#he remembers being called short by all the other virtues

[darkfluffydragon]

Woo! Phantasmagoria! Shadow Milk Cookie :D (also known as Phantas when it comes to AUs)

It may be messy, but I've spent too long trying to come up with a design for jester man over here. Let's just embrace the chaos SMC style. This is also the guy who designed Pure Vanilla and Wind Archer's outfits by the way. He does not like his hair.

#fyp #cookie run #cookie run kingdom #cr kingdom #crk #shadow milk cookie #phantasmagoria crk #he's the same height as prune juice cookie #now at least #before the silver tree he was taller than pv #his appearance is completely based on what he remembers about himself #he remembers being called short by all the other virtues #so he just sort of assumed how small he is #he got gaslit into being smaller lmao #'smaller' #he was actually quite tall #it's just all the others were taller #on the second image #the two eyes #the left on is called jerry #the right one is called rem

[apolloanddaphnis]

Eddie Munson x Horror!Bimbo Reader Headcanons Part Dos 🦇 🗡 💗

She loves dolls, like Barbie dolls. She has so many of them, she calls them all Marie Antoinette, and has each one in the case holding their own head.

Sometimes she wears Eddie's band shirts as a dress (he's a guy and it's the 80s so his shirts and jackets are oversized because let's face it our little coffin cutie isn't gonna be Nancy's size. Nothing wrong with her size because Nancy is hot and perfect her body is perfect but the group needs other perfect bodies.) And when she bends over he can see her thong because our neighborhood gore whore ain't the type to wear shorts underneath and protect her virtue.

Eddie. Goes. Feral!

He makes up any excuse to rub against her or touch her back.

Their friendship is already at the place where she sits in his lap. And at lunch it takes everything he has as she has her cunt that is only protected by a thin thong that presses between her slit, that is pressing against the crotch of his denim and wetting it. It takes every thing he has not to unzip and slip it in. Because that would not be friendship anymore...no...

He nearly cums in his pants again when she stands up when lunch ends to see her face flush.

Horror!Bimbo makes Eddie's lunch for school everyday. She makes him club sandwiches, double decker sandwiches, soups in a thermos, meatloaf sandwiches, she goes all out and his friends always weep with envy as they eat pb&js and baloney sandwiches.

She also goes over to the trailer often to make dinner. Excited constantly about trying new recipes, using her allowance money to buy the ingredients for her recipes. But Eddie doesn't allow that to go far, he always puts money in her pocket literally, has to force her to take it, doing more deals to make more money for her. Eventually she stops putting up a fight and takes the money because Eddie gets a 'do what I tell you or else' look in his eye.

She does his laundry and when she's over tidies his room up a bit and brings over fresh sheets from her place.

When horror!bimbo finds his playboy and penthouse stash she asks him if she would be pretty enough to pose for these magazines because she has always wanted to. "You're way sexier than Kim Morris bunny, but there is no way I'd ever let the world see that. "

Eddie would always drop casual dominance with her, and it always made you a fuzzy brained wet mess. Like whenever they walked through the hallways together and he'd gently guide her with a hand on her lower back. Or when they cross the street and he will hold his arm out in front of her until they could cross because one time she almost got hit in the parking lot. Or when he always has her sit either next to him or in his lap. There's also him always making sure she eats, asking "what did you have for breakfast?" "Did you remember to pack lunch?" "Sit, eat, you won't wait to serve us to eat your dinner." He even packs snacks for she so you can munch throughout the day. He nearly lost his shit when there was a time our coffin bimbo was starting a diet, only ensures and slimfast. "You're on some good shit if you think I'm allowing you to starve yourself and ruin your perfect body bunny, not on my goddamn life, you must be certified crazy if you think I would allow that!"

He makes her feel cherished and taken care of.

And when they go to a drive in movie or Benny's or anywhere he never lets her pay, and when she runs through her allowance quickly, he gives her more money.

She knows he's been working more to take care of her, so bimbo!reader will run him nice hot bubble baths because her Eddie works so hard for her.

She honestly loves being at her best friend Eddie's more than at home. Even added some touches to his room, like her stuffies, her favorite horror novels, her clothes, her soap, her skin care, hair stuff, perfume, just slowly nesting. Even brings Pyewacket and Socky (Socrates) over to be watched by Wayne during the day since he works at night. Pyewacket actually LIKES Wayne, maybe because he feeds him those Vienna sausages...

And when poor Chrissy Cunningham doesn't see it coming when reader notices her getting close to HER Eddie, and surprises Chrissy with spiders in her cheer locker..

#eddie munson x bimbo!reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #eddie fanfic #eddie munson headcanons #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x horror!bimbo reader

[idontdowellunderpressure]

Garou's "Crush"

I wanted to make this little meta as soon as I read Chapter 170. Long story short, I couldn't at the time, but I can now and apparently there's some discourse going on? IDK. There's a reason I generally avoid Twitter ￣へ￣

Anyways, here's my two cents about that time Murata tried to "no-homo" Garou and, in my opinion, ended up backfiring wonderfully. Keep in mind, this is coming from an asexual, so my understanding about sexuality and romantic attraction may be skewed.

So, let's digest this panel:

In it, Bang makes the valiant attempt to bond over what he thinks is a safe subject matter. Garou's a young man, right? And what do all teenage boys have in common? Their raging hormones and crushes, obviously. Only, Garou doesn't seem all to keen to discuss this particular topic. Blabbing about the rotten morality of so-called "heroes" to some random stranger? A-okay. Admitting he has a crush to his father figure? Atrocious.

In fact, look at the facial expressions Garou's making:

Dude is looking like he's gay straight up not having a good time. He looked shocked and anxious and uncomfortable (just look at that sweat). And, yeah, the phrase "if you twist my arm" can, and frequently is, taken to be more sarcastic than genuine, Garou isn't really someone known for masking his feelings all that well. His facial expressions are vast and he always shows his genuine feelings, whether they're shock or fury or fear. (good compilation of Garou's many expressions compiled by someone more talented than me: https://the-nysh.tumblr.com/post/185831833031/garous-so-cute-and-more-like-his-age-when-his)

But he does give in and provide a name. And, honestly, his answer made everything clear to me. Like how Saitama knew Garou wasn't "Absolute Evil" despite all his bluster, I knew Garou wasn't Straight™ with this one answer.

Garou names a character. Not a real person, but a character from a show he, most likely, watched as a kid. This is like back in school when any gay kid in the closet would go "I'm not gay, I totally love Britney Spears", or maybe "No, yeah, I totally love boys, I've got a Jack Sparrow poster up in my room". You know the drill. Celebrities are a safe "crush" because they are unattainable, and you will never have to actually act on such a declaration. Fictional characters, by virtue of being -you know- NOT REAL offer even more separation. (And the reason I bring up the fictional character angle, is because Garou remembers her character from the show before her name, suggesting that he has more of an attachment to the character than the actress).

So now he's done it. He's declared a crush. He's answered the question. He's safe. Now what?

Subject Change.

The very first chance he gets, Garou shifts the topic immediately to something else. And look at that. The cockiness is back. The sweat is gone. I daresay, he looks ecstatic to be talking about literally anything other than a girl he supposedly likes.

Just look at his smile (ಥ ◡ ಥ)

And if that weren't enough. We are told exactly why Garou picked this character, this actress, of all the others at his disposal.

Okay. So, first off, that's sad. Like, major oofs here for Garou and his Mommy issues. Secondly, you mean to tell me that Garou likes this woman because she seems kind? Really? That's the main reason? Because, not to get too shippy on what is supposed to be a semi-serious sexuality analysis.........BUT, do you know who else is really kind? Someone who gives off major "familial" vibes? (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)

Hmmmm, I wonder if there's someone Garou's met who he's seen to be very kind and protective over his ward.

Some who, thematically, represents the strong familial love Garou has never had and, apparently, craves. Someone who is closer to his age and he might be able to relate to. Someone who, canonically, he operates on a similar wavelength with?

I dunno, just a thought ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyways, thanks for playing "no-homo" Murata, but I'm afraid I'm still sitting tight on this Batarou train. Maybe next time ;)

#batarou #metal bat #garou #garou the human monster #one punch man #opm #opm webcomic #opm manga #aretheygay #theanswerwon'tsurpriseyou #anime #gay boys #yusuke murata #chapter 170 #with a dash of other chapters I don't feel like looking up

[junosartsthetic]

The Babysitter

Headcanon-style fic detailing babysitter!afab!reader and everyone’s favorite gilf, Joseph Joestar. 

Warnings: penetrative sex, vaginal sex, oral sex, unprotected sex, slight mention of pregnancy, fingering, joseph being a cheater, age gap, rough sex, praising, use of pet names (sweetheart, honey), mdni, minors do not interact, all characters are 18+, smut

I should be ashamed of myself. But I’m not. Anyway.

--

You’re hired as a long-term babysitter for young Holly.

Her mother is often away on business, with her father only stopping in every so often.

It starts out innocently enough, but soon Joseph’s touches on your shoulder, and hands on your waist to get by you turn into more.

He’s a very attractive man, with scattered silver-haired dotted in his hair and beard only adding to his appeal. 

You are well aware he has a wife.

And you are well aware that when he asks you to step into his bedroom to talk for a moment, more is on the table.

You should deny his request. Tell him to have a nice evening and that you’ll be back tomorrow to watch over Holly. 

But you don’t.

Despite how wrong it is, you can’t help the excited fluttering of your chest as he shuts the door behind the two of you.

“You’ve been such a good baby-sitter for my Holly,” he explains, placing a hand on your shoulder.

“I try my best, Mr. Joestar.”

“No need for that. Just call me Joseph. I think we’re close enough for that, don’t you?”

You swallow, nodding. You can feel your entire body trembling with anticipation. 

“Good girl. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

His hand migrates down your arm, caressing your bare flesh.

Your tank top provides ample room to touch your revealed skin, prickling in the cool room.

“Since Suzie Q rarely comes home, I’ve been struggling on my own. I’ll be honest. It gets lonely for me, you understand?”

“I see. I’m sorry to hear that. Is there any way I can help?”

You know the implication of your words.

And so does he.

He says nothing as his hand slips under your clothing.

You shiver as his large fingers trace along your stomach, gliding up to gently squeeze your breast.

You notice a shimmer of hesitation.

Your hand moves atop his, feeling it through the fabric of your shirt.

You squeeze it.

Any caution he had is thrown into the wind.

Of course, he never had any to begin with.

Within moments, his lips mold against yours.

His facial hair is scratchy against your face, but you pay no mind as you deepen the kiss.

He massages your breast with his hand, his other wrapping around your waist to pull you flush against him.

You tangle your hands in his hair, desperately pushing yourself closer to his muscled physique. 

You don’t remember your top being thrown off, nor your shorts falling to the floor as you’re pushed closer to the comfortable bed sheets.

Your back touches the blanket, and you’re pinned down as Joseph kisses your neck harshly.

Hickies form as he trails down your body, teeth finally hitting the waistband of your panties.

He wastes no time in pulling them down your thighs, giving him a clear view of your dampened cunt.

He falls to his knees, smiling up at you as your breath hitches.

Teasingly, he licks up your folds, only enough to have you squirming in impatience.

“Please,” you whimper, already overstimulated from this sudden turn of events.

“Please what?” he questions, his hands spreading your quivering thighs apart.

“I, I need you, Joseph.”

“C’mon, sweetheart. Use your words.”

“I need your tongue inside, inside me,” you choke out, face burning in embaressement. “Please!”

“Good girl,” he purrs, tongue returning to explore your entrance.

He does so delicately, barely sliding inside before retreating.

It’s not enough.

You need—

“More,” you mumble, your hands finding grasp in his hair.

“Patience is not a virtue of yours,” he teases.

Suddenly, two fingers are thrust inside of you.

You let out a silent gasp, breath hitching.

You barely have time to register the digits before he begins to move them, his other hand playing with your clit.

Any words are caught in your throat as he picks up the pace, your hips bucking desperately upwards as your legs tremble.

Before you can think, a wave of breathlessness washes over you, orgasm flooding your senses.

Cum leaks from your overwhelmed cunt, covering Joseph’s fingers as he eagerly tastes your release.

You try to calm yourself, but only get a moment’s relief before Joseph rises from his spot, his muscled arms flipping you on your chest.

Your breasts push against the mattress as he unclips your bra, throwing it carelessly across the room.

Your dripping cunt feels overwhelmed, clit brushing against the silken sheets as Joseph pushes your back further down.

“Take a breath, sweetheart,” he instructs, pulling down his bottoms and boxers to reveal his hardened cock.

You do as he says, lungs taking in as much as air as they can, only to gasp it all out as he roughly slides himself into you.

Any gentleness has been tossed aside, leaving him to buck into your overworked cunt mercilessly.

“Jo—Joseph,” you pant, hands desperately clawing for purchase on the sheets. “I—”

“Shh, honey,” he moans, leaning overtop your writhing and desperate form. “You’re doing so so good for me.”

His praise halts your overwhelmed cries, leaving you to babble incomprehensibly as his fast pace begins to stutter.

You can feel every twitch of his dick inside of you, walls clenching harshly around him as he slides himself completely inside, reaching places you didn’t think possible.

You know what’s coming.

You know you should beg for him to pull out.

But a part of you moans at the thought of his cum inside of you.

Becoming more than just the babysitter.

“Don’ worry,” he huffs, barely holding back a groan. “‘m sterilized.” 

WIth that, he cums violently, the warm liquid painting your walls as you reach your own high for the second time.

Your intrusive thoughts about becoming pregnant reside, a big part of you relieved at the new information.

Your entire body relaxes, muscles unconstricting as he pulls out of your leaking cunt.

You barely register his gentle hands picking you up as he carries you to the bathroom.

“Let’s clean you off, sweetheart.”

You let out a weak hum, eager to feel the hot bath water soothing your already aching core.

#ns/fw #smut #ns/ft #fanfiction #fanfic #x reader #x y/n #reader #y/n #afab #anime smut #jjba smut #jjba x reader #joseph joestar #joseph joestar x reader #headcanons #smutty #drabble #ficlet #one-shot #one shot #babysitter #jojo's bizarre adventure x reader

[hearts4niko]

The Overcoat By Nikolai Gogol (ENGLISH TRANSLATION)

In the department of -- but it is better not to mention the department. There is nothing more irritable than departments, regiments, courts of justice, and, in a word, every branch of public service. Each individual attached to them nowadays thinks all society insulted in his person. Quite recently a complaint was received from a justice of the peace, in which he plainly demonstrated that all the imperial institutions were going to the dogs, and that the Czar's sacred name was being taken in vain; and in proof he appended to the complaint a romance in which the justice of the peace is made to appear about once every ten lines, and sometimes in a drunken condition. Therefore, in order to avoid all unpleasantness, it will be better to describe the department in question only as a certain department.     So, in a certain department there was a certain official -- not a very high one, it must be allowed -- short of stature, somewhat pock-marked, red-haired, and short-sighted, with a bald forehead, wrinkled cheeks, and a complexion of the kind known as sanguine. The St. Petersburg climate was responsible for this. As for his official status, he was what is called a perpetual titular councillor, over which, as is well known, some writers make merry, and crack their jokes, obeying the praiseworthy custom of attacking those who cannot bite back.  His family name was Bashmatchkin. This name is evidently derived from "bashmak" (shoe); but when, at what time, and in what manner, is not known. His father and grandfather, and all the Bashmatchkins, always wore boots, which only had new heels two or three times a year. His name was Akakiy Akakievitch. It may strike the reader as rather singular and far-fetched, but he may rest assured that it was by no means far-fetched, and that the circumstances were such that it would have been impossible to give him any other.  This is how it came about.

