there was a lot of other things going on which were fairly, ah, hectic.” He stopped short of the Fall. Adam hadn’t asked about the Fall, and frankly wanted very little information about Hell. Crowley was more than happy to oblige. 

“So how long have you known Aziraphale then?”

“About 6000 years.”

Anathema sat down next to Adam, and slid a half sandwich over to the kid on a plate. “And you really actually met in the Garden of Eden?”

“Well, technically on the wall around it, yeah.”

“Cool.” They had talked about Eden before, fairly early on. Adam had, gradually, been working his way through history by means of the memories of AJ Crowley. Crowley had found through the process that he didn’t really mind, actually, and honestly there was something gratifying about being told by a pre-teen that you’re pretty cool. 

“Do you remember the date?” Anathema asked, startling Crowley enough to make him look up from his coffee, now cold. She was sipping her own drink, watching the demon over the rim of the cup. 

“I - yeah. It was the seventh day, so on the calendar now it would be October 28.”

“So,” she said innocently, “your anniversary is in October. The 28th.” She pulled out her phone and - Crowley could only assume - put the date on her calendar. “I’ll send a card.” She raised an eyebrow and Adam watched, smirking, around a mouthful of sandwich. It was a game the two of them played, and Crowley had long since stopped groaning when it started. “Any plans?”

“It’s not really our anniversary. We don’t ah - well, there’s not really an anniversary so to speak that we, er.”

“My parents go out for dinner on their anniversary, and then maybe the movies or a play. Last year they rented a hotel room in London and made a whole weekend of it,” Adam contributed, once he’d finished his bite of sandwich. “I stayed with Brian.”

“Right, well -”

“You should go to America!” Adam continued, while Anathema covered her mouth with her hand. “See like, Mount Rushmore or like the Grand Canyon or whatever. People do that on their anniversary.”

“Why would they look at giant carved presidents on an anniversary?” Crowley asked, momentarily distracted. 

“Who knows.” Adam shrugged. “Oh, or what about like, China, with the Great Wall, or Australia and the Great Barrier Reef, or what about a safari in Africa?”

“Been there, can’t swim, was around when the animals were Created,” Crowley responded to each in turn.

Anathema opened her mouth to say something - likely ask a question, she was always looking for information on some lost civilization or another, it was an interest of hers - but Adam continued with his suggestions. “Niagra Falls then. Or Everest. Or Japan?”

“Yeah, all very nice, but like I said we don’t really do anniversaries -”

“But you remember the date,” Anathema cut in.

“Well I mean it was fairly significant for other reasons -”

Adam scoffed. “So was my parents anniversary. They got married on the same day as all kinds of weird stuff in America happened, but they still celebrate theirs.”

Crowley tried to think of a way to explain to a soon-to-be-thirteen-year-old that after 6000 years, a single date on a calendar wasn’t necessarily as important. After all, which dates would you mark? The meeting date, the day they agreed on the Arrangement, the day Crowley saved Aziraphale from the French Revolution, the day Crowley saved Aziraphale from Nazis, the day -

He stopped that train of thought so abruptly Anathema and Adam might have heard the brakes. There was a trend there, and Crowley wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

“We just never have,” he said lamely, at length. Adam shrugged, and finished his sandwich, and Crowley breathed a sigh of relief. He knew that shrug. That was the ‘fine, whatever’ shrug. The shrug that meant, thank Whoever, that Adam was bored with that line of questioning, and would shortly begin another which would be, Crowley reasoned, vastly preferable to this one.

“Something to bear in mind,” Anathema said, though, before Adam could muster up another question. “Might be sweet.”

“I’m a demon, I don’t do ‘sweet’,” Crowley pointed out.

Adam took a gulp of his drink, and asked, “So what was King Arthur like?” and Crowley jumped on it like a drowning man on a raft, rambling on about round tables and wizards and prats in armor looking for Black Knights in a stupid bog somewhere in the middle of bloody nowhere, all the while trying very hard to not think any more about October 28.

Which did come.

Eventually.

Time has a way of doing that. Crowley still wasn’t sure how he felt about the invention of it.

He showed up to the bookshop on the 28th, just prior to closing or, more accurately, exactly at closing, since customarily Aziraphale generally decided to close whenever Crowley showed up. He waited for the angel to shoo the last stragglers out of the shop, pull the shades, and lock the doors. He poured himself some wine while he waited, and considered the calendar on the wall by the desk***. He was midway through the first planned glass of wine that evening when Aziraphale finally joined him, flopping into a chair and grabbing the already-poured glass Crowley had set out for him.

“Got a letter from Miss Device, today,” Aziraphale said without preamble. Crowley’s blood ran cold^. He held up an envelope, and paused at Crowley’s expression. “Are you alright?” The demon managed a nod. “Oh, you looked - anyway. Just a note, you know how she writes. So nice of her to keep in touch.”

“Yeah, really nice.”

“Oh! And she enclosed these.” From the envelope, he produced two tickets - tickets, Crowley realized, distantly, while the high-pitched whine of panic rang in his ears. She’d sent a card, she said she would, and he’d done nothing, as usual, and - “She said she bought them for her and Newton to spend a night in London, but he’s having car trouble again. I suppose she thought we might get some use out of them.”

“Oh? Oh. That’s alright then.” Crowley took a draught of wine and sank lower onto the sofa, relief emanating from every atom of his being. “What for?”

“Royal Shakespeare Company - they’re doing ‘As You Like It.’” He smiled, and Crowley raised an eyebrow, the better to keep his own smile at bay. “You always said you liked the funny ones.” He took a sip of his wine. “You don’t have plans tonight, do you?”

“Who me? Nah, never.” Crowley paused, and swirled his wine in his glass. “Tell you what - what do you say about, oh, I dunno, having dinner first, maybe the Ritz? Make a night out of it.” There was a silence, which Crowley generally was not in favor of, but it was comfortable, and filled with the soft warmth of the bookshop’s ambient noise and the bustling street outside. Aziraphale smiled, and took a sip of wine. “Sounds delightful, Crowley. But a bit convenient. There wouldn’t be any reason for this spontaneous evening, would there?”

Crowley did not panic. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even break a sweat, just took a sip himself and answered, “It wouldn’t be spontaneous by definition then, would it?”

“No, I suppose not,” Aziraphale said, although he was grinning like anything. “Well, it’s a nice night for a little spontaneity. I’ll finish by drink, and then get my coat. Shall we walk?”

“We’ve got time.”

Aziraphale smiled and this time around, Crowley didn’t fight the urge to smile back.

-

** Although they still had, after a fashion. 

*** It was from 1994, not that anybody cared.

^ Colder, anyway.

