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lesbianfeminists · 5 years

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We, lesbians, will get to say who we are and who we are not. Politically, sexually, emotionally, within our communities. We will have space to discuss owning ourselves. I’ve been wanting to do this issue for a year or two, in part to explore how we understand “lesbianism” in the present, in part to respond to attacks on lesbian identity. I believe the ideas that lesbians can sleep with men, that faggots can call themselves dykes and dykes can avail themselves of male privileges by calling themselves faggots, that men can be women and women who pass do it because they’re simply “playing with gender” — are meant to divide and destroy us, to drive us literally out of our own minds. But I feel already driven out. Or more like I’m driving a car with no brakes down a side road in the mountains and it keeps picking up speed. I don’t know how to contain myself and make a nice, neat, clear argument. I have to finish ten books first, reread everything that came out in the last twenty years, find out exactly what deconstruction and essentialism mean. How am I going to do that, edit the magazine, go to work and have a life? But I’ve got to try. I understand lesbians’ claim to own ourselves (well, it’s a stance more than a reality) as heroic. Our minds, our bodies, our labor, our sex, our heritages are constant staging grounds for war. Vastly out-powered on every front, we manage to survive and, for moments, thrive. Owning ourselves is, after all, no small feat. That lesbians are different from “women” means something. Consider, for a minute, women’s bodies: women have been owned for centuries. This isn’t just some old-fashioned out-of-date political conceit — it’s why the abortion rights fight is so ugly, why fundamentalism is surging across the globe. The appropriation of female labor — including reproductive labor — is the cornerstone of social organization in the world we know. The resurgence of “family values” is the brother-movement to the ethnic “cleansing” movements we’re seeing worldwide. These movements are a strategic reestablishment of hierarchical male power that positions individual men to rule and fight for rulership and resources. But in order for men to do this, women have to be kept in line. Men create ideas about what woman are in order to control them. These ideas vary from culture to culture, but their use is the same: to isolate females, to control their reproductive functions, to use their physical labor to support and enrich males, to keep females out of public spheres as much as possible — certainly out of positions of power. ... Other lesbians of course have written papers and books on the way these things work — I think of Marilyn Frye and Monique Wittig in particular. But the point is: a lesbian is in opposition to a “woman” by her very being. Of course we have to work on men’s terms to make a living, but even so we mostly rent our bodies out. A lesbian body is, theoretically, a body that no man owns. Which may be why so many folks are out to “bend” the definition of a lesbian out of recognition. If the word lesbian loses its power and meaning, but the distribution of wealth, resources and opportunity remains overall the same, who benefits? In the midst of the San Francisco Bay Times’ current “gender debates,” Caryatis Cardea wrote: “If a woman who sleeps with both females and males is a lesbian; and, if a man who submits to surgical procedure to bring his body in line with his acceptance of sex role stereotypes, is a lesbian; and if a straight woman whose spiritual bond is with other females is a lesbian, then what is a female-born-female who loves only other females? Soon there will be no logical answer to that question.” Every gay paper is filled with these “gender debates.” It’s the ’90s — you are me and she is he and we are all together (okay, so the Beatles did it 20 years ago, that only means they were ahead of their time, not that we’re just following an old groove, right?). Transsexual men and their friends call lesbians hate-mongers, fascists and “essentialists” for not opening every lesbian and women’s organization to them. It’s in vogue for everyone to be a bi-sexual (the “natural” human state, which, oddly enough, makes lesbianism “unnatural” all over again). ... Many of us, who perceive men as destroying the world, are reluctant to give up the old dichotomies: men war, women nurture. We can argue forever (and seem to be) about whether it’s being born with a womb or being socially constructed that makes us “women” without being able to come to a final answer. But the more we understand attributes (self-reliance, adventurousness, curiosity, domesticity) as options instead of innate qualities, the more choices we have as individuals. Lesbians tend to choose from the full range of available attributes (and occasionally invent some of our own). That doesn’t mean we don’t know where we live — all of us must choose, at some point, whether or not to cast our lots with the “women.” Individual choice alone does nothing to change power structures. Men can (and do) call themselves sensitive and understanding in order to maintain their power in new social climates (Chevron cares). Queer Nation has picked up the idea that women and men are “created” and given it a popular spin: get behind the fluidity of identity, don’t be a rigid role-monger, don’t cling to your label like a reactionary to a life-boat, be flexible. It’s an attractive idea. So attractive that you’d think somebody would have thought of it before the late ’80s…. As many womyn, particularly womyn of color, have noted, the more you have power, the more you don’t use “labels” to define yourself (you don’t see a lot of Rockefellers in the midst of these debates). It’s the use of the “label” that states: I have to assert my own identity. All of us who have to consciously name ourselves have, at some point, been uncomfortable with this (if for no other reason than that someone we don’t like can claim the same label). But you can’t change power structures by simply proclaiming these “roles” (gender, class, race) culturally constructed, and therefore bourgeois baggage. Sure, roles are absurd — and they exist for reasons. “Deconstructing” them without challenging the power of those who make them necessary doesn’t accomplish anything — it’s only playing dress-up with fancy words. This idea — everything is fluid, we can change the world by blowing straight people’s minds, we can overcome our origins — is nothing new. European and American cultures have a long “bohemian” tradition, and gender-bending has, in fact, been around since at least Shakespearean times. It’s a parlor game the privileged play, and they let some of us “others” in so the game doesn’t seem rigged. It doesn’t go to the root. And along the way it accomplishes the power structure’s dirty work: it makes it look like we can “transcend” who we are and all become “human.” Race and class become things we can shed — and should try to. Womyn-only space is invaded and neutralized. Which is why it seems to me so important for us to do the work of claiming ourselves. Our own bodies, our pride in them. As often as we have to.