Akakiy Akakievitch was born, if my memory fails me not, in the evening of the 23rd of March. His mother, the wife of a Government official and a very fine woman, made all due arrangements for having the child baptised. She was lying on the bed opposite the door; on her right stood the godfather, Ivan Ivanovitch Eroshkin, a most estimable man, who served as presiding officer of the senate, while the godmother, Anna Semenovna Byelobrushkova, the wife of an officer of the quarter, and a woman of rare virtues. They offered the mother her choice of three names, Mokiya, Sossiya, or that the child should be called after the martyr Khozdazat. "No," said the good woman, "all those names are poor." In order to please her they opened the calendar to another place; three more names appeared, Triphiliy, Dula, and Varakhasiy. "This is a judgment," said the old woman. "What names! I truly never heard the like. Varada or Varukh might have been borne, but not Triphiliy and Varakhasiy!" They turned to another page and found Pavsikakhiy and Vakhtisiy. "Now I see," said the old woman, "that it is plainly fate. And since such is the case, it will be better to name him after his father. His father's name was Akakiy, so let his son's be Akakiy too." In this manner he became Akakiy Akakievitch. They christened the child, whereat he wept and made a grimace, as though he foresaw that he was to be a titular councillor. In this manner did it all come about. We have mentioned it in order that the reader might see for himself that it was a case of necessity, and that it was utterly impossible to give him any other name. When and how he entered the department, and who appointed him, no one could remember. However much the directors and chiefs of all kinds were changed, he was always to be seen in the same place, the same attitude, the same occupation; so that it was afterwards affirmed that he had been born in undress uniform with a bald head. No respect was shown him in the department. The porter not only did not rise from his seat when he passed, but never even glanced at him, any more than if a fly had flown through the reception-room. His superiors treated him in coolly despotic fashion. Some sub-chief would thrust a paper under his nose without so much as saying, "Copy," or "Here's a nice interesting affair," or anything else agreeable, as is customary amongst well-bred officials. And he took it, looking only at the paper and not observing who handed it to him, or whether he had the right to do so; simply took it, and set about copying it.

     The young officials laughed at and made fun of him, so far as their official wit permitted; told in his presence various stories concocted about him, and about his landlady, an old woman of seventy; declared that she beat him; asked when the wedding was to be; and strewed bits of paper over his head, calling them snow. But Akakiy Akakievitch answered not a word, any more than if there had been no one there besides himself. It even had no effect upon his work: amid all these annoyances he never made a single mistake in a letter. But if the joking became wholly unbearable, as when they jogged his hand and prevented his attending to his work, he would exclaim, "Leave me alone! Why do you insult me?" And there was something strange in the words and the voice in which they were uttered. There was in it something which moved to pity; so much that one young man, a new-comer, who, taking pattern by the others, had permitted himself to make sport of Akakiy, suddenly stopped short, as though all about him had undergone a transformation, and presented itself in a different aspect. Some unseen force repelled him from the comrades whose acquaintance he had made, on the supposition that they were well-bred and polite men. Long afterwards, in his gayest moments, there recurred to his mind the little official with the bald forehead, with his heart-rending words, "Leave me alone! Why do you insult me?" In these moving words, other words resounded --"I am thy brother." And the young man covered his face with his hand; and many a time afterwards, in the course of his life, shuddered at seeing how much inhumanity there is in man, how much savage coarseness is concealed beneath delicate, refined worldliness, and even, O God! in that man whom the world acknowledges as honourable and noble. It would be difficult to find another man who lived so entirely for his duties. It is not enough to say that Akakiy laboured with zeal: no, he laboured with love. In his copying, he found a varied and agreeable employment. Enjoyment was written on his face: some letters were even favourites with him; and when he encountered these, he smiled, winked, and worked with his lips, till it seemed as though each letter might be read in his face, as his pen traced it. If his pay had been in proportion to his zeal, he would, perhaps, to his great surprise, have been made even a councillor of state. But he worked, as his companions, the wits, put it, like a horse in a mill.

     Moreover, it is impossible to say that no attention was paid to him. One director being a kindly man, and desirous of rewarding him for his long service, ordered him to be given something more important than mere copying. So he was ordered to make a report of an already concluded affair to another department: the duty consisting simply in changing the heading and altering a few words from the first to the third person. This caused him so much toil that he broke into a perspiration, rubbed his forehead, and finally said, "No, give me rather something to copy." After that they let him copy on forever.

     Outside this copying, it appeared that nothing existed for him. He gave no thought to his clothes: his undress uniform was not green, but a sort of rusty-meal colour. The collar was low, so that his neck, in spite of the fact that it was not long, seemed inordinately so as it emerged from it, like the necks of those plaster cats which wag their heads, and are carried about upon the heads of scores of image sellers. And something was always sticking to his uniform, either a bit of hay or some trifle. Moreover, he had a peculiar knack, as he walked along the street, of arriving beneath a window just as all sorts of rubbish were being flung out of it: hence he always bore about on his hat scraps of melon rinds and other such articles. Never once in his life did he give heed to what was going on every day in the street; while it is well known that his young brother officials train the range of their glances till they can see when any one's trouser straps come undone upon the opposite sidewalk, which always brings a malicious smile to their faces. But Akakiy Akakievitch saw in all things the clean, even strokes of his written lines; and only when a horse thrust his nose, from some unknown quarter, over his shoulder, and sent a whole gust of wind down his neck from his nostrils, did he observe that he was not in the middle of a page, but in the middle of the street. On reaching home, he sat down at once at the table, supped his cabbage soup up quickly, and swallowed a bit of beef with onions, never noticing their taste, and gulping down everything with flies and anything else which the Lord happened to send at the moment. His stomach filled, he rose from the table, and copied papers which he had brought home. If there happened to be none, he took copies for himself, for his own gratification, especially if the document was noteworthy, not on account of its style, but of its being addressed to some distinguished person.

     Even at the hour when the grey St. Petersburg sky had quite dispersed, and all the official world had eaten or dined, each as he could, in accordance with the salary he received and his own fancy; when all were resting from the departmental jar of pens, running to and fro from their own and other people's indispensable occupations, and from all the work that an uneasy man makes willingly for himself, rather than what is necessary; when officials hasten to dedicate to pleasure the time which is left to them, one bolder than the rest going to the theatre; another, into the street looking under all the bonnets; another wasting his evening in compliments to some pretty girl, the star of a small official circle; another -- and this is the common case of all -- visiting his comrades on the fourth or third floor, in two small rooms with an ante-room or kitchen, and some pretensions to fashion, such as a lamp or some other trifle which has cost many a sacrifice of dinner or pleasure trip; in a word, at the hour when all officials disperse among the contracted quarters of their friends, to play whist, as they sip their tea from glasses with a kopek's worth of sugar, smoke long pipes, relate at times some bits of gossip which a Russian man can never, under any circumstances, refrain from, and, when there is nothing else to talk of, repeat eternal anecdotes about the commandant to whom they had sent word that the tails of the horses on the Falconet Monument had been cut off, when all strive to divert themselves, Akakiy Akakievitch indulged in no kind of diversion. No one could ever say that he had seen him at any kind of evening party. Having written to his heart's content, he lay down to sleep, smiling at the thought of the coming day -- of what God might send him to copy on the morrow. Thus flowed on the peaceful life of the man, who, with a salary of four hundred rubles, understood how to be content with his lot; and thus it would have continued to flow on, perhaps, to extreme old age, were it not that there are various ills strewn along the path of life for titular councillors as well as for private, actual, court, and every other species of councillor, even for those who never give any advice or take any themselves.

     There exists in St. Petersburg a powerful foe of all who receive a salary of four hundred rubles a year, or thereabouts. This foe is no other than the Northern cold, although it is said to be very healthy. At nine o'clock in the morning, at the very hour when the streets are filled with men bound for the various official departments, it begins to bestow such powerful and piercing nips on all noses impartially that the poor officials really do not know what to do with them. At an hour when the foreheads of even those who occupy exalted positions ache with the cold, and tears start to their eyes, the poor titular councillors are sometimes quite unprotected. Their only salvation lies in traversing as quickly as possible, in their thin little cloaks, five or six streets, and then warming their feet in the porter's room, and so thawing all their talents and qualifications for official service, which had become frozen on the way.

     Akakiy Akakievitch had felt for some time that his back and shoulders suffered with peculiar poignancy, in spite of the fact that he tried to traverse the distance with all possible speed. He began finally to wonder whether the fault did not lie in his cloak. He examined it thoroughly at home, and discovered that in two places, namely, on the back and shoulders, it had become thin as gauze: the cloth was worn to such a degree that he could see through it, and the lining had fallen into pieces. You must know that Akakiy Akakievitch's cloak served as an object of ridicule to the officials: they even refused it the noble name of cloak, and called it a cape. In fact, it was of singular make: its collar diminishing year by year, but serving to patch its other parts. The patching did not exhibit great skill on the part of the tailor, and was, in fact, baggy and ugly. Seeing how the matter stood, Akakiy Akakievitch decided that it would be necessary to take the cloak to Petrovitch, the tailor, who lived somewhere on the fourth floor up a dark stair-case, and who, in spite of his having but one eye, and pock-marks all over his face, busied himself with considerable success in repairing the trousers and coats of officials and others; that is to say, when he was sober and not nursing some other scheme in his head.      It is not necessary to say much about this tailor; but, as it is the custom to have the character of each personage in a novel clearly defined, there is no help for it, so here is Petrovitch the tailor. At first he was called only Grigoriy, and was some gentleman's serf; he commenced calling himself Petrovitch from the time when he received his free papers, and further began to drink heavily on all holidays, at first on the great ones, and then on all church festivities without discrimination, wherever a cross stood in the calendar. On this point he was faithful to ancestral custom; and when quarrelling with his wife, he called her a low female and a German. As we have mentioned his wife, it will be necessary to say a word or two about her. Unfortunately, little is known of her beyond the fact that Petrovitch has a wife, who wears a cap and a dress; but cannot lay claim to beauty, at least, no one but the soldiers of the guard even looked under her cap when they met her.

     Ascending the staircase which led to Petrovitch's room -- which staircase was all soaked with dish-water, and reeked with the smell of spirits which affects the eyes, and is an inevitable adjunct to all dark stairways in St. Petersburg houses -- ascending the stairs, Akakiy Akakievitch pondered how much Petrovitch would ask, and mentally resolved not to give more than two rubles. The door was open; for the mistress, in cooking some fish, had raised such a smoke in the kitchen that not even the beetles were visible. Akakiy Akakievitch passed through the kitchen unperceived, even by the housewife, and at length reached a room where he beheld Petrovitch seated on a large unpainted table, with his legs tucked under him like a Turkish pasha. His feet were bare, after the fashion of tailors who sit at work; and the first thing which caught the eye was his thumb, with a deformed nail thick and strong as a turtle's shell. About Petrovitch's neck hung a skein of silk and thread, and upon his knees lay some old garment. He had been trying unsuccessfully for three minutes to thread his needle, and was enraged at the darkness and even at the thread, growling in a low voice, "It won't go through, the barbarian! you pricked me, you rascal!" Akakiy Akakievitch was vexed at arriving at the precise moment when Petrovitch was angry; he liked to order something of Petrovitch when the latter was a little downhearted, or, as his wife expressed it, "when he had settled himself with brandy, the one-eyed devil!" Under such circumstances, Petrovitch generally came down in his price very readily, and even bowed and returned thanks. Afterwards, to be sure, his wife would come, complaining that her husband was drunk, and so had fixed the price too low; but, if only a ten-kopek piece were added, then the matter was settled. But now it appeared that Petrovitch was in a sober condition, and therefore rough, taciturn, and inclined to demand, Satan only knows what price. Akakiy Akakievitch felt this, and would gladly have beat a retreat; but he was in for it. Petrovitch screwed up his one eye very intently at him, and Akakiy Akakievitch involuntarily said: "How do you do, Petrovitch?"

     "I wish you a good morning, sir," said Petrovitch, squinting at Akakiy Akakievitch's hands, to see what sort of booty he had brought.

     "Ah! I -- to you, Petrovitch, this --" It must be known that Akakiy Akakievitch expressed himself chiefly by prepositions, adverbs, and scraps of phrases which had no meaning whatever. If the matter was a very difficult one, he had a habit of never completing his sentences; so that frequently, having begun a phrase with the words, "This, in fact, is quite --" he forgot to go on, thinking that he had already finished it.

     "What is it?" asked Petrovitch, and with his one eye scanned Akakievitch's whole uniform from the collar down to the cuffs, the back, the tails and the button-holes, all of which were well known to him, since they were his own handiwork. Such is the habit of tailors; it is the first thing they do on meeting one.

     "But I, here, this -- Petrovitch -- a cloak, cloth -- here you see, everywhere, in different places, it is quite strong -- it is a little dusty, and looks old, but it is new, only here in one place it is a little -- on the back, and here on one of the shoulders, it is a little worn, yes, here on this shoulder it is a little -- do you see? that is all. And a little work --" Petrovitch took the cloak, spread it out, to begin with, on the table, looked hard at it, shook his head, reached out his hand to the window-sill for his snuff-box, adorned with the portrait of some general, though what general is unknown, for the place where the face should have been had been rubbed through by the finger, and a square bit of paper had been pasted over it. Having taken a pinch of snuff, Petrovitch held up the cloak, and inspected it against the light, and again shook his head once more. After which he again lifted the general-adorned lid with its bit of pasted paper, and having stuffed his nose with snuff, closed and put away the snuff-box, and said finally, "No, it is impossible to mend it; it's a wretched garment!"

     Akakiy Akakievitch's heart sank at these words.

     "Why is it impossible, Petrovitch?" he said, almost in the pleading voice of a child; "all that ails it is, that it is worn on the shoulders. You must have some pieces --"

     "Yes, patches could be found, patches are easily found," said Petrovitch, "but there's nothing to sew them to. The thing is completely rotten; if you put a needle to it -- see, it will give way."

     "Let it give way, and you can put on another patch at once."

     "But there is nothing to put the patches on to; there's no use in strengthening it; it is too far gone. It's lucky that it's cloth; for, if the wind were to blow, it would fly away."

     "Well, strengthen it again. How will this, in fact --"

     "No," said Petrovitch decisively, "there is nothing to be done with it. It's a thoroughly bad job. You'd better, when the cold winter weather comes on, make yourself some gaiters out of it, because stockings are not warm. The Germans invented them in order to make more money." Petrovitch loved, on all occasions, to have a fling at the Germans. "But it is plain you must have a new cloak." At the word "new," all grew dark before Akakiy Akakievitch's eyes, and everything in the room began to whirl round. The only thing he saw clearly was the general with the paper face on the lid of Petrovitch's snuff-box. "A new one?" said he, as if still in a dream: "why, I have no money for that."

     "Yes, a new one," said Petrovitch, with barbarous composure.

     "Well, if it came to a new one, how would it -- ?"

     "You mean how much would it cost?"

     "Yes."

     "Well, you would have to lay out a hundred and fifty or more," said Petrovitch, and pursed up his lips significantly. He liked to produce powerful effects, liked to stun utterly and suddenly, and then to glance sideways to see what face the stunned person would put on the matter.

