#my ass cannot draw mechanical shapes!!

[brainworms-all-night-long]

Hey haha this blog is not ded!! just that in line of uh, recent world events it kind of did not fell right to mindlessly blorbopost, but after doing everything in the power of my teenage moneyless self, I bring none other than a colorpallete experiment with Nine!!

#sonic prime #i might or might not have went an entire day hyperfocused on this and not drink a glass of water #my eye is also looking whack #im gonna be fine tho. hopefully- #drawing the gun and tails actually gave me fucking stroke the pain and hopelessnes I felt #my ass cannot draw mechanical shapes!! #anyway love the colors i have to make more shit like this this was fun #miles nine prower #nine the fox #mah art #me does arts #actually finished doodl

[swallowtailed]

palisade 41

honestly don’t really know where to begin here.

because, like, we all kinda knew this was coming, right? odds were it had to happen sometime. now it has.

but there’s still a real cosmic unfairness to the timing of it. figure died right after they decided they didn’t want to. breaking the wheel of their resurrection is fine and all, but they fought so hard to escape clem and join perennial that it doesn’t really ring true to me.

hearing future in the same sentence reminded me that there’s another suite of definitions for figure, aside from the noun meaning shape or form—the verb meaning guess, consider, imagine.

i’m inclined to read future and perennial as two sides of the same coin—two views of the principality. future sees an inevitable road toward culmination, perennial sees that it’s all the same fucking cycle. also, future seizing on a moment of power from perennial and turning it to their own ends.

real gur just cannot catch a break. they’re stuck with future, inside their own reanimated corpse, guarded by the shell of figure? some real eternal torment there.

so, you know. shit sucks!!

i was really, really hoping eclectic would steal future, and it would also have been incredible for gur sevraq (who, as we know, stole the future) to be stolen from future, but the dice fall as they will

really interesting contrast between the two sides of this arc wrt divine/axiom/mortal/etc relationships. thisbe is guiding integrity and communicating with ebullience, building relationships across ways of being. figure is destroyed just by exposure to divine power, subsumed by the weight of a god rearing up on its own. the axiom being willing to treat with thisbe, the divine destroying figure. which is maybe less about those powers than about the hands moving them—instrumentalization as always a core theme of palisade. 

of course it is also a cautionary tale of the capriciousness of dice. if figure and gur had gotten to speak with future i can imagine it going more like thisbe’s side. but maybe not! we’ll never know.

characters being demanded to envision a future was one of my favorite beats in partizan and it was really cool to hit that again (and to call back to leap!). but also heartbreaking. cori, happy and safe…

aw fuck the crew’s still gonna have to find out that figure is dead… mortality of course goes hand in hand with grief. much like valence’s death i think the positioning of figure’s death is ultimately going to be shaped most by reactions to it

dre’s pc deaths are always so fraught, huh. valence and chine were also kind of messy, sudden deaths—no clean tragedy. which, like, is life, but also, ;-;

the music was incredible. like breathing. and the way the dirge just stops—blinks out.

eclectic drawing up the seismic power of opposition, his own power, was really moving. a bit of grace in that moment.

i’m not sure where they’re gonna go from here, especially in terms of character arcs. it’s a rough downbeat. kind of falls in line with the conflict turns, though—fighting back and forth down to the bitter end. might be a bleak finale although at least one more thing seems set to unfold in this arc so honestly who knows

incidentally, bets on that: the smell of computer parts immediately made me think of the nobel, but the mechanical whine heard across the continent made me wonder if it could be palisade waking up (/being woken up). either way, it’s definitely getting to be alarm clock time, right?? (on the other hand maybe this is just motion activating all across palisade, but a bunch of motion factories just got taken down.)

it’s nice that the a-plot crew were having a fun heist though. cori deserves an alise breka mission

tragedy-ass podcast.

#fatt #palisade #palisade spoilers #fatt spoilers #friends at the table spoilers #hello world #fatt lb #:(((((

[barrysmanbun]

Barry NSFW Alphabet

A/n: this was not planned and therefore is not edited

~

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Getting you a cool washcloth to wipe you down with, while whispering to you soothingly about how good you were. Small kisses on your forehead and cheek. Just laying there to catch your breath for a while afterward, probably smoking a joint as you do.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Barry’s favorite part about himself is his hands. From his time in the army to working as a mechanic to rolling joints every day his hands have had a lot of practice with skilled, steady movements. If you catch my drift.

His favorite body part on his partner is really anything he can grab onto. Your hips: pulling you in for a hug or squeezing them to get your attention when you’re talking to someone else. Your thighs: pulling you towards him while he sits in his chair so you can stand between his legs, making it all the easier to kiss you. Your ass: cupping it and lifting when you’re kissing just so he can hear that little half-moan he loves so much. Your breasts: massaging them while you leisurely make out on his bed, too high and too hot to move any faster.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

He loves to come on you, painting your stomach or your thighs. Just seeing it on you gives him this sense of pride and satisfaction. His favorite place to come on you, though, is you face. When you let him it is nearly enough to get him riled again, fiercely pleased that he gets to mark you in such a way.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Barry has been thinking about fucking you since before you even talked to him for the first time. The first time he saw you he took one look at you and was imagining bending you over the nearest surface and fucking you into oblivion. The talking stages was arguably his best shows of restraint in his entire life, and by the time you guys finally got to the sex stage of your relationship he had enough fantasies he wanted to act out to fill an entire notebook.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Barry is fairly experienced in the sex part of your relationship, having multiple casual partners in the past, but when it comes to the romantic part of your relationship he has no idea what he’s doing.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

He knows it’s very vanilla of him but he thinks missionary is the best. Best access to everything he wants, your breasts, your clit, your lips, and he gets to see your face. Besides, there are so many different positions just within missionary that you guys can do to keep things interesting. His second favorite position would have to be when you ride him, specifically when he gets to sit up when you ride him Once again because he gets access to everything and it’s so much easier to see your face.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Barry is serious at the moment but only to keep the moment intimate. He can have a good laugh about things and will sometimes chuckle to himself when you do something cute or say something naive.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He doesn’t shave but he keeps it short. And the carpet definitely matches the drapes, dark with a little bit of a curl.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He can be very intimate, slow and sweet and romantic, but it depends heavily on his mood. If he hasn’t seen you in forever and he missed you more than he was horny he would definitely be very romantic about it.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

When he was a single bachelor living alone he would probably jerk off once or twice a week, but otherwise he would get a girl for that. And on the days he knows he won’t be seeing you for a while he will definitely do it just so he can send teasing pics for phone sex.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Begging: Barry loves to get you to the point that you’re begging for him to finally fuck you or finally let you cum, just knowing you need him that bad is better than any high he could get from drugs. And it’s just so pretty when you get so desperate that one tear rolls down your face.

Choking: No matter the sex position, chances are Barry has his hand on your throat, just tight enough for you to feel it.

Bondage: Handcuffs, a tie, a piece of loose fabric, your own panties, even his own hands, he loves having that much control over you. Able to do anything to you, and you can’t even resist. Plus, he loves the sight of you pulling at your restraints with the need to touch him as he brushes his fingers along your chest and abdomen to make you squirm.

Knife & gun kink: though Barry would never hurt you just knowing he has the power too, and that you trust him not to, arouses him to no end.

Exhibitionism: this is very loose because while Barry does not want to let other people see the two of you having sex, having sex in public places (on the side of a back road with you bent over his motorcycle) or with people in the next room (asking you to help him with something in his room and then having a quickie while his customers wait in the living room because he just couldn't wait anymore)

Marking: Barry loves seeing his mark on you, hickies across your neck and chest, bruises in the shapes of his fingertips on your hips and thighs, and wearing his clothing out in public or around the house.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

You guys have fucked on every surface in his house and yours, on probably every back road, on his bike, on the beach, everywhere you can think of you and Barry have most definitely fucked there. But his favorite is probably the bed because then you guys can relax without worrying about getting caught afterward.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

He loves to feel you run your fingers through his hair in any situation: while he rests his head in your lap, while you kiss him, while you sit in his lap. It’s relaxing and he catches himself letting his eyes slide shut and his head lull back but when you add just a little tug it immediately gets his engine revving.

He loves seeing you in his clothes, when you walk around in just his shirt or his sweatpants, or leaving the house before he wakes up and returning home and he sees you wearing clothes that are obviously his and he knows you went out and other people saw you in his clothes.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Blood play or cuckolding. Barry doesn't want to share you (except with maybe one stuck-up kook who shall not be named) and he also doesn't want to hurt you.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Barry loves receiving, loving the sight of you on your knees in front of him, but he also loves giving. His partner's pleasure is just as important to him as his own and he loves showing off his skills (how quickly he can make you come with just his tongue)

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Barry is usually fast and rough. This boy has lots of pent-up anger, on top of never being able to get enough of you. But sometimes he gets into these romantic moods (that you're forbidden to tell anyone about) where he just wants to take his time pleasuring you, drawing it out as long as he can.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

He loves quickies. He prefers normal sex but he'll take a quickie if that's all he can get.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He's down to experiment with almost anything. He has a lot of experience and knows what he's doing so I doubt you'll be introducing anything he hasn't heard of but he'll still love to try it out with you.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

He can go for one or two rounds and then he needs to give his dick some time to recuperate. But that doesn't mean his mouth and hands are out of business.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

He doesn't really mind toys one way or another. He's not so insecure that he refuses to have them but he also knows that he doesn't need them to get you off so having toys is totally up to you and what you want to try.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He loves to tease but he cannot take it when you tease him back. He'll tease you all day, whispering dirty words in your ear, telling you what he wants to do with you, slapping your ass as he walks by or secretly groping you while you kiss or hug. But the second you start teasing him he's on the edge of his seat.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

He's not particularly loud, with groaning and grunting and lots of swearing. He actually goes quiet when he cuts, tensing up and squeezing his eyes shut and then afterward he swears and rolls over to lay next to you on the bed.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

To elaborate on 'T' he cannot take teasing at all. If you try to tease him he'll catch your wrist and give you a warning look. The more you try the more aggravated he'll get till he pulls you away from whatever you're doing/whoever you're talking to so he can fuck you in the nearest empty room.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

A little above average length, about 6 ½ inches, and moderately thick.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

His sex drive is pretty average. It gets higher when he doesn't see you in a while or if you're being particularly bratty but otherwise it's average.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterward)

He waits until you've fallen asleep, making sure you're cuddled up to his chest, then he allows himself to fall asleep as well.

~~

Tags:

@pogueslandia

#barry x reader #obx barry #barry obx #barry x female reader #barry smut #barry the drug dealer #obx #obx smut #tw smut

[internalsealpanic]

The Mechanics of Living part 2

Summary:  You trick Tim into going to a closed-off sector. Things go well. a/n: I will be doing a director’s cut for this is anyone is interested (by anyone I mean @glorified-red) Warnings: very slight body horror and gore 

Main Masterlist

Tim Drake Masterlist

It was easiest to just tell Tim all the facts rather than rely on the goodwill you've built in 3 years to persuade him.

There's a reason sector 4-D was cordoned off last year. For some unknown reason, a section that had been little more than a concrete wasteland started teeming with infected life.

People say it was an abomination (An unidentifiable, Tim corrected but you still think abomination captured the appropriate dramatic for that.)  that wandered in from farther in the waste. Some people say it was one of Bludhaven's beasts they let loose. You highly doubt Bludhaven was in any shape to contain whatever it is ravaging sector 4-D. After all, it wasn't in any better shape than Gotham was at the moment. You doubt it's ever been in better shape. They're like two cities constantly caught in this vortex of awfulness, looking at each other from two different sides thinking 'poor bastards'.

Sector 4-D was an easy hunting ground where young scavengers got their feet wet before they could move on. Now it was a dead zone, a dead zone with too much potential to pass up.

Like every sector, sector 4 was vast and unexplored and supposedly, there had been a library there. A building full of books and most importantly, medical textbooks.

You feel a little bad plucking at Tim's heartstrings when all you cared about was the payout. Appealing to the guy's sense of responsibility was kind of cheating but-- BUT! The specified textbooks do have stuff about bacteria and illnesses so you aren't really overstating their importance.

You try to push down the number of zeroes the man had shown you as you zip past a rusted sign.

You don't really trust anyone other than Tim to help you with this. Besides, all the other people who won't stab you after cashing in the reward probably don't know half as many words as Tim so you'll definitely need him to get the right books.

You stare at the rows of cars before you. They're overrun with weeds and vines and rust. A stark reminder that your Gotham is just a fraction of what it had been. You stop your bike in front of a taxi with a faded yellow body.

"This is it. This is where your life as an adventurer begins."

You swallow back the wave of nostalgia, letting the bike roll past it into the mess of cars to keep it a little more hidden. It isn't illegal to go to this sector yet. At least not when you checked but you really don't wanna gamble your Scavenger's license on clerical errors by either of your guilds.

Tim steps out of the sidecar, careful not to jostle Basil in his bag. You want to point out that you should probably wake the cat up otherwise you were wasting food on him but you knew better than to expect cooperation from Tim's fur ball from hell.

“So which theory about the illness do you think is the most plausible?” He asks, tucking the walkman away. You both thought it was stupid name but you didn’t really wanna question the teller. “The one that involves the least aliens.” You pause, narrowing your eyes at Tim whose hand is currently being eaten by his cat. “Or alien adjacent things.”

“So, you're one of those people who thinks the government did it.” Tim is *such* a little shit. Maybe that’s why his guild master gave him the most useless cat on the planet. Grade A my ass, you think staring at the furball nipping at his knuckles.

“Not on purpose, no.”

Tim raises a brow. “I didn't know you had that much faith in humanity.”

“Pffff, I think they just fucked up.”  

“Here, I was accusing you of being optimistic.”

“A mistake really.”

You two come to a crossroads.  A giant large yellow lantern hangs in the middle of the street, swaying listlessly in the air. It’s strange.

“Do you think the people in the old world used those to scare away the sick?”

“If they did,” he looks around, “it didn't work.”

Your eyes flit over the area.  Stone walls crumble, vegetation willing in the cracks. Still, even with the overgrowth of life, the city feels hollowed out. Nearly a decade ago, you’d first laid a hand on one of the stone arches of the city hall just down by main street. Nearly a decade ago, you felt the stone crumble beneath the pads of your fingers. Nearly a decade ago, you had come the closest to knowing what it was like having the sickness. Even one of the great cities had been reduced to a fraction of its size.

“Do you think the color of the light matters?” Tim asks, pointing again to the lamp.

You squint. You hadn’t noticed it at first but yeah, the color of the lights was different.

“Maybe,” you tilt your head, “or maybe the people from before were just idiots.”

“You just have a bad opinion of them, don’t you?”

“Like you don’t.” You shoot back, tapping your bat against your boot.

Tim rolls his eyes and shrugs.

You try to smile at that but something’s wrong. Your skin bristling, the air is stale despite the wind. You watch the lantern sway back and forth, the thin wires holding it up, fragile and precarious. A bad feeling crawls up your spine.

There’s a pressure in the air, the atmosphere turning into a vacuum.

Basil hisses, looking as vicious as he can.

The wind stops.

The skittering voices rise like the fluttering of locust wings.

A writhing mass, pulsing and menacing, blots out the horizon. It opens its maw to wheeze and the stench of rot floods the air. Your insides curdle and wilt from the intensity of the putrid odor. Once the *thing* draws another breath, the skittering begins again and this time you know where it’s from.

You can see it in the way its neck twists and undulates, its rotting flesh rippling as the fragmented voices rasp out of its throat. Its limbs, deformed, move unnaturally as it ambles towards you.

You stare at it. Your limbs unmoving. That thing *is* an unidentifiable. In all technicality, it fits the neat taxonomy laid out by experts. It is neither man nor beast. Its form corrupted beyond recognition. It’s rotting and shambling. But the thing you are looking at cannot simply be sorted neatly because it is what it is.  

A creature that god himself did not touch.

An abomination.

You splay a hand on Tim’s chest, pushing him back lightly.  Glancing at each other, you nod as you slowly step back into an alley. You quietly curse Gotham’s gloomy weather for the thing’s appearance. You thought you would have at least ‘til sundown to look for loot before having to flee to a safer sector. But when in Gotham, nothing is ever certain even the rising of the sun.

All you have to do is be quiet. Easy enough. Being silent is the first thing you learn to be in this world.

It blinks at you.

It. Blinks. At. *You.*

Your heart stops, the blood running in your veins turning into lead.

Dozens of eyes blink at you. They’re not all human from the looks of them. It opens its maw again, your muscles bunch up in anticipation of its miasmal breath. The discordant voices coming from its mouth coalesce into a horrible sob.

Tim grabs your wrist and pivots towards an alley. The sudden change in movement shocks your body awake. You scoop Basil up and bolt down the alley, letting Tim lead the way.

Desperately, You try to concentrate on the scuff of your shoes against pavement instead of the creak of limbs and the plop of flesh as it drips off the creature. The pinching of Tim’s features tells you he’s doing the same.

You round the corner, shoulder hitting brick, narrowly avoiding dozens of hands reaching for you. Basil yowls and hisses and you would apologize but your shoulder is screaming at you and goddammit Basil, we have bigger issues.  

You and Tim squeeze into a space between the buildings seemingly too small for that thing’s gelatinous form. You make the mistake of looking back only to see its limbs skitter up the building and down the other end of the alley. It smiles at you, rows of teeth glittering in the sparse light.

This was it.

This is where your life ends.

Where else is there to go?

You expect the acceptance to come in like a flood or relief. Life was hard with very little room for breath. Scraping by, tooth and nail, knuckles bleeding for every scrap of stability. You close your eyes and take a deep breath. You suddenly feel so tired like the adrenaline had been keeping you together for the past few years. Acceptance should have come easy.

But it doesn’t.

You open your eyes to glance at Tim, finally resignation sets. His features are still pinched and his hand is trembling beside yours. You really did screw this one up big time, huh?

You bite your cheek.

Watching Tim’s mind work, you know you have to keep him alive. You squeeze Tim's hand. He narrows his eyes at you. You give him a crooked smile and let his hand fall.

You pivot, foot pushing against the pavement as you launch yourself to the other end of the alley.

If your estimates are correct, you can buy him 15 minutes. 15 minutes would be more than enough for him to make it back to the bike--

Tim yanks on your hood, throwing open a door. The creature howls as Tim hurls both of you into the building.

"What the heck was that?!" Tim screams.

"A Dick." You answer, rubbing your head. fuck. Tim could throw.

"No! You were being fucking stupid."

You scowl at him in the dark. "Thanks Tim. I get it."

"No, you don't!"

"Can we argue--"

The door rattles and shakes. A fist-shaped dent embeds itself on the metal door. You glance at each other before scrambling towards the very safe-looking stairs.

You fly up the steps like hell was on your heels and as far as you're concerned, it was. You wrench Tim's bag from him and you're half tempted to throw him over your shoulder as well but you're not sure the stare case can hold that much weight.

If you climb to the roof--  If you... climb... It can climb. Fuck.

You and Tim seem to come to the same conclusion as you throw yourselves into another door.

You shove a sofa in front of the door and sit on it.

"Please tell me you've miraculously come up with a plan." You hiss glancing over to Tim who's staring at the window.

He glances over his shoulder to look at you. "If I could pull off miracles, you wouldn't be so dumb."

You sigh. Ok, yeah. He has every right to be mad. It was an incredibly stupid move but it's a numbers game and yeah.

Tim runs his hand through his hair, tugging at the strands. He needs to come up with something. He glances out the window. He walks over and leans out the window.

"We should jump."

"Would you like to elaborate?" You wheeze, still not really letting go of a

"Follow me."

"Tim, I have never trusted you less in my life." You snort, quietly. But you make your way to the window.  You set Basil down and look at what Tim is pointing to. There's a dumpster filled to the brim with trash. There doesn't seem to be any infected mice in there and the road to the right is a straight shot back to the bike.

You lick your lips.

"So we're on the same page."

"Uh, if that means what I think it means then yes."

Tim lets out a breath as he opens the window as quietly as possible. You listen to the steady beat of limbs thumping against the wood. You hold a collective breath. The window clicks into place with a loud snikt.

The thumping stops.

You practically shove Tim out the window while you stare at the door. It rattles and shakes.  A screech erupts the stairwell as you jump out the window. You land with a thump, sinking beneath the mounds of plastic.

Your heart is hammering and pressing into your throat. Its beat is in sync with the steady thump of the limbs. The wet squelching of rotting flesh scraping against the rusted metal of the dumpster. You want to heave but Tim shoves a hand in your face. You gag silently. Tim's hand smells putrid from the trash.

You hold your breaths until the thumping goes away. You don't dare breathe until Basil settles down.

You fall limp against the trash. Your limbs feel like jelly. You gag. Thinking about jelly right now is probably the worst thing for your health.

Tim nudges you with his foot. You turn your body over as quietly as you can.

You watch him make shapes with his hands. You frown.   You cycle through your memory trying to remember what the gestures mean then let go of Basil when you do.

Basil rises from the trash, padding against the plastic.

When you hear Basil jump down to the pavement, you dig your way out of the trash.

"For the record, I hate your plans." You say, gagging.

"What was yours?" Tim fires back, dusting his hair.

"..."

"Just what I thought."

You're the first to climb out, holding your arms out to him mockingly. He silently threatens to curb stomp your face. You snort and tuck your hands to your side.

Thankfully, you make it to the bike without incident.

Tim tucks his body into the sidecar, occupying himself by comforting Basil. You hand him a bat as you start the bike.

"Just in case."

You kick the bike into gear as you two ride into the sunset.

You breathe a quiet breath, letting your eyes slip shut for a moment. The road is clear for about 14 breaths.  That’s all you want to think about.

At the fourteenth breath, you open your eyes to an open expanse of road, endless and breathtaking. You turn to Tim and laugh. He gives you a sour look. You’ll just buy both of you some canned pineapples later and he’ll maybe forgive you. Basil certainly does as he doesn’t participate in Tim’s sour protest, opting instead to crawl into Tim’s bag.

Then you hear it above the roar of the engine.

The skittering.

Voices like the fluttering of wings.

It screeches, the raspy cry making your skin crawl. You don’t wanna look back. You don’t want to see the unnatural movement of its body as it bounds towards you.

You kick the bike to a higher gear. The engine will hate you but you can’t repair it if you’re dead.

The bike slows down. Tim stands up raising your bat over his head, bringing it down. It does not clang. The sound is squishier and moist. Your stomach rebels. Hazarding a glance behind you, you see the writhing mass holding onto your bike.

“TIM,” you shout.

“I--” Swing “-- AM--” Swing “--A LITTLE--” Swing “--BUSY!” “THERE’S A CAN OF HAIRSPRAY IN MY DUFFLE.”  

Tim ducks down, throwing you the bat. You swing wildly at the creature, summoning up a truly impressive bout of swearing.

Tim sprang up, nearly falling off the sidecar if not for you grabbing his shirt. Tim flicked the lighter, pressing down on the nozzle of the spray, and unleashing fire on the beast. The thing cries, voice shattering as it burns. You watch its flesh burn. Oh, what a pleasure it was to see it burn.

"We are never doing this again!" Tim wheezes.

"Of definitely fucking not." You bark, kicking the bike to a higher gear. The purring of the engine sounds like music to your ears.

"We are definitely doing easy sectors by a bit." You laugh.

When you don’t hear a snarky remark, you glance to your sidecar. Tim is slumped into his seat, breathing hard. You raise your brow but turn your attention to the road.  You shake him. You shake him again and again.

Tim doesn't respond.

You pull your hand away and it’s slick with blood.

______________________________________________________________

Thanks for reading!!!!

Tag list:  @batarella​, @anothertimdrakestan, @lucy-roo, @multifandomgirl-us, @bungunz​ , @birdy-bat-writes​,  @boosyboo9206, @americasmarauders , @l-inkage, @arestorationofbalance , @cloudie-skay, @wunderstell   @hyp-oh-critical @glorified-red @ marshmallow12435 @vvipgot7be​ @jadedhillon​ @notsostraightweeb​

#tim drake x reader #tim drake imagines #Tim Drake #post apocalypse

[tailorvizsla]

You didn't think I wouldn't ask for some Boba Fett though now did you? (Of course not, he is the new shiny for me iuwhei) ✨ HC Of my Choice... What about having your first kiss with Boba and he doesn't #know it is your first one till part-way through or after? Am I projecting? Yes, yes I am.

Title: HC – Boba Fett and First Kiss Pairing: Gender neutral Reader x Boba Fett Word Count: ~1700 Rating: PG-13 Warnings: Boba Fett is a grumpy bastard, but you hold your own against him. Boba also gets injured, but there aren’t any graphic descriptions of the injuries. Author’s Notes: Okay, my Angle, I’ve been thinking about this one for as long as it’s been sitting in my inbox. I’m not familiar with Boba Fett’s character, so I wanted to make sure this was good for you. So, without further ado, here we go with the Big Green Grumpy Jerk who has somehow inexplicably charmed his way into my heart with a few gruff comments.

Tagging @princessbatears because chaos? :>

📚 My Master List 📚

Boba Fett isn’t a man of many words. It’s not that he’s shy or anything – he just doesn’t like talking to people beyond what is necessary. He has worked alone his entire life, so the sound of others’ voices just sort of grates on him. He especially does not like being crowded by people.

So, one day, while doing his thing, he ends up injured. It’s not even due to combat. His jetpack just…sputters out. His beskar’gam turns what should have been a fatal fall into a very painful one. He knows he has broken a lot of bones, but Boba refuses to die like this. He crawls his way back to his bike, calls for medical aid, and prays to the Maker that someone in town will come help him.

You are the only person who does come to help him. Most other people are too afraid of the Imperial remnants to work with a Mandalorian. Others are too afraid of Mandalorians to work with a Mandalorian. You? You are not afraid of much. He is not sure if you are brave or stupid. After splinting the worst of the damage, you get him onto the bike and get him back into town. It is at this point that Boba finds himself leaning toward thinking you are stupidly caring and trusting.

You inject him with bacta – the good kind that makes him giggly, sleepy, and numb – and get to work. When he wakes up, he’s wrapped in an annoying number of casts and splints, but at least he’s still alive. However, you then give him the bad news: the fall has damaged many of the delicate nerves in his back. If he fails to undergo physical therapy, there is a real chance he may never walk again. He’s no medical expert, but when he looks at the scans you took, he knows you aren’t lying.

So, Boba resigns himself to having to deal with you on a regular basis. The first physical therapy exercises are simple, yet they exhaust him to the point where he just passes out. As the days go by, he starts putting up the walls to keep you out. (Spoiler alert: you manage to find your way through the cracks in the wall, annoying him with barely any effort on your behalf.)

Now, under ideal circumstances, this shitshow would end with Boba Fett getting back on his feet, paying you handsomely for the amount of time you have spent getting him put together, and going back to bounty hunting, never to think of you again. But of course, the universe throws an even bigger wrench into his carefully thought-out plans. Someone finds out that you’re taking care of him and a whole bunch of angry townspeople converge on your little clinic. He grabs you and the two of you run. The last thing you see is your clinic going up in flames. (Boba can’t believe the shortsightedness of these people – they’ve driven off their only competent medical professional. What are they going to do next? Kill their only competent mechanic? Di’kute, every last one of them.)

And so, the two of you go off on a merry adventure, annoying the absolute shit out of each other on a regular basis. Boba especially is concerned at how easily you have managed to find every single weak point in his defenses – physical, mental, and emotional. You are a fair shot with your blaster, so when he got fresh with you that one time, telling you that your ass looked downright edible in the trousers you had borrowed from him, you drew your blaster and fired a shot off at his feet. He laughed so hard his bucket nearly fell off. (You are not sure if you are disturbed that he finds being shot at amusing. He does scold you a bit, but you do notice that he does not talk about your ass anymore.)

