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hmse-research-blog · 3 years

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Overwhelming & Brutal

Overwhelming (verb)

Have a strong emotional effect on

Overcome with emotion

Affected by something very strongly

Synonym to: strike, move, affect

Brutal (adjective)

Unpleasant or harsh

Direct without any attempt to disguise unpleasantness

Synonym but not limited to: violent, savage, direct

Brutal & Overwhelming

A combination of both words have a negative-leaning connotation. The experience of course, is subjective to each audience. People who loves seeing horror or action film might find these emotion exhilarating while people who hates loud noises and jump-scare might hate the emotion and feel scared. Study by Lynch and Martins (2015) shows that low empathisers have more tendency to enjoy violent and gore media and vice versa.

Horror enthusiast seeks sensation from suspense and resolve. Suspense for example, is when a character is in threat of a masked killer and resolve is when the killer is finally caught or killed in retaliation. We often feel a sense of euphoria and relieve when a threat is resolved and such logic happens behind a horror enthusiast’s mind.

Zuckerman’s model of sensation-seeking mentions four related but different factors that includes:

thrill and adventure seeking

experience seeking

disinhibition

boredom susceptibility.

Bibliography:

Lissek S., Powers A. S. (2003). Sensation seeking and startle modulation by physically threatening images. Biol. Psychol. 63, 179–197.

Lynch T., Martins N. (2015). Nothing to fear? An analysis of college students’ fear experiences with video games. J. Broadcast. Electron. Media 59, 298–317.

Zuckerman M. (1988). Sensation seeking and behavior disorders. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 45, 502–503.

Here are the examples of 11 artworks that feels brutal or overwhelming or both:

Requiem for A Dream

(viewer discretion is advised)

youtube

Requiem for a Dream (2000) is a film depicting addicts who are connected to each other. This movie often uses parallel cuts to indicate things are happening at the same time. The use of meditative music over heart-wrenching scenes creates a haunting effect. The editing choice in the final scenes successfully created tension and the continuously looping parallel shots of the characters proves to be overwhelming.

Before Your Eyes

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Before Your Eyes tells a story of a boy who died very young due to an illness. This game utilises motion sensors and the game progresses every time the player blinks. Each scene is crafted with great details making the players holding their blink to elongate the scene. The first person perspective makes the audience sits in the young boy's place watching life flashing before their eyes. This game is overwhelmingly beautiful and heart-wrenching in its aspect to cherish whatever amount time we have left on earth.

Devotion

youtube

In Devotion (2019), the user plays as a father solving clues and puzzles as to what happens in his life. This game criticises the influence of cults in Taiwan. It also heavily criticises overbearing parents and the stigma of mental illness in Asia.

The use of red colour during revelation and flashback scenes and the silent jumpscare during most of the gameplays is very effective to keep the players anxious. This technique also does not over expose the players resulting in a more unpredictable jumpscares. Besides it’s graphic imagery and colour scheme, this game is brutal due to its harsh and raw depictions of cults and superstitions that affects vulnerable families in Taiwan.

Source:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20059000

https://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Taiwan/sub5_1b/entry-3814.html

Everywhere At The End of Time

youtube

This album created by The Caretaker depicts the mind of a patient with alzheimer. The 6 hour long piece involves a continuously degrading set of music. Each stage shows a deteriorated version of it’s previous stage. The album ends at static noises and ultimately long silence.

What makes this album eerie, overwhelming and brutal is the idea behind it. Exposing the audience to what dementia sounds like forces them to emphatise with the memories. The duration of the album also emphasises the slow and painful degeneration and by stage 5 the sudden void creates a horrible overwhelmingly somber aura knowing the memories are forever gone.

Ouroborindra (album)

youtube

Ouroborindra (2005) was produced by Jim Jupp under the pseudonym “Eric Zann”. Jupp stated this album was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Similar to Lovecraft, this album has a haunting and hair-raising aesthetic. A minute listening session gives the audience a taste of Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

The static noise and continuously evolving sounds creates an overwhelming eeriness while not being painful to hear. Some parts are accompanied by pianos giving the listener’s ear some time to rest. This arrangement choice proves to be excellent as it creates a pleasant bridge and outro.

Source:

https://ghostbox.greedbag.com/buy/ouroborindra-0/

Brutalist Architecture

At a glance, this architecture looks boring and unappealing. What makes a brutalist characteristic is the blocky and chunky design.

Some argue that brutalism is an egalitarian movement, this movement strays away from white painted walls with decorated windows typical of the time. At the time, the geometric and blocky design was considered modern. This evidence appears in futuristic movies and in spy/war movies symbolising rebellion, modernism, and revolution.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Black Mirror (2011)

Source:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10331867.2015.1032481

Shoujo Tsubaki (Camellia Girl)

(viewer discretion is advised)

youtube

Shoujo Tsubaki (1992) is a film adapted from the comic of the same title. The uncensored animation completed with voice acting added many layers of disturbance and the feeling of dread. Many people found this film very upsetting resulting to banning in several countries.

This artwork is one of the greater known titles within the ero-guro (short for erotic-grotesque) genre. The Ero-guro genre symbolises resistance and rebellion during world war 1. Some also enjoy it as escapism and sexual liberation. This film is brutal due to its depiction of grooming, abuse, and nonsensical grotesque scenes.

Source:

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1570686&dswid=8039

Sistine Chapel Church

The wall and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were painted by Michelangelo (1508-1512). It is not surprising that this work took an incredibly arduous time that Michelangelo dreads working on it. The details and paint stand the test of time and the colossus artwork will make every visitor gasps in awe. Each painting has incredible details and the colours are carefully coordinated. It only takes a single glance to feel overwhelmed by the presence of this artwork.

Source:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1464068

Japan Sinks

youtube

Japan Sinks is a Japanese animation series created by Masaaki Yuasa. The animation was an adaptation of a novel with the same title. Each depiction of death are raw and uncensored oftentimes includes close-ups. This series was a contribution to Paralympics 2020 and was set to release as a promotional campaign.

It doesn’t take the brightest bulb to notice the brutality of this series. The main characters experienced sudden deaths of their loved ones and the grief was left unprocessed until much late. Naturally, this end of the world scenario includes a multitude of body counts. Many great characters did not survive and their final scenes include close-ups and slow motion of their remnants making their sudden demise even more brutal, leaving a gaping hole in the viewer’s heart.

Judith Slaying Holofernes (Artemisia Gentileschi version)

The painting showed an “uncensored” gory scene of Judith beheading her abuser helped by another woman. It is said that Gentileschi was inspired by her master, Caravaggio. Caravaggio’s version had a different composition and the painting shows Holofernes holding his blood, resembling strings.

Judith beheading Holofernes (Caravaggio)

Unlike her master, Gentileschi did not hold back nor consider making the painting palatable for the viewer. The more brutal interpretation made the intention behind the painting even clearer. It is one of the strongest depiction of complex independent women and a strong message of feminism in baroque era.

Source:

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/urc/2018/arthistory/2/

Notre Dame Basilica (Montreal)

youtube

This gothic style cathedral is located in Quebec City, Montreal. The three-story-tall hall symbolises the church’s power and the huge size of a cathedral has been known to give psychological effects to the devoters. The blue colours represent the sky and heaven, the red colours complemented by gold accents gives a royalty and majestic look. The pillars will reverberate the sound of organs creating an effect of “heavenly sounds”, many believers are attracted to this sound resulting in higher attendance. The design of the cathedral makes the attendees feel small and overwhelmed as if the church attendees are “meeting” God.

Source:

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/9/478/htm

https://askinglot.com/why-are-gothic-cathedrals-so-tall

Final short reflection:

Each of the artworks above shows a great amount of research and thoughts poured into the small details. They each have their own unique approach creating unique and impactful results.

#assignment 1

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gguktarts · 4 years

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decathect | jk (3)

1. to withdraw one’s feelings of attachment from (a person, idea, or object), as in anticipation of a future loss

summary: if one thing was clear to you when you first met Jeon Jungkook, it was that he would never love you. at least, not the way you wanted him to.

pairing: jjk x reader genre: unrequited love au || angst || a bit of fluff || drabble series word count: 3.5k parts: « previous | 3 / ? | next » cw: none this chap, i think. maybe it’s a bit less angsty than the ones before. note: this chap (is rlly crap i APOLOGIZE) was meant to include another scene,, but idk how to write!!! properly!!! and the first scene got outta hand so :(( here it is. the next part i rotated for it to be on the next update. im so sorry it took long,, id rather not get into the personal specifics about it but i got bad writers block at certain points and just. didnt get to finish it for my own deadline 🥺 & im still developing my writing so please!! if anyone feels like something is off/like it dragged on for too long (which is what i felt), etc, etc please let me know. also i haven’t checked for mistakes so sfhdk there’s that aha

The last few days were hectic, with finals approaching and your mind on absolute overdrive. Your Intro to Thermal Physics course was biting you in the ass, which you had felt oddly thankful for. With no time to think about Jungkook or the girl in his painting, the hours blurred themselves into a continuous loop of exhaustion and academic focus: wake up, go to class, study, sleep, rinse and repeat. You’ve even gone as far as seeking out Hoseok, your astronomy lab partner and the busiest bastard you’ve ever met, to have extended study sessions within the Atrium’s library. The mixed efforts of passing the course with flying colors, and avoiding all trace to your fuckboy crush, had so far been a success—in some ways more than others.

Time spent around any hall (either within the dorms or elsewhere in the university) was minimally reduced to avoid any lingering shadows in the corners of your eyes, while each study session left you feeling more confident. Effective, convenient. Two birds, one worm. Yes, worm.

Two mouths, shared crumbs though. Your extreme devotion to the books had, after all, demanded social sacrifice.

You haven’t seen Tae nor Joon—nor any of the other boys in days, and while you aren’t ignoring them per se, they likely know why you were behaving the way you did up until yesterday.

That night, after dinner and after dark, Taehyung had found you with your face buried in his favorite pillow, with droopy eyes and a soft pout etched onto your lips. You didn’t need to tell him about your crush, nor did you have to speak. All he needed was a look at you, a single glance, for him to decide you needed his comfort but also some space.

But apparently enough was enough, and your presence was pointedly demanded the very minute after you handed in your last exam. The day of the week —Thursday— was thus dubbed “Movie-Theather-Night” effective immediately, so he said.

That’s why currently you find yourself staring at Jimin’s front door, phone held tight between your fingers. Tae told you he was already, conveniently, near the ticket stand so he would “obviously” buy the tickets in advance. That left you with the other side quest he couldn’t complete, which you blindly agreed to do.

Your job is simple: grab Jimin —yes, the little one with a penchant for lateness— and meet up with Tae before 7.

Swallowing a groan, you pointedly stared up at the imaginary heavens beyond the building’s ceiling. Praying it be on your side for a few hours longer at least, you tuck away your phone (Tae’s mild threat about stealing Jimin’s rings if the latter didn’t hurry getting dressed completely unnoticed by you), knock on the door by mere habit, and go in.

You don’t expect the loud moans, you really don’t.

Jimin’s name gets stuck halfway past your throat as the high-pitched whines continue pouring over the living room, stiffening your shoulders and rooting your legs to the floor just a step inside the flat—just enough for the door to close itself shut. It isn’t even loud enough to cover the sounds either. Your ears turn red in a heartbeat, embarrassment tugging your lips into a frown, when you note the timbre of low, soft grunts you know belong to one guy. They hide behind and below the higher pitched ones, but you somehow pick them up nonetheless.

They don’t last long. Or maybe time goes by alarmingly fast when you zone out, because not two, three minutes later, one of the muffled voices scoffs out in discontent, dulcet tones all gone.

“What? Now?” you hear, feeling the disbelief permeating the air along with underlying disappointment. “But I thought—”

The sudden thud of a door slamming open makes you jump, startling you into partial motion before the girl rushing out the hallway catches you like a deer in headlights.

You hate how quickly you notice that she’s not the girl from Jungkook’s painting. And it’s hard not to feel guilty when your heart quickens its pace at the idea that maybe both of them are nothing more than victims of his ways. Actually, you hope for it, because you can’t help but feel it’s equally jarring to see one of his choices so soon, and so up close, right after he’s done with her. Her disheveled hair and bruised neck, the traces he’s left, almost distract you from the heated glare she sends your way for blocking the door. Almost.

You move out of her way when she tries pushing past you, leaving with a huff and as quickly as she appeared.

Suddenly, this movie-theater-night sidequest thing seems like a really bad idea. A very bad idea. You hate it here.

“J-jiminie?” you move near the hall, voice shaky in all ways you don’t want it to be. “I’m here, let’s go.”

“Just a second! There’s finally some goddamn silence—”

His muffled voice carries over from your left, closer than the door of his room. You briefly debate waiting for him there, the aspect of continuing your naturally cryptic tendencies very seductive. On the other hand, you could raid his pantry for any and all m&ms, which sounds far more soothing to your rumbling stomach.

Decided entirely on candy—Taehyung would definitely enjoy mixing it with the bucket of popcorn he never fails to buy—and maybe some food, you turn around only to collide with something, hard.

The start of what sounds like a “boo!” trails to a low grunt upon impact. It drowns out your sharp gasp, and if it weren’t for the hands grabbing you by the elbows you’d have likely lost your footing entirely.

“Oh—shit”

Jungkook’s wide eyes and o-shaped lips greet you full force, his cheeks a soft pink hue you’ve been missing lately. They don’t exactly match the deeper flush painting you from ear to ear, your reactions to him far less graceful when so near in proximity. You can’t even speak, too enthralled by the warmth of his hands, by how his eyes shift over your body in evident worry. The way his lips tremble into a frown makes you want to smooth them into out just to see his face light up like you’re more used to, but a look to his neck is more than enough to remind you what happened just minutes ago. Right.

“Hey, sorry, didn’t think you’d turn around so quickly, are you alright?” he asks, hands moving lower on your arms and eyes searching, as if he’s testing if you’re steady enough. Taking the chance, you quickly pull back and rip them altogether from his hold. His lips form a pout you don’t catch.

“Yea, I’m, uh…”

Your mouth runs dry when you let your eyes travel lower, along exposed ink, sun-kissed skin and hardened muscle you had never seen before. A faint stripe of hairs peeks out from behind his gray sweats, the sight enough to make your mind wonder how he looks lower underneath. Would he be as pretty as you imagine him to be?

Fuck. Typical. Just your luck.

Pushing the thought away, you will yourself to grimace and take a step back, away from his heat and onto clearer ground. It helps that the sudden scent lingering on him isn’t the most pleasant one.

“I’m fine, thanks. Wasn’t it laundry day yesterday?” you ask, a weak attempt to defy the heat spreading up your neck once you fully process his touch, and to hopefully derail whatever thoughts he likely just formed of you.

“What?” Jungkook looks down at himself with mild amusement, a smirk growing on his lips before his eyes bore into yours again. “Do you want me to wear a shirt? Do you not like what you see?”

Again. You hate it here.

You ignore the way your stomach tightens, hating that what he’s implying is right. A part of you does, undeniably, like seeing his skin, you can’t deny that to yourself. But for all of that, an even bigger part of you exists that simply does not. Not when your head swims with the overwhelming idea of getting rid of the dot on his collarbone, be it by hiding it through makeup or painting it a deeper hue of violet all on your own. And much less when the smell of sex gets more distinct each passing second, making you scrunch your nose in distaste.

“No,” you grumble, crossing your arms and making your way past him and towards the kitchen.

“No you don’t want me to wear a shirt?” he counters, tilting his head to the side, round eyes faking innocence a few steps behind you.

You whip your head around without thinking, cheeks pink and eyebrows knitted together in annoyance as an unthought retort makes its way to your throat. Before you can say anything in return, though, he’s already grinning at your flustered state.

“I’m kidding,“ he laughs, “You’re just easy to tease, Y/N, sorry. I was going to go shower but apparently hyung’s still in there, and I haven’t seen you in a while, so."

That last bit goes completely over your head. ’Still’ is definitely worrying, but you’d rather not know how long he’s been there in total.

"Do you think he’ll be there for more than 10?” you ask, briefly looking at the clock and doing some math. If it’s 6:27 he has exactly 10 minutes to finish. Since the ride to the theater takes around 15 minutes, let’s say 5 is spent on parking, then you’d have exactly 3 minutes to find Tae before the clock strikes 7:00.

“Hopefully not, but who knows.”

“Very reassuring,” you deadpan. It comes out halfheartedly, your focus now on finding the candy stash they keep in the corner cabinet of their kitchen.

Jungkook trains his gaze on your shorter frame when you set your attention on the upper shelf, noticing your confusion at the sight of all the snacks up there. Grabbing a mini bottle of milk from the fridge, he watches on with amusement as you get on your tippy toes, hand trying and failing to grasp the giant yellow bag of m&m’s you’re determined to steal. Before today he’d wondered why Jimin keeps on buying two bags when the shorter strictly eats the peanut-less ones, and when Yoongi doesn’t even eat sweets, but now it makes more sense to him. He vaguely remembers you eating his bag without knowing it was his. Not that he ever corrected you.

Clearly, your struggles are new to you. The peanut m&ms were always on the bottom shelf, always. You had no clue the others decided just last week to stash the dorm’s snacks somewhere more unreachable, mostly so it’s partially forgotten and not inhaled in a single day as compared to how it’s been until then.

Exasperation reveals itself on your clenched jaw and dramatic pout, but just when you’re about to climb the counter, a pair of warm hands anchor themselves to your waist and joist you upwards.

“W-whoa, hey— w,what are you doing?” Your breath hitches and squeaks as you tense, unused to the touch but trying to work on automatic as warning signals immediately start to blare red.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Some of his warmth spreads through the thin fabric of the shirt you’re wearing, giving you goosebumps and speeding up your pulse. “I should be the one with questions, you shorty. Like, is there a reason you’re stealing our m&m’s?” Jungkook asks, tone light and in total contrast to the hot breath you feel against your back. It ignites a shiver to run down your spine, no permission given. Honestly, you’re surprised you hear him over the pulse continuously pounding in your ears.

“Is there a reason you’re helping me steal your m&m’s?” You counter with a mumble, voice small despite your tries to seem unbothered. Holding onto the wooden cabinets for some stability, you snatch up the bag.

Below you Jungkook drags out a hum as if he’s thinking it through, but with his chest millimeters from your back you can feel the subtle vibrations. You want to scream. Shovel it, Y/N. Shovel it.

“Eh, I don’t mind sharing food in times of need.”

“How do you—is it my dark circles? Do they look that bad?” After Tae’s message you had gone straight for a shower and a fresh change of clothes. Makeup had never been a source of comfort, and today was no different.

“Um…”

Peering down with the full intent of adding that he can bring you down now, you catch a glimpse of the fading marks on his knuckles seconds before his grip tightens around your waist. If Jungkook manages to hear your weak whimper he says nothing. He simply lowers you gently and without command, muscles flexing but no complaints of your weight present.

“Thanks,” you add, turning to face him but rooting yourself to the spot instead of following his touch like you want to do. There’s only so much you can take before all that’s left is to crumble, and you deny to let yourself seem that weak. It’s not like you’ve changed your mind regarding your crush, after all. The quicker you forget about it, the better. The more you suppress it, the easier it will be to forget. Right? “For the lift, I mean, and for allowing my petty crime.”