“Notes for a Magazine,” Elana Dykewomon in Sinister Wisdom, spring/summer 1993.

#elana dykewomon #sinister wisdom

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boredroo · 5 years

Text

A Messenger pt. 4

Summary: The Council has heard of the names that have reigned down London; the Frye twins have evidently brought upon a change for the better good against the Templar’s tyranny, but order must still be kept.

You have been sent by the Council to evaluate the two sibling assassins, report what is must and maintain control where it must be maintained.

Pairing: Jacob Frye x Reader

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

[][][][][][][][]

The sun filtering through the glass window feels warm, but not too warmly as it must be if you were actually outside. You’re rather content, really, spending many hours in the moving train, interviewing and interrogating the people residing, or just resting within. Sometimes you are poring over notes of the Piece of Eden Evie has been so very devoted in searching for as well.

You’ve talked to the Assassins’ contacts who can be found from time to time lingering around the compartments, aside from Frederick Abberline who is of the Scotland Yard, so understandably he won’t spend much time here as the others.

Ned Wynert, for example, is an amiable fellow who doesn’t ever mind your company and is always happy to answer whatever inquiries you have. Then, there’s Clara O’Dea, the child that has taken upon herself to lead other unfortunate children of the streets. And with her, truthfully, you find it more... difficult to even keep any sort of eye contact with. She has noticed this, the intelligent one she is, and has decided for both of your sake to stay away from you as long as she could help it—You remain indifferent to this, perhaps even relieved.

...She reminds you too much of a certain someone after all. And you refuse to have that familiarity, that... pain hold you back from your responsibilities.

But now, you focus on a different second party of yours; Henry Green smiles politely, kindly at every question you have. He is rather helpful for your part, having made observations and notes of his own on the Frye twins, though you can’t help but notice that...

“...Mr. Green, are you afraid of me?” you ask after a moment of consideration. He never looks you in the eye, you’ve noted.