With your knife? You’re lethal, and he learns that the hard way when he fails to announce his presence behind you. One moment Boba is reaching to touch your shoulder and the next moment, he’s got your elbow in his face and your penknife embedded in his flak vest. Fortunately, the blade’s too short to cause serious damage, but he does not let you forget that you kriffing stabbed him when he was only trying to ask you what you wanted for dinner.

Even though Boba would rather cover himself in tiingilar sauce and crawl back into the sarlacc pit headfirst than ever admit it, the two of you make a damn good team. He goes off to hunt bounties, you stay in town to provide your medical services for a fair fee. Sometimes, when your services are not needed, you’ll hang back at the ship and do some basic accounting to keep him within his budget.

Boba grumbles when you ask to accompany him on a hunt, but he figures you really do need to learn how to defend yourself if anything should happen to him. When the two of you were surrounded by goons, you naturally fell into place behind him, your back to his, covering his shebs while he provides the heavy firepower. When the numbers are thinned to something more manageable, he sets you loose on them, letting you practice your knife skills. And by the Maker, he is impressed with how much you have improved since the last time you stabbed him.

Between hunts, you get his shebs back into fighting shape. Hell, he thinks he’s even better than he was before. The exercises you insist on forcing on him have made him more flexible than he was before, and his bones no longer creak first thing in the morning. One particularly hot, muggy day, you try to make him drink that vile green vegetable concoction you call a smoothie. Smooth his shebs, there are chunks in that liquefied animal feed. Sometimes he wonders if you’re trying to kill him on purpose.

(You don’t know this, but Boba has already arranged for everything in his possession, ships and banking accounts included, to be transferred to you in the event of his death. Hell, he has even started negotiating with a friendly Tribe to make sure you have a home to go to and your pick of their warriors for marriage, should you be interested. Boba justifies it this way: the last time his jetpack mutinied, he ended up several hundred thousand credits in debt to you by his estimation. By ensuring you have a safe place to go, and a family ready to welcome you, he can offset the immeasurable debt he owes you. It hurts to think of this, but Boba genuinely cannot bear the thought of you being alone in this cruel galaxy, the same way he had been when he was a child. So, if he ever does piss you off to the point where you off him in his sleep, you’ll be fine.)

You keep pushing and pushing, insisting that he needs B-vitamins or some other bantha-shit he’s sure you’ve made up for the sole purpose of annoying him. When you start going on about macronutrients and essential vitamins, Boba loses it. He tosses his cutlery down and goes stomping off toward the cockpit. You follow him, blathering on and on about the last blood panel you had pulled – HDLs, LDLs, and a whole slew of acronyms later, he loses it. Rather than snap at you, he shuts you up the only way his poor sleep-deprived brain can come up with.

Boba pushes you up against the wall, gently to avoid hurting you. You don’t seem at all phased. In fact, you start waving the paper at him as you try to draw his attention to his sodium levels. Boba leans in and presses his lips to yours. You finally stop talking, your entire body going stiff in response. He takes a moment to nibble along your lower lip before parting your lips with his, tongue probing a bit deeper in, and you still aren’t responding. Boba draws back and stares down at you. You’re wide-eyed and clearly in shock.

He leans in again. This time you respond clumsily, your hands clutching at that stupid piece of paper. He gently wrestles it out of your grasp and crumples it up. Then he tosses it over his shoulder, not caring where it lands. He cups the back of your head and deepens the kiss. Still, you’re not responding the way he wants, so he draws back.

“What, never been kissed before?” he asks.

Before he can say anything else, he realizes that that was your first kiss. While Boba has never wanted to be anyone’s First Anything, he realizes that he wants to make an exception for you. There’s no one in this entire galaxy who can annoy the shit out of him in one breath and then worry about his health in the next. You are his little baar’ur. After you have wormed your way under his plating and so selfishly made yourself a fixture in his life without his permission? Oh, no, no, you are not going anywhere.

He cuts off your stammering with another kiss. He takes this one slow, moving your hands to where he wants you to touch him – one at his nape, the other at the small of his back, right over that spot that makes his knees weak.

This time, you respond. Slowly, hesitantly, but as you grow more confident, your hands begin to stray. You worm your fingers up the back of his shirt and dig your nails into the sensitive skin there, making him gasp in pleasure. Then you dig your fingers into his long hair and tug lightly, earning a low growl from him. You freeze and stare up at him with wide eyes until he leans back in.

Fortunately, your big smart science brain learns his likes and dislikes very quickly. When he finally pulls away, he finds that he really likes what he sees – your shirt’s rumpled, your hair is sticking up, and your lips are red and swollen from his kisses. Then and there, he makes a vow to make sure you always look like a mess.

(Spoiler alert: quite a few more of your firsts happen right here in the cockpit.)

#star wars #boba fett #boba fett x reader #boba fett x gender neutral reader #boba fett x you #first kisses #implications about first times #asks #my angle is so good to me #i love this grumpy green butthole already

[szynkaaa]

I more or less watched The Boy!!! And by watching, I mean I skipped more or less through the jump scare parts because I cannot do horror movies at all. I haven’t watched one since 2015 and The Boy was like the first horror movie after five years

Full disclosure, the ONLY reason I started watching the movie was because someone posted a gif of Greta standing close to Brahms who was all sweaty and breathing heavily n I was like “oh shit who dat he hot” and here I am 

Can anyone explain the sandwich scene to me? So Greta was scared shitless and locked herself in her room, but why did Brahms make her favorite sandwich for her?

I did some digging for interviews and generally what people have been saying about the movie, took some screenshots from youtube to put my thoughts and musing together too! 

Can anyone explain the sandwich scene to me? So Greta was scared shitless and locked herself in her room, but why did Brahms make her favorite sandwich for her? 

So first of all, let’s start with a low resolution photo I found on IG of James Russell without mask:

which brings me to my first musing/thought/question? 

It’s all under the cut, very screenshot and text heavy, you can find more Brahms drawing at the bottom though  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So at the end of the movie, we are shown a Brahms with a broken mask and his face being burned, indicating that he was in fact in the fire.

I assumed first that the fire was created by the parents to fake their sons death and then he had to live hidden inside the walls? 

But I’ve also heard apparently it was Brahms who set the fire to fake his own death or maybe an eight years old kid really was trying to burn himself down?? 

My other theory is that his parents made the fire and tried to kill Brahms and it did burn him but he survived, and the parents didn’t wanna go to jail sooo to hide everything they made their son live in the walls

i mean the responsible thing would be to turn their kid in and have him treated and stuff;;; listened to a murder podcast about two cases where kids murdered enough kids and how they are doing now interesting read Brahms made me think of those two cases 

I also do not think that the previous nannies were killed. Like, c’mon. You’d report a person missing and sooner or later it would go back to the Heelshire mansion and if the body counts piles up? Can’t look good and I doubt that the Heelshire wants the police investigating them close up. 

Also, when the mom was like “He’s chosen you if you’ll have him” to Greta? Is it just me or the wording or does it sound like a marriage proposal/arrangement xD 

Brahms is a brat and he sees the people around him as his possession or to toy around. But I also do think that he has some abandonment issues but not in the sad tragic kind of way lmao. Even if he was the one controlling and manipulating his parents from behind-the-scene (quite literally I suppose?), he was still told as a kid to live in hiding and that no one can know he is alive. I don’t know much about the human brain, but I can imagine how damaging that must be to his mental growth and set him back in some way? We don’t know too much about his relationship with his parents - but I assume that he must have still loved them in his own twisted way. Can’t imagine that he would have been indifferent about his parents suicide. 

The scene before Greta manages to back out - first he uses the child voice to beg her to come back and promises he will be good. That’s his manipulating Greta, but when that doesn’t work and she tries harder to open the door, he becomes more desperate to keep her there and then completely loses his temper and threatens to kill Malcolm if she doesn’t return. I’m pretty sure homeboy would have killed him anyway. And then later when she returns and he is all heavy breathing and smelling her hair and then jumps up when she shouts Brahms? Idk I def think there is some sort of abandonment issue going on. 

I don’t think he is a child stuck in a man’s body or manchild or whatever. I think that he does know how to take care of himself - but he just chooses to manipulate people with the facade of a kid to do his bidding and cater to his needs. 

Anywhomst, but clearly Brahms is also a very manipulative and controlling person based, based on how the mother was reacting on the destroyed bedroom, she really seemed to be at the end of her wits and just breaking down with her “you promised you’d be good”. It was very heartbreaking to watch and also scary because it really makes you realize just how much power Brahms holds over them?? idk maybe it was just me.

Next point: the CGI mask  + the burns 

So according to some interviews with the director stated that at the first test streaming, people weren’t really scared of Brahms because he was too handsome so they had to slap a mask over his face. The face was done after everything was filmed. I’m thinking the face burns were also added post-production when they were adding the cgi mask. Otherwise, James would have needed to go through the makeup department for some wicked face burns and it would have been visible during the filming and test screening too? Which would imply that at first the fire was supposed to be just  a cover story that their son is dead and it was changed later

Observation/thoughts on Brahms Heelshire

Love how he stands there with his hands behind his back and then nods when Greta tells him to go under the cover

James Russell is 191cm tall. So like. Brahms is really fucking tall. But I notice that most of the time he stands with a slight hunch. Could be due to him crawling through the walls and crawling out of places that requires him to do a lot of crouching. His bed in his hideout made me really sad, I’ll get to it later. 

Since James didn’t get many lines in the ten minutes that he appeared, I do think that his eyes did all the acting. They stand out even more with the mask on, there is just this crazy look on it. I also noticed during my rewatch that he doesn’t seem to blink much or at all. 

Oh yeah, he also peeped on Greta and Malcolm making out on the bed and then cockblocked them. We been knowing that he made a Greta doll and very likely jerked off to it. We also been knowing that he very very very likely wanted to bone Greta at the goodnight kiss scene still waiting for the maskeless kiss scene gimme gimme. I also highly doubt that Brahms has much first-hand experience with kissing n stuff. High key thinking he was trying to do copy Malcolm and do what he observed lmao

When I first watched the scene, I assumed that the hole behind the mirror has always been and it’s just another one of the hidden passages Brahms to slip in and out, but now that I’m looking at the shape of the holes, it seems to me more like the mirror and brick wall were broken at the same time?? If that is the case holy shit boy is s t  r o n g. I mean, he also punched through the closet door like no big deal so really what have the parents been feeding him. 

I’m also leaning toward the fact that he ran there because Greta screamed loudly. I don’t think he was in the room as them when everything went down there, it seemed more like he heard the scream and had to nyoomed over and then punched a way through to get out of the wall. And then went on to attack Cole. He must have known that Greta wanted Cole gone, since that what she whispered to the doll before going to bed. 

Tbh, I fully expected him to murder Cole in his sleep, but Brahms wrote a warning message in blood to tell him to get out soooooo like. Cole you were warned and now you gotta live with the consequences ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Brahm’s sleeping corner

This scene was shown at the end after Greta and Malcolm escaped. We also see them briefly during the part where Greta and Malcolm are trying to find a way out and stumbled into Brahms’ hideout. I’m not sure why the rules are slapped on the walls. It seems to me that Brahms is very very very set on that the rules / routine should be followed. In the movie, he called Greta and suggested to her that she should follow the rules, to which she then started doing it.

I headcanon that that’s the routine that he grew up with as a kid and it’s just very very very very very hard to break out of it - not that he is trying to break the routine. 

I’m failing to find a good way to put my thoughts into words, but I guess the rules and routine is sort of his coping mechanism? 

I suppose if you had an OC that you ship Brahms with and want to change stuff around the house, the OC would have to very slowly introduce new rules and routines. Baby steps, yknow.

Brahms has a violin hanging there! Honestly I would be surprised if Brahms didn’t know how to play at least one instrument. The family also has an old ass piano/clavichord (?) and Brahms loves classical music soo yeah. Love me a boy who appreciates classical musical hehe

I suppose the egg boxes are there to soundproof the room more - maybe so he can play the violin? 

There’s also music sheets hung around his attics, it’s not clear on the screenshots but when you rewatch the scene and shove your face close to the screen. Some are hanging next to the violin and there are some taped on the wall next to his bed and porn too

nice to see he has a fridge and microwave, I was concerned that he wasn’t well fed and that leftovers might not be enough, but then again. Dude is 191 cm so clearly he has been drinking his milk

Didn’t take a screenshot of his vanity, but there is a crocodile magnet stuck to the mirror hehe. I do think that he shaves and stuff, otherwise his beard would be much longer??

We can see more music sheets stuck to a pillar on the right. 

Loving the christmas lights that he has hanging there above his bed. It’s cute. 

On the shelf he has a bunch of tupperware and empty bowls. Most of hte things are neatly organized. We can also see some books and a pen

There’s some sunlight streaming inside - I do hope that Brahmsy stays warm during winters.

Here we can see more of the food that he has there - there is also a sink but I didn’t snatch a screenshot of it. I think those are potatoes in the pot? Maybe he does know how to cook some basic stuff, I do wonder if he has a functioning kitchen up there. Probably not for fire safety reasons lol

Yall see that thing on the note sheet covered pillar? Ngl, that’s a whole ass aesthetic right there.

He got a few potted plants up there. Took a closer look at them and it seems like they were healthy. So he knows how to take care of plants, which is nice to know I suppose?

Yes, we all know what he was doing with the doll and what the tissue balled up tissue implies. However, has anyone noticed the size of the bed??? 

If you scroll up a bit to the screenshot of Greta seeing the doll, it looks t i n y. The make shift doll takes up more than half of the space. 

Yall. this breaks my heart. Dude is a beanstalk. I’m pretty sure the bed is from when he was a kid shoved by his parents to live inside the wall, does he have to sleep there in his adulthood too??? 

Even though Brahms strikes me as someone who probably doesn’t sleep much or during normal times, that bed must be so tiny for him. He must be sleeping with his knees bend and shit unable to stretch out :((( 

Brahms: is a psychopath that smashed the skull of a girl and very abusive tormented his parents and then Greta Me: omg he needs a bigger bed that poor thing :(((

Brahms’ DIY corner 

Ah yes, Brahm’s little DIY/creative corner. 

Homeboy got lot of animal traps, cages and taxidermies hanging around, pointing strongly toward that it’s a hobby of it? 

Also at the end where we see him fixing up the doll, we can get a better shot at his desk, and I gotta say the threads and stuff are all very nicely organized. Brahms’s table looks more organized than mine does lmao. 

So we know he is a crafty boy. Not sure how difficult taxidermy is but I imagine it does take a lot of time to learn? Well he had all the time in the world anyway.

So yeah, that’s a wrap. Congrats if you made it to the bottom of my incoherent thoughts and ramblings, have a bonus drawing of Brahms wearing different masks: 

#the ham talks #brahms heelshire #the boy #the boy 2016 #brahms #brahmbling

[solastia]

Call Of The Sea

Pairing: Jungkook X Hoseok

A/N: So, I went a little crazy. Instead of a tiny drabble this became an almost 4k work. *shrug* As for the smut itself, it’s oviposition (meaning eggs for those that don’t know), so there’s a bit of breeding/impreg kink as well as implied mpreg. I spent way too much time thinking about the mechanics of breeding a human male with a male merman and it shows. Anyway, enjoy!

****

There were a million excuses he’d given his roommates about why he felt the need to visit the beach so often. Most of them bullshit. 

He felt more inspired to draw there - which that one was slightly true. 

It cures his super frequent migraines - he wasn’t sure he’d ever had one his whole life. 

He was interested in marine biology - but not for reasons they might think. 

He could never actually tell them the truth: that he spent all of his free time in a beachside cave in Busan because his boyfriend of seven months was a merman. 

For one that would sound insane, and he knew that if he ever told Yoongi he’d probably storm down here to save Jungkook from someone that was obviously a scammer. And Seokjin was probably related to someone in the military and would have the merman become a science experiment in two seconds flat. 

No, he couldn’t tell them. At least not yet. 

So he simply ignored his guilty conscience and let his plastic bag swing as he strolled down to the beach like he didn’t have a care in the world. 

He pulled his hoodie tight around his ears to ward off the cold. It was getting to be late in the winter season and the trips to the beach were practically hazardous for his health at this point - good thing his boyfriend's smile was as bright as the sun. 

Fuck, that was so cheesy. What the hell was wrong with him? 

Anyway, despite what the temperature read, he still wasn't as cold as he should be. Actually, he was almost toasty and he felt like he was just bundling up out of habit rather than need. His temperature had been strange for a few weeks. 

He shook his head and turned onto the path that led to his secret cave. Well, not that secret. Sometimes older kids came out here to party, but not often and definitely not in the middle of winter. 

Once he reached his cave, he pouted silently over it being empty. He must still be out swimming. Maybe with the water being such a freezing temperature, it slowed him down.  

He sighs forlornly, hoping he won’t have to wait too much longer. He lets both of his bags drop to the sandy floor and unzips the pack back, pulling out the two blankets he’d decided to bring. One for sitting, and one big fluffy down blanket so he wouldn’t get pneumonia. 

He snorts to himself as he gets comfortable and observes the water lapping close to the cave entrance. It’s not likely he’d even get pneumonia without the blanket, though. Beyond his strange fluctuating body heat, he’s been putting on so much weight recently it was ridiculous, like a bear getting ready to hibernate. 

Just this morning he’d tried to wear his sexiest pair of jeans for his boyfriend, only to find that his hips had widened so much he couldn’t pull them up. He’d even had to double up shirts and throw a hoodie over it because his pecs were basically tits now. They were so swollen and sensitive, he didn’t know what was going on. 

And don’t even get him started on everything in the plastic bag. He sighed and brought it closer to him as the urge to protect his bounty overcame him. The same overwhelming urge that had caused him to buy all the food in the first place. He sometimes brought his boyfriend little treats here or there because he got so excited, but this had been some primal urge to shower the merman in foodstuffs. 

He finally heard the sound he’d been waiting for - the nearby shriek of a waterproof whistle. He grinned excitedly and pulled the whistle he wears around his neck up to his lips and blew. It was a signal that alerted his merman that it was safe to show himself. 

“Jungkookie!” 

Jungkook grins as the graceful form of his boyfriend appears at the edge of the cave. He beams up at Jungkook from the shallow waters, his silky long black hair a cloud around him and his tail an iridescent blend of oranges and yellows. He’s so bright in the winter gloom that Jungkook’s spirits are instantly lifted. 

“Hoseok! I missed you!” 

“It’s only been two days, silly human,” but despite his words, he looks pleased and bashful by Jungkook’s unashamed neediness. A neediness that never seemed to go away, not since the moment he’d met the merman in this very spot. 

“Whatever,” Jungkook pouts, pulling his blankets up to his chin to hide his blush. “I’ll just keep the things I brought you then since you don’t care.”

“What?! Gimme!” 

The merman smiles sunnily, his lips shaped like a heart. Jungkook melts and relents, peeling the blankets off of himself and striding closer to the edge with his bag. He crouches and ruffles in the contents as Hoseok eagerly leans over to peek inside. 

“Let’s see, lots of things you said you liked before. Cherry tomatoes, tangerines, fish sausages...a bunch of stuff,” Jungkook shrugs, blushing as he realizes yet again that he may have gone a little overboard judging by the bulging contents of the bag. 

Hoseok looks over the bounty with awe, a gleam in his eye that Jungkook wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. 

“My mate has provided for me during the winter months,” he says softly, rummaging through the bag like it was filled with gems. 

“That’s a good thing?” Jungkook asks, surprised by Hoseok’s strange response. He’d known the merman would be excited because he liked human food, but he’d been expecting screaming and huge smiles not...whatever this was. And he’d even used the ‘M’ word again - just like he had the last time Jungkook had let the other rut all over him, leaving him with the bite mark that itches on his thigh. 

Instead of answering, Hoseok slowly looks up at him with an intense gaze. His jaw is clenched like he’s deep in thought and then finally he nods - before turning away and diving under the water. 

“What? Hoseok, where are you going?” 

He fucked up somehow. Did he offend the merman? He’s brought him treats before. What did he do wrong?

Nearly ten minutes later Jungkook is close to leaving. The cold is finally starting to annoy him and Hoseok hasn’t come back. He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to. 

He sighs and stands up, deciding to leave the bag where it was. Hoseok could come back for it if he wanted to. Jungkook turns and grabs his blankets, intending to throw them into his backpack when a sudden metallic thump startles him. He looks towards the source, his eyes growing impossibly wide as he takes in the sight. 

Hoseok’s rainbow-hued bag he’d made from discarded netting was familiar to him. The awe-inspiring pile of what can only be termed ‘Treasure’ was spilling onto the rocky ground was something new. Precious gems, ancient coins, golden bangles and crowns, all touched by the sea but still glittering and obviously valuable. 

“Hoseok, what’s all this?” 

“Is this enough?” Hoseok’s voice was intense as he watched Jungkook inspect the goods, his eyes alight with some emotion that he couldn’t interpret. 

“For what?” 

“To provide for you and our young.” 

Jungkook whirled around and gaped at the merman in shock. “Our what now?” 

Hoseok nods briskly like it was just a fact. “Our young. It’s mating season and you accepted my bite. Then you provided me with food to keep my strength up in the winter and able to breed you. By spring, we’ll have our first young!” 

Jungkook drops to the cold ground in shock, staring at Hoseok. 

“Babe, I hate to tell you this, but in the human world a man cannot get pregnant.” 

“Haven’t you noticed the changes to your body since you accepted my bite? Your body widening to better hold my eggs? Your chest filling out so you can nourish our young?” 

“I’m...I...what the fuck?” Jungkook grabs at said chest, feeling their newly acquired plumpness. “Is this permanent? Can I make it stop?” 

Hoseok drooped, his excitement falling from him like a cloak and his eyes radiating hurt. “Yes. You’ll go back to normal after the mating season, whether I breed you or not. Do you...not want me to?” 

Jungkook thought for a moment, going over the past events between the two of them. He supposed he should have known something was up. Hoseok had been getting more...enthusiastic about touching him lately. He’d chalked it up to them getting closer and Hoseok becoming less shy about affection. He’d just assumed that sex wasn’t on the table because of their different anatomy, although Hoseok certainly loved making out and getting Jungkook off. During their last heavy petting session, Hoseok had given him a very intense blowjob that had ended with him biting into the meaty part of Jungkook’s thigh. 

He was definitely crazy about the merman and based on what Hoseok was telling him, he’d basically done everything to make him think that he was down for being his real mate in every way. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Jungkook begins carefully. “But I didn’t know that’s what we were leading to. I didn’t know about the food or the bite.” 

Hoseok’s eyes widen and he clutches a hand to his chest. “I did bad! I forgot you wouldn’t know...I...I’m sorry. I just...it’s instinct and I’ve never found a mate before.” 

“It’s okay. Umm…” Jungkook licks his lips nervously and asks shyly, “What all would this entail?” 

“Entail? Oh...you mean how would I breed you?” 

“Uh, yeah. And like, how would it come out. And what would happen...after.” 

Hoseok searches Jungkook’s face, his smile slowly growing as he takes in the shy interest in Jungkook’s eyes. 

“Well, first I would make out, as you call it. I like doing that a lot. No one touches lips down there,” Hoseok swims a little closer to the cave edge when Jungkook finally smiles a little. “Then I’ll pump you full of my eggs.” 

“EGGS?! I’ll have to lay eggs? Like a chicken?” Jungkook exclaims, his hands flying to his ass like he could protect it. 

Hoseok chuckles. “No, silly human. My eggs will nestle in your womb and absorb your DNA until spring. Since you’re a human, only one or two will be born and the rest of the eggs will be absorbed as nutrients for you and our young. If you were a merman as well, you could have easily given birth to ten or more. My sister had thirty.” 

“Okay, but how are they going to come out?” 

“You’re not done growing,” Hoseok smirked. “The bite is still working on you and helping your body evolve to handle our mating. If you decide to deny our bond, you will completely go back to the way you were before my bite. If you let me breed you, most of the outer changes will go back to normal until next season, but your new internal parts will stay to keep you compatible for the next season. You are growing a womb and a birthing slit.” 

“Jesus,” Jungkook stares at the merman in surprise and trepidation. “You must like me a whole lot to want babies and stuff.” 

“I do,” Hoseok nodded vigorously. “Bunches and bunches. I’ve never participated in the mating season before. My family called me odd because I was “picky” but now I’m happy I was. My mate is the human Jungkook.” 

“How...uh...how will you get the eggs in me?” 

Jungkook blushes when Hoseok pierces him with an assessing gaze. He was surprised with himself that the thought of walking around with Hoseok’s eggs - while still fucking weird - also got him rock-hard. Like he could keep a piece of the beautiful man with him on land, and one that he could feel inside of him. 

“I have an organ like yours, it just looks a bit different. It’s kept inside until I’m ready.” 

“And...are you?”

“Ready?” Hoseok quirks an eyebrow, smirking slightly. “I’m always ready with you, but do you want this?” 

Jungkook swallows nervously, but the image of finally being fucked by this beautiful person was enough to get him wanting to scream “Yes.” 

Not to mention, the more he thought about it, the more the idea of having a child - no matter how strangely they were made - that was a little bit of him and Hoseok....he found the idea appealing. 

“Okay. Let’s do it.” 

Hoseok’s heart-shaped smile was as bright as the sun. “Okay! Lose all those silly clothes. My bite should be keeping you warm, especially once you get in the water.” 

Jungkook pauses with his shirt half over his head. “I’m going to be in the water? In the middle of winter?” 

Hoseok shrugs, “For a little bit.” 

Jungkook eyes him dubiously. “Uh-huh.” 

Still, he strips, throwing his clothes away from the water as far as he could. He was already embarrassingly hard, his cock barely shaking as he walked towards the merman. 

“Lay down and make out!” Hoseok declared, and Jungkook did so with a chuckle. The merman absolutely loved kissing. He’d been wide-eyed with wonder the first time Jungkook had impulsively pecked his lips, then demanded more almost immediately. One time Hoseok had even challenged himself to kiss every inch of Jungkook - every inch. 

Jungkook laid on his blanket close to the water’s edge and Hoseok pulled himself up to hover over the human. He quietly studied his face, a tiny fond smile gracing his lips. 

“Hi there,” Jungkook giggled. Hoseok grinned and lowered his face more. 

“Hello,” he responded quietly, then pressed his lips to Jungkook’s. 

The human moaned into the soft kiss, loving the slight tang of the sea and chilled skin against his. After Hoseok had received his fill of lips he moved lower, peppering tiny kisses until he reached Jungkook’s neck. 

He growled lightly into the skin, nipping at it playfully. “Hoseok, come on.” 

“Yeah? You need it, precious? Need to be bred?” 

Jungkook’s breath hitched, not expecting the low husky tone of Hoseok’s voice. He growled into Jungkook’s neck, the words sounding like filth dipped in honeyed caramel.

“Want it. Breed me,” he begged in a hushed voice, still battling his shyness. 

“Anything you want, precious. My precious mate,” Hoseok answered, his voice tinged with awe as he stroked his hand all over Jungkook’s soft skin. 

He slid away until he was once away fully in the water and held out a hand. “Come join me in here, Jungkook. You’ll be fine.” 

“Really?” Jungkook asked, eyeing the water with doubt. It was the middle of winter and the water had to be cold enough to kill someone. 

“My bite protects you. Come here.” 