The fact that you find Jungkook halfway towards the island counter, mere seconds after he lets go, stays in the front of your mind. The distance between you two grows back to the one you’re used to faster than you expect.

“Y'welcome,” he says, words slurred together as his accent shows and that toothy, bunny smile of his gets shot your way. It’s blatantly infuriating how easily he manages to make your erratic heart thud, thud, thud. But you swallow the truth, suppress how you’ve long to see every little thing he keeps on doing. “And nah, you should’ve seen Yoongi hyung this morning. Still look exhausted though. When do you finish?”

“Today—”

Jungkook blinks. “Already?”

“—Mhm. Which is why Taetae wants to hang out, and why I need these,” you motion for the bag cradled in your arms as if it were your very own child—as if you’d ever want any. The small space on the counter becomes your new seat, feet swaying anxiously with each second Jimin doesn’t come out.

“Let me guess. Movies?” he asks, eyes starry as he slurps the remaining liquid from his bottle and extends an arm your way. You get the gist of what he wants when he makes grabby hands. He looks adorable, but the way his bare torso keeps on making your stomach flip and sink at any given glimpse tells you he’s actually at his most dangerous.

You simply nod, letting him grab some m&ms from your bag before you can come to regret it.

“Which one?”

“I… dunno yet,” you confess, head tilting. “It’s his turn to choose.” Truthfully, the question hadn’t come up. Movie sessions at the dorms always consist of rotating turns: one week him, one week Jimin, one week you. Considering Tae hadn’t even mentioned the name, you take it he’s claiming his turn. It’s been ages since you’ve been to the theater, as well, so no new or specific titles of your choice come to mind.

Sometimes it baffles Jungkook that he doesn’t really know how much time you spend with his friends. Tough maybe less when he met you first, lately whenever you’re available he’s busy trying to finish his latest piece, or getting x or y homework done with, or waiting for inspiration to strike, or de-stressing through a good fuck or some exercise. Or at least he thinks so. Whether you’re busy with astrophysics or something else he doesn’t ask, he only knows you’re often not there. So whenever he hears about you from his hyungs, he wonders just how close you’ve gotten to the most important people in his life, while completely skipping over his radar.

“Oh? ” he hums, mildly interested but unable to say or do much else besides munch.

An idea begins to play in your head as you pop a blue in your mouth, the recurring invite repeating itself like a broken record stuck in repeat, waiting to be talked about. Would he even want to go with you guys? Part of you figures he doesn’t, that he’s likely preoccupied with matters unknown to you so there’s no point in asking. The other half tells you to try anyway, that maybe officializing a… deeper friendship —if you had one in the first place— might be just what you need. To take him off the pedestal your heart built for him, to know a more real side of him, if he ever allows it.

“Hey, Jungkook? Would—”

“Incoming”

Your tongue gets tied to your throat the second Widowmaker’s voice travels around the kitchen, resounding loudly from whereyou guess is his pocket.

Jungkook gives you a sheepish look as he takes his phone out, a sorry halfway past his lips when his eyes catch the screen. He’s so entranced by whatever is catching his attention that his voice loses all volume. By the way his head suddenly cocks to the side, you know he’s either feeling challenged or having his ego massively stroked, but you can’t quite place the flush faintly covering his cheekbones.

Another apology tries leaving him when he notices your waiting stare, his fingers hurriedly tapping at his screen. But it’s a useless effort, since he’s cut off again, this time by ringtone.

Jungkook doesn’t hesitate to answer, a slight smirk of his in place. You can’t help but squirm and look away.

“Gimme a sec babe—no I’m not, just give me—”

Oh.

The way his tone changes, the way his eyes glaze in less than a heartbeat, him. You drown it all out, drown him out. You don’t need this right now, or so soon, or at all.

As if knowing you need a saviour and a distraction, your forgotten phone begins to play Tae’s chosen ringtone. The clock reads 6:36 pm.

“Oh, fuck.” Scrambling, you pocket the bag of chocolates and stand up in a hurry.

“Wait, Y/N,” Jungkook calls from his seat. You see his phone pressed to his chest, as to muffle your conversation from being heard, or to ignore the loud voice still finding a way to be heard over his own. “What did you want to ask me?”

But it’s then that Jimin barrels out of the bathroom, loud and striking as if a new form of thunder. And like thunder, you hear his voice before his body.

“I’M DONE, Y/NNNNNN LET’S GOOoooo!"

His voice dies out the closer he gets to you, a confused sound replacing his words at the sight of his roommate. It’s clear he didn’t expect to find you and Jungkook in the same room, presumably… interacting.

Turning to the youngest, you offer a halfhearted shrug and an easy lie. "I kinda forgot already, sorry."

If he replies, you don’t know. You don’t register Jimin’s confused "huh? forgot what?” either. Tae’s call had gone to voicemail amidst all the noise, so you have to do damage control.

As expected, he picks up after the first ring. “Y/n?"

"Is that Tae?” Jimin suddenly asks, head whipping your way. His tiny hands reach for your phone without your confirmation, making you twist away to evade his wiggling fingers. t’s as if he somehow knows it’s his friend despite not being able to hear his voice, nor you giving any indication. “Kim Taehyung! Why aren’t you picking up my—”

“Hyung, can you lower your voice?” Jungkook calls from somewhere in the background, a bit exasperated at the commotion.

Your head hurts. Why couldn’t they both shut up?

“Hey, Jimin’s with me already, we’ll be on our way.”

“Ya, Jungkook, are you really asking me that? Just go talk somewhere else! And what are you doing without a shirt on? I told you not to harass Y/N.”

You can hear Taehyung whining from the other end of the line. Honestly, you missed it, missed him. “You haven’t left? Is that Jungkook? Why are you still in the dorms?”

“What? I didn’t do anything! If you didn’t take so long in the bathroom—wait—” a timbre shift. He’s not talking to Jimin anymore. “Did you really just disobey me?"

“Disgusting…” Jimin huffs from besides you, annoyed and equally embarrassed by his roommate’s lack of shame. It’s exactly what he needs to move into action, bidding the boy farewell with a simple “just behave while I’m gone.”

You can only roll your eyes at the background exchange, ignoring, ignoring, ignoring. "No, yes, and I’ve no idea why but we’re leaving now,” you answer. Jimin’s smaller hand grabs yours before you finish speaking, pulling you along until you fall into steps behind him. “Plus I bring m&ms so that’s a win.”

You don’t catch Jungkook’s warm see you later!, too caught up with Tae’s praise over your choice of chocolate and the rush to go once and for all.

And that’s okay. You wouldn’t have been able to answer, anyway. Not with the growing uncertainty in your chest.

Would a friendship with him be worth the impending heartache? Could you put yourself through that before you push your own feelings away?

Maybe you aren’t ready just yet.

#jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jungkook x reader #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #bts fanfic #bts imagine #bts jungkook #bts fic #bts fanfiction #drabble series: dct

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acesophiewalten · 4 years

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Audrey

Hey, everyone!

So, this whole thing started when I was going through a really awesome blog, @hazbin-hotel-imagines, and I saw the Lucifer x Angel!Reader hcs. I came up with a full character for the angel, and I wrote something on it!

WARNING: This gets angsty at the end. Some descriptions of cuts, scrapes, bruises, and broken bones.

It isn’t okay, someone help Lucifer

The oneshot is under the cut, I’m sorry if it’s bad. Hope you like it!

Audrey

That was the name bestowed upon her, the older angels buzzing around this new arrival. Her wings flapped excitedly, her feathers in colors of royal blue, gold, and deep, blood red. Her skin was nearly flawless and her eyes held depth before their color could be assessed. Among the crowd of angels around her, there was one whose heart suddenly beat faster and faster as she looked at him, smiling kindly. He felt like he needed to touch her, hold her, kiss her, his fingers suddenly tingled.

God’s voice boomed over them all, “Lucifer, come forward.”

He walked forward, his legs shaking slightly as he approached her. She smiled wider at him, lips stretching, and he wasn’t sure why someone like her was allowed to even be in his scope of vision. He wanted to feel her, this new angel, this new being who looked at him with so much love. That was what it was, no doubt about it, the shine in her eyes and the glow on her face were both clear signs. He’d heard about it.

God said, almost approvingly, “I made her for you.”

She gave Lucifer a wide, wide smile, pushing her shining locks of auburn hair behind her ears, and she walked towards him. He was stuck in place, his rosy cheeks growing even redder with his blushing, and she walked so she was directly in front of him.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” she said.

Her voice was smooth, high, pleasant to listen to. But to him, him, it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. He cupped her face in his hands, her eyes were baby blue and there was the faintest blush on her cheeks. She brought up her hands, putting them over Lucifer’s,

“Would it be alright if I kissed you?”

His own yellowing eyes widened, and he nodded quickly. He wanted to feel her lips on his skin, to see what they felt like.

She leaned forward and gave a quick kiss to his temple, while smoothing back his white-blonde hair back. What really shocked him was that she just asked him, not God, this intimacy had to normally be approved first. But no, no, she just assumed that her creator would like it if she started to show affection to the angel she was supposed to be with.

Her lips were gorgeous, and he felt the adoration radiating off where she kissed. He stopped cupping her face only to hold her hands, and she held back tightly. His smile was wider than it had ever been.

“What do you think?” She asked, widening her eyes lightly.

She was giving herself a look of extreme innocence, he realized, and he leaned so that they were pressed up against each other. He wanted to hold her forever, she was smaller and would be easy to pick up.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

__________________________________________

That was just the beginning. Neither of them seemed to be alone anymore, for she was always near him, her hands intertwined with his or cuddling up to his arm. Yet, they always went a little too far by angel standards, for every session of cuddling turned into them trying to figure out how humans made sex look so easy, every kiss turned hungry, encouraging words turned to the most blatant and terrible attempts at seduction both of them had ever heard.

Their topics of conversation, other than who could fuck the best when given the proper education, were normally about taking over heaven.

There was one instance in particular, when they were up in the middle of the night sitting in one of heaven’s many gardens, and he said to her, “I could run this place better.”

She raised her eyebrows, black eyelashes fluttering in the wind, “I don’t believe it. I mean - how would you even get control of this place? Are you going to shoot at their knees?”

He smiled, laughing slightly, “You’re shorter than I am!”

“So, I’ll shoot at their knees and you aim up at the chest?”

“How’d you guess my entire plan?”

She rolled her eyes, huffing with that gorgeous smile on her face, “If you take over, I’ll be out of here. I’d rather be in Hell.”

“Hell, Aud? You hate me that much?”

She quickly moved closer to him, head resting on his shoulder.

“My love, my Luci, I loathe you. I regret not getting rid of you when I had the chance.”

They both dissolved into chuckles, for her joking tone and wide, ear-to-ear grin said it all. He hoped, and he believed, that she loved him, and he wanted her to hope and believe and understand that he loved her as well.

“Why’d you want to go to Hell, anyways? I hear it’s one big wasteland.”

“It’s got a stable monarchy. The queen’s richer than all of us combined, and really hot.”

“Are you going to leave me for the Queen of Hell?”

“Not exactly. Maybe we could both marry her.”

“Are you advocating that we commit polyamory with the fucking-”

“Fucking can be included too, yes.”

He laughed fully then, falling back, tears nearly running out of his eyes. When he laughed like that, full-scale, she always did it as well, and two angels drunk on happiness were suddenly laying down on the freshly cut grass. Words could not describe the sheer pleasantness of being with her, the joy of someone being able to make him feel unadulterated bliss if only for a few minutes. As soon as they’d calmed down, she reached for his hand, intertwining their fingers and moving herself next to him again.

“If you do take over,” she said, quietly, “you better not leave me out of it when you win.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

She smiled, “Lovely. I’ve always wanted to have obscene amounts of money and power.”

They both giggled, and all of a sudden she was on his lap, head resting in the crook of his shoulder. He placed a delicate kiss on her temple, smoothing her hair back with his left hand, it had become their special gesture of love, appreciation, or at least a message that they accepted each other, that nothing would ever happen as long as the other were around.

“I swear, Audrey, it’s going to be you and me, always. The moment I take over, you’ll be the best queen heaven’s ever seen. I promise.”

She smiled, resting her head on his shoulder again.

There were a couple minutes of silence before she said, “I love you too.”

__________________________________________

So much for promises.

The way down to Hell was punctuated by his screams, cries, attempts to claw himself back onto the clouds. The tears that fell from his eyes seemingly burned the ground, lighting it aflame, but he wasn’t just crying for himself being banished from heaven. No, it was his poor, screeching Audrey, hair thrown around wildly, eyes wide with fear and her small, delicate hands trying to reach out for him. He thought he wouldn’t mind this so much if she was with him, for at least he would still have her form to hold, her wavy hair to run his hands through, and they could tend to each other’s wounds while cursing out the ‘gracious’ God who threw them out. But He thought it was a good idea to separate them, to make Lucifer hear not only the jeers of other angels but also the pure sniveling sobs of his beloved.

His entire body seemed to ache, bloody scratches and gashes adorned his sickly pale skin, his forehead broke out in a sweat due to the heat and he was pretty sure his right arm was broken. Yet, he got up, looked around, and saw the Queen of Hell looking over him, curiously.

Her eyes themselves were half-lidded, silver, and gleaming. Her hair was white-blonde as well, going all the way down to her ankles in fluffy, straight strands. She was incredibly tall, and he could see that she towered over him, a foot or larger. Her skin was certainly flawless, too flawless, and her nose was small and pointed.

“I’m Lilith. Are you okay?”

He paused. Was he okay? Was he? He looked down, slowly, he definitely wasn’t physically okay. After all, his arm was bending the wrong way, bruises aplenty along with all of the aforementioned scratches and injuries. Yet, what was really wounded was his mind, and he looked up. There wasn’t even a deep red feather on its way down, and he looked her in her eyes, glimmering but flat. Flat. She was very pretty, though, skinny, two purple horns coming out of her head. She was so obviously a demon, succumbus variety, that was accepting her silent offer of help really worth it?

He sighed. He was near bleeding out, and he just realized that his feathers were falling off and his wing was bent. He really, really, really messed up, and this also was a pretty good way to climb up to being the king of this place. He should be productive down here, he figured, it would be one big fuck-you to God.

And it might impress her, if she ever saw him again.

He smiled, slightly, “No, I don’t think so.”

They became a couple a short time later, however it wasn’t like it happened overnight. It started off with her insisting that he stay over at the palace, (“You have no mobility in your arm, Luci.”) then he climbed into bed with her tentatively, (“I haven’t had my arms wrapped around someone in so long.”) and then them finally, eventually getting married (“I love you. I love you. I love you.”).

He wasn’t sure if he meant it or not.

__________________________________________

Of all places Lucifer expected Audrey to be, any part of Hell was not one of them.

He hadn’t talked with his daughter ever since they got into their fight about that damn redemption hotel, and he still wasn’t fully onboard with the idea. It was laughable, really, most demons wanted to stay in hell! He and his wife had managed to strike a deal a while ago with God, Hell could be a bunch of dead demons hanging out instead of being tortured. It was easier to rule.

Lilith didn’t exactly like the hotel idea, but she insisted on talking to her, sending money over when she could, and even going over once or twice, despite the fact that she didn’t really like it. He admired her loyalty for her daughter, sure, but their relationship happiness had started to wear off a while ago, and her ever-present love was starting to get on his nerves. He loved Charlie, of course he did, but when he tried to show it he was either utterly overblown or extremely underwhelming.

Another reason he wasn’t thinking of Lilith and Charlie a lot lately, and he tried to convince himself that this wasn’t the primary reason, was because his angel had bloomed large in his mind. His memories of her were slipping, although he still had her face memorized and he could almost feel her soft, glossy wings. But he was forgetting what her voice sounded like, he was forgetting what she liked and disliked, and it was driving him insane. He’d managed to get some photos of her, and he often stared at them, hoping she would pop out and he would tell him that she still loved him, that she didn’t care that he was now the king of a grimy, disgusting realm of demons. She didn’t care, she couldn’t!

And then, one day, it happened. Lilith was getting ready to go to a nighttime meeting, and she had her daughter on her phone, and Lucifer had to resist telling her to take the damn thing off speaker - for Charlie would be fine without talking to her for the day, and at least he wouldn’t have to listen to that peppy, sing-song voice talk about their tenants and managers and workers.

He was brushing his hair in the mirror, right after showering, trying not to listen or interject, and suddenly, he heard her. Wait - Her! Her! Her!

“Hiya, Your Majesty! How’re you doing?”

He now relearned what her voice sounded like. It wasn’t simply pleasant, it was the fury of falling snowflakes, the highness was the rising of the morning sun, the ease was a babbling, churning brook. He hadn’t seen any of those things in a while, yet he could perfectly envision them with the help of her voice. He was suddenly rushing to get on his best clothes and get the hell out of his mansion, he didn’t have time to explain to his wife why he was going out.

He had to see her. He had to love her, he would do absolutely anything to keep her by his side and not let her go. He wanted to do the things they couldn’t really do as angels, Audrey! Audrey! The name would finally be said through his lips again, and he would have her there, her warmth and her hair. The population would love her, and if they didn’t, well, he could technically kill demons. It wouldn’t be too hard.

He didn’t even have to step foot in the hotel, for she was already leaving. Her hair was cut, he realized that almost immediately, it ended just below her ribcage instead of going all the way down to her waist. But it was still auburn, still beautiful, and she wore a black tank top and some black leggings. He wanted to go up to her and grab her, kiss her, it was just like when he first met her. His entire arms tingled, now.

“Audrey! Audrey! Audrey!”

She turned around, and he promptly noticed that she didn’t look the same. Sure, her eyes were still the baby blue that he adored, but there were bags under them, and she looked considerably worn out. He wanted to hold her, consol her, tell his darling that she wouldn’t need to worry anymore. Wearing nothing but the finest clothing, dripping in the best diamonds and pearls, surrounded by silken clothing, and safe, safe.

“H-Hey!”

Her voice was slightly shaking, although he didn’t notice this. He simply grabbed her hand, kissing it, which he knew wasn’t necessary but he felt like he had to. Her hands were still warm, and beautiful, but she pulled them away quickly.

“Darling, I missed you so much…”

He tried to get a little closer to her, attempting to wrap his arms around her, yet she backed up. She took a breath in, looking around, she seemed to look for someone to save her. His smile faltered, what was wrong? Wasn’t she happy, too? Wasn’t she yearning for him, too? She must’ve been nervous, he assumed, but he wasn’t sure. Her smile was anxious, and she looked around again.

She looked at him straight in the face with visible effort, “Can we sit down? I need to talk to you about something.”

He grabbed her arms again, “Sweetheart, Aud, of course!”

His voice was a little too lively, he was running on pure ecstasy. It was her! Her! More overworked, more concerned, but her! He had to restrain himself from bending her over and worshipping her, he had to listen to her first. He wasn’t sure why she was looking so distressed, her hands looked to be in knots. She scrambled onto a bench, and he followed her, and he hoped his eyes showed the adoration he felt for her in that moment.

She took a couple of breaths, and he was starting to get worried. What was so terrible that his calm, sweet Audrey felt she had to make sure she was okay before sitting down to tell him? Was someone threatening her? He’d torture them, he’d drive them into the damn ground! But if it wasn’t that, what was so awful?

“I’m not in love with you anymore.”