Henry startles at this. “Uh, w-well...” He recollects himself, smiling a strained one. “You are a rather... authoritative person, I must admit. But I mean no disrespect, of course-”

You nod. “Not at all. But I do worry how you’re taken to Evie if you possibly find her intimidating as well.” The Frye sister is a definite nightmare to those who cross her, and so you can’t help but be curious.

Henry splutters in shock. “(Y/N)...! What are you saying?!”

His cry comes to you as a surprise. “I apologise, I didn’t mean to offend-”

“You’ll have to excuse me, (Y/N),” he rushes, walking past you in a manner of someone escaping from getting caught red-handed.

...Did you say something wrong? You never expected that Henry, someone as collected and professional as himself could ever put up such a display, and yet-

You hear a small laughter from behind.

Turning around, your notebook in hand...

“Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Frye.”

“And to you as well,” he winks as he tips his hat slightly, leaning comfortably against the wall not far from where you stand. Has he been there long?

You’ve come to a realisation not long before this—that, as of late, you sometimes discover him in the periphery, watching you, your interactions, your routines, and only announcing himself quite later than what is appropriate. If not, he would be out there, surely setting fires to carts and carriages and doing the complete opposite of what his smart sister is doing.

“Very smooth there, what you did with Henry. Very subtle,” he smirks, coming to stand near you.

You purse your lips. “I didn’t mean any harm-”

“Of course you didn’t,” he’s come to stand nearer, having you look up to him, to that unchanging confident smile of his. “Just forget about Greenie, he’ll get over himself.”

“Greenie...” you couldn’t restrain an amused smile of your own, though you manage to avert your eyes away before you’re caught. You never notice the curious grin Jacob wears towards you.

“So, (Y/N),” Jacob rests his hand on your shoulder—you can’t help but freeze at the sudden, almost intimate gesture. “How are your reports so far? Surely you’ve seen just how much I am capable, and might I say, quite handsome?” He leans in playfully, complacently grinning.

You make a show of attentively going through your book with a hard, serious gaze, before forcefully snapping it shut. “Not a single bit,” you deadpan.

Rather than retaliating, he only stares, and laughs lightly right after, looking away delicately. His rather... gentle reaction has you frowning in confusion, but you cough the thought away.

“On a more serious note, I do think you of a capable assassin. You’re better than me, and many others I’ve known, that is obvious,” he looks briefly surprised at that. “But a little pinch of wisdom and careful planning would carry you even further. Alike to your sister and father.”

There, he groans.

“I’m telling the truth,” you insist, but he waves his hand in disinterest.

“Okay, let’s not ruin the moment, yes?” he sighs exasperatedly. ...What moment?

You’re tempted to ask, sate your puzzlement but at his seemingly soured mood, you barely manage to hold your tongue.

“I was actually going to ask, (Y/N), if you wanted to tag along with me today,” Jacob says.

“Doing what?”

“Just a bit of extermination work, you know...” he snickers. “From those pests.”

He’s inviting you to work in the field with him?

You cock an eyebrow, hesitant. “Why?”

“Why not?”

You couldn’t prepare a ready answer for that, and Jacob grins in satisfaction in response.

“This is more of an opportunity for you to evaluate me, wouldn’t it?” He emphasises the ‘evaluate’ part, making you fidget in reluctance. Heat as if sears through where his hand is still touching your shoulder, and you feel your stomach churn for no good reason. Could he be using some sort of a... fear tactic on you?

“That is true, Mr. Frye,” you begin diplomatically, “But I never expected you to actually want to be evaluated. I admit, my reports on you are quite diminutive compared to your sister’s.”

His voice then sounds much closer than you expect, smooth and almost soft, like a whisper into your ear, “Then there’s no reason to say no, am I right?”

You look towards him, juggling the bundle of tangled words you have no idea how to string coherently. His eyes are bright as they lay against yours, and you suppress the urge to gulp.

“...Very well.”

The change is immediate; he pulls away briskly and slaps the small of your back. You’re almost hurled forward from his eager strength.

“Splendid! It’s a date then,” he beams, already making way towards the exit of the train.