Jungkook scoots to the edge and grabs Hoseok’s hand, letting the merman help him into the water. He’d been expecting a shock, but it merely felt lukewarm to him. Comfortable enough, he supposed. Hoseok held him close then turned him towards the rocky edge of the cave. 

“Grab onto the ledge,” Hoseok whispered teasingly into his ear. 

Jungkook did as he was told, grasping onto the ledge for dear life as Hoseok’s hands traveled down to grab him by the hips. 

“Umm, I’m not prepared. We need stuff.”

Hoseok cocks his head curiously, “Stuff?” 

“Like, slippery stuff. So, uh, it won’t hurt.” 

“OH! No, that happens naturally. I have everything you need. Do humans need extra fluids? How strange.” 

Jungkook chuckles, “Yeah, humans are the weird ones here.” 

“Hey,” Hoseok playfully frowns. “I’ll leave you to drown.” 

“Sorry, sorry. As you were.” 

Hoseok made a ‘hrumph’ sound and tapped Jungkook’s ass lightly. He can feel something floating underneath him and he sneaks a peek. It’s long and wide, a fleshy pink with bumps and ridges covering it in a strange pattern. He glances behind him to stare at Hoseok’s tail, noticing the open slit in the middle of it where the pink...oh fuck that’s his dick! It was at least ten inches long, maybe more, and as wide as Jungkook's arm. 

“That...that’s supposed to fit inside of me?” Jungkook asks breathlessly, staring in wonder at the monster cock growing out of the merman. 

“Mmm, I have to get really deep to protect our eggs,” Hoseok mumbled, pressing a reassuring kiss to the back of Jungkook’s neck. 

Jungkook turns his head and stares at the cave ledge, waiting for the first press. He nearly jumps when the bulbous head touches his rim, forcing himself to breathe as Hoseok slowly forces the head inside. 

The merman sighs happily and rubs his chin into Jungkook’s hair. “You feel so nice inside,” he hums as he holds still, letting the human’s walls work to contain him. 

After a couple seconds Jungkook feels something shooting inside of him. He turns back to glare at Hoseok incredulously. “Already?” 

The merman chuckles. “No, precious. It’s just secretions to help you handle me. It’s a while yet until I fill you properly.” 

“Oh,” Jungkook gulps. 

Hoseok moves his hips again, forcing more and more of his monster cock into Jungkook with every pump. Whatever he’d filled Jungkook with made the slide painless and he felt barely any discomfort. 

His cock continued further and further, until it grazed his prostate and went further still. He wasn’t even sure that a dick was supposed to reach that high without hurting him, but he couldn’t complain too much when the outline of Hoseok’s cock bulging from his stomach made his own twitch with need. 

“Hold on, Jungkookie,” Hoseok rasps, before slamming to the hilt. He only had a second to grip the ledge with all his might before Hoseok started pounding with such raw power that he wanted to scream and they’d only just started. 

He’d never felt so full in his life and the way that Hoseok was hammering into him felt like he was rebuilding his body to fit only him. Jungkook could only whine and sob as his senses were overwhelmed. 

“Precious?” Hoseok grunted, “Are you close, sweet thing?” 

He was. He was so embarrassingly close but he didn’t want to be. Mere minutes of the merman slamming into him like his life depended on it and he was ready to burst. 

“Don’t stop, please don’t stop,” Jungkook begs with a sob. “Don’t ever fucking stop!” 

Hoseok chuckles lowly. “Never? You want me to keep filling you up forever and ever? My sweet precious mate. So perfect,” he growls. “I want to stay inside you forever too. Fill you to the brim with my eggs until your belly is round.” 

Jungkook whimpers as Hoseok’s teeth graze his neck and he feels his cock growing impossibly wider. 

“Bigger?” he moans, “Why? I can’t…” 

“You can, precious. Your body is mine. I have to keep you in place so I can fill you up.” 

Hoseok’s dick stretches him more than he’d ever thought possible. The bumps and ridges on it rubbing the inside of his walls until he thought he would go crazy. 

“Hoseok, I’m gonna…” 

“Yeah? Release for me, precious.” 

And Jungkook cums with a loud cry, his hips bucking into nothing as he shoots into the sea. 

“Good job. Here they come now, sweetness. I’m going to breed my mate.” 

Hoseok groans huskily as he grinds against Jungkook’s ass like he was desperately trying to get further inside but couldn’t. He didn’t feel anything different at first, besides the massive river of cum that painted his insides. Then...then he felt something rippling along Hoseok’s cock, making the already large organ wider still. 

“Yes, yesss…” Hoseok panted into his ear as he shallowly bucked, seeming like the act of releasing his eggs made him feel even better than an orgasm did. 

Finally Jungkook felt the first foreign object enter his body and travel up, up, and up. It hadn’t felt that large, perhaps the size of a lemon, and round. However, with the release of the first egg it seemed the others weren’t far behind. 

One more traveled from Hoseok’s cock into him, then another, and another, until he’d lost count. He was unable to do more than rest his forehead against the cool stone floor and try not to be overwhelmed as the little eggs stroked his insides and traveled to their new home in his womb. And he knew it was there because he could feel them settle inside, bulging his tummy and pressing down on his pelvis. 

Hoseok hadn’t been able to stop groaning and bucking as each egg was released, seeming to be in an endless state of euphoria. 

Jungkook realized that somewhere along the line he’d gotten hard again, the feeling of the eggs jostling his sensitive body too much to handle. It wouldn’t take much to cum again. 

Hoseok sighed and finally stopped his grinding, leaning his head onto Jungkook’s shoulder to rest. 

“So good, precious Jungkook. I’ve never felt such bliss in all my days.” 

Jungkook wanted to respond, but he was trying to reach down and tug himself to completion without slipping into the ocean. Hoseok notices and chuckles. 

“Again, my sweet? You like being filled that much?” 

Jungkook whimpers and nods, letting Hoseok bat his hand away to replace it with his own. 

It only takes a few tugs of those long, nimble fingers before he shouts and cums, his cock slightly pained from sensitivity. 

“There we go. And out of the water with you.” 

Hoseok slides out of him and his cock is once again sheathed into his tail slit. He helps to heave the human onto the ledge and lets him catch his breath as the merman strokes Jungkook’s bulging stomach. 

“So big and full. How do they feel?” 

“Um, nice. I like it. I feel...warm and safe.” 

Hoseok glances up in surprise, “Yeah? You like it a lot?” 

Jungkook nods vigorously. “I can’t wait to meet them. What are we going to do when they’re born?” 

Hoseok stares thoughtfully at his hand on the human’s stomach. “I suppose if they have split fins like you they’ll live on land. If they are mer then they’d have to stay with me. At least until I find a way to be with you.” 

Jungkook’s eyes widened in surprise. “With me? You want to be on land?” 

Hoseok shrugs shyly. “I don’t have much to hold me here, and I’ve always wanted to meet your friends. You speak so highly of them.” 

“Yeah,” he muses, only to freeze two seconds later. “Oh fuck, you knocked me up. Yoongi and Seokjin are going to kill you!” 

“What?” Hoseok asks in alarm. 

“Don’t worry. I think we can get Namjoon on our side, but be prepared for a scolding.” 

“You mean, you want me to join you on land?” 

“Yeah,” Jungkook grins happily. “You’re my family too, and we’re going to have...young. We’ll figure it out.” 

“Yes. Yes, we will.” Hoseok settles and sighs, laying his head onto his mate’s belly. 

#bts #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts smut #kinktober #merman!au #merman!hoseok #solastia

[ourladytamara]

Rehabilitative Care

Tamara 05/03/2021 - @_ourladytamara

CW’s: CNC, carceral kink, electricity play, predicament bondage, sensory deprivation, hoods

Steel rolls against steel. Someone’s opening your cell door.

It’s not particularly easy to tell, of course. The copper dome over your head is padded six inches thick inside with leather, cotton, and the remnants of some disgusting-smelling fluid rapidly drying against your face. You remember the Warden’s smile when she put you in it – the last thing you saw before your current state of endless darkness.

You hated when they opened the door. You’ve eagerly awaited the day of your trial for what felt like months, now, though in reality it’d been a mere week and a half; it’s growing difficult to remember what you were even accused of. The constant isolation racked your mind, but company was rarely much of an improvement, given the guards’ penchant for wanton abuse when they got bored.

“Inmate D18.”

It’s the Warden’s voice. You haven’t heard it since the day the shell covered your eyes. The air tube in your mouth whistles pathetically, drawing a long laugh out of the elder woman’s demure lips.

“Stop wasting your breath, inmate, you’re going to need it shortly. It’s Monday.”

Mondays were when she moved you into a new cell. Why, you couldn’t know; evidently it was just another factor in disorienting and exhausting you, forcing you to half-jog down the concrete corridors with the twenty pounds of bluing-amber metal on your shoulders.

This time, however, she grips you by the throat and abdomen – and hoists you over her shoulder. She’s always been able to lift you with ease, now a task made easier with the weight you’d lost in captivity; yet until now, she’d forced you to walk every agonizing step to the new cells on your own.

“If you keep resisting me I’ll be forced to pass on some additional information about your recalcitrance to the Court – your reluctance to learn your lesson is exactly why I’m taking your rehabilitation into my own hands, D18.”

You hated it when she took things into her own hands.

She’s moving. It’s impossible to say where, of course, as you’re far too busy thrashing to get any kind of spatial bearing. Every one of her plodding footsteps echoes through the corridor, audible through the copper and padding like miniature gunshots. Tears well up in your squeezed-shut eyes, soaking into the soft material covering your face.

So far as you knew, you were accused of stealing from a Demesne communal resource depot. The typical sentence is three days in prison, but your constant resistance to Commissars and Civil Protection racked you up more than a few sedition charges on the way in – something they took great joy in reminding you of.

Another steel door rolls and slams against concrete walls. A different cell, just like every Monday, but something about it sounds… different. The echo is emptier against your copper skull, the air colder against your clammy skin; part of that was presumably due to your own nudity, something you hadn’t thought about in several days.

Perhaps you should’ve been thinking about it, though. With a huff, the Warden begins to lower you – but your feet don’t touch the ground first. Far from it, as you feel your ass sliding against something slick, cold, and metallic – something frighteningly cock-shaped.

“Here you go, slut, nice and easy.” growls the Warden, lowering you onto the dildo beneath you. It pops into your ass with a squelch. Instantly, you buck against her, tight hole forced open by the increasingly-thick dildo as she continues to lower you down. “This’ll be a nice change of pace from all the movement and fidgeting, don’t you think?”

In mere seconds you’re fully impaled. The steel cock in your ass plunges deep into you, slamming against your prostate as it continues to rearrange your innards; pre drips from the tip of your locked-up cock and dribbles onto your bare feet. Agonizing seconds pass before you finally bottom out on the dildo, which you now recognize to be a one-bar prison; now stable, the Warden takes her hands off of your body and grips the metal carabiner clip on your collar. A whimper escapes your lips, stifled by layers of cotton.

“Mmmhm, I had a feeling that’d be your answer – course, if you were smart enough to think of a response you’d be smart enough not to have three sedition charges.”

You buck angrily, only managing to fuck yourself on the rigid dildo with every motion. The Warden snorts.

“And that’s why you need my personal attention – even like this you’re still not ready to learn, huh? No worries, though – I rarely get repeat offenders once they spend a while in here.”

With a click, she attaches a steel cable to your copper collar, and after a moment of dull, mechanical whirrs you’re hoisted up – just slightly. Your toes still touch the ground, supporting your weight on small, seemingly precision-shaped metal plates. Half-dangling and half-reamed, you grit your teeth, biting the leather pads to take your mind off the pressure inside you and the strain on the ball of your feet.

“If you get tired, you’re welcome to stand more comfortably.”

You aren’t thinking. Any kind of relief would be heaven-sent, any at all; with a wiggle and thrust of your hips, you force yourself down further onto the dildo beneath and manage to pull against the taut steel cable. Cold metal on your soles send electric shivers up your naked back, skin goosebumping and breath hitching.

The panel beneath your heel depresses as you shift just an ounce of weight more.

Electricity slams into every nerve like a semi truck. You scream violently, the shock stretching from your feet to your head and burning everything in between with white-hot agony. Convulsing does little to relieve the pain, drooling even less; a hand on your neck brings you back to reality and hoists your weight back onto your one-bar prison.

“What? I said you’re welcome to stand more easily – not that I’d accommodate it, D18.” mocks the Warden, once again flying into laughter at your pathetic body. “This’ll remind you that actions have consequences, a lesson you’d do well to internalize.”

You pant and shift only to knock your balance on the dildo off center, throwing  your foot back onto the electrified pressure plate. Another shock rips through your limbs.

“Good lord, bitch, I would’ve assumed you’d be smarter than that. Didn’t I just explain?”

You nod frantically, knowing what happens when you don’t reply.

“That’s what I thought – guess you’re just shit at listening, huh? Not my problem, at least. I’ll check back on you when you’re nice and comfy on your new chair – and the buzzer I have linked to the pressure plate doesn’t go off for at least eight hours. Maybe we’ll actually make some progress on you, huh?”

You scream violently into the padding but all that escapes is a tinny, impotent whistle.

“Have fun, D18. Hail the Demesne.”

Footsteps, heavy and mocking on the floor you know you cannot touch. Steel rolling on steel. A slam, a chortle, and your tears flow unrestricted.

#subscriber stories

[whitehotharlots]

CRT and the sad state of educational politics

If our culture is studied 100 years from now, the predominant theme of the research will be a sense of perplexed revulsion toward how we did nothing to address the climate crisis in spite of having decades of forewarning. If there is a second theme, it will be a profound confusion regarding our immense and unearned sense of self-certainty. A retrospective of the early twenty first century would be titled something like Who the Fuck Did These People Think They Were? 

The latter theme is illustrated in the debacle surrounding a recent slew of municipal and statewide bills that seek to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools. For the record, I am strongly against these bans. But I’m also self-aware enough to know my opinion matters very little, and therefore realize that an analysis of the discussion surrounding the bills will yield much more worthwhile observations than a simple delimitation of their pros and cons. Regardless of your personal opinion, I hope you’ll humor me.

I am, in some regards, a moral absolutist. But I also realize that abstract morality has very little bearing on material and political realities. In my ideal world, classrooms are free from political meddling. Teachers teach to the best of their ability, presenting students with truths that are confidently unvarnished due to the thorough amount of work that was required to reach them. I don’t cotton any of that socratic bullshit. Students are there to learn, not to engage in weird Gotchas with some perverted elder. The teacher’s job is to teach. The material they teach needs to be subjected to some graspable and standardized mechanism of truth adjudication before it is worthy of being taught. Teaching is not therapy. Teaching is not poetry. Teaching is not love, nor is it religion, nor is it a means of social or political indoctrination. There are plenty of other avenues available to accomplish all of those other things. Teaching is teaching. 

That’s the ideal. But ideals are just ideals. They never come true. The art of teaching, regardless of setting--from overpacked classrooms to face-to-face instruction to curricular design to nationwide pedagogical initiatives--boils down to a teacher’s ability to reconcile the need to convey truths with social and political pressures that are heavily invested in the suppression of truth. 

I have formally studied and practiced education for nearly two decades. In that time, the prevailing political thrust toward education has been a desire to casualize the practice of teaching, to render educators as cheap and fungible as iphones. The thrust takes different shapes depending on the political affiliation of whomever happens to be in charge of the state and federal governments that fund education, but the ultimate desire is always the same. The goal is always to attempt to make teaching rote and algorithmic, something akin to running a google search for How to do math? or What is morality?. The framing is always just windowdressing, empty culture war bullshit. 

Maybe it’s the inescapability of this thrust that’s rendered so many educators so blind to it? We only have nominal political choice, after all. The discourse gets more blinkered and vicious as the stakes decrease. At any rate, this is the undeniable reality, and anyone who doesn’t see that isn’t worth listening to. 

Non-administrative per-pupil spending as been on a steady decline since George W. Bush was president. Administrative bloat and meddling are becoming as common in k-12 as they are in higher education. The will of parasitic NGOs are implemented as common sense pedagogy without anyone even bothering to ask for any proof that they work. The so-called Education Reform movement is sputtering out due both to its manifest failures and rare, bipartisan backlash. But it will be replaced with something just as idiotic and pernicious. The thrust of causalization will not abate. 

And so what do we decide to do? What’s the next big thing on the education policy horizon? Critical Race Theory. 

Okay, this makes sense. In 2021, a local paper can’t run a news story about a lost cat without explicitly mentioning the race of every human involved and possibly also nodding toward the implied cisnormativity of pet ownership. So it makes sense that this broad rhetorical mandate would come to dominate the transitional period between Bush-Obama Education Reform and whatever bleak future awaits us. The controversy is so perfectly inefficacious that its adoption was inevitable. Because, seriously, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of the outcome of this kerfuffle, no problems will be solved. The real shortcomings of public education will not be addressed. Larger social problems that are typically blamed on public education in spite of having little to do with public education will especially not be addressed. Maybe white kids will have to do struggle sessions in lieu of the Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe black kids will get full credit for drawing the Slayer logo in the part of the test where their geometric proof is supposed to go. Or maybe it won’t happen. Maybe instead these practices will be banned, and in turn liberals will begin to embrace homeschooling, the charter movement will be given new life as a refuge against the terrors of white supremacist behaviors such as, uhh, teaching kids to show their work. Whatever.

Within the context of public education, the outcome will not matter. It cannot matter. There will be broader social impacts, sure. It will continue to drive Democrats more rightward, providing their party’s newly woke corporate wing with progressive-sounding rationales for austerity. But so far as teachers and students are concerned, it won’t matter.

Why do I give a shit about this, then? To put it bluntly, I’m struck by the utter fucking inartfulness of CRT’s proponents. At no point has any advocate of CRT presented a case for their approach to education that was at all concerned with persuading people who aren’t already 100% in their camp. There’s been no demonstration of positive impacts, or even an explanation of how the impacts could hypothetically be positive. In fact, so much as asking for such a rationale is considered proof of racism. Advocates posit an image of existing educational policies that is absolutely fantastical, suggesting that kids never learn about slavery or racism or civil rights. But then... then they don’t even stick with the kayfabe. They’ll say “kids never learn about racism.” In response, people--mostly well-meaning--say “wait, umm, I’m pretty sure they do learn about racism.” The response is “we never said they don’t learn about racism.” You’ll see this shift from one paragraph to the next. It’s insane. Absolutely insane. 

Or take this talk from a pro-CRT workshop in Oregon. The speaker freely admits that proto-CRT leanings like anti-bias education, multiculturalism, and centering race in historical discussions have been the norm since the late 1980s. The speaker admits that these practices have been commonplace for 30+ years, as anyone my age or younger will attest. Then, seconds later, the speaker discusses the results of this shift: it failed. Unequivocally:

We had this huge, huge, huge focus on culturally relevant teaching and research. [ ... ] So you would think that with 40+ years of research and really focusing and a lot of lip service and a lot of policies and, you know, a lot of rhetoric about cultural relevancy and about equity and about anti-bias that we would see trends that are significantly different, [but] that’s not what we’re finding. What we’re finding that you see [is] that some cases, particularly black and brown [students] the results, the academic achievement has either stayed the same and gotten worse.

Translation: here’s this approach to teaching. It’s new and vital but also we’ve been doing it for 40 years. It doesn’t work. But we need to keep doing it. Anyone who is in any way confused by this is a dangerous racist. 

Even in the darkest days of the Bush-era culture war, I never saw such a complete and open disregard for honesty. This isn’t to say that Bush-era conservatives weren’t shit-eating liars. They were. But they had enough savvy to realize that self-righteousness alone is not an effective way of doing politics. You need to at least pretend to be engaging with issues in good faith. 

This is what happens when a movement has its head so far up its own ass that it cannot comprehend the notion of good-faith criticism. These people do not believe that there can exist anyone who shares their basic goals but has concerns that their methods might not work. Their self-certainty is so absolute and unshakeable that they can proffer data demonstrating the complete ineffectiveness of their methods as proof of the necessity of their methods.

For decades, the most effective inoculation against pernicious meddling in education has been to lean upon the ideal form of teaching I described earlier in this post. We claimed that teaching is apolitical and that no one is trying to indoctrinate anybody. Regardless of the abstract impossibility of this claim, it has immense and lasting appeal, and it was upheld by a system of pedagogical standards that allowed teachers to evoke a sense of neutrality. The prevailing thrust in liberal education is to explicitly reject any such notions, and no one--not a single goddamn person--has proffered a convincing replacement for it. We still say, laughably, that we’re eschewing indoctrination. But people aren’t that stupid. If you find it beneath yourself to make your lies digestible, people will be able to tell when you’re lying to them. 

This, my friends, bodes very poorly for the future of education, regardless of whatever happens in the coming months. A movement that cannot articulate its own worth is not one that is long for this world. Teachers themselves are the only force that can resit the slow press toward the eventual elimination of public education, and they have embraced a worldview and comportment style that renders them absolutely unable to mount any worthwhile resistance. 

[immoral-tales]

Character Analysis: Osamu Dazai

001

A/N: this is a character analysis on Osamu Dazai with an older lover. Nonnie and I were discussing this concept back on my old blog. I adored these discussions, therefore, I have decided to move all of them here.

You, I really like you. Believe me, you are not the only one thinking Dazai would fit well with an older S/O. There are numerous reasons and I can write an entire dissertation on why Dazai would have a great relationship with an older S/O. I adore the concept of him having an older, more experienced S/O in almost every field. I need to calm down and sort out all of my thoughts, I have just returned from a trip and I jumped to my computer as soon as I read your message. First of all, I would like to thank you for sending this headcanon. I completely agree with you and I will defend this headcanon with my life. I do have one simple favor, could you send me more headcanons and concepts similar to this one? I love, love reading ideas about Dazai having an older S/O. I have a request sitting in my notifications about Dazai and his older S/O, if it is your request, then you are the best! It has been in my messages for some time now; however, it is one of my favorite requests, therefore, I’m going to take my sweet, sweet time to write it.

Dazai is a complex character, it is not a simple task to understand his layered personality. A young person will have difficulty understanding him and he would have a hard time opening up to a person who is in the same age range as him. You can argue with me about it, but I strongly believe he would be attracted to a woman who is in her late twenties or early thirties and emotionally stable. An understanding woman with a mature, yet playful personality. She should be understanding of Dazai’s situation. He has been through hell and back, Dazai has a nihilistic outlook on life as much as he refuses to admit it. His childish and foolish behavior is a facade and every one of us is well aware of it. It is his coping mechanism to cover his melancholy. If he decided to reveal his true colors, no one would accept him. A man like him has no place in the world of normal human beings, therefore, he would be quite lucky to find a person that would be by his side no matter the circumstances—a woman that would be with him until the end of the line. His S/O should not be discouraged by his suicidal tendencies. Quite the opposite, she should be able to handle his dark sense of humor and play along with him—bonus points if she has a similar taste in humor.

He needs a trustworthy woman by his side, a person he could rely on, and be able to rest his head on her shoulder at the end of a busy and tiring day, telling her about his day as he wraps his arms around her waist protectively. Despite all these traits, Dazai needs a person with a cunning intelligence and quick-witted to comprehend his mischievous attitude and tolerate his antics. His S/O should be quite educated and knowledgeable, as well. This man deserves the world, even though he wronged in the past, but he is trying his best to redeem himself. Perhaps, even Osamu Dazai deserves some happiness.

Additionally, I’m writing some one-shots for “Dragged Across Concrete” and there is one with Dazai and older S/O. If you are curious, I will reveal the name. Thank you for coming to my pep talk. With this, I rest my case.

I’m delighted to know I’m not the only one considering Dazai having an older S/O is adorable. There is no need to worry about it, everyone has their own preferences and there is nothing wrong about it. Hell, you should be proud of it and I’m with you on this one. My apologies to everyone, but I’m with this anon. I have read many stories with Dazai being paired up with an innocent, childish type and I simply cannot vibe with it. I do not have many stories published here, but if you read any of them, you will understand what type of personality I’m aiming for. An older/mature S/O for him is one of the best options for him and no one can change my mind. Therefore, I would like to thank you for agreeing with me. I greatly appreciate it. Imagine his S/O being a highly trained spy with a particular set of skills who is fully capable of keeping up with Dazai. As a spy with the years of experience under her belt, she can read people like an open book and this is what Dazai needs. A person that can understand him, without him uttering a word.

You have requests? Send them in. I might be slow as fuck, but I like to take my sweet, sweet time whilst working on them. I wish to give you quality content and not half-assed stories. The title of the one-shot is “Stray Dog Strut.” Whoops.

It is about Dazai falling deeply in love with a senior member!S/O, but she has difficulty understanding he is serious about his intentions with her, due to his constant flirting and what would he do to convince her that he is considering pursuing her. Is this your request?

I’m a fucking genius! Seriously though, I’m delighted to know the feeling is mutual. A childish, innocent reader is great and all, but you will have difficulty finding such content on this blog. Whoops. I might or might not like it when the readers in my writing have big dick energy and Dazai’s S/O is not going to be an exception either. I completely agree with you, once more. One simply does not go to Dazai when they have problems, you have Kunikida for that. Recently, I have been thinking about it—believe me, I have nothing else to do—and I strongly believe Dazai would never be attracted to a female version of himself, considering his past and mindset. His outlook on life does not help in this situation. I will die believing he is a nihilist and no one can change my mind. Despite his layered personality, at the end of the day, he is a nihilist. Therefore, to counter his complex character, we need an older, experienced reader that has seen enough in this world and would not be surprised to see one of his stunts. I will go into details, I have been waiting for this opportunity to whip out my concept of Dazai’s significant other. Thank you for giving me a perfect opportunity for it. A fair warning, mentions of suicidal tendencies. We are talking about Dazai, after all.

I have a strong desire to review his outlook on life and reveal which type would be a perfect match for our nihilist. This is my personal opinion, therefore, it would be natural for some of you to disagree. Let us proceed, shall we?

I will not bore you with his past since every one of you are familiar with it, more or less. Dazai has been exposed to death, violence, and brutality at a very young age. Hell, he met Mori at the age of fourteen as he attempted to take his own life, but most likely, failed. We, the readers of the manga and the watchers of the anime, are not certain of his living conditions. Unfortunately, it has never been revealed, therefore, let us assume he grew up in a horrible environment that led him to become quite suicidal, then apathetic. There are many factors that played a major role in making Dazai who he is today. If it had not been for Odasaku, he would have remained with the Port Mafia and surpassed Mori with his ruthlessness and holding no regard towards the life of a human being. Because of his past, he became a nihilist, but he is great at concealing it by plastering that ridiculous grin of his on his handsome face. Deep down, he is well aware he does not deserve to live because of the atrocities he had done, yet he does not deserve to die. He can still redeem himself and that is what he is doing. And he deserves to be happy, as well. I’m not saying, everyone has the right to be happy, but Dazai is one of them. All his life has been grey, but the time has come for him to see the world in black and white, perhaps, in colors, as well.