[zak-helling]

Big Hero 6 Theory: Liv’s Next Mutation

Even though it’s not the main focus of my blog, it’s no secret that I love Big Hero 6: the series. I love the characters, I love the animation, I love the stories, and I, of course, love the mysteries. The show keeps you guessing as to what’s going to happen next, but the tragic thing is that, despite being popular enough to warrant a renewal for a third season before season 2 premiered, there doesn’t seem to be much of a fan community online. Unless you tag your fan art, theories, quotes, etc. it’s unlikely a piece of fan art will drift across your dash like it does for shows like Steven Universe, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, She-Ra, etc. I’m hoping that changes soon, but I digress.

Also, this theory is going to contain spoilers for season 2, so I’ll go ahead and tuck it under “Read More”.

Getting back on topic, one of the biggest mysteries thus far in season 2 is the monsters and who is making them. We know Liv Amara is the culprit, but as of episode 10, “Lie Detector,” it becomes less clear what’s going on. Who’s the real Liv Amara? Why is one Liv in what appears to be cryosleep? Why is the other Liv making these monsters? How long has this apparent clone been running amok? Have we only known this clone the entire time? Does the sleeping Liv know what’s going on? There are so many questions, but not a whole lot of answers. Seeing as it’s been a few weeks since the last new episode, we might not know for some time. All we know is that the active Liv Amara is turning old villains into monsters for some kind of fee and, at the moment, no known benefit for the villains. Well, yeah, the villains become stronger, faster, and meaner, but as we saw with High Voltage, the process kind of interferes with living their best lives. We don’t know why they want this or why Liv is doing it. All we really know is that Liv is turning humans into monsters and turning them loose in the streets, sometimes being the one to take them down and look like a hero, other times letting Big Hero 6 do the dirty work.

So now let’s take a look at what we know about Liv’s monsters. I’ll bold the important stuff, as most of this will just be recap:

The first one, introduced in season 1 although we don’t know the full story yet, is Orso Knox, the Shakespeare fan turned whale mixed with a dinosaur and some hair, put into a blender, frozen, and then partially thawed. He spends the episode rampaging through the streets of San Fransokyo, attending his meetings, destroying offices, and speaking cryptically. We later learn that he wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, but is more beast than man, and was only trying to get help the best he could. Had it not been for Karmi reversing his mutation in the episode “Prey Date,” Liv probably would have kept Knox as a monster for even longer, potentially pulling him further and further from his humanity.

The second one is Momakase, who can be best described as turning into a werewolf from Skyrim (although her appearance is likely based on Lady Deathstrike, another Marvel villain). Momakase has always been strong, but she is heightened way beyond her normal abilities. Her nails are deadly claws that can cut through anything, she can escape the trap Big Hero 6 creates her and escape into the night, and has so far not been seen again since the episode “The Seventh Wheel.”

Third and fourth is the mother-daughter duo High Voltage. When they make their season 2 debut in “Something’s Fishy,” they discuss wanting to go straight with Liv, telling her that their crime days are over and even trying to lead normal lives after doing Liv’s dirty work. Unfortunately, once they mutate, those dreams are crushed, and they end up being kept in a tank until Liv needs them again in the episode “Lie Detector.” Barb and Juniper even end up turning back over their new leaf after an entire song and dance number about wanting to be normal, which, suggests to me at least, that Liv’s mutation process also messes with free will. Is it possible the two really did just learn they love crime that much? Sure, but I’m not convinced.

The fifth, arguably, is Nega-Globby, a destructive blob made from Globby’s already mutated DNA, introduced in the episode “Nega-Globby”. Side note, I love this episode. Globby makes such a sacrifice in the name of goodness and, I’d say, has been pretty thoroughly redeemed. While our Globby is victorious by the end of the episode, Nega-Globby is still part of him, suggesting that it’s not easy to undo one of Liv’s mutations.

The sixth is the Hibagon in the episode “Muira-Horror!”, the mutated Ned Ludd, back again for more action. Unlike all the other mutations before, Ned’s mutation leaves him a mindless killing machine, further supporting the idea that Liv has the power to interrupt or even override free will. Even Orso Knox had the ability to quote The Tempest, but Ned doesn’t say a word. He comes out of his mutation dazed and confused, with no recollection of what happened.

Mutant number seven is Mr. Sparkles, who is made into a fluffy green monster in the aptly titled episode, “Something Fluffy.” Also introduced in this episode are the Mayoi, adorable, fluffy fungus creatures created by Liv that grow into towering kaijus that can be controlled by Mr. Sparkles. Basically, Liv can create hive minds, or at the very least can put one mind in charge of many. She’s the one to save the day at the end of the episode, boosting her appearance and making Big Hero 6 look inept. After Hiro learns the police already don’t much care for the superhero team in the episode “Something’s Fishy”, this event creates more tension between them and the people they protect, possibly setting up the conflict for the rest of the season, or maybe even the main conflict of season 3.

Finally, we have the big Bessie Bear from the latest episode, “Lie Detector.” This mutation shows us that Liv can essentially give life to inanimate objects, as all she needed was a lock of grizzly bear hair to create the technology cancelling beast. This shows that all Liv needs to make a monster is the tiniest amount of DNA.

So now we know/remember what Liv can do with her technology. We know she poses a threat to Big Hero 6. Seeing as she has only done experiments on past antagonists (as well as Orso Knox and, as is implied, her Chris-sistant, although we don’t know enough about him for him to make the recap), why would she experiment on Big Hero 6? In my mind, the answer is simple: to break them apart. If she mutates one of the characters, crime fighting will be a lot harder. Public perception of the team will plummet. And, if she works her magic with tampering with free will, she can even have another henchman on her side. In short, there’s no way Liv loses in this scenario. Now that we know her motivation, who’s on the chopping block?

The first person who comes to mind isn’t a person at all. We know that Liv can make monsters with a frame and just a bit of DNA, so in theory, she could mutate Baymax. This doesn’t seem likely though, as it would be much easier to just unplug him. Plus, he was part of a super villain grand scheme last season, so it might be repetitive. It could be Hiro. He’s the main character, and having him mutated would force him to hide more things from Aunt Cass, force him to go to Karmi for help, and would give us more insight into the lives of the mutated villains. Although, because he’s the main character, I can’t see him switching sides. Fred is already pretty animalistic, as reflected in his costumes and behaviors while wearing them. But, I don’t know how much mileage we can get considering how Fred is still very much a comic relief character. Wasabi is probably the least developed character on the team, so a mutation could push things for him in a new direction, but that would probably come at the show’s detriment. Honey Lemon’s chem purse already puts her in harm’s way of suffering the same mutation as Globby, making her an easy target, but that would just be repetitive at this point. And so, we are left with one person, the character who I think this is most likely to happen to:

Go Go Tomago.