Yep. That was it, if anything. His smile fell more, never reaching his ears and ending at his cheeks. What? What? How? He could hear his heart slowly breaking, she was rejecting him, wasn’t she? His claws were suddenly digging into his palms, what the hell was happening? She looked slightly happy to get it out, as if she had been holding it in for a while. This is what this whole thing was leading up to?

“W-Why?”

He tried to keep his cool, hoping that she was just making a joke. He’d forgotten what her face had looked like, when it was serious, and he just wanted to figure that she was kidding with him. He was waiting for her to laugh, to kiss him, to tease him for believing it. Instead, she started explaining.

“I - I don’t love you. I can’t lie to you, I don’t love you anymore. I’m sorry.”

Her voice was mournful, sad, she sounded like she was about to cry.

He grabbed her wrist, tightly.

“But - But why? What did I do?”

She sighed, “I moved on. I can’t lie to you and tell you I love you back. I - I thought you moved on too.”

He let go of her wrist, his hands were shaking madly.

“I couldn’t. Aud, you’re perfect, I wouldn’t ever,” he cut himself off.

He shouldn’t let her out of his sight. He should grab her and drag her off, make her his whether she liked it or not.

“Even if I still,” she paused again, “I still wouldn’t. I cannot. I have a life up in heaven, Lucifer, I couldn’t leave it for anything…”

His breath was hitching, his body seemed glued to the seat. Yet, she got up easily, scrambling, she took another breath.

“Do you want me to do anything?”

She pities you. She pities you.

“Could you - could you do the - the -”

She knew what he was talking about, as she leaned down and kissed his temple while smoothing back the hair she could find. But it was without any love, adoration, pleasure, acceptance, that little gesture didn’t do anything now.

He looked up, and her eyes had filled with tears.

She had run off before he could say anything else, her wings stretching out and allowing her to fly away at top speed. He reached out, but she was gone, gone, gone, and in hell’s moonlight he could realize that her feathers were still miraculously taken care of, still shining, still perfect.

He sat on that bench for the entire night, hoping she’d come back.

She did not.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel oc #writing #inspired by another post #go check out the person that inspired this #why am I crying #this is bad I'm sorry #hazbin lucifer #hazbin lilith #this is so sad #audrey has a point tho #help #pls help

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pellicano-sanguino · 6 years

Text

Random thoughts while watching... OSK Revue?

I finally saw my first OSK Revue show (Dracula, 2017), so thought I'd write about it. This is not a proper review, just a bunch of random thoughts. I will be making a lot of comparisons to Takarazuka in this, and please understand that I do not mean to imply that OSK is just a zuka copycat, I simply wanted to compare the two and see what they have in common and what not (also, all opinions are about this production and these actresses only, I'd need to see more shows to form a proper, better educated opinion on OSK's style as a whole.).

First impression was a surprise at how small the production is. I knew OSK isn't as big as zuka, but still, the theater's stage was very small and there were only about ten actresses, many of them pulling several roles, I think. I felt like I was watching a Bow Hall show cut in half both by stage length and actress numbers. Having a small number of actresses causes there to be some slower, quieter scenes, where a character monologues for a while so that everyone else has time to do the costume change.

Even so, it still felt very similar to zuka. Despite the small stage, they do dance, including a post-show minirevue that includes the main otokoyakus dancing in pretty, sparkly tailcoats and a duet dance with the main leads. The makeup is similar but there's some small differences that I'm not expert enough to point out (don't know anything about makeup). There are some stylistic differences in zuka makeup too, so it felt like I was watching a sixth zuka troupe and this was their troupe's personal style.

Minirevue dancing (and look, some parade feathers. Small feathers but feathers none the less.)

Otokoyaku still sing like otokoyaku and musumeyakus sound just like zuka musumes. I liked the leading otokoyaku's voice, it was pleasant to listen. Though she has to do a lot of angry angsting throughtout the musical, which is occasionally bad for her voice, making it sound like she has a bit of a sore throat. The songs were ok, nothing particularly memorable or catchy. A lot of the music is rather simple, like piano music and such.

I admit, when I was putting the disk in the DVD player, I was chanting in my head ”Please follow the book at least barely, please don't be weird and rewrite the story wildly.” Well, no such luck, this isn't a book faithful adaptation. Which unfortunately leads to me not having a clue what the hell is going on most of Act 1. But I am happy that it's not a comedy or a super weird adaptation.

I have to say that seeing a completely serious take on a vampire musical is a breath of fresh air and something I wish zuka could do. Don't get me wrong, I love the lighthearted vampire shows like Seal of Roses (which maybe didn't aim for lighthearted but kinda accidentally became one). Zuka always makes the vampire stories, well... kinda weird (I've already ranted about the randomness, plot holes and inconsistent vampire lore in my Random Thoughts While Watching Zuka #4). I appreciate them thinking outside the box and surprising me instead of recycling the most generic vampire story plots and tropes, but as a vampire lover I would die for vampire show that actually takes itself seriously. I suppose the Poe Family show is a serious take on the subject (no comedic parts or weird story elements), but that is probably thanks to the source material. Zuka can do cool&dark, they've done Elisabeth, so if they wanted they could make truly awesome vampire shows.

While I said that this is a serious take on a vampire story, there's still a short comedic song number in the beginning of Act 1, where a bunch of reporters try to interview Dracula after his arrival at London, only to have him scream NO COMMENTS at them.

This show uses sound and screen effects a lot. Most of the time they make sense (like hearing the sound of a train in the station) but there are moments where I hear a random noise or see strange images projected on the screens and go ”What the hell was that?”

There are only three big roles in this show: Dracula, Mina and Jonathan Harker. There's also this one lady in black who I suspect to be the spirit of Dracula's dead wife, who he grieves and longs for all the time. So yeah, the beginning of Act 2 reveals to us that this show has taken inspiration from Coppola's Dracula and lifts the vampire's origin from the movie. He was a warlord in medieval times (which means he's dressed in armor and has a sword YES me likey) and somehow a false letter was brought to his wife claiming that he had fallen in battle, which led to her committing suicide. When human Drac got home to discover his wife dead, he was devastated and broken, that is, until he hears that the church refuses to bury his wife because suiciders are sinners who go to hell. There's a literal DUN DUN DUUUUN sound effect as the count builds up rage, then curses God and allows the forces of evil to corrupt his body in order to revenge. He then proceeds to kill all of the priests/monks/whatever the church folks were supposed to be.

This slaughter of innocent unarmed humans would be brutal and super dramatic, but the fight choreography leaves... much to improve. Yeah, zuka battle choreos can look like they're from the 60's Batman too, with punches that miss by a mile, but here... the stabs are so lazy it looks like the poor victims are literally walking into his sword.

If Heaven won't accept

my suicided wife

I'll follow her to Hell!

(...and lick her knife.)

Not gonna lie, this is something I haven't seen zuka do. Sure, they've implied licking things, but it's always done quite swiftly and * elegantly * and not, well, like this. Tongue out and all, literally licking the knife prop.

I was curious to see if the kisses are still fake or not, since OSK is free to have their own traditions and don't have to follow rules set by Hankyu. Also, I keep hearing rumors that OSK is supposedly more daring than zuka when it comes to love scenes. Not in this show, at least. The romantic scenes are very chaste and more cute than sexy (also, the blood drinking scene, while definitely romanticized and very nice&dramatic, not any hotter than the blood drinking scenes in zuka). And the kisses are very much fake. Oh well, the actresses are spared of messing up their lipstick.

Speaking of messing up lipstick, I know that stain is supposed to be blood but it looks like a group of amorous ladies gave the count several sloppy kisses.

So, my guess for the plot is that Dracula comes to London in search for the woman who is the reincarnation of his wife. To lure women for him to see, he puts up... a fashion show or something? Dresses are on display, including dead wife's wedding dress. Which Mina gets to wear, and Dracula is immediately convinced she's the incarnation and for the rest of the musical never calls Mina by her real name, just by the wife's name. Which is... Elisabeth. I don't remember what the wife's name was in Coppola's movie, but still, the dramatic way Dracula pronounces this name does make it sound like it was lifted from another musical.

In Act 2 Jonathan, on his way to rescue his girlfriend from the vampire's castle, meets an annoying little kid. And yeah, just like in zuka, there are no child actors in OSK, children are played by adult women using cutesy kiddie voice and being super genki. But then the kid finds the knife that Elisabeth used to suicide herself and turns to face the audience while holding it, and I was like ”Great. The annoying kid has turned into a creepy kid.” If the child had turned out to be a vampire and in team Drac all along, that would have been an awesome plot twist. But instead he's actually an angel or something like that, providing Jonathan with the weapon that can kill the vampire.

Dracula has a bunch of vampiric minions at his castle, not just the three brides. I have to ask, what is it with vampire shows having one main vampire who behaves normally and then having a bunch of background vampires/minions who speak/sing like they're high as a kite and lumber around dancing artsy inteeeerpretive dances? It's... weird. Why are some vampires normal and some complete fruitbats?

This Dracula must be the angstiest version of the character I've ever seen. There's occasionally great moments where he's charismatic, seductive or in rage mode, but the majority of time he is either silently depressed or actively whining (even many of his angry scenes come out as more whiny than aggressive). It's a very dialogue heavy show and because of the language barrier and free adapting of the story, I have no idea what his angsty dialogues are about. But whatever he says, he actually manages to win Mina's sympathy and they dance together. Even if they kiss, I still think Mina's feelings are more pity and less sincere romantic interest. Also, I should point out that I have nothing against depressed, angsty, reluctant vampires in general, it's just that I don't usually associate that kind of behavior with Dracula (depression and angst is more sir Francis Varney's thing.). Dracula is cold, ruthless, cunning and irredeemably evil, not some emotional lovelorn wreck.

I have said this before and will say again: Dracula does not aishiteiru.

Jonathan makes an attempt to save Mina but doesn't get to kill the count. Which is good because while the Jonathan of the book would definitely want and be able to fight the count, this musical portrayed the character as a cute and awkward softie nerd (I approve, not all male heroes need to be tough guys) and avoiding getting his hands wet with blood was a good move. Poor guy would be traumatized for life, even if it would be to save his girlfriend, he's just not a killer. Instead, Dracula decides to let the lovers go free and suicides himself, like he usually does in adaptations where they make him have a romance with Mina.

You know how in zuka there's the tradition that in the end the dead characters make an appearance dressed in white, to sing and prance around in an afterlife epilogue. Well, not in this show, but there is something kinda similar. In the ending scene the spirit of Elisabeth appears behind the dying count and poses dramatically with him, spreading her cape like white bat wings, taking him with her to afterlife. I think it looks cool.

To end this, let's talk about the blood drinking scene. In all vampire stories, these are the most important scenes, in my opinion. Blood drinking is what vampires do, it's their trademark thing, and if you chicken out of showing it or handle it lazily, then why the hell are you making a vampire story in the first place. You don't make Phantom of the Opera adaptation and fail to have the unmasking scene be the most dramatic and memorable scene, and similarly, you don't make a vampire story and fail to deliver the blood drinking scenes properly. Yes, I have weirdly strong opinions about this, deal with it.

Very early in Act 1 we see Dracula suffer from malnutrition, his hair turning gray and his knees failing, making him slump to the ground, very visibly suffering. For emergency he empties a small vial of blood that doesn't seem to make him get any better. And it is this moment when Jonathan decides to visit him for the first time for work-related reasons (no idea what his profession is in this story. In the fashion industry?). So, we have a thirsty vampire and a nice, cute bloodbag in the same room all alone.

Me: Drink him!

Dracula: Nope. I'd rather suffer. :)

What the hell? In the book he totally noms Jonathan. Is this because he's a male? This Dracula afraid to drink from someone who has icky boy blood? Oh well, he gets better later anyway, so I assume he gets some blood off-stage. But still, it was very confusing to see a starving vampire not take advantage of an opportunity of some easy blood.

Well, later Dracula is introduced to Mina and immediately decides ”This is the One.” And I cheer him on.

Me: Drink her!

Dracula: No. Now is not a good time. :)

Me: Damnit! DRINK SOMEBODY!!!

We have to wait all the way to the end of Act 1, but finally, we get a genuine on-screen blood drinking scene. Just as important as the moment of blood drinking itself is what leads up to it. In this musical it's Jonathan piecing together all the clues and finally getting Dracula's real identity (in a rather nerdy monologue of stuff like ”...Dracul means Dragon, and the A at the end makes it Son of the Dragon... wasn't there a warlord named like that in Romania hundreds of years ago...”).

Nerdsplaining time!

Terrified with his discovery he tries to save Mina, who Dracula has just kidnapped, spilling the beans for her as well. The revelation of Dracula's vampiric nature scares the two humans and there's plenty of dialogue that goes over my horizon, but I do get that the thing that makes Dracula snap is when Mina confesses to loving Jonathan.

The jealous vampire then starts to torture Jonathan by... some kind of Darth Vader mind-choking magic. Well, I suppose it's choking, because Jonathan holds his hands around his throat as if struggling against invisible fingers, but the sound effect doesn't suggest choking at all. It actually sounds much more gruesome and painful, a nasty ripping sound, as if the count is telekineticly tearing the poor man limb from limb and simultaneously flaying him alive. Eww, it's a gross sound effect.

Mina obviously can't idly just watch as her boyfriend is painfully tortured to death while she has the power to put an end to it. To save Jonathan, she loudly exclaims that she doesn't love him. And the count, being a little bit of an idiot here, buys it. Strangely, Jonathan seems to buy it too, crying Mina's name in disbelief. The torture ends (thank goodness), and to make sure no harm comes to Jonathan, Mina tells Dracula that if you're really a vampire and if it's blood you want, you can have mine!

Just let me gather this bothersome veil...

...and Behold! Vampire bait.

She dramaticly pulls the veil of the wedding dress on one shoulder and reveals her neck. I love this. And so does Dracula. This is the one moment where his eyes actually light up with passion and while he attempts to stay cool, you can see his chest rise as his breathing gets faster with excitement. Darn right, count. Blood offered by free will is the best stuff there is. And it was about time you finally drank someone.

It's always interesting when humans offer their blood to the vampire out of free will, because there's usually good and complex reasons behind it, and this is no exception. Mina doesn't offer her blood out of sympathy or under the influence of vampiric hypnosis or even being seduced by the pretty blood drinker. It's offered by free will but it's very much not concensual. The offer of blood is the only way she can distract the vampire long enough to let Jonathan escape and get help. By playing along with the count's delusions about Mina being the reincarnation of his wife, she is cleverly buying time, manipulating him. Only, unfortunate for these two, there is no van Helsing or any other member of the book's league of merry vampirehunting men in this show for Jonathan to run to, so all he can do is to follow them to the castle and attempt a lone rescue mission (which fails).

Frankly, the one who eventually defeats Dracula (kinda) is Mina, who manages to win the count's sympathy (making him learn the good old ”if you really love someone, you'll want what's best for them and let them go instead of selfishly trying to force them to stay with you”). And this blood drinking scene is the first time we see that she is aware of the power she has over the vampire. Maybe in the end she didn't exactly intend to make him commit suicide, just trying to make him let them go, but old Drac was living a horribly depressed and angsty unlife anyway, so it doesn't surprise me that he decided to end it. That's why the (kinda). Mina has great influence over Dracula but I do think his decision to die a final death seems to be not a result of manipulation but a genuine decision. Though he still technically makes her do it, by forcibly placing the knife in her hands and then grabbing her wrists, stabbing himself, making her involuntarily deal the killing blow. Kinda dick move (Mina is quite horrified of this, understandably), but at least I'm happy Mina doesn't kill herself too in this one (yes, I'm still angry at that ending in 2011 Wao Youka's Dracula. The count kills himself so Mina can go back to being human and back to Jonathan. And then the dumb woman makes the count's sacrifice completely pointless by throwing away the life he attempted to save.) Dracula ends his unlife but Mina and Jonathan return to the world of the living, where they belong.

Final random thought: Knightly warlord Dracula looks a bit like Lancelot’s long lost, dangerously unhinged brother. (it’s the wig and the silver armor with blue details. The actresses are very different.)

#osk revue #dracula #random thoughts while watching osk

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auroraphilealis · 7 years

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Heaven Scent Chapter Eight

Heaven Scent | Dan Howell rarely leaves the house unless he has too, too socially awkward to function normally around other people, and generally making his only friends through Louise, a sweet beta who took him under her wing a few years back when they were both still in college. It’s no surprise, then, that the omega has yet to find a mate, despite craving one rather a lot. It’s not until he attends Louise’s birthday party and gets accidentally-on-purpose set up with an attractive alpha named Phil Lester who smells absolutely heavenly that Dan starts to fall into a proper romance, complete with courting and scenting and the like. | Phan | Mature | A/B/O dynamics (Omegaverse fic), Fluff, Getting Together, Eventual Smut, Courting | 7,465 Words this chapter

Disclaimer: In no way do I pretend that this is real or cast aspersions on Dan or Phil.

Hello my friends! Ahhh, this is the final chapter of Heaven Scent, and I can’t believe it’s ended up quite as long as it appears to have :O In three weeks, I’ve managed to write 57K words, and to top it all off, this is the first chaptered fic I’ve completed on my own in at least 4 years, if not more, so… to say I’m proud of myself would be a complete and utter understatement.

Thank you to everyone whose supported this story since day one, when I first started writing it, and when I first started posting. It’s meant the world to me to have people so excited to see a story that defies the norm of what this trope usually is. Thank you as well to every person who has left a comment, or messaged me to show me their support and to tell me that this is the first time they’ve enjoyed this trope, as that is all I’ve ever wanted to do with this fic.

I’m so sad to see this ending, but all great things must come to an end, I’m afraid. I hope to eventually do a semi-sequel including some mpreg, for those who are interested, but I do start school again in 3 days, so I can’t promise when or if that sequel will appear <33 Still, maybe look out for it <33

This chapter does contain smut and sexual situations, so please read the second half in particular with caution. I promise you’ll know when it’s coming.

(Ao3) (Previous)

Chapter Eight

As promised, Phil texted Dan the entire time he was having his heat.

At first, it was silly things like “i forgot to find the rest of my underwear, im gonna have to do laundry every day now”, and “i know you told me not to forget anything but all my most important things are all in your flat :’(,” both of which made Dan laugh and his heart clench up in happiness to know that Phil’s entire life had pretty much already migrated into Dan’s flat.

After the first few hours, though, while Dan was in-between flare up’s and munching on power bars, they become more sentimental and funny, more similar to what Phil used to text Dan back at the very beginning of their relationship mixed with corny love struck texts that reflected their emotions from tonight. They were everything Dan could have ever asked for and more, and they truly made this heat the best that Dan had ever experienced.

From: Phil Lester <3

i miss you already :’( do you miss me?

From: Phil Lester <3

part of me wishes id stayed, but im glad were waiting

From: Phil Lester <3

look at this dog i saw on my facebook feed. when are we gonna adopt? :’D

From: Phil Lester <3

i found this jacket you might like and i might have already bought it, oops

From: Phil Lester <3

the new youtube red short film im editing -- we have to watch it together when its out, okay??? i think youll love it!!

From: Phil Lester <3

thinking of you :’(

The last one came with an attached photo of Phil’s face, smiling delicately at Dan like he was unsure if he should be sending it all, and yet it made Dan feel warm to the core on the second afternoon of his heat. He hadn’t realized just how badly he’d needed the picture until he was staring at it, fingers fisted around his cock while his core fluttered around nothing and slick dripped from between his legs.