“I-It is?” You mutter incredulously under your breath.

He doesn’t deign to answer, only catching your attention to show the meeting place on the map on the wall, along with sharing with you the designated time.

“Why aren’t we going together?” you ask before he could leap out.

Jacob scoffs. “Now, now, shouldn’t we take this slowly and steadily?”

You’re close to pulling your hair out and scream in frustration. What does that even mean?!

With a cheery wink, he removes his hat in bidding farewell, before leaving the train entirely.

...You really don’t understand the work which is Jacob Frye, and you aren’t sure whether you will ever, to be frank.

***

Meow.

You look up from your sketch in black ink, frowning at the cat sitting in front of your crouched self.

“Did you change positions again?” You grimace at the feline, refraining a weary sigh. She blinks blankly in response, and naturally goes to bathe herself, not exactly requiring any privacy from your eyes.

Your forehead scrunched up in dismay, you flip to the next page, beginning to doodle from scratch yet again, simply because the damned adorable cat refuses to stand still and let you bask in all her glory without giving you such a hard time. You suppose you’re drawing a cat licking her underside now, if that’s what she wants...

“...Now that’s what I call a masterpiece,” a voice comes from right behind you, and you scream.

As you scramble to stand upright, your notebook and pen slip out of your grasp and you’re a hot fumbling mess trying to catch them multiple times. And when you have, you whirl around, gaping to see Jacob standing there. You quickly brush down your clothes in a desperate act to appear... anything that you weren’t just seconds ago.

The hard twitch of Jacob’s lips brings you despair. You’d prefer if he’d just laugh all he wants, but instead his attempt of suppressing a surely wide smile is a gigantic blow you have to take to your pride and honour.

There’s a pause, just briefly as he seems to look you up and down, arms against his chest, until...

“Hello,” he slowly greets, the single word tinged with so much hidden meaning, so much mockery and amusement that you might as well have taken damage just from that.

“...Hello, Mr. Frye,” you answer, quieter. His smile cracks for just a second before he promptly nods, putting up a serious face, but failing utterly.

You really can’t take this any second longer. “You were late,” you say, almost accusingly. “You were late, so excuse me if I had to-”

“Woah there, settle down,” he says, raising his hands mid-air as if in surrender, “Not my business, yeah?”

“Indeed,” you almost sag in relief. “Thank you for understanding-”

But then he snatches your book out of your hands, immediately flipping through to land right where your horrible doodles are. Panic rams into you like a horse.

“F-Frye!”

“Wow, look at this one,” Jacob is now laughing without control, more than enjoying your masterpieces. “Art imitates life, as they say.”

“Frye, come on!” You struggle against him to take your book back, but he avoids you deftly. You’re not an artist at all, you were simply trying to fill the time, time that he himself made for coming later than the appointment you’ve decided on, but now he’s being childish! And you’re really just embarrassed about all of this...!

“Hey, that’s you, see?” He even shows the cat what you’ve drawn, which the latter finds interest only momentarily, too self-absorbed to care.

“Jacob!” You demand, and finally you’re able to get your hands back on your book after what feels like an hour of struggle. Jacob takes a step back, admitting defeat, but that stupid grin of his still won’t go away.

You’re huffing begrudgingly as you shove your items into your satchel, that when you’re done, you don’t allow Jacob to speak at all and instead push a finger against his chest, making him recline another step back.

“You’re insufferable!” You shout in frustration. He seems unfazed, and so you do it again, pushing him with your whole hand this time.

But he catches it with his own, holding onto your wrist, that when you try to retract back your hand, he doesn’t let you. You grit your teeth, snapping up angrily, only to fall back—almost fall back when you catch sight of his expression.

...Why is he looking so endearingly at you like that?

You frown, so furious, so... confused. You don’t understand what it is he’s trying to do, what he wants from you.

...It feels too long before the... strange atmosphere finally fades. He doesn’t let you go still, but he does slip something into your hand.

