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pocketseizure · 4 months

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The Two Kings in Tears of the Kingdom

Tears of the Kingdom unearths the roots of Calamity Ganon in an ancient conflict between Rauru, the first king of Hyrule, and Ganondorf, a rival king who attempted to usurp him. In many ways, Rauru is characterized as a good king. He is noble, kind, and self-sacrificing, and he acts for the long-term benefit of the various groups of people living in Hyrule. In contrast to Rauru, the antagonist Ganondorf is an evil king who started a war because of his pride, ego, and greed.

Rauru and Ganondorf represent different styles of authority, both of which are grounded in Japanese fantasies of cultural identity. I’d argue that, in the end, neither king is fit to rule present-day Hyrule, which is why it’s appropriate that the game ends without any call to rebuild Hyrule Castle or the centralized government it symbolizes.

Rauru represents a golden age in Japanese culture when many arts now seen as “traditional” originated. This golden age is closely tied to Nintendo’s home city of Kyoto, which is associated with the culture of the imperial court before it moved to Tokyo in 1868. Because Tears of the Kingdom is a fantasy, the visual metaphors of Rauru’s character design are mixed, but his connection to a bygone golden age is tied to two symbols: the magatama jewels referred to as “secret stones,” and the kare-sansui dry landscape gardens of the Shrines of Light and the Temple of Time.

The “secret stones” that Rauru gives to the six sages have the distinctive comma shape of a magatama jewel, one of the three sacred symbols of Shinto. These three symbols are as follows: a mirror represents clarity of heart, a sword represents the power to protect the weak, and a jewel represents the materiality of divine blessings. These three objects also serve as the regalia of the Japanese emperor, whose role was historically to perform ritual prayers and thereby serve as a symbolic bridge between the world of humans and the world of gods.

There is nothing sacrosanct about magatama jewels; at various street fairs and tourist areas throughout Japan, you can buy inexpensive polished quartz and jade magatama to attach to phone charms or friendship bracelets. As a result of its relative ubiquity, this particular shape of gem has both a historical and a pop culture association with being a magical stone bestowed by the gods on special and worthy individuals such as, most famously, the first Japanese emperor.

Along with his magatama “secret stones,” Rauru is associated with kare-sansui dry landscape gardens of the old imperial capital. Note, for instance, the front courtyard of the Temple of Time that Link visits at the beginning of the game:

The visual motif of raked white gravel punctuated by standing rocks also appears in various permutations within the Shrines of Light established by Rauru and Sonia. To give an example, this is what the player will see if they circle back behind the entrance of the “Rauru’s Blessing” shrines:

This style of dry landscape garden is frequently referred to as a “Zen garden” because of its association with large Buddhist temples in and around Kyoto. The most famous example of this style can be found at Ryōanji, in northwest Kyoto:

The philosophy of these gardens meshes well with the philosophy behind the Zelda series, which Shigeru Miyamoto has described as his attempt to create a tsuboniwa miniature garden for the player to explore. In the same way, dry landscape gardens represent a larger landscape portrayed on a much smaller scale. The rocks in the gravel are meant to represent islands on the ocean, or perhaps mountaintops rising above the clouds. Another common interpretation of these gardens – and one especially pertinent to Tears of the Kingdom – is that the rocks are the dorsal spines of a dragon swimming through the sky.

Although dry landscape gardens have strong ties to Buddhist thought, they were primarily created by wealthy lords residing in Kyoto during the fifteenth century. This was a politically unstable era, and these lords needed to make a show of their wealth and cultural legitimacy. Unlike in China, where Chan Buddhism was largely anti-establishment, Zen Buddhism was the domain of the wealthy educated elite in Japan. Many of the rocks used in Zen-style gardens were imported from China and Korea at great expense, and lords competed to secure the services of celebrity landscape designers. Even today, the late medieval culture represented by dry landscape gardens is associated with the prestige of Japan’s former imperial capital of Kyoto.

Rauru is therefore associated with nobility and a certain air of sophistication. In the original Japanese script, he is unflaggingly polite and addresses everyone – Zelda, Ganondorf, and Link alike – with the sort of “clean” language associated with people of high social standing. To put it simply, Rauru is a perfect gentleman. He is the personification of the aristocratic virtues of the “traditional Japan” of the late fifteenth century, during which the wealthy filled the capital city with gardens while countless wars ravaged the countryside.

In contrast, Ganondorf is a personification of the warrior culture of eastern Japan, especially as it was exemplified by the warlords who competed for territory outside the capital before the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Oda Nobunaga was the most notorious of these warlords. He was infamous for being aggressive but effective, and his military prowess and ruthless tactics have been memorialized in a wealth of stories whose lineage stretches to the video games of the present day. I believe that Nobunaga (or, at least, a commonly fictionalized version of him) served as a model for Ganondorf, who seeks to take advantage of the instability of the newly established kingdom of Hyrule in order to expand his own territory.

Like Rauru, Ganondorf’s character design contains mixed visual metaphors, but I think it’s fair to say that his topknot and costume are meant to evoke a samurai who has thrown off the kimono sleeve covering his sword arm as an indication of his readiness for battle. This is a style still worn by practitioners of Japanese fencing and archery, which are common extracurricular activities in many high schools. Appropriately, Ganondorf fights with a tachi katana, a naginata spear, and the body-length longbow used in kyūdō archery – all weapons associated with the martial arts of Japan’s medieval military elite.

As if to cement his connection to Nobunaga, Ganondorf speaks in period-drama “samurai Japanese” that demonstrates neither the elegance nor the poetry of his incarnations in previous games. He seems to lack both regret and awareness of the consequences of his actions, and he is concerned primarily with hierarchy, conquest, and the thrill of battle.

As was arguably the case for Nobunaga himself, there is no endgame for Ganondorf, only scorched earth. Ganondorf has absolute faith in his own power, and he views other people only as subordinates or enemies. According to his value system, there is no merit in compromise; he simply takes it for granted that he will win.

It makes sense that the aggressively bloodthirsty Ganondorf is a villain, but it’s important to understand that Rauru is not a hero. With all his magic and culture and imperial splendor, Rauru failed to understand that the system of power he created could easily be turned against him. A nation politically defined by a central authority whose rule is justified through military conquest and the cultural chauvinism of “ancient tradition” is not sustainable, and the legacy of such a kingdom can only be tears.

This is why Hyrule Castle remains in ruins at the end of Tears of the Kingdom, and this is why the game’s central hub is a research station populated with people from all over the world. This is why Zelda doesn’t attempt to re-establish Hyrule as a kingdom, and this is why it’s so important to her to understand the reality behind the myth of the nation’s history. This is also why the grand mythology of Hyrule’s origin is far less important to the player’s experience of the game than individual acts of community building. The highlights of Tears of the Kingdom are Link’s work in facilitating a local election in Hateno, helping Lurelin recover from a disaster, and volunteering in towns facing environmental issues such as water pollution and climate change.

Both Rauru and Ganondorf are compelling in their own ways, but it’s thematically satisfying that both characters are gone at the end of the game. When Zelda meets with the regional leaders of Hyrule during the closing cutscene, they promise each other that they will work together to ensure a lasting peace that neither of the two kings made possible. The legacy of the past still affects Hyrule, but Tears of the Kingdom suggests that it’s the duty of the younger generation to understand where this legacy came from in order to avoid the mistakes of their ancestors and move forward in a more hopeful direction.

#Legend of Zelda #Tears of the Kingdom #Rauru #Ganondorf #Zelda meta #essays

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thelordofgifs · 4 months

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For the fanfic director’s cut: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

(director’s cut ask game)

I'm in the mood for some tfs ramblings today, so have those two months late oops.

One small but important motif that crops up throughout the m&m scenes in the third arc of the fairest stars is the religious language thing! I'm quite proud of this one actually.

It actually makes a showing for the first time at the end of part 20:

"He's gone," Maglor gasps out. "I'm sorry."

"You're here," Maedhros says, his tone reverent. He drops to his knees beside Maglor, gathering him into his arms.

reverent: there's something here about how Maedhros is so so bad at seeing his brother as a whole entire person... he's Special and Pure and Someone Maedhros Wronged. This is not a worldview that gets healthier over the course of the third arc.

(Incidentally, both the second and third arcs end with Maedhros on his knees, but for very different reasons.)

The motif crops up again in part 22, which contains the first long conversation between Maedhros and Maglor in the third arc, and has a lot of work to do in setting the stage for their relationship.

Instead of answering Maedhros comes to sit at his feet, and then lays his head on his brother’s knee.

After a moment Maglor’s hand settles on his brow, a benediction he does not deserve and yet desperately needs.

There is something of the devotional to this image here, I think. Maedhros, who is much taller than Maglor, is deliberately placing himself physically lower than him by sitting at his feet, almost literally putting his brother on a pedestal. And then a benediction he does not deserve and yet desperately needs... he's not doing well with the whole guilt thing tbh.

The next longish m&m scene is in part 25, and it's a more intense and distressing one: Maedhros is Upset, and not thinking clearly, and seeking out comfort from Maglor and hating himself for doing so. So there's this:

“Thank you,” Maedhros breathes, and it sounds like a prayer and a penance and a plea for absolution.

I spent SO LONG on this line it's slightly insane. Workshopped it with my mother and everything. (When I can't think of a word, instead of looking it up in a thesaurus like a normal person I tend to either phone up my mother or go to find her and say, very seriously, "I need a Word.") So then: "a prayer and a penance and a plea for absolution", three (alliterating!) religious nouns, with which I was doing my best to sum up all Maedhros' tangled feelings regarding his brother, someone he loves and someone he has hurt terribly and someone who has the power to absolve him of his sins. Which is... a bit messed up, to say the least, because Maglor isn't a divinity and Maedhros can't see him objectively at all.

And then, finally, there's Maglor's unhappy awareness of this whole strange situation in part 29:

To his relief Maedhros comes to sit at his feet, looking up at him with wide reverent eyes. Maedhros has never loved anyone without making of them a god – it is all tangled together in his mind, worship with affection, ardour with idolatry.

This is probably my single favourite line from the whole fic. I had it saved up for so long. The phrase "making of them a god" I debated for a while: but I think the of is important there, the idea that Maedhros doesn't actually raise the people he loves to some holy status, he just uses them as raw material for the images of them he's constructed in his mind. It's why, in particular, he's so destabilised by the notion that Fingon could possibly be a bad person. Then there's the "worship with affection, ardour with idolatry" - I like the way this phrase sounds, the matching dental consonants in ardour with idolatry, the way the two religious nouns worship and idolatry are on the outside, bracketing the love nouns affection and ardour (this is a technique called chiasmus and it's fun); the way the second half of the phrase escalates from the first, using stronger nouns that basically mean the same thing. And then, of course, ardour is a very Maedhros-associated noun to me: Maidros tall/the eldest, whose ardour yet more eager burnt/than his father’s flame, than Fëanor’s wrath, a description of him from the Lays of Beleriand.

Note also the echo of part 22, Maedhros sitting at Maglor's feet again, and the "reverent eyes". Maedhros kneels to Fingon at the end of part 28, and then sits at Maglor's feet in part 29; in part 30, of course, he leaves them both behind, and goes to his knees before Sauron, an actual "god", instead. And a part of me imagines that this making-people-into-gods thing he does is rather influenced by the years he spent in Sauron's care.

#asks #thescrapwitch #ask game #the fairest stars #it feels redundant to end every tfs meta I write with the conclusion 'Maedhros is so fucked up'#but he's SO fucked up #anyway thank you for the ask!! and sorry this is so late was suddenly seized with the urge to procrastinate

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internshipswithgladyslaw · 8 months

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Underwater Cables: 25th August 2023

This was the fifth day of the Shared Summer School Programme between Singapore, Zurich and Trondheim. We started the session with a group meeting through Zoom to discuss more about the concepts and how we could bring it to life. Continuing with our discussion about our main theme on "distance", we started talking about the headspace of ending a video call versus leaving after a physical meet-up. Our common consensus was that it feels more like a "fade-out" after hanging up a video call while there's an instantaneous cut-off after leaving a physical meeting. We delved into conversations such as the situation with Covid, and how even some people's final moments of life were actually viewed online. Lemuel interjected with how the last time he saw his friend was online before they passed, and the thought that they had past still feels unreal because their death was not experienced firsthand physically. It felt like the person is actually still alive. With that in mind, End in Zurich interpolated analogies such as the stars we view in the night sky have actually died a long time ago, and that are finally perceivable to us. We decided that we wanted our performance to translate some of that death through a virtual space, basically a digital telematics funeral. We wanted to include rituals/chanting of prayers into the show as well and Zurich's side decided to do some video glitching with reverb.

Next up, we discussed that if we were to have different sections, it might be difficult for people of different mediums to pick up the cues that things have changed (such as change in sound, change in colour) as we were unfamiliar with each others' mediums. We proposed to have some guidelines to help pull all of us back to focus. Nasrina from Trondheim brought up potential problems that might occur during the performance and they include: there might be a lag in the start time from the music, and to make sure every element in the performance had been preplanned so that there is no sudden changes during the performance.

Here are some of the notes I have taken during our zoom meeting:

After the meeting, we had one hour in the telematics space to try out our ideas. This was the Singapore's initial set up:

Mia in Zurich wanted us to record the video glitching happening on Zurich's screen and their lectures did warn that their video might crash as it was running on high CPU in order to achieve that effect. We find that rather fitting for out theme so we did not feel like it was a risk for us. I videoed their glitching which was super cool on our screen:

After the our one hour practice in the space, End, Lemuel and I decided to set up an additional Google meet to discuss about the flow of the music throughout the entire piece at 11pm in Singapore time.

We decided to make the distinction clear between the different locations, with Zurich being the "reality" and Singapore being the "afterlife" or "world of dead" (coincidentally it was the hungry ghost month here as well). As Mia in Zurich was the main protagonist, she would be trying to call into the afterlife to connect with a friend who has passed on. I suggested that the phone calling tune could be the repetitive musical motif through the performance during the more abstract part of the music. Here are the notes I have taken for the flow of our soundscape:

Learning Point: I really enjoyed how everyone was so proactive in contributing to the theme and how they could contribute via their disciplines. Everybody also ensured that everyone's opinions and perspectives were respected which is not easy considering we are in a rather large group and communication is also limited due to time. It was quite relieving to see some of the ideas we bounced off coming to life. I am usually a little bit reserved in sharing or interjecting ideas, however, the group made me feel welcomed and that they would listen to what I had to say. I am surprised by how receptive they were to my ideas and continued to layered their ideas on top of mine. I think I managed to witness a very positive collaboration that sometimes might difficult even for people who share the same physical space as us.