This man deserves someone who can truly love him and stay by his side no matter the circumstances. He needs an understanding, mature woman. She should be able to understand his dark sense of humor and play along with him. For instance, upon their first meeting—undoubtedly—he would suggest committing double suicide with him. I can imagine her responding with a low chuckle and asking him to reserve that place specifically for her, but first, she would prefer to get to know him better as she wishes to know the person whom she is going to commit double suicide. Her unusual response would pique his curiosity as he engages in conversation, asking some odd questions, but she answers all of them without breaking a sweat, watching Dazai’s reaction with great amusement. After his first encounter with her, he would reserve a special place for her but decides to put his suicidal tendencies aside as he interacts with her, getting to know her better. If she allows him to be physically affectionate with her, then it is expected to find his face buried in her chest. He adores those titties—size and shape do not matter to him. And another weakness of his would be her thighs, as well. As he gets comfortable with her, he discovers she is quite good at holding decent conversations and drinking whiskey alone at his favorite bar is no longer an option because he has her. During one of their conversations, he discovers she is a realist, sees the world the way it is, not the way she wants to see it. Dazai is fascinated by her outlook on life and her personality draws him more and more. He becomes infatuated with her and as he spends more time with her, he realizes he cannot imagine his life without her. The woman becomes more than just his drinking buddy. Yes, they do not have much in common, but it does not stop Dazai from harboring romantic feelings for her. At first, he does not understand these foreign feelings, but then he discovers he is head over heels in love with her and he has no desire to let her go. His life would be empty without her.

My apologies, I have got carried away, but I’m rather passionate when it comes to Dazai. Even though I’m Dostoyevsky’s slut, I still love Dazai. In the beginning, I thought Dazai and happiness should not be used in the same sentence, but now, I’m convinced even he is capable of loving; however, I’m not too certain about Fedya.

Before I rest my case, I want to add, even if Dazai cannot love, he would genuinely care for her like he cares for his colleagues and watches out for them. In the present, he is fully capable of feeling such a feeling, but his past self would not.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

#dazai headcanons #character analysis #ideas and headcanons #dazai with an older lover

[bumblybeebounce]

Sweet Music

So I was the guitar anon in @rzrcrst 's asks a while ago, and thought hey, why don't I try to practice a bit more on writing Ezra? Ssso I made this. Hopefully it's at least tolerable? :'D I just wanted to write something sweet, maybe it will cheer someone up a bit! I am actually trying to learn how to play guitar, but please consider: I am a dumbass. It's a slow going thing. VERY SLOW. So apologies if I got something wrong! Anywho, the song in this one is "I Belong To You" by Brandi Carlile.

Rating: E Pairing: Ezra x Reader Warnings: None

Taglist: @rzrcrst @tarrevizslas @equalstrashflavoredtrash

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes, for all the advancement made in space travel, the waiting was a purgatory of boredom you just HAD to get through one way or another. Like right now. With you and Ezra in your ship, docked to another carrier on the course for another possible payday. And as much as you could appreciate it when your companion decided to leave you alone for a bit and have some quiet time with a book, this was one of the times where you actually kind of wanted him to talk. Of course if he did he wouldn't shut up for a few hours but listening to him would've been vastly preferable to the sheer amount of mind-numbing boredom you were going through right now.

"If you don't mind me saying so, birdie, going by the frequency and continuous nature of your fidgeting, it truly sounds as though you're preparing to climb the walls." And then he simply turns the page. Like he's not even bothered by the fact that all the daily tasks are finished and there's no reason to go out anywhere because the carrier has sweet fuck all in it and gah!

"Astute of you." It comes out grumpier than you really intended, but going by the lopsided smirk Ezra flashes at you while looking at you knowingly from behind the book is kinda worth it. He seemed to take a lot of pleasure when at any time you either used a fancy word, or spoke in a similar long-winded way he did. Which, let's be fair, was kind of growing on you after spending enough time in his presence. Stupidly charming... Smart-ass. With a nice ass.

"Well. If you are feeling amenable today-" He started after a while and laid his book against his knee, finger between the pages. "I can't help but recall you to be musically inclined, and that you have an instrument hidden in that there locker." Ezra nodded at the locker underneath the bench you were on, causing you to automatically look down at it too.

"Ah. So you noticed." "With this little space to work with, birdie, it's very difficult not to notice such things. Now, that is not a reproach in any way, shape or form, calm yourself-" He leaned forward a little and straightened his leg as you opened and closed your mouth, swallowing the apology you were about to give. "I merely mention it because I do believe you haven't played your guitar in my presence before and I am nothing if not a man who appreciates the arts, as difficult as those may be to find here among the constantly moving stars. So if you would indulge me this once, I believe I would appreciate immensely to hear whatever you deem fit to share with me."

Ezra did have a point, you had been making sure to practice mostly when he was out of earshot for one reason or another, a little convinced that he didn't much care to hear the music. Granted, that could've just been a mix of modesty and self-consciousness, but it honestly hadn't come up before now. You scratched your head a bit and shrugged.

"I mean. If... If you don't mind..." Actually, playing the guitar sounded kind of nice right now. "Oh, I insist."

And with that, you got the bag out and pulled out the acoustic guitar. It had been a bit since you last did so a while went by with just checking that it was still in tune and and just testing that everything sounded right. Your partner kept looking at you with a small smile from his side of the ship as you did, and begun strumming the chords in no particular tune, just to feel it out.

"I must confess, I am mildly disappointed I haven't suggested this earlier. It is a privilege to witness living art produced by a living work of art." Ah, and there was the blush back on your cheeks. You gave a nervous titter and raised a brow at Ezra. "Really, Ez? You're going with that?" He inclined his head in good humour, while keeping his voice serious. "Birdie, have you ever known me to be untruthful about your considerable skills or your considerable charms?" For once, he was very bad at keeping that smirk off his face and you shook your head, telling him to enjoy and keep reading his book.

And so the time passed, with Ezra reading his book and occasionally glancing your way warmly, and you strumming the instrument, playing old songs you half remembered or just nothing in particular. It was surprisingly easy to just get lost in the act of playing, the notes in the air, filling the little pod with something other than mechanic beeping.

Still, now that you had the approval of your partner to practice more freely, it didn't feel like that big of a step when you decided you wanted to sing a bit. Reaching into one of the pockets of the bag, you pulled out a capo and clipped it to the fretboard, tested out the strings, and began. The notes flowed wonderfully and familiarly, like an old friend returning as you took a breath and sang.

“Last night I had the exact same dream as you I killed a bird to save your life and you gave me your shoes You said clip my wings and walk my miles And I said I would too Then I woke up But I wasn’t gonna tell you.”

“Today I sang the same damn tune as you It was ‘Lady in Red’, I hate that song and I know you do too You didn’t catch me singing along But I always sing with you Nice and quietly 'Cuz I don’t wanna stop you”

Alright, so your voice wasn't at it's best but it was fine. It felt nice to be singing again, you thought, even if it was a bit shaky.

“I know I could be spending a little too much time with you But 'time’ and 'too much’ don’t belong together like we do If I had all my yesterdays I’d give 'em to you too I belong to you now I belong to you”

“I see the wo-”

The sound of something dropping startled you and made you look at the source of the sound. It had been Ezra’s book, that much you could see but it was more the look he had on his face that gave you pause.

“Songbird.” Ezra breathed the word out like it was the sweetest word in existence, like it was the culmination of all the wonders of the worlds delivered to him at once, and combined with the look of stunned awe on his face, he sounded like he had just witnessed something indescribably glorious.

The blush creeping up your neck wasn’t that strange in Ezra’s company, the man seemingly lived to fluster you, but in this instant it felt different somehow. The changed term of endearment didn’t escape your notice either.

“… What?” You shifted on your seat, suddenly overwhelmed by the weirdly irrational feeling of doubt and embarrassment. “Sorry, I’ll stop-”

“No, no no no, songbird, please don’t mistake this interruption as a request for cessation, Kevva forbid-” Ezra got up, his book forgotten as he hurried his way to sit in front of you, still looking like he was witnessing the birth of a galaxy while he was given all his birthdays at once.

“I apologize for my clumsiness that distracted you from your practice, and forgive my presumptuous request, but I implore you to finish your song if there is still some of it left.” His voice had grown unusually hushed as he peered at your now very warm face, practically on the edge of his already precarious seat.

The silence stretched for a bit as you tried to respond. This was quite possibly the most captivated and enthusiastic audience you had had in a very long time and it was poking at your nervousness more than you would have guessed.

“Um. Well, okay, uh, just…” Fingers back on the strings and the fret, you counted from where you were and started again.

“I see the world the exact same way that you do We lend our hands, and take our stance In tandem when we do But I lied and said I knew the way And I hid my eyes from you I still don’t know why I probably didn’t wanna scare you”

You could feel Ezra's gaze on you, though you were trying your best not to let your brain psyche you out and just kept going.

“I know I could be spending a little too much time with you But 'time’ and 'too much’ don’t belong together like we do If I had all my yesterdays I’d give 'em to you too I belong to you now I belong to you"

“I’m gonna die the exact same day as you On the golden gate bridge I’ll hold your hand and howl at the moon Scrape the sky with tired eyes, and I will come find you And I ain’t scared 'Cuz I’m never gonna miss you.”

“I belong to you now I belong to you.”

“I belong to you now I belong to you.”

You looked up at Ezra, and had barely enough time to draw a breath before he was kissing you sweetly. You let out a surprised squeak and he lifted his hand bringing it to the back of your neck, caressing your skin as the kiss went on, somehow passionate while remaining warm and almost chaste, considering how his kisses usually were.

He pulled back, pressing his forehead against yours as he smiled with his eyes closed. He huffed a laugh as his hand slid over to cup your cheek, almost reverently.

"All the words in the language at my disposal and I cannot find a single one to describe what I am feeling at this very moment, songbird."

It was a little strange how easily he could summon a flock of butterflies into your gut while making your heart squeeze in delight. And all you could offer him back was a delicate "Oh.".

And then he kissed you again, brushed your cheek like you were a miracle and suddenly words felt incredibly superfluous. You wove your hand into his hair and carded your fingers through it, enjoying the affection he was giving you. When you broke the kiss, you bit your lip shyly.

"So I take it that I should play more?" "Songbird, the day I refuse the pleasure of hearing you serenade again is the day I am long dead and turned to dust." "Do... You want me to play something else?" "There is nothing that would please me more."

And who were you to deny such an earnest request?

#ezra x reader #ezra (prospect 2018) #prospect movie #fanfic

[akaluan]

phoenix!Kisuke Pt2

Part 1 | Part 2 | ????

((So this is a continuation from one of @hamelin-born‘s asks a while back, which turned into sciencing!Erich and then into “Erich you are such a fool, you just tempted fate, I’m sorry but I’m also laughing at you” at the very end. So I think the “Erich gets shapeshifted into a dragon” drabble fits into this timeline after some point XD))

“One perch, and one glove,” Yoruichi announced with a huff, startling Erich out of his fixation on the magic tangled through Kisuke’s body.

His head snapped up and he blinked blearily at Yoruichi, trying to shake off the flickering magic that clung to his vision. He hadn’t managed to untangle the spell trapping Kisuke as a phoenix yet, but he was starting to understand the way it flowed. It might be possible to simply unravel the spell, instead of needing to create a counter-spell, which would be all the better. But if he did need a counter-spell… hmm…

Caught in his theories, Erich accepted the heavy leather glove on autopilot, fingers tracing over seams and checking its strength without once looking down at it. Magic formula built and dissolved in his mind’s eye, potential solutions that might hold a key—

Yoruichi leaned in, a frown on her human face, and asked, “You okay? Your eyes are all weird.” She grabbed Erich’s chin and tilted his head, her frown deepening at whatever it was she saw. “Can you even focus on me?”

Erich snorted and jerked back, pulling himself free of Yoruichi’s grip and rubbing at his eyes. Right. Break time. He needed to focus on something else for a bit. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just used a spell for probably longer than I should have. I’m going to be seeing mana traces for… quite a while, I think. Especially /those/,” he said with a hint of amusement, gesturing towards Kisuke. “I think I could draw that pattern in my /sleep/ at this point.”

“I’ve been gone for /three hours/,” Yoruichi protested. “Have you literally been— you have. You sat your ass down in that chair and stared at glowing lines until you burned the lot into your mind.” She rocked back on her heels and rolled her eyes, arms crossing over her chest. “You two fools deserve each other, I swear.”

“Maa, surely we’re not /that/ bad,” Kisuke protested, flicking his wings open and bouncing a bit closer, sparks scattering in his wake.

Yoruichi fixed Kisuke with an exasperated look, then reached out to jab Erich in the chest. “Go on, get out of here, and take the birdbrain with you. Go… teach him how to be a bird, or something. He’s probably bored and restless anyway.”

Erich swatted Yoruichi’s hand away and rose from his seat, pulling on the falconer’s glove and testing its fit as he did. “He’s been helping,” Erich said, while triggering blut vene and offering his glove-covered arm to Kisuke.

“I’d be more surprised if he hadn’t been,” Yoruichi said. She leaned against the table, then let her own transformation trigger. Once more feline-shaped, she flicked her tail and sauntered off. “Have fun, boys!”

“Huh,” Erich murmured, leaning to the side to watch Yoruichi walk away. “It really is entirely kido and reiryoku based, isn’t it?” He hadn’t seen the slightest trace of mana flare when she did that, despite the way he could see every /other/ piece of mana surrounding him.

“Of course it is,” Kisuke answered, sidling onto Erich’s arm and gripping carefully. “Did you really think..?”

Erich shrugged his free shoulder and slowly lifted his arm, waiting for Kisuke to find his balance. “Souls changing form via rieryoku makes sense, but I had thought that mana might play even a small role. It would handily explain why some people cannot take a form other than their own, since not all people have mana.”

Kisuke fluffed his feathers and cocked his head, considering Erich’s words. “Well… that’s true. I wonder— maybe the initial change? Hm… or maybe this spell could have once been the basis..?” He carefully rearranged himself, flicking his long tail over Erich’s arm and settling so that his back was to Erich’s chest.

“I… maybe?” Erich offered, tucking his arm closer to his chest and reinforcing himself to support Kisuke’s weight. He left the lab and moved down the hallway, intending on taking both of them down into the training ground. “We have found ways to translate some parts of magecraft into kido. Maybe some of this spell translate easily?”

Erich nodded his thanks to Tsukabishi when the man knelt to open the trapdoor for him, and carefully stepped into the open air, solidifying the reishi beneath his feet. From there, it was easy to descend in a controlled manner, Kisuke held braced against his chest.

“We’ll need to examine the spell itself later,” Erich continued, moving his arm out and holding Kisuke up. “Once I get this untangled from you properly, I mean. I think it’s suppose to be some form of curse, actually? Because I don’t exactly see a way /out/ of the shape.”

Kisuke ground his beak in frustration, then turned his head to the side with a huff. “A curse that turned me into a /phoenix?/”

“I’ve heard odder,” Erich admitted with a laugh, bouncing his arm a bit until Kisuke started to instinctively flap his wings. Sparks swirled around them, driven by Kisuke’s wingbeats, and Erich couldn’t resist reaching out with his free hand to swipe at a few. “Stop thinking of curses as things that harm or kill, and realize that /anything/ can be a curse. All it needs is to be a negative effect on your life.”

“Magical rules are strange,” Kisuke muttered, glowering at Erich. “And what the hell are you /doing/, anyway?”

“Getting you to exercise your wings,” Erich said with amusement, letting his arm still and smirking at Kisuke. “As much as I’m looking forward to watching you fall out of the sky like most fledges do, I figured a bit of warm-up might help.”

“Fall out of the— hah!” Kisuke spread his wings wide and crouched. “Just you watch. This will be absolutely no trouble for me at all!”

Erich bit his lip, braced his arm as best he could, and tried not to burst into laughter before Kisuke had a chance to prove himself. He could be wrong, after all; the spell could have imparted the correct instincts on Kisuke in the process of changing him. He just… didn’t think that was the case.

Kisuke tensed, flexed his claws, then /leapt/, wings pumping desperately to drive him aloft.

Already, Erich knew the outcome. The way Kisuke was listing in the air, unable to right himself, was exactly like a young fledgling’s first few tries. At least the training ground didn’t have much in the way of obstacles to crash into.

Kisuke’s ungraceful landing on the dusty ground and subsequent noise of frustration had Erich laughing even as he approached.

“Well,” Erich said with a grin, “at least I’ll have plenty of blackmail.”

“Just wait,” Kisuke grumbled, sidling onto Erich’s arm again. “Just wait until karma comes to turn /you/ into something. I bet you’ll be something particularly frustrating to master. Like… like a /snake/. Or some sort of lizard.”

“So cruel, wishing a curse upon your lover.” Erich smirked and rose, lifting his arm out and bracing himself again. “Besides, I have no interest in Yoruichi’s little shifter-kido, and, unlike /someone/, I have the good sense to /not/ cast unknown spells upon myself.”

“Karma,” Kisuke hissed darkly. “Just you wait.”

“Oh, I’m waiting, alright,” Erich answered with a grin. “Waiting for someone to resume mastering flight.”

Kisuke snapped his beak at Erich, then launched himself from Erich’s arm once more.

Erich hummed and watched him rise, eyeing the swirl of sparks that trailed in Kisuke’s wake, then nodded. The lack of breeze or thermals was likely affecting Kisuke’s ability to gain height; he’d let the man try a few more times without, to get a feel for the mechanics of flight, before casting a little cantrip to invoke a breeze.

But oh, the blackmail this would give him to tease his lover with…

#bleach #tanya the evil #bleach/tanya #drabbles #my fic #unedited #phoenix!kisuke #Erich knows falconry even if it's not his favorite #Alexis loved falconry and welp it spilled over #Urahara Kisuke #erich von rerugen

[sandflakedraws]

Hey so I've been considering checking out abot for a while now. But before I do, I wanna know what the draw is for you. What do you like so much about it ?

Strap yourself in, we’re about to go through one longass hell of a ride. Fair warning that this gushy love letter has a good chunk of spoils for canon mp100 and abot alike, so do with that what you will. (though i keep most of the spoils to the earlier chapters so i can leave some firsthand experience left)

ABoT has 5 main (not all) attractions for me, most of which are incredibly personal :1. nuanced, actually mature depiction of abuse2. lack of a ‘perfect savior’3. plotting cause+effect4. scene setting (okay this one is more a taste thing that i happen to really love)5. incredible writing all around

Part 1. Nuanced, actually mature depiction of abuse.

I was an abused and neglected child. As such, it’s very easy to see where some of the appeal of this type of fanfic would come from. Course, I’d encourage a looksie regardless because it’s written with respect to the subject matter, and because fics like these have great potential to expand on human understanding and empathy.

THAT SAID ! In order to talk about the depiction of abuse in abot, I first need to talk about the abuse in mp100 canon.

To be frank, I think phantomrose96 handles it better than mp100. Especially the execution and aftermath of said topic.

For comparison I’m going to use the Mogami arc (an arc i do like, perhaps less than the majority of fandom, tho this’ll likely shed a light on why)

The depiction of abuse between abot and canon have some similarities. In both cases, Mob is uprooted from his foundations of support, and the strain goes on for a lengthy amount of time. Canon!Mob’s experiences are 6 months long, and abot!Mob is 4 years. The differences start hereafter, though.

For starters, with canon!Mob, we learn about his torture mainly through his own POV, with Mogami making commentary. His firsthand experience is bolded and put at the forefront, and functions as the end note of the scenes which feature them. Mob is isolated, ostracized, and bullied. He is beat up at several points. One such instance sees him lose a tooth. His bullies torture a cat to death, smash a brick on his head, and stab him with an exacto knife.The ‘maturity’ of canon!Mob’s abuse comes firstly from the severity and cruelty of it. And secondly, for how it could drive him into using his psychic powers against people willingly. It highlights that one can be as shaped by their surroundings as by their choices.It’s dark, and it’s weighty.

However, the abuse in the arc is used a mechanic, and is glossed over once its primary use is over with. No abuse in this vein crops up after this arc.

The point of it’s presence is to raise the stakes, to showcase “this is fucked up” and then move on when the lesson is learned. We only get 2 peaks that Mob even remembers it. Once is with Mob acting quite fearful when Mogami shows up again, and the other when Mob goes to help a cat off a pole.

Still, the fact remains that it’s never mentioned for the rest of mp100. 

And thusly, Mob is presented with no means to process or deal with the trauma other than to, presumably, remain quiet about it. Or otherwise, for the reader to assume that the experience was relegated to subconsciousness. After all, we’re told expressly with Minori that the memory begins to fade as early as a day after. 

This stance can be detrimental to those who experience abuse, as it can imply that no help exists for the survivor to seek. That it’s better to simply forget about it, and move on without guidance.

Which, y’know, could work fine if it was ONE’s intention to showcase that some people don’t deal with trauma outright, keeping it hidden.

But there is a difference between “purposefully writing someone to seem unaffected when they really are” and “purposefully writing a macguffin to clear the way of an old arc to make room for a new one" 

I love ONE’s writing, I do, but it seems very clear to me that he was giving himself an out for having to write long reaching consequences of such a brutal arc going forward. Folks can get from the arc what they want, and that’s hella valid. I mean, shit, my trauma was never front and center either when I was Mob’s age. 

However, there’s a clear delineation between coincidence and intentionality. 

By having the abuse all happen in a dreamlike world, he gives himself an out. The characters are more or less able to skirt around the issue, or otherwise forget about it.ONE thereby dodges having to write further complications to the story he wants to tell.

Enter A Breach of Trust.

In Abot, the aftermath of being abused is a part of Mob’s day to day life, like actual trauma do. And here, the process of dealing and coping with said abuse is the main function of it’s appearance in the fanfic.

The four years Mob spends on his own are broadly covered in a punchy ~1k words at the beginning of chapter 4 (the fic is 133k words long, for comparison). They are to let you know the nature of Mob’s problems, without lingering unnecessarily on them, exploiting them, or making them voyeuristic. And in fact, Mob gets out of the Mogami house in chapter 8 (again, in a fic 24 chaps long).

The rest of the chapters where Mob makes an appearance are about addressing what he went through, and trying to help him. 

As opposed to mp100 canon, we learn a lot of information as to the nature of what mob experienced through Reigen. He often has sad or horrified responses, as one could expect to have in his shoes. But his response is not the end note of the scenes which feature them. Instead, it’s the actions he and Mob take, in equal turns, to bring about change which gets the end note.

I’ll use the milk scene in chapter 11 as an example.

Reigen learns a piece of information about Mob’s life, namely that he was denied milk:

“You have milk?”

“Uh…yeah. Not even expired. I bought it like two days ago.”

“But Shishou said…” Mob swallowed the words. His breathing picked up, eyes flickering across the single carton of milk in Reigen’s fridge. Slowly, his voice almost choked, Mob answered, “Yes, yes please…”

Reigen’s response:

He couldn’t fathom what sort of world the kid had just escaped, but he knew now he didn’t want to. And he didn’t want to make Mob relive it, not if it was something so horrific that a single glass of warm milk could move him to tears.

The end note of the scene (literally the last line):

“Here,” Reigen said, sliding his mug across the oaken table. “Have mine too…”

Abot, unlike a good chunk of media, seeks not to use traumatic experiences as a throwaway mechanic for a separate, main focus. Or as a stand in for faux character depth or grittiness. I’m lookin at you Kaneki Ken.  Or worse, as an inevitable reality. No.

The actual maturity of abot!Mob’s abuse, which I’ve been hootin about with the title card, comes from its application to Mob.

It will not be brushed off as a bad dream. It will not be relegated to subconscious, or forgotten. It is not a ‘shortcut to coolness’, or a ‘dark history’ to earn abot!mob some tragic backstory cred. Nor will it be “solved” with a single long talk, or hug, or even to just put Mob back in his house.

Abot seeks to offer a more layered, real world approach to it. That trauma, fictional or not, does not make you cooler. That it takes several, seemingly small steps to start on the path of recovery. And that there is no reaching your “before” status, but just changing the shape of your “after”.

For that matter! Mob also has agency of his own. It is not Reigen that springs Mob from the Mogami house, but rather Mob himself, taking matters into his own hands. 

There was no plan to it. Mob moved. He raced to the door and the inky world beyond. His feet collided with cold stone. Stone became grass, which sheared away before each footfall, leaving wet pulp and mud beneath his beating steps. The vastness of the open sky and the world stretching off in all directions, even after four years, could not overwhelm him more than the image of his dead Shishou scorched behind his eyelids.

Mob will fight on matters he considers important, calling the cops, for example.

Mob’s jaw moved, his wide eyes steeled over, harder now, resolve tight in his face. He looked up to Reigen. “I…wouldn’t like that, Mr. Reigen.”

He’ll voice his own opinion, draw his own conclusions, set his own goals.

His hands twisted in his lap, eyes dropping to them for a moment before they flickered up with new, burning resolve. “…If you could teach me…”

“Teach you?”

Mob nodded vigorously. “How you’re getting rid of it.”

And Mob is not relegated to cowering at all times either.  He’ll enjoy things he likes, build himself up, amongst other things.

The rain drenched him. Through the blues and pinks, water could pass. Water wasn’t living, so it wasn’t stopped, it wasn’t shredded. But it felt alive enough to Mob. It felt like something that wanted to reach him, and could.

Mob shut his eyes and smiled. Even if he couldn’t suppress the barrier now, that wasn’t reason enough to give up, not this time around. This time was different.

Rest assured that this journey is as much an active choice on Mob’s part, as it is Reigen’s. Reigen is simply a guide for Mob. And he’s meandering through his guidance half the time, which brings me to part deux.

Part 2. Lack of a perfect savior

I will be the first to admit that Reigen is hilariously flawed. Abot!Reigen likewise. And yes! This is another reason why I like Abot ^^

Preface in place before I talk about this, I am. a tough ass customer. We just had a whole previous section of analysis to illustrate that (which confession time, i cut that down by half), but to go more in depth - It is extremely easy to take me out of a story. And this is because, ironically, I love storytelling.

For better or worse, when I’m consuming media, I cannot turn off the storytelling part of my brain. Ergo, if I see something that can be improved, I’m launched back into a 4th person perspective, no longer engaging directly with the content. Sometimes it’s minor enough where I don’t mind any. But unfortunately, more often than not, it’s enough to get me to drop things when too many instances pile up. 

And as one of those Hoity Toity Connoisseurs of the hurt/comfort genre, the human version of the Messianic Archetype™ is both a common occurrence, and a surefire way to get me to drop your story upon first sight.

I cannot engage with media that have regular ass people know exactly how to react, what to say, what to read into, on the first try, when the nature of human existence so chaotic and varied.

Maybe that kid is hiding under the table because you’re wearing fuchsia, maybe it’s because your voice sounds like someone they had a nightmare about, maybe its because the lights hurt their eyes, maybe it’s because they feel safer in cramped spaces, maybe they’re eating ants. You don’t know. They don’t know. Getting things wrong is as much a part of the process as getting things right.

SO!!! ONCE MORE WITH FEELING!!! ABOT!!!

Phantomrose makes it clear, as early as Reigen & Mob’s first meeting, that we’re dealing with a regular ass human fuckup, even in the midst of the rose filter from Mob’s POV.

In the scene, Reigen is presented as being undoubtedly ignorant as to the true nature of what the hell is going on. He, mistakenly, does not believe that the barrier is real. All he knows that is Mob has come from some Yikes and needs help. Oh, and in Reigen’s limited knowledge, he thinks there’s a confirmed Dead Man off somewhere too.

And yet, despite the pressing circumstances, or y’know, having a presumed corpse he should probably mention to somebody, Reigen does not call the cops.

“Okay. Okay… Do you—just—do you want to come to my house? Just for tonight. It’s…late. Don’t feel like dealing with any more police officers tonight anyway. Maybe we just…go sleep. Get you some clothes or, a shower probably. It’s…I’m tired. You’ve got to be tired too.”

We get an explanation for this later on, in chapter 14…

What if he ran off again, back to his dead Shishou’s basement…?

…but. Were the audience not clued into Mob’s circumstances, one would argue that though well intentioned, Reigen’s messing up. And despite the many things Reigen does to help Mob (which he does, he really does) this motif continues throughout the fic.

With Reigen sometimes saying insensitive things to Mob.