Dan could feel his insides aching as he sunk his fingers back into himself and dropped the phone, flinging his head backwards on a ragged moan as he pressed in deep and gave himself everything he wanted. There was an abandoned vibrator at his side that he’d given up on in preference of pretending his own fingers where Phil’s, and he felt so fucking good that he came almost instantly after pressing against his g-spot, collapsing backwards into a pile of pillows that smelled like Phil.

Phil, Phil, Phil, he was all Dan could think about, and he gasped and moaned as he writhed in his nest, soaking in the fact that everything smelt like alpha. Never before had Dan felt so good, and while he was a mix of exhausted and bored when he wasn’t in the midsts of heat waves pressing into his tummy and begging Dan to get pregnant, he was also content, because for the first time in his life, Dan had a partner to think of while he went through this.

Not to mention, when he was finished, he had a standing date with Phil to finally have sex, something he couldn’t stop thinking of.

How many times now had he rutted against Phil’s cock and felt the outline of the alpha, hot and long in his jeans? How many times had he pressed in close and felt that bulge, body reacting in desperate want to have it inside already? Phil’s mouth was pure heaven on Dan’s lips, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine how it was going to feel everywhere else, but he wanted it. He wanted it more than he wanted anything in the world, and as the image of Phil biting into his scent gland, bonding him, sunk into Dan’s mind, he came with an explosive call of the alpha’s name, knuckle deep into his core once more, and hand fisted tight around his dick.

Dan didn’t know what was better, the image, or the sensation, and he gasped as he rocked into himself, desperate for Phil, soaked in sweat and slick, wishing the alpha was there to clean him up.

The memory of him would have to be enough for now. Dan just knew he couldn’t wait until he could finally have the love of his life in every way.

On the fourth morning after Phil had left Dan’s side, Dan woke up exhausted, but okay. The heat cramps had dissipated, and the desperate arousal that had made his skin thrum for the past three days was finally gone. His cock was soft and limp against his thigh, and while his insides throbbed from being used and abused so much, the slick had pretty much stopped, and he wasn’t clenching desperately around nothing anymore.

He was, however, covered in slick, and fully aware that the entire walk-in he’d sequestered himself in smelled like nothing but heat and omega pheromones. Dan was willing to bet his entire flat was tinged with the scent as well, but while Dan knew he was going to have to get up eventually and clean the whole mess up, he was mostly just relieved.

Heat’s were amazing, don’t get Dan wrong. He actually really enjoyed them, and while spending a heat with a partner was always going to be better than spending it alone, Dan had yet to meet an omega who actually complained about their heat when they came less often than seven-ish times a year. Sure, they were long, often boring, and sometimes painful, but the chance to take time off and feel flushed with pleasure for three days wasn’t something to gawk at. Most omega’s enjoyed the time to feel extra pleasured, and when it came time to get pregnant and have babies, most seemed to feel euphoric.

Dan couldn’t wait to one day experience that, but not until he and Phil were ready.

No, Dan was relieved that his heat was over because it meant he’d finally get to have Phil back in his home, and he’d honestly desperately missed the alpha since he’d been gone.

Dan’s body was sore, he was tired of living off of protein bars and water, and he wanted Phil home, but he didn’t so much mind that he’d just spent three days essentially pleasuring himself to the mental image of Phil.

The fact that Phil was going to be the one pleasuring him the next time, though… well, that was enough to get Dan out of his nest and cleaning up.

The nest went first. With his heat over, and his hormones back to normal, Dan didn’t crave the safety of the little den any longer. He pulled it apart, sheets first, to start setting them in the wash with a special, slick dispelling soap. Then, he made two more piles by the washer and dryer; one full of the duvets he’d used up, and another full of the clothing he’d eventually need to return to Phil, as well as his own that he’d need to hang back up.

Once that was mostly taken care of, Dan took the more non-cloth like items such as his teddy bear, and his toys, into the bathroom to manually clean of his scent. The teddy bear, Dan knew, would have to air out for the most part, as he’d used it for nearly every single one of his heats in the past, but it hardly mattered. If it was left in the bathroom, it shouldn’t bother anyone too much.

His toys, on the other hand, needed to be properly washed and sanitized before Dan put them away, and his fingers were deft and quick against the malleable plastic. He’d cleaned them a thousand times in the past, and he had no desire to linger over them now when he had something much more pleasant coming for him tonight.

Just the thought made Dan grin and groan a little, low in his throat. He’d lived off the image of Phil fucking him for three days, now. The idea of it finally happening was making him wet, and he had to tighten his legs a bit to prevent the slick from getting everywhere.

On the upside, it didn’t smell quite as arousing as heat-slick did, and reassured Dan that he was most definitely finished with that part of his life for now. No, any arousal Dan felt now was purely his own, and not instinct. He couldn’t wait until Phil got home.

By the time Dan had finished cleaning and airing out his apartment, a second load of duvets in the washer, it was nearing six o’clock. Phil didn’t tend to get off and home until closer to nine, but Dan hadn’t yet texted him it was safe to come back to Dan’s, and his heart was racing in his chest at the very idea of it all. He could feel his insides sopping with slick already, desperate for something Dan had been waiting months to have, and he scolded himself a little for getting overly excited.

What if Phil had changed his mind? What if he wanted to wait a little longer before they had sex? Dan could and would understand that, never wanting to push the alpha past his boundaries, but he needed to get his body under control before he lost his mind completely and demanded Phil come home and fuck him already.

Settling back on the couch, Dan finally relaxed and picked up his phone.

Phil had been texting him all day, the same as he had the past three - little nonsense words about what was going on, and pictures of things that had reminded Phil of Dan. There was even another selfie of Phil frowning at the camera, captioned with how he reacted to his coworkers being absolute idiots, and it made Dan laugh and sigh happily as he fingered his phone in his hands.

Phil Lester was everything that Dan had ever wanted, and he still couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten so lucky.

To: Phil Lester <3

De-heat-afied the flat. Come home? :(

From: Phil Lester <3

home? :’D

To: Phil Lester <3

well, you said it yourself. you practically live here now. so yeah… come home

From: Phil Lester <3

be there in twenty minutes

There was no mention of their plans in the quick five minute conversation. They didn’t discuss what Dan was hoping was going to happen. They didn’t talk about missing each other, or the I-love-you’s, or anything else that had happened since the last time they’d seen each other, and yet, it didn’t seem to matter to Dan.

Phil had called his flat home, had joked about it being something more to him than just Dan’s flat, and had spent a good portion of Dan’s heat complaining that all of his things were at Dan’s. Phil had promised to be home nearly three hours before he normally got off work, and that… that was everything to Dan.

Just knowing that Phil already considered Dan’s home, home too, and that he’d missed Dan enough to leave work early, that was everything to Dan, who couldn’t seem to stop it when he started to purr and fell backwards on his couch to lay against the cushions with stars in his eyes. His heart was beating frantically in his chest, aching in a way that made Dan want to burst with how much he loved Phil Lester.

Never… never in his life had he felt so treasured and so wanted. It didn’t matter, in that moment, if they had sex that night. It didn’t matter, because Dan already had everything he’d ever wanted.

Ever the gentleman - or just a dork, Dan wasn’t sure - Phil knocked on the front door when he arrived.

Dan knew it was him because he’d be able to pick up Phil’s scent from anywhere by now, and he rolled his eyes at the sound because Phil had long since been given a key, but he didn’t complain as he stood and hurried to his front door, desperate to see his alpha again. His fingers were slippery on the doorknob, but he managed to pull it open, and was taken by surprise when the first thing he saw was another huge bouquet of wild flowers completely obscuring his view of Phil.

“I - what?” Dan stuttered, blushing a deep red at the notion of getting flowers again, like they were back in the beginning days and Phil was still trying to court him. He could feel his breathing had picked up, and he couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips, nor the way he seemed to melt into himself a little. It was such a silly, unnecessary gesture, and yet Dan was living for it.

“Phil,” he whispered, as he reached out to take the bouquet at the same time as Phil chuckled at him. His fingers tightened around the purple paper that was wrapped around the bouquet as he pulled it in close, for one second completely captivated by the scent and sight of the flowers. Then, he turned his gaze completely towards Phil, only to be faced with a look of complete and utter self-satisfaction painted across his features.

Dan was certain that he probably looked entirely enamoured.

“I hate you,” Dan muttered, and dropped the flowers to his side, taking two steps forward and pressing in close to nuzzle into his alpha. Phil chuckled again and wrapped his arms instantly around Dan, like he couldn’t help himself, and buried his face in Dan’s hair. “You didn’t have to,” Dan added for good measure as he inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of his alpha and wishing desperately to bury himself in him entirely.

“I did,” Phil murmured in response, his hands soothing against Dan’s back, scenting him unobtrusively. He breathed deeply against Dan’s hair, like he wanted to saturate Dan in Phil, and then pressed a kiss delicately to the top of his head. “I wanted to give you something special because - because I missed you,” he added, laughing at himself and hugging Dan a little tighter for a moment. “Can you really blame me?”

Dan chuckled as well, and shook his head, eyes a little wet as he pressed his face against Phil.

“No. I can’t. I missed you too,” he shot back, and sighed when Phil rumbled in response, the sound pleasant and warm as it soaked into Dan.

He’d missed this so much, more than he could say. He could spend hours just cuddling with Phil, wrapped up in his scent, and the long three days apart had felt like an eternity when Dan had spent the entire time imagining Phil was with him, in bed. Dan hadn’t even gotten to experience that yet, and it had been amazing. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like when…

His face grew a deeper red as his body started to react in tandem with his thoughts.

Dan shifted against Phil, trying to hide the fact that he was growing hard, only for Phil to draw him in closer and inhale deeply.

“I think we should get inside,” the alpha rumbled, his voice all deep and husky, the way it only ever seemed to get when he was taken slightly by instinct, when he was hard and wanting for Dan. The sound made Dan shudder and mewl, pressing in closer to Phil despite the fact that the alpha had suggested otherwise, and he pressed tentative, needy kisses against Phil’s chest.

“We probably should,” Dan agreed after a second, mind a little hazy.

He tried to pull back from Phil, but for a moment, the alpha wouldn’t let him go. His hands tightened around Dan, holding him closer, and then relaxed completely as Phil sighed. Not wanting to test the limits of Phil’s self control, Dan hurriedly stepped out of his arms, and turned on his heel to head straight for the kitchen, some part of his brain still very aware that he had a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

The sound of his front door shutting behind him was eerily reminiscent of the time Phil had showed up at Dan’s house that second time, and when the alpha’s footsteps carefully followed Dan into the kitchen, he felt a shiver rush up his spine.

Dan didn’t want to rush into this though, and while he was trembling with want, he turned, dropped the bouquet on his counter, and stared up at Phil with needy eyes.

“Alpha,” he managed, swallowing thickly when this made Phil’s pupils dilate. His hands were in fists at his sides, like he was trying to control himself, and it was like dynamite in Dan’s veins. He could feel himself beginning to grow wet, to throb with desire, because he hadn’t once seen Phil lose control in Dan’s presence just yet.

Dan wondered if Phil was just finally at the end of his rope, and couldn’t help throbbing in reaction to that.

Phil inhaled deeply, and shut his eyes.

“Look,” Dan insisted, “I know you said - before my heat, you said you’d only been waiting for the right time, but I don’t want to rush this. If you still aren’t… aren’t ready, that’s fine, Phil. When we said after, I didn’t mean it had to be immediately after,” he explained, trying to maintain his breathing and not make it anymore obvious just how desperate he was for the alpha. He’d been waiting so long, though, ready and willing to be taken and marked and claimed. His veins trembled with it, heart beating erratically in his chest. All Dan wanted was to know what Phil was like, what he tasted like, how he’d treat Dan…

He moaned before he could stop himself.

“Dan,” Phil gasped, sounding just as desperate and willing as Dan. “I want this. I want you. I’ve wanted you since day one, I just didn’t want to screw things up. Please… you’ve been all I’ve been able to think about since that night. I need you to tell me now if you’ve changed your mind. I want… I want to finally have this with you.”

His eyes were sad, and though his hands were still clenched into fists at his sides, like he was holding himself back from pouncing on Dan, he seemed to be trying to pull himself together, reign in his desire so that he could do what Dan wanted, what Dan needed, whatever that might be.

The sight of Phil’s self restraint… it broke Dan, and he launched himself into the alpha’s arms without a second thought.

For a second, Dan wondered if this was all because of his heat. Did he smell of pheromones? Were they screwing with Phil’s head? Had he not gotten rid of the scent quite enough, or was he still in heat? But no, as Dan inhaled deeply, mind dizzy with his want for Phil, he became very aware that there was next to no heat pheromones in his apartment, and those that were there, weren’t enough to drive either of them as crazy as they seemed to be just then.

Dan’s mouth came down on Phil’s, and he whispered out a soft, “I’m ready,” that seemed to be everything both male’s finally needed to break the long standing truce they’d held for months, now. Dan mewled, Phil growled, and suddenly, Dan was completely and utterly wrapped up in long-limbed alpha.

Phil’s mouth was warm as ever. Despite the way Dan could feel Phil rapidly losing control, he kissed just as sweet and as passionately as he ever had, licking and sucking at Dan’s mouth and nipping gently at his lips. When he pressed in deep, he did so in a way that felt all consuming and heated, and yet gentle at the same time. His hands embraced Dan’s body and pressed Dan close, but he didn’t crush them together the way Dan had known partners to do in the past. He just cradled Dan close with a pressure that made Dan feel wanted, but not suffocated, and kissed him until Dan was absolutely aching for more.

They were both making ridiculous noises. Dan couldn’t seem to stop purring on and off, little mewls and sighs escaping his throat, all while a rumble took up in Phil’s chest and echoed inside of Dan’s body. Dan’s hands buried themselves under Phil’s shirt, finally feeling safe enough to touch skin he’d ached to see for ages, all while Phil’s hands seemed to stutter up and down Dan’s back, unsure where they wanted to land.

It felt wonderful, and as Dan grinded his hips forwards, only to find Phil’s answering arousal there ready to meet him, he wanted nothing more than to take this to the bed.

So he did.

Dragging his mouth from Phil’s with a loud gasp, Dan pulled back against his touch, and felt a zing go through him at the ease with which Phil let him go. Phil’s eyes were half lidded and dark, the blue something different now, overblown with black and such a thin line it made it look even more intense. His mouth was wet from Dan’s kisses, and his hands were shaking at his sides, hips undulating slightly.

He looked absolutely wrecked, and the fact that Dan had done that to him, made him ache with need.

“Come on,” he insisted to Phil, taking his hand in his and tugging him hurriedly into the bedroom.

There were new sheets on the bed that didn’t smell like Phil anymore because Dan had washed them, but neither male seemed to care as they entered the room, eyes only for each other. Dan kept tugging at Phil’s hand, turning him until the alpha was doing what he wanted, and then pushed the male back against their bed until he was splayed out with his legs spread and hanging off the edge of the bed.

He looked so good like that, that Dan couldn’t help but to stop and stare. He’d wanted this for so long, wanted to have and see and hold Phil like this, eat him up and feel him intimately against Dan, and now that he was getting just that, Dan wasn’t sure where to start.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, “Phil. You look really hot like that,” he gasped, and found himself stepping forward instantly. Phil chuckled in response, smiling at Dan, and reached out with shaking hands to take Dan into his arms.

“Thanks,” he grumbled, voice so fucking deep and hot. “Now come here. I wasn’t quite done kissing you,” he teased.

How was Dan supposed to deny a request like that?

Without hesitating, Dan stepped forward and crawled onto the bed with Phil, pleased when the alpha scooted back so his legs no longer dangled off the side, and shifted his own legs to bracket on either side of Phil’s hips. Phil’s hands came up to press under the edge of Dan’s shirt, for the very first time touching Dan’s actual skin, and Dan purred as he leaned in close for another kiss.

Their lips pressed together just as needily as before, but it was the progression of Phil’s hands that really got Dan going. He rucked up Dan’s shirt without a care in the world, his hands so cold and yet hot against Dan’s skin, painting circles into his flesh and skating up his back to feel the outline of his shoulder blades. Phil had touched him a thousand times in the past, but never quite like this, never flesh on flesh, and when his hands skated back down to count against the bones of Dan’s spine, he shivered and moaned into Phil’s mouth so loud, Phil actually groaned in reaction.

“You sure your heat is over, Dan?” Phil wondered, disconnecting their mouths to laugh at Dan, “Cause you are… really, really reactive,” he added wonderingly, eyes sparkling and lips quirked in mischief. Dan leaned forward to kiss him hungrily again, his own hands moving to ruck up Phil’s shirt, exposing the alpha’s belly and sides, and tucking just under his armpits.

“I’m sure. I’m always loud,” he teased Phil when he pulled away from his lips, only to stare in wonder at the dark, dusky peaks of Phil’s nipples and the tangle of chest hair now exposed to him.

Phil’s chest was red, flushed with desire as he shuddered under Dan’s touch, who sat up on Phil’s hips to press his hands all over Phil’s exposed body. His bum rested just over the alpha’s straining dick, but Dan did nothing in reaction to it, merely smoothing his fingers around nipples and chest hair, plucking at plump skin, and watching the way Phil’s body reacted under his.

Phil never once took his eyes off of Dan, watching the way he touched, and licked his lips. Dan’s own gaze kept flicking up to Phil’s, until Dan couldn’t take it any longer, and he leaned down to bite a mark into Phil’s chest, just under his ribcage, sucking hungrily and claiming the alpha as his. He felt his scent shift to permeate over Phil’s skin, and groaned at the way Phil growled at him, fingers coming down to tangle in Dan’s hair. Dan merely sucked and bit harder, eyes closing in wonderment at the fact that he was finally getting to do this, and shifted to ruck his shirt up enough that he could pull it completely away when he pulled back from Phil’s rib cage.

He did, tossing his shirt over his shoulder and watching the way Phil’s eyes instantly moved to his exposed skin to trace over his chest.

“I want you, Alpha,” Dan whispered, “Want all of you. Want you to mark me all over,” he groaned, reaching down to press his hand against the bruise now forming on Phil’s stomach, and gasping at the way Phil growled and rolled his hips up into Dan’s ass in response. His cunt clenched around nothing slick beginning to dribble down until Dan could feel that he was getting soaked, and he groaned, throwing his head back in a way he hoped would be enticing.

“Take me, Alpha,” Dan said again, hoping this time, Phil would get the message.

He did.

While there were so many things Dan wanted to do with Phil, so much time he wanted to spend pinning the alpha to his bed, rutting down against him, and riding the cock Dan had been craving for so long, he wanted this even more - Phil taking control and making Dan feel like heaven had come to Earth early. The alpha flipped them, pressing Dan into the bed, and surging in to kiss Dan all over again.

His hands burned as they skated over Dan’s ribcage, playing at the waistband of his pants, and smoothing back up to tweak at Dan’s sensitive nipples. His own chest wasn’t quite as flat as Phil’s, filled with more fat to make room for breasts that would form should Dan get pregnant, and Phil seemed to love the swell of them, pressing the flesh up and into his palm as he groaned into Dan’s mouth. His hips rutted down into Dan’s, pressing their cocks against each other through their pants, and making Dan’s body shudder for more.