#underwatercables #day5

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shioritsumi · 2 years

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Comparison: Ace D. Nicks (the devil) vs Angel Redemption (god)

Appearance? Nick: has a singular set appearance and name, though he has many forms available (he almost always appears as a brunet doctor of average height and weight with a medium length hairstyle) Angel: can appear almost any way, any gender, and does not claim any name exclusively, with the only absolute design note being the color motif of grey as well as color-shifting eye color

Contracts? Nick: he does contracts, which are negotiable and can be made up for; also you can form a contract with him for ANY amount of time in exchange for ANYTHING. he makes lots of contracts all the time and always has active clients Angel: they do Oaths, which are generally unbreakable, and unforgivable. They don’t do many Oaths often, given as they are such a serious thing, Very high risk, high reward. There have been entire centuries where they’ve had no active Oaths, no matter what people say.

Humanity? Nick: he doesn’t LOVE humans, but he likes them plenty. he enjoys spending time with them, and talking to them, and hearing their opinions, but he absolutely is NOT attached to them and is prone to not caring for any one human over any other or being overly upset by any of them dying. Angel: LOVES humanity, but doesn’t LIKE them, they’re the bad Sims They created but they’re attached. They’re sad when notable humans die, but can come off as detached from all humanity in general from how quickly mortals die and how disappointingly they tend to live.

Manipulation? Nick: manipulates you all over the place BUT also never lies to you; everything he says is exactly the truth, no more no less. He is known for using things that are completely the truth according to how YOU intend the truth to be, mostly as a way of placing the blame for anything going wrong back on you. Angel: doesn’t like to manipulate, they simply let things be as they are and lets you do whatever you want. Their words are absolute, but they can’t stop you from interpreting or misinterpreting. It’s just that they are often misinterpreted and they don’t care to re-explain themselves multiple times.

Ease to summon? Nick: super easy, if you go looking for him you will find him because that’s just how he works. He has made it so that if you want to find him, you will-just pick a direction and walk with the intention of finding him somewhere, and he’ll be there, conveniently. Angel: varies. Sometimes they just appear with Nick, so you may find them that way, but sometimes you have to look for them....look very carefully. If They don’t want to be found, you can’t find them. Best way to know if They think your offer is bad is if you absolutely can’t find them.

Communication? Nick: all the time, he will call you, text you, snapchat, dm you, email you, fax you, page you, whatever it takes to get his message to you. He is always just a line or phone call or click away from being asked questions or having his messages delivered to you. He prides himself on being accessible and approachable to everyone. Angel: none. They come and go when they please, and you communicate on Their time and Their schedule not yours. You can pray directly to them and they will definitely hear you because they hear all prayers but it’s still entirely in their court whether or not to respond. (probably not)

When you break a deal? Nick: gives you up to three chances to play a game to make up for your broken contracts, per contract. If he really likes you, you might get more opportunities. If he dislikes you, you might get only one chance. Ideally, play it safe with this guy. Angel: You get only two chances, depending on how severely you screwed up. “Everybody gets one” and They MEAN it. You only get ONE second chance, and then you’re done. In the earliest days, Angel originally gave absolutely no second chances and Nick convinced them to add it in to the terms of Their Oaths.

Overall, I definitely recommend not taking a deal from either of these people but Nick is easier to walk away from a deal with. Both Nick and Angel let you screw themselves over, but one of them is more disappointed in you than the other.

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dawnsbreaking · 2 years

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total dark sublime

chapter five poe route rewrite pairing: poe colestead x cmc rose status: ongoing chapter wc: 2,452

She tucked her hands under her cheek and watched him expectantly as he covered her with the blanket, making it clear that she was waiting for him to speak. Her eyes looked so tired, Poe felt equally flattered and frustrated that she wanted to stay awake just to pry his thoughts from him. He wasn’t sure if anyone had ever cared that much what he was thinking.

read on ao3 series masterlist want to be tagged when the next chapter is released?

Poe closed his aunt’s door behind him. He needed a moment alone.

Before he had met Howie and Tess and inadvertently started the apocalypse, Poe had been quite lonely. Sharing an apartment with Douglas had made it a pain to invite people over, which had been a good excuse for him to not put effort into making friends. And until just a few days ago, Rose had just been an acquaintance, a crush that he had a few classes with.

As grateful as he was to have people with him now, he could not help but feel light in this moment of peace.

He took a seat on the edge of his aunt’s unmade bed, stomach sinking with fear and grief for her. With every passing moment, it became more possible that she was gone — killed by a zombie or worse. She should have come back home and hung her dog’s leash on the hook by the door and come back to her room. She should have made her bed, taken the pills in the daily pill organizer on her bedside, answered her phone when Poe called for help. He felt his eyes welling with tears and shook his head, scrunching his eyes shut to stop himself from crying. He had to find Rose a toothbrush and go to bed. Lack of sleep was making him feel more emotional than usual.

In the cabinet underneath Aunt Lynn’s bathroom sink, in a little clear box, she kept unopened containers of her favorite toiletries and makeup products. It made Poe’s heart ache to see the box right where it always was. His aunt was frugal, despite having enough money not to be, and always bought extra things when they were on sale or when she had coupons for them. This careful shopping resulted in a small surplus of odds and ends: toothbrushes, toothpaste, her favorite berry red lipstick — the one she wore to church and lunch dates with her friends. He took two twin packs of toothbrushes and two of the bottles of toothpaste. As he closed the cabinet, he said a silent prayer to the universe for his aunt. May she return home safe and live to use up every single tube of lipstick in her cabinet.

“It’s your lucky day,” Poe said, throwing one of the toothbrush packs at Howie on the couch.

Howie startled slightly at Poe’s intrusion but recovered in an instant, giving him a grateful smile. “Thanks,” he said. “Goodnight.”

Poe managed to return a sad smile. “Night.”

When Poe returned to Rose, he found her sitting with her legs crossed in his bed, thumbing through his copy of Frankenstein. He stopped in the doorway, smiling at the sight of her. “Sorry it took so long,” he said.

She looked up from the book and grinned. “Your annotations kept me occupied.”

“Oh god,” he laughed, “I annotated that in high school.”

“And you were very astute.” She read aloud in a stilted voice, “Fire motif references story of Prometheus question mark.”

“Alright, alright…” He exaggerated rolling his eyes. “I hope you weren’t snooping the whole time I was gone.”

“I wasn’t,” she said. “This was just on top of one of those stacks.” She gestured with the open book towards the mess of books on his desk, again making him wish he’d been more careful in keeping his room tidy the last time he visited. He had a lot of reasons to regret the last time he visited, all things considered.

She closed the book and set it gently on his bedside table. “Did you find a toothbrush?”

They tiptoed to the bathroom, though Tess probably wouldn’t wake regardless. Poe held the door open for Rose and followed her in, switching on the light before closing the door.

Brushing their teeth together felt strangely intimate to Poe. It also felt a little like playing house. He watched her squeeze toothpaste carefully and run her toothbrush under a tiny stream of water before she handed him the toothpaste back.

When he kept studying her instead of taking the bottle, she made a little sound and raised her eyebrows at him in question, the toothbrush already in her mouth and preventing her from speaking.

“Sorry,” he laughed, shaking his head. “Thinking again.” He ran the sink again and loaded his own brush.

She watched him in the mirror while he brushed his teeth, her gray eyes narrowed at him. She spat and rinsed her mouth. “Are you going to tell me what you’re thinking about?”

He was thankful for the mouthful of toothpaste giving him a few more moments of easy avoidance. Once he’d given it up and rinsed his mouth, he said, “Let’s go to bed.”

She gave him a look.

“To talk,” he clarified. He reached out and wiped a stray bit of toothpaste from the corner of her mouth with his thumb. “I promise.”

By the time he had undressed to just his stupid ghost boxers (Rose approved, at least) and climbed into bed, holding the covers back for her to join him, he had gathered his thoughts. As hard as it was for him to open up, it was harder for Poe to see Rose frown at him.

“I’m worried I’m going to disappoint you,” he whispered, hearing the words ring truer than he’d intended. “Actually, in general I’m afraid of that. But I really wasn’t upset before.”

“Why would I be disappointed?” She asked, voice equally soft.

“Because you want me to talk and I don’t have that much to say.”

She frowned. “No, in general.”

“Oh.” He scrunched his brows. “I worry that you see me through —“ He smiled at the coincidence of his word choice. “Rose-colored glasses. That the more I let you in, the more you’ll realize that you made a mistake.”

A smile crossed her lips, and Poe was grateful for it even if it confused him. “I… developed feelings for you after I got to know you, Poe.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a nice way of saying that you disliked me at first?”

She grinned a bit wider, her eyes crinkling and her nose scrunching. “I thought you were stuck up and a know-it-all.”

“I am stuck up.” He tried to keep his voice serious but her grin was contagious. “And a know-it-all.”

“You’re…” She blushed, moving a hand to cover her mouth, and spoke through slightly parted fingers, “I like those things about you, now.”

“Oh yeah?” His hand found her waist under the covers and pinched. Insecurity melted away seeing her cheeks turn pink. He teased, “How does that work?”

Both of her hands covered her face now as she giggled. “It’s the confidence, I think? It’s…” She trailed off.

He pressed his hand to her back and pulled her closer. He could feel her breathing on his chest as she tucked her chin down to hide her face. “It’s what?” He asked, leaning lips close to her neck, feeling her shiver beneath his arm.

After a beat, she looked up at him and parted her hands. She squared her jaw and said, “I think your confidence is hot, which makes it all the more insufferable.”

It was his turn to blush, feeling his face warm at her sudden boldness and at the surprise of her words. He was not the type of man to let someone else have the last word, however. “Is it insufferable when I do this?” He pressed a kiss beneath her ear and then opened his mouth, letting his tongue graze her soft skin.

She hummed. “Yes and no.”

Only just moving his mouth away he asked, “Yes?”

“Yes.” She took a steadying breath. “Because no one has ever made me feel that way. Like I’m not in control. Like butterflies in my stomach,” she said. “I thought that was a euphemism before I met you.”

“Oh.” He pulled back and studied her. “Really?” She had accidentally beaten him in his own game and given him pause. That was a last word, a mic drop moment.

Her eyes betrayed no sign that she was lying or flattering him on purpose, just her usual wide, searching gaze. Like she was trying to see all of him, even the parts he kept hidden. He had dated other people before, really liked some people before, and he’d assumed the same of her. She seemed so full of love for everyone, it felt incongruous to him that she might not fall for people easily.

“I’m serious,” she said, finally. “Also, don’t change the subject.”

“Change the subject?” He thought he’d gotten away with it.

“Please tell me what you were thinking earlier.”

“You’re going to think I’m an idiot.”

She shook her head.

“I was frowning because I was trying not to think about you changing clothes.”

Eyes widening with surprise, she giggled again. After a pause, she asked, “Did it… Work?”

He tucked her into his chest and put his chin on her crown so that he could look over her head and not into her eyes. “Kind of. But then I turned around and you were wearing my shirt and…” He was digging himself into a hole.

Rose wiggled herself free from his arms and met his gaze again. Her cheeks were pink but she had a teasing smirk on her lips and a glint in her eyes. She said nothing, waiting for him to continue digging.

“Feels very stereotypical to say but you wearing my clothes…” His hand drifted lower as he spoke, landing on her bare thigh. “The t-shirt did something to me.”

As an answer, she placed a hand on his cheek and pulled him down into a slow kiss. Her lips moved carefully like she was afraid she’d scare him away. He grinned against her lips. Could she really be that clueless?

He squeezed the flesh of her thigh before breaking the kiss. He said, “Rose.”

She blinked, a worried look on her face. “Was that okay?”

“Was it?” Poe chuckled. “You’re kidding, right?”

She blinked again, shook her head. She whispered, “I guess I’m just nervous. I never…” She shook her head again, changed tact. “I’m not used to feeling like I have a reason to be nervous.”

He frowned, furrowed his brows, waited for her to elaborate. He didn’t understand.

“I just…” She sighed and buried her face in his chest. He felt her soft voice on his skin when she said, “I don’t know if you like me or if you’re just humoring me.”

“That’s…” Poe blinked. “That was not what I expected to hear.” He threaded his hands through her hair, fingers getting tangled in her soft curls. “I can’t imagine how I could make it clearer,” he said. “That I do really like you.”

She remained still, not saying anything. He leaned back, making her look at him again. Her stormy eyes were cloudier than usual.

“You know how you didn’t like me at first?” He asked.

She let out a breathy laugh. “Yes?”

“That wasn’t the case for me,” Poe admitted. “I liked you pretty much from the moment we met.”

She flattened her mouth into a thin line. Then, “I don’t believe you.”

“I had perfect attendance in that class because I never wanted to miss hearing you speak,” he said. “I thought you were so smart and funny… I used to tell Douglas about you.”

A surprised look cut through the clouds in her eyes. “Your roommate?”

Poe nodded. “He’d be playing Call of Duty or whatever with headphones on, totally ignoring me, and I’d stand in the living room saying, ‘Rose wore a green dress today and asked me what I thought about the reading.’ or ‘Rose asked for a pen today, do you think she likes me?’ All the time. Because I just needed someone to know how I felt.”

Rose searched his eyes. “Could I get zombie Douglas to verify?”

Poe laughed. “Probably not, he never listened.”

“Convenient,” Rose said, rolling her eyes. “How am I supposed to believe you now?”

“I’m not a liar, Rosie.” Poe surprised himself with the steady, earnest tone of his voice. He sounded as serious as he felt, too serious. Always too serious. He let his hands move back down, grazing her waist before placing his palms flat on the curve of her ass. Pressing her closer, he could feel her heart beating against his bare chest. “I thought you said you trusted me,” he said, a whisper against her lips. He hadn’t forgotten. The intimacy of her trust in him filled him with longing to be the person she trusted most. It made him want to be allowed into her bed to hold her every night. To be trusted was to be known like no one had cared to know him before.

He kissed her, held her, felt dizzy at her cool hands finding the nape of his neck. She kissed him, pressed back with equal intensity to his, allowed herself to have him.