“Here,” he says, voice abnormally quieter than usual.

“Huh?”

In your grasp now, is something you’ve seen before. In fact, you recognise it immediately—

“This is... a grappling hook?” You question, looking over it at the same time. Jacob hums in confirmation.

“Thought you’d need one if you’re going to stay with us, really helps out in the long run if you’re not planning to scale every single building in the city,” he elaborates.

...He expects you to stay long with them?

The grappling hook, or the rope launcher as you can identify it both ways, is a tool specific for the use of the twins, and only the twins. Even Henry doesn’t own one, if you recall correctly. At least, not one that was specifically asked to be made, not like this one that Jacob is giving you.

“...Is this why you came late?” You ask. Jacob shrugs nonchalantly.

“Might’ve. I would’ve brought you to see Aleck as well, but mad scientists are busy men, it seems,” he says with a chuckle. “Perhaps next time.”

“...Thank you,” you barely manage to say, still a bit too caught off guard, and honestly, winded after that... silly, unprofessional little interaction between the two of you—You didn’t exactly expect this at all.

“Really, thank you,” you repeat, more genuinely this time. You look up to him, wanting to say more; Thank you for thinking of me, you try to say. ...But you can’t, you aren’t able to.

He doesn’t respond immediately, simply staring back at you in silence. But he breaks into a smile afterwards, then casually pats your arm.

“Don’t mention it,” he starts, and with a more mischievous smile, “Take it as... compensation. For laughing at your beautiful drawings.”

Your face falls. “I don’t usually draw, alright?! Like I said, you were late and I was bored-”

“Yes, yes,” he chuckles, his tone as if consoling a child. You’re still trying to prove whatever the point it is you’re making as he urges you to walk, both of you walking side by side to your next destination.

“No, really. If anything, those were impressive works considering I never pick up drawing or painting.”

“Of course, (Y/N). And I’m sure those cats will prove helpful for your reports to the Council.”

...And at that, you could only fall silent.

——

Aaaaaaaahhhh I think the relationship moved a bit too fast in this one but I kinda can’t help it :’) It’s supposed to be longer, but had to cut it here and save the follow-up for the next part. Thanks for reading, really appreciate the likes guys! 💖💖💖

#jacob frye x reader #jacob frye #assassin's creed #assassins creed #assassins creed syndicate #henry green

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bluewatsons · 5 years

Conversation

Paladin of Literary Agon: A Conversation with Harold Bloom, Los Angeles Review of Books (May 12, 2019)

William Giraldi: One of the abiding pleasures of Possessed by Memory is the dual meaning of the title: not only to possess literature by memory, but to be possessed, demon-like, by one’s own history, by a memory that will not stop. You’ll be 89 this year; you’ve had a most fertile and fulfilling life, one enriched enormously by friendships with the poets and critics you most admired. I think of Angus Fletcher, M. H. Abrams, Kenneth Burke, A. R. Ammons, John Hollander, John Ashbery: hauntings by them help mold this book into a glimmering threnody. Did you start out to memorialize your friends in such a way?

Harold Bloom: I did not intend Possessed by Memory to be so elegiac. But most of it was dictated to generous assistants during several years in which I spent much of my time in hospitals and in rehabilitation. It started to become a meditation upon mortality. Worst of all, almost my entire generation of critics and poets, so many of them my closest friends, died during those years. My prime mentors — Frederick A. Pottle, Hans Jonas, Gershom Scholem, Kenneth Burke — had departed earlier, all save for Mike Abrams, who lasted more than a hundred years. With the recent deaths of William Merwin and Richard Wilbur, and of John Ashbery before them, my loneliness increased. These days, whenever I read, teach, or write, I am haunted by friends who educated me--Richard Rorty, Angus Fletcher, Geoffrey Hartman, Paul de Man, John Hollander. I was very close to the poets A. R. Ammons, John Ashbery, William Merwin, and in quite a different way to James Merrill. They seem to be in the room with me. They also appear in my dreams. I have never written a poem. My only gift, as I understand it, is to have learned to listen: to students and to ghosts. I could wish the book were less somber than it is.