He could scent the smell of slick taking over the room, sweet and heady, as could Phil, as he pulled away from Dan’s lips and snuffle at his neck. His hands moved from cupping at Dan’s small breasts to instead rub between his legs, where the slick was pouring free, and rumbled against Dan’s neck.

“Shit. I forgot - how warm, and wet omega’s get,” he gasped against Dan’s neck. “You’re so beautiful Dan, and you smell amazing,” he groaned, nuzzling in close once more before his lips came down to suck around Dan’s scent glands.

Dan arched into the touch, moaning loudly, and rutted his body down against Phil’s searching hands as the alpha came so close to bonding them. He didn’t bite, however, not the way Dan had imagined he would - instead, he sucked, and licked, and kissed at the small spot until he seemed to have coated it in his scent so thoroughly he might as well have bit down, and then pulled away to hum against Dan’s mouth, nose rubbing gently along Dan’s.

Dan opened his eyes to find the alpha was staring at him with such need and love in his gaze, Dan nearly melted.

“Wanna bond with you one day. Wanna mark you for the world to see… but not today,” he explained, and kissed Dan leisurely one more time.

His hands had moved from between Dan’s legs, to his thighs, were he massaged the clothed skin through Dan’s sweat pants, and smoothed his fingers against him. It felt so good that Dan shuddered as Phil kissed him, licking into his mouth as gently as he always did, before pulling away.

“But I’m going to mark you in every other way,” Phil continued after a moment, the words gravely in his husky voice, eyes dark. They sent a thrill through Dan who threw his head back and moaned as Phil leaned in close and nipped at his collarbones, proceeding to decorate Dan’s chest in light hickeys and bruises that made Dan’s core tingle. He didn’t know what was throbbing worse - his dick, or his cunt; all he knew was that he wanted more.

Phil’s mouth came around Dan’s nipple, and it was better than he’d ever imagined. Phil suckled at the swell of Dan’s almost-breast, needy and wanton as he kissed and bit at it, tangling his tongue around as if he were searching for something more than just breast. The mental image of Phil suckling at Dan’s milk-wet breasts while he was pregant made Dan groan and spend pre-cum from his dick rutting up as Phil chuckled against him.

Then, he pulled back from Dan’s nipple to suck at the skin around it, marking Dan as his, before trailing further downward and marking Dan’s stomach as well.

As Phil moved, mouth hot and hands burning against his skin, Dan couldn’t help feeling like he was going to go crazy. Phil was better than Dan had ever imagined he could be, more slick and warm than anyone else Dan had ever had. He mouthed along Dan’s bellybutton, tongue fucking him there, and giving Dan a taste of what he could do, and then he was nibbling at Dan’s hip bones as his fingers played with the waistband of Dan’s pants.

Meanwhile, the alpha still hadn’t taken off his shirt, and Dan growled as he sat up and pushed the tease away from him.

“Strip,” he demanded, as his own hands pushed at the waistband of his pants, his boxers, slipping them free from and releasing the full scent of his slick into the air.

Dan could see how it was effecting Phil as the alpha clambered off of Dan to do as he’d been told, stripping first his work shirt, and then his belt from his jeans. For a second, Dan could imagine Phil tying him up with that, and then the moment was gone as Phil struggled with his jeans.

Dan reached down to stroke his hand over his cock as Phil undressed, eyes on nothing more than the great reveal of the alpha cock he’d been waiting for, and then it was there, far more glorious even then Dan had ever imagined it could be. It sprang free of his boxers as Phil scrambled out of them, hard and heavy as it bobbed between his legs, only a bit bigger than Dan’s omega one.

Alphas were always just a bit bigger, more than average, to accommodate for the knot that would settle at the base of their dick, but Dan was by no means small. In fact, he was proud of the fact that his own dick rested pale and thick against his tummy as Phil hungrily climbed back over him.

What he wasn’t expecting, was the way Phil instantly delved in to take Dan’s cock into his mouth, pleasuring Dan in a way he’d never quite experienced before - cool fingers pressed between the lips of his cunt, playing lightly with the flaps and the slick there as his mouth worked diligently and hotly over Dan’s cock. His tongue swirled over Dan’s tip, and his throat constricted around his dick as he took Dan as far as he could, fingers making Dan’s core ache with need where they played.

Phil was inhaling Dan’s scent deeply as Dan groaned underneath his touch, bucking almost wildly against Phil but trying his best to keep his body sated and still.

Dan was amazed he could want so much when he’d only just finished his heat, but he didn’t complain as Phil pressed a teasing fingers inside of Dan at the same time as he pulled back from Dan’s dick and grinned up at him.

“You taste better than I ever imagined,” Phil rumbled, “Better than anyone I’ve ever had. My mate,” he continued, leaning in to slurp up Dan’s cock all over again. Dan gasped, and groaned against the words, the sensations, as Phil pressed the finger in deeper, exploring and taking all that Dan had.

He felt so good, so much better than Dan himself, better than any toy, but it was his words that got Dan.

Phil pulled off his dick again with another hot pop.

“I wonder how good your slick will taste,” he said, and ducked in close to close his mouth around Dan’s cunt and suck.

It was… not something Dan had quite been ready for. He’d considered the chance that his alpha would want to put his mouth there as well as Dan’s cock, had considered that his alpha might give him everything, but Dan hadn’t truly expected so soon. The sensation of Phil’s mouth sucking at his cunt, lapping at his slick, all while his finger remained pressed inside of Dan… it was the best feeling Dan had ever experienced, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit that he came almost instantly when Phil pressed his tongue inside as well and slurped at Dan’s body, swallowing all that Dan had to give in the most obviously pleased ministration ever, rumbling in a pleased way.

Dan’s cock shook, and he came, gasping as cum dripped all over his abdomen while his cunt clenched up and scent a rush of slick down and out of him, straight into Phil’s mouth.

Dan shuddered as pleasure overtook him, crashing over his mind and making him cry out as his hips shook. Phil, meanwhile, didn’t stop pressing in deeper, sucking at all Dan had to give him, arching his finger and pressing against Dan’s walls in a way that made him feel like he was never going to stop coming.

His face screwed up, and his legs tensed as he came, Phil groaning for more and likely throbbing below Dan.

Dan wanted so much more.

By the time Dan had come down from his high, Phil was still fingering him lightly, but his mouth had moved from Dan’s cunt to his stomach where he was lapping gently at Dan’s skin, clearing him of spunk and rumbling happily. He had a pleased smile on his face, cock red and hard between his legs, but he didn’t seem to care for it at all as he moved his mouth to Dan’s dick and suckled gently at the head.

Dan let out a whimper at the sensation, and reached down to thread his fingers back through Phil’s black hair.

“Alpha,” he gasped, forcing the alpha’s gaze back onto him. “Fuck me. Now,” he demanded, watching as Phil reacted to the words in what seemed like slow motion. His expression turned from pleased, to dangerous, like he was losing his control, like he needed Dan as bad as Dan needed Phil.

It didn’t even matter that Dan had just come. He wanted Phil, and he wanted Phil now.

The alpha flat out growled at Dan’s demand, and shifted up on his knees as the finger inside of Dan started to work in earnest. Dan mewled at the way it felt, and grinned up at Phil in satisfaction, stretching his body out to show himself off completely. He arched his neck to set the alpha off more completely, and groaned when it caused Phil to press a second finger in needily.

“Fuck,” the alpha groaned. “I can’t wait to be inside of you, omega. Dan, god, you look so good,” he gasped, and leaned in close to nip at his neck.

He nuzzled it, licking over it again, as his fingers worked to spread Dan for him, even though Dan didn’t need it. He didn’t say a word, certain Phil was bigger than Dan was fully expecting, sure that Phil knew what he was doing, and waited as his body ached with pleasure, ready to come all over again.

“You’re cunt is so warm, Dan. So fucking warm. I forgot how good this could feel… I’ve wanted you so long,” Phil rumbled, mumbling the words against the shell of Dan’s ear, licking at the skin there and making Dan shudder all over again. He gasped at the words, arching his body up to Phil’s, and reached out with rough fingers to force Phil’s head close and kiss him.

“I’m ready,” he gasped after another minute, words muffled under Phil’s tongue, which was becoming far less composed as he usually was. He seemed unable to be as gentle as he wanted, and kissed and soothed at Dan’s mouth in apology. “Fuck me, now, Phil,” he continued, and laughed when a groan punched its way out of Phil’s throat in response.

The alpha didn’t hesitate. He pulled his fingers free from Dan’s body, and shifted so his cock bobbed between his legs and so close to Dan’s cunt, that his body clenched down at the thought of it. Dan was biting his bottom lip, and Phil was staring at him with eyes so bright and full of lust, it was amazing he hadn’t sunk all the way inside just yet.

Of course, that’s when Phil decided to take Dan completely by surprise when he said, “I love you, my Daniel,” before kissing him once more.

This time, his lips were not quite as heated. His touch was calmer, somehow, contrasting completely with the dark of his eyes mere seconds ago, but Dan didn’t even care. Somehow, this was better, so much fucking better, and even as Phil seemed to begin to lose himself again to the lust so obviously boiling over, he was gentle as his cock head nudged at Dan’s entrance and pressed inside.

Being fucked was… amazing. Being fucked by an alpha, was always particularly special.

Being fucked by Phil was like the beginning and end of the world.

He sunk in slow, cock pushing Dan’s body open, mouth panting against Dan’s lips. His chest was sweaty but perfect against Dan’s chest, flush to him as he worked to get his hips flush to Dan’s, groaning a little with each new inch Dan took. He didn’t rush, and he didn’t push, and he didn’t overwhelm Dan, but at the same time, he totally did.

Having sex with one’s mate was… more than Dan could have imagined.

There was just something about the intimacy, the care Phil put in his every movement, something about the fact that Phil had wanted to wait until just the right moment, that made everything about this seem almost otherworldly.

By the time Phil had settled all the way in, Dan knew he never wanted it to end.

“Phil,” he was gasping, the name chanting from his mouth over and over, and over again. “Phil, I love you,” he gasped at some point, the words lost to Phil’s mouth as he gasped against Dan, hips shifting but doing their best not to move just yet.

Their bodies fit together perfectly, a symphony seeming to rise in Dan, purrs escaping him and his heart beating fast in his chest. Phil was rumbling against him, scenting at his neck, licking over his skin, teasing with his teeth like he wanted to bite, but he didn’t.

There was a ringing inside of Dan’s ears, and then Phil whispered, “Mine,” all over again, and started to move.

Dan’s body surged upwards into Phil’s at the first drag of hot cock inside of his warm walls, his core singing as Phil’s body drove in and out of him. Phil was growling at Dan, mindless, hands clenched into Dan’s sides, fingernails biting into his skin, marking Dan all over again. His teeth were bared against Dan’s neck, little huffs escaping him as he moved, all while Dan keened and mewled, wrapping his entire body around Phil’s and drawing him close.

They moved together, as best they could. Dan’s movements were frantic, Phil’s bordering on out of control, and yet it was perfect. Everything about it was perfect, wonderful, amazing, and Dan’s heart sang as Phil held him and fucked him.

One hand sank between their bodies at one point, playing with Dan’s cock. Phil’s thumb stroked over the top, at the slit, pumping the foreskin up and down to give Dan more pleasure, and then Dan felt it - Phil was panting, his body seizing up, the fast but tempered paced he’d been setting falling apart in what seemed an instant. Something… something was nuding at Dan’s entrance, growing, popping, and Dan realized it was Phil’s knot.

The alpha was going to knot him, and the idea of it left Dan brain dead.

“Please!” he cried, body seizing up on his own desire to come, “Knot me, alpha, knot me!” he begged, body surging down on Phil’s cock, begging the knot to press inside, to push past the lips of his pussy and sink straight into him, locking them together for a few moments at least.

Phil grunted in response, licking desperately at Dan’s neck, and then he pushed Dan’s head to the side and bit suddenly and surprisingly into Dan’s shoulder.

The sensation stung, wasn’t anywhere near where Dan wished it would be, and yet he knew that Phil hadn’t been able to control himself but hadn’t wanted to make a mistake. While Dan mourned the loss of bonding pheromones that should have flooded him, he was pleased to know that Phil wouldn’t allow a night of passion to take the choice away from both of them, even if he knew they both wanted it more than anything.

The right time. They were waiting for the right time, not the first time they had sex, not Dan’s heat - the right time.

Phi’s knot suddenly popped in, and Dan cried out as his body was stretched further still. Phil’s cock practically exploded inside of him, hot cum filling him up, and Dan groaned at the sensation, body craving it as his cunt bared down to take it all, squeezing every lost drop from Phil’s cock.

Phil’s hips seized up, pumped twice more, stilled. His hand stuttered over Dan’s cock, and Dan came too, spunk once again painting its way up his chest as he gasped, fucked down on Phil’s cock and stilled too.

Phil collapsed on top of Dan with a gasp.

His teeth released Dan’s shoulder.

Dan nuzzled at the top of Phil’s hair, and thought, I could live with this, with a giddy little chuckle.

He never wanted to let Phil out of his life.

Afterwards, once they’d cleaned up and Phil had crawled into Dan’s bed stark naked to spoon against his back, Dan asked the question he’d been waiting a month to ask.

“Move in with me,” he said, voice soft, quite, a little hoarse. He was purring, the same he’d been pretty much since Phil had knotted him, pretty much since Phil had come into his life, and he didn’t even care that the words had come out more as a sleep demand.

Phil chuckled against his neck, and nuzzled in close, wet hair brushing against Dan’s bruised and aching shoulder.

He pressed a kiss against the nape of Dan’s neck, and sighed.

“I pretty much already have. I don’t see why we couldn’t make it official.”

The words made Dan grin, and he patted at Phil’s hands where it rested on Dan’s hip.

“Good. Cause I never want you to leave me again.”

Phil chuckled again.

“Never,” he promised and sealed it with one last kiss against Dan’s scent glands.

One day… he’d bite into that as well, and they’d be mated, forever.

Dan couldn’t wait.

But also, there was no hurry.

#phanfic #phanfiction #phanfictioncatalogue #snowbunnylester #omegaverse #heaven scent #phan #phandom

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aspenbloomfieldyr2fmp · 4 years

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Tolkien

Who Was Tolkien?

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) was a major scholar of the English language, specialising in Old and Middle English. Twice Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford, he also wrote a number of stories, including most famously The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), which are set in a pre-historic era in an invented version of our world which he called by the Middle English name of Middle-earth. This was peopled by Men (and women), Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Orcs (or Goblins) and of course Hobbits. He has regularly been condemned by the Eng. Lit. establishment, with honourable exceptions, but loved by literally millions of readers worldwide.

Childhood and Youth

The name “Tolkien” was believed by the family to be of German origin; Toll-kühn: foolishly brave, or stupidly clever—hence the pseudonym “Oxymore” which he occasionally used; however, this quite probably was a German rationalisation of an originally Baltic Tolkyn, or Tolkīn. In any case, his great-great grandfather John (Johann) Benjamin Tolkien came to Britain with his brother Daniel from Gdańsk in about 1772 and rapidly became thoroughly Anglicised. Certainly his father, Arthur Reuel Tolkien, considered himself nothing if not English. Arthur was a bank clerk, and went to South Africa in the 1890s for better prospects of promotion. There he was joined by his bride, Mabel Suffield, whose family were not only English through and through, but West Midlands since time immemorial. So John Ronald (“Ronald” to family and early friends) was born in Bloemfontein, S.A., on 3 January 1892. His memories of Africa were slight but vivid, including a scary encounter with a large hairy spider, and influenced his later writing to some extent; slight, because on 15 February 1896 his father died, and he, his mother and his younger brother Hilary returned to England—or more particularly, the West Midlands.

The West Midlands in Tolkien’s childhood were a complex mixture of the grimly industrial Birmingham conurbation, and the quintessentially rural stereotype of England, Worcestershire and surrounding areas: Severn country, the land of the composers Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Gurney, and more distantly the poet A. E. Housman (it is also just across the border from Wales). Tolkien’s life was split between these two: the then very rural hamlet of Sarehole, with its mill, just south of Birmingham; and darkly urban Birmingham itself, where he was eventually sent to King Edward’s School. By then the family had moved to King’s Heath, where the house backed onto a railway line—young Ronald’s developing linguistic imagination was engaged by the sight of coal trucks going to and from South Wales bearing destinations like” Nantyglo”,” Penrhiwceiber” and “Senghenydd”.

Then they moved to the somewhat more pleasant Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston. However, in the meantime, something of profound significance had occurred, which estranged Mabel and her children from both sides of the family: in 1900, together with her sister May, she was received into the Roman Catholic Church. From then on, both Ronald and Hilary were brought up in the faith of Pio Nono, and remained devout Catholics throughout their lives. The parish priest who visited the family regularly was the half-Spanish half-Welsh Father Francis Morgan.

Tolkien family life was generally lived on the genteel side of poverty. However, the situation worsened in 1904, when Mabel Tolkien was diagnosed as having diabetes, usually fatal in those pre-insulin days. She died on 14 November of that year leaving the two orphaned boys effectively destitute. At this point Father Francis took over, and made sure of the boys’ material as well as spiritual welfare, although in the short term they were boarded with an unsympathetic aunt-by-marriage, Beatrice Suffield, and then with a Mrs Faulkner.

By this time Ronald was already showing remarkable linguistic gifts. He had mastered the Latin and Greek which was the staple fare of an arts education at that time, and was becoming more than competent in a number of other languages, both modern and ancient, notably Gothic, and later Finnish. He was already busy making up his own languages, purely for fun. He had also made a number of close friends at King Edward’s; in his later years at school they met regularly after hours as the “T. C. B. S.” (Tea Club, Barrovian Society, named after their meeting place at the Barrow Stores) and they continued to correspond closely and exchange and criticise each other’s literary work until 1916.

However, another complication had arisen. Amongst the lodgers at Mrs Faulkner’s boarding house was a young woman called Edith Bratt. When Ronald was 16, and she 19, they struck up a friendship, which gradually deepened. Eventually Father Francis took a hand, and forbade Ronald to see or even correspond with Edith for three years, until he was 21. Ronald stoically obeyed this injunction to the letter. In the summer of 1911, he was invited to join a party on a walking holiday in Switzerland, which may have inspired his descriptions of the Misty Mountains, and of Rivendell. In the autumn of that year he went up to Exeter College, Oxford where he stayed, immersing himself in the Classics, Old English, the Germanic languages (especially Gothic), Welsh and Finnish, until 1913, when he swiftly though not without difficulty picked up the threads of his relationship with Edith. He then obtained a disappointing second class degree in Honour Moderations, the “midway” stage of a 4-year Oxford “Greats” (i.e. Classics) course, although with an “alpha plus” in philology. As a result of this he changed his school from Classics to the more congenial English Language and Literature. One of the poems he discovered in the course of his Old English studies was the Crist of Cynewulf—he was amazed especially by the cryptic couplet:

Eálá Earendel engla beorhtast

Ofer middangeard monnum sended

Which translates as:

Hail Earendel brightest of angels,

over Middle Earth sent to men.

(“Middangeard” was an ancient expression for the everyday world between Heaven above and Hell below.)

This inspired some of his very early and incohate attempts at realising a world of ancient beauty in his versifying.

In the summer of 1913 he took a job as tutor and escort to two Mexican boys in Dinard, France, a job which ended in tragedy. Though no fault of Ronald’s, it did nothing to counter his apparent predisposition against France and things French.