When she finally pulled away, it was not to retreat. Her long hair made a curtain around her face and tickled his chest as she propped herself up on an arm to kiss his neck. Again, he watched her search for his freckles, seeing her find them more easily after having had some practice. He almost made a joke again, but a tiny bite just under his jaw made Poe gasp and forget his snark.

“We should really get some sleep.” She bowed her head and kissed his chest, finding a freckle there too.

“You’re right,” Poe managed.

“Turn off the light?”

Poe swallowed, nodded, reached behind her to press the switch on the bedside lamp. Rose kissed his shoulder as it angled towards her. She pressed a hand to his chest and settled into his arms.

“Is this okay?” She asked. “Can you sleep like this?”

He chuckled and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I think I’ll manage.”

Holding Rose in his arms made him feel secure enough that his need for sleep hit him again. His eyes drifted shut of their own accord.

“Goodnight, Poe.” She placed a feather-light kiss to his collarbone.

He imagined her smiling face in the pitch-black room. Total dark sublime. “Goodnight.”

thank you so much to everyone who has read this and commented, your kind words keep me going i swear!! also the nh discord has Poe brainrot lately and i'm obsessed with it i love him i love him. if you're on my taglist or send me kind words about this story i love u just as much <3

tags: @1loveyou @dreamtydraw @anisanka

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space-city-traffic · 3 years

Text

it’s time for another one of my patented Unnecessarily Long Silt Verses Metas! the subject of this one is: i just relistened to episode 4, because it’s probably my favorite episode in the whole series, and now i have just so many questions. so!

worldbuilding questions:

what is the generally accepted attitude toward queerness in-universe? i initially thought it was sort of a juno-steel-esque world where we assume everybody’s just chill with it. it’s never remarked upon that the farmer has a husband in ep3, and everyone respects Vaughn’s pronouns in the professional world. but this episode seems to trouble that a little, since Carpenter’s aromanticism is not understood or respected by Todd, as well as a whole line of other people. so what’s the overarching consensus?

how complex are prayer marks, on average? ive been picturing them as looking like the tsv logo. but in this episode, we learn that a prayer mark on the elk corpse is a triangle, three lines, and a circle. maybe prayer marks look more like those six figures on the internal hexagon of the logo?

do cell phones exist in the world of tsv?? it seems like Carpenter has no way of contacting Faulkner to get him to pick her up early. and toward the end, Charity asks Gareth if there’s a landline in the spooky house, implying that they would need it to call for help. also, in earlier episodes, we have our main two having to use a hotel pay phone to call Mason. so im realizing that cell phones probably aren’t common, at the very least.

(the discord server i’m in took that information, plus the fact that emails do exist as of episode 8, and suggested that tsv is just set in a really fucked up version of the 90’s complete with tracksuits and butterfly hair clips. do with that as you will.)

thematic questions:

there’s a lot of similarity between the way Carpenter describes the faith of Pendas’ Slake and the way she describes the Trawlerman. she describes the first snare she finds as “The wire is wound like a fishing lure,” she talks about the twin faces of the elk-saint in the same way as the twin faces of the Trawlerman, and she tells us that her blood from the chase “Runs like a river.” so uh what’s that about??? also, she was seeking for a river cult when she found this. which is clearly different, but has a lot of uncanny echoes. so what’s that about??????

this might not be intentional, but this episode is the first of two times we hear bridges associated with romance. Todd propositions Carpenter on a bridge, and in the next episode, Hayward rambles about a cult of romantic couples and locks on a bridge. not sure if there’s anything there, but if the motif keeps happening in the future, i may have to look a little closer.

do snare dogs count as saints or angels of Charity’s faith? the elk of birch and bone is clearly a saint, since that’s a transformation. but were the snare dogs once people, too? or are they like the crab dog sentinel that Faulkner describes as an angel in episode 8?

either way, it’s very interesting to me how differently Charity interacts with them. there’s a ton of fear in how Carpenter and Faulkner engage with saints of their faith, and the angel actively decks Faulkner the moment he fumbles the canvass. but the snare dogs are described as nuzzling around Charity in almost affection. not sure what the difference is, but it feels interesting.

thoughts on Carpenter’s faith:

she describes herself and her river as “lonely” over and over again. she’s the only one to describe it like that, everyone else sees it as full of creatures and life! but she can’t see that aspect of it, only the wrath and destruction—she can’t imagine it not being like her.

(that’s why it’s interesting that hope comes when she sees Faulkner and knows she’s not alone at the end—the line “I’ve been seen” says it all. not sure how she’s gonna reconcile that in the long run.)

there’s this banger of a line that she drops when she talks about Todd thinking that she rejected him because of her faith: “As if faith had anything to do with who I was. With what I wanted, and didn’t want, my life to become.” which, like. that’s specifically in reference to her aromanticism but also like. Carpenter that is a very loaded statement. can you imagine Faulkner saying something like that???

actually it’s interesting—Faulkner very much loses himself in his faith, whereas Carpenter keeps a very distinct handle on who she is and what she thinks and wants out of this whole deal. so her faith is very different, because she’s such an individualist, and sometimes her stubborn insistence on Her Way bumps up against what the organized cult says. her faith really doesn’t influence what she wants out of the world. it’s kinda the other way around.

she burns her copy of the Silt Verses at the end. you guys. she burns her holy book. while praying. what the fuck. that’s iconic. but also what the fuck.

stupid questions:

how tf is Carpenter walking in any episodes after this??? she twists her ankle until there’s a crunch, and there’s a chunk taken out of her leg???? ma’am you shouldn’t be able to stand on that for a WHILE that’s probably at least a second degree rolled ankle i fear for your ligaments

how tf does a jaw look like a snare. how. a snare is like a noose of wire. how does that WORK

Carpenter was a lure for the Trawlerman’s faith???? sorry??? reminder that lures are: “Sweet-faced young acolytes who are sent out into the world, to hand out the flowers, whisper kind enticements, and lead the faithless into the sacrificial grounds”?????? i can not imagine that went well for Grumpy McCrow over here

(actually... could that be related to Todd and his ilk only seeing her as what they wanted her to be, wanting to find their meaning in her? maybe she took advantage of people willfully misunderstanding her, just like she takes advantage of people telling her their life stories. hmm. someone write a fic.)

im severely asexual, but after listening to Carpenter’s voice and cadences this whole episode—is this what sexy means??? i think i finally understand what sexy means. bless.

#long post #tsv #the silt verses #the silt verses meta #tsv meta #sister carpenter #carpenter tsv #Mallory glass #carpenter #the trawlerman #religion cw #cult cw

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cheri-translates · 3 years

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Gavin’s Official Art Book (Eng Translation)

Credits to @minjee98 for sending me photos of Gavin’s official art book and requesting this translation!

This post contains details on Gavin’s outfits, items, backgrounds, and interviews with his CN voice actor, the Copywriting Team, Art Team, and Production team.

More: Kiro l Lucien l Black Swan l STF l NPCs l Loveland City

💙 GAVIN’S OUTFITS 💙

[ Leather Jacket ]

Like a gust of wind blowing from a time of youth, coursing through very long years, Gavin appeared before you. An unruly and intractable smile, a relaxed tone, and the corner of his shirt riding up with the wind at the front seat of the motorcycle...

Back then, you wouldn’t have thought that he would be holding onto your hand like this, accompanying you through countless sceneries.

[Note] Something cute is that the word “sceneries” in Chinese is 风景 (“feng jing”), which directly translates to “wind view”

[ Uniform - Jacket Version ]

If it weren’t for Gavin bringing you to the Special Task Force and telling you about the Black Swan organisation, you would have continued living in ignorance.

Shouldn’t you be glad that he was willing to tell you everything? It’s only because of this that you knew you had been protected all along, and could finally stand by his side.

[ Gavin’s Shirt ]

If a rainbow is a delight after a rainfall, and two rainbows are a delight of a coincidental destiny, the three rainbows that you and Gavin saw must definitely be a unique miracle.

As long as you’re with him, the two of you can definitely create even more miracles belonging only to the both of you.

[ Shirt and Pants ]

The summer wind, his mildly bashful smile, the white shirt with its slightly rolled up sleeves, and the side profile with the blue coloured roof reflected in his pupils.

There’s no need to specially reminisce that summer day spent coursing through the river of love with Gavin. It’s definitely shimmering brightly in your memories all along, isn’t it?

[ Swimming Attire]

Riding the waves on a surfboard, playing the bass underneath the lights, using a light cough to cover his shyness... These are the most beautiful memories of that year’s summer.

Back then, when you had looked into Gavin’s eyes, did you suddenly feel that your entire life would pass like this?

[ Camo Jacket ]

On the day of releasing Pearly, the sunlight was warm and bright. A slight wind was blowing up strands of stray hair. Gavin held onto you, the two of you embracing the sunlight and wind.

Do you still remember? Him promising you the rest of his life back then, the bright amber of his eyes, and the answer you had given.

You said that you’d never let go of his hand.

[ Silver Grey Suit ]

You never would have thought the so-called “Meeting the Parents” would be such a nerve-racking thing.

It’s a good thing Gavin donned a well-fitting suit and appeared in time, protecting you from all sorts of tricky questions posed by your relatives. Or else you’d have been disorientated from the questions early on.

[ Swordsman Outfit ]

Which incident left the deepest impression on you during that year’s Qixi Festival? Was it Gavin’s swordsman appearance, his tender gaze under the moonlight, or was it... the sense of suffocation when you found out that his wire was broken?

If prayers truly worked, you would have been willing to make a prayer to the gods and spirits: Please don’t let him be put in danger again.

[ Wedding Attire ]

Although the wedding was just a filming activity, have you ever secretly anticipated it?

That path of fresh flowers the two of you walked along together, those bright and resplendent moments, and that person who had held onto you as you walked forward...

Being with him like this has commenced the true start of your lives.

[ Black Jacket ]

The first time you spent Valentine’s Day with Gavin, the first time you received an exorbitant gift from him, the first time the two of you drank from the same beverage...

On that day, you experienced so many memorable firsts. And to him, these memories are definitely just as precious.

[ Army Attire ]

The pitch-black uniform and gloves, medals flashing with a cold light, and ice-cold handcuffs... You’ve probably never seen such a Gavin.

But even if he doesn’t recognise you at all, he will continue stopping you from getting involved in danger, and will keep your lost bracelet properly.

No matter what, he has always been a tender person.

[ School Attire ]

He’s already hurt but still has a look of happiness and wants to play basketball - are all boys like that?

Can’t you easily imagine how a young Gavin was definitely the type to lead a bunch of small boys at the front with the broadest smile on his face as they ran towards the basketball court!

💙 GAVIN’S ITEMS 💙

Communication device - I carry it on me. It’s indispensable.

Gloves - An accompaniment when on missions. When I’m with you, I'll take them off.

Photograph together - Every moment related to us and worthy of remembering have been properly stored.

Photoshoot pictures - Because it has to do with you, I [ I CAN’T READ HIS HANDWRITING ]

Universe cake - Only you can fulfil my wish.

Astral stone - That was the last time [ I CAN’T READ HIS HANDWRITING ]

Cute hair tie - I’ll only be like this in front of you.

Touchscreen phone - Don’t bother about the rumours from school. Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell them all to you.

Shampoo - Next time, I’ll help wash your hair again.

Police badge - Memories of you in high school surface in his mind... it was truly a counter of a rebellious youth.

Bullets

Soft pillow

Ginkgo leaves

Letter

Phone keychain

Gavin’s house key

Lavender eye mask

Ginger tea

💙 BACKGROUNDS 💙

[ Gavin’s Room ]

Ever since the two of you reunited, life has gradually entered this minimalist-styled room. Without realising it, photographs of the two of you have appeared on the neat and tidy work desk. And the gloves you gave to him have been placed in the most eye-catching spot in the closet.

[ Gavin’s Kitchen ]

The kitchen, which didn’t have a full collection of ingredients, was gradually imbued with the smell of soot. The two of you have made several failed dishes together, but each time, he’ll smile and finish everything. The next time, will the both of you be able to overcome the curse of “dark cuisine” together?

[ Special Task Force Office ]

Here, you found out about the secrets of the Special Task Force, and also found out that the righteousness he has been steadfast in is hard-won. After that, he may never step into this place again. But you definitely trust in the conviction of his words.

[ Castle Steps ]

When he held onto you, walking up that serene spiral staircase, your heart was beating even faster than usual, wasn’t it? Did it stem purely from an anticipation of an unknown scenery, or was it from the unending stream of warmth from his palm?

💙 INTERVIEWS 💙

[ Interview with Ah Jie, the voice actor for Gavin ]

“I hope that while he remains steadfast to his convictions, he can live each day happily and optimistically.”

Q1: Teacher Ah Jie, having interacted with Gavin for such a long time, do you have any new insights regarding him?

Ah Jie: Mm, I do, a little. The most obvious thing would be how he has recently returned to his original self. Actually, things related to his mother, and the attitude his father adopts when interacting with him, have to a large extent changed his personality and the way he handles things. I still hope that while he remains steadfast to his convictions, he can live each day happily and optimistically. Love can make one more cheerful and carefree, and it’s pretty good.

Q2: Are there any characteristics of Gavin you appreciate a lot?

Ah Jie: I find one thing good about Gavin - the way he strongly perseveres in what he has decided upon. No matter whether it’s in terms of righteousness, his convictions, or feelings - once he decides on it, he’ll move forward without hesitation.

Q3: What do you think of Gavin’s Evol?

Ah Jie: I initially wanted to possess it, but... it’s not very useful considering Beijing’s weather. If his Evol was sufficiently powerful, could it blow away the smog? I’ll find a chance to ask him some other day.

Q4: Is there anything you’ve always wanted to tell Gavin, but haven’t?

Ah Jie: Even though he isn’t the type who knows how to hold a conversation with girls, he has changed for the better recently, and it’s a very large improvement. However, there’s no need to specially change. I think girls like how he is right now.

Q5: Has Teacher Ah Jie recently chanced upon a restaurant which you want to bring Gavin to?

Ah Jie: I recently discovered a very delicious and very spicy place. Next time, I’ll arrange to have supper with him there, haha.

[ Interview with the Copywriting Team ]

“He should be free and unfettered.”

Q1: The storyline of the game has several science fiction elements. What made you consider including science fiction elements in a game targeted at females?