     "A hundred and fifty rubles for a cloak!" shrieked poor Akakiy Akakievitch, perhaps for the first time in his life, for his voice had always been distinguished for softness.

     "Yes, sir," said Petrovitch, "for any kind of cloak. If you have a marten fur on the collar, or a silk-lined hood, it will mount up to two hundred."

     "Petrovitch, please," said Akakiy Akakievitch in a beseeching tone, not hearing, and not trying to hear, Petrovitch's words, and disregarding all his "effects," "some repairs, in order that it may wear yet a little longer."

     "No, it would only be a waste of time and money," said Petrovitch; and Akakiy Akakievitch went away after these words, utterly discouraged. But Petrovitch stood for some time after his departure, with significantly compressed lips, and without betaking himself to his work, satisfied that he would not be dropped, and an artistic tailor employed.

     Akakiy Akakievitch went out into the street as if in a dream. "Such an affair!" he said to himself: "I did not think it had come to --" and then after a pause, he added, "Well, so it is! see what it has come to at last! and I never imagined that it was so!" Then followed a long silence, after which he exclaimed, "Well, so it is! see what already -- nothing unexpected that -- it would be nothing -- what a strange circumstance!" So saying, instead of going home, he went in exactly the opposite direction without himself suspecting it. On the way, a chimney-sweep bumped up against him, and blackened his shoulder, and a whole hatful of rubbish landed on him from the top of a house which was building. He did not notice it; and only when he ran against a watchman, who, having planted his halberd beside him, was shaking some snuff from his box into his horny hand, did he recover himself a little, and that because the watchman said, "Why are you poking yourself into a man's very face? Haven't you the pavement?" This caused him to look about him, and turn towards home. There only, he finally began to collect his thoughts, and to survey his position in its clear and actual light, and to argue with himself, sensibly and frankly, as with a reasonable friend with whom one can discuss private and personal matters. "No," said Akakiy Akakievitch, "it is impossible to reason with Petrovitch now; he is that -- evidently his wife has been beating him. I'd better go to him on Sunday morning; after Saturday night he will be a little cross-eyed and sleepy, for he will want to get drunk, and his wife won't give him any money; and at such a time, a ten-kopek piece in his hand will -- he will become more fit to reason with, and then the cloak, and that --" Thus argued Akakiy Akakievitch with himself, regained his courage, and waited until the first Sunday, when, seeing from afar that Petrovitch's wife had left the house, he went straight to him.

     Petrovitch's eye was, indeed, very much askew after Saturday: his head drooped, and he was very sleepy; but for all that, as soon as he knew what it was a question of, it seemed as though Satan jogged his memory. "Impossible," said he: "please to order a new one." Thereupon Akakiy Akakievitch handed over the ten-kopek piece. "Thank you, sir; I will drink your good health," said Petrovitch: "but as for the cloak, don't trouble yourself about it; it is good for nothing. I will make you a capital new one, so let us settle about it now."

     Akakiy Akakievitch was still for mending it; but Petrovitch would not hear of it, and said, "I shall certainly have to make you a new one, and you may depend upon it that I shall do my best. It may even be, as the fashion goes, that the collar can be fastened by silver hooks under a flap."

     Then Akakiy Akakievitch saw that it was impossible to get along without a new cloak, and his spirit sank utterly. How, in fact, was it to be done? Where was the money to come from? He might, to be sure, depend, in part, upon his present at Christmas; but that money had long been allotted beforehand. He must have some new trousers, and pay a debt of long standing to the shoemaker for putting new tops to his old boots, and he must order three shirts from the seamstress, and a couple of pieces of linen. In short, all his money must be spent; and even if the director should be so kind as to order him to receive forty-five rubles instead of forty, or even fifty, it would be a mere nothing, a mere drop in the ocean towards the funds necessary for a cloak: although he knew that Petrovitch was often wrong-headed enough to blurt out some outrageous price, so that even his own wife could not refrain from exclaiming, "Have you lost your senses, you fool?" At one time he would not work at any price, and now it was quite likely that he had named a higher sum than the cloak would cost. But although he knew that Petrovitch would undertake to make a cloak for eighty rubles, still, where was he to get the eighty rubles from? He might possibly manage half, yes, half might be procured, but where was the other half to come from? But the reader must first be told where the first half came from. Akakiy Akakievitch had a habit of putting, for every ruble he spent, a groschen into a small box, fastened with a lock and key, and with a slit in the top for the reception of money. At the end of every half-year he counted over the heap of coppers, and changed it for silver. This he had done for a long time, and in the course of years, the sum had mounted up to over forty rubles. Thus he had one half on hand; but where was he to find the other half? where was he to get another forty rubles from? Akakiy Akakievitch thought and thought, and decided that it would be necessary to curtail his ordinary expenses, for the space of one year at least, to dispense with tea in the evening; to burn no candles, and, if there was anything which he must do, to go into his landlady's room, and work by her light. When he went into the street, he must walk as lightly as he could, and as cautiously, upon the stones, almost upon tiptoe, in order not to wear his heels down in too short a time; he must give the laundress as little to wash as possible; and, in order not to wear out his clothes, he must take them off, as soon as he got home, and wear only his cotton dressing-gown, which had been long and carefully saved.

     To tell the truth, it was a little hard for him at first to accustom himself to these deprivations; but he got used to them at length, after a fashion, and all went smoothly. He even got used to being hungry in the evening, but he made up for it by treating himself, so to say, in spirit, by bearing ever in mind the idea of his future cloak. From that time forth his existence seemed to become, in some way, fuller, as if he were married, or as if some other man lived in him, as if, in fact, he were not alone, and some pleasant friend had consented to travel along life's path with him, the friend being no other than the cloak, with thick wadding and a strong lining incapable of wearing out. He became more lively, and even his character grew firmer, like that of a man who has made up his mind, and set himself a goal. From his face and gait, doubt and indecision, all hesitating and wavering traits disappeared of themselves. Fire gleamed in his eyes, and occasionally the boldest and most daring ideas flitted through his mind; why not, for instance, have marten fur on the collar? The thought of this almost made him absent-minded. Once, in copying a letter, he nearly made a mistake, so that he exclaimed almost aloud, "Ugh!" and crossed himself. Once, in the course of every month, he had a conference with Petrovitch on the subject of the cloak, where it would be better to buy the cloth, and the colour, and the price. He always returned home satisfied, though troubled, reflecting that the time would come at last when it could all be bought, and then the cloak made. The affair progressed more briskly than he had expected. Far beyond all his hopes, the director awarded neither forty nor forty-five rubles for Akakiy Akakievitch's share, but sixty. Whether he suspected that Akakiy Akakievitch needed a cloak, or whether it was merely chance, at all events, twenty extra rubles were by this means provided. This circumstance hastened matters. Two or three months more of hunger and Akakiy Akakievitch had accumulated about eighty rubles. His heart, generally so quiet, began to throb. On the first possible day, he went shopping in company with Petrovitch. They bought some very good cloth, and at a reasonable rate too, for they had been considering the matter for six months, and rarely let a month pass without their visiting the shops to inquire prices. Petrovitch himself said that no better cloth could be had. For lining, they selected a cotton stuff, but so firm and thick that Petrovitch declared it to be better than silk, and even prettier and more glossy. They did not buy the marten fur, because it was, in fact, dear, but in its stead, they picked out the very best of cat-skin which could be found in the shop, and which might, indeed, be taken for marten at a distance.

     Petrovitch worked at the cloak two whole weeks, for there was a great deal of quilting: otherwise it would have been finished sooner. He charged twelve rubles for the job, it could not possibly have been done for less. It was all sewed with silk, in small, double seams; and Petrovitch went over each seam afterwards with his own teeth, stamping in various patterns.

     It was -- it is difficult to say precisely on what day, but probably the most glorious one in Akakiy Akakievitch's life, when Petrovitch at length brought home the cloak. He brought it in the morning, before the hour when it was necessary to start for the department. Never did a cloak arrive so exactly in the nick of time; for the severe cold had set in, and it seemed to threaten to increase. Petrovitch brought the cloak himself as befits a good tailor. On his countenance was a significant expression, such as Akakiy Akakievitch had never beheld there. He seemed fully sensible that he had done no small deed, and crossed a gulf separating tailors who only put in linings, and execute repairs, from those who make new things. He took the cloak out of the pocket handkerchief in which he had brought it. The handkerchief was fresh from the laundress, and he put it in his pocket for use. Taking out the cloak, he gazed proudly at it, held it up with both hands, and flung it skilfully over the shoulders of Akakiy Akakievitch. Then he pulled it and fitted it down behind with his hand, and he draped it around Akakiy Akakievitch without buttoning it. Akakiy Akakievitch, like an experienced man, wished to try the sleeves. Petrovitch helped him on with them, and it turned out that the sleeves were satisfactory also. In short, the cloak appeared to be perfect, and most seasonable. Petrovitch did not neglect to observe that it was only because he lived in a narrow street, and had no signboard, and had known Akakiy Akakievitch so long, that he had made it so cheaply; but that if he had been in business on the Nevsky Prospect, he would have charged seventy-five rubles for the making alone. Akakiy Akakievitch did not care to argue this point with Petrovitch. He paid him, thanked him, and set out at once in his new cloak for the department. Petrovitch followed him, and, pausing in the street, gazed long at the cloak in the distance, after which he went to one side expressly to run through a crooked alley, and emerge again into the street beyond to gaze once more upon the cloak from another point, namely, directly in front. Meantime Akakiy Akakievitch went on in holiday mood. He was conscious every second of the time that he had a new cloak on his shoulders; and several times he laughed with internal satisfaction. In fact, there were two advantages, one was its warmth, the other its beauty. He saw nothing of the road, but suddenly found himself at the department. He took off his cloak in the ante-room, looked it over carefully, and confided it to the especial care of the attendant. It is impossible to say precisely how it was that every one in the department knew at once that Akakiy Akakievitch had a new cloak, and that the "cape" no longer existed. All rushed at the same moment into the ante-room to inspect it. They congratulated him and said pleasant things to him, so that he began at first to smile and then to grow ashamed. When all surrounded him, and said that the new cloak must be "christened," and that he must give a whole evening at least to this, Akakiy Akakievitch lost his head completely, and did not know where he stood, what to answer, or how to get out of it. He stood blushing all over for several minutes, and was on the point of assuring them with great simplicity that it was not a new cloak, that it was so and so, that it was in fact the old "cape."

     At length one of the officials, a sub-chief probably, in order to show that he was not at all proud, and on good terms with his inferiors, said, "So be it, only I will give the party instead of Akakiy Akakievitch; I invite you all to tea with me to-night; it happens quite a propos, as it is my name-day." The officials naturally at once offered the sub-chief their congratulations and accepted the invitations with pleasure. Akakiy Akakievitch would have declined, but all declared that it was discourteous, that it was simply a sin and a shame, and that he could not possibly refuse. Besides, the notion became pleasant to him when he recollected that he should thereby have a chance of wearing his new cloak in the evening also.

     That whole day was truly a most triumphant festival day for Akakiy Akakievitch. He returned home in the most happy frame of mind, took off his cloak, and hung it carefully on the wall, admiring afresh the cloth and the lining. Then he brought out his old, worn-out cloak, for comparison. He looked at it and laughed, so vast was the difference. And long after dinner he laughed again when the condition of the "cape" recurred to his mind. He dined cheerfully, and after dinner wrote nothing, but took his ease for a while on the bed, until it got dark. Then he dressed himself leisurely, put on his cloak, and stepped out into the street. Where the host lived, unfortunately we cannot say: our memory begins to fail us badly; and the houses and streets in St. Petersburg have become so mixed up in our head that it is very difficult to get anything out of it again in proper form. This much is certain, that the official lived in the best part of the city; and therefore it must have been anything but near to Akakiy Akakievitch's residence. Akakiy Akakievitch was first obliged to traverse a kind of wilderness of deserted, dimly-lighted streets; but in proportion as he approached the official's quarter of the city, the streets became more lively, more populous, and more brilliantly illuminated. Pedestrians began to appear; handsomely dressed ladies were more frequently encountered; the men had otter skin collars to their coats; peasant waggoners, with their grate-like sledges stuck over with brass-headed nails, became rarer; whilst on the other hand, more and more drivers in red velvet caps, lacquered sledges and bear-skin coats began to appear, and carriages with rich hammer-cloths flew swiftly through the streets, their wheels scrunching the snow. Akakiy Akakievitch gazed upon all this as upon a novel sight. He had not been in the streets during the evening for years. He halted out of curiosity before a shop-window to look at a picture representing a handsome woman, who had thrown off her shoe, thereby baring her whole foot in a very pretty way; whilst behind her the head of a man with whiskers and a handsome moustache peeped through the doorway of another room. Akakiy Akakievitch shook his head and laughed, and then went on his way. Why did he laugh? Either because he had met with a thing utterly unknown, but for which every one cherishes, nevertheless, some sort of feeling; or else he thought, like many officials, as follows: "Well, those French! What is to be said? If they do go in anything of that sort, why --" But possibly he did not think at all. Akakiy Akakievitch at length reached the house in which the sub-chief lodged. The sub-chief lived in fine style: the staircase was lit by a lamp; his apartment being on the second floor. On entering the vestibule, Akakiy Akakievitch beheld a whole row of goloshes on the floor. Among them, in the centre of the room, stood a samovar or tea-urn, humming and emitting clouds of steam. On the walls hung all sorts of coats and cloaks, among which there were even some with beaver collars or velvet facings. Beyond, the buzz of conversation was audible, and became clear and loud when the servant came out with a trayful of empty glasses, cream-jugs, and sugar-bowls. It was evident that the officials had arrived long before, and had already finished their first glass of tea.

     Akakiy Akakievitch, having hung up his own cloak, entered the inner room. Before him all at once appeared lights, officials, pipes, and card-tables; and he was bewildered by the sound of rapid conversation rising from all the tables, and the noise of moving chairs. He halted very awkwardly in the middle of the room, wondering what he ought to do. But they had seen him. They received him with a shout, and all thronged at once into the ante-room, and there took another look at his cloak. Akakiy Akakievitch, although somewhat confused, was frank-hearted, and could not refrain from rejoicing when he saw how they praised his cloak. Then, of course, they all dropped him and his cloak, and returned, as was proper, to the tables set out for whist.

     All this, the noise, the talk, and the throng of people was rather overwhelming to Akakiy Akakievitch. He simply did not know where he stood, or where to put his hands, his feet, and his whole body. Finally he sat down by the players, looked at the cards, gazed at the face of one and another, and after a while began to gape, and to feel that it was wearisome, the more so as the hour was already long past when he usually went to bed. He wanted to take leave of the host; but they would not let him go, saying that he must not fail to drink a glass of champagne in honour of his new garment. In the course of an hour, supper, consisting of vegetable salad, cold veal, pastry, confectioner's pies, and champagne, was served. They made Akakiy Akakievitch drink two glasses of champagne, after which he felt things grow livelier. Still, he could not forget that it was twelve o'clock, and that he should have been at home long ago. In order that the host might not think of some excuse for detaining him, he stole out of the room quickly, sought out, in the ante-room, his cloak, which, to his sorrow, he found lying on the floor, brushed it, picked off every speck upon it, put it on his shoulders, and descended the stairs to the street.