Meanwhile the relationship with Edith was going more smoothly. She converted to Catholicism and moved to Warwick, which with its spectacular castle and beautiful surrounding countryside made a great impression on Ronald. However, as the pair were becoming ever closer, the nations were striving ever more furiously together, and war eventually broke out in August 1914.

War, Lost Tales and Academia

Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Tolkien did not rush to join up immediately on the outbreak of war, but returned to Oxford, where he worked hard and finally achieved a first-class degree in June 1915. At this time he was also working on various poetic attempts, and on his invented languages, especially one that he came to call Qenya [sic], which was heavily influenced by Finnish—but he still felt the lack of a connecting thread to bring his vivid but disparate imaginings together. Tolkien finally enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers whilst working on ideas of Earendel [sic] the Mariner, who became a star, and his journeyings. For many months Tolkien was kept in boring suspense in England, mainly in Staffordshire. Finally it appeared that he must soon embark for France, and he and Edith married in Warwick on 22 March 1916.

Eventually he was indeed sent to active duty on the Western Front, just in time for the Somme offensive. After four months in and out of the trenches, he succumbed to “trench fever”, a form of typhus-like infection common in the insanitary conditions, and in early November was sent back to England, where he spent the next month in hospital in Birmingham. By Christmas he had recovered sufficiently to stay with Edith at Great Haywood in Staffordshire.

During these last few months, all but one of his close friends of the “T. C. B. S.” had been killed in action. Partly as an act of piety to their memory, but also stirred by reaction against his war experiences, he had already begun to put his stories into shape, “… in huts full of blasphemy and smut, or by candle light in bell-tents, even some down in dugouts under shell fire” [Letters 66]. This ordering of his imagination developed into the Book of Lost Tales (not published in his lifetime), in which most of the major stories of the Silmarillion appear in their first form: tales of the Elves and the “Gnomes”, (i. e. Deep Elves, the later Noldor), with their languages Qenya and Goldogrin. Here are found the first recorded versions of the wars against Morgoth, the siege and fall of Gondolin and Nargothrond, and the tales of Túrin and of Beren and Lúthien.

Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, although periods of remission enabled him to do home service at various camps sufficiently well to be promoted to lieutenant. It was when he was stationed in the Hull area that he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and there in a grove thick with hemlock Edith danced for him. This was the inspiration for the tale of Beren and Lúthien, a recurrent theme in his “Legendarium”. He came to think of Edith as “Lúthien” and himself as “Beren”. Their first son, John Francis Reuel (later Father John Tolkien) had already been born on 16 November 1917.

When the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918, Tolkien had already been putting out feelers to obtain academic employment, and by the time he was demobilised he had been appointed Assistant Lexicographer on the New English Dictionary (the “Oxford English Dictionary”), then in preparation. While doing the serious philological work involved in this, he also gave one of his Lost Tales its first public airing—he read The Fall of Gondolin to the Exeter College Essay Club, where it was well received by an audience which included Neville Coghill and Hugo Dyson, two future “Inklings”. However, Tolkien did not stay in this job for long. In the summer of 1920 he applied for the quite senior post of Reader (approximately, Associate Professor) in English Language at the University of Leeds, and to his surprise was appointed.

At Leeds as well as teaching he collaborated with E. V. Gordon on the famous edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and continued writing and refining The Book of Lost Tales and his invented “Elvish” languages. In addition, he and Gordon founded a “Viking Club” for undergraduates devoted mainly to reading Old Norse sagas and drinking beer. It was for this club that he and Gordon originally wrote their Songs for the Philologists, a mixture of traditional songs and original verses translated into Old English, Old Norse and Gothic to fit traditional English tunes. Leeds also saw the birth of two more sons: Michael Hilary Reuel in October 1920, and Christopher Reuel in 1924. Then in 1925 the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford fell vacant; Tolkien successfully applied for the post.

Professor Tolkien, The Inklings and Hobbits

In a sense, in returning to Oxford as a Professor, Tolkien had come home. Although he had few illusions about the academic life as a haven of unworldly scholarship (see for example Letters 250), he was nevertheless by temperament a don’s don, and fitted extremely well into the largely male world of teaching, research, the comradely exchange of ideas and occasional publication. In fact, his academic publication record is very sparse, something that would have been frowned upon in these days of quantitative personnel evaluation.

However, his rare scholarly publications were often extremely influential, most notably his lecture “Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics”. His seemingly almost throwaway comments have sometimes helped to transform the understanding of a particular field—for example, in his essay on “English and Welsh”, with its explanation of the origins of the term “Welsh” and its references to phonaesthetics (both these pieces are collected in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, currently in print). His academic life was otherwise largely unremarkable. In 1945 he changed his chair to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, which he retained until his retirement in 1959. Apart from all the above, he taught undergraduates, and played an important but unexceptional part in academic politics and administration.

His family life was equally straightforward. Edith bore their last child and only daughter, Priscilla, in 1929. Tolkien got into the habit of writing the children annual illustrated letters as if from Santa Claus, and a selection of these was published in 1976 as The Father Christmas Letters. He also told them numerous bedtime stories, of which more anon. In adulthood John entered the priesthood, Michael and Christopher both saw war service in the Royal Air Force. Afterwards Michael became a schoolmaster and Christopher a university lecturer, and Priscilla became a social worker. They lived quietly in North Oxford, and later Ronald and Edith lived in the suburb of Headington.

However, Tolkien’s social life was far from unremarkable. He soon became one of the founder members of a loose grouping of Oxford friends (by no means all at the University) with similar interests, known as “The Inklings”. The origins of the name were purely facetious—it had to do with writing, and sounded mildly Anglo-Saxon; there was no evidence that members of the group claimed to have an “inkling” of the Divine Nature, as is sometimes suggested. Other prominent members included the above—mentioned Messrs Coghill and Dyson, as well as Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, and above all C. S. Lewis, who became one of Tolkien’s closest friends, and for whose return to Christianity Tolkien was at least partly responsible. The Inklings regularly met for conversation, drink, and frequent reading from their work-in-progress.

The Storyteller

Meanwhile Tolkien continued developing his mythology and languages. As mentioned above, he told his children stories, some of which he developed into those published posthumously as Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, etc. However, according to his own account, one day when he was engaged in the soul-destroying task of marking examination papers, he discovered that one candidate had left one page of an answer-book blank. On this page, moved by who knows what anarchic daemon, he wrote “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit“.

In typical Tolkien fashion, he then decided he needed to find out what a Hobbit was, what sort of a hole it lived in, why it lived in a hole, etc. From this investigation grew a tale that he told to his younger children, and even passed round. In 1936 an incomplete typescript of it came into the hands of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the publishing firm of George Allen and Unwin (merged in 1990 with HarperCollins).

She asked Tolkien to finish it, and presented the complete story to Stanley Unwin, the then Chairman of the firm. He tried it out on his 10-year old son Rayner, who wrote an approving report, and it was published as The Hobbit in 1937. It immediately scored a success, and has not been out of children’s recommended reading lists ever since. It was so successful that Stanley Unwin asked if he had any more similar material available for publication.

By this time Tolkien had begun to make his Legendarium into what he believed to be a more presentable state, and as he later noted, hints of it had already made their way into The Hobbit. He was now calling the full account Quenta Silmarillion, or Silmarillion for short. He presented some of his “completed” tales to Unwin, who sent them to his reader. The reader’s reaction was mixed: dislike of the poetry and praise for the prose (the material was the story of Beren and Lúthien) but the overall decision at the time was that these were not commercially publishable. Unwin tactfully relayed this message to Tolkien, but asked him again if he was willing to write a sequel to The Hobbit. Tolkien was disappointed at the apparent failure of The Silmarillion, but agreed to take up the challenge of “The New Hobbit”.

This soon developed into something much more than a children’s story; for the highly complex 16-year history of what became The Lord of the Rings consult the works listed below. Suffice it to say that the now adult Rayner Unwin was deeply involved in the later stages of this opus, dealing magnificently with a dilatory and temperamental author who, at one stage, was offering the whole work to a commercial rival (which rapidly backed off when the scale and nature of the package became apparent). It is thanks to Rayner Unwin’s advocacy that we owe the fact that this book was published at all – Andave laituvalmes! His father’s firm decided to incur the probable loss of £1,000 for the succès d’estime, and publish it under the title of The Lord of the Rings in three parts during 1954 and 1955, with USA rights going to Houghton Mifflin. It soon became apparent that both author and publishers had greatly underestimated the work’s public appeal.

The “Cult”

The Lord of the Rings rapidly came to public notice. It had mixed reviews, ranging from the ecstatic (W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis) to the damning (E. Wilson, E. Muir, P. Toynbee) and just about everything in between. The BBC put on a drastically condensed radio adaptation in 12 episodes on the Third Programme. In 1956 radio was still a dominant medium in Britain, and the Third Programme was the “intellectual” channel. So far from losing money, sales so exceeded the break-even point as to make Tolkien regret that he had not taken early retirement. However, this was still based only upon hardback sales.

The really amazing moment was when The Lord of the Rings went into a pirated paperback version in 1965. Firstly, this put the book into the impulse-buying category; and secondly, the publicity generated by the copyright dispute alerted millions of American readers to the existence of something outside their previous experience, but which appeared to speak to their condition. By 1968 The Lord of the Rings had almost become the Bible of the “Alternative Society”.

This development produced mixed feelings in the author. On the one hand, he was extremely flattered, and to his amazement, became rather rich. On the other, he could only deplore those whose idea of a great trip was to ingest The Lord of the Rings and LSD simultaneously. Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick had similar experiences with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fans were causing increasing problems; both those who came to gawp at his house and those, especially from California who telephoned at 7 p.m. (their time—3 a.m. his), to demand to know whether Frodo had succeeded or failed in the Quest, what was the preterite of Quenyan lanta-, or whether or not Balrogs had wings. So he changed addresses, his telephone number went ex-directory, and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth, a pleasant but uninspiring South Coast resort (Hardy’s “Sandbourne”), noted for the number of its elderly well-to-do residents.

Meanwhile the cult, not just of Tolkien, but of the fantasy literature that he had revived, if not actually inspired (to his dismay), was really taking off—but that is another story, to be told in another place.

Other Writings

Despite all the fuss over The Lord of the Rings, between 1925 and his death Tolkien did write and publish a number of other articles, including a range of scholarly essays, many reprinted in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (see above); one Middle-earth related work, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil; editions and translations of Middle English works such as the Ancrene Wisse, Sir Gawain, Sir Orfeo and The Pearl, and some stories independent of the Legendarium, such as the Imram, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun—and, especially, Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf by Niggle, and Smith of Wootton Major.

The flow of publications was only temporarily slowed by Tolkien’s death. The long-awaited Silmarillion, edited by Christopher Tolkien, appeared in 1977. In 1980 Christopher also published a selection of his father’s incomplete writings from his later years under the title of Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. In the introduction to this work Christopher Tolkien referred in passing to The Book of Lost Tales, “itself a very substantial work, of the utmost interest to one concerned with the origins of Middle-earth, but requiring to be presented in a lengthy and complex study, if at all” (Unfinished Tales, p. 6, paragraph 1).

The sales of The Silmarillion had rather taken George Allen & Unwin by surprise, and those of Unfinished Tales even more so. Obviously, there was a market even for this relatively abstruse material and they decided to risk embarking on this “lengthy and complex study”. Even more lengthy and complex than expected, the resulting 12 volumes of the History of Middle-earth, under Christopher’s editorship, proved to be a successful enterprise. (Tolkien’s publishers had changed hands, and names, several times between the start of the enterprise in 1983 and the appearance of the paperback edition of Volume 12, The Peoples of Middle-earth, in 1997.) Over time, other posthumous publications emerged including Roverandom (1998), The Children of Húrin (2007), Beowulf (2014), Beren and Lúthien (2017), and most recently The Fall of Gondolin (2018).

Finis

After his retirement in 1959 Edith and Ronald moved to Bournemouth. On 29 November 1971 Edith died, and Ronald soon returned to Oxford, to rooms provided by Merton College. Ronald died on 2 September 1973. He and Edith are buried together in a single grave in the Catholic section of Wolvercote cemetery in the northern suburbs of Oxford. (The grave is well signposted from the entrance.) The legend on the headstone reads:

Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889–1971

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892–1973

Source

https://www.tolkiensociety.org/author/biography/

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jiji-infires · 7 years

Text

APRICITY (pt. 9)

OC X JUNGKOOK

GENRE: FLUFF, ANGST

WORD COUNT: 3K

SYNOPSIS: When his roommate moves out to live with his girlfriend, Jungkook is faced with a new reality, one that includes a 5′3′’ sac of bones that is too nerdy and curious for his liking.

CHAPTER 9

Jungkook wakes up to the sound of heavy rain, violently smashing his window and threatening to shatter it. Rainy days are his favourite; he gets to appreciate the warmth of his blanket more and the rhythm in which it rains creates a pleasant atmosphere for him to continue drawing.

Today, unfortunately, he won’t be going near any pens or papers, for he has far more important tasks he has to prioritise. Today, he will be meeting his mother, a gathering he anticipates, yet dreads. He has no idea what the consequences can be, but he can only hope that they’ll reach a mutual understanding.

It’s six in the morning, too early for a Sunday, but he has already taken a shower and is now putting his clothes so he can head out.

After almost a five hours drive without any pauses, he finally arrives at his destination, hungry and tired. Driving through the neighbourhood brings memories to his mind, especially when the gate to his house opens up and there’s always the same guard at the door.

He steps out of his Porsche and an umbrella is immediately held above his head, to shield him from the rain. Jungkook takes the umbrella and climbs a small set of stairs and presses a white bell that glows with a faint yellow light. Seconds later, the door is opened by a young maid who he can’t even remember; it seems she’s a new one since she can’t recognise him.

“How may I help you?” she asks and just when he’s about to open his mouth he hears his mother’s piercing voice.

“Jungkook!” she runs to him and just when he steps further in the house, she throws herself on him. The boy almost loses his balance, so he wraps is arms around her to hold her, and to hold on to her.

“I missed you so much” her face is buried in the crook of his neck and he can only hum in response, hoping that it’s enough to convey his message. “How have you been?”she holds his face in her palms.

“I’m alright”

Jungkook sits awkwardly in the living room of his own house that looks twice as big as his current apartment; not that his current house is small, but his old one is excessively large.

The excitement on his mother's face is more than obvious as she looks like she wants to hold him captive there forever. He understands.

"What do you wanna eat for lunch honey?" She asks and he just shrugs; he'd be lying if he says that he's not hungry after a continuous five hours drive.

"Anything" he replies and she nods eagerly, heading to the kitchen, while he jogs upstairs to his room.

Jisoo wakes up to Juno licking her fingers. It’s a rainy Sunday morning and she doesn’t know what to do with her day; she finished reading her fantasy book and she needs another one, and she has already sorted her ideas for the upcoming project with Ten.

She leaves her room after thirty minutes of pure spacing out, heading to the kitchen to make some breakfast for her as well as her roommate, only to find out that Jungkook has already left. It takes her by surprise since he wakes up until midday when it’s Sunday.

After having a quick breakfast and cleaning the house, she waits until it isn’t raining as heavily as before. She takes a warm shower and changes into skinny jeans, combat boots and her khaki bomber jacket; a gift from the king of eye smiles himself, Park Jimin.

“That’ll be 9,000 won” the cashier says as he hands her a small box that contains a selection of strawberry green tea flavoured macaroons. She pays with an internal sigh and leaves and heads out, trying to remember where the store was.

The bus she took led her to Hongdae and she’s determined to find the woman who gave her the dress. Sure macaroons won’t be as expensive as the dress she was gifted, but she sincerely hopes those sweet treats will convey her gratitude.

Fifteen minutes later, she’s climbing the stairs to the second floor where the store is. The place is the same as last time, except that the clothes aren’t the same anymore; it seems like they’ve got a new collection. Jisoo moves further inside and towards the receptionist who smiles upon her arrival.

“Hi” she says, “I need to ask you something”

“Sure! Do you have anything particular in mind?” the late twenties woman asks. “No, not about a dress” Jisoo clarifies, “a woman, I think she’s the owner of this place. I just came to thank her for her gift”

“A gift?” the receptionist is confused, “the owner is actually a man”

At this Jisoo frowns; she’s pretty sure that the person who she met last time is a woman. She’s quick to reach for her phone and hunt for a photo she has taken of herself wearing the lace dress, which she shows to the woman whose eyebrows jump a little.

“This dress was given to me a week ago. A woman was here and she insisted that I take it”

The woman looks up the dress reference on her computer that displays details of the dress; when was it bought, by whom, and how much.

“Oh! It was Mrs. Song who bought it” she chirps with recognition, “she’s one of our best customers”

“Where can I find her?” Jisoo asks her with eagerness. She now wants to find the person more than ever after what the nice receptionist has told her. Why would a random person she doesn’t even know buy her a dress that costs a fortune?

Jisoo finds herself standing few feet away from one of the largest banking services firms in the country; Seinan Financial group. The building is overwhelmingly massive, sticking out like a giant needle piercing the ground, and the longer she looks up at it, the more she feels like if would collapse on her.

She walks to the reception desk and asks if she can meet Mrs. Song, unfortunately for her the receptionist here is not as nice as the one in the store, and she curtly asks her to wait until she verifies if she can meet her. Jisoo sits on one of the leather chairs, her macaroons box awkwardly resting on her idle thighs; she kind of regrets coming in the first place; what if the woman sends her away? What if she’s bothering her?

She is dragged back out of her contemplation trance with the voice of the woman who beckons her, and she is lead to the elevator that whisks her up to one of the highest floors. And after what seems like a decade, she is escorted inside an office, a very large one to say the least.

She is amazed at how clinic it looks and how it’s modern yet simply designed with white and grey furniture. She wants to look around more but a clearing of the throat catches her attention and she turns around to find the woman in question rising from her chair that hid a perfect view of the metropolis. The woman approaches her with a warm smile but she looks somehow ... nervous.

“I’m sorry if I came without an appointment” Jisoo is the first to speak, apologizing for her lack of courtesy. Mrs. Song waves it off, excitement showing on her features as she ushers the girl to the L-shaped couch at the far end of the bureau.

“This a pleasant surprise” she is genuine as she utter those words while staring fondly at Jisoo who can only muster a shy smile as she hands her the box.

“This is something I picked up on my way; I hope you like them”

The woman can only gasp in pure surprise, her eyes darting from the younger female to the box “How did you know I liked green tea macaroons?”

“I honestly picked those I liked the most– green tea ones, and another random flavour” she replies sheepishly and the older female can’t help but smile warmly at her. She orders coffee for both of them and they enjoy sweet heaven on earth.

Mrs. Song notices that Jisoo has something bugging her, like she wants to say something but she’s hesitating.

“You must be wondering why I gave you the dress, right?” she says as if she can exactly read what’s on Jisoo’s mind. “The moment I saw you, I had a very weird flashback, especially when we talked”

“You said I reminded you of someone”

“Yes,” the woman replies, putting down her coffee “You remind me of a man I used to know. Very calm and serene demeanour, you move and talk in a composed way, yet I can see in your eyes a power that can stir the oceans. Quiet like a butterfly”

Jisoo finds herself staring at the woman in awe, not really comprehending what she’s referring to but it plays in her head over and over, and it jogs her memory back to when her father used to call her a butterfly. Her eyes start to water but she’s quick to blink the tears back.