In a way, season 2 has been Go Go’s season. She’s had more development than the rest of the cast, maybe even more than Hiro. “The Fate of the Roommates” shows her emotionally vulnerable and opening up about her feelings for the first time, developing her as a character and her relationship with Honey Lemon. The very next episode, “Muira-Horror!” shows her learning to let go of some of her stubbornness to trust in Krei’s judgement. The episode “Supersonic Sue” shows her crisis as she fails to prevent an old criminal fresh out of retirement from escaping a crime scene, an old criminal who, as it turns out, was inspired by Go Go to go back to crime. Basically, Go Go has been on an emotional roller coaster this season. We see her get angry, we see her get sad, we see her challenged in ways we hadn’t before. These episodes gave her highs, but they also gave her lows. In fact, “Supersonic Sue” didn’t even give her time to get over what happened, nor does she get a chance to redeem herself from her failure. Right now, Go Go has the most to lose and would likely be the hardest to fall. If anyone on the team is going to get mutated, I’m betting it’s her.

As of right now, we don’t know if the show is going in this direction. For all we know, the mutations stopped at Bessie and the rest of the season will be rounding up the mutants and returning them to normal. But the season is only half-over. I feel like we have plenty of time to play around with the status quo and shake things up a bit. If they do go this route, I doubt it will be permanent, but it could be fun and heart-wrenching at the same time. We’ll see, when Disney finally airs those new episodes.

[abs0luteb4stard]

My spiritual war began half a lifetime ago. And I will carry it on even after I'm dead one day. Ω

Most people are raised with a religion or beliefs.

Some of them lose faith. Some become atheists. Some stay where they are in believing.

I I suppose I haven't fully stopped believing in a spiritual power/experience.

Call it the "God Gene" (VMAT2) or illogical stupidity, But I just can't purge that notion from my head.

According to the God Gene Hypothesis: "Spirituality is supposed to provide an evolutionary advantage by providing individuals with an innate sense of optimism."

I do not feel that optimism that there is a God or sentient universe out there. Or that "God has a plan".

I feel unspeakably betrayed.

When I was a young kid. I think I was very well behaved. I cared. I had a great heart. If that wasn't good enough for any god. Then they don't follow their own teachings.

When I got to middle school. I was scared. Three local schools were merged all my friends were lost in the shuffle. I thought it'll be difficult to make new friends, but I had hope.

Well, that hope wasn't lost. It was gouged out and raped from my spirit. Not just spiritually but my spirit of hope caring and goodness.

The bullying. They called me faggot, poor boy, foreigner (born here but was given a "foreign" name) on and on. They spit in my books. They knocked my books out of my hands everyday, between every class. Choked me, beat me, spit on me. There wasn't just a group, the group spread rumors and enlisted others in their attacks on me. Even my old friends from elementary school abandoned me because association with me was repugnant to their social standing. I once saw a buddy from elementary and said hello at his locker only to be ignored like I didn't exist.

Those 2 years of middle school left me completely empty. I remember I went to sleep every weeknight praying to die in my sleep. Ashamed at how that would hurt my parents if it came true. Then I would be woken up for school the next morning secretly crying because I was still alive and had to go through another day.

If there was a gun I would have gladly killed every one of those motherfuckers who were bullying me.

Especially Chas. He was the one who got the ball rolling on my destruction. How a dickhead who was seemingly proud of his failure of the 7th grade the year before I came there had such social clout with these pieces of shit I'll never understand.

High school was hell, but it slowly matured. Not without its own degrading moments where I was bullied or attacked or pushed down or spit on. But I think those who were there were preparing for their college or next step.

My grades were average. My spirit was broken already. My hope was nowhere. I was lucky to graduate probably.

I'm no longer normal. Those years of abuse at school changed me irrevocably. Everyday for 2 years. Non-stop. Physical, emotional, mental, pen tips pressed into the back of my neck till a bled. A pen cap pushed into my ear luckily it didn't hit my ear drum.

Principals, counselors, nobody did anything. Anything they did do was either a warning or giving me a punishment for retaliations.

I was punished for someone abusing me.

So I dropped out of local community college after a spotty 2 years. Continued schooling just came with anxieties and fear. I'd already had my life's share of that. I needed surgery and after I just let go of further education. Of a career of any kind.

Now I'm 33, soon to be 34. And these things that have effected me since half my life ago still affect me today. Call it C-PTSD or anxiety or trauma, social phobia, agoraphobia. It's all the same to me.

The bullies are gone but make no mistake theyre haunting me.

So where the fuck was God?

Where was his miracle for me?

Why didn't he spilt the red sea for me? I'm not as important as Moses. Where was his warning that I should build a boat like Noah?

No burning bush, no "hey Abraham, go kill your son", nothing. Not from this god or any fucking god.

Not once.

But some stupid genetic marker (VMAT2) anchors me to believe?

In the years since school I went through the divorce of my parents which was particularly hard if you knew me you'd understand.

My dad needed a 2nd open heart surgery which led to a big stroke from a clot that broke off. His arm and leg that were effected mostly came back. But his mind was effected permanently. The parts of the brain that were injured left him with memory problems. He couldn't live on his own, he'd already come back home with my mom and me before that to live with us after a hard hip replacement surgery.

Then I went through my mother's surprise lung cancer diagnosis, surgery, and so far no signs of it returning. Luckily it was found early after she had a cold and cough they wouldn't go away and got a chest x-ray.

Now my dad 4.5 years after his stroke and ongoing memory problems, he woke up yesterday the happiest man who ever lived, he had so much love and kisses and hugs to give.

But shockingly he completely forgot who I was. He thought I was a visiting neighbor. He forgot who my mom was. But he was happy to meet his son and wife for the first time again in this new place (it's the same place and the same people he'd always known before).

But I am crushed. I'm so deeply affected. He's happy and jolly enough for 3 people to meet us...

But my mom and I are very sad. It's such a shock. While he is thankfully happy and comfortable with his 'new family' that we are. I've cried more than my muted emotions have let me cry in the last 15 years.

He told me he's sorry that he missed being part of my life before now. Nothing cut my heart up quite like that. He apologizes for not knowing or recognizing me.

I've been betrayed by God all my life or at least that VMAT2 gene chemically telling my brain there's a higher power.

I'm just not important enough. No miracles to help me get out of this PTSD or my other medical issues. No reprieve from these life threatening illnesses my parents got one after the other. And now my father doesn't know who I am anymore.

Maybe god like those bullies just hate me too? If were created in his image then he's as capable of hate and torturing as we his human creations are.

After all he made a bet with the devil that Job in the bible would keep the faith in God no matter what god did to him. He gave him diseases, killed his livestock, killed his family with sickness, and burned down his house. But the dumb motherfucker still loved god.

He gave him all be house, animals and family after the ordeal, but the other wife and children didn't deserve to die for a bet. "But they went to heaven". They still had potential energy, lives to live grow old and have their own families, but "God" killed them to prove he was right in bet to the devil. That an idiot would still love him after all that.

So maybe I can't stop believing in God, or have some leftover spirituality.

