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anotherwritersblog · 3 years

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Title: Happily Ever After

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Rating: Anyone/Everyone

Word Count: 1.6K-ish

Warnings: some fluff, mentions of anxiety, some language (writing and posting to tumblr is new to me, so if I ever miss anything that needs to be mentioned, please just let me know)

Summary: Facing your fears leads to one of the best days of your life.

Author's Note: Hi. First time posting to Tumblr (as well as writing Chris), but not a first time writer. I've got a thing or two in progress on other sites, but I think I'm going to wait and see how this one pans out here. Thought of a few drabbles pertaining to this as well, so I might add on with those later. I don't know. We'll see. This story is beta'd by myself, so any mistakes are my own. I would also like to admit that I’ve made moodboards before, but with my own pictures. So this edit was also a first 😅 I’m still working on it. Lol. No joke. I remade the damn thing at least five times.

Any and all reblogs/likes/comments are appreciated.

In no way, shape, or form, do you have permission to repost this anywhere.

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Growing up, Disney had always been a big part of my life. I'd come down for breaks during my school years, over summers to visit my family, and then weekends when I was an adult and I finally moved 15 minutes away. It was always a dream of mine to live so close, but also to find someone who loved it as much as I did. Someone to enjoy the food, festivals, and rides with.

And that's where Chris comes in.

I had been in the Expedition Everest Single Rider line one afternoon. I told myself I was going to finally try it. Was I excited? No. Terrified? Absolutely.

I sat in the last row of the roller coaster, when this tall brunette slid in next to me. We were instructed to lower the bar and 'Enjoy the ride!'

Everyone ahead of us was chattering quietly as we ascended the track to the top. I was grabbing the bar with my life, my knuckles starting to turn white. I heard a soft chuckle and glanced to my right.

"First time?" he asked.

I nodded my head. "Unfortunately. I'm used to rides like the Haunted Mansion or the Little Mermaid. Those are more my speed." This time he laughed a little harder.

"I"m so glad that my pain and suffering can bring a stranger so much joy," I rolled my eyes.

We get to the top of the track and stop. Soon an announcement comes on that the ride will start back up shortly and to stay seated. "Mother fucker.." I mumbled before I heard the man next to me say "Language!" I whipped my head around and looked at him a little closer. He dawned a pair of sunglasses, a Patriot's cap, and a beautiful full beard. He pulled his sunglasses down a little, and I was soon pierced by the most beautiful eyes I've seen on screen before.

"Shut the front door," I gasped as he shot me a wink before pushing his glasses back up. "Stop. What are you doing here?" I asked, finally realizing who I sat next to.

"Just wanted to get a quick trip in before I..." he hesitated for a moment "before I go back to work." Obviously, he wasn't going to tell me what 'work' entailed (but a few years later, I found out it was Avengers: End Game).

"Of course. Just my luck. The day I get stuck on my first roller coaster, and sit on the verge of an anxiety attack, it's with you," I buried my face into my hands.

"Hey. At least I can relate to that. Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt." This time, I was laughing until I heard another announcement. The ride was starting up shortly.

My heart dropped and I went back to white-knuckling the bar. I soon felt a large hand engulf mine. "You'll be okay. I promise." And soon, we were off.

My heart was racing the entire time, but I think it was also because Chris' hand never left mine. We screamed, albeit for different reasons, but it was...exhilarating.

Soon after, the coaster came to a stop and everyone was getting out. I was still sitting when I heard "You coming?" and turned to see that Chris was holding his hand out. I took it, stepped from the seat, and we walked towards the exit.

"So, what'd you think?" he asked, as we stepped off to the side, just outside of the exit.

"Well..my heart is still pounding, and I can't decide if I want to go grab lunch now, or after riding that again," I smiled as I look up at him, greeted with a smile of his own.

"Well..how about we ride it again, and then I'll buy you lunch?" he asked.

"Oh. You don't have to. I'm sure you have other plans for toda-"

"I did," he cut me off. "But it'd be more fun to do them with someone than by myself. Besides. You deserve a good lunch for facing your fears today."

And from that day on, everything was history.

I gave him my number that night, and told him that if he were ever at Disney again, to contact me. And to my surprise, he actually did the next time he was in town.

And he did it again.

And again.

It went on for about a year before he asked to make it official between us. I was in shock, but I couldn't say no. I had fallen in love with my new Disney friend, so I gave it a shot. It was hard at first, with him always away filming or in Boston, but we made it work.

I found myself flying a few times to see him and he would fly down to see me when he could. We kept everything strictly out of social media, both for his sanity and my safety.

After almost two years, we were sitting down at his kitchen table when we decided that I would move in with him. He said he'd take care of me, that I wouldn't have to work anymore, but I enjoyed my line of work. Yes, I had hard days, and sometimes came home complaining, but doesn't everyone? I told him I'd continue working if I moved in with him, and he was fine with it.

He was actually fine with a lot of things. And so understanding. He was always there when I was dealing with my anxiety, when I was home sick and needed to visit my family, or even when I just needed to be near him. Not in an affectionate way, but just being in the same room as him made some of those hard days better.

Whenever he was away filming, he always made a point to call or FaceTime me once a day (he said he tried to because he loves me; I think it's because I always had Dodger pictures ready to send, or to have on screen for him).

When Chris finished his most reason film, he promised a short vacation. I was over the moon when I found out we were going to Disney World.

It was a relaxing trip, and something that we both needed. We visited all of the parks, rode all of our favorite rides, and even got to enjoy the flower festival at EPCOT (he said he made the plans for exactly that reason because he remembered it was my favorite festival). It was such a magical few days but of course, all good things must come to an end.

The last night of our trip, we were standing at the small bridge in the Italy Pavilion. I was standing against the railing, with Chris right behind me. His arms were wrapped around my stomach, while mine were placed over his. EPCOT had just started their nightly show, but all I could think was how truly happy I was at that moment in my life.

I leaned back a little more into Chris, and squeezed his hands a little tighter.

"Everything okay, baby?" he asked as he kissed just above my right ear.

I turned my head to look up at him and smiled. "Everything is perfect, my love."

"Good," he said, as he leaned down to give me a slow and sweet kiss.

I turned back to watch the fireworks when Chris started whispering into my ear. "You know how much I love you, baby, right?"

"Almost as much as you love Dodger," he chuckled at my response. "Baby..Dodger may be the moon that brought light to a dark time in my life, but you are my world and sun. You…You are my everything. You've allowed me to be me, and been very accepting of my lifestyle. You have never questioned any choices I've made, and you've been with me every step of the way for these past few years."

I turned my body to look at him. My hands running up and down his arms, as his hands laid on my waist, and my eyes catching those beautiful, ocean blue eyes.

"I do all that because I love you, Chris. You know that," I said before I leaned up to kiss his cheek, his nose, and then his lips. I lingered for a second longer, before I pulled back to look at the man in front of me.

"And I want everyone to know how much I love you, baby."

I was a little confused, as we've done anything and everything to keep our relationship to ourselves and family. But everything soon clicked when he took a step back and knelt onto one knee. He had reached into his pocket to retrieve a small, red box.

When he opened it, my eyes flew from the ring to his face. He was starting to look a little blurry, but that might have been due to the tears that were starting to run down my face.

"I'm willing to take on anything life throws at me, as long as you are by my side. Y/N..will you do me the honors of marrying me?"

I couldn't get a word out, but I was soon nodding my head, getting down to his level, placing my hands on either side of his face, and kissing him.

"Yes," I was finally able to say and the few bystanders around us started to cheer. There was a Disney photographer capturing the entire moment, and I was elated to see the pictures later on.

But at that moment, after he had slipped the ring on my finger and kissed me under the fireworks, nothing else mattered.

Because I was finally getting my happily ever after.

#chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans series #chris evans x you #chris evans imagine #chris evans one shot #chris evans blurb #chris evans fluff #mentions of anxiety #chris evans at disney #chris evans fic #chris evans x female reader #chris evans x fem!reader #chris evans x y/n #chrisevans #cevans #christopher robert evans #anotherwritersblog writing

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ashsinmywcke · 3 years

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@annalis-e--shadowofpanem

Annalis’e nodded in understanding. “Trust is a commodity that is earned. I get it. We know this better than most. But you have nothing to fear from me or anyone else here. I hope that, in time, you’ll see that.” Annalis’e walked around the stone and started for the grand staircase at the end of the north hall. She didn’t make it far before she sat down on the steps. “Orlain is a woman. Like you. Her role in this is as large as the gains every woman stands to see when a poisonous regime that crushes them is toppled. What separates you from her is merely her station, and whose to say that she’ll even want it by the time a whole society is suddenly remade by unseen forces? Whose to say that there will be an empire at all by the end of it?

“I would be remiss,” she continued, “to say that a title like ‘Queen,’ ‘Duchess,’ or ‘Empress,’ is a popular pivot point upon which we’ve learned flip regimes, but this is different. Vermilion knows Orlain, I would go as far as say there is a particular parental fondness between the two of them. Hinging a regime on one person is morally questionable enough, even without adding the part about people from one world interfering with the politics of another, but when the person in mind knows the Shadow doing the hinging, the person deserves the right to choose who she wants to be in the better world we are supposedly helping create.”

Vermilion’s heart skipped a beat. Annalis’e called her a “Shadow.” She wondered if it was a mistake, a slip of the tongue…? It was the first ounce of acceptance the Shadows offered her. She wondered if, perhaps, there were like minded people who’d welcome her with open arms after this was done. She wondered…

…what would Paris think of all this?

“It’s impossible to say right now,” Annalis’e concluded. “We can topple the whole thing and call it day, but that would create a power vacuum causing more suffering. But luckily, the one thing Vermilion and I have both proven: Beatrix is notoriously easy to infiltrate. We’ll need more eyes than just Vermilion’s in that palace, and we need more eyes than mine in the common crowd. More importantly, the figurehead needs to decide where she herself fits. Otherwise the work is hollow and hypocritical and we’ve succeeded in trading one lifeless government body for another.”

Annalis’e stood to her feet. “But we should shelve this for now. We’ll be meeting tomorrow morning to decide what to do next. I’m certain your voice will have significant weight in that discussion. But for now, I’m going to recommend solid food and bedrest. You’ve been through a lot in the past few hours.” Annalis’e turned and and walked toward the grand double doors that led to Midnight Palace. Besides, Saga’s back in the palace kitchen, and no one is better than her. And someone here owes her an apology.”

Vermilion froze in place.

Ella looked at Vermillion closely. She was a child, or near as one that it made no difference. Had she passed this person in the street she would not have noticed anything distinctive about her. But Ella kept looking as Annalis’e spoke. There was something there that apparently all the training in the world couldnt conceal. It was need. Perhaps it was hunger.

The Dagal woman took a deep breath (which had the contradictory effect of making her head spin a bit) and sat down on the broad steps. She steepled her fingers, elbows resting on her knees as she tried to absorb all the information.

“So.” She replied at some length. “To put it simply, you already have access to the palace, you have the means to crumble the whole thing. But you want Orlain to be active in this process, for her to have a say.” Ella sighed. “I have to be honest, as much as I can try to empathise with Orlain, to me she is still just another cog in a brutal aristocracy. I've no idea what her desires might be.”

Ella stood back up, moving in step with the others. Her gaze moved to Vermillion. “You seem to be the closest to Orlain. What do you think she wants? What do you think she would do with such a revolution?”

#finally!#annalis'e #Dagilach 4452

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sweetsmellosuccess · 3 years

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The Best Films of 2020

The 15 Best Films of 2020

Normally, when I assess a full year of cinematic offerings, I consider both sides of that coin — the outstanding entities, and the least successful — but the year of our lord two thousand and twenty provided more than enough misery for all of us, I do believe. Ergo, in my own small way to bring better vibes into the universe, for this year’s round-up, I’m staying solely on the positive tip, highlighting those films whose unfortunate release date during the Year of the Hex shouldn’t preclude them for being fully appreciated. Let’s take a year off from negativity and schadenfreude, shall we, and just stroll amongst the poppies and bright sunshine of some of the best releases of the year.

15. The Invisible Man

“Leigh Whannell’s film is thoroughly modern in approach and sophistication, but the film it most reminded me of was made back in 1944. George Cukor’s Gaslight starred Charles Boyer as a loathsome husband who attempts to convince his already anxious wife (Ingrid Bergman) that she’s going insane by secretly rearranging things in their house and taking things from her so she thinks she’s always misplacing them. He preys on her emotional vulnerability in order to mask his own pathology and emotional detachment. The effect is absolutely enraging: Onscreen, he’s one of the more hateful villains ever committed to celluloid.”