Actually, we felt that romance is often underestimated. Love isn’t simply effete language without substance, or honeyed words. Love can give us courage, and bring us to a whole new world, opening new journeys, finding your unlimited self. A romance story is naturally appropriate to be melded with any other motifs. In love, we can explore various issues: personal growth, contradictions in society, the truth of civilisation, the rise and fall of history... The story we wish to convey to the players is one of “the cruel competition between love and power”. This isn’t just a complex story with science fiction elements. Actually, it’s also very related to the lives of every person.

Q2: As an Evol agent, does Gavin work 365 without rest?

No, but he has to be prepared to accept sudden missions.

Q3: Why couldn’t Gavin keep Greenie alive?

He watered it too much.

Q4: If he uses his Evol, what’s the highest point Gavin can reach through flight?

As long as he wants to, he can fly as high as he wants.

Q5: Does Gavin really like eating noodles?

It’s not to the extent of "really liking” it. it’s just that he finds it convenient.

Q6: When deciding on Gavin’s Evol, were there any special considerations?

We felt that he should be free and unfettered, just like... a gust of free and easy wind.

Q7: In the process of interacting, does Gavin have any difficult-to-spot “moe points”?

His slightly clumsy way of expressing his care and consideration. For instance, asking “Were you happy to ride it once more” after taking the Ferris wheel.

Q8: In the 2018 Qixi Festival event, Gavin’s ancient garb left a deep impression on people. Why did you design Gavin this way?

A swordsman who comes and goes without a trace. A swordsman who can rush to the skies even after falling off a cliff.

Q9: Is Gavin a dog or a cat person?

Dog.

Q10: What do you think is Gavin’s most classic line? How did you think of it?

“As long as you’re in the wind, I can sense you.”

It just came out very naturally in the plot - that Gavin would say something like that.

Q11: In relation to Gavin, are there any scenes that you’ve always wanted to write but haven’t fulfilled yet?

More scenes imbued with the feeling of a youthful romance. For instance, kissing at the rooftop staircase. I hope it can be arranged soon.

[ Interview with the Art Team ]

“Your photograph must be placed even on the workbench of the secret base!”

Q1: In relation to the various scenes in Loveland City, are there are any real life references?

The answer to this question has already been discovered by some meticulous players. We have indeed made references to a few real sceneries, such as the The Bund.

We want to give players the sense that the romance is happening right next to them, which is why we’ve brought our city’s scenery into the game, so everyone can feel a sense of familiarity and realism.

Q2: Art Sisters, what you think of the “Papergames Art Style” as coined by players? What is the biggest difference between the art style in Mr Love Queen’s Choice and other games by Papergames?

Actually, we don’t really understand the meaning of “Papergames Art Style”, and we don’t know what it means specifically. It probably refers to how the tone and atmosphere are more clear and romantic? Even our own department finds that the art styles from different games are very different. In making a comparison, Mr Love Queen’s Choice is much “harder” (laughs). After all, our main characters are four adult men. Right now, the style is basically “hard but not coarse” - there are parts which require meticulousness and delicateness, yet can’t be too soft.

Q3: Have you ever considered changing Gavin’s hairstyle, for instance giving him a crew cut?

Based on his personality, he might have thought about it. After all, a crew cut is very convenient. But come to think of it, does everyone really want to see him with a crew cut?

Q4: Where does Gavin typically buy his clothes? Online or in the shopping mall?

When he thinks it’s about time to buy clothes, he’ll find time to go to the mall. Occasionally, he buys them online.

Q5: How many different scars does Gavin have on his body?

There are some especially obvious scars on his collarbone and back. There are many other non-obvious ones in other places.

Q6: Why is there such a big difference between Gavin’s initial design and the final design? Initially, why did you give him that somewhat “smart” hairstyle?

Actually, we tried out many different types of hairstyles in the beginning. Then, we selected the one which was most suitable, and then refined it. The “smart” hairstyle was just one of many.

Q7: How many different outfits does Gavin have currently?

It’s difficult to say. After all, he does keep buying new clothes. A guy’s closet is the same as a woman’s - forever missing one shirt, a pair of pants, a pair of shoes, a watch...

Q8: Flowers appear frequently in the game. Could I ask the Art Team which flower best suits Gavin?

White lilac.

Q9: When it comes to Gavin’s home decor, what do the Art Sisters find the most special?

What’s special lies in “the warmth only you know about”.

Although the monochrome colours appear cold and cool, the details reveal the dribs and drabs of your lives: Outside the windows, you can see ginkgo trees which a harbour special meaning to the two of you. Atop the shelf in front of the window sits the strong “Greenie No. N+1″. Your photograph must be placed even on the workbench of the secret base!

Q10: What’s most difficult to grasp about Gavin?

The ahoge on Gavin’s head should point in the opposite direction of the wind.

[ Interview with the Production Team ]

“He gives people a sense of security, like the ‘Ah Sir’ in Hong Kong films!”

Q1: Why did you produce a game like “Love and Producer”?

Producers: Since 2015, our company has already started producing this game. As a mobile game with romance at its core, it’s something not many companies have tried before. The company had a lot of discussions on the possibility of it. In the end, we decided to do it, and the reason for making constant iterations, updates, and persevering after three years is especially simple. No matter what age you are, no matter whether you’ve dated before, no matter whether you're married and have your own family, we believe that in every woman’s heart, there remains an anticipation for romance and heart-stirring experiences. Which is why we believe “Love and Producer” has a reason for its existence. This belief has always guided our production and operation process, and we hope we can continuously bring even more beautiful romance experiences to everyone in the future.

Q2: Where did the name of the game “Love and Producer” come from?

Producers: I don’t know if anyone remembers that in the very beginning, our tagline on the official website has always been “Love and dreams need to meet their match.” Why is this game called “Love and Producer”? That’s because the link between you and him not only encompasses the narrow scope of love, but also permeates into to your life journey together.

Q3: Are there any deeply hidden “Easter eggs”? Could you disclose them to us?

Producers: They aren’t really that hidden, but there are indeed some “Easter eggs” which should have already been discovered by some players. For instance, you can see a certain poster during City Strolls. In “Go See Him”, the coupling of certain outfits and sceneries could bring out a few hidden lines. We welcome everyone to give it a try.

Q4: If you were to catch criminals together with Gavin, how could you help him?

Producers: After much thought, we might only be bait...

Q5: What do the people in the Production team call Gavin?

Producers: Gavin, Old Gav, Lil Gav, Bro Gav.

Q6: How do the males in the production team view Gavin?

Producers: An envoy of righteousness, he gives people a sense of security, like the ‘Ah Sir’ in Hong Kong films!”. But sometimes, he’s like Andy Chan.

Q7: If you had Gavin’s Evol, what would you use it for?

Producers: Of course, I'll go for a flight!

Q8: If there comes a day when you can be as fearless as Gavin, what would you want to do most?

Producers: Serve... serve the motherland?

Q9: Lastly, do you have anything to say to the players?

Producers: This interaction between the Production Team and the players is already sufficient enough to cherish. The world we created has only become perfect because of your participation. Our days alongside Loveland City have already become an important stamp in our lives. This world is still constantly becoming richer and broader. Kindly look forward to it!

#mlqc #mlqc gavin

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paladin-of-nerd-fandom65 · 3 years

Text

Hark the Angels sing; It’s MORE Random Mary Grayson Headcanons!!.....I have apparently lost control of myself but hey these are fun XD

Some of these are ones that focus on what can possibly fit into proper DCU canon while some are from AUs I have in mind (prominently, ‘What if the Flying Graysons all survived yet their son still became a Robin and eventually Nightwing?’ or ‘What if Mary was resurrected as a Talon for the Court of Owls yet was her personality more or less got brought back to normal?’)

I appreciate any to all feedback from replies to likes, but ESPECIALLY Reblogs and more so, Reblogs with additional headcanons

Either way, enjoy this nonsense

- (Flying Graysons Alive AU) Mary is perhaps one of the very few people alongside Batman, Red Arrow, and Lian Harper who can actually eat Green Arrow’s infamous chili recipe. Not even her husband can do it, with the latter having to chug two whole gallons of milk to soothe the burns.

- One of her favorite hobbies whenever not practicing on trapeze is reciting and acting out Shakespeare plays. Her favorites being Romeo & Juliet, King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Macbeth. Most of the time, John and her often love playing the final scene in Romeo and Juliet as the titular characters respectfully. Apparently Mary has a hidden natural skill of playing dead so well it looks convincing to anyone who doesn’t know better.

- (Talon!Mary AU) Upon regaining her memories and most of her personality back, one of the first things Mary asks is naturally of who was it that raised her son while she was gone, especially since this person was apparently the one that taught Dick into honing his acrobatic skills into crime fighting. When learning it was Gotham based billionaire Bruce Wayne, Mary made a briefest of stops to Wayne Manor to confront him about it. On the one hand, as a mother, she was all too commonly concerned and a bit baffled about this acquaintance of her husband and her being the one to do this for Dick without their permission. On the other, had it not been for Bruce as Alfred rightfully points out, Dick’s fate could’ve been far worse given the care system Gotham had him or even the Court of Owls double crossing their deal with her and making Dick a Talon anyways. Also, Bruce explained indeed it was ultimately Dick’s decision to swear an oath to crime fighting and his choice to avenge what happened to John and her, finding the thugs responsible for it. She acknowledges this and rather than have any animosity, Mary thanks Bruce for doing what he can and helping her son becoming the young man he is nowadays, a leader of the Titans, defender of Bludhaven and generally probably her greatest wish, a good person int he end. She declines Bruce’s offer to stay in either Gotham or Bludhaven but does say if a Crisis get too much for him and the Batfamily to handle on their own, she’ll more than willing to lend a hand. Such irony, an owl being a friend with a bat.

- Being a Catholic, Mary often prays the Rosary prayer every Sunday at night before bed and especially during Holy Week. Dick carries on this tradition when moving into Wayne Manor and even nowadays in either his Bludhaven apartment or his room in Titans Tower since that’s what his Mother taught him.

- Mary firmly understands the general fear of clowns some people tend to get. She firmly understands of the numerous unfortunate implications that come with the bright make up, goofy antics and general oddness clowns exhibit when being approached by casual folks. But thankfully, she definitely knows plenty of good clowns that are among her closest friends at Haly’s Circus and can say for certain they are the norms, not this Joker and his partner Harley Quinn everyone keeps paying attention to instead. Mary generally dislikes Joker and Harley and for good darn reasons.

- She designed almost all of the Flying Graysons uniforms for each and every one of their tours and shows. They usually depend on the types of performances they perform for the night on their tour maps, helpfully categorized by John with colored pins on said maps. If the show’s a blue pin (safest of the stunts, safety nets set up), Mary and her family are wearing an all blue outfit with disco-esque collars and bird motifs (New 52 Nightwing origin ones); on red pins (larger crowds,bolder stunts yet safety nets still set) an green sleeveless bodysuit with a giant yellow stylized G on the torso (All Star Batman and Robin and Nightwing [2018-] Annual #2); and finally for Black Pins (Largest of crowds, most bold of stunts, no safety nets, example being Gotham) a green scaly leotard with a red tunic, green pixie boots and a pre show yellow cape. Said tunics having a black and yellow letter on the right side meaning their first names for example ‘M’ for Mary on hers and an ‘R’ for Richard, or as she calls it, ‘Robin’.

- During tours in Japan, Mary always insists to bring with them before they leave an entire week’s worth of the dish called Katsudon, beef or pork cutlet on top of rice along with other ingredients. It’s basically a buffet dinner in one bowl.

- In terms of music, Mary likes rock n roll in almost all of its subgenres. What she listens too depends on her mood at the time of the day. For instance when cleaning their trailer on bright sunny day, The Beatles are likely being blasted on her record speakers. Conversely on rainy nights with the trailer to herself and in the mood for something a bit heavier, Black Sabbath and Metallica are what’s pumping out in her headphones, performing air guitar like crazy without noticing John or Dick walking in to see that, much to their amusement. Dick actually bought those same songs his mother plays on his phones when moving to Wayne Manor. Bruce actually liked a lot of the stuff Dick played, in particular Black Sabbath......except for any songs by the Ramones, the Misfits or any hardcore punk rock. Bruce just wasn’t a fan.

- (Flying Graysons Alive AU) Mary and John, after the events of the Circus and settling into a decent apartment in Gotham with Mr Wayne as their landlord, take jobs at a nearby fitness center. In particular, they are trapeze teachers for anyone willing to give the ropes a try. No matter the students they get, both Graysons are given the opportunity to impart their skills and their amazing acrobatic prowess to a new generation beyond their son. It probably helps that since they’re at said fitness center until it’s closing hours, they arrive home at almost the same time their son barely comes back from his Robin patrols.

- (Flying Graysons Alive AU) Mary ADORES her grandchildren Mar’i and Jake. She is almost THE go-to babysitter for them whenever her son and his wife Kory are away on a very intense Titans and/or Bludhaven mission. Though it must be said, watching over two Tamaranean-Human hybrids proves no easy task since either one or both of the two rascals can accidentally do some damage to the apartment with their starbolts or enhanced strength when not carefully. Perhaps the trickiest period was when Mar’i was barely coming out of her toddler phase but still had their stubborn temper that can ignite said starbolts. Thankfully as Mar’i got older and her baby brother Jake proved on being far more relaxed and chill than his older sister at his age, watching over the two of them became far easier. Whenever, the three interact in small talk, they all speak primarily in lovari Romani Chib. Sometimes when reading them Tamaranean bedtime stories, the kids help with Mary’s Tamaranean since she’s always curious to learn new languages. More often than not, whenever getting a call for Dick to help watch Mar’i and Jake,the first thing she does almost immediately is check their mustard supply given what her grandchildren drink. Overall, Mar’i and Jake are a joy when they visit Mary and John and she can’t be any happier than that.

#mary grayson #john grayson #dick grayson #the batman #mari grayson #jake grayson #mention #oliver queen #roy harper #lian harper #court of owls #talon #joker #Harley Quinn #headcanon #my posts

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rsquid · 2 years

Text

One: E221.1

Im gonna start posting a short story series thing i’ve been working on for the better part of a year now, based on the thompson motif index. so without further ado:

The call came in around midnight, rousing Fenton from his sleep. After fumbling around in the dark for a second, he found his phone.

“What is it?”

“We have an E221.1.” The operator replied.

Fenton let out a sigh, falling back onto his bed “Another one? I’ll take care of it.” He hangs up the phone and heaves himself out of bed. A E221.1, a dead wife haunting husband on second wife, the second one this week, at least it was something easy. Fenton sighs again and pulls on his uniform, a simple shirt with a long coat bearing the agency logo on it. Still half asleep, he made himself a cup of coffee, black. Now a bit more awake, he got into his car and drove to the station. When he arrived it was around 12:30, he pushed open the glass double doors into the well-lit interior

“Welcome Dr. Umbren.” the operator piped when she saw him.