But I'm not as fucking forgiving ad that dumb motherfucker Job. But I'm also not willing to just walk away from God's game. I'm more than ever cemented my hate for God. I'm giving the devil sympathy or joining his side. If there is such a thing.

I'm instead giving God - ALL MY HATE.

I've got infinite amounts of anger and hate in me. For every millisecond of my torture in school I hate those pieces of shit, at one point that was all that kept me from killing myself. I'm filled to overflowing.

Now there's nothing and no one I hate more than God. I don't care about abortion, I don't care about pollution, I don't care about animals raised in cages and mutilated.

My dad is apologizing to me for what his stroke did to make him forget me. He's apologizing to me with regret, shame and love in his eyes for something that's not his fault.

WHERE IS GOD!? hmm? His love and miracles? His bullshit?!

God. Guardian Angels? Any God or Goddess. Any religion, pagan gods, gods that we don't even know existed. Where are they? Spirits? Demons? Satan himself? Useless.

I have declared a war on God deep down in my soul. I'm not here to preach or change your religion, make you an atheist or garner views or to promote the devil.

But rest assured I am going to kill God. My determination is absolute.

Not in a social or political sense, I'm not going to become Nietzsche 2.0.

I'm going to prepare my heart and soul. My physical body, my mental attitude, my spirit, my soul. My life might go until I'm 120 years old and I'm fine with that.

But God will know fear because I will teach it to him. God has a death wish and I'm that wish come true.

You think Abu Ghraib looked terrible? What I do to God will make that seem like a Kumbaya summer camp.

I don't know what god is, what makes a deity, fucked if know if such a thing even exists. But I will torture, maim, and kill God.

These neo-pagans with their "All Gods are one God."

That's fine by me. Get the all Gods in one place so I can kill that motherfucker with a smile on my face. Even if he's holding the universe together, like Atlas holding the world. If it means the end of all things then I'm more than satisfied to end reality.

If there's a physical aspect to him on some spiritual realm or whether it's simply a psychic thought of the living mind or some genetic predisposed delusion. Maybe I've lost my mind too, maybe there's nothing left but my madness.

My wrath makes God in the old Testament look like a spoiled 3 year old child. God will get what's coming to him.

He is mine and I am his.

·

"Nor sleep, nor sanctuary, being naked, sick, the prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice shall lift up their rotten privilege and custom against my hate to Martius. Where I find him, were it at home, upon my brother's guard, even there, will I wash my fierce hand in his heart."

—AUFIDIUS; Shakespeare's "Coriolanus"

·

·

"I'll fight with none but thee, for I do hate thee."

—Caius Martius Coriolanus; play of the same name.

[tomhollandarling]

Star What?

Summary: You and Peter soon become friends after you help him out a bit in English. (part 1 of an unfinished series) 

Masterlist

Part Two  Part Three

Word Count: 2332

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female Reader

A/N: Hey! So this is my first time ever writing Peter Parker and my first time publishing a part of a fic so I hope you all like it! (I hope it’s at least somewhat decent) I don’t know where this story is going but I’m just kinda writing with the flow. 

It was that time again. That dreadful, highly anticipated time again when the leaves started to change, routines began to fall in place and the streets and sidewalks that paralleled them grew thicker with rushed people. It wasn’t the weather that brought a downer, it was what was already beginning again. Halfway through September marked the second week of school for Peter Parker, a sophomore at Midtown High in Queens. He wasn’t the most popular teen, being in the robotics club and on the academic decathlon team, and Flash Thompson, the school bully, tried to pick on him as much as possible.

Aunt May opened the door to Peter’s room to find him still nestled under the blankets, a bare foot sticking out with a ray of sunshine pooling over his back. “You can’t solve your problems by hiding in bed all day.” She chided, dropping off a basket of laundry next to his cluttered desk, homework and notes from the day before scattered on top. She’d come in five minutes earlier to see if he was awake; he wasn’t. “Come on, you. School” Aunt May shook his shoulder, placing her hands on her narrow hips afterwards.

“Mmpfh,” was Peter’s response, turning away from her.

“Na-uh. Not today! Get up lazy bug. You have school and to school you are going!!” She stated. She waited a moment before adding, “I’ll let you pick dinner tonight.” She bribed in a sing-song voice.

He rubbed sleep out of his eyes, adjusting to the light, and stretched his arms upwards. “Thai?” He asked.

“If you get up right now, then yes, we can have Thai for dinner.” May responded, walking out of his room.

“From the place on 54th?” He half-yelled, sitting up, confirming his request before he made any drastic movement towards starting the day.

“You got it!” Peter started to untangle himself from the blankets nearly tripping over the basket of laundry.

-

The chime of a bell signaled the beginning of his day as Peter weaved through the hall of students to get to his English class. English wasn’t really his thing, but Peter did alright, managing a high B at the moment. He’d already missed a few points off an annotation assignment which brought him down to an 88. Peter sat towards the back of the classroom, trying to stay inside his own bubble and avoid social interaction: another subject he wasn’t too particularly fond of. He didn’t have that many friends, maybe two or three. Ned, being his closest. Sure Peter was friendly when you got to know him, but only a select few had chosen to do that. With Peter being as quiet as he was, most just left him to his thoughts, or as of right now, left him to stare out the window to his left.

The window framed one of the many bodegas of Queens: Miller’s Subs. A few weeks prior to the date, Spider-man, had stopped a poorly planned robbery. It wasn’t that hard, but it was an attempted robbery nonetheless. Two teens in masks tried to pass water guns as real ones. To their surprise, black spray paint was pretty obvious, but to the customers and store owner, the threat seemed real for a minute or two. They weren’t so worried about detail when lives could potentially be at stake. They just wanted to get out of trouble’s way.

“Woah? Was there a pool party? How come I wasn’t invited?” Spider-man had quipped, swinging in and knocking over one of the robbers and falsely admired the squirt gun, picking it up and spraying the teen in the face. “Shoot, I forgot to bring my swim trunks, mind if I borrow yours?” That earned him an angry groan from the tousled robber.

One of the masked teenagers tried to run towards the entrance to escape. Spider-man was much too quick though, webbing his ankle, causing him to trip and fall onto the tiled surface. “Hey, no running! You might slip!”

Peter smiled, reliving his heroic moment. If only he could be that confident without the mask.

“Mr. Parker? May I remind you that summer is over?” Mr. Scott lightly scolded. He was a small and stout man, donning some square glasses.

Hearing his name, Peter snapped his head towards the front of the class and tried to look somewhat engaged. “S-sorry, sir.” He apologized, flipping quickly through his textbook to find the right page.

“23.” You whispered from the desk just to his right. Peter, head down, gave a quick glance and embarrassed smile. “Thanks, uh..”

“Y/n.” You replied, tapping your pencil over a photocopied painting of Shakespeare from the textbook. You internally rolled your eyes. What was with every English teacher fawning over this guy? “Don’t worry about it.” You smiled. “I wasn’t really into the lesson either.”