Full Review

14. The Killing of Two Lovers

“From the opening sequence, with a distraught, estranged husband standing over the bed of his wife and her new boyfriend with malice in his heart, and a gun in hand, the film spirals out into incredibly well structured compositions, taking us inside and outside of David’s recurring psychosis, utilizing a bevy of techniques: The framing shrinks down around him, the sound gets muffled, as if underwater, save for the incredibly unnerving metallic sound of cables being stretched taut, and the sickening kathunk of a heavy car door slamming shut.”

Capsule Review

13. Another Round

“Typically, Vinterberg avoids simple conclusions — and God help us all if this film gets picked up by a U.S. studio and remade with, say, Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, and Chris Rock — providing more or less equal examples of the delirious fun drinking with your friends can be (the film opens with a group of high schoolers gleefully doing “lake races” whereby teams compete to drink a case of beer while running around the nearby body of water; and closes with the same teen crew, and some of their teachers, whooping it up in celebrating their graduation); and the horrorshow it can become (one teacher ends up peeing the bed, and on his wife in the process, another wakes up bloodied and out of it in front of his neighbor’s house), leading to very real and horrible consequences.”

Capsule Review

12. Soul

“Co-director Pete Docter is the creative force behind many of Pixar's best titles, having a hand in the Toy Story franchise, WALL-E, Up, and also directing Inside Out, a brilliantly moving treatise on the subject of emotional upheaval. This film, which he co-wrote and made along with fellow co-director Kemp Powers, is his first film back at the helm since that high-water mark, and he has again dug into the fertile earth of our mortality and come back with a particularly vibrant crop.”

Full Review

11. The Burnt Orange Heresy

“Based on the novel by Charles Willeford, the film briskly moves through its paces, clouding the waters with the schemes of duplicitous men, who have sold out any love of art for their greater obsession of cash and prestige. A literary thriller in the vein of The Talented Mr. Ripley, it’s become a genre all too rare in the era of blockbuster bravado. This film will remind you what a mistake that is.”

Full Review

10. Lovers Rock

“In the course of the party, the fuses blow while the house DJ is spinning Janet Kay's "Silly Games," a fan favorite at the time. Undaunted, the guests continue dancing away, singing the lyrics a capella in delirious unison, as McQueen's camera swirls around the living room as if nothing happened. Such a heartfelt moment of unbridled togetherness, putting into distinct bas relief the sense of community we've been denied as a species in 2020, feels like a benediction, an epitaph for the year, and a salve for what we've all been so desperately missing.”

Capsule Review

9. Time

“Ostensibly, it’s about the strain of incarceration on even the most grounded of families (an experience naturally disproportionate for POCs); but, on a deeper level, it’s also about the manner of our use of the limited number of revolutions we get to enjoy situated on this earth. It is a profound knock-out.”

Full Review

8. New Order

“Meet the new boss, only in Michel Franco’s damning portrait of a society locked forever in cycles of oppression, revolution, and new oppression, it makes no difference who you are, what your belief system is, or whether or not you subscribe to a moral set of ethics.”

Capsule Review

7. Dick Johnson is Dead

“Utilizing stunt people and special effects, Johnson kills her father off a number of different gruesome ways, as a means of softening the blow of actually losing him as his mind slowly slips away. This eventually culminates in a final gambit, both acutely painful and deeply moving, in which our sense of things gets seriously upended. As Johnson put it during the post-screening Q&A, the film serves as a “doomed experiment trying to keep my father alive forever.” This film won’t make him immortal, alas, but it does make him indelible.”

Capsule Review

6. Martin Eden

“Marcello packs the film with offbeat bits and pieces of other films, including strips of what appear to be vintage home movies, sometimes in juxtaposition to what Martin is feeling — a group of kids swinging wildly from the bar of a fence, to a full galley ship taking in water and suddenly sinking like an iron ingot – which adds a more winsome, timeless element to the narrative. It’s clearly set in the past, but avoids being too dependent on that particular sense of place and time. Martin is a young man, at first, just coming into himself, and the actions he takes, what he goes through, the film seems to suggest, would be similar in any age.”

Full Review

5. Minari

“The film is certainly charming, but that’s not to diminish its straightforward approach to its characters’ plight. It doesn’t shy away from their difficulties, and as a result, it doesn’t cheat towards smarmy emotional closure.”

Capsule Review

4. Collective

“The breath of hope in the film, when the inept Minister of Health resigns, leading to the placing of a new, emboldened director who works quickly to clean the quagmire left by his predecessors, is just as quickly expelled after the next round of elections, in which the Social Democrat party — the very ones in charge of this catastrophe in the first place — gets re-elected with an even greater majority than what they had before. A perfect reflection of what happens when a government is allowed to exist without any meaningful oversight, other than from a bedraggled press and a disenchanted electorate.”

Full Review

3. First Cow

“Reichardt, a naturalist at heart, is not known much as a humorist, but there is a lightness to her screenplay -- co-written by Jonathan Raymond, her frequent collaborator, who wrote the original novel upon which its based -- that keeps it as sweetly airy as one of Cookie's fried confections. The two friends are so out of step with their surroundings -- the party of men Cookie initially travels with are little more than brutish thugs, and the fort upon which they end up is no better -- they almost had to find each other. They are reunited in the local bar of the fort only because literally every other patron runs out to egg on a brawl between two loutish combatants.”

Full Review

2. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

“Hittman’s eye for detail and emotional complexity — her characters can rarely articulate anything they’re experiencing — is incredibly acute, and she pulls tremendously understated performances out of her two leads.”

Capsule Review

1. Nomadland

“Perhaps no American director since Terrance Malick has made more of the collapsing light of dusk and twilight than Chloe Zhao. Much of her new film, which stars Frances McDormand as a transigent woman (“not homeless, houseless”), who traverses back and forth across the west in her beat up live-in van, doing seasonal work, takes place in that particular kind of vibrant half-darkness that shrouds the desert and its mountains with a magic kind of mystery.”

Capsule Review

Other Worthy Mentions: 7500; Assassins; Bacurau; Beanpole; Beginning; Black Bear; Bloody Nose Empty Pockets; Boys State; Come Play; Emma; Gunda; His House; Horse Girl; I Am Greta; Jacinta; La Llorona; Let Him Go; Limbo; Mangrove; Mayor; MLK/FBI; One Night in Miami…; Palm Springs; Possessor Uncut; Red, White & Blue; Relic; She Dies Tomorrow; Shirley; Shithouse; Shiva Baby; Some Kind of Heaven; Spring Blossom; Swallow; Tenet; The Dissident; The Invisible Man; The Nest; Sound of Metal; The Vast of Night; The Viewing Booth; The Way I See It; Vitalina Varella; Welcome to Chechnya

Inexplicably Underrated: 7500; Shithouse

Biggest Welcome Surprise(s): The Vast of Night; His House; She Dies Tomorrow

The Best Two Films I Saw This Year, Period: Satantango (1994); Harlan County, USA (1976)

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eleanor-devil · 3 years

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Boruto: Sacrifices [Remade] | Chap.12 - Pursuing Silence

Written by: Eleanor-Devil & @mirage-05

There was silence for a long moment. "The sound?" then came a voice, low, emotionless... unknown to most. Naruto didn't even realize all the eyes in the room turning towards Orochimaru, his mind fixated on one word. "The woman...?" "She didn't actively take part in attacking the child, but... She did something much worse." The young Yamanaka paused for a moment, gulped, and continued. "You asked why you couldn't hear the child. She was the reason." The tension in the room was so dense that it was almost tangible. "Explain." the Hokage said simply, his voice suddenly dry.