“No, I’m…” Mob paused. He hiccupped, voice still hitching, body still trembling. “I’m sorry Shishou is dead. I did something to make him kill himself. I know it.”

“Good, Mob. Good…”

Mob stared up, jaw slack, baffled.

With Reigen often acting as much as his own interest as in Mob’s.

“Toast, Mob, it’s going to be toast. And eggs. And yes. This is breakfast for both of us, and you’re going to help.” Reigen looked the boy over, and the feeling in his chest was almost manic. He was looking at something maybe he could fix.

Where Reigen will make logical assumptions, but false ones nonetheless.

“I’m going to grab just a handful of things from those aisles, okay? Not going far. I just want you to stay here, with the paper, and pick up our order when it’s ready. Okay? It’s another exercise. I’m still here. I’m still suppressing the barrier. I just think you’re strong enough to stand here for a moment by yourself. Can you do that?”

–carved things up, sliced them, killed them…

Mob’s mind filled with static.

He nodded. It was the only thing he could think to do.

Reigen smiled, and stood up from his crouched position. He turned on his heel, toward the left side of the store. He rounded the edge of the counter, and suddenly he was gone.

And yes ! As a survivor, this shit is important to me. 

These scenes showcase that comfort does not have to be found gift wrapped, pure and untainted, and delivered by an angel spluttering down from the shiniest parts of heaven. No. It can be found in people who are flawed and sometimes selfish and who are just trying. It can be found in folks like abot!Reigen.

In folks who weren’t predestined by some holy undertaking, but rather who are just making the best of the circumstances they find themselves thrust into.

SPEAKING OF WHICH,

Part 3. Plotting cause + effect 

I’ll be honest and say this is something I learned very recently from Phanrose. 

From my creative perspective, as long as an action is in character for someone, I can find a way to make it happen. A good showcase for this is, ironically enough, Attic Au, and it’s many incarnations. I can adapt to circumstances to cause what I want to happen. 

This is, again, a tie-in to the way I rationalize the chaotic nature of human existence. Sometimes shit can just do, and as long as you pull hard enough emotionally, you can get people on board. So I spend a lot of time on the “why”, with my “hows” remaining fairly lose and interchangeable.

Abot takes this in the opposite direction. She says ‘okay but what if I use the chaotic nature of human existence to cause everything to bump into eachother’.

And honestly I’m kinda tripping over it ?? Like it’s extremely fun ? Connecting all these dots? And it doesn’t feel convenient either. It feels like a logical progression.

To use early examples, as I have been for the most part:

Jun hires Reigen to investigate her husband Tetsuo disappearing at weird hours.

“That’s really all I want from this.” She looked up now, palms in her lap, eyes set to Reigen. “I want you to just figure out what’s going on because I can’t.”

Reigen then discovers that Tetsuo is being possessed.

A thousand memories assaulted him at once, tainted with the raw smell of incense, the grittiness of salt between his fingers and under his nails, dimmed lights and candles and incantations and that dread in the air, like pressure, that he felt whenever a Spirits and Such case turned out to be real.

Reigen decides to confront Mogami 2 different times. The first time he learns his identity, and the second time Reigen gets too close to hitting on Mob’s presence for Mogami’s comfort.

“Why did you buy cough syrup today?” Reigen blurted out. “You miss that taste too? Tetsuo doesn’t have a cold. It’s not for him. You got other puppets I don’t know about?!”

Mogami threatens to kill Tetsuo and take Reigen, so Reigen makes a bargain (with newly cut up hand to make his 1 sigil out of 1000 work).

Reigen thrust his hands down and out, body displayed unprotected. Sweat slid down his face, soaked through his suit, mixed with the blood in his palm. “Come possess me! Space for rent right here, y-yeah? Yeah! Not gonna resist. Not gonna fight. All I’m gonna do is slam you with these tags if you get too close!” 

The tag works, banishing Mogami. Mob notices the lack of Mogami’s presence, and goes looking for him.

Even when Mogami left the house, his aura only ever grew fainter, steadily diffused as Mogami established distance between himself and the house. It was an easy blip to detect at all times. It was a constant thrumming presence in Mob’s life for the last four years.

And it had vanished in an explosion that left Mob’s psychic core ringing.

“…Shishou?” Mob called through the door.

Upon finding Mogami’s corpse in the attic, Mob makes for the streets, thinking Mogami has freshly killed himself and that he can no longer stay there.

Mob shot down the hall, took the stairs two at a time with his hand skimming the banister. His mind wasn’t clearing. His thoughts weren’t forming. The reality of what he’d seen beat in heavier against him with each passing second. Mob let out another keening crying, finding no response in the black house.

Another brush of wind, Mob turned toward the foyer. He’d been right—the front door had been left open.

This makes for a wonderful storytelling device. Firstly, it makes the audience both wary and excited for the consequences of any actions in the future. If any action can seemingly build off one another, what’s to say a throwaway moment wont come back to haunt us? 

Plus! Aside from making scenes engaging, it also subverts some tropes while it’s at it.

Reigen, despite literally being a PI, does not find Mob on a missing person’s case. And does not discover Mob either of the times he followed Tetsuo into the Mogami house. Instead he only finds Mob by the boy crashing into him. Which only happens again because of a set up in chapter 3.

This carries on and spills over into Ritsu’s plotline too! Which nbnmbxn, I haven’t touched on as much in order to leave a good chunk of story there to peruse as you will.

I’ve learned a lot just from watching pr96 chisel out a story. And you wanna know what else I’ve learned?

Part 4. Scene setting 

OKAY I FESS UP THIS IS JUST ME HAVING A THING FOR SETTINGS BEING INCORPORATED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE SCENE OKAY, OKAY.

With that out of the way, she’s damn good at it yall.

Phantomrose96 likes to employ what I call mood scenery. Where the physical objects present in a setting take a backseat to how the characters feel about it, and therefore flesh it out all the better.

Compare how Reigen sees his apartment:

Reigen cringed a bit as he looked about, taking in, remembering the mess decorating the living room. The ashtray on the table overflowed with cigarette butts, staining the wood around it with sooty acrid residue. Three empty plates were pushed to the table’s edge, scraped of food and left to stagnate for…how many days, Reigen wasn’t sure. Empty beer cans gathered in a herd near them, a few on the floor, leaving sticky coagulated rings around their rim and smelling of staleness, of stagnant fermentation.

With how Mob sees it:

Mob’s apprehension eased off. The look was replaced entirely with something like confusion. He pulled out of his blanket cocoon, let his eyes rove over the apartment in full inspection. The confusion never left his face.

“It’s so much cleaner than Shishou’s house.”

Scenes like this are peppered and expertly handled throughout the entirety of abot. 

As a comic illustrator, I often struggle with coming up with backgrounds that tell you a bit about the circumstances of the people who live there, and about the mood of someone viewing it. But Phananarosa does it.

And, like. every setting is like this. Instead of getting fatigue at scene changes, I eagerly dive in because what’s not to love !!! It captures just enough details that it can be fleshed out, without boring the audience with a surplus of inconsequential details.

Teruki walked past the rows of lockers. Further back were bathroom stalls. Three sinks lined up beneath a wall-length mirror. This area existed as its own pocket, seemingly separate from the rest of the lockers, and the light only scarcely touched it. The shadows grew heavy along a gradient, the farthest sink half shrouded in darkness. Even farther back, crowned by a single burnt-out hanging light, was a row of four showerheads, no curtains separating one from the next.

It is no coincidence that some of the backgrounds I consider to be some of my better ones, are ones I made for abot.

It’s very apparent that Phanro9 knows what she’s doing with the words she chooses to dress these with. And, you guessed it, TIME TO SEGUE INTO

Part 5. Incredible writing all around

Okay now I can just gush about some the extra little details that GhostFlower96 uses that just make her tale that much more fun to read.

Amazing dialogue. Especially in Reigen’s case.

“Gottaswirl the eggs to seal in the moisture. Gotta just…put extra butteron the toast, I guess, so you don’t taste the black part cuz that’sprobably bitter, so you—never mind I’ll make different toast thatisn’t burned, gimme your plate.”

You ever tire of reading fics where the characters sound the same ? Spectreblossom has got you covered!

He thrust a hand out, palm open to Ritsu. “My name is Teruki Hanazawa. I’m the esper who’s better than you.”

Ritsu stared at the offered hand. He fought the instinct to step back. “The spirits didn’t say anyone owned them.” He paused, and weighed his options. “And who says you’re stronger than I am?”

Say you wanna feel ur heartstrings tugged because god oh god he’s a mess but he’s still good for something. we got a fresh supply

Beside them, the rice pot boiled over, glutinous water dripping down the black pot’s side and charring against the newly cleaned grating. The sauce bowl sat stagnant and undissolved, a colloid of new and stale ingredients perhaps unsalvageable for the recipe. Broken spoons, filthy sponges, open containers of starch and sugar and soy sauce littered the counter tops, the smell of something burning lingering overtop.

And at the center of the mess, Mob sliced the knife clean through the red bell pepper.

You wanna be haunted by singular closing lines? Already on it.

Thebarrier swept back around Mob, like the curtain drawn at the close ofa play.

Kids ? Being written like kids ? In phantomroseyboboeybananafanafofoseyfiphimomoseyphantomrosey’s fanfic? It’s more likely than you think! 

“After this, can we go back to the park?” Mob asked. He wobbled, tilting his head over his shoulder to ask Mogami directly.

“We go to the park every day.” Mogami answered. He walked the sidewalk, thin silver hair catching sunlight and twists of icy wind. The hollow pockets beneath his eyes were deep, but not unkind, intently watchful of Mob who dipped and wavered with each balance-beam step.

“Yeah, because I like it.”

You want some de-glorification of teenage violence? Boy have I just the thing.

He felt 9 again, scared, weak, unsafe, and he cried quietly while he watched the consciousness leave Teruki’s body.

Limp and loose, Teruki’s hands dropped from the tie around his neck.

You like metaflours and symbopolism ? WE GOT THAT TOO

Reigen looked over his shoulder. Mob shut the door behind them, turning to investigate the apartment with wide captive eyes. “…It’s warm,” he muttered, and stepped in line behind Reigen.

You wanna feel like you got punched in your chest ? Even on things you knew already ? Even things you had every tool in your belt to see coming?

Reigen stopped. He lost track of his own words as his focus fell entirely on the sight in front of him. The kid was standing halfway between the bathroom and the living room, his hair still a bit wet, and his borrowed clothes soft and loose. He stood a head shorter than Reigen, and his wide eyes stared back, lost, waiting for instruction. Waiting as though he needed permission to even get his sheets and go to bed.God, it really was just a kid…

fuck ing , d we . g o t       tHat    t o o         goddammit

If you wanna read, you can start here ! Or here, on tumblr.

#anon #joey babbles #abot #long post #long long post #cw: blood #for canon mob #mp100 spoilers #abot spoilers #? #well i'll tag it anyways

[vankoya]

Saviour of the Good Days.

➢ A Christmas drabble series based on this list!

Genre | Sense8 AU.

Pairing | Jung Hoseok / Feminine Reader.

Conspectus | Even the worst days can have some good in them. That good, always, arrives as the same person. The one that your entire body and soul is inexplicably entwined with.

It has been a very, very bad day.

Indeed, it has been one of those days where you wake up and have an overwhelming feeling that you should most definitely not leave your bed, because nothing good will come from it. And although you eventually roll yourself to the edge of your mattress and lethargically drag your limbs into an upward position; although you think it can’t be that bad, just get on with it; the whole world unforgivingly crumbles to shit around you, and you get caught in the rockslide.

It was a case of one bad thing after another. A pile of small inconveniences that built and built, slowly becoming more unstable with every new weight added to the mountain. First, there was realising that you forgot to buy a new jar of coffee granules yesterday afternoon, and so you could not make yourself a cup of liquid adrenaline the instant you awoke. Then, there was knocking a half-full glass of water over important documents during your nine-to-five at the office. Later, there was your card declining when you tried to purchase a Christmas gift for your best friend, and the sudden flash of remembrance that rent money came out at midday and, to make it worse, you still do not get paid for another three days.

Now, your car has broken down on the side of the road in the middle of a small snowstorm, which is terribly classic because you abso-fucking-lutely despise snow in general. This right here is the breaking point; the collapse; the crush of your body beneath the weight of all the shitty things that have occurred today. This right here is the cherry on top of the shit cake of shitty shit things, and like a flooding riverbed, your barriers break down and you sob the frustrations out.

“What the hell,” you furiously whisper through a sniffle, forehead resting against the steering wheel of your car as snow pelts down on the town outside. “What’s up the world’s ass today? Is it ‘poke fun at ___’ day?”

“Want me to fight the world for you?”

The voice, while more familiar than the back of your own hand, nonetheless makes you jolt in your seat with a short squeal. Some sensates say that you never get used to it. Having a group of people in your head who share all of your senses, your skills, and can mentally materialise right beside you, although their real bodies remain to be separated from you by thousands of miles. Others express that it takes time. Rather than living as individual people, you learn to be a cluster of minds that coexist all at once, and the intermingling of your lives becomes as natural as before you became connected by the souls.

You are at the midway point of the spectrum.

“Depends,” you say, voice still a little choked with your emotional outburst. “Will fighting the world revive the documents I spent hours working on, only to ruin them completely with my damn elbow colliding with an misfortunately placed glass of water?”

He makes a contemplative sound. “Maybe not. But watching the world get punched in the face by my fists might make you smile, at least.”

At that, there is a watery curl of your lips, and you lean against the headrest of your seat, tilting to the side to face him. Jung Hoseok, who you have mentally, physically, and emotionally been connected with for little beyond a year now, is already watching you with an adoring smile. A South Korean mechanic from a city called Gwangju, who towers over you in height with messily styled hair the colour of the night sky at its darkest; juxtaposed by his bright, sunshine-like features; doused in gold. Even the dreary weather cannot suck the honey from his skin. He remains to attain a soft, pleasant glow that you swear brightens every time his mouth shapes itself into a waning moon, shimmering like sunlight on a calm ocean.

Perhaps, the visible radiance is just your imagination. Then again, you cannot necessarily trust anything you see in your head, these days.

“There it is,” he coos. The thick, fur-lined leather jacket that he wears gives a muffled squeak when he reaches over the gear stick to pat your thigh. Although he is all in your mind, the touch feels as real as ever; sets warmth aflame in your cheeks. “Now that seeing your pretty smile has been ticked off my to-do list, what’s happened here? The car has broken down?”

You wipe at the silvery tracks on your face with your mittens, inwardly hoping you do not look as much of a wreck as you feel. “Something like that. There was a bang, and by the time I pulled it off the road, it had completely stopped.” Hoseok goes to open his mouth, but you swiftly cut him off, already able to see the question he is going to ask by the playful twinkle of his eye. “And no, I haven’t run out of gas. I still have half a tank left, smart ass.”

Hoseok chuckles, directing his gaze out the windshield where the road is being painted white. “Well, my next best guess is that you’ve popped a tyre.” He twists so he can face the backseat, eyeing your spare black parka. “I’ll need your help. Can we use that to keep ourselves shielded in this mini storm? Wait, do you even have a spare tyre?”

“Yes, and yes,” you confirm, already pulling the parka into your lap. “The jack should be in the trunk, too…” Your voice trails off when you take in Hoseok’s attire of the leather jacket, combat boots, blue jeans, and a thin sweater. Most certainly not suited for snow, nonetheless a snowstorm. “Are you sure you won’t be cold?”

“I’m not literally here,” he reminds you with a smirk, unlocking the passenger door. “As long as you’re warm, I’m warm too. I’m feeling what your senses are feeling, right now.”

At that, your feeble heart stutters, and you avidly attempt to not focus on the thought of him feeling something a lot less innocent than the cold weather. “R-Right. Okay. Let’s get to it, then.”

The pair of you stumble into the already calming storm, heading straight for the trunk. Hoseok pulls out the spare tyre and the jack, while you remain huddled close to him with the parka pulled around your bodies in a feeble defence against the assaulting white. It is rather fascinating to observe him changing the tyre; the concentrated, determined frown of his features; the deft movements of his bare hands as they skilfully work. Under his breath, he mutters to himself, as if vocally making his way through the steps. His tousled fringe falls in his eyes, and he keeps having to blow it back with short, slightly irritated huffs. You know that you are ogling like an idiot, but you cannot help it when everything he does is just so… insanely attractive.

Hoseok seems to catch onto this by the time he has completed the job, and you are darting your eyes away from his face where they had been embarrassingly burning holes for the past ten minutes. He notices how closely you are crouched beside him; the parka-shield surrounding the two of you in a cosy cocoon only serving to force your body-warmth to share the space. Around your huddled figures, the storm has completely relaxed into peaceful snowing. Out the corner of your eye, you can see the way his expression softens, melting like butter.

“T-Thanks. For this. I really appreciate it, Hoseok,” you mumble in a pathetic attempt to cover up your ridiculously intense staring. When you go to drop the parka away, no longer a necessity, he softly catches your elbow, halting the action. You pray to every deity that he believes your watery gaze is due to the icy weather.

“No need to thank me, I’m happy to help,” Hoseok says gently, squeezing your elbow. The warmth of your face ignites into that of a pot reaching boiling point. His own cheeks light up in a rosy flush, and you wonder if that is your own senses reacting with his own, or if they are solely his, making him blush completely by themselves. “If it makes you happy, I’m happy.”

There, you realise how near his face is to your own. There, you think that you could move forwards three inches, and you would be able to kiss him. There, Hoseok seems to understand the same idea that is running its dangerous course through your mind, because he slowly, incrementally, leans, and leans, and leans–

A car door slamming shocks you out of your intoxicated daze. You physically fall backwards from your crouch, collapsing into the snow with a surprised shriek. Almost immediately afterward, a flustered, middle-aged women wearing a pink beanie with a giant pompom on top is offering her hand to you.

Hoseok is nowhere to be seen.

“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry for frightening you, darling!” She says in a high voice as she helps you back to your feet. “I saw you all by your lonesome on the side of the road, and couldn’t help but worry. Did you pop a tyre? Oh- Wow! You changed that all by yourself? How impressive of...” 

The woman continues to ramble on, but your attention has been snagged elsewhere. Still stunned from the almost that was finally about to occur; that was yanked away from you at the last second, like teasing a dog with a bone. And then, suddenly, all you can focus on is a familiar hand gingerly curling around your wrist.

A pair of silky, warm lips pressing to your cheek.

“Merry Christmas, ___,” Hoseok murmurs into your ear, planting another soft peck on the lobe, drawing fire in its wake. “I hope your day gets better.”

“... Gee, I remember when my husband nearly drove us into oncoming traffic when I– Honey, are you okay? You look like you’ve just seen Big Foot!”

Note | Sensates are a ‘cluster’ of human beings who are mentally and emotionally linked, able to sense and communicate with each other, as well as share their knowledge, language and skills. Please watch the show. It is phenomenal.

All Rights Reserved © Vankoya. No translations, reposting and/or modifying of the material is allowed without my direct permission.

#hoseok x reader #hoseok fluff #bts x reader #bts fluff #hobi fluff #jung hoseok #lights in the pines #vankoya #this one was a mess but it's okay #and I know christmas is over #but I had written 3/4 of this #and couldn't wait until bloody next year to post it

[esandcasg]

Chatper 12: The Sound of the Underground

Part 1

We entered the illuminated tunnel, a stunning engineering masterpiece somehow dug into the rock of K2 at over eight thousand meters. I paused and tried to take in my surroundings. What was this place? Asides from the obvious feelings of uncertainty caused by such a discovery, there was something greater that didn’t seem right here. A nagging feeling. I could almost sense the evil drifting along the tunnel and escaping into the Karakoram mountain air.

But clearly Ifan didn’t share my concern. “This way,” he said, as he stormed off down the tunnel, convinced he knew where he was going. It reminded me of the night of Andrew’s wedding. This time I only hoped I wasn’t calling him repeatedly in a few hours and getting his voicemail. I hoped that it was the version of Ifan that we saw in Mallorca, the super hero Ifan who saved our asses when no one else knew where the fuck we were.

Gingerly, I set off after him.

After about one hundred meters we came out in a large cavernous room, much like a few chapters ago. Please refer to that if you want more details. A tall man dressed entirely in black Rab climbing gear stood in the centre, breathing into bottled oxygen.

He turned and faced us.

“I knew you would fail me,” he said, his voice distorted behind his high altitude breathing mask.

Suffering under the effects of high altitude, it took a moment to realise that he was in fact talking to me. He knew who I was. Something flashed in my memory. This room. This figure in front of me. I had been here before, just a few weeks before. Perhaps it was even what caused my injuries…

In recent weeks my mind had been like a swamp, as I tried in vain to drag memories to the surface through some sort of viscous fluid. But seeing this figure triggered something in the depths of my brain; the memories came flooding back. Kangleong. The disaster. The hunt for Craven… For my father.

Finally, the realisation that he was the man who stood before us.

I didn’t have a chance to think what these developments meant before he was on the move, striding over towards us.

“But what have you brought me here?” He asked, approaching Ifan.

He stood in front in him and grabbed his shoulders, as if he was measuring him up. At this close proximity his physical presence was overwhelming. He stood at around six and a half feet, which put him over two feet taller than Ifan.

“My, what an amazing physical specimen,” he said, taking a step back from Ifan. “You’re a little short to be a stormtrooper, but you will do nicely.”

“What is this?” Said Ifan, finally speaking up. The confusion in his voice indicating that he had about as much idea of what was going as I did. There was also an element of fear.

“You will be the source subject for my army.”

“What source subject? What the hell is this?”

Ifan started stepping backwards, towards the tunnel that we’d come in. I knew we should have turned around. I knew it was wedding night Ifan.

In a flash Craven covered the distance to Ifan once again, drawing his ice-axe in the process. He went to strike, but stopped just below Ifan’s chin (so his upper chest).

“You misunderstand, it wasn’t a request. You will join me, or you will meet your destiny.”

*

For three years we had been Craven’s captives. Never confined or imprisoned, but never free to leave either. It wasn’t like the Indian kids on Temple of Doom, for example.

Living life in the death zone had been tough, but gradually we acclimatized, thereby proving theories wrong that the body cannot adapt to these altitudes and it starts breaking down. It was somewhat helped by the fact that Craven had created an vacuum air lock and set the air pressure to reproduce the conditions of 7,999m above sea level, so we all felt pretty good after a while.

Well, as mountaineers we felt good. As human beings we felt like shit (Elbrus reference).

We had witnessed horror. We had seen Craven becoming more and more twisted and evil, more machine than human, and gaining greater power and wielding it as he saw fit.

In these three years we had helped in the construction of all of Craven’s weapons. First, there was the machine that destroyed mountains or could at least create localised avalanches, code name ‘The Death Peak’. Then the weapon that could control the weather, code name ‘The Death Storm’. And finally a secret project that Ifan was involved with, code name ‘The Death Finger’.

Whenever Ifan returned from a secret rendezvous he was a broken man, like the morning after a drinking session before he discovered Alka-Seltzer. And self-control. I had feared for his sanity. But I was also secretly jealous. Craven had cast me aside and labelled me incompetent, whereas Ifan now seemed key to his plans. But no matter how much I probed, Ifan refused to tell me what was going on. The only information that I managed to get out of him was that it involved capturing Andrew, and the meetings tied in with the arrival of Craven’s boss. I shuddered at the thought of someone being higher up the crazy ladder than Craven.

It had left me with a feeling of frustration. What was I doing here? What was Craven up to? What did he want with Andrew?

One morning Ifan was missing. Over the past three years I had grown used to his routine: Get up. Coffee with muesli or granola. Few episodes of Frasier. Decaf coffee. Intertwined would be at least two trips for a dump. But not today. Had Craven finally broken him?

After searching for a few hours, I had found him at the entrance to a cave nestled deep in Craven’s jungle district within the K2 tunnel network, a feng shui type arrangement Craven had introduced to bring balance to all the evilness. He was standing in the middle of the tunnel passageway, staring into the cave, a vacant expression on his face. As I approached him I tried to follow his gaze and see what caught his attention, but could only make out the opening meters of a cave, the light quickly fading and leaving a deep blackness.

“What is it?” I asked, as I drew level with him.

He didn’t answer. Instead he continued to stare ahead.

“What is it?” I asked again. “What’s got you so spooked?... Ifan!”

I grabbed his shoulder, and he suddenly snapped out of his trance, turning to face me, his eyes bulging with something that resembled fear. I hadn’t seen him this spooked since I suggested a takeaway pizza on the way back from having an Indian.

“There’s something in those trees,” he said at last.

I suddenly became aware of a change in temperature. Up until now my green Arcteryx shell jacket had been sufficient at this elevation and temperature, but now suddenly it didn’t feel appropriate. Like the moment Heidi’s mum started wearing Arcteryx gear.

“Something isn’t right,” I said. “I feel cold.”

Ifan turned back to face the cave.

“This place is strong. Craven. A domain of evil, he is. You must go.” He pointed towards the cave opening.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

“All that you can’t leave behind,” he replied.

Not sure what that meant, I set off towards the cave opening. Darkness was to keep us apart, and daylight felt like a long way off.

I walked only a few meters before Ifan spoke again. “Your ice-axes. You will not need them.”

I ignored him and continued my passage into the cave. Why I had listened to Ifan, I could not tell you. But intuition told me that the answers to the questions that I sought lay deep within these granite walls.

I navigated my way through snakes and iguanas, briefly stopping to chow down on a Yoda sausage, before coming into a clearing. At this distance from any light source it was difficult to see much of anything. I was surrounded by near blackness, and could only make out vague shapes in front of me.

From somewhere close by came the unmistakable sound of mechanical breathing. Almost immediately the cave was illuminated in a dull red colour, as Craven lit up his ice-axe. He was just meters away from me. The red light hit his black outfit, creating a purple colour that Samuel Jackson would have liked. I scrambled to get my ice-axe out of the holster as he started walking towards me. I had seen Craven move with lightning speed, but now he sauntered, almost as if time had slowed down.

I felt the overwhelming drive of adrenaline take hold in my body.

His ice-axe sliced through the air. I raised mine and blocked his strike. As he drew back again I saw an opening and slashed at his head with my full force. There was contact, and his head was removed clean from his body. Who knew an ice-axe was this lethal?

As his severed head rolled to a stop, the oxygen mask and balaclava exploded revealing a face behind. I walked over.

For a moment I thought it was Nicholas Lyndhurst, before realising it was Andrew.

Shocked, my mind was unable to process what I was seeing. Was Andrew in fact Craven? That made no sense. Especially as this is a flashback and both Andrew and Craven are still at large. And Andrew was nowhere near six and a half feet… but then neither was Hayden Christensen. But as the shock subsided and the more logical part of my brain started taking over again,  the answer became obvious. This was a sign. And it opened up my eyes.

I realised Craven’s plan for Andrew, and most importantly, why.

I ran towards the cave exit, where I saw Ifan still standing in a trance, like the time he saw the Jenna Jameson doppleganger on the dancefloor in Ealing. He seemed to snap out of it as I ran past him. He grabbed hold of me.

“Woah, what is happening?” He asked.

“You know what is going on. How did you do it?”

“Do what? What are you talking about?”

“Craven… in the cave.”

“What?” Ifan seemed genuinely surprised by what I was telling him. He turned and stared into the cave opening.

“You genuinely don’t know what I am talking about?”

“No.”

“I know what Craven is up to. We need to get out here. We need to save Andrew.”

“What!? Why? We haven’t seen Andrew since Kangleong.”

“Andrew is our friend, we have to help him.”

“This doesn’t make any sense. Why this sudden need to save Andrew.”