Peter sighed in relief at your comment. “Glad I’m not the only one. I’m more into science really.”

“Don’t we have Chem together? 6th right?” You asked, jotting down what Mr. Scott was messily scrawling on the board. Wow for an English teacher, shouldn’t he have better handwriting? You let out a quiet breathy laugh.

He paused for a moment, mentally going over his schedule. “Y-yeah I think so. Wh-what’s so funny?” Peter asked nervously. Hopefully he didn’t say anything wrong?

Finishing copying down the quote, you registered what he’d asked, “Hm?” Your eyes slowly pulling away from your notebook. “Oh-I was just noticing how bad his handwriting is. I mean, he teaches English right?”

Peter glanced at the whiteboard, smiling, “Look there at the ‘afraid’. ” You prompted with your pencil towards the quote. The “r” was so slanted it looked like an “n” and the whole word drooped downwards. The both of you giggled as silently as you could, trying to keep up with what Mr. Eberle was taking an eternity to write.

“Man, he should teach History instead with how slow he’s going.” Peter mocked. Both of you giggled again at that, continuing to jot down the lecture.

—

Soon enough it was time for Chem: the sixth class of the day. Plopping down in your seat, you still had an earbud in. Blocking out hallway noises and nonsense with music was an essential way to get through the day. Spinning around on the high swivel chair to the beat, you repeated the action you had already done five times prior to 6th period: taken out your supplies, placed them on the table, and waited the time out until the end of the class.

Mr. Marlow casually strolled into the class and started the lesson with the daily warm up.

“Hey,” said a familiar voice, “can I-can I um, sit with you?” It was Peter.

You took out an earbud and noticed his presence, “Oh hey!” You greeted him again. “What did you just say? Sorry, I had my music playing.”

For some reason this made Peter flustered and red in the face. “I um, I asked, sit with, c-can I sit with um y-you?” He played with the hem of his blue sweater, tracing the stitch pattern and avoiding eye contact.

Letting out a light laugh, you patted the table top next to your left. The smooth, thick, black tables were meant to have two students each. “Sure! That’d be great. I think Marlow is giving us our first partner project today too. Michelle told me. She has Chem 3rd.”  

His cheeky face brightened up as he set his notebook on the desk, taking a seat next to you. “You know Michelle?”

“Yeah! She’s super nice. I’ve known her since middle school. She’s really quiet but as soon as you get to know her she cracks open.” Putting your hand up to the side of your mouth you added in a half-whisper, “I also have detention with her. Except she doesn’t have detention..like ever…she just goes there to draw and keep me company sometimes. You know her too?”

“Mmhm she sits with Ned and I at lunch”

Glimpsing to your left, you saw the cover of his spiral notebook. “Star Wars?” You observed.

“Star what?” He said, confused. Peter looked down at the cover of his notebook: the Star Wars logo. His cheeks flashed pink. “Oh! Yeah it’s my favorite series ever!” He was so enthusiastic at your simple comments that a few heads turned to see what the excitement was about.

Just then, one of your classmates came around and passed two papers out to each student: a rubric and the project rules with some questions to answer. “Thanks.” You smiled up at him.

“So, do you like Star Wars?” He fidgeted nervously with the metal spiral as Mr. Marlow started to explain the experiment.

Taking in a timid breath you said, “I’ve…well.”

Peter’s brows furrowed together as he scanned your face for an answer, his pencil eraser resting on his bottom lip, squishing it a bit. “You’ve what?” He pressed. Just now noticing the papers, he took both and skimmed them over, peeking back up at you for a response.

“Um, I’ve never seen it.” A short exhale followed with a nervous laugh. Ugh seriously, (Y/n), why would you compliment his notebook when you’ve never seen Star Wars?!

Shock took ahold of his soft face, his eyebrows raised “What?” He said flatly in a neutral voice, causing a few heads to turn.

“Yeah. I really want to though! Don’t get me wrong, I think it looks so cool! I just..I dont know. Never had the time I guess.”

“Okay, well that obviously has to change. How have you never? It’s seriously the best series to ever exist in the history of the universe. You’ve never? Wow, okay, I’m determined to make you watch it.” He rambled on.

“Woah woah! Don’t kidnap me Parker. I’ll find a way to watch it.” You snipped back and circled a few directions on the lab paper, grinning up at him. Your peers had started to make their way towards the materials cabinet, grabbing the required equipment along with a few chemical mixtures. “Oh! We better start.”

Laughing he replied, “Okay, but there is no getting out of watching it now. Partners?” He settled, skimming the list over, making a mental note of what to get.

“Sure, but don’t blame me when you mysteriously get whatever this is in your eyes.” you smirked, pointing at one of the materials with a toxic warning symbol.

Peter rolled his eyes dramatically and hopped off his seat to grab pipettes filled with different chemicals, two pairs of safety goggles, and a plastic sheet cover as you read the directions. He laid them all out on the table. The purpose of the lab was to combine different chemicals and note the reactions if there were any.

“Seems fairly simple.” You commented as you equipped the safety goggles and tied your hair up into a messy bun. Damn lab rules. “We’re supposed to put two drops of…” As you read the name of the chemical compound you swore your brain shut off. Okay what the actual fuck is this. “Um? 4HC2H3O2 + 5 NaOCl? Is that right?” You questioned, needing confirmation from Peter who was flipping through his notebook.

“Yeah yeah. That’s it. Just ignore the names for now; they can be a bit confusing. We just need to focus on what happens when we combine them.” Peter set his notebook aside and rummaged through the pile, finding both solutions. He handed you one. “Alright, so you have the first chemical so that needs to go down first.” He motioned you to start dropping the liquid on the plastic and you did so, making sure to carefully squeeze to not let too much out……success!

“Whew, okay I thought for a second there I was gonna mess it up.” You chuckled.

“You’re fine.” He emphasized, flashing you his teeth. Peter shoved up the sleeves of his blue knit sweater and concentrated on dropping the second chemical onto the drops you had placed just seconds before. Almost immediately after the two were combined, the silvery solution transformed to a darkened brownish red.

Admiring the chemical change, both of you wrote down your observations in the packet.

After about 15 minutes, the two of you had successfully completed the rest of the required solutions. Some had no change while others formed bubbles, one reaction turned a cloudy purple color, and another you had to expose to direct sunlight which turned it a dark brown. Overall, it was a pretty lucrative lab considering it was your first time taking Chem and Peter naturally excelled at the subject.

“Okay, so has everyone put away all the chemicals?” Mr. Marlow scanned the room for loose containers or pipettes. “Yes? Alright, good job on your first lab everyone! If you haven’t already, have one partner turn in their question sheet with both of your names on it. If your group didn’t finish on time, that’s fine. Just give it to me before the bell tomorrow. Also! Before you go, please please make sure you’ve wiped down the tables.”