"Yoshida Suzume, from the Sound's Yoshida clan... A clan who is known by a dangerous kekkei genkai. They form strong sound barriers, and in extreme cases, they can even silence the voice of their opponent." "You mean...?" Konohamaru was easily putting together the pieces, and his eyes widened slightly. "Exactly. She trapped Mitsuki in a sound barrier. Coupled with Takeru’s genjutsu, which was the reason the fire and explosion stayed hidden... even with how close and loud they were, we couldn't hear him fighting for his life." The silence was only interrupted by low murmurs - the news was indeed shocking and cruel. Naruto was lost in thought... He was sure there was no woman when they got there, he had personally made sure there were no other rogue ninjas, and then there was Konohamaru... But Ryu stood in front of him, telling him that there was a woman who was responsible for them not reaching Mitsuki in time... "Shikamaru." he said in a clear voice, cutting into the mumblings. His advisor was right beside him in a second. "I'm listening." "Contact the Land of Rice and arrange three tracker teams to immediately head out to the Sound. We should apprehend that woman at any cost." "Of course." Hearing the Hokage's words, half a dozen of the ninja's in the room got to their feet. "Lord Seventh..." Kakashi started, using his formal title. "As one of the best tracking ninjas, I would like a leading role in this mission." Kiba had also got up. "Me and my dogs have caught their scents before. I would like to be one of the team leaders as well." Naruto wasn't really surprised when he saw Konohamaru on his feet, too. "Excuse me Lord Seventh," the young jounin said, a hardened determination in his eyes. "This is a personal matter for me. I ask your leave to go, too." Shikamaru took a half step forward, but catching Naruto’s eyes, he didn’t open his mouth to voice his thoughts. "Lord Seventh..." That was Ryu. "I can sense that woman's chakra and I've seen her face. If you give permission, I would like to join the trackers, too." The Hokage thought about it for a moment, then nodded. Sai and Ibiki could continue the interrogations, and catching this woman was important. The groups were formed relatively quickly, everyone in there wanted to get this done as soon as possible. Shikamaru approached Naruto. "We got this under control. Go get some rest..." The blond laughed, although it lacked humor. "As if I will be able to rest..." Naruto sighed, but not just out of exhaustion… he gave his advisor a side-long glance. ”There is something I should tell you.” “What is it?” Shikamaru was almost hesitant to ask. “Shikadai… he was in the hospital too, during and after the surgery.” The Nara’s eyes slightly widened at that, and he was quick to grasp Naruto’s hand. “Did he… how much did he see…?” “I’m afraid he witnessed all of it.” Naruto affirmed his worst fear sadly. “Ino is with the kids now of course, but…” Shikamaru passed a hand through his hair with a sigh. “Yeah I… I will talk with Temari too. Excuse me for a moment.” With quick paces, he walked to the door and out. ... The groups were all ready. He himself lacked the necessary abilities for tracking, but Konohamaru felt that luck was going to be by his side tonight. This was an important matter. He couldn't afford to fail... As he was re-checking his weapons, he didn’t even hear the door open. He didn’t look up either, until he heard the Hokage’s voice. “Konohamaru...” The jounin glanced only half up, enough to see his advisor there too, before returning to what he was doing. “Is it time?” “Konohamaru, just…” It felt like the blond was trying to choose his words very carefully. “Why don’t you just stop for a minute?” “With all due respect, Lord Seventh, I don’t have a minute. The teams are heading out shortly and-” “That’s actually what we wanted to talk to you about.” There it was again… that guarded tone, although the Nara’s voice was more formal than the Uzumaki’s. It made the jounin finally look up at them, with just the slightest frown on his face. Although he chose a gentler tone, Naruto’s eyes were just as serious. “We are concerned that you might not be well-suited for this mission.” “No.” The young man had not listened to half of what they had been saying, but he didn’t need to. The implication was too clear, and too horrific. “No, don’t do this to me.” “What you had been through tonight…” Naruto paused a minute, but then continued. “We can’t allow you to succumb to your emotions, not in something this crucial.” “That won’t be a problem.” And with that, he turned his back to the two, but more so for the fact that he didn’t want to look them in the eye. “It will. It’s only too clear.” that was Shikamaru. “Look, I know how you must feel-” “No. You don’t.” Konohamaru cut in, and only the slightest tremble in his voice gave away his inner turmoil. Otherwise he sounded… almost cold. “Don’t I?” For the first time since he entered the room, the Nara was hesitant. “I watched, helpless, as Asuma-sensei was killed right in front of me… I know how it is to want revenge, but this is not the way.” The young man’s posture was a little stiffened from the mention of his uncle… today was really not a good time. He raised his head, but didn’t turn back to the other two. “But uncle Asuma didn’t die believing you can’t stand his presence, did he?” There was a big moment of silence, neither Naruto nor Shikamaru expected to hear this. “That… is not true…” the Hokage started to say hesitantly. Having finished his business, Konohamaru finally turned to them, but he was still avoiding eye contact. “Yes, it is. These last couple of days have been hard for me, and I’ve been out of it mostly… But I didn’t realize I was taking it out of my team… out of him especially… Maybe unknowingly, but it was inexcusable.” “This is all the more reason you shouldn’t go.” Shikamaru tried to reason slowly. “You are not in your right state of mind. In this case you might be more of a liability than help.” “Shikamaru,” Naruto cut in, in a warning tone. “Easy.” “I won’t. I just… it’s all clear in my mind now. If I do this, when I go on this mission… I will have some sort of closure, some peace of mind. I will be able to live with myself and my mistakes. If… you decide to take that from me…” Konohamaru didn’t complete his sentence, but for the two men, it wasn’t necessary. “We don’t intend to punish you with this,” Naruto said, sighing. “I’m more concerned about you really… But,” he added, having made up his mind. “I also have faith in you, that you can pull this out. Just focus on the mission, and see this as a test to yourself.” Konohamaru felt his throat closing in on itself, grateful for the Hokage’s words. He made a quick, formal bow. “I will not disappoint you, Lord Seventh.” There was really nothing much left to say. With a curt nod from Naruto, Konohamaru was out of the room in a flash. ... No one saw him slipping out of the building. He had enough, dealing with these wretched people. So the sannin made his way, slowly, to the apartments where he knew his son lived. A new beginning... just a chance to become more... make friends... that was all Mitsuki ever wanted before coming to Konoha. Much like how he had a second chance... It would be simple... so much more effortless if he could just get Karin over to heal Mitsuki. He had no doubts that it would work, she was an Uzumaki after all, vast resource of chakra, and her healing abilities... But even if she begged herself to help his son (which he knew she would), he also knew that in her current situation, neither of his two other disciples would allow it. Suddenly, a harsh and sharp voice cut into his train of thoughts. "Halt!" Recognizing the voice, and more out of habit than anything, Orochimaru turned... and looked directly into the eyes of Anko, his former student. From the slight widening of her eyes, the sannin understood that she had managed to see through his disguise... Of course, he would expect nothing less from a disciple. "What do you want, Anko?" "What do I want?!" The woman asked incredibly, nothing but pure anger in her eyes. "What the fuck do you think you are doing here?!" The sannin didn't even bother to reply to her for a moment. "I have neither time nor patience for childish games. Leave me alone." "The hell I will!" The woman cried out, leaning forward in an attack position. "Fight me! You are going to pay for attacking Konoha!" A dangerous glint came into his snake like eyes. "I did not commit the crime all of you are so eager to blame on me." "And you expect me to believe it?!" "Since when did I ever deny something I caused?" "I hope you came here to take your little snake back!" Anko spit out, out of malice. "It was high time you realize he doesn't belong..." Before she could complete, Orochimaru appeared in front of her in a flash, lifting her up by the collar and throwing her, hard, into a wall. "No." he hissed through gritted teeth, and for a minute, Anko feared for her life. "Thanks to you and your wretched village, Mitsuki might as well forever stay in Konoha." Trying to get up, one hand on her throat, the former student gaped at him. "Wh... what?" "Oh, you're telling me you were not informed?" the sannin's tone dripped of heavy sarcasm. "What the hell are you talking about?!" The man turned his back on her, sparing only a brief glance at her. "If you value your life, do not try to follow me." And with that, he was gone. ... The sight of the blackened and barren forest right out of the borders came as a shock for the teams. It was almost mind-numbing - surreal - that a fight this ferocious happened so close to them without them noticing anything at all. In a silent agreement, the teams passed the area without a word, almost in a silent respect. Konohamaru was painfully aware that this place was where Mitsuki made his last stand. Still, with his mind set on one thing right now, to reach the Sound and find the woman who almost cost his student his life, he really didn’t expect he would still be paying attention to even the smallest details of his surroundings. Or maybe he was trying his hardest not to, to keep his focus. But he was a ninja, a jounin after all. The faint glimmer of light caught his eye as they were just about to leave the ghastly sight behind. Discreetly parting ways from the group, he made his way to the soft glimmer, something about it just drawing him closer like a magnet... … She didn't even wait to see the first tents - this was no time to sleep lightly. A bright light shone through the night, creating almost a day-like atmosphere, followed by a huge, rippling sound - but this was no explosion. Anyone who knew Yoshida Suzume knew that this was her kind of warning. "Wake up! Get going! Move! We need to LEAVE!" Slowly though at first, people began filing out. Suzume made sure that there wasn't anyone left inside, going into some of the tents herself to drag people out. "What's going on...?" "When did you come back?!" "Where are Takeru and Hideyoshi?" "They are not coming back! No time to explain! We need to move, NOW!" the woman yelled as she came out with a child in her arms. At once, there were murmurings surrounding the hundreds of people in the area. "We are not going anywhere until you make some explanations," came a strong, female voice, and a woman with long, orange-colored hair and fierce brown eyes came to the front. She had a young child clinging to her neck, looking around with sleepy eyes, his mahogany colored hair ruffled. "Why do we need to leave? Where are my husband and Takeru?" "He was killed!" the woman yelled finally. There were loud gasps. "And Takeru probably met the same end, or captured!" "W... what...?" the orange haired woman mumbled, as if in a trance. "Before we could even start the mission, we were attacked by a child! We had to defend ourselves and silence that kid forever - but if what I saw is anything to go by, he is, in a way, related to Orochimaru!" With her words, a silence gradually fell upon the people. Some of them looked very frightened by that last piece of news, but others looked at one another and one expression remained dominant; shock. "You... attacked a child...?" one of them asked finally. "We didn't have any other choice!" the woman snapped. "If we didn't kill that brat, the mission would have failed!" "Looks like it already did," another in the crowd said. "This mission was a mistake from the beginning..." Hideyoshi's wife mumbled. Some of the children had started crying. "Yeah, so what? What else were we supposed to do?! We all decided on this! Are you deaf - Orochimaru is coming for our heads!" "Hideyoshi would never fight a child!" the woman said while she put the child down and walked forward, towards the woman. "He did!" the other woman practically spat, glaring at the brown eyes. "Who do you think guided us to that child? Who do you think marked his route clearly so we wouldn't miss? Who..." SLAP! Suzume's head turned to a side, eyes slightly widened. "You are not gonna insult him in front of me any further." the orange haired woman said in a dangerous whisper. "There is no point in squabbling over a cast genjutsu," came an older voice then, and an aged woman came forward. Seeing her, Suzume immediately went over to her and knelt in front of her. "Kotone-sama, please... I swear that was the only logical solution... We were taught to put our mind before our heart and I swear I just abided by the Yoshida mantra... I..." "That's enough, Suzume." Kotone then raised her head to look at the other woman, who still had her hand in the air, looking at the younger woman with something akin to disgust. "Sasame, you might have ordered the Fuma out of the mission, but might I remind you that the Shiin, the Oberatsu and the Yoshida all agreed? I actually remember your husband being much honored for being called on this mission. You have no ground in lecturing us." Sasame gritted her teeth, her gaze drifting from the elder to Suzume. "If we have to run, let us run," she finally said, her voice tight. "But someone has to remain behind to cover our tracks." Her eyes held no mercy. "Kotone-sama..." Suzume whispered, looking at her with almost a plea. The elderly woman thought about it for a moment. "Even though you obeyed the Yoshida call, my child... Attacking a minor is still not in our book." The black haired woman's eyes widened, but she knew there would be no arguing to the point. "You will be punished... Of course, when you are finished, you will be allowed to rejoin us." Suzume bowed her head, gaze on the forest floor. "Yes, Kotone-sama." The elder woman then looked back at her clan. "Shall anyone wish to accompany her, I give my permission. Others, make your preparations quick. We are leaving." ... What... were all these...? The sannin felt his blood boiling as he gazed upon the Hokage's idea of 'childish pranks' on his son's door. To be fair, they were insignificant, he had seen much, so much worse during his seventy years of lifetime. But for a village that supposedly prided itself with its peaceful ways... They had no idea how this little drop would turn into a huge flood. His fists clenched a bit more, his teeth gritting as he looked at all of the images one by one, the words written... And he had actually believed that Konoha had changed for a better place. That was initially why he had decided to send Mitsuki back to his own village - that and his constant nagging. For one time in his life - foolishly, naively - he had believed in the young man who was now the Hokage - and even his own former teammate, Tsunade. He had thought that, as long as Mitsuki's identity was hidden, he would be safe and live the normal life he wanted - deserved all along. The red paint of the 'fire' stood out, almost mocking his thoughts. And his boy had still defended them. The image of Mitsuki, with all the severe injuries, once again came to his mind, and he closed his eyes for a minute, as if to not see the graffitis. He would make it his own ambition to make sure Konoha would crumble under the weight of his fury. His hands were shaking, the urge to kill, to make blood covering the streets rising. To make them pay... 'Please... spare... the village...' "We shall see how long I can hold on to that promise, child." Orochimaru murmured through gritted teeth and tried the door. It was locked of course, but it was hardly enough to stop him. The apartment was dark, cold and empty... Even more so now that it was missing his son. 'Come now, Mitsuki...' The sudden voice made the sannin do a double take. Where did that just come from? 'Repeat after me, sweetie... Da-ddy. Dad-dy. D... a... d... d... y...' He knew that voice... This was Karin... But how was that even possible - him hearing her voice from who knows how many years ago...? 'D... da... da...' came another, childish voice, stuttering over the basic word. 'That's right, go on. Daddy... call out for him.' Where was that voice coming from?! He started walking around the darkened house, looking around from room to room, following the childish jabbering. Just when he entered the bedroom... It was not enough to say that he was shocked when a small figure, a toddler about a year and a half of age at most, waddled his way towards him, stumbling, losing his balance and almost falling to the ground. After a couple more steps, the toddler started falling forward, but at the last moment managed to grab his legs. Although... he felt no weight. Then little Mitsuki looked up at him with a big grin, flashing a dozen of pearly-white teeth. 'Da-da!' he exclaimed gleefully and in excitement, before he slowly disappeared through thin air. The sannin closed his eyes for a moment... [Flashback] He was about ready to pull his hair off! It was not working. There was something very wrong with this experiment, and he was thinking this was all going good, the ‘donor’ was a good one after all, more than suitable. And during the nine months the fetus was in the tube, there had been nothing wrong - why now?! In a fit of rage - and without stopping to think what he would cause... the sannin let his fury explode. In less than a minute, the lab was lying in ruins... Broken glass, ruined wiring everywhere... Like a scene that was the aftermath of a battle... All... was lost after all... Just then he heard a strong sound, and his world came to a stop for a minute. A crying... a child... Or, more precisely, a new-born bawling his lungs out... Stunned, it took him another minute to get moving, but finally he moved through the broken tubes, to the one at the end of the left row... And there he was - the blue haired baby he watched growing for all this time... wailing so loud it was practically grating at his ears... More to just quiet him than anything, Orochimaru took the baby in his arms... Sniffling a bit, the baby slowly quieted down. [End of Flashback] Opening his eyes, the sannin sighed before mumbling to himself. "I should have never allowed you to come here..." ... A soft, orange light shone in the darkened room as a hand reached out to grab the phone that was ringing. A man with copper colored skin and blond hair squinted at the phone's screen while a woman with light brown hair half turned to look at him from his side. "What is it, baby?" "Naruto...?" Darui mumbled sleepily and pushed on the screen as he pressed a hand over his face. "You better have a good reason for calling me this early..." As he listened on, the young Raikage's eyes widened. "Goro and Hiraku?" Hearing that, his wife straightened up to a sitting position, putting a hand on his shoulder and leaning over. "No time to lose. I'm taking the first train over." He ended the call and hastily got up, getting ready. The woman got up, too, watching him. "Darui, what's going on?" Darui stopped in front of her and grabbed her arms. "Hitomi, I need to go to Konoha. Take care of Kumo in my absence." ... Looking over the vast clearing in the heart of the forest, Konohamaru felt his spirit failing. "We missed them...?" he mumbled, his eyes wide. "They didn't leave long ago." Kiba growled, his eyes scanning everywhere. "We can still follow them..." "That is not necessary." Ryu and two other ninjas who were scouting up ahead came towards them, excitement apparent in their eyes. "She is still here..." one of them started. "From what we saw, she is covering their tracks. There are two others with her, both kunoichi." "You can deal with them." Konohamaru said, determined. "Leave that woman to me." There was a pause. "Konohamaru..." Kakashi began. "Lord Sixth, please. All of you. Just make sure she doesn't run away, if your involvement becomes absolutely necessary. Otherwise stay out of my way, because I'm probably not gonna recognize you in the heat of the battle, so I can't guarantee your safety." Kakashi sighed but at his nod, no one said anything else. At Ryu's directions, the Konoha ninjas all took their places, getting out of sight. The gaze in the brunette's eyes hardened. "This is my fight."