“Good morning Operator, an E221.1 huh, well, at least it’s something easy.”

As he walked by the Operator, he handed him a slip of paper with an address and name on it. Then, Fenton headed into the back of the station and into the armory. While there were a few firearms, it was mainly things like salt, cross, slivered weapons, and the like. Fenton mumbled to himself as he ran his hands over the racks of things, eventually taking a flashlight, some salt, a fire starter, and a silver cross, just in case things went south. Now all geared up, Fenton walked out the back of the station, and got into an agency cruiser, he inputted the address the Operator had given him, and took off.

He arrived a short time later at a modest middle class home. He got out of his cruiser and knocked on the door. The door was answered by a tired and disheveled looking man.

“Oh, thank goodness you're here, I’v-”

Fenton cut him off “Are you John Peterson who called in the E221.1 at around 12 this morning?”

Peterson looked taken aback “I- uh, yes, that’s me, now can you please help me?”

“Of course sir I just need you to answer a few questions.”

“Alright, yeah, sure.” Peterson ran a stressed hand through his hair, “What do you want to know?”

“How long has your wife been dead?”

“One year, exactly.”

“How long have you been married to your new wife?”

“About six months now.”

“What things happened to prompt you to call us?”

“She started throwing things about, and made blood leak from the ceiling, and tried to strangle my new wife.”

“And what makes you so sure it’s her?”

“She called me by her pet name for me, no one else knows it, and it sounded like her.”

“Alright one more question, where is your wife buried?”

“I don't see how-”

“Just answer the question, sir.”

“In the old cemetery, just down the road but why-”

Fenton cuts him off again, “Thank you for your cooperation, a cleaning crew will be here shortly to clean any messes the ghost may have made. They will not however replace any objects that may have been broken, have a nice rest of the evening.”

Fenton walked briskly back to his cruiser, and, after calling in a cleaning crew, headed to the cemetery Peterson had given him. When he got there, he grabbed a shovel from the trunk of the cruiser, and headed into the cemetery, it didn't take him long to find the grave, Emily Peterson, the date was wrong, almost 5 years ago, why did Peterson lie about it, Fenton shrugged, not his job to worry about it. After about 2 hours of digging, he had finally unearthed the coffin, and after a quick walk back to the cruiser to grab an axe, broke open the coffin, and after moving the splinters out of the way. He threw several handfuls of salt over the body, and after lighting a match, burned the body. He stood there in silence and said a small prayer

“I release you from your business in this world, may you pass peacefully from this world into the next.”

Fenton stood in silence with his head bowed as the fire burned itself out, as the fire burned down to embers, Fenton set about re-burying the coffin, and when that was done, he got back in his cruiser, and drove back to the station. On his way back he stopped by the Peterson home to let him know the problem was dealt with and to call again if any more problems occurred. The cleanup crew came by and cleaned up the blood and broken vases. With that done he drove back to the station, sent his gear down for cleaning, and wrote his after occurrence report. “Subject [John Peterson] experienced a level 2 E221.1, Subject said it had been dead for “1 year exactly” however the date on the E221.1’s tombstone indicated it had been dead for 5 years, reason for discrepancy is unknown, further investigation recommended. E221.1 dispatched via salting and burning of its bones. Fenton placed his report in the tray, and drove back to his house. When he arrived home, he rehung his uniform and collapsed back into bed, and went back to sleep.

#writing #short story #folklore #ghost #The Folklore Index #creative writing #series #idk how else to tag this

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amwritingmeta · 3 years

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S15: Dean and Cas

Pardon my lateness. Life is mental at the moment! I haven’t watched 15x17 yet but hope to do so today or tomorrow. Gods preserve me, for then there will be only three more episodes left. *is this real life??*

Okay, leaving that, let’s talk about Dean and Cas, shall we? Yes, we shall!

Dean and Cas’ relationship, or rather, how they relate themselves to each other, has been in focus this season, because it’s been pivotal to both of their arcs in canonically straightforward ways. Ways so straightforward that we haven’t really seen the likes of them since S11, and with the very heavy-duty callbacks to S11 these last two episodes, it all seems quite fitting.

I mean, Jack is a bomb like Dean was a bomb and Dean got to ask Amara why she would bring Mary back, and she got to clarify she meant it as a gift, a thank you at the end of S11, because Dean didn’t blow himself to kingdom come and her along with him, because instead he realised how he could broker peace and allow for light and dark to find balance.

Which is what Dean needs to find right now.

He needs to balance out the light and dark, the masculine and the feminine, the conscious and unconscious, the ego and the shadow. He needs to balance himself out in order to let go of his fury. Why does he need that? Why would the narrative continuously hit on him needing to let go of his anger? Because that’s the reason why he was put on this journey to begin with, this slow and steady coming-of-age-coming-into-his-own progression of finding forgiveness and feeling worthy and having faith that he deserves good things.

How do we know this?

Well, arguably this season through what happens to Dean whenever he gives his fury free range, whenever he allows it to hollow out his faith, his trust, making him one-track minded, suspicious and controlling: he loses something.

He loses Cas.

This season has been all about highlighting what happens when Dean is unable to be even the slightest bit self-aware, when he veers off the path of self-acceptance. This season, Dean has had Cas disappear out of his life twice: first when Cas walked out of the bunker and second in Purgatory, when Cas went with the Leviathan. (to get them away from Dean)

The first time Dean almost lost Cas was really all about highlighting Cas’ independence (thank fuck for that), letting us see how far they’ve come in their relationship, because Dean didn’t dig himself a grave this time, perhaps having faith, in spite of it all, that Cas would come back to him, and Cas went off on his own, feeling like there was nothing left for him at the bunker when there was no forgiveness to be had from Dean.

Except, Cas thought better of it. He realised it wasn’t just on Dean to push for change—it was on him as well. And, knowing Dean, Cas had the epiphany that he would have to lead the way.

Dean, of course, not being able to forgive and forget all that easily, needed a final push, which is why the second time he almost lost Cas was all about Dean. He had to confront his anger. He had to, because naming it and admitting it as the root cause of so many of his actions (and reactions) is a cornerstone for him to begin letting that anger go.

Almost losing Cas brought him to a moment of clarity, brought him to take a knee and admit to being wrong and offering the forgiveness he’d been holding back, because being angry is easier, especially when, it could be argued, you were beginning to feel that trust in good things lasting.

Yeah, speaking of good things lasting, it brings us to this question: Why is Dean so angry?

He doesn’t know why (or so he claims) and he probably does need to have his eyes opened for him, the way Amara tried to open them, the way his conversation with her was a highlighter for the point he’s being pushed to finally reach in his progression: forgiving the past, embracing the present, trusting in the future and in the fact that he deserves to live a long and happy rest of his life.

The fact that she’s completely dressed in pink - hello positive femininity representative who kicks ass and who once almost killed God and then was balanced out so that she instead healed him with her light and they twisted into dark and light smoke and went off together - is just delicious icing on the cake.

Yeah, and that’s the issue, Dean, alright, buddy?

Dean is angry because his mother died and her death meant that he lost his father too, it meant that he didn’t get to have a childhood, it meant that he stopped believing that he could have good things that would last, because of a confused sense of identity and a crippled sense of self-worth—why did bad things happen to him if he didn’t deserve it somehow?— and pushed him to mold himself into what would make him feel strong and brave: the image that his father projected.

The soldier.

The weapon and the shield.

And now it seems Protect Sammy has morphed into Sacrifice Jack, all because Dean’s fury at Chuck’s manipulation isn’t containable, and there’s no way Dean’s going to let Chuck live. Even if it means Jack dies in the process. As Dean said to Sam in 15x16: at least it’s not them this time.

All the while we just sit here and witness Dean morphing into the revenge thirsty spitting image of his father one last time, for one final, big ole push towards the line he’ll have to cross if he’s to finally understand once and for all where it’s actually drawn.

At Cas’ feet.

Remember back in S12, before Cas died, there was that subtle (erm) motif of pointy things going through people’s hearts from behind? Yeah. It happened twice, if I remember correctly, before the pointy end of an angel blade went through Cas’ heart and he died an angel death in the season finale.

Yeah. That.

So.

So now, in S15, we have Cas caught in a motif again, only this time Dean is right there with him, because it involves both of them.

We’ve had anger and loss, and then honesty and forgiveness.

We’re back to anger, we’re back to Dean seeing red, blinded by it, and the only thing—we’ve been shown—that can unblind him is…?

That’s right: losing Cas.

So he will lose Cas again. We’ve been on the precepice of this as fact for a good long while now, haven’t we, my merry macarons? We have indeed! The question becomes how will Dean lose Cas again? Is Cas actually going to die? Again??

I still sincerely doubt it.

I think Cas will find another way, and that other way will equal a sacrifice on his part. His life? I mean, it could be, but what about the Empty? What about allowing himself to be happy? It could add up somehow, I guess I just can’t see it. So I think the sacrifice will somehow involve Heaven, because we know Michael will be back, and I hope it will involve Hell and all of the forces God has brought into being working against him—together.

S p e c.

Now, I’m a sadist. No, not like that -> I’m a sadist when it comes to characters. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a sadist. (Misha Collins is one, as we all know) (I joke!) (down Bessie!) What I’m getting at is that I want Cas having no other recourse but to do whatever it is he’ll have to do to save Jack to, quite literally, break Dean.

We know they’re all teary eyed in 15x18 (feels like it’s Billie whom Dean is glaring at) and we’ve seen Dean crying against a wall and omfg I want it to be explicit and over Cas. Yeah?

We ain’t getting them driving off in the Impala together (which is fine btw because the final episode should focus on the brothers more than anything else) (I mean, a hint that they will be driving around in that Impala post season finale while Sam goes to be with Eileen would be fab, but we can only hope and wish, yeah?) (horses held), so let’s get Dean broken over thinking he’ll never see Cas again.

Let it be done with a big fat black marker in enormous circles around his emotional state. Let him TELL Cas to stay this time, like he should’ve done when Cas walked out the door in 15x03, only for Cas to be unable to comply, because this is all to teach Dean a lesson that this is where his anger gets him, and what he needs to do to save Cas is let that anger go, stop thinking Jack is expendable, and find a better way.

I mean, this is speculation, guys. This is hoping and wishing all over this narrative. But glory effing be if it’s anywhere in the ballpark.

It would be mind-blowing if there was a God intervention of some sort, a talking down off the ledge, as it were, as per end of S11, but I’m not going to hold my breath for *rainbows*…

I’ll hold it for balance, though. :)

Cas has waited for Dean for a long time. Dean being dismissive of Cas in 15x15 can, once again— because whenever he acts like a dick it comes back to bite him on the ass (there’s a visual for you)— be looked at as part of the tapestry that makes Cas feel there’s nothing more for him but being a father to Jack.

Dean did nothing but instill this feeling in Cas after Cas came back from the black hole that is the Empty in S13, Dean being all “You were brought back because we needed you”—Dean saying zero things about how he was basically ripping apart at the seams from the grief of losing Cas just hours before Cas made that phone call.

And of course not. Why would Dean admit that? Even to himself, once Cas was back.

He wouldn’t!

Ignoring how he really feels about stuff and taking Cas for granted is kinda what he does, so back to normal it all went. So normal and so leveled out that something had to happen, right? Because, in Dean’s mind, good things don’t last.

And then Mary happened.

Oh, my heart!

And Dean went off and cried, by himself, because he still couldn’t show emotion that openly, even to the people closest to him. But he went down on his knees and he cried in Cas’ ear during that prayer, and that really was something.

That said, Mary’s death was Dean proven right once again, and this person, who is the source of faith and hope and that budding belief that maybe, this time, everything was going to actually get better and stay that way, became the target of Dean’s anger over the injustice of it all. Because Cas was the root of it. He’s always been the root of Dean’s slow-to-grow hope that could bloom into belief and trust, if he just dared let it, that he deserves to be happy.

I wrote in an ask reply that I doubt we’ll get human!Cas, but then I remembered that Cas is still status quo-ing it. It’s why he almost left the bunker without telling anyone again, that choice of skedaddling without checking in getting interrupted by Dean, and Cas being brought into a situation where he had to divulge the information, not only that he was leaving and might not make it back (Dean’s face though!), but that Jack is going through a trial that will ultimately destroy him, which was a nice shift in this dynamic of theirs.

Now, look it, the writers may end Cas’ journey on him status quo-ing it... but for the Empty.

And I would shrug at the Empty and think, well, maybe that won’t come into play... but for the fact that the deal was brought up just a few episodes back.

So. Happiness.

Somehow something will need to push Cas toward a moment of happiness. And letting himself be happy is such a climactic moment for his entire journey—and look at how it perfectly mirrors what Dean is being pushed toward—that I find it difficult to see how that moment would bring an eternity in the Empty.

But I’ve written a lot of words on why I just can’t make sense of why they would choose to kill him or have his moment of happiness be tied to a narrative punishment so I’m not getting into all that again, but because both Dean and Cas are being pushed toward happiness, I’m curious to see which route the writers have chosen to take with it.

It would be thrilling and satisfying in equal measure if we finally get Dean crying over Cas, and only Cas. No filter of Bobby or Mary to take away focus and allow for an argument that he’s not actually grieving Cas.

It would be thrilling and satisfying for it to be very baseline Just Cas. As it has been just Cas this entire season. Cas at the center of Dean’s anger. Cas at the center of Dean’s push toward healing. Cas having had enough, drawing a line—the one that is still there, at his feet—and doing what he’s always done best: calling Dean out on his bullshit behaviour. Cas making Dean put words to his anger, express forgiveness and say that he’s sorry and all within the same moment to boot.

What all this will amount to, we’ll have to wait and see.

In a few weeks. Or next week. Or maybe there will be strong indicators where the pendulum is actually swinging in 15x17!

Holy. Hell.

But I can’t see it ending somewhere tragic. If it does, it does. And it will be what it will be. And I’ll mourn a little, and accept it and move on. But I do believe it will end somewhere hopeful. Somewhere that leaves things quite tied up, but also open to interpretation, so that we can pick and choose who ends up where and how these men decide to continue on their journeys, now that this enormous leg of their progression is done, and they’ve learned to put the past to rest.