“Shoot we forgot the questions.” You mentally kicked yourself, looking over the questions sheet that stared blankly back at you.

“Hey, it’s no big deal. Do you wanna come over after school and we could finish them? M-maybe? I-I don’t wanna pressure you or-or anything. I could always just do them on my own.” Peter blurted, messing with his sandy hair.

“Nonsense! We’ll finish it together. That wouldn’t be fair to have you do all the work. Here.” You gave him your phone so he could put his number in. “What time should I come over and where do you live?”

“Um, well I have this internship after school so I’m pretty busy for a bit but how about around 5? Would that work?” He gathered his supplies and shoved them in his backpack. You mirrored his actions. “I’ll text you my address.”

“Yeah, I think so. Okay, well cool! See you soon, Parker.”

A/N: So, yep! That’s the first part! Hopefully Ill figure out some plot for the next part. I really shouldn’t be blindly writing but I was in the zone haha. Hope you guys like it! ((also idk if the chemical combination or equation/reaction was correct at all I just googled some stuff because I needed at least something chemistry related)) 

Part Two  Part Three

Masterlist 

[thetimetravellinggaybar]

Chapter Three: The Whole Bar’s A Stage

Wrapped up in his own bubble of despair, Walt failed to notice the three men appearing at a small table in the corner. All seemed surprised. One grasped the hand of another, leant over and whispered, “This isn’t the hospital any longer, I don’t understand... oh, Siegfried, please tell me you can see it too.”

Siegfried put his hand against the first man’s leg and squeezed reassuringly. “Wilfred, look at me. Hey, look. You can feel that. I can feel it too. This is real.”

The third man cleared his throat, “Excuse me. You seem to know each other, but you don’t know this place, correct? I am William Shakespeare, who might you two be?”

Siegfried looked at Wilfred.

“Did we die? Is this the afterlife?” asked Wilfred.

“It must be. Or it is all a hallucination, though I’ve never known one like this,” replied Siegfried.

“Excuse me, I’m afraid I don’t understand the subject of conversation,” interrupted Shakespeare. “But I still do not know your names, good sirs.”

“Siegfried Sassoon, at your service.” Siegfried stuck out his right hand, then withdrew it upon Shakespeare's bewildered reaction. He gestured to Wilfred. “And this is my companion, Wilfred Owen.”

They looked at each other in confused silence. Finally, Shakespeare stood up. “Well, mustn’t we find out where we are? If the pair of you will do me such a service as to have a glance outside, I will ask the kind fellow serving drinks if he could direct us back to the Globe.”

Sassoon and Owen drifted to the entrance of the bar, while William Shakespeare walked up to the barman.

“Excuse me, I am afraid I have quite lost my way. I am searching for my Globe?”

“You… your Globe?” The barman paused, examining Shakespeare’s attire with an air of mild amusement. “Oh, right, I get it.” in a ridiculously emphatic tone, he went on, “Why, thou canneth findeth thine Globe in London.”

Thou? Thine!? Shakespeare gaped. “Pardon me, but I don’t believe we have yet been acquainted? Your comfort in my presence is unusual. I must say, I am accustomed to a very different level of... decorum in conversation.”

“Oh dear, do I lack ‘decorum’? Gee, dude, I tried.” The barman huffed.

“Excuse me sir? I swear on the name of Her Majesty the Queen that I shall have you and your family excluded from all future performances.”

The barman sneered. “The Queen? Like, which one?”

“Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith. I myself am no nobleman, but your ignorance is extraordinary.”

“Hold on, did you say France? She’s not the bloody queen of France. They chop the heads off the royalty over there,” the barman scoffed.

“Oh, but certainly! Unless you are referencing the Stuart House? I am not concerned with the Scots, I am speaking of Her Majesty Elizabeth.”

“Listen, mate, I have customers to get to, and the world doesn’t revolve around you and your fancy collar, believe it or not. If you’re so desperate to get to the Globe, you might want to look in fucking London.”

Shakespeare stared at the barman, his confusion turned to disgust. Then, he bit his thumb and stormed out of the bar and onto the street outside. He ran into Sassoon and Owen. The two were staring at the apartment block across the street in the purest bewilderment.

“Can you believe it!” Shakespeare gasped upon noticing the two.

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Owen agreed.

“I have seen many queer things in this world,” added Sassoon, “across many nations in Europe and elsewhere, and I have never witnessed anything of the like.”

“I was referring to the respect offered to me by the locals.”

“Oh, they are rather crude with their words.” Siegfried shrugged.

“The man I was speaking to reduced me to a mockery and insulted her Majesty the Queen.”

“Queen Victoria?” Siegfried smiled.

“Who is Victoria?” Shakespeare

Wilfred looked up suddenly. “I… if you don’t mind me asking, sir, where are you from?”

“Stratford-upon-Avon, by blood and by birth.”

“Hold on. Siegfried - ” Wilfred’s eyes widened. “Siegfried, tell me, that man whose novels we had discussed only days ago. H. G. Wells. Do you think - ”

“The Time Machine,” gasped Siegfried.

“But it isn’t possible.”

“Oh, but it is! The future is upon us, Wilfred. We’ve known for years. We write of tanks and air-bombers… but we have always known it could not end there…”

“So where... when are we?”

“God only knows.”

“We need to get back.”

“You want to go back to Craiglockhart? Imagine, such an opportunity gone to waste! There’s no draft here, Wilfred. There’s no war.”

“At least, we hope so,” retorted Wilfred.

“Excuse me, at the risk of coming across as uneducated, I’m afraid I don’t understand the subject of your conversation.”

Wilfred and Siegfried looked at each other. They understood now: the Bard was indeed among them. Siegfried cleared his throat.

“Well… where to begin... you come from the 16th century. Sixteen hundred years after the birth of Christ. Is that correct?”

“On approximation, yes.”

“Whereas I… I was born in the year 1886. And the people here... they are from even later years, if I am not mistaken. We are far in the future. Some freak of nature has pulled you out of your era. Do you understand?”

“I’m afraid this is all beyond me, good sir...”

“Oh, dear… well, you are from the 16th century. That we can agree on. Now, you know that there are people who were born after you, who are children now and will be adults in ten years’ time.”

“Certainly.”

“...So when you die they will continue to live, and then they will have their own children, and so on and so forth. And there will be a world full of new people, yes?”

“Presumably. Lest plague should triumph, or war proliferate.”

Wilfred coughed discreetly. Siegfried shot him a look “Well, this new world. You’re in it.”

“How so?”

“Very, very good question. We’re stuck on that one too.”

All three chuckled heartily.

“Witchcraft, perhaps.” Shakespeare frowned.

“May as well be, for all we know.” Siegfried replied. “Wilfred? What do you think?”

“Providence chooses her actors with care. It is not ours to scrutinize fate. Whatever has landed us here, I am sure there is a reason for it.”