#boruto:sacrifices #boruto #mitsuki #sarada #boruto fanfiction #naruto fanfiction

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ladyaudentium · 4 years

Text

Confectionary Affection

Title: Confectionary Affection Fandom: Final Fantasy Crisis Core Rating: T Pairing: AngealxOC Characters: Angeal Hewley, Zack Fair, Genesis Rhapsodos, Original Characters Links: A03, FF.net

This took me longer than I would have liked, but I'm back with the next chapter! This one is jam packed with Angeal and Zack content! Be sure to grab a cold drink and a snack to enjoy!

Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed after the first chapter so far! If I missed responding to anyone's review, I'm sorry! I'll be going back over the reviews for the previous chapter, and if I missed you, I'll send you a response!

Enjoy!

It was nearly impossible to forget that Angeal and Zack had stopped by her bakery.

Kalika and Anri worked themselves to the bone and were only just barely able to keep up to the new level of demand. Sometimes it was so busy during the morning that there was simply not enough stock left to open in the evening; not even if Kalika remade everything again.

At first the business had been making a considerable income, and even now, it was till turning a higher profit than the past, but the costs of running the establishment had also increased. Sometimes there was simply not enough ingredients or prepared pastries left to open again in the evening. Usually this ended up with the business losing money.

Not only that but the increased workload had Kalika and Anri burning out more quickly than they could regain their strength. Kalika's usual late nights and early mornings preparing dough and bakery items were quickly turning into working around the clock. It wasn't unusual for her to doze off kneading a bread dough only to wake with it on the floor or ruined from over working it.

Anri was the same, for the first time since she was a new employee, she was making mistakes with drink and food orders. As a result, the customers were becoming upset and more than once a scene with raised voices had caused Kalika to intervene and forcibly remove the troublemakers.

It was getting to the point where an extra set of hands was a necessary addition; preferably a set with some muscle behind them. Kalika sighed heavily as she once again wiped the chalk board clean. Her handwriting was never great to begin with, but her hands were still sore and shaky from the kneading she had just finished.

The sun was beginning to set, and the bakery had been closed all day. Kalika had spent all night and day preparing every bit of dough, batter, and meringue for the no doubt absolutely insane day tomorrow. If her usual delivery of supplies was on time, she would be able to open again the day after, but if not… well she would come up with something. She always did.

Slapping her cheek, she forced herself to stay awake for just a little while longer, she just needed to finish this task and then she was finished—

*KNOCK KNOCK* "Kalika?" a voice called from outside.

The young woman jumped at the sudden noise which caused a series of events to follow:

First, her precariously placed step ladder slipped off the edge of the counter, causing her to scream in fear and drop all her supplies creating a racket.

Second, the door burst open just as she desperately tried to remain balanced, her hands reaching out for anything that would keep her from the inevitable.

Third, she fell.

The young woman braced for the cold, hard impact of the floor, but instead was met with a warm embrace. Black hair and blue eyes entered her vision and it was with a sudden sinking pit in her stomach that she knew who it was.

Angeal Hewley.

"You should be more careful." He intoned lowly, his chest vibrating with his voice, "We need to stop meeting like this."

Kalika stared up into his bright blue eyes as her head rested on his chest. "I don't know, I think it's kind of nice?" the words escaped her mouth before she could think twice and immediately could feel her face begin to heat up in a deep, mortified blush.

Angeal blinked once in disbelief as his eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.

"Better be careful, Angeal or pretty soon she's going to be falling for you!" Zack called excitedly, breaking the silence.

The black-haired man, sighed deeply and screwed his eyes shut, clearly stressed, "Zack. What have I said to you about appropriate behavior and comments?" he prompted as the burly SOLDIER made a move to stand, his steady grip assisting Kalika to stand along with him.

There was a heavy sigh from the opposite side of the corner while the younger boy replied monotonously, "You said that I need to think before speaking and that words have impact. I can't take back anything once it's been said, sometimes the best choice is to remain silent." the energetic boy leaned back over a bar stool and with both hands over his face, "I can't help it though, you two make it so easy!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands to the ceiling.

"You need to learn self-restraint if you intend to be an honorable member of SOLDIER in the future." Angeal scolded and judging from the young boy's reaction, this seemed to be a common occurrence between the two of them. Somehow, that did not come as a surprise to the young woman.

"I know, I'm doing my best, Angeal! Sometimes it just bursts out before I can stop it!" Zack turned to Kalika, "By the way, we're here to return this! The scones were delicious, thanks!" he held out the same container that Anri had given them upon their departure from their last visit.

The blue haired girl blinked once in surprise as she accepted the box; a reusable one that was not their typical to-go boxes. That sly girl, she had planned for this too. "Thanks, I'm glad you liked them." she looked up at Angeal, "I'm sorry for the trouble of making you come back here to return it. It would have been fine if you just disposed of the container instead." she also took the opportunity to notice that it had been washed as well. How… odd. Somehow, she just could not picture prominent members of SOLDIER doing something as ordinary as washing dishes.

The image of Angeal in a pink, frilly apron suddenly was at the forethought of her brain and she blushed deeply once again.

"It would be wasteful to merely dispose of an easily reusable box such as this." Angeal stated plainly. His eyebrows lowered with concern as he pulled a glove from his hand and gently placed his palm on her forehead, "You're quite red, are you feeling alright? Have you eaten anything today?"

"I - I think so? I've been busy today and haven't had a chance to sit down for long." Kalika blurted as she froze in place. Should she move away from his hand? Or would that be rude? Why was he being so friendly? Was he always this caring to strangers? Especially a stranger that just hit on him a minute ago. The blush returned full force to her face with that traitorous thought.

Before she could panic any further, he pulled his hand away and once again donned his glove. The young woman breathed a small sigh of relief.

"Busy? But you're closed!" Zack spoke up, and cocked his head to the side, "Wait, why are you closed? Shouldn't this place be hopping right now?"

Both sets of bright blue eyes settled on her with varying inquisitiveness. Zack's was honest confusion but Angeal's was less readable. His mouth was set in a straight line across his strong jaw while his eyes held a spark of suspicion that set a cold sweat down Kalika's spine.

Oh boy, how could she explain this without outright blaming them for the necessary closure and the empty ingredient cabinet?

"I… well… you see, ever since your last visit, business has been crazy. Lately I can't keep to the hours we normally hosted. Sometimes I'm up all night preparing!" Her words were spoken with a joyous tone, but from the lack of change in both of their expressions, she was not convincing them.

Angeal opened his mouth to respond, the frown of concern deep on his brow, but was interrupted by a fourth, unfamiliar voice, "Oh my Gaia, you're Angeal Hewley First Class SOLDIER! You're back! I can't believe it, I gotta tell everyone!"

Kalika felt the blood leave her face as her attention immediately snapped to the tall, blonde woman currently standing in the open doorway attempting to snap a picture of the two men.

"No, pictures without permission and we're closed, please leave!" She ordered, pushing past Angeal to confront the woman directly.

"What? But it's the middle of your posted hours and your door is open! You can't throw me out, do you know who I am?"

"Nope, and I'm sorry you've forgotten. Now, please get out, we are closed, and you are trespassing."

The woman's brown eyes flashed with indignation, "Listen, I don't know how you get off talking to customers like that, but—"

"No buts! I asked you to leave. I won't ask again." Crimson eyes sparked with anger as she stared the other woman down.

Red lips opened to argue further, but she was cut off by a deep, commanding voice "You have been asked to leave, you should comply with that request."

A quick, furtive glance backwards revealed Angeal standing straight, his burly arms crossed over his chest and a dark glare adorning his features. A shudder wormed its way down Kalika's spine. Scary, was the only thing she could think.

There was a beat of silence between the three of them. The woman suddenly looked appropriately ashamed of her behavior and without another word scuttled away.

The second the woman was outside, Kalika grabbed the door and threw it shut behind her. Much to her surprise, it bounced back open and that's when she noticed the lock was completely broken. Around the spot where the deadbolt should have been was a hole in the door frame and splinters scattered along the floor.

She shut it again, it bounced backwards.

She applied a little more force, it bounced backwards again.

Frustration and resentment burning within her, she tried again; it bounced backwards.

With all her strength, she slammed the door shut and before it could bounce back, shoved a chair underneath the similarly broken and limp door handle.

Defeated, she braced her hands against the door and let her head hang between them.

"It would probably be a good idea for you both to use the back door to leave. You'll attract less attention that way… plus, it seems this one is broken now." Kalika murmured quietly, not daring to look up in fear that they would see the unshed tears in her eyes.

"Kali…? Is everything… okay?" Zack's genuinely concerned voice broke the silence.

A lump caught in her throat and without looking at either of them she walked to the nearest table and sat down on one of the chairs, burying her face in her hands. She could not cry, not here, not with Angeal Hewley First Class SOLDIER and Zack Fair here to witness it. One shuddering breath later gave her the confidence to speak.

"Yeah, I'll be fine… somehow, I always am."

A shadow fell over her, "Is there anything we can do to help?" Zack asked.

"No, but thanks." Kalika waved him off but much to her surprise, he caught her hand between two gloved ones of his own. Surprised, she looked up into an uncharacteristically serious expression on the young boy's face.

"I swear on my honor as a SOLDIER I will do whatever it takes to help you, Kali. You're one of us now, right Angeal?"

"Don't swear on your honor lightly, Zack."

"I mean it! I do!"

Angeal nodded, seemingly accepting his young protégé's resolve. "How long has your door been broken like this?" the First Class inquired.

Kalika sniffed as delicately as she could as she attempted to take her hand back from Zack, but it was held tight. "It was fine earlier today; it was only just now that something seemed to be wrong. There was a hole where the deadbolt was and splinters from the door frame were scattered along the floor…" the young woman snapped her jaw shut when she realized the implications of her words.

Angeal's face darkened once again and his eyebrows angled inwards at a dangerous angle as he stared his young protégé down. There was a heavy beat of silence as Zack seemed to realize what was going on, "Oh… well… you know… SOLDIER strength, am I right?"

"No! It's fine really!" Kalika jumped up and did her best to placate the visibly upset SOLDIER, "It was old and in need of replacement anyways, I can probably write the replacement off as a business expense. I'm sure Zack didn't mean it."

Angeal sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "His intentions aren't the issue. SOLDIERs have enhanced senses and abilities. If Zack does not learn how to control these properly, he could end up hurting himself or worse, others." He looked up, "I apologize for the door, Zack you're going to suspend a fifty-pound weight in a squat today to make up for your lack of control this evening."

Zack groaned and Kalika winced sympathetically, "I don't think that's necessary, is it? Maybe since you're really strong you could help me with something, and we call it even?" she suggested. "I still need to finish rewriting that menu sign. We're opening with a new item tomorrow."

Angeal looked over his shoulder to see the unfinished chalkboard, "Is that what you were doing when you fell?"

An embarrassed blush crept over her face once again, "Yes, it's too high for me to reach on my own. So, I usually have to get creative… with a step ladder… on the counter."

"That sounds very dangerous." The raven-haired man lowered his eyebrows in concern and disapproval.

"Maybe you can help Angeal! Just lift her up and she'd be able to reach no problem!" an excited Zack exclaimed and, in his enthusiasm, squeezed her hand that was still held captive.

The young woman sputtered, "I- that's not what I meant, but maybe if one of you could just hold the ladder steady? I usually have Anri to help me, but I gave her the day off today."

Angeal turned and with one hand lifted the step ladder she had been using, revealing one of the legs to be broken off, "For the sake of your safety, I would advise against using this again."

"Oh… I see…" the young woman murmured as she worried her bottom lip, how was she going to get up there now?

Zack was practically vibrating with excitement from beside her. A quick glance to him revealed that he was glancing quickly between the two of them biting his lip in anticipation. He was planning something, if only the blue-haired woman could figure out what it was…

"To make amends for the broken door, I would be willing to lift you as Zack suggested." Angeal offered as he moved the broken ladder out of the way.

"I mean, are you sure? I don't want to be a burden. Are you sure I won't be too heavy?"

The burly man grinned and chuckled deeply. The genuine mirth revealed pearly white teeth and the genuine good-ness that radiated from him was unlike anyone she had ever met before. "I'm sure."

Kalika blushed for what seemed like the tenth time in under an hour, "I – Well… if you're sure, I guess. I need to get the chalk." Walking forwards, Zack finally let go of her hand and Angeal stepped out of the way to let her pass behind the bar. Grabbing the chalk from the ground and the eraser cloth, she turned back to the First-Class SOLDIER, "Okay, I'm ready, how would you like to do this?"

Angeal stepped forward and for the first time she noticed how tall he was. She had never felt so small compared to someone in her life, he dwarfed her in every sense. She was eye level with the middle of his chest, and he was easily twice as wide as her. Another blush adorned her cheeks as he knelt to one knee, "Sit on my shoulder and I will take hold of your legs."

Nodding, she turned around and as instructed, gingerly sat on his shoulder, doing her best to put as little weight on him as possible. Two arms wrapped around her knees, locking them in place and the next thing she knew, he was lifting her into the air.