Minutes pass as they talk some more, and Jisoo stands up, feeling like she has taken quiet a lot of the woman’s time. Mrs. Song takes Jisoo’s hands in hers, asking her to comeback once again and the girl nods eagerly with a smile on her face.

Just when she makes it to the door, she catches a glimpse of a photo situated of the wooden desk. A very young Mrs. Song, probably mid twenties, sitting on a chair with a man standing above her. What the woman says next sounds muffled to Jisoo who nods absentmindedly, everything from bidding her goodbye, to travelling down to the depths of the building; the blur continues until she’s a few feet away from the building, trying to understand what she just saw. What was her father doing in that picture?

She climbs the stairsup to her house, body coming through the door but head elsewhere. Her father looked a couple of years younger than when he passed away and looked far happier than he was in the last few years, and Mrs. Song looked just as youthful in that picture, with her hair reaching her waist, nothing compared to the bob cut she has now; the picture looks like it was taken before her father got married. She almost steps on Juno's tail if the poor dog didn't yelp at the right time.

Jungkook is already in the house and is now setting his PS 4 when he notices Jisoo's form walking aimlessly and sitting on the couch next to him.

"Everything alright?" He asks

"Huh?... Oh, yeah, I'm fine" she replies and the boy doesn't fail to recognise the confusion that's plastered on her face; living with her for a while now he'd say that it's her face whenever she hits blunt.

"Do you wanna play?"

"Sure" she says as she takes the controller from him, "I'm a terrible player thou, so take it easy on me"

Jungkook only grins as he gets his head in the game. He honestly doesn't know how she does it, but she almost crashes into every car and every item that comes near her. Her face scrunches as she holds on to the controller for dear life, repeating a silent mantra in her head. Jungkook on the other hand is biting his lip to stifle his laugh, stealing looks at her struggling form.

The game ends with his victory of course and Jisoo sighs loudly.

"You’re a terrible player, I'm sorry"

"Told you" they both chuckle and she stands up, saying that she'll head to her room to get some sleep, when he stops her.

"Aren't you hungry? I brought some Thai food on my way home" he doesn’t want to eat alone, not after they got to know each other better and they got used to one another’s presence.

Her mouth waters at the mention of it; she hasn't really eaten anything the whole day aside from the insignificant bites of macaroons with the lady on the picture with her father, and she honestly can't remember the last time she has savoured something Thai. All she knows is that at the moment she has some weird food cravings and she can practically eat anything as long as it tastes good.

She nods at Jungkook who can only smile and moves to set food on the table while she goes to her room to change into pyjama pants and a cotton sweater.

Jisoo feels an uncomfortable humidity between her legs and she prays that it's not that time of the month again as she slowly pushes down her pants.

"Crap" she mutters under her breath when she sees a dark red stain on her cotton undergarments, confirming what she dreads each month; because not only it comes with extreme pain, but also she can't even recognise her own self when she's on her period.

She reluctantly grabs some clean clothes and a towel and twists the door of her room open to reveal a startled Jungkook with his fist awkwardly hung midair.

"Uh... Dinner is ready" he says sheepishly and her face instantly reddens. Internally, she feels uncomfortable with her current situation and the boy asking her to come eat.

"Ahm... Just get started without me, I'm gonna take a quick shower"

Jungkook feels the uneasiness in her voice and the sudden change of her skin coloration, but he doesn’t want to press it by asking her if everything is alright; in fact she has been acting weird since she came back.

“I’ll wait for you” he says and feels awkward right after those words leave his mouth; it’s as if the four words sentence held more meaning than he intended to deliver, and it doesn’t take that much time to sink into Jisoo’s head who only gulps down the lump in her throat as she looks at his with an unwavering gaze, and he can’t help but stare at the warm maroon colour of her iris, wondering if she can remember his eyes from that rainy afternoon at the library.

After she takes a quick shower and wears her clothes, she joins him for dinner over the small table they have by the living room area. They eat in comfortable silence before the girl breaks it with one of her daily question on nights they sit to eat together.

“Anything interesting today?” she asks, hoping that he’ll tell her where he has been since early in the morning, for the guy doesn’t get up until it’s midday. She wants to slap herself for asking that because his response starts with a long sigh and it kind of throws her off.

“I went to Busan to see my mother”

“Oh... how is she?” she enquires out of sheer politeness and Jungkook smiles at her in a fond way. “She’s doing fine” he answers, “She just needed to see me, that’s all”

She nods and continues eating, rotating from one dish to another.

“How about your mom? When are you going to see her?” his question makes her halt her movements, a slice to mushrooms sliding from her chopsticks and falling back to the plate. She swallows hard.

“I don’t know where she is... she left when I was five” she clarifies. Jisoo doesn’t know where her mother is now, if she’s dead or alive, married or not, if she has other siblings, and every time she’s reminded of her she tells herself that she doesn’t care, but deep down it hurts to know that she left her only daughter just because she couldn’t put up with her dad. She also doesn’t want Jungkook to feel bad for asking the question in the first place or to pity her.

“I’m really sorry to ask; I had no idea” he apologizes, the sweet pork skewers leaving a bitter aftertaste in the back of his tongue; he doesn’t feel hungry anymore.

“Don’t be; people leave, everything changes”

Jungkook is about to say something, when the sound of the bell interrupts him in the process of forming words. Jisoo jumps from her place and beats him to the door, and when she opens it she steps back, taken by surprise by the foreign person standing before her.

“Can I ... can I speak to J-Jungkook?” the man stutters with a slur, almost tumbling forward. The fool smell coming from him tells her that he’s probably drunk.

“Jungkook!” she yells at him without moving her eyes an inch from the guy slumping against the frame of her door that she considers closing, but Jungkook is right behind her, looking as stupefied as she is.

“Hyung? What are you doing here?” he asks him, and Jisoo can’t help but watch her roommate drag the drunk guy in, who has very strange colour to his hair; mint.

“I need to tell you... some–” he hiccups, “–something” trying to stand straight, he latches himself on Jungkook’s shoulders, who only stares at him in utter confusion.

“Hoseok, he wanted you ... I wanted to tell you that” the man with mint hair squints his eyes as he tries to focus on forming comprehensible words, but he fails miserably after he collapses on the couch behind his knees. He snores softly against the fabric of the couch as the pair hovers over his crumpling figure, and Jisoo can’t help but voice out her curiosity.

“Who’s this guy?” she solicits, her eyebrows knitted forward in a baffled frown. Jungkook only sighs and drapes a blanket over him, his expression matching hers, except that his curiosity is spiked by the nonsense he heard.

“That’s Yoongi hyung.”

#bts #BTS jungkook #bts strories #bts scenarios #jungkook #jungkook x oc

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justjessame · 4 years

Text

Diamonds Are A Boy’s Best Friend Chapter 6

I wasn’t prepared for him to call. Or for him to keep calling. He was careful. He only called when my father wasn’t home, which made me wonder if he was watching the house. Paranoia, a Diamond family trait.

“Liz! Phone!” Lily would call up the stairs, and the first and every other time he'd call.

“Hello?” I was curious. No one had called me since I arrived in Miami, why now?

“Liz?” I heard the click on the downstairs extension telling me Lily had hung up. “Liz, it’s Ike.”

“Hello, Ike.” I felt a flutter in my stomach but forced it away. He was married, remember?

“I was wondering if you were planning on coming out tonight?” No, I wasn’t, but before I could answer he started tempting me. “We’re having-” And he’d give me a band’s name. A special dish. A drink I hadn’t tried.

“I think I’m going to stay in tonight, Ike, but thank you for letting me know.” And I’d start to say goodbye.

“Liz, come on.” He’d plead, almost begging, almost. “You’ll have a good time.”

“I think staying in is a better idea, but thank you, Ike.” And I’d hang up until the next time Father left the house.

It was a repeat, each and every time. I’d answer, reluctantly, but still tempted to hear him. He’d give me all the reasons to come out and play with him. And I’d beg off. Hanging up before anything was said that could be misinterpreted.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. Strangely, even as he tempted me to help him cheat on his wife, I found Ike Evans honorable. It was that I didn’t trust my father, or Lily, because the tension had returned. They spoke, but it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t simple or playful. There was an undercurrent and I knew it was dangerous.

No, I wouldn’t add Ike to my father’s list. A list that I feared had Lily’s name at the top.

“I think you should go out, Liz.” I sighed into the magazine that I’d procured from Lily’s pile. “In fact, I think you should stay the night at Miramar.” What? I looked up at him. He was smiling as though he were offering me a gift. “Not just a night. Take a week. A week with a fresh view.”

“You want me to take a vacation to a hotel down the block from your house?” I asked, certain I was hearing him wrong.

“I want to know how the hotel looks and feels from fresh eyes, Liz.” He explained, taking the seat next to me. “Your eyes, they’re unbiased, they’ll tell me whether my investment is worthwhile or not.”

“So you want me to spy on Mr. Evans?” I clarified. “That doesn’t sound like much of a vacation.” I smirked, but agreed. Why not? I could stay in my room the entire time and be alone.

I packed up a suitcase. Including my bikini and dress cover. I packed books, and my sunglasses. I took nice dresses and my nightgowns. And shaking my head at the absurdity of this entire endeavor I left to go on my ‘vacation’.

“Hello, I’m checking in.” I offered at the front desk.

“Yes, you are.” Ike offered from behind me. “Hand me the key to the -- Suite.” I turned to see him looking down on me like he’d been given a gift. “Come along, Miss Diamond, let me show you to your room.” He took my bag in one hand as I carried my toiletry case.

“You don’t look surprised to see me.” I offered once we were out of earshot. “In fact, you look quite happy to see me.”

“I’m always happy to see you, Liz.” He tossed back as he held the elevator for me. “I’m not surprised. Who do you think fed the idea of your ‘vacation’ to your dad?”

“He’ll kill you.” I breathed. Happy we had the elevator to ourselves. “If he figures it out, and he will, you’ll be dead.”

“Sounds like you care, Liz.” He smiled at me and I wanted to smack him. “Don’t worry. You’re going to give Ben a glowing report. It’ll be fine.”

“I’m going to give my father a glowing report, am I?” I was, but I wasn’t ready to let him brag about it.

“After all the personal service you’re going to get, Liz, the report is going to glow in the dark.” A twist of pure lust hit me hard. Heavens. “Now let me show you to your suite.”

It was amazing. Open and airy. Muted colors, but still luxurious. I took a look around as he sat my case carefully on the foot of the bed. “Let me take that,” he took my toiletry case and disappeared into what I imagined was the bathroom.

I stayed at the floor length window and stared at the crashing waves. His heat told me he was closing in, followed quickly by his musky scent. And then his arms wrapped around me from behind and his head was on top of mine. I closed my eyes and let myself enjoy the feel of him. His strength. The pounding of his heart through his suit and tie.

“I’m glad you’re here, Liz.” His voice was rough, harsher than I’d ever heard it. “Turn around?”

I opened my eyes and looked up at him as I turned. “Ike, we shouldn’t-” He cut me off with a kiss, one that I wish I could say I pulled away from, but that would be a lie. I won’t say I pushed at him to try to fight it. My fingers were in his hair, holding him tight to me, as his hands found my lower back and pulled my body flush with his. I could feel how hard he was. How much I affected him.

“Why not, Liz?” He asked again, different words, same question. “Why can’t we?” His fingers were sliding my zipper down, even as I fought to remember why we shouldn’t. Then his bare hands met my bare skin, and thinking wasn’t possible. “You want this too, don’t you?”

I bit his bottom lip in answer and licked into his mouth. “Stop talking, Ike.” And then my dress was puddled around my heels, and I was pushing his suit jacket from his shoulders.

“Red?” He asked, touching the lace of my bra, and then cupping me through my underwear.

“Someone mentioned I might look nice in the color.” I answered, pulling his tie free from his shirt. “You’re still talking.”

“I think someone told you you’d look amazing in-” I kissed him hard, praying he understood. Talking to me, reminding me of why we shouldn’t would force me to stop. “No talking, understood.” And then his fingers found the clasp on my bra and all talking stopped as we worked to see who looked best in the flesh.

Once we were both gloriously naked, and I say that word with no sarcasm, because Ike Evans was glorious naked, we finally found the bed. His chest hair, the tanned skin, and every single inch of him was tempting me to taste. One of us kicked my suitcase off the end. And then I allowed the temptation to overtake me and I started tasting his neck. Salty, but definitely delicious. His chest, salt with a hint of his musk. His abdomen, definitely worthy of attention, even if I couldn’t place the flavor. And then, situated between his spread legs, I took in a most particular delicacy. Licking from the bottom of his rigid length to the swollen tip, I felt his hips rise from the mattress. My eyes met his as my mouth engulfed him and I heard and saw his sigh. Humming at a flavor uniquely Ike, I took my time tasting and teasing.

“Liz,” he gasped, but I didn’t move. “Liz, damn it, get up here.” An order? Really. And then, his hands met my cheeks and my eyes locked back on his. “Please, Liz.” Ah, that’s better.

Releasing him with a loud pop, I wiped my chin with my thumb. “Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Evans?”

And then I was underneath his weight, and my giggles mingled with his laugh, but all joking stopped as he slid inside of me. “Next time,” he swore, our eyes meeting again. “Next time, I’m having you for lunch.” And then he moved and our lips met and nothing else mattered. Nothing except me, him, and this bed. My legs wrapped around his waist, letting him slide just a touch deeper and we both moaned loud enough that I hoped the walls were well insulated. “Damn, Liz.” His thrusts began slowly, leisurely, teasing.

“Faster, Ike, please.” And like he’d promised in the elevator, he gave me his personal attention, and gave me everything I asked for and more. “Harder.” I swore we’d break the bed, as hard as he was going, but I didn’t care. I grazed his shoulder with my teeth, careful not to leave a mark, but wanting so badly to. “Yes.” He hit that spot, the elusive one and finding it once, he returned to it. Until I was screaming, and he was trying to swallow my noise with his mouth, even as his own pleasure took him over.

He stayed cradled over me. Kissing my lips, my forehead, my cheeks, my neck. “Liz,” he muttered, saying my name over and over, as though reminding himself and me, just who gave him that release.

It took me some time to regain my breath. And to calm my pounding heart, but my hands busied themselves with memorizing every muscle in his back. The curve of his backside. Numbering the hairs on his head and chest. This might be the worst idea, but it felt incredibly right.

He had to leave, of course, the workings of a hotel without its owner was unimaginable. But he kissed me breathless, and it took him longer to get his clothes back on than it had probably taken him to get dressed this morning. And then, handing me the room key, he kissed my nose and told me not to forget dinner.

“I’m planning on room service tonight.” I answered, feeling the pleasant ache grow from the exercise I’d just performed. “Have a good evening, Ike.”

“You too, Liz.” And it wasn’t until the door closed that it came rushing back to me. My father. His wife. And all the reasons why we shouldn’t have given in.

#magic city #Ike evans x ofc #ben diamond's daughter #Smut #mutual pining #alternative universe

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greaterthannine-blog · 6 years

Text

Sai Bu Shan: Another China Story

Roots 07/02/2018

BEHOLD, MY GOOD PEOPLE! The second of my two abnormally long and wordy “Roots” posts! Isn’t this thrilling? (Yes, yes it is. Agree with me). Here in Sai Bu Shan: Another China Story I discuss my time spent in my Tom 譚 village in Toisan. This post is long, though not as lengthy and drawling as the last one (Sui Bo Huey: A China Story), yet that’s because I only visited my Tom village once, rather than twice like I did for Sui Bo Huey. Which, I might add, is a good thing. Because it means my visit to Sai Bu Shan was more than satisfactory and didn’t warrant a revisit. Overall: Snazzy.

Anywhosen, in addition to couple images I managed to shoot myself during this visit (Thank they universe they let me shoot my own photographs!), I also included images shot by our leader Al, which I have again crafted to look like film photographs (because differentiation is key). And while not as lengthy as my last Roots post, there’s still a decent amount of verbiage on this page, so if you actually read my wordy brain vomit, and somewhat begrudgingly enjoy reading it, you might (just might) like this post. Anyway, I have nothing else to add in this little intro-bit, so please continue to the paragraphs directly to the right of this page.

你們謝謝 & Merci

Isabella | Abe | 許綺芳 | Huie Yee-Fong | Xǔ Qǐ-Fāng

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My Tom/Tan [譚] Village ______________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

YOU WOULD THINK THAT because I am much closer with this side of my Chinese family, that I would know much more information about our heritage, but I didn’t and don’t. In Sui Bo Huey: A China Story I discussed my ancestral village on my maternal grandfather’s side of the family for which we have the paper name Chin (which is actually my legal middle name) but the real surname of Huie/Xu. On my maternal grandmother’s side of the family, we hold the paper name Low, but with a real surname of Tom (Cantonese)/Tan (Mandarin). Now I’ve mentioned the term “paper name” twice; I will explain that later.

Refocus! Despite how I see my Low/Tom family two to three times a year, village and family information was much sparser, so I went to China with very low expectations. Through research I had several photographs of distant family members visiting the village; I had images of the village gate, and entryway to our ancestral home. However, while I knew that the house where my ancestors lived still existed, I didn’t know the address or of anyone who remembered it’s exact whereabouts. I also knew that the entire Tom family immigrated to the United States, so there wouldn’t be any relatives there to greet me like many of my fellow Rooters had. That being said, this visit to Sai Bu Shan was a shocking but pleasant surprise.

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第六七: 台山

Day Seven: Toisan [Taishan]

07/02/2018

PORTRAIT PHOTOS: Al Cheng

PHOTOGRAPHY, PORTRAIT POST-PROCESSING & COMMENTARY:

Isabella Xu

FIRST OFF, I MAY OR MAY NOT have lied to you. Contrary to every title heading on this page, I’ve lied to you in that this story does not quite begin on July 2nd, 2018. Rather the beginning of my Sai Bu Shan story begins three days prior, during our first day in Toisan. Assembled in the bus that morning, we began driving to another rooter’s village. Only around five minutes from the hotel, alongside the road, we passed by an elementary school completely encompassed by walls. Running along this wall and adjacent to the road was a sidewalk. As we slowly puttered by, at the end of the wall and the correspondingly ending sidewalk, there was an old woman squatting and peeling fruit from an enormous blue basket. Directly left of where the sidewalk ended, and set twenty feet back was a tall structure of some sort, but with my gaze so intently set on the woman peeling fruit, I only noticed her immediate vicinity with detail. Still watching her, Sifu continues forth and the bus turns a corner, and the structure, the sidewalk, and the woman peeling fruit disappear. I turn to face forward in my seat and the image I just observed dissipates from my mind.

Three days later, the morning of my rooting, I hopped onto the bus with the lowest of low expectations for my Tom village that day. As mentioned in the beginning of this post, my knowledge of this family line was so limited (and still is limited) that I envisioned this visit to be exceptionally brief and wholly uneventful. My prediction: We’d step off the bus, waddle around for a bit, point at the greater community and exclaim, “Hooray, that’s my village!” shoot a few photographs (because I was finally allowed and given ample time to photograph my own goddamn village) then we’d clamber back on the bus then leave. Well, that prediction was wrong.