The men stood there for a while, contemplating the street they stood on, the world they had found themselves in. Suddenly, the bar door flew open, and

“You said the people here are awful, they probably thought the same of you. They are the ones that know where they are and how this world works. You might want to.” suggested Sassoon.

“You might be right. Would you come with me? How should I even approach the topic?” inquired William, concerned that he would get put down again.

“Maybe don’t even tell him what the real situation is. Everyone here seems to be drinking, tell him you had a few too many.” said Owen.

Shakespeare stared, flabbergasted, but then saw reason. He walked up to the barman, like a dog in disgrace. “Would you be so kind as to pardon my behavior earlier. I…” he paused. “I may have had a few too many drinks. I’m afraid I do not know this area very well, would you be so kind as to tell me where I could find an inn?”

“You still haven’t dropped the Shakespeare act… Fine.” He took on the ridiculous acting voice again. “You will find an Inn outside, follow a rightward direction for a small distance and you will find an Inn.”

Shakespeare walks out and into the motel.

“Excuse me, what would you like for a room for the night?”

“75 pounds for a double bed.” replied the cashier, exhausted from a rather conflictual meeting with the great Oscar Wilde. It had taken Auden nearly an hour to calm him down.

“Pardon? 75 pounds? You must be mistaken, Madam.”

“The gentleman before you was surprised too. Just... go to bed we can settle it in the morning. I’ll need your name?” she asked

“Shakespeare, William Shakespeare.”

“Sure… we can settle on that. Why don’t you go up to your room.” she says, slightly sarcastically and very cautiously.

Once Shakespeare was out of sight, the woman got out her phone.

“Yes, hello. I would like to report, uh, a potential con artist...” She gave the address, nodded a few times, and put down the phone.

No more than fifteen minutes had gone by when the cashier heard the door of a patrol car slam shut outside. A tired-looking cop trudged through the sliding doors.

“What seems to be the issue, ma’am?”

“So, like, this guy, right? He just showed up, and like, it’s late, you know, and I was on reception shift, and the guys before him were kind of, uh, weird. So I was like, sort of tired, I mean, it’s not the best night ever or anything, you know.”

She paused to adjust a ring on the middle finger of her left hand. A strange look came over her face, but she looked up again hurriedly. She didn’t have time to deal with that right now.

“Yeah, anyway, this guy comes up to to the desk, and he goes, ‘How much for a room?’ And like, that’s fine, right? But I’m already sort of freaked, ‘cause of the last lot, and he’s dressed weird too, like, he’s got this collar thing… and I’m like, okay, I wonder where this is gonna go. So I tell him the price, and he freaks out. I mean, it’s pretty cheap, the only rooms we have left are 75 pounds a night. Like, not too bad, Right?”

The cop nodded blandly.

“But he, like, totally freaks out, and he goes, oh my god, 75 pounds, what the heck? And I just, you know, I don’t really want to deal with that right now. So I tell him we’ll sort it out later, and I ask for his name, and he goes ‘William Shakespeare’, like, dude, are you drunk or what? I mean…”

“Alright… uh, could you tell me which room he’s staying in? I’ll, ah, check it out.”

He knocks on the door. “Excuse me Sir, could we have a little conversation about rent?”

Shakespeare opens the door. “Hello, ah a police officer yes. I would like to complain about the scam this place is running. They said it was 75 pounds, a total disgrace. If they enforce this price I will simply have to refuse to pay, you understand of course?”

“No, I don’t understand and if you continue I’m going to have to hold you.” retorted the police officer, determined.

“Hold me? Why I haven’t done a thing.”

“Alright Sir, you are under arrest under suspicion of scamming people for free services, and for public disruption.”

Shakespeare went away quietly - stunned into complacency.

[brittanyyoungblog]

What Is Love at First Sight? An Exploration of the History, Science, and Real-life Experience

When you think of love of first sight what comes to mind? Maybe it’s a cartoon cupid hitting you with an arrow, Romeo seeing Juliet across the room at a party and being struck, or a scene from a more modern romantic comedy where two people meet for the first time and somehow “just know” they’re at the beginning of something spectacular. Whatever your personal history or associations with love at first sight, the romantic idea of two people knowing instantly that they’re meant to be together is something people have been, well, er… falling in love with, for centuries. But what is love at first sight anyways? We know what it looks like in movies and stories, but what does it look like in the real world?

I work at the online dating site and app Zoosk and come across a lot of real-world stories of love at first sight—People who just know by looking at a photo or seeing someone walk towards them for the first time, that this is the person they’ll spend the rest of their life with. The stories are unbelievably romantic, but as someone who’s never experienced love at first sight myself, I wanted to learn what it’s all about.

So in an effort to gain more insight into the phenomenon, I did a little digging into the history, philosophy, and science of love at first sight to get a few different perspectives on just what it is and how it works. I also looked at descriptions from real-life couples who say they experienced love at first sight to see how their way of explaining it, aligned with what others had to say.

  The History of Love at First Sight

The idea of love at first sight has been around for a long time and goes all the way back to ancient Greece. Philosophers at the time were interested in exploring the nature of love (and the nature of many things for that matter) and had an interesting way of explaining it. In his work The Symposium, Plato introduces the idea of soulmates through a story told by Aristophanes—According to the story, humans were originally beings with four arms, four legs, and a single head with two faces. But Zeus (the Greek king of the gods, if you’re not familiar) saw these creatures as a threat (apparently they could do really cool cartwheels that made them great warriors). Instead of destroying them completely (as he did with the Titans), he split them in two.

As you can imagine, this made the humans pretty miserable. These split beings, humans, us, would forever long for their other half. In one of his speeches Aristophanes explains:

“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature. Each of us, then, is a ‘matching half’ of a human whole… and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him.”

And this is where love at first sight comes in—it’s said when soulmates finally find each other again for the first time in this life, on earth, that they instantly recognize their matching halves. The meeting is a sort of reunion of the two, and there’s an unspoken understanding between the two people that they’ve found each other at long last. A pretty romantic idea, though a bit bittersweet for those of us still seeking our other half.

There are also a few instances of love at first sight in religious texts. In the Bible, when Rebecca met Isaac, she was already betrothed to him, but on her way to meet him she saw a man meditating in a field and knew that it was him, that it must be. When Jacob meets Rachel, they too already knew they were betrothed. After Jacob sees her for the first time he’s so struck that he’s able to roll back a huge boulder covering the well the shepherds used to water their flocks, so that Rachel’s flock could also drink.

Later, love at first sight played an important role in the medieval tradition of courtly love. Troubadour poets may have been some of the first to describe being struck by love, or the ‘love dart’, when first looking into the eyes of a lady. And later Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare would take up the idea with the line, “Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?”