Sucking in a breath she flailed, unbalanced, for one moment before a hand on her thigh steadied her. Angeal Hewley, First Class SOLDIER of Shinra was touching her leg. She tried not to think about how her butt was on his shoulder and instead focused on finishing the sign as quickly as possible. Her hands and shoulders cramped but she did her best to legibly scrawl the newest addition to her menu.

"Dumbapple tart?" Zack exclaimed, "Angeal, didn't you grow up in Banora?! That's so cool!"

"Is that true?" Kalika inquired, looking down to meet the bright blue eyes of Angeal.

"It is, both Genesis and I grew up there. His parents had the best Banora White tree, every summer we would take as many apples as we could and sit in the branches eating them." A small, nostalgic smile pulled up the corners of his mouth.

"That changes everything then, let me down, I'm all finished now."

With one swift movement, the hands disappeared from her person and for a brief moment, she hung suspended in the air before being gently lowered to the ground. The black-haired SOLDIER stared down at her with a quizzical expression on his face. Setting the chalk down she made to pass him, "Have a seat. I'll be right back," and disappeared into the kitchen.

The fridge opened with a hiss, a quick scan through the contents revealed her prize. Pulling two small tarts from their tray, Kalika put them on a plate and made her way back to the front. The fridge closed with a satisfying click behind her.

"Here, to thank you for helping me with the sign, please be the first to try a tart!" placing the plate on the bar counter, she waited excitedly for them to each take one. "They're Banora White apple tarts with some decorative white chocolate to counter the sourness and some edible gold sparkles for presentation."

Zack immediately grabbed one and in one bite put the whole thing in his mouth. His eyes lit up as he playfully slapped his mentor's shoulder, "D'ese are r'lly gud An'eal! You shou'd taste ish!" (translation: These are really good, Angeal! You should taste this!)

Angeal sighed in resignation as he took a tart, "Thank you, this wasn't necessary as it is us who are in your debt, not the opposite way around."

Kalika smiled brightly, "It's fine, really! Plus, I hope that I can live up to your memories of the times stealing and eating the apples."

With a small smile, he took a bite and instantly his blue eyes lit up with surprise, his eyebrows once again disappearing into his hairline. Swallowing, he turned back to the blue haired woman, "You have a true gift for baking."

Flushing for the umpteenth time that day, Kalika continued to smile, "I'm glad you like them. I'll package up one for Commander Rhapsodos as well and you can give one to him too!"

"How much do we owe you for the tarts?" Angeal asked as she pushed through the door to the kitchen.

"Nothing! They're thanks for helping me!" she called back as she began to package up the third tart and then returned to the front with it. Angeal stared her down, his mouth a straight line and his azure gaze steeled with his resolve.

"Please, it would be dishonorable for us to accept these gifts a second time. Especially when your door breaking was our fault in the first place."

Stumped, she could only stare. Never had anyone been so insistent on paying for a gift. "Don't be silly, these are gifts, do you insist for payment when you give a gift to someone?" she held out the tart wrapped in a white box with Confectionary Affection stamped on the sides. "Here's Commander Rhapsodos's tart, try not to squish it if you can, and now it's getting late. I imagine you need to get back to Shinra, since the front door's broken and likely a crowd of fans outside waiting for you to exit, follow me to the back door."

With that, she turned on her heel and pushed open the swinging door and motioned for them to follow her. Zack hopped up immediately, but Angeal took a moment to gather himself and follow. Passing through the kitchen and a small hallway with a set of stairs leading to the second floor, they came to the back door. Pushing it open revealed the dirt yard and receiving area for her shipments of ingredients.

"Thanks again for the treats, Kali. They were delicious as always!" Zack called as he jumped down the short flight of stairs, an arm extended in a cheery wave.

"Thank you for your hospitality. You honor us with your generosity. Genesis will enjoy this pastry, I am certain." Angeal stated solemnly, his eyes shining with the depth of his gratitude.

"Any time, come by again soon. Preferably without causing any trouble this time. Using the back door might not be such a bad idea to avoid any drama like with that woman earlier." She pointed to a black rectangle with a button in the middle, "Next time you're by, just ring this doorbell and I'll let you in."

Zack grinned devilishly and took a breath to make a comment, but before he could utter a sound, Angeal put a hand over the young boy's mouth to silence him. "Thank you Kalika, we will not forget your kindness today."

The blue -haired baker could only manage a small wave as they turned to walk away. Zack continued to wave enthusiastically until they were out of sight behind the fence. Closing the door, her knees felt weak. The sound of her name on Angeal's lips created a feeling in her like she'd never experienced before. Sliding to the ground she replayed the memory in her mind until she was sure that it would be with her forever.

She had offered for them to come back again, but it was such wishful thinking she did not dare hope too much. Once was a coincidence, twice was a pattern, but three times was a dream and nothing more.

But oh, how she loved to dream.

Oh they'll be back, but in the meantime, there's other shenanigans that need to happen first >:3c

Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you'd like! I always enjoy hearing your thoughts!

#angeal hewley #zack fair #original character #me and my dummy thicc angeal propaganda #fic #confectionary affection #writing stuff #my writing

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theholycovenantrpg · 3 years

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In the beginning was GABRIEL, an ANGEL loyal to the cause of the ANGELS. He is said to be IMMORTAL and uses HE/HIM pronouns. In this New Testament he serves as THE SUN. Blessed be his name.

THE INDELIBLE MARK.

When the Holy Land was instituted and claimed in the promise of sanctuary for mortals, demons, and angels alike it was clear that they trusted in Gabriel to don the responsibilities and title of The Sun. Michael was perhaps the most vocal in his support, likely due to the leverage that he thought would be offered to him if someone so close to him were to be in such an influential position. That has not been the case, as Gabriel keeps his intentions rather close to his chest, illuminating his intentions to the Moon and the Stars of the Tridium. Much of his time is devoted to helping his brothers-in-arms or those undergoing great suffering, particularly on the battlefield, so that they might ease into death’s awaiting arms. No one has witnessed the darker aspects of his ability, which is to render them completely incapable of their senses; no longer can they see, hear, or taste -- the faculties that they once had are no longer their own, but Gabriel’s. It is something he deliberately chooses not to wield, having only utilized it for those awaiting execution, moments before their death. There are those who wonder if he even has abilities granted to him at all. But Gabriel does not much mind the rumors that mill about, let them wonder at his power -- or lack thereof. He, and he alone, is the one that wields it.

THE HISTORY.

What was God thinking -- creating an angel filled with such irreparable longing? Perhaps longing was too kind of a word, too soft at its edges and too warm at its core. If Gabriel were to sit and think, which he was rarely idle enough to do, then he might admit to himself that it was hunger that he was suffused with. Not a hunger that was ever meant to condemn him to hell, as some of his lesser brethren were, but a hunger to protect the innocent that God seemed content to let wallow and suffer. It was what stripped the tenderness that was once shining in his eyes, the revelation that such unnecessary suffering and punishment was meant to be doled out to the sinners and saints alike. Being the herald of God, he was able to traipse across the earth, unfettered by the constrictions of heaven - was able to bask in the liveliness that the mortals were known for and witness, with keen interest, the way that they slid into sin’s suffocating embrace. The more time he spent with God’s creations of flesh and bone, the more palpable he began to feel the hunger, until he tasted its bitter tinge on his tongue. A hunger for justice to be given to the mortals who knew not the mysterious workings of God, who only knew to follow the tenets that Gabriel himself heralded on blind faith and infrequent miracles. Why, father, fill me with such hunger and let it burden me with anguish and discontent? He asked God upon one of his returns, the world burning beneath them. Because, my son, he answered wearily, it is only with an insatiable hunger that one would want to protect the children that I created, no matter their misdeeds.

And with that answer, he made peace with his perpetual hunger, knowing that with it he might defend and protect those mortals that were deserving and undeserving of a champion such as he. It was with an almost manic tirelessness that he sought to defend the mortals whenever their necessity came into question. It was he who convinced God to save Noah when the great deluge swept across the earth, it was he who wept for the souls that were lost and punished time and time again - in the great land of Egypt when they refused to listen to Moses, in Sodom and Gomorrah when they were seen as irredeemable. But still, his hunger riled and rallied him to take up his arms in their name, not in God’s, time and time again. As he wandered the earth, taking their prayers and petitions with him whenever he would be called back to the kingdom of Heaven, creating for himself a number of personas that might let him tie his heart to theirs, might let them feel and think as they did. It was not long before it reached heaven that an angel walked among the mortals, that they had learned to love him and revered him as nothing less than a saint. A saint with a shrewd tongue, a sharp wit, and an innate inability to enthrall all those who encountered him that liked to play mortals’ hearts like a harpsichord -- merely to have them as enraptured with him as he was with them -- but a saint nonetheless.

And God did not like to have one of His sons revered more so than he. It was difficult to ignore the way that they spoke of Gabriel -- with such warmth and ardor, as though he was the one to thank for the blessings and protections that were bestowed upon them. Gabriel did not think much of it, and was skeptical of the glint that seemed to creep into his Father’s eyes whenever they would thank him for his deeds. He was fulfilling the duty that he was given since his inception, was he not? Was he not doing as was expected, honing his hunger into a shield so that the mortals might join them in the great kingdom that had been created? His trust in the sanity of God was his folly, and his faith in his Father became the shackles by which he was imprisoned. It was his own siblings that grabbed him by the wrists and tore off his wings to keep him from descending to the earth again. They dragged his limp body and threw him into the farthest corner of heaven, hoping that God might forget about his transgressions and punish him no further. The celestial army could not afford to lose another brother to God’s wrath -- especially not one that was as beloved as Gabriel. And so he let his anguish overcome him, let the numbness of defeat sweep over his torn frame, but still on his lips was a prayer of forgiveness, not for himself but for the innocent mortals that were still able to recall his name.

And when his prayers were answered in the form of Michael, he was ready; his brother-in-arms shoving a blade into his hand, the word retribution on his lips -- a rallying war-cry for an angel that has perpetually hungered for it. Though his wings were torn and bloodied, though he knew he would have to slay his own brethren, nothing would stop him from gripping God by the throat and ripping him from his throne. And nothing did. When the world was remade, Gabriel sought to make it better than the world that had been smothered in God’s fist, there would no longer be the divisiveness between mortal and immortal, the world might know a semblance of peace -- though there was no doubting that many would have to die and bleed for it still. But in the newness of this world there was hope to be fostered and still innocents that needed those who were stronger - who remembered the cruelty of the Old World - to shield them from the onslaught of those who sought to take advantage of the weaker. But, even as he bent his knee and bowed his head to receive the title of The Sun of the Holy Land, he knew without a doubt that he would not be so blind as to allow those who wielded absolute power to dictate the whims of his heart again. The worst deeds mortals had committed against one another that he had borne witness to were done in God’s name, they could just as easily be done in Michael’s; he was no longer the naive little angel that once had shone so brightly in his eyes. God had made an irreparable mistake when he created Gabriel with that abyss of hunger for righteousness -- not a single creature could strike down an innocent before him, and hope to live another day.

THE CONNECTIONS.

MICHAEL & RAPHAEL: The Archangels. They were known as the three Archangels in the old world - famed and venerated. A soldier, a messenger, and a healer. They are brothers in every sense of the word: bickering over the smallest of things, needling one another, but loving one another all the same. Though, as of late, Gabriel has noted a rift between them, the root of it lies within their differing loyalties -- Gabriel’s in particular, being the most outspoken of them all in his determination to ensure the sanctity of the Holy Land. Perhaps chasm is a more accurate word to describe it than rift. Before, their arguments would end in jest, but now Gabriel can only ruminate on the biting words that seem to dig deeper each time they do anything other than recall their days of glory and revelry. What causes an ache in him is the fact that, since the dawn of time, they have been at one another’s side - have been the wards against his own weaknesses. In truth, though, he is excited to know what it is like to be completely and utterly free.

REVNA VOLK: Reprieve. When one has lived through as many ages as Gabriel, one grows used to the weariness of the world -- novelty becoming a far-off idea, growing more and more distant with each passing year. Imagine, then, how utterly beguiled he was by the mortal that could weave everything she dreamed of within little more than a careful pull of her fingers, an artful arch of her brow. Whenever he has had the pleasure of her company, he has always been allowed another glimpse into the gears and cogs of her mind. Sometimes it is in an enjoyable silence that they indulge one another, other times it is only when he has carefully baited her into an argument that always leaves him grinning. There are times, though, when he finds the moon high and stars bright, that he wonders whether the moments that they have with one another -- in the quiet of one another’s company -- is something to be ashamed of. Whether he has fallen under an enthrallment that renders him incapable of seeing another other than the novelty of their connection. Everyone vies for the benevolence of The Sun, why should she be any different?