     In the street all was still bright. Some petty shops, those permanent clubs of servants and all sorts of folk, were open. Others were shut, but, nevertheless, showed a streak of light the whole length of the door-crack, indicating that they were not yet free of company, and that probably some domestics, male and female, were finishing their stories and conversations whilst leaving their masters in complete ignorance as to their whereabouts. Akakiy Akakievitch went on in a happy frame of mind: he even started to run, without knowing why, after some lady, who flew past like a flash of lightning. But he stopped short, and went on very quietly as before, wondering why he had quickened his pace. Soon there spread before him those deserted streets, which are not cheerful in the daytime, to say nothing of the evening. Now they were even more dim and lonely: the lanterns began to grow rarer, oil, evidently, had been less liberally supplied. Then came wooden houses and fences: not a soul anywhere; only the snow sparkled in the streets, and mournfully veiled the low-roofed cabins with their closed shutters. He approached the spot where the street crossed a vast square with houses barely visible on its farther side, a square which seemed a fearful desert.

     Afar, a tiny spark glimmered from some watchman's box, which seemed to stand on the edge of the world. Akakiy Akakievitch's cheerfulness diminished at this point in a marked degree. He entered the square, not without an involuntary sensation of fear, as though his heart warned him of some evil. He glanced back and on both sides, it was like a sea about him. "No, it is better not to look," he thought, and went on, closing his eyes. When he opened them, to see whether he was near the end of the square, he suddenly beheld, standing just before his very nose, some bearded individuals of precisely what sort he could not make out. All grew dark before his eyes, and his heart throbbed.     "But, of course, the cloak is mine!" said one of them in a loud voice, seizing hold of his collar. Akakiy Akakievitch was about to shout "watch," when the second man thrust a fist, about the size of a man's head, into his mouth, muttering, "Now scream!"

     Akakiy Akakievitch felt them strip off his cloak and give him a push with a knee: he fell headlong upon the snow, and felt no more. In a few minutes he recovered consciousness and rose to his feet; but no one was there. He felt that it was cold in the square, and that his cloak was gone; he began to shout, but his voice did not appear to reach to the outskirts of the square. In despair, but without ceasing to shout, he started at a run across the square, straight towards the watchbox, beside which stood the watchman, leaning on his halberd, and apparently curious to know what kind of a customer was running towards him and shouting. Akakiy Akakievitch ran up to him, and began in a sobbing voice to shout that he was asleep, and attended to nothing, and did not see when a man was robbed. The watchman replied that he had seen two men stop him in the middle of the square, but supposed that they were friends of his; and that, instead of scolding vainly, he had better go to the police on the morrow, so that they might make a search for whoever had stolen the cloak.

     Akakiy Akakievitch ran home in complete disorder; his hair, which grew very thinly upon his temples and the back of his head, wholly disordered; his body, arms, and legs covered with snow. The old woman, who was mistress of his lodgings, on hearing a terrible knocking, sprang hastily from her bed, and, with only one shoe on, ran to open the door, pressing the sleeve of her chemise to her bosom out of modesty; but when she had opened it, she fell back on beholding Akakiy Akakievitch in such a state. When he told her about the affair, she clasped her hands, and said that he must go straight to the district chief of police, for his subordinate would turn up his nose, promise well, and drop the matter there. The very best thing to do, therefore, would be to go to the district chief, whom she knew, because Finnish Anna, her former cook, was now nurse at his house. She often saw him passing the house; and he was at church every Sunday, praying, but at the same time gazing cheerfully at everybody; so that he must be a good man, judging from all appearances. Having listened to this opinion, Akakiy Akakievitch betook himself sadly to his room; and how he spent the night there any one who can put himself in another's place may readily imagine. Early in the morning, he presented himself at the district chief's; but was told that this official was asleep. He went again at ten and was again informed that he was asleep; at eleven, and they said: "The superintendent is not at home;" at dinner time, and the clerks in the ante-room would not admit him on any terms, and insisted upon knowing his business. So that at last, for once in his life, Akakiy Akakievitch felt an inclination to show some spirit, and said curtly that he must see the chief in person; that they ought not to presume to refuse him entrance; that he came from the department of justice, and that when he complained of them, they would see.

     The clerks dared make no reply to this, and one of them went to call the chief, who listened to the strange story of the theft of the coat. Instead of directing his attention to the principal points of the matter, he began to question Akakiy Akakievitch: Why was he going home so late? Was he in the habit of doing so, or had he been to some disorderly house? So that Akakiy Akakievitch got thoroughly confused, and left him without knowing whether the affair of his cloak was in proper train or not.

     All that day, for the first time in his life, he never went near the department. The next day he made his appearance, very pale, and in his old cape, which had become even more shabby. The news of the robbery of the cloak touched many; although there were some officials present who never lost an opportunity, even such a one as the present, of ridiculing Akakiy Akakievitch. They decided to make a collection for him on the spot, but the officials had already spent a great deal in subscribing for the director's portrait, and for some book, at the suggestion of the head of that division, who was a friend of the author; and so the sum was trifling.

     One of them, moved by pity, resolved to help Akakiy Akakievitch with some good advice at least, and told him that he ought not to go to the police, for although it might happen that a police-officer, wishing to win the approval of his superiors, might hunt up the cloak by some means, still his cloak would remain in the possession of the police if he did not offer legal proof that it belonged to him. The best thing for him, therefore, would be to apply to a certain prominent personage; since this prominent personage, by entering into relations with the proper persons, could greatly expedite the matter. As there was nothing else to be done, Akakiy Akakievitch decided to go to the prominent personage. What was the exact official position of the prominent personage remains unknown to this day. The reader must know that the prominent personage had but recently become a prominent personage, having up to that time been only an insignificant person. Moreover, his present position was not considered prominent in comparison with others still more so. But there is always a circle of people to whom what is insignificant in the eyes of others, is important enough. Moreover, he strove to increase his importance by sundry devices; for instance, he managed to have the inferior officials meet him on the staircase when he entered upon his service; no one was to presume to come directly to him, but the strictest etiquette must be observed; the collegiate recorder must make a report to the government secretary, the government secretary to the titular councillor, or whatever other man was proper, and all business must come before him in this manner. In Holy Russia all is thus contaminated with the love of imitation; every man imitates and copies his superior. They even say that a certain titular councillor, when promoted to the head of some small separate room, immediately partitioned off a private room for himself, called it the audience chamber, and posted at the door a lackey with red collar and braid, who grasped the handle of the door and opened to all comers; though the audience chamber could hardly hold an ordinary writing-table.

     The manners and customs of the prominent personage were grand and imposing, but rather exaggerated. The main foundation of his system was strictness. "Strictness, strictness, and always strictness!" he generally said; and at the last word he looked significantly into the face of the person to whom he spoke. But there was no necessity for this, for the half-score of subordinates who formed the entire force of the office were properly afraid; on catching sight of him afar off they left their work and waited, drawn up in line, until he had passed through the room. His ordinary converse with his inferiors smacked of sternness, and consisted chiefly of three phrases: "How dare you?" "Do you know whom you are speaking to?" "Do you realise who stands before you?"      Otherwise he was a very kind-hearted man, good to his comrades, and ready to oblige; but the rank of general threw him completely off his balance. On receiving any one of that rank, he became confused, lost his way, as it were, and never knew what to do. If he chanced to be amongst his equals he was still a very nice kind of man, a very good fellow in many respects, and not stupid; but the very moment that he found himself in the society of people but one rank lower than himself he became silent; and his situation aroused sympathy, the more so as he felt himself that he might have been making an incomparably better use of his time. In his eyes there was sometimes visible a desire to join some interesting conversation or group; but he was kept back by the thought, "Would it not be a very great condescension on his part? Would it not be familiar? and would he not thereby lose his importance?" And in consequence of such reflections he always remained in the same dumb state, uttering from time to time a few monosyllabic sounds, and thereby earning the name of the most wearisome of men.

     To this prominent personage Akakiy Akakievitch presented himself, and this at the most unfavourable time for himself though opportune for the prominent personage. The prominent personage was in his cabinet conversing gaily with an old acquaintance and companion of his childhood whom he had not seen for several years and who had just arrived when it was announced to him that a person named Bashmatchkin had come. He asked abruptly, "Who is he?" --"Some official," he was informed. "Ah, he can wait! this is no time for him to call," said the important man.

     It must be remarked here that the important man lied outrageously: he had said all he had to say to his friend long before; and the conversation had been interspersed for some time with very long pauses, during which they merely slapped each other on the leg, and said, "You think so, Ivan Abramovitch!" "Just so, Stepan Varlamitch!" Nevertheless, he ordered that the official should be kept waiting, in order to show his friend, a man who had not been in the service for a long time, but had lived at home in the country, how long officials had to wait in his ante-room. At length, having talked himself completely out, and more than that, having had his fill of pauses, and smoked a cigar in a very comfortable arm-chair with reclining back, he suddenly seemed to recollect, and said to the secretary, who stood by the door with papers of reports, "So it seems that there is a tchinovnik waiting to see me. Tell him that he may come in." On perceiving Akakiy Akakievitch's modest mien and his worn undress uniform, he turned abruptly to him and said, "What do you want?" in a curt hard voice, which he had practised in his room in private, and before the looking-glass, for a whole week before being raised to his present rank.

     Akakiy Akakievitch, who was already imbued with a due amount of fear, became somewhat confused: and as well as his tongue would permit, explained, with a rather more frequent addition than usual of the word "that," that his cloak was quite new, and had been stolen in the most inhuman manner; that he had applied to him in order that he might, in some way, by his intermediation -- that he might enter into correspondence with the chief of police, and find the cloak.

     For some inexplicable reason this conduct seemed familiar to the prominent personage. "What, my dear sir!" he said abruptly, "are you not acquainted with etiquette? Where have you come from? Don't you know how such matters are managed? You should first have entered a complaint about this at the court below: it would have gone to the head of the department, then to the chief of the division, then it would have been handed over to the secretary, and the secretary would have given it to me."

     "But, your excellency," said Akakiy Akakievitch, trying to collect his small handful of wits, and conscious at the same time that he was perspiring terribly, "I, your excellency, presumed to trouble you because secretaries -- are an untrustworthy race."

     "What, what, what!" said the important personage. "Where did you get such courage? Where did you get such ideas? What impudence towards their chiefs and superiors has spread among the young generation!" The prominent personage apparently had not observed that Akakiy Akakievitch was already in the neighbourhood of fifty. If he could be called a young man, it must have been in comparison with some one who was twenty. "Do you know to whom you speak? Do you realise who stands before you? Do you realise it? do you realise it? I ask you!" Then he stamped his foot and raised his voice to such a pitch that it would have frightened even a different man from Akakiy Akakievitch. Akakiy Akakievitch's senses failed him; he staggered, trembled in every limb, and, if the porters had not run to support him, would have fallen to the floor. They carried him out insensible. But the prominent personage, gratified that the effect should have surpassed his expectations, and quite intoxicated with the thought that his word could even deprive a man of his senses, glanced sideways at his friend in order to see how he looked upon this, and perceived, not without satisfaction, that his friend was in a most uneasy frame of mind, and even beginning, on his part, to feel a trifle frightened.

     Akakiy Akakievitch could not remember how he descended the stairs and got into the street. He felt neither his hands nor feet. Never in his life had he been so rated by any high official, let alone a strange one. He went staggering on through the snow-storm, which was blowing in the streets, with his mouth wide open; the wind, in St. Petersburg fashion, darted upon him from all quarters, and down every cross-street. In a twinkling it had blown a quinsy into his throat, and he reached home unable to utter a word. His throat was swollen, and he lay down on his bed. So powerful is sometimes a good scolding!

     The next day a violent fever showed itself. Thanks to the generous assistance of the St. Petersburg climate, the malady progressed more rapidly than could have been expected: and when the doctor arrived, he found, on feeling the sick man's pulse, that there was nothing to be done, except to prescribe a fomentation, so that the patient might not be left entirely without the beneficent aid of medicine; but at the same time, he predicted his end in thirty-six hours. After this he turned to the landlady, and said, "And as for you, don't waste your time on him: order his pine coffin now, for an oak one will be too expensive for him." Did Akakiy Akakievitch hear these fatal words? and if he heard them, did they produce any overwhelming effect upon him? Did he lament the bitterness of his life? -- We know not, for he continued in a delirious condition. Visions incessantly appeared to him, each stranger than the other. Now he saw Petrovitch, and ordered him to make a cloak, with some traps for robbers, who seemed to him to be always under the bed; and cried every moment to the landlady to pull one of them from under his coverlet. Then he inquired why his old mantle hung before him when he had a new cloak. Next he fancied that he was standing before the prominent person, listening to a thorough setting-down, and saying, "Forgive me, your excellency!" but at last he began to curse, uttering the most horrible words, so that his aged landlady crossed herself, never in her life having heard anything of the kind from him, the more so as those words followed directly after the words "your excellency." Later on he talked utter nonsense, of which nothing could be made: all that was evident being, that his incoherent words and thoughts hovered ever about one thing, his cloak. At length poor Akakiy Akakievitch breathed his last. They sealed up neither his room nor his effects, because, in the first place, there were no heirs, and, in the second, there was very little to inherit beyond a bundle of goose-quills, a quire of white official paper, three pairs of socks, two or three buttons which had burst off his trousers, and the mantle already known to the reader. To whom all this fell, God knows. I confess that the person who told me this tale took no interest in the matter. They carried Akakiy Akakievitch out and buried him.

     And St. Petersburg was left without Akakiy Akakievitch, as though he had never lived there. A being disappeared who was protected by none, dear to none, interesting to none, and who never even attracted to himself the attention of those students of human nature who omit no opportunity of thrusting a pin through a common fly, and examining it under the microscope. A being who bore meekly the jibes of the department, and went to his grave without having done one unusual deed, but to whom, nevertheless, at the close of his life appeared a bright visitant in the form of a cloak, which momentarily cheered his poor life, and upon whom, thereafter, an intolerable misfortune descended, just as it descends upon the mighty of this world!

     Several days after his death, the porter was sent from the department to his lodgings, with an order for him to present himself there immediately; the chief commanding it. But the porter had to return unsuccessful, with the answer that he could not come; and to the question, "Why?" replied, "Well, because he is dead! he was buried four days ago." In this manner did they hear of Akakiy Akakievitch's death at the department, and the next day a new official sat in his place, with a handwriting by no means so upright, but more inclined and slanting.

     But who could have imagined that this was not really the end of Akakiy Akakievitch, that he was destined to raise a commotion after death, as if in compensation for his utterly insignificant life? But so it happened, and our poor story unexpectedly gains a fantastic ending. A rumour suddenly spread through St. Petersburg that a dead man had taken to appearing on the Kalinkin Bridge and its vicinity at night in the form of a tchinovnik seeking a stolen cloak, and that, under the pretext of its being the stolen cloak, he dragged, without regard to rank or calling, every one's cloak from his shoulders, be it cat-skin, beaver, fox, bear, sable; in a word, every sort of fur and skin which men adopted for their covering. One of the department officials saw the dead man with his own eyes and immediately recognised in him Akakiy Akakievitch. This, however, inspired him with such terror that he ran off with all his might, and therefore did not scan the dead man closely, but only saw how the latter threatened him from afar with his finger. Constant complaints poured in from all quarters that the backs and shoulders, not only of titular but even of court councillors, were exposed to the danger of a cold on account of the frequent dragging off of their cloaks.