William Giraldi: Something occurred to me on my second reading of Possessed by Memory. Your essential friendships — those that were deeply reciprocal, that helped fertilize your work as you helped fertilize theirs — have been with poets and critics and not novelists or dramatists. You told me once about the ecstasy of being found by Hart Crane’s poems at the Bronx Library when you were a small child. The Pentateuch had always been a shimmering presence in your household, but it was Crane who opened the book your life would become, who put you in touch with the font of daemonic splendor, “the burning fountain,” as Shelley has it. I know what certain fiction writers mean to you — Cervantes, Kafka, Proust (and Possessed by Memory ends with a penetrating assessment of Proust) — but the poets (Shakespeare, Shelley, Blake, Keats, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats, Crane, Stevens) have clearly meant the most to you.

Harold Bloom: That is most of the story, yes. During the 1980s and 1990s, I spent a great deal of time with Philip Roth. There were also interchanges with Tony Kushner and the novelist Walter Abish. Hart Crane broke the vessels for me. I then read Shakespeare, Milton, Whitman, the Romantics and Victorians and 20th-century poetry in English with a kind of fury that Crane had put into me. Probably my essential reading experience comes down to the Hebrew Bible, Dante, Shakespeare. I continue to read Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, Hart Crane, and Stevens almost daily.

William Giraldi: Possessed by Memory begins with an epigraph by the divine Oscar Wilde from his essay “The Critic as Artist,” in which he speaks of “the highest criticism” being “a record of one’s soul” and “the spiritual moods and imaginative passions of the mind.” I think of how Wilde and Pater swerved from the prevailing critical ethos to make it new. In their departure from their predecessors, they honed their own aesthetic. You see these swervings and disruptions in English-language criticism--Coleridge moving away from Dryden and Johnson, Arnold from Coleridge, Eliot and Empson attempting to disrupt and correct Arnold while simultaneously taking from him. Your own critical program began with a focus on the Romantic poets, on making new paths from the likes of M. H. Abrams and Northrop Frye. Then you veered into the work that became your life’s mission, the elucidation of influence. To what extent were you conscious of needing to swerve from or to disrupt your own potent predecessors?

Harold Bloom: I had a bad nightmare on July 11, 1967, following my 37th birthday. I have written about this elsewhere. The next morning I came down to breakfast and began to scribble a long dithyramb that I called “The Covering Cherub or Poetic Influence.” I kept at it for another day or two, and it became, in time, much revised, the opening chapter in The Anxiety of Influence, published January 5, 1973. The original text was printed by John Hollander in his selection of my work called Poetics of Influence. I was sadly amused when Northrop Frye told mutual friends that he could not read the book because it was all about him. It is not. Nor is it about my humane mentors M. H. Abrams and Frederick A. Pottle. After years of meditation I have come to believe that the Covering Cherub, a figure out of Ezekiel and Blake, was smothering me with the massive heft of all the poems I had read, loved, remembered. If I have a potent precursor, it would have to be Dr. Samuel Johnson. I am a good schoolteacher--he is beyond me and beyond disruption. Had I followed family tradition, I would have become a rabbi. Instead, I am a secular rabbi like those celebrated by Wallace Stevens. I teach Shakespeare as scripture. When I teach Poetic Influence, in some ways I vanish, and in some modes I am exalted.

William Giraldi: I often try to impart to readers the Eucharistic component to the strongest literature, the necessity of its sacral communing. As a nonbelieving Catholic, I have no problem calling it a secular holiness, though I don’t, as you know, subscribe to the Arnoldian notion of poetry’s power to supplant religion, never mind to correct society. You’ve spent your life defending and explaining the pleasurable hardships in the strongest literature. I see this as the difference between the rare joy of aesthetic mastery in Dante and the mere enjoyment of a contemporary best seller, the difference between gravitas and gratification. In An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis differentiates between strong readers and weak readers. Strong readers experience an important book as a sacral event, their worldviews revamped. Weak readers read an important book and nothing at all happens to them. Near the start of the The Western Canon, you acknowledge that reading for aesthetic pleasure and necessary wisdom has gone the way of the plesiosaur. Twenty-five years later, as the internet perseveres in the strafing of our souls, I wonder how grim is your outlook.