MAMMON: Abyss. There is little in the world that unnerves Gabriel -- he has seen too much of its darkest corners to not arm himself against it. He had thought himself thoroughly prepared to look chaos itself in the eyes until he encountered them. Their gaze slides over him, assessing every weakness that he has seen within himself, and going even further to look into those flaws that he dare not see. When they enter the Holy Land, it is as though a shadow falls over it -- or perhaps the shadow falls over Gabriel and Gabriel alone. He has spent so long cultivating creation, being the harbinger of it, that the notion of living without strikes terror into the very core of his angelic soul. Mammon is nothing more than an empty hunger whose existence only serves as a reminder of the parasitic sickness that stains the world they have bled to protect. Who would miss a creature that has nothing to offer, save leaching from the universe all the color to be found within the world?

RAHMIEL: Agent. Within the pearly gates of heaven, not many had taken note of the friendship that had been fostered between Rahmiel and Gabriel. The two of them had been rather intrigued by the indulgences that humanity had taken for themselves, and had thought to mirror it within the serene kingdom. Upon that penchant for mischief they had built with one another a partnership that has lasted the test of differing loyalties and the overthrowing of monarchies that were thought to be eternal. Rahmiel had resigned himself to the notion of solitude, being God’s confidante and scribe, and yet within Gabriel he had found kinship -- and within Rahmiel he has found a wealth of knowledge that seeks refinement and utilization. Since his ascension to the throne of The Sun, Rahmiel has offered to be Gabriel’s eyes where they can no longer reach, to armor him with intelligence so that he might do as he swore when he shouldered the burden of power. What greater power can one have, than being able to have eyes within the darkest corners of the kingdom?

Gabriel is portrayed by Marlon Teixeira and was written by ROSEY. He is currently TAKEN by CLAUDIA.

#literate rp #biblical rp #new rp #rpg #lsrpg #m #a #gabriel #c #cm

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lampsprite7 · 5 years

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Daenerys is a fantasy of a woman who took her abuse and not only overcame it, but punished abusers. She’s the ultimate example of the concept of going back in time and killing baby Hitler. Sure, some of it was revenge porn, but she also remade the world and changed entire systems that were oppressive. She was ruthless toward oppressors but never the oppressed. She killed her abusers - like her brother, the witch who killed her husband and unborn child, the mages is Qarth who stole her dragons to entrap her - as Arya and Sansa and Tyrion had done to their abusers. Even if she made mistakes, she learned from them. She locked away her own dragons because one of them burned a peasant child. She hated the fighting pits in Meereen because of the brutality, but she decided to patronize them as a peace offering to the citizens she had conquered. As recently as this season’s third episode, she sacrificed half of her army and her advisor to save the North, and only two episodes later, we’re supposed to believe that she’d burn innocent people after her enemies surrendered and the battle was won? It doesn’t track.

If she wanted the throne, she had it. If, as the writers said in the BTS interview, she killed the people of KL because she wanted to make it personal for Cersei, that also doesn’t make sense because Cersei is the character most likely to blow up her own citizens with wildfire to cling to whatever power she has left.

But even if this was always meant to happen in the books, and it was written more coherently, it’s still a blow to fans who formed a parasocial relationship with this character in order to navigate their own history of abuse and trauma. Daenerys is a power-fantasy for women. She not only abolished slavery, she destroyed the patriarchy in Essos. There is no other female character in popular fantasy with as much agency as her - the ability to use cunning and the tools at her disposal to change the world around her was unparalleled. Every other female character on this show had to scrabble for power in a world built for men, some of them more successful than others. Sansa had to learn the game to play it as well as her abusers, Brienne was knighted by a man who later abused her, Arya had to denounce her femininity, Cersei had to wait for all of the men (including her sons) to die and rule with vindictiveness. Up until this season, Daenerys gained power on her own terms - rising from the ashes of her own oppression and freeing the oppressed; then gaining their devotion. Her violence toward her enemies was no worse than any other character on this show - and in terms of this show’s morality, they all deserved it. (And yes, the Tarlys deserved it: they killed everyone in House Tyrell and took their wealth; as House Tyrell’s Queen, it was Dany’s responsibility to exact justice. And she was actually merciful. She offered them their lives and titles if they bent the knee.) So, yeah, seeing her lose her modus operandi, how ever grey it was, and her very reason for being, is a blow - and to have it happen in such a slipshod manner is an insult.

An entire book could be written about how explicitly and subtextually sexist the show has been this season - from Sansa telling Sandor she’s only strong because of her rape to Varys telling Tyrion that Jon would be a better ruler because of his cock. But the worst is that Daenerys, for the first time since she escaped the shadow of Drogo, had to beg a man and her lover to stay silent because she was afraid he would usurp her. Daenerys, a woman who had defied the constraints of her own womanhood to gain power and devotion by her people, not because of her name but because of who she was, had to beg a dude for something instead of confidently changing the circumstances with her own cunning to favor her goals as she had done every season up until now. Don’t even get me started on how the writers dumbed down every character this season in order to service the plot. That’s a whole other issue and it was mostly used to break Daenerys down.

So for people who say her “madness” was foreshadowed: no, it kind of wasn’t. But also, that isn’t the point. This is a fantasy and she has more agency than any female character I can think of. It sucks that she has to fall prey to the Evil Queen trope (read: ambitious women go insane and become tyrannical with power) in a time when a rapist of nineteen women is in the White House because he beat an ambitious (read bitchy and untrustworthy) woman in an already unfair system (electoral college!). It sucks that the final message of this series is: ambitious women are terrible and women with power are tyrants. And yes, we can point to absolute power corrupts absolutely! But there’s an entire history of Westeros in which plenty of Kings ruled justly and successfully. But only two Queens, and they BOTH went mad. So please excuse some of us for feeling like we’ve been punched in the uterus for no good reason by a show that failed to read the moment.

#daenerys targaryen #Game of Thrones #jonerys #GoT #sexism

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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years

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DUMMY ACHE

July 10, 1936

SYNOPSIS: Knowing that her husband, Edgar, would disapprove of her starring in a play, Florence acts very suspicious about where she is going when a rehearsal comes up. Edgar follows her to the home of co-star Al St. Claire and spies while they enact a scene in which Florence discovers that her lover is married to Lois (Lucille Ball). Florence becomes enraged and shoots Al. Edgar thinks the scene is for real. He comes in, finds a dummy of Al stuffed in a laundry basket, and before Florence can explain, carries it away to dispose of "the body". Limbs are spilling out of the hamper as he lugs it down the street and naturally the police soon catch up with Edgar, so before long, all confusion is cleared up.

Leslie Goodwins (Director), Lee Marcus (Producer), Bert Gilroy (Associate Producer). Filmed at RKO-Radio Pictures. 18 minutes length.

Lucille Ball (Lois Mason, the Actress / ‘Mrs. Marino’) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon, which was not a success and was canceled after just 13 episodes.

Edgar Kennedy (Edgar) was born on April 26, 1890, near Monterey, California. He became a professional boxer, claiming to have gone 14 rounds against The Manassas Mauler, Jack Dempsey. At Mack Sennett’s Studios he was allegedly one of the original Keystone Kops, but soon graduated from bit parts to supporting roles, including Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914) with Charles Chaplin. RKO hired Kennedy to appear in a series of comedy shorts called "The Average Man," in which he played the head of a family. The shorts had very tight shooting schedules, often as few as three days. With Lucille Ball, he made Kid Millions (1934) A Night at the Biltmore Bowl (1935), neither of which were part of his series of ‘average man’ short films. He made over 200 short subjects and appeared in over 100 feature films, still in demand right up to the day he died of cancer on November 9, 1948.

Florence Lake (Florence Kennedy / ‘Dolores Doran’) was born as Florence Silverlake on November 27, 1904 in Charleston, South Carolina. Florence was the older sister of Arthur Lake, who was famous for playing "Dagwood" on radio, TV and films. She was best known for Wrong Direction (1934), Secret Service (1931) and Quiet Please! (1933). She was the best known of Edgar Kennedy's screen wives in his series of short domestic comedies. After his death in 1948, she continued to appear in minor film roles and many television parts. Aside from Dummy Ache, she did three RKO films with Lucille Ball, two episodes of “Here’s Lucy” and the special “Happy Anniversary and Goodbye.” She was married to John Graham Owens and died on April 11, 1980.

Lake in “Lucy and the Raffle” (HL S3;E19) in 1971

Dot Farley (Florence's Mother) was born Dorothea Farley on February 6, 1881 in Chicago, Illinois. She was known for So Big (1924), The Little Irish Girl (1926) and The Signal Tower (1924). She appeared in many Mack Sennett films in the silent era and later became well known for playing Edgar Kennedy's mother-in-Law in his series of domestic comedies for RKO. In 1941, she joined Lucille Ball in Look Who’s Laughing, a film based on radio’s “Fibber McGee & Molly.” She died on May 2, 1971

Jack Rice (Florence's Brother) was born Earl Clifford Rice on May 14, 1893 in Michigan. He is known for his work on Feather Your Nest (1944), Poisoned Ivory (1934) and Blondie's Holiday (1947). Rice did seven other films with Lucille Ball between 1934 and 1947. He died on December 14, 1968.

Rice in “Lucy Meets Orson Welles” (ILL S6;E3) in 1956.

George Lewis (Al St. Claire, the Actor / ‘Rupert Marino’) was born on December 10, 1903 in Guadalajara, Mexico. He was known for Zorro's Black Whip (1944), Radar Patrol vs. Spy King (1949) and Malice in the Palace (1949). He was married to Mary Louise Lohman. This was his only appearance with Lucille Ball. He died on December 8, 1995.

Harry Bowen (Bowen, the Cabbie) was born on October 4, 1888 in Brooklyn, New York. He broke into the film industry doing film shorts during the silent era. In 1929 that he made his first appearance in a full-length feature, with a small role in Red Hot Rhythm, directed by Leo McCarey. During his 20-year career, Bowen appeared in over 150 films, most of them film shorts. Other notable films include: the 1933 classic King Kong and Flying Down to Rio (1933). Previous to Dummy Ache, he was seen with Lucille Ball in Three Little Pigskins (1934) and The Whole Town’s Talking (1935). Bowen died in 1951 at age 53.

Billy Franey (Mr. Samuels aka Pitchfork Man) was born in Chicago in 1889. Hey appeared in more than 400 films between 1914 and 1941, mostly playing comedic roles. His late career included numerous uncredited appearances in classics like Bringing Up Baby. Starting in 1937, he played Pop, the father-in-law of Edgar Kennedy in several of his series of short comedies. In 1938 he did two films with Lucille Ball: Next Time I Marry and Go Chase Yourself, followed by Panama Lady in 1939. He contracted influenza and died from complications involving the illness in 1940.

The two policemen (speaking roles) are not credited. The film also includes background performers playing the frightened citizens.

An insert shot of the printed program for the play that Florence is secretly performing in.

Dummy Ache was nominated for an Academy Award as the Best Short Subject of 1936. It lost to The Public Pays, an installment of MGM's Crime Does Not Pay series.

The "Average Man" short comedies starred Edgar Kennedy as a blustery, stubborn everyman determined to accomplish a household project or get ahead professionally, despite the meddling of his featherbrained wife (usually Florence Lake), her freeloading brother (originally William Eugene, then Jack Rice) and his dubious mother-in-law (Dot Farley). Kennedy pioneered the kind of domestic situation comedy that later became familiar on television. Each installment would end with Edgar embarrassed, humbled or defeated, looking at the camera and doing his patented slow burn. The Edgar Kennedy Series, with its theme song "Chopsticks", became a standard part of the movie-going experience: Kennedy made six "Average Man" shorts a year for 17 years.

From 1931 to 1948, Edgar Kennedy and Florence played husband and wife in more than 60 domestic comedy short films like Dummy Ache. Dot Farley and Jack Rice was in an equal number as Mother and Brother.

Dummy Ache is heavily reworked from a silent comedy short, Dumb Daddies (1928), starring Max Davidson. Edgar Kennedy himself had a part in Dumb Daddies as a policeman.

It was remade into When Wifie’s Away, also an RKO short, starring Leon Erroll (above) in 1941.

The premise of misunderstandings based on overheard rehearsals by actors was used by Desilu in 1952′s “New Neighbors” (ILL S1;E21), in which Lucy and Ethel spy on the O’Brien’s (Hayden Rorke and K.T. Stevens) mistaking their rehearsal for a spy drama for their intent to blow up the US capital! Just as in Dummy Ache, the plot ends with police intervention!

Most of the Edgar Kennedy Shorts are available on low-cost DVD.