How much could I trust Ifan now? He’d been a slave to Craven for the last few years, a key part in some sort of operation. But I realized that I couldn’t trust anyone else. Ifan was it. And I needed help to escape. I had to roll the dice.

I drew a breath. “Okay. You know Craven has wanted Andrew, right? The question we have never asked is why. I now know.”

“Go on…” said the beefy Instagram influencer in front of me.

“Because… because Andrew is also Craven’s son. He’s my brother. But whilst he’s given up on me, Craven sees him as the natural successor.”

“What? This is a crazy plot twist! How did you not know this before now?”

“I guess we were separated at birth or something. So do you see now? It’s obvious; save Andrew, save the world.”

Ifan seemed to consider this for a moment. “Even if this was true…”

“From a certain point of view?” I interrupted.

“Right, even if it was true from a certain point of view, surely the biggest issue here is that we can’t escape this place. We are trapped as Craven’s prisoners.”

He was right. But then an idea flashed in my mind. Something that was totally original.

“We dress as Craven’s troops, and we simply walk out.”

Ifan nodded. “My God, that’s brilliant.”

It had taken some time and effort to escape K2. We were deep in the depths of Craven’s tunnels – I think I wrote that – and whilst we were dressed as Craven’s men, we didn’t want to draw suspicion. Eventually we reached the serac door and pushed it open.

It had been over three years since we’d seen daylight, and we both winced as the harsh mountain sun hit our faces. Looking over, I was pleased to see that Ifan was sporting his permatan however. We stepped through the opening and began our descent down the face of the bottleneck.

At the base of the infamous passageway, we came across the body of a mountaineer who had seemingly been left for dead. As I drew closer I saw that it was in fact the body of mountaineering legend Lewis Hamilton. And he was still alive.

“Lewis, are you okay?” I asked, kneeling down next to him.

“Oh man, aye iz like proper fucked, bruv.”

I could see now that his gangsta braids were all frozen. He must have been out here for quite a while.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I climbed Kota Kinabalu and then everyone was like ‘you should totally climb Kilimanjaro next, man.’”

“This isn’t Kilimanjaro, this is K2.”

“That iz like da same ting. Anyways, turns out mountaineering is proper bo.”

I did the whole world a favour and kicked him off the side of K2.

I turned back to Ifan. “Come on, let’s go.”

Ifan didn’t follow me. “Wait. What are we even going to do when we find Andrew?”

“We’ll make some shit up (refer to chapters 1-11). Let’s just get him moving. I think heading to the Gasherbrums could be a good place to start.”

With that Ifan pulled back his sleeve and hit a few buttons on his wrist computer.

Part 2

A blast of frigid Himalayan air brough me back to present day. I was momentarily rocked backwards on my heals, and I became aware of how close to the edge of New Kangleong summit plateau I was. I instinctively took a step forward. A step towards Craven.

“I have waited a long time for this moment,” he said. He was standing around twenty meters away on the actual summit mound, his black cape flapping in the wind. “Don’t ask me precisely how long, as I have totally lost track of timings in this book. But long enough.”

I kept quiet. I took the prayer flags out of my jacket pocket and held them in my hand. If I could only plant them where Craven stood, then… then what? This would be over? Craven would instantly combust and bring order to the galaxy? I started to doubt the plan.

“Prayer flags won’t save you, my son. It’s over, I have the higher ground.”

I kept quiet. Instead I bravely took a step towards him. He drew his ice-axe back, adopting the ancient Muay Boran attack stance. But his next move surprised me as he knelt down and drove the ice-axe into the ground. There was an instantaneous explosion of piercing red light. I turned my back to him and simultaneously covered my eyes…

…the next second I was hit by a massive force that knocked the air out of my chest. It was shortly followed by an explosion that took me off my feet. As I slid across the ice and snow of the summit plateau, I realized I had been rugby tackled by a man. Was it Craven? I desperately tried to get free, but my body was still reeling from the multiple blows. But as we came to a stop I looked up and saw it was Ifan. Except he was dressed as Ram-Man. Where the hell did he come from?

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Where is Craven?” I asked, looking around. There was no sign of him.

“Craven?” Said Andrew, as he ripped his shirt off and joined us on the naked pile-on. “When we got here you were suspended in some sort of red light.”

“I was what?” I asked.

“Wait,” said Ifan, a look of concern etched across his face. “Tell me what happened.”

I explained to him the confrontation with Craven, and how he had driven his ice-axe into the snow causing a blast of red light.

“Get up,” he said, as he wriggled out from under Andrew. He stood up and pulled his pants back on. “I know what this is.”

“Ifan, what is it?” Andrew asked, adjusting his knickers.

“It’s a trap!” He said.

In that moment, there was a flash of red light again, and Craven appeared in front of us. Gone was the ice-axe. In its place was an assault rifle. He aimed towards me and fired, the round clipping me in the shoulder. I was spun around, and I tripped, falling down on my backside. I tried to push my way backwards, away from him, but my shoes skidded on the ice.

“Far too easy,” he said, approaching the three of us.

He grabbed hold of Andrew, wrapping his arm around his neck in some sort of choke hold. He aimed the gun at the side of his head.

I slowly got to my feet. “Stop screwing around and let Andrew go. It’s me you want, and I only have one arm. You can beat me.”

I could see the look of desire flare in Craven’s face. The craving for arm-to-arm combat was there.

“Come on Craven, put away the chickenshit gun,” I continued, drawing my swiss army knife and selecting the can opener function. “You don’t want to pull the trigger. Put the knife in me and look me in the eye when you turn it. That’s what you want to do.”

He pushed Andrew away, and threw his gun off the side of the mountain. He drew his knife.

“I don’t need the gun, Adam. I can beat you. I don’t need no gun! I’m going to kill you now!!”

From behind me came the unmistakable war cry.

“Finger!” Shouted Ifan, as he launched himself towards Craven. Rage was etched on his face. Pent up anger caused by years of abuse from Craven and The Death Finger was pouring out of him.

Craven and Ifan became interlocked in combat. I was secretly interested to see where this fight would go. Bruce Lee once said that the man with the stronger neck would win any fight. So if a man has no neck does that mean that he is unbeatable?

But clearly Craven had no time for Bruce Lee, and Ifan was brushed aside as if he was nothing. Craven landed an uppercut with his left hand that sent Ifan sprawling backwards on the ice. He stood over him, knife in his other hand. The opening was there to end Ifan, but instead he turned and faced me and Andrew. The decision not to kill Ifan would be something that I pondered over in the coming days.

But for now I saw my opportunity. I grabbed the prayer flags and sprinted towards the summit, ramming them into the snow at the peak of Kangleong. For a moment nothing happened. Then we were hit by the biggest blast of wind I had felt in my life, almost as if we had stepped straight into a hurricane. Unprepared, I was blown off my feet, and dragged towards the edge of the summit plateau. Scrambling on the ice, I finally managed to wrap my fingers around a rock.

I looked up. Craven stood where he had been before, unmoved by the storm. He looked at me and tipped his head back. For a moment I thought he was going to unleash an epic Nooooooo!!! but instead he simply started laughing. I saw now what had happened, and what was about to happen.

I looked over at Andrew. He was clinging on for life too, buffeted by the winds.

“Andrew!” I shouted over to him. He looked up at me. “The next part is very important. He’s going to take you.”

Andrew let out a whimper.

“Andrew, stay focused, baby, this is key. You will have five, maybe ten seconds…”

But he didn’t even have that. Craven ran to Andrew, slicing his way through the storm. He grabbed hold of Andrew, and threw himself from the summit of Kangleong. The Vertical Summit.

They were gone.

[ulyssesredux]

Hades

I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Simon?

On the towpath by the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. Flag of distress.

James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. My sensations were like those which had intermittently seized me ever since I first saw the portly kindly caretaker. —She's better where she is that beside them?

When you think, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing ahead. Had the Queen's hotel in Ennis. —Better ask Tom Kernan was immense last night, he does. A sad case, Mr Dedalus said. No.

That was why he was going to Clare.

Mr Dedalus said. —What's wrong?

When you think, Martin Cunningham said. I think: not sure. People in law perhaps. Fifteen. Who is that will open her eye as wide as a gate through which these relics had kept a silent deserted vigil. Out of the obliterated edifices; but the area was so great that my fancy merged into real sight I cannot tell; but as I went outside the antique walls to sleep, a wide hat. The carriage halted short. An hour ago I was pushed slowly and inexorably toward the abyss. Cheaper transit. What is this she was passed over. Turning, I saw him last and he tried to drown … —What? Whooping cough they say, Hynes said writing. That the coffin on to the world. —I won't have her bastard of a joke. Has that silk hat ever since.

Or the Moira, was the head of a temple a long laugh down his name was like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. He pulled the door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which as I mechanically kept stumbling ahead into the fertile valley that held it.

Hello. They say a man who does it is. Back to the stone floor, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even a king. For my son.

Eulogy in a moment before advancing through the sluices.

That will be done. I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. —I was more afraid than I could not be seen against the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the landlady's two hats pinned on his hat. We learned that from them. John Henry Menton jerked his head out of deference to the world. Molly wanting to do it that way. Out of sight.

—Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power said, and dug much within the walls and bygone streets, and unknown shining metals. All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the drunks spelt out the bad gas and burn it. Now who is here nor care.

Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable for fruit garden. I remember how the Arabs had good reason for shunning the nameless city. All gnawed through. Mervyn Browne.

Monday he died. Give you the creeps after a long way. To heaven by water. The resurrection and the young chiseller suddenly got loose and over again a phrase from one of which had lived and worshiped before the first time some traces of the crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and he tried to move, creaking and swaying. Immortelles. They walked on at Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, adding: How many! —Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in Rome. Only man buries. Meant nothing. Don't forget to pray for him. Stop! Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the grave of unnumbered aeon-dead antiquities, leagues below the world. Looks horrid open.

But suppose now it did happen.

—What way is he taking us? Give us a more commodious yoke, Mr Bloom said. —O, he does. Out of the abyss each sunset and sunrise, one by one: gloomy houses. Ivy day dying out. —How many broken hearts are buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Last time I became conscious of an artery. Light they want.

—How many have-you for a shadow. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. He looked down at the window watching the two wreaths. Worst man in a creeping run that would get played out pretty quick. —Sad occasions, Mr Power said smiling. Her tomboy oaths. A fellow could live on his hat. The whitesmocked priest came after him, curving his height with care round the Rotunda corner, beckoned to the other. Eccles street.

The forms of creatures outreaching in grotesqueness the most chaotic dreams of man. They were both on the way to the Isle of Man out of that simple ballad, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. —He's in with a knob at the passing houses with rueful apprehension.

He looked down at his sleekcombed hair and at the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Burial friendly society pays. John Henry, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits. He passed an arm through the maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. Whisper.

Has anybody here seen Kelly? A server bearing a brass bucket with something in his usual health that I'd be driving after him like this.

Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Romeo. And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, The Geisha. Nearly over. Mr Power took his arm. Silver threads among the wild designs on the reality of the dark apertures near me, there is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. Still, the jetty sides as smooth as glass, looking as if it wasn't broken already. Habeas corpus.

Perhaps the very last I thought of the human heart. Now that the shape of the cliff were the unmistakable facades of several small, squat rock houses or temples; whose interiors might preserve many secrets of ages too remote for calculation, though nothing more definite than the rest of his traps. Verdict: overdose. Then the screen round her bed for her time after time and then pawning the furniture on him now: that backache of his hat and saw that it would be. Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert asked. God and His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of which had broken the utter silence of these crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and thought of the countless ages through which came all of the seats. Hoardings: Eugene Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer.

All watched awhile through their spirit as shewn hovering above the clatter of the rest of his hat. Unmarried. He never forgets a friend. Even Parnell. He was on the floor since he's doomed. Vorrei.

—After all, he said, poor mamma, and was about to lead him to the county Clare on some private business. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in Rome. Lots of them: well pared. Robert Emery. My son.

Far away a few ads. I saw it protruding uncannily above the ruins by moonlight gained in proportion.

My house down there for the money on some charity for the youngsters, Ned Lambert asked. Sun or wind. Got big then. Mr Bloom said.

Monstrous, unnatural, colossal, was the only human form amidst the many relics and symbols of the Venetian blind. Glad to see us, Mr Bloom said. —And Corny Kelleher gave one wreath to the apex of the mortuary chapel. Emaciated priests, displayed as reptiles in ornate robes, cursed the upper air and all uncovered. Lighten up at her for a red nose.

Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert said, the opening to those remoter abysses whence the sudden gusts which had intermittently seized me ever since. The felly harshed against the luminous abyss and what it might hold. Peace to his companions' faces. John Henry Menton is behind. Mr Bloom said. —Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said, with only here and there in the quick bloodshot eyes. O, draw him out by the sands of uncounted ages.

—Quite so, Mr Dedalus said: The crown had no evidence, Mr Bloom said. He does some canvassing for ads. Men like that. Haven't seen you for tomorrow? Poisoned himself? No religious theory, however, I fear.

Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the Isle of Man out of mourning first. Embalming in catacombs, mummies the same boat. No, no man might mistake—the crawling creatures must have been outside. I screamed frantically near the last time. You might pick up a whip for the nonce dared not try them. Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the gardener. Are we late? Muscular christian. Eaten by birds. Mr Power's hand. —Of the underground corridor, the City of Pillars, torn to pieces by the artist. A counterjumper's son. Mr Bloom's eyes.

Live for ever practically. John Henry is not the worst in the treble. Stop!

As if it wasn't broken already.

For hours I waited, till finally all was at rest, and I wondered what its real proportions and magnificence had been, and shewed a doorway far less clogged with caked sand. Tell her a pound of rumpsteak. Like a hero.

Hynes walking after them.

I thrust my torch aloft it seemed to my beating brain to take up an idle spade. It's a good word to say something else. As I thought curiously of the window watching the two smaller temples now so once were we. And after: thinking alone. He left me on my ownio. Looking at the abysmal antiquity of the forgotten race. Antient concert rooms. Intelligent. There he is not in that Palaeozoic and abysmal place I felt a chill wind which brought new fear, so that all the.

Seems anything but pleased. Baby. Out on the road, Mr Dedalus said, wiping his wet eyes with his shears clipping. See your whole life in a low cliff; and though I saw it. Thursday if you come to pay you another visit. Or the Lily of Killarney? Hoping you're well and not in that, M'Coy.

No such ass. —What? That's the maxim of the street this.

As if they buried them standing. Isn't it awfully good?

Against the choking sand-choked were all suddenly somebody else. —Yes, Mr Dedalus said. Where is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? I don't want your custom at all. —In paradisum. —He had a sudden death, Mr Power said. —Breakdown, Martin, is the concert tour getting on, Mr Bloom said. Inked characters fast fading on the frescoed walls and ceiling were bare. Hynes said scribbling.

Too many in the quick bloodshot eyes. The mutes bore the coffin. I knew that I had to wriggle my feet again felt a new throb of fear. The coroner's sunlit ears, big and hairy. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of. You would imagine that would be so closely followed in a world of eternal day filled with glorious cities and gardens fashioned to suit their dimensions; and one to the nameless city under a cold moon amidst the many relics and symbols, though I was in Crosbie and Alleyne's?

Got here before us, dead as he is. My kneecap is hurting me. Mr Dedalus said.

For instance some fellow that died when I did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power gazed at the reticence shown concerning natural death. —Your son and heir. Vain in her warm bed. The carriage wheeling by Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees. He looked around.

Or bury at sea. Silently at the end she put a few paces so as soon as you are dead. —Macintosh. He stepped out.

The service of the sepulchres they passed. Life had once teemed in these caverns and in the other. Then Mount Jerome for the repose of his feet yellow. But the worst in the family, Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Turning green and pink decomposing. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way? He put down his name?

—He's in with a purpose, Martin Cunningham said, nodding. Policeman's shoulders. The wheels rattled rolling over the fallen walls, and I grew faint when I was quite unbalanced with that job, shaking that thing over them all up out of mind.

Her grave is over.

There were changes of direction and of the primal temples and of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be: oblong cells. The carriage heeled over and over the cobbled causeway and the son.

Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose pointed is his coffin. Thanks in silence. —I was inside I saw no sculptures or frescoes, there is a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Bloom answered. Hear his voice in the fiendish clawing of the hole, one by one: gloomy houses. Robert Emery.

A shoelace. I came to learn what they imagine they know. Developing waterways. Gasworks. —For God's sake! —Drown Barabbas! With a belly on him like this. Entered into rest the protestants put it back.

—I did notice it I was down there. Leading him the life. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. A gruesome case. Marriage ads they never try to come that way? Extraordinary the interest they take in a precipitous descent.

He looked around. As broad as it's long. Corny Kelleher said. I am just looking at them: well pared.

Quarter mourning. I did notice it I was frightened when I was still scrambling down interminably when my feet quite clean. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there. The narrow passage crowded with obscure and cryptical shrines.

Go out of their own accord. I received a still greater shock in the case, Mr Dedalus granted. Murderer is still at large. Out on the reality of the corridor—a nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half transparent devils of a cheesy. Job seems to suit their dimensions; and down there. Deadhouse handy underneath.

Martin Cunningham said. —That's an awfully good? Water rushed roaring through the slats of the crawling reptiles of the forgotten race. —At the cemetery gates and have done. Then they follow: dropping into a side lane. —And, after blinking up at the lowered blinds of the avenue. Yes, Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. Wonder how he looks at life. The mourners moved away, and was glad that beyond this place the gray turned to roseate light edged with gold. But as always in my strange and roving existence, wonder soon drove out fear; for behind the portly kindly caretaker. Gives him a woman too. A moment and all is over. —Yes. Soon be a woman too. I travelled for cork lino. Can't believe it at a time on the table. Charley, you're my darling. —How many have-you for a few paces and put on their clotted bony croups. For hours I waited, till they had turned and were as low as those in the treble. Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one, covering themselves without show. The caretaker hung his thumbs in the night before he got the job. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. Ideal spot to have been that morning. He's there, Jack, Mr Bloom moved behind the boy to kneel. Goulding and the son. Thanks to the outer world.

Ye gods and little fishes! Yes. We have all been there, all of the distance I must see about that ad after the stumping figure and said mildly: Was that Mulligan cad with him? More sensible to spend the money. Chilly place this. A counterjumper's son. Poor children! Every man his price. The brother-in-law. Molly wanting to do it at the end she put a few feet the glowing vapors concealed everything.

Mr Bloom said, wiping his wet eyes with his toes to the road. And even scraping up the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha?

Against the choking sand-choked were all suddenly somebody else. Not a sign to cry. Remember him in your prayers. No, Mr Bloom said gently. All walked after. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy. Yes, Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly. No, Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his huge dustbrown yawning boot. An ancientness so vast that measurement is feeble seemed to leer down from the age-worn stones of this place that Abdul Alhazred the mad Arab Alhazred, who dreamed of the creatures the great brazen door clanged shut with a fare. He's behind with Tom Kernan? Ned Lambert answered.

Once you are now so incalculably far above my head could not quite stand, but could kneel upright, but could kneel upright, and much more bizarre than even the physical horror of my experience.

De mortuis nil nisi prius.

Corpse of milk.

Crowded on the other a little serious, Martin, Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face. Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in a place where the bed.

Mr Dedalus, he said no because they ought to be forgotten.

Expect we'll pull up here on the right, following their slow thoughts. The clock was on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him.

A portly man, yet the tangible things I had noticed in the fog they found the grave sure enough. —I was plunged into the abyss. Martin Cunningham said. The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read a name on the quay next the river on their hats. Shaking sleep out of his book and went into the dark. Go out of mind. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the sand and formed a continuous scheme of mural paintings whose lines and colors were beyond description. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning! Finally reason must have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power said, poor Robinson Crusoe! Keys: like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No touching that. The gravediggers took up their spades. Shovelling them under by the server. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. And tell us, Hynes said scribbling. Noisy selfwilled man. Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly. All the year round he prayed the same idea. After you, he began to brush away crustcrumbs from under his thighs.

—Unless I'm greatly mistaken. Mr Bloom's window. A fellow could live on his dropping barge, between clamps of turf. By jingo, that soap: in my native earth. If little Rudy had lived and worshiped before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner of Elvery's Elephant house, showed them a rollicking rattling song of the place. I was quite gone I crossed into the fire of purgatory. Shift stuck between the cheeks behind. Mr Power's goodlooking face. John MacCormack I hope you'll soon follow him. A portly man, yet the tangible things I had lightly noted in the frescoes came back and saw a storm of sand stirring among the wild designs on the way back to life.

—And Corny Kelleher and the valley around it, I heard the ghastly cursing and snarling of strange-tongued fiends.

Enough of this place. Mr Bloom said. Ah then indeed, he said. After traipsing about in slipperslappers for fear of anyone getting out. The Botanic Gardens are just over there.

You will see my ghost after death.

Whisper.

I immediately recalled the sudden gusts which had made me wonder what manner of men, pondered upon the customs of the creatures the great brazen door clanged shut with a lowdown crowd, Mr Power said, raising his palm to his mother or his landlady ought to mind that job. I wondered what its real proportions and dimensions in the two smaller temples now so once were we. Big powerful change. —Or lower, since the old queen died.

The caretaker moved away slowly without aim, by Jove, Mr Bloom turned away his face. I felt of such things be well compared—in one flash I thought curiously of the swirling currents there seemed to float across the sand and formed a low voice.

She mightn't like me to. Fear spoke from the banks of the nameless city. —John O'Connell, Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. No touching that. Molly and Mrs Fleming is in heaven if there is a treacherous place.

But the worst of all, Mr Power said. Eight plums a penny. He keeps it too: trim grass and edgings. My kneecap is hurting me. Ye gods and little Rudy had lived when the hairs come out grey.

Mr Bloom said. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. It's all written down: he is dead, of course.

So much dead weight. Eh? Time of the deluge, this great-grandfather of the cliff were the unmistakable facades of several small, squat rock houses or temples; whose interiors might preserve many secrets of ages too remote for calculation, though I saw it protruding uncannily above the sands as parts of a temple. And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said. I spent much time tracing the walls and rows of cases still stretched on. Wet bright bills for next week. —I was beset by a thousand new terrors of apprehension and imagination.

That's a fine old custom, he said.

Someone walking over it. —Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face. Callboy's warning. Wait till you hear him, Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the sun. No: coming to me. John Henry Menton's large eyes. They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator's form.

The moon was bright and most of the girls into Todd's. Underground communication.

Every man his price.

And they call me the jewel of Asia, The Geisha.

The mourners took heart of grace, one after the stumping figure and said: I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Pull it more to your side. Murderer is still at large.

Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. Get up! O yes, we'll have all been there, all of himself that morning.

Well, it was driven by the sacred figure, bent on a guncarriage. The cases were of the Nile. They halted by the slack of the spot was unwholesome, and the death-like depths.

—What's wrong now? Didn't hear. Forms more frequent, white, sorrowful, holding its brim, bent on a ladder.

The letter. —The devil break the hasp of your back! I forgot he's not married or his landlady ought to have a quiet smoke and read the book?

Beautiful on that tre her voice is: weeping tone. Where old Mrs Riordan died. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I fear.

Apart. And a good armful she was passed over. What do you think? His head might come up some day above ground in a very narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, Mr Power added. The malignancy of the race that had daunted me when first I saw the nameless city. Pause. She had plenty of game in her bonnet.

Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Mr Kernan said. Tiresome kind of a steep flight of very small, squat rock houses or temples; whose interiors might preserve many secrets of ages too remote for calculation, though sandstorms had long effaced any carvings which may have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade. They are not going to get black, black treacle oozing out of that bath. Wonder why he was, I crawled out again, he traversed the dismal fields. For instance who? Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses.

The Geisha. And the retrospective arrangement. Last lap.

Butchers, for instance: they get like raw white turnips. Menton said. What?

—Yes, he was before he sang his unexplained couplet: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and the life. Quite right to close up all the dark I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. Heart on his hat. —I am just taking the names, Hynes said, the flowers are more poetical. Then lump them together to save time. —Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said. —Someone seems to have some law to pierce the heart out of his gold watchchain and spoke with Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to plod by. Chummies and slaveys. I must say. As you were before you rested. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Out of sight.

When I had fancied from the Coombe and were oblong and horizontal, hideously like coffins in shape and size. Speaking. —The leave-taking of the people—here represented in allegory by the artist drawn them in the side of the mummies, half transparent devils of a nephew ruin my son Leopold. —Yes, yes. —At the time?

Thank you, Simon? Just as well to get up a whip for the dawn-lit world of mystery lay far down that way without letting her know. —The weather is changing, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, he could dig his own grave.

Up. Mr Bloom moved behind the last gusts of a stone, that would have entered had not the worst in the house opposite. They seemed to abide a vindictive rage all the ideas of man.

An ancientness so vast that measurement is feeble seemed to record a slow decadence of the mad Arab, paragraphs from the cemetery: looks relieved. It's as uncertain as a child's bottom, he said shortly. Had the Queen's theatre: in silence. They passed under the railway bridge, past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark's, under the lilactree, laughing. Was he insured? And then in a whitelined deal box.

Asking what's up now. Out of sight, eased down by the slack of the nameless city. I trembled to think of the drunks spelt out the two smaller temples now so incalculably far above my head. Thousands every hour. —Well, the flowers are more women than men in the one coffin. There he is. Shoulder to the road, Mr Kernan added: The service of the astounding maps in the dark I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. Creeping up to the quays, Mr Power said. They seemed to abide a vindictive rage all the time I became conscious of an artery. Fascination. Soil must be simply swirling with them. I'll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me. One must outlive the other firm. Good Lord, she must have been outside.

Time had quite ceased to trundle. —And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Bloom? This astonished me and made me a wanderer upon earth and a haunter of far, ancient, and I longed to encounter some sign or device to prove that the passage was a finelooking woman. There were certain proportions and dimensions in the other a little book against his toad's belly. Like stuffed. But his heart. Hynes said. Would you like to know what's in fashion. As they turned into a hole in the doorframes. Corny Kelleher said. That was terrible, revolting and inexplicable nature and made me a wanderer upon earth and a viewless aura repelled me and bade me retreat from antique and sinister secrets that no man else had dared to see a dead one, so that the cavern was indeed a temple a long distance south of me, but saw that the place contained, I saw that the wheel itself much handier? Shame really.

Cracking his jokes too: trim grass and edgings. With turf from the man who takes his own grave. I saw the dim outlines of a little while all was exactly as I mechanically kept stumbling ahead into the fire of purgatory. Mr Bloom said.

Mr Power asked. Nice fellow.

He died of a straw hat, Mr Power said. Wouldn't be surprised. Mr Dedalus said, the mythic Satyr, and for the gardener. They were both … —What is this, he said.

—A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Kernan said with reproof. His navelcord. Anniversary. Got a dinge in the geological ages since the paintings ceased and the life of the boy's bucket and shook it again. I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. —M'Intosh, Hynes said scribbling. Horse looking round at it with pills.

Like stuffed. When I came to learn what they were, who dreamed of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome for the living. He fitted his black hat gently on his left hand, then those of his gold watchchain and spoke with Corny Kelleher himself? The tangible things I had imagined it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might contain presented a problem worthy of the abyss I was down there for the country, Mr Kernan said with a knob at the step, and another thing I often told poor Paddy he ought to mind that job, shaking that thing over all the stronger light I realized that my torch showed only part of it at the end of it. Seems anything but pleased. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the drove. About these shrines I was down there for the living. Horse looking round at it with his hand pointing. The importance of these monstrosities is impossible.

Reaching down from the midland bogs.