     Arrangements were made by the police to catch the corpse, alive or dead, at any cost, and punish him as an example to others in the most severe manner. In this they nearly succeeded; for a watchman, on guard in Kirushkin Alley, caught the corpse by the collar on the very scene of his evil deeds, when attempting to pull off the frieze coat of a retired musician. Having seized him by the collar, he summoned, with a shout, two of his comrades, whom he enjoined to hold him fast while he himself felt for a moment in his boot, in order to draw out his snuff-box and refresh his frozen nose. But the snuff was of a sort which even a corpse could not endure. The watchman having closed his right nostril with his finger, had no sooner succeeded in holding half a handful up to the left than the corpse sneezed so violently that he completely filled the eyes of all three. While they raised their hands to wipe them, the dead man vanished completely, so that they positively did not know whether they had actually had him in their grip at all. Thereafter the watchmen conceived such a terror of dead men that they were afraid even to seize the living, and only screamed from a distance, "Hey, there! go your way!" So the dead tchinovnik began to appear even beyond the Kalinkin Bridge, causing no little terror to all timid people. But we have totally neglected that certain prominent personage who may really be considered as the cause of the fantastic turn taken by this true history. First of all, justice compels us to say that after the departure of poor, annihilated Akakiy Akakievitch he felt something like remorse. Suffering was unpleasant to him, for his heart was accessible to many good impulses, in spite of the fact that his rank often prevented his showing his true self. As soon as his friend had left his cabinet, he began to think about poor Akakiy Akakievitch. And from that day forth, poor Akakiy Akakievitch, who could not bear up under an official reprimand, recurred to his mind almost every day. The thought troubled him to such an extent that a week later he even resolved to send an official to him, to learn whether he really could assist him; and when it was reported to him that Akakiy Akakievitch had died suddenly of fever, he was startled, hearkened to the reproaches of his conscience, and was out of sorts for the whole day.

     Wishing to divert his mind in some way, and drive away the disagreeable impression, he set out that evening for one of his friends' houses, where he found quite a large party assembled. What was better, nearly every one was of the same rank as himself, so that he need not feel in the least constrained. This had a marvellous effect upon his mental state. He grew expansive, made himself agreeable in conversation, in short, he passed a delightful evening. After supper he drank a couple of glasses of champagne -- not a bad recipe for cheerfulness, as every one knows. The champagne inclined him to various adventures; and he determined not to return home, but to go and see a certain well-known lady of German extraction, Karolina Ivanovna, a lady, it appears, with whom he was on a very friendly footing.

     It must be mentioned that the prominent personage was no longer a young man, but a good husband and respected father of a family. Two sons, one of whom was already in the service, and a good-looking, sixteen-year-old daughter, with a rather retrousse but pretty little nose, came every morning to kiss his hand and say, "Bonjour, papa." His wife, a still fresh and good-looking woman, first gave him her hand to kiss, and then, reversing the procedure, kissed his. But the prominent personage, though perfectly satisfied in his domestic relations, considered it stylish to have a friend in another quarter of the city. This friend was scarcely prettier or younger than his wife; but there are such puzzles in the world, and it is not our place to judge them. So the important personage descended the stairs, stepped into his sledge, said to the coachman, "To Karolina Ivanovna's," and, wrapping himself luxuriously in his warm cloak, found himself in that delightful frame of mind than which a Russian can conceive no better, namely, when you think of nothing yourself, yet when the thoughts creep into your mind of their own accord, each more agreeable than the other, giving you no trouble either to drive them away or seek them. Fully satisfied, he recalled all the gay features of the evening just passed, and all the mots which had made the little circle laugh. Many of them he repeated in a low voice, and found them quite as funny as before; so it is not surprising that he should laugh heartily at them. Occasionally, however, he was interrupted by gusts of wind, which, coming suddenly, God knows whence or why, cut his face, drove masses of snow into it, filled out his cloak-collar like a sail, or suddenly blew it over his head with supernatural force, and thus caused him constant trouble to disentangle himself. Suddenly the important personage felt some one clutch him firmly by the collar. Turning round, he perceived a man of short stature, in an old, worn uniform, and recognised, not without terror, Akakiy Akakievitch. The official's face was white as snow, and looked just like a corpse's. But the horror of the important personage transcended all bounds when he saw the dead man's mouth open, and, with a terrible odour of the grave, gave vent to the following remarks: "Ah, here you are at last! I have you, that -- by the collar! I need your cloak; you took no trouble about mine, but reprimanded me; so now give up your own."

     The pallid prominent personage almost died of fright. Brave as he was in the office and in the presence of inferiors generally, and although, at the sight of his manly form and appearance, every one said, "Ugh! how much character he had!" at this crisis, he, like many possessed of an heroic exterior, experienced such terror, that, not without cause, he began to fear an attack of illness. He flung his cloak hastily from his shoulders and shouted to his coachman in an unnatural voice, "Home at full speed!" The coachman, hearing the tone which is generally employed at critical moments and even accompanied by something much more tangible, drew his head down between his shoulders in case of an emergency, flourished his whip, and flew on like an arrow. In a little more than six minutes the prominent personage was at the entrance of his own house. Pale, thoroughly scared, and cloakless, he went home instead of to Karolina Ivanovna's, reached his room somehow or other, and passed the night in the direst distress; so that the next morning over their tea his daughter said, "You are very pale to-day, papa." But papa remained silent, and said not a word to any one of what had happened to him, where he had been, or where he had intended to go.

     This occurrence made a deep impression upon him. He even began to say: "How dare you? do you realise who stands before you?" less frequently to the under-officials, and if he did utter the words, it was only after having first learned the bearings of the matter. But the most noteworthy point was, that from that day forward the apparition of the dead tchinovnik ceased to be seen. Evidently the prominent personage's cloak just fitted his shoulders; at all events, no more instances of his dragging cloaks from people's shoulders were heard of. But many active and apprehensive persons could by no means reassure themselves, and asserted that the dead tchinovnik still showed himself in distant parts of the city. In fact, one watchman in Kolomna saw with his own eyes the apparition come from behind a house. But being rather weak of body, he dared not arrest him, but followed him in the dark, until, at length, the apparition looked round, paused, and inquired, "What do you want?" at the same time showing a fist such as is never seen on living men. The watchman said, "It's of no consequence," and turned back instantly. But the apparition was much too tall, wore huge moustaches, and, directing its steps apparently towards the Obukhoff bridge, disappeared in the darkness of the night.

#nikolai gogol #reading #the overcoat

[ballonleastadiumofficial]

9. Tell a story about your childhood.

Hm. Such busybodies...

Fine. You'd like to hear something about when I was small? Allow me to indulge you.

I suppose I should preface this little tale with the fact that, as Chairman Rose's charge, he saw fit to send me to trainer school in Hammerlocke for a time to hone my skills. It should come as no surprise to any of you that I met (and, I would venture to say, exceeded~) the expectations of my instructors. I considered many of my fellow students to be beneath my notice, aside from for the occasional show of strength in battle, I suppose, and thus I have forgotten many of their names. However, there does happen to be one name that has stuck with me this entire time- I vividly recall a girl called Celosia. A grass type trainer, predictably, whose starter pokemon was a Gossifleur that presented no small challenge for me and my dear Hatenna. Not by virtue of any sort of elemental advantage, but through the simple application of her horrid amalgamation of Sweet Scent and Sing, leaving my poor pokemon defenseless to the onslaught of Leafages and Rapid Spins to come... After my pitiful defeat at her hands on our first meeting, she always left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm sure you can imagine my disdain at the fact that we found ourselves in the same classroom.

For a short time, my life became a race to best her. Whatever I did, I aimed to do better than she would. Whenever she succeeded, I hoped to upstage her as soon as possible. Which is why, when our teacher announced a class-wide competition we were all to participate in, I threw myself into preparation to ensure that I would come out on top. The rules would be simple- Ms. Thalia would scan down the list of students, asking each of us some question or another that was relevant to being a pokemon trainer, and we would have one minute to come up with the correct answer. Those who were too late or incorrect in their answer would be eliminated and made to put their head down on their desk. I believe she promised candy to the three students who remained in the end, although I paid that little attention. After all, what I saw was a chance to best my adolescent adversary in front of every one of my peers, and nothing more. I set myself to studying all manner of trivia on the nights leading up to the event.

Eventually, the day came. We began with 21 students, and those numbers quickly dwindled. 20 students. 15. 11. 9 remaining. 5.

Predictably, Celosia and I were the final two to face elimination. We juggled queries back and forth like a pair Scorbunnies kicking a red-hot pebble between us, unwilling to concede victory to the other... "Bede, a pokemon with 288 health points is on the field when its partner uses Life Dew. How much health does it recover?" "Celosia, my Toxel with a Hasty nature decides to eat its iapapa berry in battle. What exactly will happen?" I believe we'd drawn the ordeal out for long enough that Ms. Thalia decided to bring trick questions into play, as what finally tripped Celosia up was the question "What power does the move Tar Shot have?". She said 20. I was crowned the victor.

The satisfaction I felt that day was immeasurable, as emphasized by the fact that I remember such a tedious contest to begin with.

#pokemon #pokemon swsh #pokemon irl #anon #rotomblr #rotumblr

[pregtboy]

aw i just discovered your blog and find your long pieces SO GOOD, can you write something about pregnancy denial? thanks <3

EEE thanks for the compliment, i'm so glad you like my writing! the long pieces are a lot of fun to write too, so here u go uwu

he had always been such a good boy.

so pious, so disciplined and virtuous, never letting the vices of those around him influence his decisions. he always insisted on maintaining the moral high ground above everyone he knew, much to their annoyance. though his friends cared deeply for him, they often grew exhausted of his priestly air of superiority, and sometimes found themselves wishing he would just get taken down a peg.

though most would call him a prude with a stick up his ass, he considered himself a shining pillar or restraint and virtue. a little angel. he was a cute thing, too - big inquisitive sparkling eyes, round glasses, fluffy hair, a button nose and an affinity for cozy oversized sweaters - but all the boys who tried to woo him instead found themselves on the receiving end of his preachy lectures.

he considered himself above his pregnant boy friends, of which he had more than a few. they're just slaves to their hormones, he would think haughtily to himself. no restraint, unlike me.

it wasn't long after starting T that he started to understand them.

his libido was through the roof, something he had never experienced before, and he was fully unable to stop his gaze from lingering on any boy that crossed his path. his mind would wander to the most risqué of fantasies near constantly, and all his pious discipline was no match for his lustful, hormonal boy-craziness.

it was only inevitable that he found himself on his back for the first guy who gave him the time of day, taking his cock with ferocity and hunger, legs locked tightly around the other boy's waist, unable to let go even if he wanted to. just when he thought he couldn't experience any more rapturous pleasure, he felt the other boy spill inside him, filling him up to the brim with his seed. it was enough to make the boy see stars, and the cuddles afterwards only made it even better.

the two boys seemed to take a liking to each other and began seeing each other more often - it settled the boy's conscience to know he had a boyfriend. he wasn't just giving himself away to anyone, he wasn't a slut. he was still a good boy. sure, he felt a little guilty, but he couldn't stay a virgin forever, and being with his boyfriend couldn't have been wrong - after all, it felt so right.

being as squeamish as he was about the subject of sex, he hadn't talked to his doctor about getting on any birth control. 'oh, i don't need to worry about that,' he remembered remarking snidely to his doctor when the subject came up. he was almost offended that the doctor had even asked him about it - couldn't they see he was a good boy? besides, he'd be on T soon enough - that could be a birth control by itself, right? he reassured himself.

when the morning sickness rolled around, he paid it no mind. it was flu season, he had probably just picked something up at work or from one of his friends. it was annoying, sure, but nothing he couldn't pinch off in a couple days.

similarly, he brushed it off as best he could when his chest began to swell outward, tender and aching. sure, he couldn't pinpoint a cause, but this kind of thing probably happened all the time, right? he would just have to buy a new binder a size up. nothing more.

he gave the same response of dismissal a few weeks later when he woke up to notice his hips had become fuller. he stood in the mirror, turning around and seeing that his usual shorts had ridden up significantly. his thighs were larger, his ass rounder. though the change made him blush with embarrassment, he brushed it off as he had with everything else. hips can still grow when you're an adult, he figured. he had always had a somewhat chubby build, but his hips had never really blossomed the way they were supposed to when he was a teenager - something he had been grateful for, but now assumed had finally caught up with him. plus, i don't work out much, he pondered. must be my metabolism catching up with me. nothing wrong with putting on a little weight...

his anxieties were quickly relieved by his doting boyfriend anyways, who certainly took note of the boy's newfound curves - and absolutely adored them. he showered the boy's body with love and affection, gripping his ample hips and chest whenever he fucked him - which was now on a very regular basis. the boy's hormones were through the roof, though it wasn't the T as the boy had expected - but the pregnancy hormones that were rushing through his body at an alarming rate.

the point of noticing a newly rounded belly would be the realization point for anyone else, but the boy's denial was deep. when he noticed his typically oversized sweaters beginning to cling to his stomach, making his roundness visible, he refused to accept what he knew must be true - even as weeks turned into months, and his belly began to gradually fill his lap, he made excuse after excuse.

soon enough, he had reached the point of looking obviously, visibly swollen and fecund. everyone who saw him knew he must be pregnant, and random people had begun asking him when he was due. despite this, and all the insistence from his friends and boyfriend, he adamantly refused to take a test.

'i'm not some slut, i'm not pregnant,' he whined haughtily to his concerned pregnant friends, some of whom he had since grown just as large as. 'you guys just want me to be like you! give it a rest!'

by now he knew the truth, but something about saying it aloud made him feel dirty - like he had failed, like he was tarnished, no longer a good boy. so as his belly stretched and expanded, becoming spherical, as his chest heaved and even began to leak with milk, as his hips spread wide, preparing him for birth, as he began to feel the flutter of kicks inside his womb - he denied it all. his boyfriend kept insisting he at least schedule a doctor's appointment, but the gravid boy would hear none of it.

'i've just been eating a lot lately, that's all! haven't you heard of gaining weight, dummy? i can't be pregnant, i'm on T, remember?'

he could not let the truth win. no matter what, he was still a good boy. he had to be.

it was months later when the boy decided to pay his friends a visit, and they were completely floored when they laid eyes upon him.

his belly entered the room before he did - hugely engorged and flanked with stretch marks, swaying as he stepped. the fertile orb was bare and exposed - not even the most oversized of sweaters could cover a sliver of it now. his waddle was prominent, as was the evident jiggle of his hips, thighs, and ass with every movement. his breasts had practically grown larger than his head, and they were the only part of him his sweater could cover - though the coverage was of little use, as the sweater had become soaked through with milk that left huge dark spots against the stretched-out fabric. gone were the days of passers-by asking him when he was due - now they only asked him how many he was having.

his friends' jaws hung agape as the burdened boy settled onto the cozy couch, his breaths hitching and labored throughout the arduous process of movement. he plopped into his seat with a moan and quickly began to rub his belly almost instinctually, soothing his passengers as best he could. he was utterly massive - no longer a shining pillar of piety and virtue, now instead an exemplary model of absolute fertility. his friends were at a loss for words, and merely stared at the boy's rotund form.

'guys,' he whimpered, his voice strained and soft.

'i think i might be pregnant.'