As I sat beside Al on the bus, trundling along Toisan city roads, I peered out the window watching passersby and Toisan residents milling about their day. It was a sleepy Monday morning; kids were walking to school, business owners were opening shop, elder folks were chatting in gossip circles, and everything in between. I was so engrossed with examining peoples’ behavior that I was struck when we suddenly came to a halt, the bus doors beeped and squeaked, gaping open to a grey sky.

While everyone streamed off the bus, heavily surprised by our brief five-minute bus journey, I looked out the window again to see where we were, and my brain realized our location. Through the window pane my line of sight instantly laid upon the same wall and sidewalk where the old woman peeling fruit perched just three days prior. That scene with the old woman wasn’t even notably striking (that sounds insensitive lol), but despite that, I instantaneously recognized the area. I turned my gaze to the left and saw that the structure I hazily remembered was actually a village gate, and better yet, I identified it as the village gate in photographs I found in my research. Excited about the trivial connection I made, I turned to Al and exclaimed, “I saw this place the other day! There was an old woman peeling fruit right there, and I remember watching her as we drove by when going to Jeremy’s village! I can’t believe I didn’t recognize it then!” to which I received a grumble equivalent to a, “Oh, neat.” But reveling in my irrelevant realization, I slid off my seat, camera slung around my neck and head over to begin my insignificant rooting.

After jumping off the bus, we assembled to take a group photo with the Sai Bu Shan village gate, and almost immediately afterwards the grey heavens released the floodgates and a downpour ensues. We took shelter underneath the huge awning of a convenience/knick knack store at the front of the village to wait out the rain; hopefully. Al took the documents I had and along with our young whippersnapper government official Ray, began talking with village representatives and residents to see if they could uncover anything that might be useful in our rooting. They sat at a table during these discussions, and I padded around awkwardly until Al waved me over and said,

“You need to be a part of this. There are some important things happening.”

“But I don’t even know what they’re saying.”

“Well, still. You must be here. It’s your rooting.”

He made an excellently fair point, so I sat beside him as phone calls and discussions continued. This whole time, Ray was on the phone, chatting with who knows who, when his face lit up like a full moon. He said something to Al, then hands to phone over. Al and whomever was on the phone have an animated talk, and after it ended he looked apprehensive yet thrilled at the same time; he now knew something I didn’t and didn’t seem inclined to tell me. He then said we must wait for the rain to stop, so I stood to take a few photographs under the cover of the storefront awning.

After ten minutes or so, Al flagged me down again. I walked over to the table and noticed that there was a new face at the table. On Al’s left was a reserved-looking, small old man wearing a thin-striped polo. His hands were clasped together and resting on the table as Al rifled through my documents to show him. I had no idea who this man was, but apparently he was a village historian of sorts and was knowledgeable of the village heritage. I was told that when Al spoke on the phone with him, the man was exceptionally excited by our visit, and came from fifteen minutes away just to meet us. From what I could see, he didn’t look thrilled at all, but suppose the fact he showed up so soon was testament to his excitement.

Anyways, Al handed the man copies of my handwritten ancestral Tom family tree. He explained to the man that my last family member to reside in the village was my mother’s mother’s mother’s father, my great great grandfather Kun Foo 泮盛. The man (I feel bad that I keep calling this guy “the man” but I never learned his name) examined the tree and pointed to Kun Foo’s name on the page. The man explained that he knew this family name, and told us that ages ago, Sai Bu Shan was home to my ancestral line, but in the past few decades the original families which inhabited the area had relocated when the village was absorbed by Toisan city. But furthermore, not only did he tell us that he knew the Tom 譚 name and detailed village information, he claimed something quite shocking. He said he descended from the same family line. He claimed to be the grandson of Kun Foo’s brother. We were from the same family line.

Yes. Outrageous. I know. I was there.

That being said, while this man seemed quite credible, there was still overhanging skepticism of his truthfulness, but to prove his claims he took us to my ancestral home, where he believed the family alter was still intact (and he just, ya know, knows these things). Because my family no longer has ties to the village, and the community was reclaimed by Toisan city, he said the home was divided into two residences and was being rented to families. He told us we would visit both. Winding through the village alleys, with water from the recent deluge streaming from rooftops, our posse arrived at the door of what the man says is the section of the house that holds the altar. Fortunately, the inhabitants of the house graciously permit us to look around, and all twenty of us file through the entryway, past the kitchen and toilet, and into the altar room, and placed high above the floor, on the raised platform common within these houses was the altar, with a vibrantly orange paper family tree shining down.

The man toddled over to a wooden ladder at the base of the altar, and climbed up to examine it while Al and I held the ladder steady. The man read the document, pointed at some characters and beckoned Al to take a peek himself, and lo and behold the characters 泮盛 for Kun Foo were painted there. The man was telling the truth.

After performing the bai san ceremony (I knew what to do this time; failure redeemed!) and having a quiet moment to myself (which in retrospect was kind of bizarre; here I am, standing in some stranger’s home, thanking my ancestors for their hard work), I rejoined the group outside. The man led us to the other side of the building so we could look inside the other half. It was at this point that the man dropped another bomb: I was the first person in my family to return to China and visit this second half of the house. Other family members (whom I actually knew of and had received family/village info from) had visited the altar side of the home, but I was the first of my family to enter the place where Kun Foo was actually born.

+++

Well, how about those for some bucket list items?

Visit ancestral village when you had almost no helpful information: Check.

Visit long lost ancestral altar: Check.

Visit site of my great great grandfather’s birth: Check.

Believe you have no surviving relatives in China, but meet a small old man who just happens to be just that: Check.

China is full of surprises.

●

(1) Sitting around a table examining documents with Al, the man, Long Lǎoshī, and two village representatives ↑↑

(2) Group photo in the altar side of my Tom ancestral home 譚. Top row from left: village representative, the man, Al, Carol, me, Derek, Jeremy, Diann, another village representative, Robyn. Bottom row from left: Nick, Kona, Candace, Amanda, and Ray (our young-whippersnapper PRC official)

↑↑

(1) Having a quiet moment after my bai san ceremony, completely unaware Al was photographing me.

(2) A posed photograph inside the altar side of my ancestral home.

#China #China 2018 #Travel China #Southern China #Guangdong #Toisan #Taishan #Sai Bu Shan #Roots #Roots 2018 #Friends of Roots

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wordzeck · 7 years

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Chapter 2: the three circles

The Lord your God is a devouring fire; he is a jealous God.

Today I call on heaven and earth as witnesses against you. If you break my covenant, you will quickly disappear from the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy. You will live there only a short time; then you will be utterly destroyed. For the Lord will scatter you among the nations, where only a few of you will survive. There, in a foreign land, you will worship idols made from wood and stone-- gods that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

But from there you will search again for the Lord your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him. In the distant future, when you are suffering all these things, you will finally return to the Lord your God and listen to what he tells you. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the solemn covenant he made with your ancestors.

-Deuteronomy 4:24-30

I finished chapter 2 in the handbook. My big take-away is foreshadowed in the tittle-- the three circles. I guess I’ll set them up here. The first circle is the inner circle. This circle contains behaviors that I consider “acting out” for myself. If I engage in these behaviors then I have relapsed and have lost sexual sobriety.

My inner circle: Engaging in anonymous sex (with a prostitute or a stranger), any sexual actions with a stranger (including making out), masturbation (with or without pornography), going to a massage parlor, and going to a strip club.

The middle circle is where my “slippery” behaviors are contained. These are my behaviors that will most likely lead to relapse.

My middle circle: walking around late at night, cruising at night (driving to parts of town looking for a sexual experience), engaging in conversation with a woman who I suspect to be a prostitute, drinking alone, engaging in flirtatious conversations with strangers, making prolonged eye contact (and trading smiles) with strangers, staring at the bodies of women (the double takes), being alone on my computer at my apartment, staying up later than my roommates, downloading dating apps, texting girls I have no intention of dating, and watching sexual content. I’m sure there are other behaviors that I am missing, but for now these will do.

The outer circle contains healthy, life-giving, behaviors. These are the things I have set aside in order to pursue my addiction, but these are the same things that give life a pleasant aroma.

My outer circle: writing hip hop, going to the wilderness, having conversations with my friends, watching movies with others, discussing matters of depth, reading scripture, praying aloud, learning new things, working for a company I am passionate about, helping others with sexual sanity, listening to good music, eating good food with others, playing music with others, keeping in touch with old friends who live far away, listening to TK sermons, traveling to new cities, meeting new individuals, talking about faith with strangers, attempting to see God in every corner of life, writing until i’m sick of it, getting along with my family, seeing people as children of God (and as my siblings), writing poetry, learning statistics, learning coding languages, making breakfast in the morning, and laughing a lot.

I’m three days sober as of last night. I haven’t heard the voices yet. That might be because I don’t have the money to satisfy the voices. I’ve been really torn up about not having money right now, but maybe I should grateful. It might be one of those “grand scheme” things I’m failing to see. I still don’t turn to God in every moment, but I am getting a bit better at just trusting him in some vague sense. I’m not in the mindset that “everything works out in the end”, but I have this quiet voice in my head that makes me feel like my life will get healthier. I guess I’m just really leaning into the idea that it doesn’t all “click” in my head yet, but that’s an ok place to be. If I keep admitting that I am blind, and if I keep admitting that I can’t do life right, then maybe God has me right where he wants me. I know I want to be freed from this stuff, and I know that I want my life to look radically different from what it has been in the past. If God can use that then so be it.

I wrote a little lyric the other day that I kind of like. I’m not sure if i’ll do anything with it yet.

I am just a chord, no a string, in a tapestry. Demanding that the fortifying fabric flatters me. But I don’t get the picture, I need a thousand words. Another product of the system with his face in the dirt. You’re looking at an addict in recovery-- who doesn’t know a thing about recovering.

The verse at the top was something I read this morning. I like that it acknowledges both the rebellion and self inflicted suffering of Israel. And in the middle of Israel’s turmoil, there is another option yet again.

But from there you will search again for the Lord your God... And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.

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gomacau · 7 years

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St. Francis Church

(Parish)

Built in 1951, this small attractive church is attached to an old people’s home, near the hill of Mong-Ha.

The interior is simple and tranquil with a modernist black marble altar.

High louvred shutters along the walls open to pleasant courtyards and gardens.

Avenida Xavier Pireira

About Francis_of_Assisi

”’Saint Francis of Assisi”’ (born in Assisi, Italy, ca. 1182; died there on October 3, 1226) founded the Franciscan Order or “Friars Minor”. He is the patron saint of animals and the environment.

Boyhood and early manhoodBorn ”’Giovanni Bernardone”’, commonly known as Francesco. His father, Pietro, was a wealthy cloth merchant. Of his mother, Pica, little is known. Francis was one of several children.

The name of Francesco (“the French-man”), by which his baptismal name was soon altogether replaced, has many conflicting explanations to its origin. One claims it to have been given him soon after his birth by his father, returning to Assisi from a trip to France; according to another account it was due to his early acquisition of the French language (possibly because his mother is believed to have been French). But perhaps the most probable explanation comes from his infatuation with French literature, particularly with the Troubadors. It is interesting to note the similarity between the lifestyle of the troubadors, free of all worldly possessions, the antithesis of the life his father wanted for him–and that which he would one day follow himself in his ministry.

Rebellious toward his father’s business and pursuit of wealth, Francis would spend most of his youth lost in books (ironically his father’s wealth did afford his son an excellent education, and he became fluent in reading several languages including Latin). He was also known for drinking and enjoying the company of his many friends, who were usually the sons of nobles. His displays of disillusionment toward the world that surrounded him became evident fairly early, one of which is shown in the story of the beggar. In this account, he found himself yet again out having fun with his friends one day when a beggar came along and asked for alms. While his friends ignored the beggar’s cries, Francis gave the man everything he had in his pockets. His friends quickly chided and mocked him for his stupidity, and when he got home, his father scolded him in a rage.

In 1201 he joined a military expedition against Perugia, was taken prisoner, and spent a year as a captive. It is probable that his conversion to more serious thoughts was a gradual process relating to this experience.

It is said that when he began to avoid the sports of his former companions, and they asked him laughingly if he was thinking of marrying, he answered “Yes, a fairer bride than any you have ever seen” – meaning his “lady poverty”, as he afterward used to say.

He spent much time in lonely places, asking God for enlightenment. By degrees he took to nursing the most repulsive victims in the lazar houses near Assisi.

After a pilgrimage to Rome, where he begged at the church doors for the poor, he had a vision in which he heard a voice calling upon him to restore the Church of God which had fallen into decay. He thought this to mean the ruined church of St. Damian near Assisi and sold his horse together with some cloth from his father’s store, giving the proceeds to the priest for this purpose.

Pietro, highly indignant, attempted to bring him to his senses, first with threats and then with corporal chastisement. After a final interview in the presence of the bishop, Francis renounced all expectations from his father, laying aside even the garments received from him, and for a while was a homeless wanderer in the hills around Assisi.

Returning to the town where he spent two years this time, he restored several ruined churches, among them the little chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, just outside the town, which later became his favorite abode.

The beginning of the BrotherhoodAt the end of this period (according to Jordanus, in 1209), a sermon which he heard on the Gospel of Matthew 10:9, where Christ tells his followers that they should go forth and proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is upon them, and that they should take no money with them, that they should take no walking stick for the road, and that they should wear no shoes — made such an impression on him that he decided to devote himself wholly to a life of apostolic poverty.

Clad in a rough garment, barefoot, and, after the Evangelical precept, without staff or scrip, he began to preach repentance. He was soon joined by a prominent fellow townsman, Bernardo di Quintavalle, who contributed all that he had to the work, and by other companions, who are said to have reached the number of eleven within a year, whom he called the “fratres minores”, in Latin, “the little brothers”. The Franciscans are sometimes called Friars, and this is a term derived from “fratres”, or “brothers” in Latin.

The brothers lived in the deserted lazar house of Rivo Torto near Assisi; but they spent much of their time traveling through the mountainous districts of Umbria, always cheerful and full of songs, yet making a deep impression on their hearers by their earnest exhortations.

Their life was extremely ascetic, though such practises were apparently not prescribed by the first rule which Francis gave them (probably as early as 1209), which seems to have been nothing more than a collection of Scriptural passages emphasizing the duty of poverty.

In 1209 Francis led his followers to Rome and asked the Pope’s permission to found a new religious order. In spite of the obvious similarity between Francis’ principles and the fundamental ideas of the followers of Peter Waldo whose similar request had previously been rejected by the Pope, the brotherhood of Assisi succeeded in gaining the approval of Pope Innocent III. The reason for this unlikely approval is because after the Pope’s rejection of Waldo, his group had paradoxically become more popular than ever. Realizing this, the Pope wished to avoid repeating that mistake in an attempt to fight heresy, which had become an increasing problem for the Church. Therefore, the Pope believed he could prevent the spread of the Franciscans, or at least control it, by granting them official recognition.

Many legends have clustered around the decisive audience of Francis with the Pope. The account in Matthew of Paris, according to which the Pope originally sent the shabby saint off to keep swine, and only recognized his real worth by his ready obedience, has, in spite of its improbability, a certain historical interest, since it shows the natural antipathy of the olderBenedictine monasticism to the plebeian mendicant orders.

Work and extension of the BrotherhoodIt was not, however, a life of idle mendicancy on which the brothers entered when they set out in 1210 with the papal approbation, but one of diligent labor. Their work embraced devoted service in the abodes of sickness and poverty, earnest preaching by both priests and lay brothers, and missions in an ever widening circle, which finally included heretics and muslims.

They came together every year at Pentecost in the little church of the Portiuncula at Assisi, to report on their experiences and strengthen themselves for fresh efforts.

There is considerable uncertainty as to the chronological and historical details of the last fifteen years of the founder’s life.

But to these years belong the accounts of the origin of the first houses in Perugia, Cortona, Pisa, Florence, and elsewhere (1211-1213); the first attempts at a Muslim mission, in the sending of five brothers, soon to be martyrs, to Morocco, as well as in a journey undertaken by Francis himself to Spain, from which he was forced by illness to return without accomplishing his object; the first settlements in the Spanish peninsula and in France; and the attempts, unsuccessful at first, to gain a foothold in Germany. The alleged meeting of Francis and St. Dominic in Rome at the time of the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) belongs to the domain of legend; even Sabatier’s argument to show that such a meeting actually took place in 1218 is open to serious objection.

Historical in the main are the accounts relating to the journey of Francis to Egypt and Palestine, during the Fifth Crusade, where he attempted to convert the Sultan Al-Kamil and gave fearless proofs of his readiness to suffer for his faith; the internal discord, which he found existing in the order on his return to Italy in 1220; the origin of his second and considerably enlarged rule, which was replaced two years later by the final form, drawn up by Cardinal Ugolino; and possibly the granting by Pope Honorius III (in 1223) of the Indulgence of the Portiuncula – a document which Sabatier, who formerly rejected it, later pronounced authentic.

The last yearsFrancis had to suffer from the dissensions just alluded to and the transformation which they operated in the originally simple constitution of the brotherhood, making it a regular order under strict supervision from Rome.

Especially after Cardinal Ugolino had been assigned as protector of the order by Honorius III – it is said, at Francis’ own request – he saw himself forced further and further away from his original plan. Even the independent direction of his brotherhood was, it seems, finally withdrawn from him; at least after about 1223 it was practically in the hands of Brother Elias of Crotona, an ambitious politician who seconded the attempts of the cardinal-protector to transform the character of the order.

However, in the external successes of the brothers, as they were reported at the yearly general chapters, there was much to encourage Francis. Caesarius of Speyer, the first German provincial, a zealous advocate of the founder’s strict principle of poverty, began in 1221 from Augsburg, with twenty-five companions, to win for the order the land watered by the Rhine and the Danube; and a few years later the Franciscan propaganda, starting from Cambridge, embraced the principal towns of England.

But none of these cheering reports could wholly drive away from the mind of Francis the gloom which covered his last years.

He spent much of his time in solitude, praying or singing praise to God for his wonderful works. The canticle known as ”’Laudes creaturarum”’, with its childlike invocations to Brother Sun, Sister Moon with the stars, Brother Wind, Sister Water, Brother Fire, and finally Sister Death, to raise their voices to the glory of God (influenced by The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children), dates from this period of his life.

The hermit stage which opened the career of many monastic founders was reserved for the end of his who had once been so restless in his activity.

He spent the short remainder of his life partly on Monte Alverno on the upper Arno, where he fasted forty days and longed for union with God, to be demonstrated by the impression on his body of the wounds of Christ (see Stigmata); partly at Rieti under medical treatment; and partly in his beloved Portiuncula at Assisi waiting for his deliverance from the flesh. It is believed by some historians that his last days drew huge crowds of people wanting to bask in his presence, as well as those who awaited his death for the dividing up of his body for the purpose of relics.

He died October 3, 1226, at Assisi, and was canonized two years later by Pope Gregory IX, the former cardinal-protector of the order.

As patron saint of the environment

Legend has it that St. Francis preached to the birds and other creatures, as well as preaching to humans. He is known today as the patron saint of animals and the environment. His image is often placed in gardens in respect for his interest in all things natural. His feast day is October 4.

The so-called ”’Prayer of Saint Francis”’ is a Christian prayer widely attributed to the 13th-century saint Francis of Assisi, although it cannot be traced back further than the 19th century.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” Amen.”

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