And if S11 is anything to go by, then the echoes of that ending would be a powerful way to tie everything up, as S11 was meant to be the end of the road, until Andrew Dabb picked up the reins with an idea of how to continue the show for a few more seasons. Or so I’ve heard.

11x23 also gave us the most gloriously frustrating exchange ever written for two characters in a car. Omg. Dean we-ing the absolute hell out of his speech when it was him, he was the one, the entire time Cas was possessed by Lucifer, who insisted they make sure Cas came back unscathed. “You’re the best friend we ever had” my ass, Dean!

I wanted to talk about Dean and Sam as well, but there’s too little time at the moment for me to write more. And it’s painful, but I have to concede or hit a wall and hitting walls fucken hurts.

I will mention that Sam telling Dean off at the end of 15x16 still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

Finally, Sam. Finally.

As ever, sprinklings of salt all over this meta and speculation, my dearlings, but omfg it’s beautiful.

Right then. I’m off to watch 15x17! Wish me luck! *gah!*

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barnesandco · 4 years

Text

Nikah: February

Story Masterlist

Nikah: noun, Arabic, meaning the contract of marriage.

Bucky marries Peter’s former tutor because her student visa’s about to expire and the government isn’t granting her a green card. Can she find a way to permanent residence by marriage, and if so, will it be at the cost of their hearts?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Like, two curse words. Mentions of stress and nightmares.

A/N: Written under the Arranged/Accidental Marriage trope for @mermaidxatxheart ‘s writing challenge. Thank you for reading and commenting!

Their one month anniversary is spent in an indoor storage unit in Brooklyn, where they work on moving her things from her old apartment to the one they share together. Between her studies and work, and his hectic job, this is the first weekend that neither of them have prior engagements on. This task has been much delayed and is long overdue. It wouldn't have been necessary at all if she hadn't turned down his offer to pay the rent she doesn't want to spare for a place she isn't living in. Hence the van they rented to dump everything in the storage unit, and are now extracting required items from.

At least there's some form of temperature control, Bucky thinks, picking up a plastic cover for the couch. Their movement isn't inhibited by the thick coats demanded by a New York winter. Instead, he's wearing a grey cable-knit sweater that's fraying at the hem. She's standing by the shelves at the back wall, her cashmere-clad form hunched over a box of ornaments, weighing one in each hand like a balancing scale, lip between her teeth. By now, Bucky knows that means she's distracted - a tell of emotional absence. Her mind is somewhere else.

He tucks the plastic wrap around the bottom of the couch and clears his throat as he approaches her. The phantom pain if the accidental fist he received to his stomach the first and last time he unwittingly snuck up in her echoes through his abdomen. There had been apologies for days, right up until he had to leave for that ten-day mission in Columbia. She blinks once and snaps out of her trance, faces him, still holding the two pieces of decoration.

"You can bring them all if you like. Don't have to choose," He tells her, nodding to her full hands, and tucking his own in the pockets of his black jeans.

"No, there were already too many for my place alone. I'm not dumping it all on you," she shakes her head. Bucky thinks she's confused. Probably about why she's feeling so much lighter, why the stormcloud named "green card" seems to be stalling. The manual labor, the menial task should help get her mind off things, relieve the mental burden a little. She puts a miniature clay pot back in the box, leaving an intricately carved building.

"What is it?" Bucky asks, looking at the structure cradled in her palm.

"The Badshahi Mosque in Lahore," She replies, running her hands in mesmerizing patterns across the polished surfaces of the carving.

"It's beautiful." His eyes roam over the domes and towers, the arched entrance. She chuckles.

"You should see the real thing. Life sized. This is just the main building," She tells him, face coming alive. "When you enter the gates, there's a gigantic courtyard you cross before going inside. Marble arches, Mughal frescoes, floral motifs, it's all breathtaking."

"Are all mosques like that?"

"In size? No. Not in detail and decoration either, I guess. This one is a lot fancier than most, but there are some features all mosques have in common. Like the domes that represent the vault of Heaven, and minarets where the call to prayer is given from," She explains, brushing past him to put the model in the box of things meant to be to his home. It's still half empty.

"Call to prayer. Azaan, right? The one you've set for your alarm for prayer?" He picks up a sealed box by the entryway and puts it on a shelf.

"It's an app. Uses the azaan to let me know when it's time. The times change according to the length of the day. Apps are easier than changing the phone alarm all the time." Navigating the minefield of stuff, she opens the duct tape to close the decorations box. Just as she's about to cut off an end, her phone rings from somewhere in the room.

"Shit," She mutters, and he takes over the tape, fingers grazing hers as they switch places. She scrambles, almost tripping over a cricket bat leaning against a dining chair before locating the offending device in a flowerpot.

“اسلام وعلیکم، ماما”

She greets breathlessly, fake enthusiasm oozing. Bucky doesn't blame her. Work's been tough, and neither of them have been getting much sleep with the restless nights they've been having. The first few days after a long mission are painful, and his subconscious likes to torture him with nightmares. She's patient, though. Began keeping a glass of water on the nightstand, wouldn't let him move to the sofa in the middle of the night when he didn't want to disturb her. She's kind, kinder than she has any reason to he after how cruel the world has been to her. Because in addition to the tension of concluding her doctorate, and then dealing with his nightly episodes, she's coping with the stress of the green card.

"ماما، میں نے کہا بھی تھا کہ یہ خبریں نہیں پڑھنی چاہئیں۔ سب جھوٹ ہے۔"

I told you not to read those articles. It's all fake. She shoots a worried glance his way. After her family found out about the marriage, they had to design some sort of scheme to prevent them from interfering or being upset. Lie of choice - Bucky Barnes is Muslim. The press hasn't been fed this fallacy, but they've been hounding them for weeks - Is Bucky Barnes a secret Muslim? (Fox News), Bucky Barnes proves himself a traitor (Infowars), Bucky Barnes defies Islamophobia (CNN). Bucky doesn't like any of them, and it's bound to get worse after they find out about the application they submitted for permanent residence based on marriage.

They applied for it yesterday, when they had decided that a month is enough time to convince people that their marriage is not fraudulent. Bucky considers the headlines they'll come up with when they'll inevitably find out, thinks about how worried she was about ruining his public image the first time they met.

"You know what the media will say, right?" She asks over her elaichi tea in a booth tucked in the back of his favorite café.

"I can imagine," He answers, drawing circles in his cappuccino with the stirring stick. The cream design on top is long gone.

"Then why are you doing this?" She wants to know.

"Because you have the right to stay. And Parker would be devastated," He adds honestly. No use beating around the bush.

"Why you, though? Did the Avengers have some kind of meeting about Peter's long face and you drew the short straw?"

"Sam's too high profile, and everyone else is either too young or too taken."

"Of course, yeah, that makes sense," She concedes, taking a sip. He drains his cup. "I'm sorry- I didn't mean- I just don't want you to feel obligated to do this. Nobody's forcing you. If you don't want to, I'll figure something else out," She rambles in quick succession, all nervous hand gestures and non-existent eye contact, looking anxious and embarrassed.

"It's okay. I want to. Besides, it'll get me away from the Compound. Sam's always goin' on about being more involved, and don't get me wrong, I'm happy to do the work, I really am. The job is important, but I don't want to live in it, you know? Need a change of pace, to get away," he tells her, trying to make it sound like she's helping him as much as he is her. And she is. He may not look it, but he's tired. Happy to do the work, loves the job, but doesn't want to live for it.

Her cup comes down on the saucer with a clink, and he realizes she's finished her drink, and they've discussed everything there is to be discussed: living arrangements, finances, her studies, his job, Peter.

As they leave the café, she's a step ahead of him, and he rushes to open the door. She thanks him and he nods; together they step out into the slushy, snowy streets. Christmas is a week away, decorations out in full force. The twinkling fairy lights from the shopfront windows reflect in her irises, brightly contrasting with the midnight brush strokes that are her eyelashes. Her breath is released in clouds from her lipbalm-coated mouth, and the word winter wonderland has never felt more appropriate.

The memory of their first meeting floats in his eyes as he begins separating the items whose fate is her to be determined by their owner, still on the phone. She calls her family every other day, and they're close. The guilt tears at her, he sees it every day, sees it now, in the way she's scratching her nails against her legs when he walks past to get to another container. All the while, the Urdu he's learning touches of plays in the background.

"جی، ماما، وہ بہت اچھا ہے۔ آپ بالکل فکر نہ کریں۔"

Yes… he's very nice. Don't worry.

"ہاں، میرا خیال بھی رکھتا ہے۔"

Yes, he takes care of me, she's telling her mother, and Bucky hides his grin behind a pile of books.

"اللہ حافظ۔"

She bids farewell and ends the call with a sigh, just as he exits the van.

"Everything alright?" He asks, hands on hips. She nods, tucks her phone in her pocket and goes to the area he's calling no-man's land. Kneeling down, she moves the cricket bat into a box of things destined for his apartment.

"Yeah, the usual." Sorts through a few more things.

"What do you want to do with the flowerpots?" He asks, pointing to the empty pits her phone had disappeared into earlier. She turns towards him on her knee and huffs, tries to blow a lock of hair out of her face.

"I don't know why I have those. My thumb is as green as Trump's environmental policies," she mumbles, getting up to place them in a corner. They take one each, and another ten minutes of work awards them with the end of their assignment.

Bucky opens the passenger door while she locks the storage cell, and they leave the facility. The day's work - a tangible accomplishment - has cheered her up, and he wants to resurrect the ghost of a smile on her face

"I want pizza," He tells here, straight face.

"O… kay? We can have pizza, she says hesitantly. He never demands anything of her, so she's wondering where he's going with the framing of the wish.

"Do you have a favorite pizzeria?"

"There's a place in Astoria that-"

"Astoria? Queens? No. No, no, no. Brooklyn has the best pizza, come one," He deadpans, turning on the blinker, eyes flicking over to see her cross her arms playfully.

"I refute that."

"Alright, Astoria it is," He sighs pretend-reluctantly, rolling his eyes. She pokes her tongue out at him, and then laughs. The sound warms his blood, and he forgets the February chill and all thoughts of food as the melody rings out. When he returns to his senses, all he can think is, he's in so much fucking trouble.

Taglist: @suz-123 @mermaidxatxheart @buckyreaderrecs @shield-agent78 @corneliabarnes @readerandcinephileingeneral @stevieboyharrington @notsomellowmushroom @veganfangirl5 @mood-pancakes @lbuck121 @starnight-charmer

#ayesha writes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky #bucky imagine #bucky barnes #bucky x reader fluff #bucky barnes x desi!reader #desi!reader

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vulcan-highblood · 4 years

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Fashion God - Part 1

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia / My Hero Academia

Pairing: Gen?? Characters: Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku Summary: Izuku desperately wants to be a fashion designer, but can’t find a model who will wear his clothes. Izuku is shocked when a crude blonde boy mysteriously appears in his room to “help” him achieve his dream. It can’t possibly be that simple! [A/N: This turned out longer than expected. I basically did a timed-write, and here’s what I came up with in an hour. I’m planning to go back and finish this with another timed write or two, so for now, enjoy part 1. This story was prompted by a lovely anon, but I did adapt it slightly to fit the idea I ended up having. I hope you enjoy it! It’s a pretty out-there AU, but I’m happy with it.]

Midoriya Izuku loved fashion. He loved it more than life itself, as could be attested by the deep bags under his eyes and his poor fingers, which had been stabbed by needles so many times that he was pretty sure he had built up scar tissue. Izuku wanted nothing more than to make it big in the fashion world, but he was from a small town in the middle of nowhere. He read all the magazines, watched videos of his favorite designers, and used whatever materials he could get his hands on in his backwater town. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find anyone to wear his clothes. He’d offered to sew for his mom, he’d offered to make costumes for the school festival, he’d tried countless times to get anyone to model for him, but the only person he’d ever found that was willing to wear his clothes was… well, himself.

It wasn’t fair, but that was the way the world worked, sometimes. He just needed some way to get attention! Once he could capture the hearts and imaginations of the fashion world, he’d be able to share his vision with the world. But for now, he sewed alone in his room, wishing things could be different.

And then, he saw the announcement. Yagi Toshinori, the designer who created the world’s current top brand, AllMight, was looking for an intern. But rather than go to the fashion schools, he was opening the internship up to anyone willing to submit a fashion line that they felt embodied who they were as an artist, and submitted photos online. It was his chance! But Izuku found himself facing the same challenge as always - no models.

Despite the setback, Izuku decided he’d just model all the clothes himself. That would be fine, right? It wouldn’t be as nice as he’d like, but hopefully his clothes would speak for him. Throwing himself into his work, Izuku began researching, trying to decide what his theme would be. AllMight’s designer, Yagi, had urged competitors to “make their story”, and tell him something only they could share. Izuku wasn’t sure how he could do that, but he thought that trying to tell a story would be interesting. He just had to decide what story that would be.

Google told him that story writing was all about writing from experience. But Izuku had only just graduated middle school, he didn’t have much in the way of life experience to share. Still. He had been rejected, frustrated, and abandoned at every turn by people who claimed to support his dream but were never really willing to put in the work to help him. He knew what it felt like to be abandoned or forgotten. Sometimes, facing this challenge made him feel like a lone warrior, staring down a terrible horde of demons.

So he decided trying an interpretation on “old and new”, drawing on inspiration from old Japanese mythology, artistic motifs, and fashion. There was lots there - beautiful angles, layers on layers, coarse fabrics and smooth silk, princesses, castles, warriors, generals… He spent hours poring over his history textbooks from school, then any books he could find on ancient lore. He looked at books of art, trying to get a feel for the way clothes and fashion had developed in ancient Japan. He began to draw up designs for how to transition these looks from ancient Japan to the modern-day catwalk. He pinned, he sketched, he wandered through museums, and borrowed library books, throwing himself into the design process with fervor.

He prayed as he worked, begged any god that might be listening to please, please let him win this contest, let his designs show enough potential, let him be enough, let him finally leave his small town behind and show his ideas on a world stage.

He needed a miracle to pull this off.

“Do you know how much a miracle fucking costs these days, kid?” came a drawling voice from behind him.

With a shriek of terror, Izuku dropped his sketchbook and whirled around to face the strange figure that was standing in the middle of his bedroom. “Who are you?” he demanded, shrinking back in his chair. “What do you want?”

“Who am I?” the young man snapped, pointing to himself, shooting Izuku a disgusted look. “You’re seriously asking that?”