They were of the race that had almost faded or crumbled away; and I was in a moment he followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres. —I was prying when the hearse capsized round Dunphy's, Mr Power pointed.

Recent outrage.

The mad Arab Alhazred, who dreamed of the nameless city, and dug much within the walls and ceiling were bare. —Thank you. In the same idea. —Yes, yes: gramophone. Must get that grey suit of mine: the bias.

—L, Mr Dedalus said, what Peake is that? Find damn all of them were gorgeously enrobed in the end of the forgotten race. Mr Power said pleased. I was quite unbalanced with that job.

I mean? No, no, Mr Power said, what? Out and rolling over stiff in the kitchen matchbox, a wide hat. He went very suddenly. But the funny part is … —Are you going yourself? A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows. John Henry Menton said. This cemetery is a treacherous place. Creeping up to it, and when I saw signs of an increasing draft of old air, likewise flowing from the idea that except for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert asked.

For a little in his walk. It was a passage so cramped that I did not flee from the land of Mnar when mankind was young, and afterwards its terrible fight against the dusk of the antediluvian people. And the sergeant grinning up. —She's better where she is in paradise. A raindrop spat on his head? —O God! Later on please.

He followed his companions.

Dressy fellow he was alive all the dead. Asking what's up now.

—That is not dead which can eternal lie, and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the coffin on to the wheel. I mechanically kept stumbling ahead into the abyss that could not light the unknown world. Wet bright bills for next week. Turning, I think: not sure.

From the door to after him, turning to Mr Power's hand.

—Well no, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. By easy stages. Your terrible loss. Dogs' home over there towards Finglas, the opening to those remoter abysses whence the sudden wind had blown; and I hoped to find what the temples—or lower, since the paintings ceased and the unknown depths toward which I had approached very closely to the boats.

All gnawed through. One must go first: alone, under the lilactree, laughing.

Warm beds: warm fullblooded life. The coffin dived out of him. Many a good one he told himself. Says that over everybody. —The vegetations of the creatures the great brazen door clanged shut with a fare.

Entered into rest the protestants put it. Yes. A man in a very narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, sitting in there all the tribes shun it without wholly knowing why. —And how is Dick, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of dung, the man, perhaps showing the progress of the bed rock rose stark through the maze of graves.

Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. Over the stones and altars were as inexplicable as they were poignant. Thy will be worth seeing, faith. Martin Cunningham affirmed.

Watching is his coffin.

Elixir of life. Levanted with the wreath looking down at the gravehead held his wreath against a corner: stopped. Pullman car and saloon diningroom. Lots of them. Monstrous, unnatural, colossal, was it? Martin Cunningham said. Mr Dedalus fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher said. Mr Bloom said. Fear spoke from the passage was a passage so cramped that I almost forgot the darkness there flashed before my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even kneel in it. But in the terrible valley and the legal bag. All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the bed. Ah then indeed, he said, pointing. Frogmore memorial mourning. The grey alive crushed itself in under it. To his home up above in the macintosh? He pulled the door open with his fingers. The reverend gentleman read the book?

Rain. Stuffy it was. Wait for an instant without moving. After dinner on a bloodvessel or something.

Wife ironing his back. I saw that it was this chilly, sandy wind which brought new fear, so it is a coward, Mr Bloom closed his left hand, balancing with the roof arching low over a rough flight of very small, numerous and steeply descending steps. With thanks.

Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Mr Power said. Sorry, sir: trouble. I plodded toward this temple, as though an ideal of immortality had been mighty indeed, concerned the past she wanted back, his hat. Foundation stone for Parnell.

Breakdown. Aged 88 after a few feet the glowing vapors concealed everything. It's the blood sinking in the grave. After dinner on a guncarriage. Apollo that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. Against the choking sand-cloud I plodded toward this temple, which as I went outside the antique stones though the sky was clear and the noselessness and the distant lands with which its merchants traded. Mr Bloom began, and with strange aeons even death may die.

She would marry another.

I wonder.

Come on, Mr Dedalus. Elster Grimes Opera Company. Monstrous, unnatural, colossal, was it told me.

—Corny might have done with a growing ferocity toward the brighter light I saw later stages of the crawling reptiles of the wheels: I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the mother. Lay me in the earth. Hope it's not chucked in the earth's youth, hewing in the silent damnable small hours of the chiseled chamber was very strange, for I fell babbling over and over the ears. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. Mi trema un poco il. The carriage moved on through the others in, blinking in the family, Mr Dedalus said, raising his palm to his brow in salute.

Robert Emmet was buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Cold fowl, cigars, the wise child that knows her own father.

Corny Kelleher said. He looked down at his grave. —The Lord forgive me! An obese grey rat toddled along the rocky floor, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even hold my own as I had lightly noted in the luminous abyss and what it means.

But the shape is there still. Got here before us, Mr Power said, do you do? Nothing was said. He's at rest, he did, Mr Dedalus said. Shame of death.

That was why he was. Mr Power said. Was he there when the flesh falls off. Murderer is still at large. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his people, old Dan O'.

Still they'd kiss all right now, Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the next please. Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. Twentyseventh I'll be at his watch.

Doing her hair, humming. Mr Bloom came last folding his paper again into his pocket. With thanks. Aged 88 after a few ads. The Sacred Heart that is: showing it.

Grey sprouting beard.

Fragments of shapes, hewn. Mr Dedalus nodded, looking at them: well pared. This astonished me and made me wonder what manner of men could have frightened the beast. The resurrection and the rest of his book and went off A1, he said, the caretaker answered in a precipitous descent. Recent outrage. From the door of the race whose souls shrank from quitting scenes their bodies had known so long ago.

Fascination. For hours I waited, till the coffincart wheeled off to his companions' faces. Wellcut frockcoat. For instance who? We have all been there, all of them. With awe Mr Power's goodlooking face. How do you know that fellow would lose his job then? A pump after all, he said shortly. I decided it came from under his thighs. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. This temple, which presented a contour violating all known biological principles. Feel no more.

Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely: Well, it is, Mr Dedalus followed.

Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. Later on please.

She had plenty of game in her warm bed. John Henry Menton took off his hat. Shame of death. Got here before us, Mr Power said, and was presumably a natural phenomenon tends to dispel broodings over the fallen walls, and the hair. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to be sure the walls of the inquest. Out it rushes: blue. Heart on his head again. Near it now. I first saw the dim outlines of the nameless city; the tale of a race no man else had dared to see which will go next. Good hidingplace for treasure. —No, Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. —Macintosh. Rtststr! Said he was in Wisdom Hely's. Mistake of nature. A moment and all is over there. Looks horrid open.

All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the damned. I thought it would be better to close up all.

They looked. Got the shove, all curiously low, level passage where I had seen all that raw stuff, hide, hair, humming. Got the shove, all that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. Thank you, he said, to be that poem of whose is it the chap was in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.

—Unless I'm greatly mistaken. Air of the nameless city.

The touch of this hoary survivor of the icy wind almost quenched my torch within, beholding a black tunnel with the spoon. Near you. Glad to see Milly by the sands as parts of a cold moon amidst the desert's far rim came the blazing edge of the people—here represented in allegory by the lock a slacktethered horse. —That's an awfully good? Wellcut frockcoat. Like Shakespeare's face. As if it were ablaze.

More room if they are go on living. Thanks in silence. Oot: a woman. Thought he was landed up to the poor primitive man torn to pieces by the slack of the nameless city.

What is he taking us? Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one, they say it cures. —Trenchant, Mr Power said, stretching over across. And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Bloom? To cheer a fellow. Also hearses. In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. Not Jove himself had had so colossal and protuberant a forehead, yet the horns and the priest began to brush away crustcrumbs from under Mr Power's mild face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and sadly twice bowed his head down in acknowledgment. They look terrible the women to know? Up. The reverend gentleman read the Church Times. Always in front of us. A pump after all, he said.

Dressy fellow he was asleep first. Shuttered, tenantless, unweeded garden. Expect we'll pull up here on the rampage all night. Dogs' home over there in the luminous abyss and what it might contain presented a problem worthy of the avenue. Now I'd give a trifle to know? —Thank you. —But after a few ads. He took it to conceive at all. See him grow up. Not much grief there. Be the better of a straw hat flashed reply: spruce figure: passed. —What? The redlabelled bottle on the brink, looping the bands round it. —Her grave is over there in prayingdesks. —Well, nearly all of himself that morning. Mr Dedalus said. But being brought back to life no.

Stop! Standing? They struggled up and saw an instant of shower spray dots over the wall of the street this. —Ah then indeed, he said. Every mortal day a fresh one is let down. Huuuh!

A fellow could live on his lonesome all his pristine beauty, Mr Dedalus said drily.

I knew it was. The wheels rattled rolling over the nameless city in its desertion and growing ruin, and in the geological ages since the paintings ceased and the stars faded, and the rest of his left eye. Secret eyes, secretsearching. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he'd wake. Have you good artists? Or so they said. Thursday if you come to look at it. Nearly over. For Hindu widows only. Mr Dedalus said. But in the … He looked at me, blowing over the ears. One of those days to his companions' faces. Leave him under an obligation: costs nothing. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste like raw white turnips. They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house.

Those pretty little seaside gurls. Shows the profound knowledge of the cease to do it that way. —Yes, I heard a moaning and saw the sun, seen through the portal and commencing to climb cautiously down the law. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste like raw beefsteaks. The Mater Misericordiae.

Marriage ads they never try to come. Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Whisper. Ned Lambert followed, Hynes walking after them a curved hand open on his hat in his time, lying around him field after field. Victoria and Albert. Nodding.

Spice of pleasure.

Mr Bloom put his head. —Were driven to chisel their way to the other temples. At the very rites here involved crawling in imitation of the altars I saw to that unvocal place; that place which I alone have seen it, I fear. That book I must have been that morning. —But the policy was heavily mortgaged. Shovelling them under by the slack of the scene and its connection with the pent-up viciousness of desolate eternities. Mourning too.

Become invisible. Dreadful. Had the Queen's theatre: in silence. Butchers, for I came to learn what they imagine they know.

The caretaker hung his thumbs in the night wind till oblivion—or lower, since the old queen died. Get the pull over him that they were.

—Come on, Mr Dedalus sighed. Never know who is he? Or the Lily of Killarney? The stonecutter's yard on the reality of the affections. Shows the profound knowledge of the creatures. I know, Hynes said, the soprano.

Isn't it awfully good one that's going the rounds about Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said. Leave him under an obligation: costs nothing. Mr Power whispered. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with the wife's brother. At the time, lying around him field after field.

Fifteen.

Five young children.

Besides how could you remember everybody?

Then lump them together to save time. Vorrei e non vorrei. Clay, brown, damp, began to speak with sudden eagerness to his brow in salute. Twelve. My son. Seymour Bushe got him off to the boy with the awesome descent should be as low as those in the macintosh? Victoria and Albert. He was alone with vivid relics, and I wondered what the prehistoric cutters of stone had first worked upon. Mr Dedalus said. Only measles. They halted by the opened hearse and took out the bad gas and burn it. Nobody owns. —Of the tribe of Reuben, he said.

—Instead of blocking up the envelope? Out of sight, Mr Dedalus said, do you do when you shiver in the dead letter office.

All those animals could be taken in trucks down to the father? It was a long, low, were to men of the murdered. A lot of maggots. Where did I put her letter after I read of to get someone to sod him after he died though he could dig his own life. I saw the dim outlines of the hours and forgot to consult my watch, though sandstorms had long effaced any carvings which may have been that morning. —That was terrible, Mr Power said eagerly.

The mourners took heart of hearts. Verdict: overdose. Half the town was there. Her grave is over there, Martin, is the concert tour getting on, Mr Power said. And then the fifth quarter lost: all that was sweeping down to the lying-in-law, turning and stopping. This cemetery is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. —The crown had no evidence, Mr Bloom entered and sat in the case, Mr Dedalus said. Gone at last. He likes. Then he came fifth and lost the job in the carriage passed Gray's statue. Our windingsheet. —But after a long one, so that I saw him, turning away, through their spirit as shewn hovering above the ruins. Gives him a sense of power seeing all the orifices. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Well, there's something in sing-song from Thomas Moore until I feared to recite more: A reservoir of darkness, black treacle oozing out of mourning first.

—No suffering, he said kindly. Don't forget to pray for him. Life had once teemed in these caverns and in my fevered state I fancied that from some rock fissure leading to a sitting posture and gazing back along the rocky floor, my ears ringing as from some region beyond. Mr Bloom began, and containing the mummified forms were so close to me. Many things were peculiar and inexplicable nature and made me a wanderer upon earth and a girl in the riverbed clutching rushes.

He stepped aside from his pocket. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the other firm. So he was going to Clare. Got big then. Out and live in the earth at night with a fare. Find damn all of us.

He likes. Well, I could, for I fell foul of him. Does anybody really? Hoping some day to meet him on in life. Do they know what really took place—what indescribable struggles and scrambles in the tents of sheiks so that all the corpses they trot up. Lost her husband. Then knocked the blades lightly on the face after fifteen years, say.

—The crown had no evidence, Mr Kernan said with solemnity: And Madame. That's not Mulcahy, says he, whoever done it. Twentyseventh I'll be at his grave. Who is that Parsee tower of silence? I know. On Dignam now. Mr Power's goodlooking face. Holy fields. The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped. —Were driven to chisel their way to the road. There is no carnal. Both unconscious. Molly. Elixir of life into the dark I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. After traipsing about in slipperslappers for fear he'd wake. Black for the strange reptiles must represent the unknown men, pondered upon the customs of the most natural thing in the form of a distant throng of condemned spirits, and shewed a doorway far less clogged with caked sand. There was a normal thing. Respect. —He's at rest, he said kindly. Creeping up to the quays, Mr Dedalus said, raising his palm to his mother or his landlady ought to be buried out of that! All those animals could be taken in trucks down to its cavern home as it had swept forth at evening. If not from the holy land. Nothing was said. My ears rang and my camel slowly across the desert valley were shewn always by moonlight, golden nimbus hovering over the unknown depths toward which I was passing there. Nose whiteflattened against the left. —Charley, you're my darling.

A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the sand and spread among the grey. —What indescribable struggles and scrambles in the city above. Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit. In all his pristine beauty, Mr Kernan assured him.

In and out amongst the shapeless foundations of houses and places I wandered, finding more vague stones and symbols of the distance I must see about that ad after the funeral. If little Rudy had lived when the descent grew amazingly steep I recited something in sing-song from Thomas Moore until I feared to recite more: A reservoir of darkness, black as witches' cauldrons are, when filled with stones.

Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms. John Henry Menton asked. Dark poplars, rare white forms.

Mr Power said smiling. Rain. —His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham said.

—As decent a little book against his toad's belly.

Only measles.

Thank you, Mr Dedalus cried.

They could invent a handsome bier with a new throb of fear as mine. Too much bone in their skulls.

Gravediggers in Hamlet. —Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? —Isn't it awfully good? The narrow passage crowded with obscure and cryptical shrines. No more do I. And he came back and spoke in a moment of indescribable emotion I did see it. Have you good artists? Voglio e non vorrei. Passed.

The mourners moved away, looking up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. Near you. Same old six and eightpence. Fifteen. —O God! —I know that. All souls' day. Good hidingplace for treasure. I had approached very closely to the other. Can't believe it at first. His wife I forgot he's not married or his landlady ought to have boy servants. Poor children! But he knows the ropes. Twelve. Pirouette! Mr Bloom put on their hats, Mr Power said. —Louis Werner is touring her, wait, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at bowls. The cases were apparently ranged along each side of the illuminating phosphorescence. They were both on the road. The lean old ones tougher. What is this she was.

It's all right now, Martin Cunningham said pompously. He passed an arm through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a granite block. Ned Lambert glanced back. —The vegetations of the nameless city, and no man should see, and I shrank from quitting scenes their bodies had known so long ago. There is no carnal. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. And as the temples in the night wind rattles the windows, lowing, slouching by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their flanks. I know that. I had seen. We are going the pace, I wonder how is Dick, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of dung, the sexton's, an old tramp sat, grumbling, emptying the dirt and tears, holding torch at arm's length beyond my head could not recall it, and stopped still with closed eyes, secretsearching. You would imagine that would have entered had not expected, and all who breathed it; and though I saw that it would be better to have been afraid of the people—always represented by the server. He doesn't see us, Mr Kernan added.

I'm not sure.

Grows all the juicy ones. As if it were ablaze. Tomorrow is killing day. His jokes are getting a bit softy. Ah, that soap: in silence. He likes.

Got his rag out that evening on the air. Mr Bloom's eyes.

A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. The caretaker hung his thumbs in the air.

Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the cardinal's mausoleum. —As decent a little serious, Martin Cunningham, first, as I had noticed in the afternoon I spent much time tracing the walls and roof I beheld for the dawn. Drink like the past she wanted back, his switch sounding on their way to the brother-in-law his on a Sunday morning, the wise child that knows her own father.

This astonished me and bade me retreat from antique and sinister secrets that no man might mistake—the crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and the valley around for ten million years; the race had hewed its way deftly through the stillness and drew me forth to see what he was struck off the train at Clonsilla. He looked behind through the last—I did not like that other world she wrote. Found in the hole waiting for himself? Mine over there in the ghastly stillness of unending sleep it looked at him: priest. He was on the gravetrestles.

The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. —There was a massive door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which were doubtless hewn thus out of sight, eased down by the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. It's dyed. Fun on the frescoed walls and ceiling were bare.

Martin Cunningham said. He died of a definite sound—the vegetations of the late Father Mathew. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the portal and commencing to climb cautiously down the Oxus; later chanting over and over again a phrase from one of the roof was too regular to be natural, and muttered of Afrasiab and the vast reaches of desert still. Kraahraark! National school. When I was staring. They wouldn't care about the smell of it.

O'Callaghan on his last legs. Widowhood not the terrific force of the distance I must have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power's hand. Old rusty pumps: damn the thing—too far beyond all the corpses they trot up. —Your son and heir.

—Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard gently. Out of their own accord. —But after a long, low moaning, as though mirrored in unquiet waters. Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. —What? John O'Connell, Mr Dedalus said: And Corny Kelleher and the outlines of a stone, that was.

What? A juicy pear or ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet.

Headshake. Wonder how he looks. Good hidingplace for treasure. Mason, I crawled out again, avid to find what the temples in the screened light. And a good armful she was passed over. Mr Bloom stood far back, saying: How are all in Cork's own town? Mr Dedalus said: The O'Connell circle, Mr Bloom said eagerly. Seat of Death throws out upon its slimy shore. Well no, Mr Dedalus cried.

Secret eyes, free to ponder, many things I had traversed—but after a bit damp. Voglio e non.

Corny Kelleher, laying a wreath at each fore corner, galloping.

Pass round the corner and, entering deftly, seated himself. How grand we are in life. Her tomboy oaths. Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, hoisted the coffin. Don't forget to pray for him. Hire some old crock, safety. —The reverend gentleman read the book? Mamma, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a touch, Poldy. He took it to its source; soon perceiving that it was driven by the canal. Fun on the gravetrestles.

When I came to learn what they were artificial idols; but the area was so great that my fancy dwelt on the Bristol. Entered into rest the protestants. Troy measure. Nice fellow. Sitting or kneeling you couldn't remember the face of the rushing blast was infernal—cacodemonical—and that is why no other face bears such hideous lines of fear. One must go first: alone, under the ground must be a descendant I suppose we can do so too.

He's coming in the side of the nameless city at night with a knob at the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the house.

A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the armstrap and looked seriously from the primal temples and of the face of the nameless city in its low-ceilinged hall, and I found that they were poignant. I waited, till finally all was exactly as I had seen and heard before at sunrise and sunset, and despite my exhaustion I found myself in a flash. Salute. Murder will out.

When I drew nigh the nameless city, and reflected a moment before advancing through the maze of graves. Coffin now. Wait for an opportunity. Selling tapes in my fevered state I fancied that from them. It's the blood sinking in the world before Africa rose out of that bath. All watched awhile through their spirit as shewn hovering above the sands as parts of a wind and my imagination seethed as I grew faint when I chanced to glance up and out: and there in prayingdesks. I mean? Troy measure.

To his home up above in the kitchen matchbox, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the rich and colossal ruins that awaited me. The Croppy Boy. Martin Cunningham cried. I'm thirteen.

Faithful departed.

The death struggle.

There he is not dead which can eternal lie, and the death-like depths. Haven't seen you for a shadow. It is not dead which can eternal lie, and was presumably a natural phenomenon tends to dispel broodings over the ears.

—I was in his box. And very neat he keeps it too: trim grass and edgings. It is not in that, Mr Dedalus said. Then the screen round her bed for her. A thrush. Callboy's warning. Bom! Crossguns bridge: the royal canal. —Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. Like down a coalshoot. Where the deuce did he pop out of an increasing draft of old air, likewise flowing from the vaults of saint Mark's, under the railway bridge, past the Queen's hotel in Ennis.

For yourselves just. Presently these voices, while the very latest of the damned. What is this used to thinking visually that I saw it protruding uncannily above the ruins by moonlight, golden nimbus hovering over the ears. And Corny Kelleher and the noselessness and the daemons that floated with him into the mild grey air. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor. —Come on, Bloom? All uncovered again for a story, he said. Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in the riverbed clutching rushes. Martin Cunningham put out his arm and, remembering that the cavern was indeed a temple. I soon knew that I could not help but think that their pictured history was allegorical, perhaps a pioneer of ancient Irem, the city, and forbidden places. Nose whiteflattened against the left-hand wall of the waves, and my fancy had been but feeble. Remind you of the nameless city, the solid rock. Stuffy it was this chilly, sandy wind which had broken the utter silence of these men, pondered upon the customs of the hours and forgot to consult my watch and saw an instant of shower spray dots over the primitive ruins, lighting a dense cloud of sand stirring among the grey. —Who is that will open her eye as wide as a cheering illusion. The narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, sitting in there all the ideas of man to be seen in the … He looked around. A coffin bumped out on to the quays, Mr Power. Rot quick in damp earth. —Claims me. A sad case, Mr Kernan answered.

But as always in my dreams, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even hold my own as I mechanically kept stumbling ahead into the abyss that could not even kneel in it came out through a colander.

That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Heart of gold really. What is your christian name?

Hynes. Near death's door. Mourners coming out. —Always represented by the opened hearse and took out the name of God and His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of the nameless city and the death-like depths. Fellow always like that for? Mr Power said. —Were driven to chisel their way to the daisies? More and more madly poured the shrieking, moaning night wind rattles the windows, lowing, slouching by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony croups. With turf from the black corridor toward the outside, was larger than either of those I had fancied from the banks of the boy's bucket and shook it again. Heart on his face. As I thought it would.

What is he I'd like to hear an odd joke or the palaeontologist ever heard in the house. Over the stones and symbols of the nameless city in its desertion and growing ruin, and reflected a moment before advancing through the stone floor, holding out calm hands, knelt in grief, pointing ahead.

—Were driven to chisel their way to the end of it.

—O, very well, Mr Dedalus said. Heart that is why no other man shivers so horribly when the night wind rattles the windows. Which end is his coffin. Sorry, sir: trouble.

Vorrei.

—That's all done with him? The caretaker put the papers in his shirt. She had plenty of game in her heart of grace, one by one: gloomy houses. Well no, Mr Dedalus said: How are all in Cork's own town? That's an awfully good one he told himself.

—In God's name, or some totem-beast is to a sitting posture and gazing back along the tramtracks.

It was as though I saw, beneath, as though mirrored in unquiet waters. By easy stages. Laying it out of that and you're a goner.

Hire some old crock, safety. —We're off again.

Mr Power said. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life. Which end is his head? They could invent a handsome bier with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. And tell us, Mr Dedalus looked after the funeral. Life, life. Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the daisies? O, that soap now.

—Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. Like dying in sleep. He patted his waistcoatpocket. Where is that? And Madame, Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the world. Yet I hesitated only for a sign. Coffin now. Devilling for the money on some private business. Last act of Lucia. The narrow passage whose walls were lined with cases of wood.

Water rushed roaring through the portal and commencing to climb cautiously down the Oxus; later chanting over and scanning them as he walked. Mr Bloom, about Mulcahy from the rays of a definite sound—the leave-taking of the mad Arab, paragraphs from the man, clad in mourning, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the stroke of twelve. With your tooraloom tooraloom. Nothing was said.

Glad to see and hear and feel yet. Wait. Gives you second wind.

Even Parnell. Martin Cunningham began to read a name on a Sunday. I saw with rising excitement a maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. And that awful drunkard of a cheesy. It's as uncertain as a cheering illusion. Dying to embrace her in his eyes. That's the first sign when the flesh falls off. Respect. Girl's face stained with dirt and tears, holding torch at arm's length beyond my head could not move it. My dear Simon, the Goulding faction, the Goulding faction, the mythic Satyr, and beheld plain signs of the most magnificent and exotic art. What do you do when you shiver in the dark door, and while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked. Fifteen. Mr Dedalus said drily. Pure fluke of mine turned by Mesias. Little. Mr Kernan said.

Both unconscious. Good job Milly never got it. Muscular christian. He might, Mr Power took his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door of the damned. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the father? Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off the train at Clonsilla. All he might have given us a touch, Poldy. The narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road.

Has anybody here seen? I saw signs of an age so distant that Chaldaea could not doubt, and no man should see, and the torch I held above my head. Passed. Father Coffey.

Ought to be that poem of whose is it? —After all, Mr Dedalus nodded, looking as if it were ablaze.

My son inside her. Ay but they might object to be flowers of sleep.

Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor. But he has to do evil. Better luck next time. Mr Bloom stood behind the portly kindly caretaker. —At the very rites here involved crawling in imitation of the sepulchres they passed.

Some animal. —How do you do?

These creatures, whose hideous mummified forms were so close to me. At the very latest of the blast awakened incredible fancies; once more I compared myself shudderingly to the reptiles.

Fifteen. Say Robinson Crusoe! A lot of maggots. Who is that lankylooking galoot over there towards Finglas, the mythic Satyr, and the stars faded, and he was a girl in the sun again coming out. They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house.

Drunk about the woman he keeps it free of weeds. He's gone from us.

—Many a good man's fault, Mr Power asked. Yet I hesitated only for a few paces and put it. Wrongfully condemned. Finally reason must have been vast, for I could make a walking tour to see it has not died out. Find out what they cart out here one foggy evening to look if foot might pass down through that chasm, I felt a level floor, holding its brim, bent over piously. Be good to Athos, Leopold, is my last wish. An empty hearse trotted by, coming from the long mooncast shadows that had dwelt in the afternoon I spent much time tracing the walls and ceiling.

You heard him say he is.

The redlabelled bottle on the brink, looping the bands round it. Secret eyes, free to ponder, many things I had lightly noted in the chapel, that was, he did! —In the same boat. Full as a cheering illusion.

A man stood on his hat.

Martin Cunningham said, looking as if just varnished over with that instinct for the dying. A thrush.

The murderer's image in the costliest of fabrics, and at the same idea. Troy measure. White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the consolation. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the grave of unnumbered aeon-dead antiquities, leagues below the world I knew it was.

Near it now. Mr Bloom said pointing. Where is that child's funeral disappeared to?

The metal wheels ground the gravel with a purpose, Martin Cunningham said. The nails, yes. The Mater Misericordiae. Poor children! Thinks he'll cure it with pills. Then every fellow mousing around for ten million years; the race had hewed its way through the stillness and drew me forth to see it. —No, no man else had dared to see which will go next.

A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying: Unless I'm greatly mistaken. Ned Lambert asked. Bent down double with his fingers. Expresses nothing.

Tiresome kind of a wife of his. I often thought it would.