Harold Bloom: I regret not sharing your admiration for C. S. Lewis. After a few amiable encounters in the autumn of 1954 at Cambridge University, the distinguished defender of the faith and I fell out while sharing drinks at the Anchor Bar. Gnosticism upset him gravely. We did not speak again after that. He attacked my book The Visionary Company and I responded gently enough by writing that his A Preface to Paradise Lost was pure theology. Sometime back I published a brief book, Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? I concluded by relying upon Saint Augustine, who taught us all how to read strongly and how memory, time, and consciousness relate to imaginative literature, though of course the Bible was for him the truth. Oddly I begin to be less pessimistic than I was in The Western Canon. Partly that is inspired by my students, but also I receive endless emails, straight mails, phone calls, and visits from good readers throughout the world who have been kind enough to want to tell me that I have been their teacher. There is a saving remnant. Young women and men the world over read and hear the call of wisdom and the urgency of intelligence. I am pretty much a relic, yet I believe the future — if there is one — will depend upon deep readers all over the globe. Without reading Dante, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Cervantes, and their few peers, we cannot learn how to think. And if we cannot think, then the future belongs to the Trumps of the world — that is to say, to the apocalyptic beasts from the sea.

William Giraldi: Since we must endure now the daily mauling of morality from our capital, the smiting of tact and taste and truth by such tanninim, I sometimes ponder what the state of our culture and politics would be if we had a populace educated in beauty and wisdom by Dante and Dickinson. But such considerations get quaveringly close to the erroneous Arnoldian line that comprehends literature as social corrective. From the beginning, and again in Possessed by Memory, you’ve been adamant in insisting that literature enhances and enlarges individuals only through aesthetic pleasure it grants individuals the vital discourse they must have with themselves if they are to be whole, if they are to enjoy more life and prepare for life’s end. But of course a society made up of such individuals is something to smile on. I think of your old friend Northrop Frye, “We can’t speak or think or comprehend even our own experience except within the limits of our own power over words, and those limits have been established for us by our great writers.” Literature says with John Clare, “O take me from the busy crowd, / I cannot bear the noise!” and “Lord keep my love for quiet joys.” I’m a touch surprised you aren’t more morose about our noisome cyber lives.

Harold Bloom: It is true and perhaps sad that the highest literature teaches us how to speak to ourselves rather than to others. Reading Dante and Shakespeare may improve an individual but will not make him a better citizen. I do not have much of what you call a cyber life myself because I don’t watch television, do not have a cell phone, and have to dictate to someone at a computer in order to write. More than ever I am a dinosaur. But I have to reason outward from my students. Doubtless they are all involved in these technologies. But last week I taught Macbeth and “Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction.” Most of my students were delightfully agile in discussing both. I grant that I choose them from a possible group that is already elite. And yet they are as good as any students I have taught in my 63 years at Yale. As I discovered again this morning, I no longer can read The New York Times, once I have glanced at all the dreadful events. Cultural coverage is so remote from my aesthetic experience that clearly I will go on provoking tired readers. Still, if I have a public function, and I doubt it, it would have to be as a living relic of an age that could give us Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery.