“You just appeared in my house!” Izuku protested, “I think it’s a reasonable question!”

“Fucking look at me,” the man - or was he a boy? It was hard to tell, Izuku realized with a frown - gestured to himself. He was clothed in baggy shorts and a tank top. He looked like a kid who wore what was comfortable and still looked good wearing it, but that probably wasn’t what he’d meant for Izuku to notice when he’d said it.

“What am I looking for?” Izuku asked, beginning to feel like he was on trial in his own bedroom.

“I -” the young man - kid - boy - whatever - glanced down at himself and did a double-take. “Oh, what the fuck?” he snapped, looked back up at Izuku, down at himself, and sighed, flopping on Izuku’s bed. “This just got complicated.”

“What do you mean?” Izuku asked, glad to be feeling less threatened but instead finding himself 100% more confused.

“Here’s the thing,” the kid sat up, his scarlet eyes fixing on Izuku as he ran a hand through pale blond spikes. “I’m a god.”

~~*~~

Normally, when Katsuki appeared to a supplicant, they fell down on their face and got real chummy. Not this moron. Oh no, he was too busy fixing Katsuki with a concerned look.

“Right…” the boy said, carefully fumbling on his desk for his phone. “Is there someone I can call for you? Do you have a family?”

Katsuki shut his eyes briefly to resist the urge to light the room on fire. “No, I’m here for you. Because you called me.” And because he’d fucked up, but he wasn’t going to be telling this green kid that, because it would seriously damage his reputation as a powerful god, and Katsuki was not about that shit.

Green-haired kid narrowed his equally green eyes. “I didn’t call anyone, I can prove it, let me open my call log.”

“Not like that,” Katsuki snapped, standing once more so that he could gesture more dramatically. It felt good to gesture. He hadn’t appeared to a mortal for some time, he’d forgotten how fun it was to gesture at them. “You prayed. Here I am. Answering your prayer.” He struck a pose.

The green kid blinked. “I’m confused.”

He sure as hell seemed to be confused. Most people these days were, since they seemed to forget so easily that their prayers were going somewhere. Half the time Katsuki suspected that people prayed just to hear themselves talk, not because they actually expected divine intervention. Which was bullshit. Because the gods were fucking busy, and didn’t deserve to get a bunch of bullshit calls from people who didn’t have the faith and conviction to really appreciate the work that went into answering their prayers. That was one reason why appearing to a petitioner felt so satisfying - giving that hard evidence of work in the spirit world so that they had to give credit where credit was due.

“Did you, or did you not, visit a temple literally yesterday?” Katsuki reminded him.

“But that’s because my mom wanted to finish her pilgrimage,” the green kid protested, “I just… prayed because… she said to…”

Katsuki watched the understanding dawn slowly across the dumb kid’s face.

“Wait. So you came because I prayed at the temple yesterday?”

“Hell yeah I did!” and because he’d been fucking forced to come because of some paperwork bullshit, but the kid didn’t need to know that. “So I’m here to help you achieve your dream.”

“...oh,” the kid said slowly, “Well, I mean, what I need most is models. Can you, um. Hire fashion models for me?”

Katsuki blinked. “I’m sorry, you prayed for fashion models?”

Green kid blinked back at him. “I thought you were here to answer my prayer. How do you not know what I asked for?”

Because he hadn’t been paying attention to it. And because he hadn’t thought it would matter, yesterday, when he’d been collecting the prayers from the temple. Turns out it had mattered. A lot. “I just thought you were aiming small because your faith was weak. But you could just ask to, you know, win the contest. I can do that.”

Green kid shook his head, unruly hair flying. “That’s not fair, I want to win because I deserve it, not because I got some god to do it for me.”

Katsuki wanted to point out that he was rather simplifying a complex process and since basically everything happened due to some deity’s influence, what did it really matter which deity was doing the influencing? But he also didn’t want to bother explaining that. So instead he just sighed. “So what do you want?”

“I told you,” Green kid said, “I want models to wear the clothes in my fashion line.”

“I can do that,” Katsuki said. He’d have the models ready for this kid quick as could be, and then he’d be back in the heavenly realms and free of this detail-oriented bullshit for another decade. Simple.

He should have known better. Nothing was ever that easy.

#bnha #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #mha #bakudeku #maybe #au

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dailyaudiobible · 4 years

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02/20/2020 DAB Transcript

Leviticus 9:7-10:20, Mark 4:26-5:20, Psalms 37:30-40, Proverbs 10:6-7

Today is the 20th day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today are coming to you from Eliot, which is the southernmost tip, southernmost city in the land of Israel. We journeyed through the wilderness yesterday all the way down here to the shores of the Red Sea, which is where we spent the night. And, so, obviously can't go further south and stay in this country. So, we will begin journeying north today. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But before we do, let's…let's do what we've come here for. Let's allow all of the cares of life…they won’t…they have a way of coming back…they won't…like they’re not going anywhere, we’re not gonna lose them…or…or maybe we are. Maybe we’re coming here every day to learn how to live. And, so, it's good for us to just exhale the world and inhale the serenity and peace that comes from allowing the word of God just to wash over us. So, we’re reading from the New International Version this week, continuing through the book of Exodus. We’ll read chapter 9 verse 7 through 10 verse 20 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, yesterday in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is using an agricultural story about planting seed and it falling on different types of ground and so what happened to the seed because of the soil. And, so, in today's readings He’s kinda continuing with…with that kind of agricultural motif or background but expanding it to…to encompass the entire kingdom of God. So…so He’s like, “the kingdom…the kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground.” Then He’s explaining the growth of the plant, that it’s happening both day and night and the farmer doesn't even know how it's happening. It's just happening. The growth is taking place as he waits for the harvest. And then He’s like, “the kingdom of heaven is like a tiny mustard seed, a tiny little seed but it…it sprouts up into the largest of all the garden plants.” Okay, let's remember Jesus is describing the kingdom of God with these parables, with these metaphors. So, what then can we say about the kingdom of God? We could say that the kingdom is happening right now all the time, right, day and night. Like the farmer planted the seed and then day and night it grew, and the farmer didn't know how. It just did because the seed and the soil collaborated. So, the kingdom is a collaboration between God and His image bearers on this planet - seed and soil, collaboration. And…and although it begins small, it grows and flourishes and gives life as we cultivate and participate, which brings us to the harvest. We could also say that Jesus is using a physical parable, a physical reality that people can understand to explain an inward process that is taking place because you can't go to Walmart and buy seeds of the kingdom of God and then throw them out into the air and just see what sprouts up. The seeds of the word of God are spread into our lives and we collaborate by understanding the kind of soil that is in our hearts. And, so, we could also say the kingdom is here and now and we are in it because it is in us as we explored when we were going through the book of Matthew. This isn't something we’re waiting for. This is something that's happening. What we’re waiting for is for its fullness, for its fullness to be revealed. And so often where just like waiting…we’re just like…life is about waiting, right? Like, I'm here. I'm confused. I'm not exactly sure what's going on. I believe in God and I believe this is all going somewhere but I'm here to wait to die and then I can understand or be involved somehow in this kingdom when we would wait our whole lives and miss it. It's happening. It's among us. It's within us and the transformation isn't for us to go to battle with the Romans or for us to defeat some kind of doctrine that we don't agree with, its to be transformed from within by becoming good soil so that the kingdom can flourish within us and then we will know what to do with ourselves in this world. This is essentially what Jesus was trying to awaken people to, right? He's looking for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. And, so, once again we get that opportunity. Do we have eyes to see, do we have ears to hear? If this kingdom is happening then I should be able to see it, I should be able to see the goodness of God sustaining everything in this world. I should be able to see it, but I'm so focused on the evil in this world. But if we have eyes to see and ears to hear we can't look anywhere without seeing the presence of God in action and understanding that we are collaborating in it and that it is happening by transforming us from within.

Prayer:

Jesus, we invite you into that as we go through this day asking once again that your Holy Spirit would bring these things to mind and help us to contemplate on…contemplate on them as we move through this day. Give us eyes to see. We’re…we’re opening our eyes. We’re cleaning out our ears. We want to see this kingdom. We want to reveal it through our lives. So, come Holy Spirit into all of this we pray in the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

Okay. So, this is the day two of our...of our pilgrimage in the land of the Bible. So, our first day was yesterday. And we left Ashdod which sits right on the Mediterranean coast. It's an ancient Philistine city. I’ve mentioned that before. We began to head south, moving into the transition zone into the desert and we visited a very ancient site called Beersheba. And it’s a southernmost boundary of ancient Israel right? It was from Dan to Beersheba. That's pretty popular…popularly known. So, Beersheba is the southernmost point. So, we've reached that. And then we just kept going into the desert into the deep, deep wilderness and we had the opportunity to overlook the wilderness of Zin and just…there’s just a really, really great place to kind of get a look at the barrenness of the desert. It's quite striking actually. It's otherworldly. It's very, very beautiful. So, we had some time throughout the day to get these vast vistas of empty barren wilderness and to just think about what that would be like because it's hard for us to even wrap our minds around traveling as a caravan with a million people in the wilderness and it becomes very apparent we would not be…like our modern…we would not be prepared for that at all - no cars, no cell phones, no social…like there's no way to post a selfie. Like, all things we’re just used to doing, like running to the convenience store to get some convenient food, none of that would be possible. And, so, you begin to see the…certainly the isolation of the wilderness, but the simple fact that God was deeply embedding into His people that there was no hope outside of Him. And, so, we had some time to just kind of think about our own wilderness experiences because I….so far in all of my years of life that I've been paying attention I haven't met anybody who's never had a wilderness experience of some sort and that a lot of us are going through them now, whether on this pilgrimage live here in the land of Israel or whether you’re virtually in this community. There’s all kinds of things going on all the time that we face. And usually all of our energy is spent trying to get out of the wilderness while ignoring what the wilderness might be saying to us, what we might need for our lives when we…when we exit it. And, so, that's kind of…that's kinda some of the things we’ve been thinking about as we’re traveling.

And we got to have lunch with the Bedouins, which is always a highlight just because it's such a different experience. Like I can’t say it’s this unbelievably five-star dining experience with multiple courses and everything. It's just engaging with a culture, a people that we would never really encounter outside of this part of the world in any way. And, yeah, there’s plenty of Bedouin people still kind of wandering in the wilderness, as it were.

And, yeah, so just continuing south, south, south, wilderness, wilderness, wilderness until we get to this little oasis where there is a kibbutz which is sort of like communal living…like where everybody is working and living for the community and sharing everything in common. And, so, these are dairy farmers. And, so, there’s this little shop and some of my favorite ice cream I’ve ever had in the world, I don’t know why, maybe just because it's in Israel, but I’m not like a super big ice cream eater but every year I look forward to it…every year I even talk about it. And, so, it’s…it’s…so we get we get to stop and have it. We get to stop and have it again today. And, so, we did that and, you know, it’s a chance to stretch the legs a little bit, go to the bathroom and all that.

And then we…we made it down to Eliot to the shores of the Red Sea. And, yeah, that…that's also just a really, really interesting point in this journey because we’re kind of…it just…it's…it's a good place for this to sort of hit you that where…where we are because from that point you can look into Egypt, you can look across into Saudi Arabia, you can look across into the country of Jordan even as you’re standing in the…the nation of Israel and realize, yeah, I'm in the Middle East and this is the Red Sea and…and man this was…this was divided and the children at some point somewhere along this shoreline that stretches way, way, way further south into the Sinai Peninsula, somewhere along here they crossed…they crossed over. And, so, it's like I'm in the Middle East and I'm in the Bible, like I'm standing in the book of Exodus right now, So, it's…yeah…and plus the jet lag and all the adrenaline and everything that just goes into day one. So, that's what we did.

And then had some dinner and try to relax and get some rest and gear up for this day.

And yeah, so we’re the book of Leviticus and reading about all of these sacrifices at this…at this tabernacle that has been erected and it’s that these dimensions and it's got these kinds of cloths and it's like all of the specific details and instructions that we've been reading, today we’ll actually kinda get the chance to see that in person because there is…yeah….there’s a life-size replica out in the wilderness of the tabernacle. So…so yeah, there's lots of instructions and lots of sacrifice and regulations and how to do this and how to do that. And as we mentioned, this this is the law. So, it's not always the most rivetted…riveting reading but this is what will establish this culture in the wilderness that are the Hebrew people, that are Israel, ancient Israel. And, so, this is…this is what will shape them. And, so, we’ll kind of get a chance to step into that a little bit.

And then we’ll keep heading North but none of that's happened yet so I can’t exactly tell you about it. I’ll have to tell you tomorrow.

Thank you for your continued prayers overall of us, over the buses, over the drivers, over the guides, over health, over whether, over logistics, over technology, over everything that is involved in keeping this going every day, even as we travel here internationally.

And also reminding you that our next year’s pilgrimage is planned and registration is open at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section. Just for Israel 2021, and you can get all of the pertinent details that you would need and hopefully we'll see you next year.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com is well. There is a link and it just lives on the homepage and I thank you with all my heart for those of you who have been partners over the years. If you're using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you a prayer request a comment 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Dear Michael, I am so sad about the loss of your mama. I want to let you know how much the community loved her. And I grew to love her through her poetry and her words, and her book and I could really feel her heart. You must have had one heck of a mama. She sure was a nice lady, wasn’t she? I just wanted to let you know that your mom’s book, I bought it before Christmas for a friend and I couldn’t give it away. Something about it, it just touched my heart so much that I wanted to keep it for myself. And, so, I kept it on the corner of my counter in my kitchen and every time I walked by it, I would see the picture on the front and I would pray for your mom and I would pray for you and your family. And I’m so thankful to hear that you have a relationship with your dad. I’m sure that’s going to be very important real soon. So, I’m glad that you’re doing well and just let you know that you are in my thoughts and in my prayers my brother and your brother also and your dad. Okay? And I love you very much and I am so thankful to know that your mama is in heaven with Jesus right now and I gotcha she’s looking down at you and praying for you to. Alright brother? I will talk to you soon. This is Annette Allison from Oklahoma City. Bye-bye.