#txt #ask #mine #tmpreg #pregnancy kink #boy #group #kink oc #multiples #the denial theme actually fits perfectly for one of my ocs so this can be an introductory post for him tbh #long #jon

[nerissafm]

#   𝙸𝙽𝚃𝚁𝙾𝙳𝚄𝙲𝙸𝙽𝙶   . . .   𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐀   𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑

    *     full     name     ,     nerissa     rose     sommer     .     nickname(s)     ,     nisa     .     age     ,     twenty     -     three     .     occupation     ,     musician     .      birthday     ,     september     thirteenth     .     zodiac     ,     virgo     .     gender     ,     cis     woman     .     pronouns     ,     she     and     her     .     sexual     +     romantic     orientation     ,     heterosexual     and    heteroromantic      .     faceclaim     ,     jasmin_hoppe     .

𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚃𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙲𝚂    :  

   *     current     residence     ,     los     angeles     ,     california     (     for    house    tour    click    here    )     .     career     insight     ,    click     here     .     archetype     ,    blank     ,     blank     .     temperament     ,     tbd     .     element     ,     musician     .     virtues     ,    tbd     .     vices     ,     tbd     .     tropes     ,    tbd     .     character     inspiration     ,     daisy     jones     .     career     claim     ,     pending     (    non    existing    for    now    )     .     hobbies     ,     tbd     .     quirks     ,     tbd     .     tattoos     ,     tbd     .

𝙱𝙰𝙲𝙺𝙶𝚁𝙾𝚄𝙽𝙳   :  

disregarded      before     first     breaths     . .      ❛         i’ll      never     accept     her     as     mine      .        ❜       :      in      your      existence      there     is     regret      . . . .     a      miscalculation      in      the      earned      title      ,        ❛         the      greatest     soccer     player     of     all     time     .        ❜      bo      mora     did     not     want     children       —      his      entanglement      with     his    too    young    of    an    assistant      gisele     sommer     was    a      way     to    pass    time     (     mumbled     reminders    that    sung    “    im    not    looking    for    anything    serious     “    )     .     he     was     an     legend     ,    he    swore    he    was    ‘    just    getting    started     ‘     . . .     two     lines     appearing     on    a     pregnancy    test     was     a    misstep     ,     one     he     tried     to     correct     .      ❛         abortion     ,     adoption     ,     i     don’t     care    as    long    as    you     get     rid     of     it      .        ❜      when     protests     came     ,    he    did    not    admit    defeat    and     give     in    :       $$$$$     cash     arrangements     in     exchange     for    a    promise     ,       ❛         i’ll      never     have     to     see     either     of    you    ever    again      .        ❜

you      are      not     a     daughter     . .      you      are     dollar     signs     . .      a     never     ending     spoonful     to    a     hungry     mouth     :     while     bo     mora     miscalculated     ,     gisele     sommer     calculated     perfectly     . .     in      you     she     found    a    mean    to      her      end     (     to     live     lavishly      )     :     you    are    a    genie    in    a    bottle    . .    granting    her    wishes    (    giving    and    giving    )    while    being    caged    to    a    life    that    would    leave    you    empty    .      in     short    terms     :     you     never    had     a    chance    . .    in    the    choice    of    mothering    you    and    leaving    you    to    rot    in    the    care    of    others    ,    gisele    choose    the    latter    .    you    were    six    months    old     when    you    were    handed    to    a    hired    nanny   .     there    was    no    kiss    goodbye     ,    the    words    ❛         i     love     you      .        ❜      never    came     . . .     six    months    old    but    you    already    felt    it    :    the    dis   -    want    ,    the    neglect    ,    the    loneliness    that    would    follow    you    for    the    rest    of    your    life    .     

gisele’s     absence     would     be    a    constant     . . .     a     phone    call    once    a    month    the    only    reassurance    she    was    still    there    /    you    would    learn    early    not    to    ask    when    she’d     be    home    or    if    you    could    go     with    her    ,    her    lack    of    interest    was    entangled    in     her    tone    and    her    neglect    was    a    nightmare    you    never    grew    out    of     :     it    made    your    million    dollar    estate    a    cell    . .    loneliness    a    friend     . . .    abandonment    a    wound    . .    it    made    you    hungry    for    anyone    to    love    you    . . . .     and     in    your    longing    came    willow    :    no    longer    a    nanny    by    the    time    you    hit   4    ,    she    was    your    family    —     your    only    family    .     scrapped      knees     ,     sleepy     mornings      ,     aced     (    and    failed    )    tests    ,    chorus     recitals    ,    singing    lessons    ,    first    crush    and    first    heartbreak    ,    breakouts    ,    accidental    hair    clipping    to    copy    bangs    the    latest    it   girl    was   rocking    ,    willow     held    your    hand    through    it    all    . . .    ❛         my     love    for    you    is    endless      .        ❜     

#       (      age      )       sixteen       sinks      its      teeth      into      you      :     scribbled       letters       in      a      raggedy      notebook     (     identical     to     the     ones    you’ve     carried     around     like      a      little     kid     carries    a     stuffed     bear     )      asks       . . .          ❛         do      you      want      to     become     someone        ?        ❜         yes       .       yes      .      yes      !!!!!!      you       wanted      it      bad      . . .      enough      that      a      lack     of     confidence     bared     it’s     teeth      as     you     sat     in     front     of     a     camera     in     a     dimmed     bathroom     (     it’s     acoustics     the     best     )     and      sang     a     song     you     wrote     two     years     ago      :      one      year     later     you’d     have     4.2      million     subscribers      —      two      years     later     you’d      be     signing     to     a      record     label      . . .      three     years     later     you'd     become     one      with     a      band      ,     you’re      band      .

the       devil      comes      knocking     . .     three     times     . . .     thumb      .     thumb     .    thumb    . .     when     the    door    swings    open    :    gisele    sommer    gazes    back     .     you     cannot     remember     a     time    one    of    her    smiles    belonged    to    you    ,    and      yet     it     hung     on     red     lips     like     a     prize     . .     a     heart    will     whisper     ,     “     finally     “     ,     but     your     brain    knows    better      —     where    $$     dollar     signs    are    ,    is    where    gisele    is    . . .    and    like    always    ,     you     are     her     ticket     :     ❛         i’m     back     to     stay        .      ❜       . . . .     translation     :     i     want     in      on     your     blossoming     career    .     you     wanted    it     to     be    different    ,    wanted    her    to    be    different     . .     but    you    are    no    fool     .     resentment     is     greeted     with     charm      :    give    in    ,    give    in    .     unluckily    for    you    ,    resistance    is    greeted    with      punishment     .   willow    is    let    go    /       ❛         as    much    as    we    love    having    you    around   ,    she    has    outgrown    a    nanny        .      ❜      —     in    rage    ,    you    fight    back    and    gisele    grows    more    determined    . . .     gisele    wins    the    battles    but    you    ,    you’d    win    the    war    .   

❛         i       am      nerissa’s      manager        . .        ❜       an      attempt      to      carve      permanent      on      you      . . .       los       angeles        is       full       of       shining      stars     :       your      mother      dims      your      light     .       her       behavior       ,      greed      ,     a     turn     off     for     most     labels    .     no    amounts     of     ❛         you’re      ruining      this     for     me        !        ❜     couldn’t      shake     her     . . . .       not      until      them      . 

the       first       time      andrew       faiser        heard      you      sing      :       he      did     not      see     dollar     signs      . . .       he      saw     unimaginable     passion       —       felt       aching      loneliness      .         your        third      meeting      with      him      he     asked     you      two     things     :        ❛         do       you      want     her     (      your     mother     )    involved        ?        ❜       and       ❛         do      you      want     to      do     this      alone        ?        ❜       hesitation      did     not     come    for    the    first     question      :     you     did     not     want    your     mother     involved     . . .      the     second     question     however     ?      a     small     beat     of      silence      (     perhaps     confusion     )      and     he     smiled      sweetly     and     told      you     that     before     you     answered     :     he     had     some     people     he     wanted     you    to    meet     . 

when      browns      first      landed     on     five     strangers     —     you     had     no     idea     that     they’d     become     your     future     (     your     family     )      :      had      no     idea     one     day     you’d     be     standing     side     by     side     as     the     media     labeled     you       . . . .     ❛         the      biggest     band     since     the     beatles        . .        ❜ 

in       the      contract      that      would      be     the     start     of     your     career      . .      a      promise     from      andrew     would     be     kept     :      gisele      sommer      was     iced     out     . . .     in     your     success      ,      she     would     not     make     a    single     dime     .      the     war     :     you     won     it     .      but     the     little     girl     who     opened     your     mouth     and     stated     ,        ❛         you       can      still      try      to      have     a     relationship     with     me     without     money     being     involved       . .        ❜       was       left      to      bleed     out     when     her     answer      was     disgust     and     that      familiar     dis     -     want     . . . .      you     are     a    daughter     to    no     one     . 

#      (     age     )     twenty     -       three     :      you     dance     with      the     stars      . . .      titled      one      of     the     biggest     (     most    successful     )     voices     to     come     out       of     this     generation      .      and      you      deserved     it      ,     earned     it     . . .      but     sometimes     you      can     still     feel     it     —     the    weight     on     your     chest     .     the     wound    that     never    stops    bleeding   .     the    abandonment    in    your     lungs    . .      ❛        i     don’t     want    her    . .        ❜    carved     across     your    heart    . .     you     still     have      the     nightmares     . . .        you     think     :     how     could    it     be     ?      how     could     it     be     that    millions     of     people     love     and     adore     me     ,     and     yet     i      still      don’t     feel     enough     ?

𝙿𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙾𝙽𝙰𝙻𝙸𝚃𝚈   :

pending      .  . .

𝙲𝙾𝙽𝙽𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽𝚂   :

coming     soon     . . .

𝚆𝙰𝙽𝚃𝙴𝙳   𝙲𝙾𝙽𝙽𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽𝚂   :

*    please   note   :   i   love   plotting   and   while   these   are   super   basic   and  vague   would   love   to   go   into   full   details   and   really   plot   some   fun   fun   fun   (   and   messy   ,   chaotic   ,   toxic   ,   silly   plots   )    things   <333

001.       producers    and    music    people    she    works   with    a   lot    !!

002.     another    artist    she    has    a    work    boner    for    <33    basically   she    just    really    admires    their    talent    and    work    !

003.    will    submit    this    officially    too    but     bandmates   !!    just    four    -    six    muses    with    complex    dynamics    but    also    that    found    family    trope    (   and    please    give    me    something    based    off   of    daisy    and    billy    !!!    

004.     besties    !!    ride    or    dies   !    partner    in    crimes   !    unlikely    friendships   !!   bad    and    good    influences    !!    give    me    all    cute    platonic    things    <33

005.     ex’s/first     heartbreak/the    one    that    got    away    !!    give    me   it   all    <33

006.    hookups/flings/friends     (     or    enemies    )    with    benefits    and    other   stuff    of    that    nature    .

#hillzhqsintro #dont mind me completely skipping over the stats sdfgh #i wrote the bio section and my brain turned to mush #swear ill come back and edit it later #i dont think this has any tw but if you peep one lmk #also if you prefer plotting on discord just message me for my tag <33

[godsofhumanity]

@lordgarrykus: Can I point out that it's stated the mjolnir is just a terribly designed hammer? I'm pretty sure it's been stated the the handle is WAY too small, meaning there's no leverage, and the things weight balance is just abysmal because of it.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I'd I remember correctly Thor found it in atop a dwarven scrap heap.

Just so happens our beloved burly boi saw rainbows butterflies and sparkling the moment thier eyes met and it was love at first sight

----------

vans: hrmmmm. not sure that you are remembering correctly tbh ahaha. ur right about the hammer handle being far too small,, but there is a reason for that, as stated in the Skáldskaparmál in the Prose Edda:

"Why is gold called Sif's Hair? Loki Laufeyarson, for mischief's sake, cut off all Sif's hair. But when Thor learned of this, he seized Loki, and would have broken every bone in him, had he not sworn to get the Black Elves to make Sif hair of gold, such that it would grow like other hair. After that, Loki went to those dwarves who are called Ívaldi's Sons; and they made the hair... Then Loki wagered his head with the dwarf called Brokkr that Brokkr's brother Sindri could not make three other precious things equal in virtue to these.

Now when they came to the smithy... Brokkr... did not cease work until he took out of the hearth that which he had laid therein. But... [when Mjolnir was being made, a] fly settled between Brokkr's eyes and stung his eyelid, but when the blood fell into his eyes so that he could not see, then he clutched at it with his hand as swiftly as he could,--while the bellows grew flat,--and he swept the fly from him. Then the smith came thither and said that it had come near to spoiling all that was in the hearth. Then he took from the forge a hammer, put all the precious works into the hands of Brokkr his brother, and bade him go with them to Ásgard and claim the wager.

Now when he and Loki brought forward the precious gifts... then he gave the hammer to Thor, and said that Thor might smite as hard as he desired, whatsoever might be before him, and the hammer would not fail; and if he threw it at anything, it would never miss, and never fly so far as not to return to his hand; and if be desired, he might keep it in his sark, it was so small; but indeed it was a flaw in the hammer that the fore-haft was somewhat short."

TL;DR: an annoying little fly bit the blacksmith's eyelid, and there was so much of blood, the blacksmith couldn't see the hammer while it was being made, and thus, it became somewhat deformed. but make no mistake, Mjolnir is still one of the most powerful weapons amongst the Aesir, and regardless of leverage or force, Mjolnir always hits its mark and returns to Thor's hand.

#submission #lordgarrykus #also.. ur always sending me submissions 😭😭 can u send me an ask next time instead? its easier to reply back to 🥺👉👈

[tapioca-puddingg]

Three, the Goddess of Sloth: A Drakengard 3 Analysis

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Yo! It's me, back at it again with another analysis post. Welcome back to my Drakengard 3 Seven Deadly Sins/Heavenly Virtues series. I've seen that I've been getting some likes on the other two that i did. So I wanted to thank you guys for reading and supporting my works ♥︎. Before I get started here, if you're seeing this for the first time and like Drakengard 3, be sure to check out the other posts that i did about Five and Four. And also I stream occasionally on Twitch, so I would appreciate if you stopped by and checked out the channel.

Anyways, Three has by far been both the hardest and the easiest to analyze out of the Intoners. Sounds contradictory, I know, but I'll explain later. Now sit back and relax as we get into Three, The Goddess of Sloth.

"Once upon a time, many moons ago...There was a beautiful intoner and an elderly man. The intoner's only love in life was making dolls. She loved it so, so, so, so very much. It was an odd obsession, to be sure; one the elderly man would often worry about...if the mood struck him."

INTRODUCTION TO THREE

Three is the third youngest of the Intoner sisters and the ruler of the Land of Forests. Four describes her as being the most "unbalanced" among the sisters, but that's putting it mildly. She has an extremely unhealthy obsession with making "dolls", which are the soldiers that she creates. She has a rather moody and aloof personality, but when she starts talking about her dolls, her whole demeanor changes. The subject of her creations brings her great joy, and she begins speaking much faster (as opposed to her usual slow speech) and with more enthusiasm.

MAIN GAME

Before we even meet the woman herself, her horny disciple, Octa, betrays her and willingly joins Zero and the party. When asked by Three, Octa claims that he left because of her immoral experiments, which is partially true. But she calls out his true intentions by saying that he needed a more "eager partner" and that he grew restless because of a lack of sex. That's the other half of truth haha. There's more banter, but she gets eaten by Mikhail by the end of the fight. As with the other sisters, you don't get much of them from the main game and her time on screen was short-lived. Literally. We don't get a full understanding of what her experiments are until the DLC and part of the novella.