Over the years, the idea of love at first sight can be found throughout popular literature, TV, movies, music, art… you name it. The idea has soaked into our consciousness. In the original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Little Mermaid, the young mermaid instantly falls in love with the prince. In the popular Twilight novels, Edward feels love at first sight for Bella; movies like Forrest Gump, Moonrise Kingdom, or Titanic all have memorable scenes of love at first sight; and recently, Prince Harry explained meeting Meghan Markle for the first time as a love at first site tale.

Surveys have shown that 52% of American adults believe in love at first sight and four out of 10 Americas say they’ve actually experienced it for themselves. So is this idea of finding love in a passing glance something we’ve created or is there some truth to this collective belief? Can something so many people across different times and cultures explain so similarly, simply be a shared myth or is there something more going on?

  The Science of Love at First Sight

The idea of attraction, and instant attraction, has interested researchers just as much as philosophers and artists. Studies have found that people form opinions very quickly when it comes to their potential romantic partners. One study says it only takes .13 seconds to rate someone’s beauty and find them attractive. It’s also been found that being attractive may be interpreted as sign of superior genes. Things like facial symmetry, waist to hip ratio, lung volumes, and even middle finger lengths (no big hand jokes, please) are all factors that affect attraction.

Another big factor is how much another person looks like you. A study that used a computerized system to morph peoples’ faces before asking them to choose the face they felt was the most attractive, found that most often people choose an image of their own face that had been morphed into the opposite sex. Which is pretty interesting, considering Aristophanes story… Is this evidence that we’re always looking for our other half? Meh, not so fast. The study’s author interpreted this attraction to our own face as having more to do with recognition—our own faces remind us of faces we constantly saw growing up, those of our parents and relatives. (Which Freud would have loved as well.)

Other research has pointed out that love at first sight may be a response to biology. According to a series of studies about biology and attraction, it’s more common for animals to mate with other animals that they’re genetically compatible with—as if they were preprogrammed to be able to spot who they should reproduce with. In this way, romantic attraction in humans could be a sort of evolutionary function as well, drawing us to those people with whom we’re compatible with.

Other fun facts about love at first sight? A study from 2017 found that men experience it more often than women, it definitely correlates with physical attraction (in fact, even a 1-unit increase in attractiveness rating, means someone is 9 times more likely to claim they feel love at first sight), and it’s usually not mutual. And by usually, we mean always—there wasn’t even one instance where the feeling was mutual in the study. (Sorry Aristophanes, but this one doesn’t align with your story so well.)

Because of this, the authors of the study felt love at first sight was simply a strong initial reaction that couples later turned into a story, a memory, they created together. The authors called these biased memories, and though it might not sound very romantic, there is a sweet side to their findings—couples who created these memories together, who came up with these stories of feeling love from their very first meeting, tended to experience more love and passion in their relationship. So even if the feeling wasn’t truly mutual from the start, later they both agreed it was.

  The Experience of Love at First Sight

So now that we know some of the history and the science about love at first sight, what does it really feel like? Do couples describe the experience in a way that aligns with what science and philosophy has to say about it?

To get some real-life explanations of love at first sight, I looked at success stories different couples who met on Zoosk had to share about it. As it turns out, their descriptions do have a few interesting themes…

It was if we knew each other forever. Many of the couples who felt love at first sight, described it as if they already knew the other person. This often went along with having a long, great conversation or talking in a natural, easy way.

“We felt like we had known each other for years. I never believed in love at first sight, but it does happen.”

“Love at first sight is possible. I feel as if I have known him all my life.”

“The conversation just flowed and flowed; unrehearsed, unscripted, and natural. It was if we had known each other for years.”

“A few days later we met in person and it was unlike any other meeting. It wasn’t like meeting a person for the first time, but like a lifelong friend. I never believed in love at first sight until her.”  

I just knew. Another common trend, was people somehow just knowing or having an instinctive feeling about the other person. Many couples also described it as a mutual feeling, of “we just know.” Though there were a few exceptions, including my favorite: “It was love at first sight for him, but it took about four times for me.”

“I just knew in my heart he was the man I had dreamed about since as early as I could remember.”

“It was the fabled love at first sight. We knew immediately that we were soulmates.”

“We went on a date and it was love at first sight. I knew I was going marry this man from the moment I met him.”

“Since the first day we met, we both knew we were each other’s one. The chemistry… ELECTRIC.”

There was a connection. Feeling a connection, energy, or chemistry was another common theme. People described a feeling of closeness that was different and unique from what they’d had with other people.    

“It really was love at first sight. We felt this energy and connection that was unparalleled from any other person we had met before.”

“We hit it off and it was basically love at first sight!”

“When we met it was love at first sight. After that talk, I knew she was the one. If someone can hold a conversation with me about future plans and goals that are similar, then we have a connection.”

“Conversation never seemed to be a problem, and the connection was as deep as we both had been searching for. We couldn’t get enough of each other.”

“It was love at first sight, we connected instantly.”

Reading the descriptions you can find a lot of overlap—people describe how they didn’t believe in love at first sight until it happened to them, how they’d found their soulmate or the one, or how they talked and talked for hours. For an emotion that’s supposedly about sight and initial attraction, I was surprised by how many people described the feeling in terms of their ability to communicate so well. One woman even described it as, “love at first talk.”

And it’s telling how many people describe things so similarly. Through my work at Zoosk, I’ve read a lot of success stories over the years and though each one is unique in its circumstances, many use a lot of the familiar phrases of love when describing the actual feeling of it. Even if they’re not describing love at first sight, there are a lot of love clichés being thrown around—feeling butterflies, hearing fireworks, being on cloud 9; feeling warmth, comforted, or like you’ve come home; the chemistry, the magic, the lucky girls and the lucky guys; falling, stumbling, hearts soaring, hands shaking… it goes on and on.

But I read these stories and something feels undeniably, well, true about them. Maybe it’s because they’re so genuine. Despite their clichés, or perhaps because of them, they feel very real, very everyday. I mean, what is a cliché anyways?—a phrase that’s overused, commonplace, and unoriginal? Ya, okay. But it’s also a phrase that’s known and understood by many. It’s the personal made universal. A common language we can fall back on when we’re not sure how to describe something that by its very nature is indescribable.

Love at first sight may not work in exactly the way we think it does. It may not be two souls separated finding their match, or actually finding a real, lasting love in an instant. Perhaps, as our researchers found, it is a construction, a story we tell ourselves and others while looking back on the first moments of meeting someone we now hold so dear. But there is something going on here. Something to this idea. If it were nothing, I don’t think some of the worlds greatest authors, poets, philosophers, and minds would go back to this idea time and time again asking, What is this thing? What is love at first sight?

Despite my explorations, I haven’t found the answer. I did find a favorite answer however. One from a woman in Duluth, Minnesota who was struggling to find the right words to describe meeting her husband for the first time.

“It was a feeling that we both can’t really explain,” she said. “It just happened.”

Maybe love at first sight isn’t something we can explain. Maybe it’s just something that happens. And maybe that’s enough. 

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