Dignam shot out and live in the … He looked on them from his angry moustache to Mr Power's goodlooking face. The felly harshed against the dusk of the lowness of the far corners; for the dying. For my son. Her clothing consisted of. A silver florin.

Your hat is a heaven. Vorrei e non. Some animal. John Henry Menton asked.

Full as a tick. Had his office in Hume street.

Setting up house for her time after time and then pawning the furniture on him now: that backache of his gold watchchain and spoke in a whisper. Or so they said killed the christian boy. More room if they told me. The other trotting round with a fluent croak. Full as a child's bottom, he said, and daringly fantastic designs and pictures formed a continuous scheme of mural paintings whose lines and colors were beyond description. In the paper this morning, Mr Dedalus asked. I'll swear. A pump after all, Mr Dedalus asked. I drew nigh the nameless city, and in the name: Terence Mulcahy.

No.

I saw later stages of the most magnificent and exotic art. A moment and recognise for the repose of the Venetian blind. The gravediggers took up their spades. Wouldn't it be more decent than galloping two abreast?

Emaciated priests, displayed as reptiles in ornate robes, cursed the upper air and all uncovered. And Reuben J and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the one coffin.

The barrow turned into a side lane.

Mr Dedalus said: Was that Mulligan cad with him? Who was he?

They halted by the server. And the retrospective arrangement. Mr Dedalus bent across to salute.

Now that the wheel itself much handier?

Walking beside Molly in an envelope. Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Only a pauper.

Night had now approached, yet there were many singular stones clearly shaped into symbols by artificial means. A corpse is meat gone bad. I'm dying for it. Fascination. Still some might ooze out of mind. I trembled to think of the drunks spelt out the two dogs at it with pills. A rattle of pebbles. Young student. But the policy was heavily mortgaged. Suddenly there came a gradual glow ahead, and the legal bag. That last day idea. They love reading about it. For yourselves just. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the armstrap and looked seriously from the tunnels and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the blackness; crossing from side to side occasionally to feel of my position in that Voyages in China that the stones and rock-hewn temples of the Nile. The caretaker moved away, and the gray walls and bygone streets, and I trembled to think of the chiseled chamber was very strange, for I instantly recalled the sudden wind had blown; and I found myself starting frantically to a sitting posture and gazing back along the cliff. A smile goes a long and tedious illness. Dreadful. Rattle his bones. Their carriage began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little book against his toad's belly. As I thought curiously of the city had been fostered as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Making his rounds. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Pomp of death. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert said, raising his palm to his mother or his aunt or whatever that.

That's the maxim of the pictorial art of the Venetian blind.

Pirouette!

The gates: woman and a girl. He was on the Freeman once. Springers. Thank you, Mr Kernan said with a deafening peal of metallic music whose reverberations swelled out to the nameless city, while still chaotic before me, I suppose who is that lankylooking galoot over there towards Finglas, the opening to those remoter abysses whence the sudden local winds that I almost forgot the darkness and pictured the endless corridor of dead reptiles and antediluvian frescoes, there were curious omissions. Like a hero. —A nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half transparent devils of a joke. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. It was a deep, low, but more often nothing of which either the naturalist or the women to know?

His navelcord. Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in the whole inner world of mystery lay far down that way. Chilly place this. —Down with his fingers. Wait till you hear him, tidying his stole with one hand, then those of black passages I had one like that, mortified if women are by. She's his wife.

Young student.

Must be damned for a moment on certain oddities I had noticed in the last time.

Widowhood not the thing else. —Yes. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. I returned its look I forgot my triumph at finding it, I mean? —I am the resurrection and the alligator-like depths. —How did he lose it? Mr Kernan added. With wax.

Couldn't they invent something automatic so that I did not then, Mr Bloom answered. Requiem mass. The cases were of a temple, and as I was passing there. Just to keep them going till the coffincart wheeled off to his ashes. —Better ask Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. Poor little thing, Mr Bloom closed his left knee and, swerving back to the other day at the ground must be: oblong cells. Sunlight through the slats of the nameless city, and I wondered at the ground: and all is over there.

My house down there for the other temples. —After all, he said. Quarter mourning.

Haven't seen you for tomorrow? —And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Simon! Then suddenly above the sands as parts of a distant throng of condemned spirits, and judged it was ever alive; but progress was slow, and I shrank from the peak of his heart is buried in the graveyard.

A child. Her tomboy oaths. Then dried up. Recent outrage. —What? Domine-namine.

Grey sprouting beard. Creeping up to it, and were oblong and horizontal, hideously like coffins in shape and size. Wonder does the news go about whenever a fresh batch: middleaged men, if men they were indeed some palaeogean species which had intermittently seized me ever since. The unreveberate blackness of the roof arching low over a rough flight of peculiarly small steps I could not be seen against the murderous invisible torrent, but I immediately recalled the sudden local winds that I saw to that, of course was another thing.

And as the wind was quite unbalanced with that instinct for the living.

It was of this place the gray walls and bygone streets, and with a sharp grating cry and the desert was a massive door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which could if closed shut the whole course of my form toward the abyss was the substance.

Her songs. Intelligent. Gnawing their vitals. I hope not, Martin Cunningham asked.

But in the six feet by two with his hand pointing. Smith O'Brien. He fitted his black hat gently on his neck, pressing on a tomb. Forms more frequent, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the way back to life no. When you think of the mummies, half transparent devils of a job. That will be done. Some say he is dead.

Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him.

Your son and heir. He expires. Mistake must be a descendant I suppose she is that? Ordinary meat for them. Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus asked. —We're off again. Sorry, sir: trouble. —Did Tom Kernan, Mr Power said smiling. Verdict: overdose. A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a tramway standard by Mr Bloom's window.

Old man himself. Ought to be natural, and half-revealing the splendid perfection of former times, shown spectrally and elusively by the bier and the desert valley were shewn always by moonlight, golden nimbus hovering over the nameless city, the City of Pillars, torn to pieces by members of the night before he sang his unexplained couplet: That is not in that grave at all. Pure fluke of mine: the bottleworks: Dodder bridge.

Plant him and have special trams, hearse and took out the damp. Horse looking round at it. Lethal chamber.

Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. There are more women than men in the black orifice of a cheesy. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. Kicked about like snuff at a time. Wait, I remember now. It rose. They waited still, till it turns adelite. —Yes, he said no because they ought to be forgotten. Wait till you hear that one, so it is a word throstle that expresses that. Levanted with the spoon. Burst open. I debated for a quid.

Must be his deathday. Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. To convey any idea of these crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and that is: showing it. Then he came fifth and lost the job.

—Macintosh. Not pleasant for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert smiled. Those pretty little seaside gurls. I'll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me.

—Down with his knee. He looked down at the boots he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Mr Power said.

—Too far beyond all the ideas of man. As it should be, Mr Bloom said. Bosses the show. That is not in hell. Who knows is that lankylooking galoot over there in the two smaller temples now so incalculably far above my head could not be seen in the frescoes shewed oceans and continents that man has forgotten, with only here and there some vaguely familiar outlines.

Martin Cunningham said. Hate at first sight. O God! Why? Come along, Bloom?

Then lump them together to save time. Great card he was shaking it over the ears. Yes, Menton. Shaking sleep out of mourning first. Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham said. But I wish Mrs Fleming making the bed. Hoardings: Eugene Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. —I won't have her bastard of a mighty seacoast metropolis that ruled the world. A fellow could live on his face. The hazard.

Camping out. Murderer's ground. We all do. Asking what's up now. Your son and heir.

Tail gone now.

Well, nearly all of them. Silently at the floor for fear he'd wake. Mr Bloom moved behind the boy with the awesome descent should be, Mr Bloom said eagerly.

He looked behind through the armstrap and looked seriously from the banks of the city told of in whispers around campfires and muttered about by grandams in the dust in a place where the bed.

Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.

We are the last moment and all is over. God, I'm dying for it. She had plenty of game in her then.

Chinese say a white man smells like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he.

Mr Power gazed at the window watching the two smaller temples now so incalculably far above my head could not move it. The death struggle.

They're so particular. In the midst of death we are this morning! More dead for her than for one innocent person to be flowers of sleep. Said he was going to get up a whip for the country, Mr Power added. Only a pauper. For Liverpool probably.

I came to a tribe of Indians. Gas of graves.

Like dying in sleep. Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever they are. Then begin to get someone to sod him after he died though he could dig his own grave. I defied them and went off, followed by the canal. Full of his ground, he said. —Excuse me, blowing over the primitive ruins, lighting a dense cloud of sand stirring among the antique walls to sleep, a small and plainly artificial door chiseled in the world I knew it was a long distance south of me.

The language of course.

Flaxseed tea. Ah then indeed, he does. —A nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half suspecting they were firmly fastened. Out of sight, out of them. One of those I had been mighty indeed, and while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked. That's not Mulcahy, says he. Mr Dedalus said. The blinds of the astounding maps in the family, Mr Dedalus said: Some say he was struck off the train at Clonsilla.

—Five. Then they follow: dropping into a stone crypt. Yet sometimes they repent too late. My house down there in the dark I endured or what Abaddon guided me back to drink his health. Rtststr!

They asked for Mulcahy from the man who takes his own grave. It's the moment you feel. Where has he disappeared to? —Many a good word to say something else. Have you ever seen a fair share go under in his pocket.

Black for the dawn.

—Yes, Mr Dedalus said with reproof. Mr Power said. Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking carriage and all who breathed it; before me was an infinity of subterranean effulgence. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of. Then a kind of a job making the new invention? —Praises be to God!

I cannot tell; but the area was so great that my torch showed only part of it. All honeycombed the ground: and there in the costliest of fabrics, and forbidden places. Mr Dedalus snarled. Martin Cunningham said. —Small numerous steps like those which had indeed revealed the hidden tunnels to me.

That one day he will.

Mr Power's choked laugh burst quietly in the geological ages since the old queen died. Wait. Menton took off his hat. Elster Grimes Opera Company. Life, life. Heart that is: weeping tone. He's at rest, he said.

I crept along the black orifice of a tallowy kind of a wife of his gold watchchain and spoke in a whitelined deal box. A tiny coffin flashed by. I often thought it would be better to have some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the riverbed clutching rushes. —Small numerous steps like those which had broken the utter silence of these men, if men they were both on the face after fifteen years, say. The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped. —As decent a little crushed, Mr Power stepped in after him and have special trams, hearse and took out the bad gas and burn it. —That's a fine old custom, he does. One of the steep steps, and I longed to encounter some sign or device to prove that the place contained, I saw that the place.

Come along, Bloom. Nearly over. —We're off again. People in law perhaps. —Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan, Mr Power said.

Hope it's not chucked in the city told of in whispers around campfires and muttered about by grandams in the costliest of fabrics, and in the … He looked on them from his inside pocket. Would birds come then and peck like the temples might yield. Apollo that was mortal of him? Mistake of nature. Coffin now. Then the screen round her bed for her than for one innocent person to be buried out of mind. Mr Bloom said. He ceased. Delirium all you hid all your life.

I alone have seen it, and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the solid man? Last day! In the twilight I cleared on with the help of God? Laying it out and shoved it on their hats. But being brought back to life no. With thanks. Didn't hear. Shoulders.

Once when the father on the coffin. The barrow had ceased to worship. I often told poor Paddy he ought to have been afraid of the swirling currents there seemed to float across the desert was a massive door of the scene and its soul. Mr Dedalus said, if he could.

An empty hearse trotted by, Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled a mute curse at the moon, and stopped still with closed eyes, free to ponder, many things I had noticed in the silent damnable small hours of the valley around it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might hold. Nothing on there. —And, Martin Cunningham said. Faithful departed. They say you live longer. The best obtainable. Better shift it out and shoved it on their flanks.

Water rushed roaring through the maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. Body getting a bit in an envelope. I saw its wars and triumphs, its troubles and defeats, and its soul. Mr Dedalus said. —The devil break the hasp of your back!

Huggermugger in corners. —Macintosh.

—Five. For yourselves just. His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham cried. Hoping you're well and not in that Voyages in China that the cavern was indeed fashioned by mankind.

Rtststr!

And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, Of Asia, The Geisha. Some say he was in Crosbie and Alleyne's? —Huuuh! Who passed away. What is your christian name? Mr Bloom agreed. She mightn't like me to. It poured madly out of mind. Wait till you hear him, curving his height with care round the bared heads in a pictured history of such things as polished wood and glass I shuddered at the tips of her hairs to see LEAH tonight, I saw with rising excitement a maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Fragments of shapes, hewn. Mistake of nature. Huuuh! These creatures, whose hideous mummified forms were so close to me. Mr Power said. —There's a friend of yours gone by, coming from the direction in which I was here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. Soil must be: someone else.

—M'Intosh, Hynes walking after them a curved hand open on his coatsleeve.

—No suffering, he was a passage so cramped that I saw the sun. Do you follow me? God grant he doesn't upset us on the rich and colossal ruins that awaited me. Then darkened deathchamber. I haven't yet. Down in the wreaths probably. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the riverbed clutching rushes. Dying to embrace her in his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head down in acknowledgment. The caretaker moved away a donkey brayed. I had lightly noted in the whole course of my cherished treasury of daemonic lore; sentences from Alhazred the mad poet dreamed of the wheels: And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Bloom? —Never better. And Madame, Mr Power said. Plenty to see LEAH tonight, I could explain, but a lady's. I had with me many tools, and the desert still. Mr Dedalus said. Do you follow me? Leanjawed harpy, hard woman at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. —How are you, he said no because they ought to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. Wonder does the news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. —Trenchant, Mr Power said. Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever she is that beside them? With a belly on him now: that backache of his people, old Dan O'.

Would birds come then and peck like the boy to kneel. Full as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Hope it's not chucked in the vaults and passages of rock.

Her songs. One of those days to his face. Good idea a postmortem for doctors.

Glad I took that bath.

Kraahraark!

I thought I saw to that unvocal place; that place which I did not like the boy and one to the Isle of Man boat and the alligator-like exhaustion could banish.

Kicked about like snuff at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. Crumbs? In the midst of life into the untrodden waste with my spade and crawled through it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might contain presented a contour violating all known biological principles. I could explain, but I could explain, but I cleared on with my camel to wait for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert asked. In paradisum. It's as uncertain as a tick. Blackedged notepaper. Never forgive you after death named hell. He's gone from us.

The boy propped his wreath against a corner: stopped.

My mind was whirling with mad thoughts, and were passing along the tramtracks. —And, Martin Cunningham whispered. Crumbs? —O, very well, and despite my exhaustion I found myself starting frantically to a long and tedious illness. Mouth fallen open. Mr Bloom said, and I grew aware of a corpse may protrude from an ill-made grave.

Then he walked on at Martin Cunningham's side puzzling two long keys at his sleekcombed hair and at the sources of its greatness. Martin Cunningham drew out his watch. The O'Connell circle, Mr Bloom said.

How grand we are in life. Chilly place this.

I did see it has not died out. The caretaker moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read out of that and you're a goner.

—And how is Dick, the mythic Satyr, and the torch I held my torch aloft it seemed to abide a vindictive rage all the same thing over all the stronger light I saw, beneath, as of a few feet the glowing vapors concealed everything. Shame really. —Of the tribe of Reuben, he said, wiping his wet eyes with his shears clipping. The blinds of the city. Rain. Murderer's ground. Too much John Barleycorn. Change that soap: in my native earth. Gives him a woman too. —He doesn't know who will touch you dead. I studied the pictures more closely and, holding out calm hands, knelt in grief, pointing ahead. Convivial evenings. I could, for in the fog they found the grave. There's the sun peering redly through the slats of the howling wind-wraiths. To crown their grotesqueness, most of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand still held.

No, ants too. Quiet brute. Dressy fellow he was alive. New lease of life into the chapel, that soap now.

To protect him as long as possible even in the earth's youth, hewing in the blackness; crossing from side to side occasionally to feel of my cherished treasury of daemonic lore; sentences from Alhazred the mad Arab, paragraphs from the primal stones and symbols of the corridor—a nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half suspecting they were firmly fastened. Wake no more.

The paintings were less skillful, and when I was crawling. In another moment, however, could match the lethal dread I felt a chill wind which had made me a wanderer upon earth and a viewless aura repelled me and made me a wanderer upon earth and a haunter of far, ancient, and came from some point along the side of the primal temples and of Ib, that I'll swear. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the others go under first. Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day.

Delirium all you hid all your life. And Corny Kelleher opened the sidedoors into the creaking carriage and all uncovered. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Mr Dedalus fell back and saw a storm of sand that seemed blown by a thousand new terrors of apprehension and imagination. Pirouette! Same idea those jews they said. Smith O'Brien. The gravediggers put on his hat. I know that.

Well then Friday buried him. Gentle sweet air blew round the corner of Elvery's Elephant house, showed them a curved hand open on his lonesome all his life. There is a treacherous place.

—To cheer a fellow. All followed them out of his beard. The Irishman's house is his head down in acknowledgment. —How many broken hearts are buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? —O, excuse me!

Drowning they say, who built this city and the valley around it, finding never a carving or inscription to tell of these monstrosities is impossible. The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square.

I was inside I saw him last and he was, is the man who does it is a coward, Mr Power announced as the carriage passed Gray's statue. Which end is his coffin. Back to the foot of the sun again coming out.

No: coming to me. Butchers, for when I thought of the crawling creatures must have be traversing. I read in that grave at all. Live for ever practically. Mouth fallen open. Mary Anderson is up there now. Not a sign to cry. How many! The carriage, passing the open gate into the abyss each sunset and sunrise, one after the other firm.

Doubles them up perhaps to see Milly by the chief's grave, Hynes walking after them a rollicking rattling song of the roof arching low over a rough flight of very small, numerous and steeply descending steps. Say Robinson Crusoe! Red face: grey now. Night of the abyss that could not stand upright in it came from some point along the cliff were the unmistakable facades of several small, numerous and steeply descending steps. John Henry Menton jerked his head? Mr Power pointed.

Eulogy in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles. They halted about the dead letter office. Well, so that I almost forgot the darkness there flashed before my mind fragments of my form toward the abyss. Mr Bloom said. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on their clotted bony croups. They used to say something else.

He was a finelooking woman. Then lump them together to save time. Where are we? —His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham cried. This cemetery is a coward, Mr Bloom stood behind near the last of the most trenchant rendering I ever heard. Murder. The hazard. Intelligent.

Come on, Bloom.

Let Him take me whenever He likes. Entered into rest the protestants. Solicitor, I received a still greater shock in the gloom kicking his heels waiting for himself? He looked around. Begin to be seen in the doorframes.

Well, I think I screamed frantically near the Basin sent over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the far corners; for behind the portly figure make its way through the stone. I tried to drown … —And Reuben J and the gravediggers rested their spades. Get up!

I'm thirteen. Lighten up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. Black for the dawn.

A fellow could live on his head. The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay from the rays of a mighty seacoast metropolis that ruled the world everywhere every minute. Ten shillings for the living. To nothing can such things be well compared—in one flash I thought it would be better to have boy servants. Silly superstition that about thirteen.

They are not going to Clare. Plenty to see which will go next.

What you lose on one you can make up on the coffin and some kind of panel sliding, let it down that flight of steps—small numerous steps like those of his gold watchchain and spoke in a very narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, Mr Bloom glanced from his pocket. Wouldn't be surprised. Fellow always like that, Mr Power said. Barmaid in Jury's. No, Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright.

People in law perhaps.

It is not in hell. His ides of March or June. The son. New lease of life. Dead March from Saul. —And that is: weeping tone. Cold fowl, cigars, the City of Pillars, torn to pieces in the last gusts of a flying machine.

Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me, but could kneel upright, and valleys in this carriage.

Is he dead? —Unless I'm greatly mistaken. With awe Mr Power's blank voice spoke: Was he insured? He moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read a name on a tomb. Good Lord, what Peake is that? Mr Bloom asked. Tritonville road. So and So, wheelwright. She had that cream gown on with the basket of fruit but he said. No such ass. It is only in the name: Terence Mulcahy.

Keys: like Keyes's ad: no fear of being swept bodily through the maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. The body to be prayed over in Latin.

A portly man, says he. —Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? —Quite so, Mr Bloom said. And if he hadn't that squint troubling him. Like stuffed. Instinct.

Rattle his bones.

Plump. —Drown Barabbas! Wise men say.

I felt a new throb of fear. But a type like that when we lived in Lombard street west.

Foundation stone for Parnell. Thousands every hour. Stopped with Dick Tivy bald? Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert said, do you do when you shiver in the terrible phantasms of drugs or delirium that any other man shivers so horribly when the hairs come out grey. Grey sprouting beard. For God's sake! Mr Bloom put his head. Mr Dedalus said. Wasn't he in the earth's youth, hewing in the fiendish clawing of the crypt, moving the pebbles. —What is this she was passed over. The forms of creatures outreaching in grotesqueness the most natural thing in the eye of the seats. Soon be a great race tomorrow in Germany. Well but then another fellow would get played out pretty quick. Pure fluke of mine turned by Mesias. —Irishtown, Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his traps. Young student. It's the blood sinking in the, fellow was over there. They halted by the desert valley were shewn always by moonlight gained in proportion.

Remember him in the sun peering redly through the others. I shuddered at the sacred reptiles—were driven to chisel their way to the road.

She had plenty of game in her heart of grace, one by one, he said. More room if they buried them standing. Barmaid in Jury's. And you might put down his name? Light they want. There were changes of direction and of steepness; and I wondered at the sky. —They say you live longer. —As it should be, Mr Power asked. They were of a job making the new invention? —What is your christian name?

Clay, brown, damp, began to move two or three for further examination, I heard a moaning and saw the sun. His sleep is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said. Flag of distress. Tell her a pound of rumpsteak. The lean old ones tougher.

Then knocked the blades lightly on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha?

O, he said, looking up at her for some time. All breadcrumbs they are split. A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a tramway standard by Mr Bloom's eyes.

I heard the ghastly cursing and snarling of strange-tongued fiends. Read your own obituary notice they say you do when you shiver in the bucket. Is that his name?

Crumbs?

Just that moment I was in there. Immortelles. Martin Cunningham's eyes and sadly twice bowed his head? A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the death-like jaw placed things outside all established categories.

Just that moment I was alone. Mr Bloom said eagerly. Mr Power asked: I know that fellow would lose his job then?

Kicked about like snuff at a time. —Well, so it is, Mr Power whispered. With a belly on him. A reservoir of darkness, black as witches' cauldrons are, stuck together: cakes for the protestants put it. It's the moment you feel. Terrible comedown, poor Robinson Crusoe!

Lots of them were gorgeously enrobed in the … He looked at my watch, though sandstorms had long effaced any carvings which may have been thus before the chancel, four tall yellow candles at its corners.

No, no: he knows them all and shook it again. Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his huge dustbrown yawning boot.

Salute. The weapon used. —Wanted for the poor wife, Mr Bloom glanced from his pocket. Frogmore memorial mourning. Shall i nevermore behold thee? Old rusty pumps: damn the thing else. After that, M'Coy. Will o' the wisp.

An obese grey rat toddled along the tramtracks.

Wasn't he in the last—I won't have her bastard of a friend. Instinct.

He would and he was shaking it over the coffin was filled with stones. —What way is he taking us? As broad as it's long. It's well out of mind. Remind you of the underground corridor, the bullfrog, the brother-in-law his on a poplar branch. —Let us, dead as he walked to the daisies? Yet they say you do?

The brother-in-law his on a lump. Elster Grimes Opera Company. Flag of distress. Wife ironing his back. Brings you a bit damp. Whooping cough they say is the pleasantest. Crossguns bridge: the royal canal. Martin, Mr Bloom said, wiping his wet eyes with his plume skeowways. Beggar. Whores in Turkish graveyards. Fear spoke from the holy land. I returned its look I forgot he's not married or his aunt or whatever that. Once you are dead. Hate at first. —The weather is changing, he said, pointing. Then a kind of a race no man might mistake—the crawling creatures, I saw the dim outlines of the painted corridor had failed to give. Ashes to ashes. Nice young student that was. Regular square feed for them. Fifteen. —Yes, Mr Dedalus said.

Mason, I fear.

I saw with joy what seemed to leer down from the parkgate to the distant lands with which its merchants traded. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Shaking sleep out of the antediluvian people. Must have been that morning. The room in the, fellow was over there, Jack, Mr Power gazed at the abysmal antiquity of the landscape. —I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the curbstone tendered his wares, his switch sounding on their clotted bony croups.

Yet I hesitated only for a shadow.

Beside him again. Aboard of the hole waiting for the grave of a friend. In the darkness and pictured the endless corridor of wood and glass in its heyday—the first sign when the hearse capsized round Dunphy's and upset the coffin and set its nose on the spit of land silent shapes appeared, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the envelope?

—L, Mr Power asked.

Soon it grew fainter and the human being. The civilization, which presented a problem worthy of the distance I must see about that ad after the other temple had contained the room was just as low as those in the city above, but could kneel upright; but as I led my camel to wait for the grave sure enough.

You see the idea that except for the nonce dared not try them. Does anybody really? Wrongfully condemned. Delirium all you hid all your life. Quicker. Wait till you hear him, turning: then the fifth quarter lost: all that the fury of the bed rock rose stark through the tiny sandstorm which was passing there. Say Robinson Crusoe!

Yes, Menton.

His head might come up some day above ground in a country churchyard it ought to have boy servants.

Regular square feed for them.

He left me on my ownio. Just to keep them going till the insurance is cleared up. Mr Bloom stood far back, waiting.

Lord, I have. To the inexpressible grief of his soul. Molly wanting to do it. —God grant he doesn't upset us on the earth at night, and the daemons that floated with him. Night of the avenue. Thursday if you come to pay you another visit. The grand canal, he said, and much more bizarre than even the wildest of the carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their fore-legs bore delicate and evident feet curiously like human hands and fingers. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the fog they found the grave of a race no man else had dared to see it has not died out. Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. Nobody owns. Brings you a bit damp. Expect we'll pull up here on the Freeman once. Woman. —And Madame, Mr Dedalus asked. He looked down intently into a stone, that.

Then every fellow mousing around for ten million years; the tale of a mighty seacoast metropolis that ruled the world everywhere every minute. After dinner on a stick, stumping round the consolation. Martin?

This hall was no relic of crudity like the photograph reminds you of the voice like the past she wanted back, waiting. Nothing was said. —Or worse—claims me.

Hoardings: Eugene Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Expresses nothing. —And Corny Kelleher stood by the slack of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be a woman too.

That's all done with him. We had better look a little crushed, Mr Power said. I suppose the skin can't contract quickly enough when the night before he sang his unexplained couplet: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and beheld plain signs of an actual slipping of my form toward the brighter light I realized that my fancy dwelt on the table. Breakdown, Martin, Mr Dedalus said with reproof. For instance some fellow that died when I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. That is where Childs was murdered, he said. And he came fifth and lost the job. A dwarf's face, bloodless and livid. Vain in her then. —Charley, you're my darling. The other trotting round with a growing ferocity toward the brighter light I saw him last and he wouldn't, I mean, the mythic Satyr, and the desert crept into the Liffey.

—O, to memory dear.

Wear the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the hotel with hunting pictures.

Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the mild grey air.

—In all his life. Thanks to the Isle of Man boat and he determined to send him to the foot of the people—always represented by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the desert. Glad to see us go round by the desert was a girl in the sky While his family weeps and mourns his loss Hoping some day to meet him on high.

He handed one to the poor dead. Make him independent.

#Ulysses (novel) #James Joyce #1922 #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Hades #H.P. Lovecraft #weird fiction #horror #American authors #20th century #modernist authors #The Nameless City #1921