THREE'S PROLOGUE (DLC)

So here's where we start getting to the meat and potatoes. As I said earlier, Three creates these soldiers for war purposes. She and Octa are tasked with destroying some of her soldiers that have gone haywire. When confronted with them, she remembers every doll down to their names and their flaws. She's exceedingly knowledgeable about their bodies and knows exactly how she failed and learns from the experience to make improvements the next time around. This would be admirable if she wasn't experimenting on living creatures. If only she used her intelligence to do good for the world instead of satisfying her own sick desires.

Gabriella comes to help out at some point and she stays calling out the intoners on their bullshit. Three apparently laughed at something immature that Gabriella said (I watched it back a few times I didn't hear a laugh so just go with it i guess) and she called her out on it. "See? You try to act like this moody, inscrutable genius all the time...but deep down you're just a little kid who laughs at fart jokes!" -Gabriella

All this proves is that the Intoners are all just children at the end of the day. That explains why a lot of them are emotionally immature. Four even said it herself in her novella.

"The Intoner was fascinated with the world's curiosities. And nothing was more curious than humans. So the intoner asked the elderly man: 'Why do people fight each other?'. The man replied 'I don't know'. 'Why do people move? Why do people think? Why do people live? Why? Why? Why? Why? The intoners questions continued on. And on. And on..."

Three is drawn as a little girl in the storybook-style part of the DLC. She has a natural childlike curiosity and that curiosity led to an obsession with humans and the human condition.

Time goes on and Three and Octa kill more and more of her dolls, and things start to get more and more morbid. Then we really get to see how disturbed Three really is. Octa expresees his disgust with the situation and fails to try to reach Three. She seems sad by the fact that she has to kill her "gifted" children. I forgot to mention this earlier, but she comes up with a bunch of riddles for Zero and the party to solve and analogies that straight up don't make any sense.

Octa: These gigantes seem a bit...rotten. Did you make them as well?

Three: No. Think of these children as merely spare parts. They're the junk leftover from my other work. Like the bones of a half-eaten fish

Octa: I must say, I'm starting to feel bad for them...

So she uses what she needs from whatever living creature she uses to make her soldiers and discards the parts that she doesn't. It's like she treats them like they're leftover ingredients or something.

Octa notices the next set of gigante monsters are different and this is where Three (casually) admits that she crossed them with humans. The gigante is capable of speech and talks about how it wants revenge on Three for what she did to them, not that I blame them. She goes on another long-winded tangent about how she created them and Octa can't help but to be concerned.

T: But my research found the answer. Human strength is governed by emotion

O: Your..research?

T: Yes. My research. Research to create the perfect soldier. I decided I had to cross between assorted emotion sets.

O: Cross? You don't mean--

T: Of course I do! Why wait for the right emotions to come along when it's quicker to make them yourself?

O: How many people died for this, my lady?!

T: 56

O: You counted?!

T: Keeping one's memory sharp is what helps maintain youth, after all!

O: I cannot believe this...

T: Octa! Hey Octa! Guess what? Come on Octa! Ask me! Ask me!

O: I cannot, my lady...

T: You want to know which humans had the highest durability levels? The ones who were filled with hate! So i gathered up a few nearby villagers and I... *giggles* And I.. *giggles*

O: Please, my lady! No more!

T: I killed a guy right in front of them! They didn't even see it coming! Just hacked him into little bits!

O: My lady...

Had to include this interaction for more context. Yeah, I feel bad for Octa. And her victims of course. Three grows more unhinged and uncharacteristically excitable as she goes over the details. She is completely unafraid to share her thought process, as she's legitimately proud of what she achieved with these murders. This moment is also the straw that broke the camel's back for Octa.

"The intoners hobby caused her to lay hands upon human beings. Once she crossed that line, nothing could stop her. The elderly man silently excused himself from the room. He chided himself for his impotence as he mourned for his now-broken intoner."

The end of the DLC. Octa realizes that Three is officially too far gone to be stopped, so he takes it upon himself to leave and joins Zero. Three has already crossed the moral boundary of killing humans, so nothing would've stopped her at that point. It's probably for the best that she was put down by Mikhail. Who knows just how many more people she would've sacrificed in the name of her "research".

NOVELLA

Three's novella is fitting for her, you could say. It's basically just a journal of her logging her experiments. It's here where she details her thought process, how she makes her dolls, her inspirations and identifies her mistakes and how she improves with the next experiment. Her level of intelligence is impressive, and she also proves to be incredibly observant, analytical and determined to succeed. However, it doesn't make up for her unethical and immoral nature, cruelty and selfishness.

She is completely and utterly socially inept and is oblivious to her actions. She fails to understand that her experiments are wrong, and she genuinely doesn't understand why Octa doesn't like her dolls.

NOVELLA ARTWORK

This is just a quick analysis of the image used to represent the novella. It shows Three standing in the center with her sisters' heads on chess pieces surrounding her, scissors in hand. I believe this is how she views humans and other living things. Pawns for her to use and tamper with for her own sick satisfaction. It could also symbolize where her madness began. She says in the novella that the first doll she ever made was a copy of an already existing doll. And the doll she copied was apparently a chess piece, which she wasn't aware of at the time.

COLOR THEORY (PURPLE)

Color theory is extremely important when it comes to character design and logo design, like for brands, game logos, etc. Although sometimes colors are just chosen because they look good, and that's fine. But overanalyzing is the name of the game here. Every color has positive and negative traits associated with it. Purple is very hard to find in nature, so some may consider it to be exotic. It is also the color of mourning in some cultures. Some positive traits include royalty, power, mystery, imagination and creativity. Negative traits can include sensitivity, immaturity, decadence, and conceitedness. Despite how awful of a person she is, she has pretty much all of those positive traits that I listed. But the negative traits more than outweigh the positive ones.

THE FINAL SONG

Here's where I wanted to talk about her dance in the final song. Just like the other odd-numbered Intoners, her movements are asymmetrical and odd to say the least. It's unpredictable and oppositional (ex: when one arm goes up, the other goes down, etc). Her movements are constantly conflicting with itself. It's uncoordinated and done pretty haphazardly. It appears to be loosely timed with the music, showing her disregard to the world around her. She doesn't appear to be reaching out for anyone or actively involving anyone. She's just moving as she pleases.

TLDR

Three was an unhinged, yet highly intelligent woman who performed immoral experiments on humans and other living creatures for her own twisted self-indulgence. She had a complete disregard for human life and failed to understand the horror that she induced with these creations. Her actions were so monstrous, in fact, that her own disciple saw the need to betray her. Her personality was usually moody and aloof, but Gabriella reveals that she is still just a child on the inside. Her curiosity about the human condition led to a dangerous obsession and she callously toyed with their lives as a part of her research. In Four's novella, which shows the Intoners in a more casual setting, Three is lazy, irresponsible, and can apparently sleep anywhere at any time. Like Five, she doesn't clean up her own messes and disregards those around her. It's a very small part of this overarching story, but this is why I've dubbed her the Goddess of Sloth.

AFTERTHOUGHT

Whew! Finally done with this thing. I called her the easiest and the hardest because I couldn't get anything super deep with her like I did with Five and Four. I wish I had more to work with, but what you see is what you get, I suppose. If you've gotten this far, thank you so much for reading and for giving me the time of day. My next analysis is gonna be on Two. Dunno when that'll be, but I'll try not to let too much time pass between this one and the next. As usual, I'll catch you guys next time. o/

#drakengard #drakengard 3 #drakengard three #three #analysis #drakengard analysis #square enix #videogamewomen #yoko taro #intoner three

[psalmonesermons]

The letter to the Romans now with Hebraic notes added

A short commentary on Chapter 1:1-17

Paul as a called apostle brings God’s message to the called people in Rome. A message which still applies to you and I today as we are part of God’s called people here in Edinburgh (or wherever you are).

1:1 Paul, a servant [1] of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle [2] and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures (links to the OT)3regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life [a] was a descendant of David, 4 and who through (or by virtue of) the Spirit of holiness (Holy Spirit) was appointed (or decreed, determined or even declared) the Son of God (invested) in power [3] [b] by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to faith and obedience for his name’s sake. 6 And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong (they have already been set apart) to (our Lord)Jesus Christ.

7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy (consecrated) people:

Grace (unmerited favour) and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul uses the Greek word chaire for grace and the Hebrew shalom for peace. A nice touch written to a mixed congregation!

Paul’s Longing to Visit Rome

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world (famous faith in the Capital city , could it be in Edinburgh too?). 9 God, whom I serve in my spirit (with sincere devotion of the heart-Calvin) in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly (without ceasing) I remember you 10 in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

Paul loves these Roman Christians tenderly and just as much as though he had founded the church in Rome which he had not.

11 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift (as far as we know none of the apostles had visited Rome so Paul longed to lay hands on them and release the gifts of the Holy Spirit[4] in their ministries) to make you strong— 12that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith (works both ways). 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest (fruit probably including new converts and building up the body of Christ in character (Fruit of the Spirit), gifting and maturity) among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.(Paul modestly understates his huge success in ministering to the Gentiles).

14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.(Paul was called to preach the Gospel both to the learned and the unlearned, he was obligated to them because of the call on his life and also perhaps in view of how he once persecuted the church of Jesus Christ even to death).

16 I am not ashamed of the gospel,(Paul was proud of the Gospel message even when he came up against the learned philosophers or anyone because in it he saw the power to change a human life) because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.(usual order) 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,[c] just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith [5]” [d]

Paul is quoting the prophet Habakkuk here who also had to learn to trust God by exercising trust and faith in His person, His character and His actions.

The righteousness of (more accurately from) God means the absolute moral purity of God. What must I do to be accepted by God? The Jews had the law and could not keep it and the Catholic church did not know the way of salvation. So how could the reformers like Luther and Calvin become acceptable to God? They had the revelation which launched the reformation that the way to become righteous before God requires that those in relationship with Him are ‘righteous’ that is that they have an ‘imputed’ righteousness which ‘avails’ them before God. This means that we are put in right standing with God or perhaps we can stand in His presence without being consumed. There is nothing we can do to earn this either by our actions such as keeping the law, doing good deeds or obtain in other way other than simply believing the Gospel message. The righteousness that is imputed to us is actually the righteousness of Jesus Christ and we receive this by faith by simply believing the Gospel truth about Jesus Christ. The new birth begins by faith, develops by faith, receives all the blessings of Christ by faith and is sustained on a life-long basis by faith. The just or righteous person truly will live from beginning to end by faith. There is simply no other way to live before God. This is the only answer to the question, what must I do be acceptable to God.

[a} Romans 1:3 Or who according to the flesh

{b} Romans 1:4 Or was declared with power to be the Son of God

{c} Romans 1:17 Or is from faith to faith

[d] Romans 1:17 Hab. 2:4 but the righteous will live by their faithfulness (or faith)

[1] Gr. Doulos ; A bond servant or slave. A paid and usually highly skilled employee but with no right to resign.

[2] Gr. Apostolos; A sent one or messenger.

[3] Gr. Dunamis; English derivatives, dynamic and dynamite.

[4] 1 Cor 12:8-10

[5] God spoke to Martin Luther through this verse when he was seeking an indulgence from the Pope ascending the stairs on his knees.

Added Hebraic Notes

A classic example of the culture clash between the Jewish and Gentile mindsets is found in Romans 1:1 where Paul describes himself as a slave (doulos) of Jesus Christ. In the Gentile Roman world to be a slave was a shameful thing. However in the Hebrew mindset a 'slave of God' (eved as were Moses, Elijah, David) was an honourable and special status. So Paul here is not humbling himself but was rather claiming a position of high authority, as he was hoping to establish himself as an apostle to the Romans.

The Greek word for apostle carries the implication of the 'sending out' in a military sense including ships. The nearest Hebrew equivalent to this is the word Shaliach which has the connotation of an agent who carries his master's power and authority. So if Paul considered himself as a Shaliach then this implies that Paul was not merely a messenger but a highly empowered agent of Yeshua.

v.11 Paul's desire to impart a 'spiritual gift' to the Roman Christians had in mind that these gifts would help establish the Roman church. The concept of 'spiritual gits' would have been know to Paul and Jesus from the Essenes (Dead Sea Scrolls - DSS 1QS) but would probably have been new to the Gentile churches.

v.12 Paul redefines the 'spiritual gifts' as the more meaningful 'mutual encouragement' since the spiritual gifts may have had no clear meaning to the church.

v14 Barbarians simply means 'non-Greek speakers' with the implication of being less civilized.

v.16-17 give the main thrust of the letter i.e. the power of the Gospel, which is able to save souls because it reveals God's righteousness. The best explanation of righteousness is alluded to in Exodus 21 (in Hebrew Tzedek, in Greek Dikaioo) which we know from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament c.250 BC). The Septuagint can be viewed as a 'Rosetta stone' allowing the best translations between the Greek and Hebrew words.

#christianity #bible study #bibletruth #blog post #blessings #psalmonesermons #faith #victory #Romans 1:1-17 #Hebraic notes

[manako-no-yami]

fic meme :)

thanks @crestfallercanyon for tagging me!

Rules: pick any 10 of your fics, scroll somewhere to the mid point, pick a line, and share it! then tag 10 people. (Don't reblog, make a new post).