#Edgar Kennedy #RKO Radio Pictures #Lucille Ball #Florence Lake #Shorts #Billy Franey #George Lewis #Harry Bowen #Dot Farley #1936 #Dummy Ache #Black and White Movies #I Love Lucy #Here's Lucy #Wifie's Away #Hayden Rorke #leon erroll

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chiseler · 4 years

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Jeanne Eagels: Rubber!

A theater legend and a cautionary tale, Jeanne Eagels came up in show business the hard way before becoming a star on stage in the 1920s in Rain, an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s story Miss Thompson, where she played the hard-bitten prostitute Sadie Thompson. Eagels earned a posthumous Oscar nomination for a film of another Maugham story, The Letter (1929), after dying from a combination of drink and drugs at age 39 (future director Sam Fuller was the journalist who broke this story).

Eagels made a few silent films, some of which are still extant: The World and the Woman (1916) has a religious theme, but Man, Woman and Sin (1927) is as sexy as its title and contains precious scenes where a hot-to-trot Eagels, with her bleached blond hair and burning-the-candle-at-both-ends attitude, seduces the eminently seduce-able John Gilbert. Unfortunately, she did not film her star-making performance in Rain but lost that to Gloria Swanson, who circumvented censorship laws to play the plumb part in Raoul Walsh’s Sadie Thompson (1928).

Aside from The Letter, Eagels made only one other talking film, Jealousy (1929), which co-starred Fredric March and which is now lost. Bette Davis remade both of Eagels’s sound films, doing The Letter in 1940 and redoing Jealousy as the very overwrought Deception (1946), and Davis also won her first Oscar playing a washed-up, volatile Eagels-esque stage star in Dangerous (1935), so there is a line of succession connecting Eagels to Davis. In her version of The Letter, Eagels pops her eyes and bites on her words much like Bette, but she looks like a cross between Brigitte Helm and Anny Ondra. She makes some mistakes: the moment when she looks up and emotes when writing the letter to her lover in the first scene is dated. But as The Letter progresses it becomes increasingly clear that Eagels is an acting freak in a class all by herself.

The Eagels movie of The Letter is a primitive early talkie, seemingly undirected and stiffly acted by the rest of the cast. (It is thought that what is left of it is a work print, which would explain some of its deficiencies, though not all.) But Eagels’s devil-may-care performance is so deeply in some zone of its own that it comes through the ether to grab you by the throat and it won’t let go. There’s a palpable sense of risk to Eagels’s acting here, as if she were pushing herself and about to collapse at any moment. And maybe the film suits what she is doing. After all, some paintings are more at home in caves than in pretty frames on museum walls.

Eagels’s Leslie Crosbie is a desperate wife on a rubber plantation who shoots her lover when he decides to leave her. Her lawyer calls her a reserved and self-possessed woman, but this sounds absurd because Eagels is all over the place emotionally. When Davis played this part in 1940, she used her technique to show us her character’s icy control, which masked her sexual desires; this was one of Davis’s most tightly controlled performances, a virtuoso display. Eagels doesn’t have anything near the same control over her characterization, but she holds nothing back of what she’s feeling, and this makes for quite a spectacle. She is clearly in touch with some kind of madness as she rages against the dying of her own particular light. When Eagels’s Leslie shoots her lover (Herbert Marshall, who played the husband in the Davis version), she jabs the gun at the screen as if it were a knife and she wanted to stab us all.

Eagels had become a heroin addict in the mid-1920s, and she was so unprofessional that she had been banned from the stage by Actors Equity, which left her only the movies to work in at the end. Like a jazz empress, a Billie Holiday or an Anita O’Day, Eagels surfs boldly on liquid and heightened heroin rhythms in The Letter, and when her Leslie tells off her stuffy husband (Reginald Owen) in the famous last scene of The Letter, all bets are off: Eagels is shooting for acting Olympus and she gets there super-speed fast.

Eagels’s harsh, smoky, affected voice cracks with rage as she pours out all of Leslie’s frustration in this last “big” scene. She is not playing the words but tapping into wells of feeling underneath them that shoot out of her like Texas oil. Eagels is always hesitating over words here, even blatantly stumbling through them in an uncontrolled way that most actors would still be afraid of. “I know I’ve been vile, but I’ve no excuse to offer!” she thunders. “Your whole life was wrapped up in rubber!” And now she’s found her word, the word that explains all of Leslie’s anger and unhappiness, and so Eagels keeps repeating the word “rubber” over and over again, roughly, contemptuously, using it as a weapon, hurling it in her husband’s face as she declares her unmet sexual needs without shame.

When her husband means to punish her by keeping their marriage going anyway after her confession, for form and for show, she shouts her revenge at him and kills herself with it: “I, with all my heart and soul still love the man I killed! Ha, ha! Take that, will you! With all my heart, and all my soul, I still love the man I killed.” Eagels has sung those words “heart” and “soul” so that they feel like incantations, and then she just nods to herself and The Letter comes to its abrupt end. By contrast, Bette Davis had to be browbeaten by director William Wyler into saying this line to her husband’s face (she had wanted to look away), and she only says it once.

There is little visible technique in Eagels’s performance in The Letter, no distance to her reckless playing, so that when Leslie is flaming out it is clear that she herself is flaming out, and this links Eagels to a later 1950s Method actress like Kim Stanley, another stage star who finally had to retreat because she couldn’t sustain the level of emotional intensity she liked for long. Some people might know Eagels mainly because Kim Novak played her in a highly fictionalized biopic in 1957. (Candy Darling keeps referencing this Novak movie in Paul Morrissey’s Women in Revolt {1971}.) The shy and recessive and very sexy Novak tries hard in that film, but she can’t capture even a fraction of what Eagels puts across on screen in The Letter or what she reportedly had on stage. Unquestionably an artist for whom chaos ruled, Eagels saw herself clearly. “I’m the greatest actress in the world and the greatest failure,” she once said. “And nobody gives a damn.”

by Dan Callahan

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elennemigo · 5 years

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THIS BLOGS TURNS 4 YEARS TODAY!!

Well, I don´t know what else to add to that title tbh hahaha Yes, I´ve been here 4 years, and every year i can´t believe I last another one. But honestly, this last year was the more difficult for trying to keep this blog.

With all the things Tumblr has been screwing up, it made even harder to come here and make the minimun effort because you didn´t even know if you would have a blog the next morning. And one day it happened. To my dear friend @mouseymodesty, I lost her for a mistake, that Tumblr took ages to fix.

Anyway... she´s here now, being my partner in crime as always, thank you for being there putting up with my poutings and rantings. (we do that for each other, so we´re good! lol)

And to everyone else, thank you for keep following and for supporting my stuff... I tell you, i love this blog, and I think it will go down the day Tumblr snaps for good hahaha but you are one of the reasons for this blog to still be up.

Lots of love!!🖤

ps: Some of my old posts don´t look so good bc well, they're old haha so as a little way to celebrate I remade the gifs from 3 of them and I´ll be reblogging those today. Thank you!. :))

#my blog anniversary #4 years!! woo hoo!!#Tumblr in your face! I'm still here hahaha #mouseymodesty is the best you guys should follow!#ele talks

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dishonoredrpg · 4 years

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Congratulations, CAROLINE! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE FOOL with the faceclaim of RIZ AHMED. The way in which you expressed two sides of Saif at war -- the good man, who wishes to see things bettered -- and the bad one, who cannot bring himself fully to complete the task -- was perfect. The juxtaposition of his position and his responsibilities in comparison to the legacy he feels he owes (or owed) his father is paramount and you nailed it every step of the way. It really puts emphasis, I think, on the lesson that no matter how deep you’ve dug yourself up, you can always try climbing, and even if Saif fails to do that, I’ll certainly enjoy watching you write it out.

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

OOC NAME: CAROLINE PRONOUNS: SHE/HER/HERS AGE: TWENTY-FOUR TIMEZONE: EST

ACTIVITY I’LL BE REAL WITH YOU, I WORK A JOB THAT REQUIRES ME TO BE ON PRETTY MUCH ALL THE TIME. I WORK SIX DAY WEEKS FOR 10 HOURS AND HAVE TO A “NIGHTCHECK” AT LEAST THREE TIMES A WEEK. I GENERALLY TRY MY HARDEST TO GET ON THE DASH AS MUCH AS I CAN, BUT SOMETIMES SHIT HAPPENS. HORSES CANNOT BE TRUSTED.

ANYTHING ELSE? NAH FAM WE GUCCI.

IC SKELETON: THE FOOL NAME: SAIF ANDROS FACECLAIM: RIZ AHMED, JACOB ANDERSON AGE: THIRTY-SIX

DEATH I HAVE LITERALLY NO PROBLEM WITH THE DEATH OF THIS CHARACTER WITH THE RIGHT EMOTIONAL PAY OFF. LET’S GO FUCKING HOGWILD MY DUDES. EXTRAS .PINTEREST | MOCK BLOG . .SAMPLE ONE | SAMPLE TWO .

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NEW BEGINNINGS // NAIVE You are not born with a sword in your hand. You are not born in the ashes and the flames. You are born the only son of a good man. You are born in a world you should never have turned your back on.

You will learn to regret your departure. But long before that you will learn by your father’s side.

There is dirt that rests under your fingernails that never leaves. There are stains in the cracks of your skin that you cannot scrub out. On the palm of your hands are calluses from a hard day's work. You father turned them over once, stared down at your hands. They are good hands, working hands. You smiled at that.

The good work you did, under your father’s careful eye, always showed in your hands. The next time you pick up a hoe it is easier. The weight of your labor feels lighter, the rewards sweeter. When it is something you have done, and done well, it makes you preen. Prideful in a way only young boys can be. For days you work harder, push yourself further. Until it is your father who stops you with a hand and a grim smile. You do not wonder if your father has played you for a fool, not at this young age. Not when you have the memory of your successes so vivid in your mind.

That thought will come much later, when you realize the breadth of your naivete. How it has let you down throughout the years.

One day you will craft a thicker skin, learn a more agile mind. You will no longer be shifted by the whims of those you trust.

One day.

There is a sword that sits by your father’s bed. It is old, but well maintained and it sings stories of war and victory whenever you get close enough to listen to it. Your father sees you watching. The depth of your interest is not lost on him. There is a disappointment in his features the first time he hands it to you, but you miss it. Too focused on the steel in your hand.

The object is foreign to you then. Something of a toy, not the weapon it should be. The weight doesn’t sit right. Your hands don’t find the purchase they should. Behind you, your father schools his features and sets you right.

He shifts your stance, adjusts your grip, shows you to go through the motions. His hands are heavy with the weight of years of training. Years of war. But you are a child, and war is just a word.

Your enthusiasm is catching, a spark of unbridled joy that does not often reach your household. The must be the reason, you will think heavy with nostalgia, why he let you hold the damn thing in the first place.

It’s not that you are unhappy. It is that you do not know there is more to the world than this. You do not even realize the more you could be. Your father does.

There is a sadness, a disappointment in his actions when he hands you a sword and sends you on your way. But you are too naive to see it.

This is the start of your fool’s journey.

IDEALISM // GULLIBLE The city is bright, and loud, and joyful. Drunkards prop themselves up on buildings, whistle at those who walk by. Children, dirty and unwatched, duck behind corners. Men keep their heads down as they march through the crowds. The city smells. It’s dirty, and dark in too many places. But you cannot see that. You are a child yourself, but you feel big in this new world.

There is a tarven near the city gates that you fall into. A woman behind the bar sizes you up in an instant. It’s easy enough, your face is still round from youth. “You don’t belong here,” she tells you but she says it with a smile. There is no threat there. There is nothing to fear. Your father told you to watch your back, a fool trusts too readily and he did not raise you a fool. But she takes you upstairs, and settles you in a room. And you are not a fool. There is good in this city, more than your father ever said. There is death in the city, magic and turmoil. You are not so naive you cannot see it, but it is not all Tyrholm has to offer.

“This goodness is in need of protection,” she tells you. Somehow you know she does not speak of herself. She speaks of those who taught her to be kind, of those who believe in heroes. And she tells you, because she can see behind the glow of your youth. Or perhaps she can see what you are yet to become. Or just maybe, she can see what you will do when you become it.

You pay her monthly for the room. You enlist in the City Guard. You flourish.

Round a campfire in the damp of the woods you sing. You sing loudly, and drunkenly, and happily. The man next to you knocks his shoulder into yours, smacks your cups together. Beer splashes and falls. You laugh.

It feels right to be here. Sitting here amongst these men, under these stars. You feel grateful. This is a family found. You miss your father dearly, but he has given you this gift. This opportunity to find joy, to succeed in a new way. A way you think might be better.