Hello Daily Audio Bible this is Kim in Las Vegas and I just heard from the DAB that one of our own, Diana Davis has gone home to be with the Lord. And, so, I’m thankful that we got to spend time with her and that we got to hear her voice and her prayer requests, and we’ll see her when it’s our time. But It’s always hard to let go, you know, The earthly flesh, it hurts and it grieves and I didn’t really, of course, know her well but I love all of you and every voice that I hear and even if you don’t hear me call in and pray for you specifically or you hear anybody call in and pray specifically, you should know that we care about you. We love you. When we lose a member it’s a sad day and a day to rejoice because they’re going home and we all want to go home and be with the Lord but it’s hard, especially for people that we care about while we’re still in the earthly flesh and just thank God for the time we have. Lord just be with her family and friends and may her loved ones be their comfort and let them know that they’ll b seeing her again. Thank you. I love you all.

Good afternoon Daily Audio Bible community, I am putting my log on at on February 12th at 320 in the afternoon and I just got done reading the reading for today and I went back and found out that I hadn’t read or listened to January 27th. So, I listened and a wonderful lady with a kind of a British accent came on and she sang, it is no secret what God can do. And she wanted to encourage people and she said that when she was three years old her whole family of seven children was removed because of the abuse of her father but that she was restored after 50 years to her sister. And I would like to add my Amen. I am one of seven children. We weren’t removed but our father abused my mother and us. And my…my stepfather who I prayed in, recently moved to heaven on…in January I think, the 17th. And I have a song. [singing] slow down you move too fast. You’ve got to make the morning last. Just sitting down at father’s feet listening and feeling groovy. Shalom, shalom.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is homeward bound just calling for my friend. I put her on the prayer chain a few months ago and she went through as anonymous. She has suffered for 4 years with severe depression and last time I put her on the prayer line when she was feeling suicidal, she said she noticed a significant improvement from everyone’s prayers. And she is asking again today if I would put her back in the prayer chain as she is in a tremendous amount of pain mentally and is suicidal again. Please, family could you pray for my friend? She’s about 42 and she loves the Lord and is just full of deception. If you could just…just lift her up before the Lord again that would be just wonderful. God bless you all. Thank you for all of your prayers. Bye-bye.

Greetings this is Artifact in Bakersfield California. I’m asking for the DAB family to pray that my doctors can find the cause of me blacking out. And I did the first time on a big scale last March of 2019 and I had another episode yesterday. In March when it happened, I stopped driving that day. Later they did take my license, but I was grateful that I stopped before I had. I’ve been through an entire battery of tests, but they still have not been able to find what the answer is. Please pray that we can resolve this issue and if it can be taken care of by a simple pill, that’s okay but I really do prefer that the power and the might of the Holy Spirit will bring healing to my body and would be the marrow to my bones. So, in all reality that is my request. Thank you so very much for your prayer and support for myself as well as for my beloved. I do look forward to His healing power and I ask it all in the name of Jesus the grace, anointing, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen and Amen.

Good morning this is Valerie from south of Atlanta and I just heard about Diana Davis and immediately I just burst into tears for her family and for her sons. And I know that she’s in heaven and I know that she’s healed but I just…I just felt like I lost something. And I didn’t even know her, but I just felt so moved that I just needed to call. And I just needed to send my condolences. And her life and her story and her sons and her struggle and her victories and everything has just really affected me in a way that I wasn’t even aware of until I heard of her passing. So, I just wanted to call, and I just want to offer my condolences to her family, to her friends, to her loved ones and to let you guys know that I’m gonna be praying for God’s comfort and peace during these next few difficult months and years. God bless everyone.

Hey DAB family my names Mitch from the UK. Good morning to you all. I’ve been listening for about a year now but first-time caller. Really just wanted to reach out to the lady who called in a couple weeks ago. I don’t think she left her name but she was asking for prayers for her family, specifically her daughter who…who had some pretty profound learning difficulties by the sounds of it and really just wanted to let her know that I’m thinking of her, I’m praying for her and her daughter. My daughters in a very similar situation, had some really poor…some really poor care, poor housing and I prayed, I prayed really hard that she would get some rest back and a little bit of God’s grace would fall upon her and help her find what she needed. And, you know what? Prayers were answered. She’s moved into a lovely new home, great new carers, and life’s looking really good for her. She seems really contented and I thank God for that. So, I really…I just wanted to say to that lady, just keep asking for the grace of God, keep praying. He will answer your prayers and I’ll be praying for you also. Okay. Thank you.

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politicaltheatre · 4 years

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Kill The Messengers, pt.3

This week played out like some kind of twisted symphony, the end of American representative democracy as we’ve known it in four movements.

You have the first movement, establishing the world about to be threatened, perhaps even destroyed.

You have the second, when all hope seems lost.

You have the third, chaotic, confirmation of all that has come before, of the doom and gloom we have bare escaped, and yet showing a glimmer of light, a chance at hope renewed.

The fourth movement continues from the third, an explosion of energy, of promise for a better future.

This was the week that was.

The first movement, clearly - or not considering how it played out - was the Iowa Caucus coupled with a motif of war between the Democrats and Republicans in Washington in the impeachment trial’s closing arguments. The expectations set by the caucus and the pantomime on the Senate floor seemed crystal clear at the time. And then arrogance overwhelmed everything.

The arguments weren’t much of anything, really. The House managers laid out a thorough, well reasoned, and, aside from Adam Schiff, incredibly dull closing. Yes, Trump is corrupt. Yes, Trump violated United States laws and the Constitution itself. Yes, acquittal would mean violating any standard of the rule of law and make corruption the new standard of the republic.

Trump’s lawyers turned abruptly from that to complete farce. Richard Nixon, in his shameful, post-pardon exile, infamously said, “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”. On Monday, Alan Dershowitz attempted to make the case that Nixon’s personal defense should be the law of the land. That’s how far we’ve come as a nation in forty years, how low our standards of behavior have been brought.

The Iowa Caucus has been around so long that its functioning has long been taken for granted. People go in a room, give their first choice, and then persuade, bully, and cajole their friends and neighbors to join them until some candidate comes out the winner. They do this all over the state in small groups and it takes time. Reporting it should take time.

And yet, in our impatient, smart phone driven new world, the idea that people should be allowed to take time with something is a thing of the past, like the rule of law. The corruption coursing through our culture at the moment has only exacerbated this, by making the chaos of reporting accurate information about a competition fodder for conspiracy theories and accusations of cheating. Everybody does it, right?

With a crisis like this comes an opportunity, and as in so many crises before that opportunity was seen as a money making one. Some geniuses who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign offered to bring Iowa’s ancient caucus system into the 21st century, and the result, predictably, went sideways.

HBO famously allowed untold millions of Americans steal its HBO GO streaming service through the use of borrowed passwords and other, less scrupulous methods. They did this for a year or so, until they knew that their highly anticipated stand alone streaming service, one not requiring cable TV, could handle the bandwidth. It cost them more money than we will ever know, but once HBO NOW launched, it never went down due to lack of bandwidth.

No one at Iowa’s Democratic Party and the Clinton veterans’ company, Shadow, Inc., thought to test their caucus app, either for bandwidth requirements or for bugs in the code. Oops.

Fortunately for the Democrats, Iowa is no more representative of them as a national party than it is representative of the nation as a whole. This embarrassment will only really last as long as it takes to count the results of the primary in New Hampshire.

The second movement, filling those of us who can feel it with sorrow and shame, encompassed a State of the Union address that had almost nothing to do with the state of this actual union and the vote less than a day later to acquit Trump.

Our expectations of State of the Union addresses is justifiably low. Rarely has anything ever been said or done that was not wholly calculated and lacking in any sense of authenticity. By that standard, Trump didn’t disappoint.

That, of course, is the only standard by which he did not, unless you count yourself among his base. Even more than any president before him, Trump has used presidential addresses as campaign opportunities, and he did so here. The low point - again, unless you just love Trump - was the pantomime award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh, a man who has made a fortune cultivating hatred and pitting Americans against each other.

In a way, Limbaugh is the perfect recipient of an award from Trump. He is openly racist, has bullied women, foreigners, and those with disabilities, and has lied shamelessly, all in the service of enriching himself. He is Trump.

Nancy Pelosi’s own pantomime of tearing up Trump’s speech at the end was no less calculated. It may well backfire, offering up justification to Trump’s base for every lie he’s told about Democrats, but she had to have thought about what she could possibly do knowing what was coming the next day to show that the Democrats weren’t just going to sit there and take it. She has her own base to worry about, and that of the eventual Democratic nominee in November.

What came the next day was no more surprising than hearing that “the state of the union is strong”. The only surprise, if it was even surprising, was that Utah Republican Mitt Romney voted to convict on abuse of power. He didn’t have to worry about Trump actually being convicted, and he did have to worry about his own reelection, and yet showing the courage to vote “Yes” on that one charge has cleared the low bar for courage we now hold.

His fellow Republican senators spent the day taking several, heavily scripted lines to justify voting “No”. The most laughable, offered up by a few including Maine’s possibly outgoing senator, Susan Collins, was that Trump must have learned his lesson. The most insidious, offered Ohio’s Rob Portman in an op-ed, was that he voted “No” because the time has come for America to put partisanship behind it and come together.

That’s a bit like punching someone in the mouth and insisting that he learn to turn the other cheek. While you’re punching him again in that other cheek. And picking his pocket. And laughing at him.

When Republican senators trotted out words and phrases such as “coming together”, “bipartisanship”, and “unity”, it was all coded language. What they meant, and have meant in their long journey further and further into political corruption, is “stop resisting”, “just go along”, and “consent”. They don’t want us to stop fighting, they want us to stop fighting back.

Barack Obama repeatedly tried to meet them half way, only to see Mitch McConnell and his House colleagues repeatedly move what they called “half way” further and further to the political right. There is no negotiating your way out of that trap, and there will be no campaigning against it if you give it the weight all of those senators voting “No” have been trying to give it.

So, there we were, a country watching corruption win and boast of its victory over the rule of law. It was enough to make a decent human being think that maybe those Republicans in Washington were right, that there isn’t any point fighting back, that we should just give in and take it.

The third movement is all about that feeling.

The lawsuit against Trump for violating the emoluments clause in the Constitution was dismissed because the Democrats filing it did not hold a majority in the House when they filed it. The same day, it came out that Trump has been charging the Secret Service thousands of dollars each night its agents stay at one of his hotels, which they must do when they guard him.

Trump gave a speech at a national prayer breakfast that was filled with nothing but hate. Well, almost nothing; he does love how he stuck it to those Democrats.

And then Trump began his campaign of vengeance against those who testified against him, firing Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, Vindman’s twin brother, and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. They violated the rule of omertà.

And yet, a glimmer of light breaks through.

The largest newspaper in Mitt Romney’s home state praised his courage. He may be as safe as a senator can be, a beloved Morman representing Utah, but he knew the point he was making to Republicans across the country and knew all too well how history would remember him.

There were also three Democratic senators in “red” states, Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, Arizona’s Kirsten Cinema, and Alabama’s Doug Jones, who all voted to convict. Doug Jones is running for reelection. He may have nothing to lose, running in a state expected to vote heavily for Trump, but he showed courage nonetheless. He’ll campaign on this, and Sinema will campaign for whomever the Democratic nominee for Senate will be in Arizona.

Baldwin may have made the toughest choice among them, knowing that she will have to run point for whomever the Democratic presidential nominee is in an attempt to swing her state back in November.

This is why this impeachment will not be so easily put behind us. It is not because Trump will be campaigning on his acquittal but because the Democrats want Americans looking at how the Republicans in Congress protected him.

Corey Gardener voted to acquit Trump and his chance at reelection in Colorado may now be lower than Doug Jones in Alabama. It was a vote for corruption. It was a vote for a double standard, a set of rules for the rich and another for everyone else. And it will be a yoke Democrats hang around his neck and those of every Republican running in the Senate and the House.

Will they succeed? Well, let’s talk about the fourth movement.

Tonight in New Hampshire, seven Democrats are answering questions on a stage and very likely offering actual answers about how they will be better than Trump. Again, that’s a mighty low bar.

What should make you feel good, unless you are a fan of Donald Trump, are those results from Iowa. Young voters, notorious generation after generation for being all talk, showed up in droves. If they show up next week in New Hampshire and keep showing up, they are likely to tip the scales in the so-called “battleground” states.

They stayed home in 2016. The Democratic presidential candidate, who for some reason keeps on trying to insert herself into every conversation and who never seems able to accept accountability for her own failures, made that campaign all about her and failed. Based on the current field of Democrats - even Bloomberg - that won’t be the case.

Turnout is everything in an election, and what the Democrats - not the DNC, but the ones campaigning to be president right now - seem to understand is that they can’t rely on converting many who voted for Trump. They need to bring out their own voters and they need to give Trump’s 2016 voters a reason to stay home.

Impeachment may not seem like a sexy campaign issue, certainly not when you failed to convict, but it doesn’t have to be the central issue in the election. It will be there, always present, always a reminder of corruption and, most importantly, those who stood to support it.

Trump is emboldened now, yes, and taking his revenge while taking a bigger piece of the pie all for himself, and that will weigh on him and on every Republican running for Congress, not just in 2020 but in 2022 and 2024. The advantage Democrats have now is one that they only just started to have in 2018, one that they could not have had in 2016.

They now have evidence, a track record of corruption and greed and racism and abuse of power that has been so pervasive and so present that ignoring it has become more and more difficult.

Memory is powerful. It’s like the body developing anti-bodies in reaction to an illness. We know now what we’re fighting. We can recognize it. We can focus our energies against it. With enough anti-bodies, we build a defense and we defeat what would destroy us.

The right wing has long spoken in these terms, of invasion, of infestation, of outsiders threatening who we are and those things we love. The threat they want us to see is the “other”, always the “other”.

What we must ask, and what Democrats at long last seem to be heard asking, is why. The right wing wants us looking away, wants us looking at others, because they don’t want us looking at ourselves.

The greatest threat we face is from ourselves. We have an economy that rewards selfishness above accountability because we allow it. We have rising temperatures and weather systems increasingly out of balance because we allow it.

We have corruption because we allow it. We have abuse because we allow it. Donald Trump has carte blanche to be corrupt and to abuse power because we, the American people, have allowed it.

And we have the power to end it, if we so choose.

You impeach a corrupt president because corruption destroys us like a cancer. You fight bullies because you are not afraid. You stand up for the least powerful among us because that is what makes us all stronger. You share what you have because someday those people might be in a position to share with you.

Isn’t that America? Isn’t that the version we tell ourselves we want to be?

That was the lesson for this week. That was the point of impeachment. That is the core issue not only of this upcoming election but of the next one and the one after that.

Big finish.

- Daniel Ward

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