-

uh so im probs being more choosey with my selections than the rules dictate, but. whatever... (these are also probably longer than "a line" but. again. whatever...)

to hell with you (maze runner) Stephen and Gally don't talk about the past. They talk about the future. And the present. They talk about the way the leaves are starting to change color at this time of the year, green to gold. Whether strawberry or grape jam is better. They talk about that stupid TV show Stephen loves so much that Gally can barely stand. How the early morning air makes them feel alive, how late night Pringles can make them feel like indulgent kings, how the shimmer of streetlights on rain-wet pavement feels like nostalgia for a life they've never lived. They talk about everything and nothing. And sometimes, they don't need to talk at all.

hot as he takes his coffee, dumb as his fat donkey (maze runner) “So...” he drawls. “When do you get off?” “At home and in private,” Thomas retorts.

and for a woman wert thou first created (maze runner) “I can’t even see you,” Minho complains. “Move your camera.” “No, it’s a bad angle,” Newt complains, but he tilts the screen down anyway. The laptop is on his chest, his head propped up by pillows. “So, how’s the fam?” It is a bad angle. It makes his neck look short and shows a zit he has under his chin. Minho wants to kiss him so badly it feels like a physical ache.

stupidity is all we have (maze runner) He's not patient enough. Doesn't see the point in growing things when all he can focus on is the road ahead. All he's good for is running. Running away, running towards. Not stopping. Not staying. He's always on the move, but Newt... Newt gives him a place to come back to. He puts down roots, creates a home. Even if none of them remember home, or what home is supposed to be like. They’re the blind leading the blind, finding destinations in each other by calling out in the dark.

fake it 'til you make it (teen wolf, sterek) Is it that Stiles loves these little things, making him fall even more in love with Derek? Or is it that Stiles was doomed to love every little thing just by virtue of them being part of Derek? He doesn’t know. And in the end, does it matter?

blinded by starlight (maze runner) They make a sound that Gally doesn't understand. Or at least, he thinks it was a sound. It felt more like a breeze passing through his body, a ghost settling in his skull. Just a faint impression pressing itself against the contours of his mind, whispering I was here. "What?" Gally asks, and is startled by the sound of his own voice. Thomas does not look up, but their body is attuned to Gally's, clearly aware. Gally swallows, and asks again. "What did you say?" "Her name," Thomas says. "That was her name."

i didn't have it in myself to go with grace (maze runner) That's the look that, towards the beginning, had been filled with fondness no matter how stupid or bull-headed Thomas was being. The look that Thomas once thought said, "And in spite of it all, I still love you." That's the look that, eventually, when they started getting sick of each other, had transformed into being filled with frustration and anger, with dismissal, no matter how insignificant Thomas's fuck-up had been. The look that screamed, "Why do I even put up with you?" 

sins of the father (maze runner) Gally presses his lips together. Be quiet. Be quiet. He shakes his head again. "Then you're stupid," his father says, rising. His sandwich is still half-eaten. He is heading towards the fridge, where there’s an unopened six-pack. "If you don't think your daddy is a useless dead-beat, you're stupid." Gally wants to run, but he knows better than to move. He's afraid if he breathes too hard, he'll cut himself on the teeth of the jaws clamped around him. Best play dead.

when monsters escape from under the bed (maze runner) He hasn't brought out that extra set of white sheets yet. The throw he's using as a blanket is thin and scratchy. He turned off the heat to save energy, and it's cold. He doesn't get up to fix any of this, because he's afraid to sleep. Instead, he lies there and imagines Thomas puttering around the kitchen, hyped up on the tails of an ass o'clock revelation, drinking disgusting coffee. Gally could really use an ass o'clock revelation right about now.

the second rule (maze runner) When he turns to look at Gally, torchlight flickering over his features, he looks like a normal kid. Like any other Glader, except for his eyes. His eyes are dark, glimmering like a bottomless well with an ink surface. Gally should ignore him. He shouldn't say anything to Thomas because talking is pointless, and Gally doesn't do pointless. No one is listening to him, so what does he have to say? And nothing he says will get through to Thomas, that's for sure. But when Gally glances at him, that stare reminds him of being bested at his own game, of the taste of dirt, of a jeering crowd surrounding him. Thomas has worldly eyes, eyes like the entire world is watching.

-

uhhhhh. who to tag. @itsthemxze @subjecta5newtella @pathsofoak @onceuponabluemoon @mazegays and whoever else would like to!

#tmr #teen wolf #thomally #sterek #clod not lefting but

[trustfallwithgod]

Day 17 & 18: The Beauty of Psalm 88

O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me. Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.

Critics often overlook that our biblical heroes are often far from paragons of virtue and morality. In fact, when it comes down to some of the prayers that have been offered, it is impossible to miss that God’s people do get depressed, discouraged and even question whether God is even listening. In short, the Bible is not some musty old tome, it is still very relevant to the human condition today.

For my soul is full of troubles,

and my life draws near to Sheol.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit;

I am a man who has no strength,

like one set loose among the dead,

like the slain that lie in the grave,

like those whom you remember no more,

for they are cut off from your hand.

You have put me in the depths of the pit,

in the regions dark and deep.

Your wrath lies heavy upon me,

and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah

You have caused my companions to shun me;

you have made me a horror to them.

I am shut in so that I cannot escape;

my eye grows dim through sorrow.

Every day I call upon you, O Lord;

I spread out my hands to you.

Do you work wonders for the dead?

Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah

Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,

or your faithfulness in Abaddon?

Are your wonders known in the darkness,

or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

But I, O Lord, cry to you;

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?

Why do you hide your face from me?

Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,

I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.

Your wrath has swept over me;

your dreadful assaults destroy me.

They surround me like a flood all day long;

they close in on me together.

You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;

my companions have become darkness.

Psalm 88 is incredibly bleak.It’s full of lament, there is no hope and more importantly, it doesn’t even end on a positive note, it ends in darkness. We haven’t even gotten to the most critical part: God allowed this prayer to be entered into the permanent record how the author has felt abandoned in the face of despair.

Like Job, Heman the psalmist confesses that “the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away” but unlike Job, Heman does not say “blessed be the name of the Lord”, instead he blames God for being the ultimate cause of his troubles.

But therein also lies its incredible beauty: it is the kind of honest prayer that God wants. Psalm 88 is permission that allows us to cry out to the Living God, sobbing, blubbery, warts and all, not like the kind of perfect, on your knees, prayer of praise, worship and supplication. Psalm 88 is the kind of brutal honest conversation that two family members can ever have with each other.

Here lies the crux: for all his pain, Heman never stopped praying. He might eel like God has turned His face from him but he continues to turn his face towards God.

Finally, it is also a mirror of our Lord. Remember Isa. 53:3 which describes Jesus as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”? That’s Him and when it is also us, that’s us reflected in Him.

#spiritualgrowth #spiritual journey #faith in jesus #jesus christ #catholic

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics:

1 thru 3. Perhaps, Lovecraft's greatest creation - the Grand Olde Sleeper of R'lyeh, Cthulhu. Still waiting behind the stage...

4. The Weird Olde Writer who, in the poem being examined, wrote about how he "listened to the... singing (of a) rustic cat."

Luckily, the cat's too evolved to involve itself in baseless bigotry.

1912: Output. Part 2.

Intro: "New-England Fallen" is sort of a retread on HPL's earlier "Providence in 2000 AD." Howard even uses the same type of imagery...

Plot: We start out with the virtues of "Yankee¹ yeomen²." Who are described as "unpretentious", "tidy", "vice & folly spurn(ing)" workers who were "wit(ty)" - but, not "frivolous."

In short, they're of the "busy class."

Then, Lovecraft goes overboard with the self praise.

"(Only) virtues... lie locked in the... British race!" And, "Saxon(s) made New-England great!"

(Now, I know where the Rump stole his slogans from.)

This version is more general than the more personal, newly found copy.

"Fallen" only mentions HPL's "few... studies... with zeal pursued" & his "hours of leisure... discreetly spent."

Then, strangely for an atheist, Howard honors the "blessed" & "noble" local parson.³

This is straight away followed by Lovecraft's 'invasion' of "swarthy... freaks of alien blood" & "Base foreign boors allowed⁴ to dwell... where Saxon greatness fell⁵."

(Wow! Boors⁶. How devastating HPL's racist wit is...)

Howard wraps this up with "low lives... degrade(d)⁷, As monkeys haunt... a palace long decayed."

Now, Lovecraft starts attacking the settled part of its New-England location.

There's "tottering houses scarcely... erect", that "crumble from neglect" & an "empty church (full of) mold."

"Ports (are) sunk in poverty... rotting wharves (lie) in ruin" & "school walls are down... choked in grass."

Even the water wheels, that HPL had earlier praised, now spew "air... tainted by the (sooty) smoke of (noisy) mills⁸."

Immigrants are "wretched" & "dwell amid squalor & repulsive smells." And, they are found to "loaf... around... wine-shops... A vicious crew (now) calling themselves American⁹."

Howard then bemoans "the land... given over to crime & strife¹⁰."

The most poetic line is probably "the boundary walls are shapeless heaps of stone."

Yep. That's how America works! All boundaries are subject to come down.

Notes:

1. Yankee has 2 possible origins:

1a. The earliest is from the Dutch Janke, meaning "John."

1b. The 2nd was recorded by British General J. Wolfe in 1758. This version of Yankee is from Virginian slang - but, they actually got their word from the Cherokee eangle, meaning "coward!"

So, neither original word is British... It was adapted from other immigrants or from a Native American nation.

2. Yeomen were land owners, who also served as aides, followers or clerks for the 'more noble' class.

3. A parson is a Protestant priest getting material goods & payment for being in charge of a parish.

4. Obviously, Lovecraft has no idea how immigration works & didn't look into the subject.

If you want to stay in the U.S., you have a lot of questions to answer & you have to be in good health.

It's best if you already have a skill that's needed & a place to stay...

These rules do change - usually by whichever Party is in charge.

5. Hmm... How do I say this. Saxon greatness fell - way back in 1066!!

Remember, the Normans (actually French Vikings! No, I'm not making this up!!) beat the Anglo-Saxons & took the British Isles.

What happens in such times, is that the regular folks (from both countries) end up 'mixing together'!

Of course, they'll still be some 'pure- bred' Saxons hanging on to their fallen culture.

But, with time, they'll 'fade out' as well. Just like every conquered people, who weren't imprisoned in ghettos or alienated away in reservations, still survive today.

They're more purebred than the rest of us.

6. Boors!! Basically, "insensitive, uncouth & ill-bred persons." In other words, an "entitled white Karen!"

It's derived from the Dutch word Boer, "a Huguenot farm hand" or "peasant farmer."

The modern version Boor, is actually a curse word. It was used to 'sell' the British wars in South Africa, a Dutch colony back then.

7. In the "5th degrade." Howard wasn't satisfied just denigrating other folk. No, he had to take it to the 'ultimate degree'!

Well, I followed along - going down into his rabbit's hole of twisted words.

The 5th definition of "degrade" is the chemical intransitive verb of "to be changed or converted to a less complex form."

So, outside elements, like 'erosion', are key. Or, internal parts are taken away.

Either way, it takes an exploiter or enemy to do this...

8. The 1st American mill was built by Samuel Slater in Pawtucket, R.I. & it was used to spin cotton!

This particular mill employed 9 children (aged 7 to 12) who worked 10 to 12 hours each day!

Weird Shit: Strangely enough, dogs or trained squirrels could also be used to help churn butter, grind linseed oil (for making white paint) & even turned the colonials's fireplace spits...

9. Sorry, wrong again. In my case, when identifying myself - it's as a Puerto Rican.

See I was born there & only grew up with a mostly American education, here.

Even to officials, I'm not called a 'pure' American. They identify me as Puerto Rican-American, Latino or Spanish.

I do speak that language but, I'm not Spanish. That's a different country.

Now, I do have ancestral DNA markers leading back to Spain but, I'm more American than I'll ever be Spanish.

And, I'll always identify as Puerto Rican.

10. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, Whiskey Rebellion, Prohibition mob wars, KKK murders, etc. All are the result of white violence...

This isn't to say that violence is a white only curse - because there's plenty of it going around, everywhere in the world...

But, here in the U.S. we have a pure 'epidemic' of gun violence that's not easily found elsewhere. Except in all those places we hate to visit or live in.

We're quickly becoming those places.

And, it doesn't help that everyone with a grudge has to use the latest military weapons to get rid of their problems...

#hpl output #hpl bio #racist lit #history #1913: New-England Fallen

[maestrarem]

What makes my Long Distance Relationship work?

Each of us has the desire to be with someone with whom we fall in love, build trust, and share the rest of our lives. However, the worst part of having a relationship with someone is being away for too long, or what we called the long distance relationship. As a part of this kind of setup, which is very challenging, I never imagined myself in this situation where the phone was the sole means of connection and communication. Although LDR is not just like the ordinary set-up of relationships that others have, since it will test both your patience and that of your partner. But how did I end up with LDR? To cut a long story short, my boyfriend is a seaman, which I considered my unexpected love.

On the other hand, keeping in touch with my partner is the best thing I am doing in our relationship, and I always make sure that even on busy days we still keep the connection intact. However, on bad days, we always ended up having a deep talk, which made us both firmer. Also, a sense of understanding is imparted, which is very crucial on his part because he is very busy with his work and the only time we had a chance to talk with each other was during his break time. But sometimes, I am also thinking of giving up what we have because of our situation. Hence, in this relationship, I had a lot of breakdowns, but I believe in what they say: a relationship is not always having a happy moment but also a sad moment that will test how both individuals will conquer it. And those challenging moments led us to celebrate our one-year anniversary on May 10,2023.

At last, "only a strong woman can love a seaman," because not everyone can stay and handle the situation. We cannot deny the fact that some of us are weak or that some of us have been tempted by temptation. But always remember that not all situations are stationary; instead, they will become temporary. So as one of the best girlfriends of a seaman in the world, all I can say is to be strong and have patience for your partner, because patience is a virtue.

=

[edwardofcleves]

Introducing Edward of Cleves, House of La Marck, Duke of Cleves. 

BULLETPOINTS:

NAME: Edward Frederick 

AGE / D.O.B.: 36

STATUS / RANK: Duke of Cleves 

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Germany in the Holy Roman Empire 

PLACE OF BIRTH: Schwanenburg castle

BIRTH ORDER: First born son / heir to the Duchy of Cleves 

MOTHER & FATHER: Lady maria of house bassewitz  ,  duke frederik of cleves ( of house la marck )

SIBLINGS: Two younger sisters - tbd of Cleves and Elisabeth of Cleves 

SEXUALITY: Heterosexual

HOROSCOPE: Leo Sun, Leo Rising, Taurus Moon

VIRTUES: Enigmatic, Brave, Charming

VICES: Stubborn, Reckless, Aggressive 

MARITAL STATUS: unmarried - aware that he should find a wife. 

ISSUE: n/a

RELIGION: Protestant 

ALLIES: the Royal Family 

ADVERSARIES: tbd 

TIMELINE:

1519  -  lady maria bassewitz and lord frederik of cleves marry in a lavish ceremony. ( both aged 17 ) 1523 - their first child , Edward,  the future duke of cleves , is born 1527  -  their second child , lady of cleves , is born 1530 -  birth of lady elisabeth, lady of cleves on december 15th. 1531  -  lady maria bassewitz and lord frederik of cleves die within months of each other. investigation occurs.  1531 - Edward takes over his father’s title and becomes the Duke of Cleves  1532  -  investigation is ended after no avail. 1557  -  Edward and his sisters accept the invitation to English court. 

BIOGRAPHY:

Edward was a curious and adventurous child, always diving head first into anything he wanted to do, his family protecting him from ever really worrying about consequences, he was able to do as he pleased. It was his childhood that really formed his brave and reckless personality, but that was all cut short with the death of his parents. He was only eight years old but he remembers the heavy feeling in the room as he was informed of his father’s death and his new title as the Duke of Cleves.  From then it was like his childhood was cut short, he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and between tutors and training to fight, he was always kept busy, though he retained his attitude of not being able to do any wrong, He is a confident person and that can be good but it can also be a fault at times as it makes him reckless and the decisions that he makes as the Duke of Cleves have more significant repercussions. 

One thing that has never changed has been his love for his sisters. Because there were only three of them in a time in Germany when it was common to have large families of eight to ten siblings, they always remained close, and the death of their parents at such a young age made them even closer. While Edward assumed all the responsibilities of being a Duke, he also embraced his role as the head of their household, and had a large part in raising his sisters. Even now, he is fiercely protective of them, and would much rather see them strong and independent, than demure and obedient - no matter how much of a headache they cause him when they do show off their more rebellious sides. 

When they received the invitation to English Court, Edward was inclined to decline it. He had no desire to remain in England for an extended period of time, but he is faced with the very real and pressing need to arrange suitable marriages for his sisters, and even for himself, and he knows that the best way to do that is to be present in matters of Court with the most noble families also joining English Court. 

ADDITIONAL INFO 

heavily inspired by edward iv from the white queen 

Does as he pleases, and often causes his advisors to freak out and scramble as a result of his spontaneity and decision-making 

somehow turned out to be a good politician, but he’s just as skilled with a sword. 

not uncommon for him to have a new woman in his bed every night, but hasn’t settled down and is looking for a wife. 

has a grey dappled stallion called delmira 

#intro #bd.intro