Out here you are protecting the goodness that rests in the heart of the city. There is a pride in your chest that threatens to consume you. You think you wouldn’t mind letting it.

You would be a fool to miss the signs, and you were not raised a fool. It is not a coup, but rather the idea of one. A mess of half thought plans, and poorly communicated thoughts. Stopping it is as easy as reaching out your hand. So stop it you do, because it’s the right thing to do. You are protecting the good, you are protecting the king.

What happens next is a whirlwind. You see the faces of revolters put to death. They are not the steel faced insurgents of your childhood dreams. They are men and women, tired and hungry. Something akin to doubt flickers through your mind.

Your King does not let that feeling fester. He grants you a gift.

The title is not something you expect, but you find the weight of it feels solid on your tongue. You hold it in your mouth until it bursts out into the crisp air. The sound of it feels right. It straightens your spine, brings a smile to your face.

Captain. The sweetest reward yet.

ADVENTURE // RECKLESS

You have been remade, reborn, revolutionized over and over. The face you wear now is almost unrecognizable. Would your father know you now? No, not as you stand in armor with a sigil that disgusts you where you once found joy. These days you hold your head high out of practise.

Your father once said you had good hands. Hands of a man who would do good work. You look at your hands now. There is dirt that rests under your fingernails that never leaves. There are stains in the cracks of your skin that you cannot scrub out. But this is not the dirt of a man doing good work. These hands are stained black with the blood of your own men. You’re no longer smiling.

Perhaps it is time for one final revolution.

Loyalty is a hard word. It tugs at your heart, and your mind. It made you who you are. This loyalty you have to a figurehead on a gilded throne. You are here today because of your king. You’ve succeeded because of your king. That used to be all your ambition stirred for: success. The feel of it, the weight of it on your shoulders.

This life you lead does not make you happy, but you are comfortable. For the days you can shut your eyes and disappear into dreams or ale, you could be fine. So few are happy, you have long since given up on that hope for yourself. The people who surround you are not bad. They are foolish, and rich, and untouchable. They are hypocrites and liars. But they raised you up, let you walk on the backs of your compatriots. Let you paint a picture of who you are that hides the darkness of reality. They are fools, but you are one of them.

Honor is a fickle mistress. You should be more than this. More than what you’ve let yourself become.

Your father doesn’t write anymore, and you understand why. There is nothing to be proud of in his son. There is nothing good, nothing honorable. There is nothing to smile at.

The image of him, his grim disappointment, haunts you. You draft a final letter. It cannot, will not, be sent. There are too many watchful eyes, too many careful ears. It does not matter, you write it all the same.

In it you tell him what you will do. In it you tell him a plan you weren’t even sure of yourself. But written in front of you it comes to life. You stopped a coup once, you write. Who better than you to know how to fix the mistakes of the past?

By the time you are finished you have come to your own grim realization. The weight on your shoulders is still there, no matter the pretty words you have written. It will take actions to clean your hands. You will become a man worthy of your father’s pride. Or you will die trying. plot ideas 001 Saif, for all his posturing in the most recent months, isn’t all that honorable. He wants to be, and is desperately trying to be but it’s a bit like closing the barn doors after the horses have already escaped. He already has the blood of too many on his hands, and he’s let himself follow orders seemingly blindly for the sake of what he thought was his ambition. But with the weight of what he’s done coming to fruition, he’s slowly realizing that this isn’t actually what he wants.

As a result I want him to be held accountable for his actions in the past, and I want to make him prove himself, most notably to Strength, that he finally has his heart in the right place. I don’t think he’ll like it, and I think the tension that it will cause will be fun to play out, but make this man suffer for his shitty actions!!

002 While his relationship with his father is complicated, Saif still holds a lot of love for the man. I think it could be interesting to use that relationship against him, should the loyalists find out about his plans. They’d also have to find the man. I feel like he’s done a very good job of hiding himself.

On top of that, I don’t really have a clear idea who exactly his father was before he became the father Saif knew him as. So that could be an interesting thing to sort of flesh out with others.

003 One of the most interesting dynamics to me, right off the bat, is the relationship between The Fool and The Sun. I think pulling them to the side of the revolters is going to make Saif feel a hell of a lot more legitimate than he currently does. It would feel a bit like a trump card, especially to those who still see him as weak willed and spineless in the face of the King.

But I also think there could be something said about Saif’s stubbornness and recklessness in pursuing The Sun as an ally. He very much is courting Death, and coming back over and over again to do so.

#accepted #accepted: the fool

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naysaltysalmon · 5 years

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2 years have passed.

Just two months after I started college freshman year, I made a post titled "good shit i've noticed after being away from my abusive family for 2 months." The post wasn’t very popular, so I kinda forgot about it. Although, now, I think it's about time I remade that list -- for my own self-measurement if nothing else, but more than that... I hope this can be helpful to anyone else going through a tough time, facing a situation similar to what I was.

Independence gets easier. Like, a lot easier. At first, it was hard to do everything -- anything -- on my own. I couldn’t accept that I could be something without my parents’/family’s voices always egging me on, with their deceit to crawl back to. But overtime, I’ve grown to fully understand how they didn’t meet my needs anyway, and it wasn’t that I needed or wanted to be around them, but that my sense of familiarity with them made me believe our relationship was good/necessary to my identity.

The wonderful sense of identity and agency you start to gain. Related to the previously point, now that I don’t have my parents to baby-talk me into and out of situations, I don’t always have their voices in the back of my head telling me what to do in every situation. I can choose whether to buy myself a tacky shirt and only have myself to worry about the repercussions (if there are any, which there usually aren’t other than some facepalming because I didn’t think of how hard said shirt would be to clean). I can choose whether to go to class or hang out with someone and not have their opinions constantly hanging over my head from the questions such minute things would produce. The only thoughts I have to worry about are my own, (and of course friends to an extent,) and that voice is getting easier and easier to deal with.

Talking about money gets a lot easier. I used to feel really guilty whenever I would have to talk finances with my parents, friends, or acquaintances. I’m essentially paying for college on my own right now, except that I need my parents to sign the private loans to cover the remainder of that. I used to agonize over this because it felt like I was “using” my parents’ money even though I had no intention of ever seeing them or going to visit them. Now, I remember that it wasn’t as though we had a close relationship to begin with; this business-like attitude with fake cordiality that I’ve taken up with them is what I need in order to give myself a good life, to separate from them, and to be with people who actually care for and understand me. They are the ones who produced this relationship in the first place, as they never cared about my emotional state while I was living with them, and we only had a superficial relationship based on physical needs anyway. Don’t let your conscience weigh you down. Sometimes your own drawing of boundaries for self-protection and -preservation is what they need to grow too (but don’t expect them to).

Drawing boundaries gets easier. I sometimes fear taking time for myself not only affects my reputation to my professors/colleagues, but drives my friends away, making them question my loyalty and thus our friendship as a whole. This is not the case. As long as you clearly communicate what you need and can/cannot do at the time, even if it’s at the last second when you’ve already made plans, anyone worth being around will understand and not hold it against you.

The suicidal thoughts disappear, and the depression becomes less frequent with time. First semester of freshmen year, I was riddled with lapses in my mental state, which filled me with immense confusion, especially after I had just escaped my family. It made me question if I really had made the right decision in moving away from them, if anything would ever make me happy. This reaction came from the sudden schism placed upon me in relation to my peers, who hadn’t just come from a broken household. It made it impossible for me to relate with anyone or have friends for the first few months to a year that I was in college. The smallest triggers have set me off ever since then too, ranging from feeling exhausted and unmotivated while on the computer to having a full-on panic attack during class. As my mindset has changed, however, it became easier to open up to people, and thus easier to make friends, and in turn to heal, grow, and thrive.

The hyperalertness and exhaustion disappear. When I first got to college, just hearing other people in the same dorm as me exhausted me. Just walking to the cafeteria was all I could do after class because being around other people was just so exhausting, as I was always on high alert, just as my parents always taught me. The more time I spent doing things I enjoyed, making friends who imbued me with confidence and energy, and growing in all these other ways, my stamina increased while my sense of danger decreased. Now I have energy to go to class, get food, go to the gym, to work, to do homework and socialize all in one day -- and even if school in general is exhausting and I need to take a day off here and there, I find enjoyment in a certain level of tiredness.

People aren’t scary anymore. Because of all the things I’ve already mentioned, making friends and becoming more independent, I don’t feel like I’m constantly in danger around people anymore. When I’m in a new situation, I generally feel like I can handle it because I understand that most people aren’t looking to pick apart my mind and soul at every given second -- only someone who is very mentally disturbed (like my family) would do such a thing -- and if I make a mistake, I remind myself that I’m still learning how social situations function after getting out of the hell hole that was my household. For the most part, though, most people are too self-absorbed to care about what anyone else is doing and don’t give a flying fuck.

I can recognize unhealthy/toxic behavior in other people and in my own thoughts a lot easier. Anyone whose energy rubs me in the wrong way is ignored; as I’ve already had a lot of experience dealing with toxic people in my family and can more easily recognize my triggers to when I used to live with them, having been away from them and with more easy-going people now, I can quickly pick up on someone’s toxic behavior. I had a fight with my friend recently, and just realized that since I didn’t/don’t feel I could say my side of the issue, just like my family would have done to me when I lived with them, that that friendship probably isn’t healthy for me anymore -- I should feel able to speak my mind without the fear of being minimized in the face of someone else.

I’m interested in dating??? I’ve never been a very outwardly romantic person in my real life, but now, I’m wondering if it’s because I was forced to become a statue of a human around my family, seeing as they jumped on any emotion that wasn’t focused on themselves. Now, I find myself wanting to scream my feelings to the world sometimes -- not just negative ones, but positive ones too. I’m not so worried about being judged for my emotional reactions, and in fact feel that I’ve been able to grow closer to the friends I have now when I’ve allowed myself to show and feel more of what’s going on inside me. I may want to extend this to my current crush too !

Being alone in a crowded space isn’t lonely anymore. I always feared I was “doing something wrong” if I didn’t always have someone with me -- whether in the cafeteria, running errands, or otherwise -- as I did when I was living with my parents. They were my supervisors and ensured I wasn’t “alone” in the world. That isn’t true -- I’m very much someone who needs time to myself, and my parents only proved to be a force that withheld my agency from me as they constantly made decisions for me. Being alone in a busy place puts me at ease sometimes more than being with another person, as I’m allowed to observe and meditate in my own little space without anyone directly around me.

The trauma... it slowly dissipates, becoming less with time -- and, slowly, you get to become who you always wanted to be and never could before. I know this one sounds like the cliche line from every story in human history, but hopefully all of my former points have demonstrated this. I still deal with my trauma in my daily life -- every day, pretty much. I don’t go many days without thinking about it. But it’s no longer a behemoth overshadowing every thought in my head and every action I take. It doesn’t impede my energy and mood every moment; it’s a little observer that sits on my shoulder, not separate from me, as that would be impossible, but no longer commanding all of my attention nor possessing the loudest voice amongst all the things swirling in my head. I have to gauge it, watch it, make sure it isn’t taking over too many of my thoughts, but also listening to it when it speaks, taking what it says into account. I have to take care of myself sometimes in ways that no one else understands -- neither friends, colleagues, college staff, nor professors -- and that in itself can be lonely and exhausting, even depressing at times. It isn’t easy. My development up until this point hasn’t been out of mere spontaneous happenstance -- I’ve been going to therapy since freshman year, and still find myself overwhelmed by all the thoughts -- all the voices -- blurting things out in my head. However... I also find myself doing and thinking things -- encountering new situations -- I never would have imagined possible before, when I was in middle school and high school, living under the toxic roof of my family.

Most days are still hard. I still have a long way to go, that’s for sure -- but the amount of recovery I’ve made up until now, in such a short amount of time, has already made me cry on more than one occasion, knowing in how dark a place I’ve come from, and how much farther I can still go.

Don’t give up. You can get through this. You will get through this, and things will be better if you keep your mind focused on what matters, which is your health.

I’m nowhere near complete with my recovery, but more than anything that fact gives me hope on how much I know I can still improve. I’m already feeling the effects substantially after only 2 years! I hope hearing my experience and progress with a lifetime of trauma recovery will give you hope too. So many people talk about the elusive “light at the end of the tunnel” that they reach once one has “recovered,” but so few people talk about the actual steps you take in the darkness, and how scary and exhausting and lonely and frustrating that can be. I might talk about that more in another post, but I hope this was helpful for anyone else going through a hard time.

I wish only mental clarity and hearty happiness upon anyone else trapped in a similar situation. I didn’t think I could make it, but here I am. I know you can too.

#Nay talks #you're all strong and beautiful and YOU CAN DO THIS.#I hope this helps someone #personal #important #v personal #tw: trauma

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