William Giraldi: Your age has given us also a clutch of thrilling critical voices who helped establish American literary comment as a worthy art, just as your own work has demonstrated that art and has helped complete the imaginative literature it sets out to evaluate and appreciate. Each week I go back to Wilde to be sustained, and I’m remembering now his contention, with a nod to Pater and Arnold, that “[w]ithout the critical faculty, there is no artistic creation at all worthy of the name.” Wilde underscores the essential and thrumming reciprocity of literature and criticism. If critics are analysts of pleasure, in Chesterton’s phrase, then their work is responsible for instigating its own pleasure, for creating its own wisdom and beauty. Mary McCarthy once defined weak criticism as “a quivering jelly of uncritical emotion” — which I suspect is an allusion to T. S. Eliot-- “The general mess of imprecision of feeling / Undisciplined squads of emotion” — and I wonder if you ever fear that our new autocracy of emotion is going to butcher the essential reciprocity of literature and criticism. What becomes of a culture that does a lot of feeling about itself but no longer knows how to think about literature?

Harold Bloom: High literature has three prime attributes-- cognitive power, originality, aesthetic splendor. Only by a disciplined harnessing of emotion can any of these three come forth. What you call our “new autocracy of emotion” is just stylized noise. It cannot touch the interdependence of criticism and literature because it is mindless. Culture is now cut off from fashion. Popular culture has become an oxymoron. Bad taste is not culture. There are still many valuable writers of imaginative works in our society. It seems to me that they prosper best when they take a stance apart from the immediate moment. Distraction is the enemy. I see no crisis in the reciprocity of literature and criticism because the culture industries are irrelevant to it.

William Giraldi: I’m reminded of your chapter in Possessed by Memory on Angus Fletcher and Whitman, in which you reference Fletcher’s Allegory and what he called “the crisis of scale.” You say that Fletcher “warned prophetically that any sense of sublime transcendence is going to vanish in our technological world. What is coming is the emptiness of allegory without ideas.” Fletcher died in 2016 and he seems to me to be a loving, guiding shade throughout this book. All along you have been not only continually in communion with poetic splendor, but continually in conversation, explicit or not, with those critics who helped cast you. Has your relationships with certain critics — Longinus, Lucretius, Pater, Hazlitt, et cetera — changed over your lifetime?

Harold Bloom: Samuel Johnson is always the rhinoceros in the room. Walter Pater taught me appreciation in all its senses. Kenneth Burke and I wandered around lower Manhattan while he taught me rhetoric and we both recited Whitman. But Angus Fletcher is the abiding presence. He is in the room as I teach, read, write. Our friendship was continuous from 1951 to 2016, and indeed he is my guiding shade. I think my relationships with mentors and friends changed only after they died. I am not an occultist nor a medium, but somehow they speak to me from the beyond. They are no different except perhaps a touch more urgent.

William Giraldi: My memory is all loops and lacunae. The poetry I have locked in me took lots of work to get there and takes lots of work to stay there. I once described your memory as a great bear trap, but let’s revise that, because I recently heard a cosmologist say that at the other end of every black hole is a white hole... nothing truly disappears but is born anew in another cosmos, at the other end. There’s poetic splendor in that, a Nietzschean eternal recurrence that pleases me. Your memory for poetry is a vortex birthing fresh light. I think of Robert Graves’s poem “On Portents,” in which he writes of “tourbillions in Time made / By the strong pulling of her bladed mind.” But I wonder if a pulling memory such as yours is ever a woe... it gives in verse but takes in tears. There must be morose moments before the bruising dawn when you wish you couldn’t remember with such vividness.

Harold Bloom: Memory can be a consuming fire or it can please like the taste of fresh fruit. From about 4 a.m. on, I am not happy about my memory though it keeps me going anyway. I surprised myself the other day by quoting swaths of Edmund Spenser to myself. At first I could not remember who it was, but that came soon. It is much easier to remember poems than to remember people. If I allowed myself to brood on all the people I loved who have departed, then I would never be able to go on reading, writing, teaching. In me memory has become cognition.

William Giraldi: Your combined work on Romanticism, influence, memory, Shakespeare, and religion amounts to a constant, branching dialogue--your books sing to each other under the light of literature. You long ago came into possession of your own influence, and I wonder what you ponder now when glancing back at your tremendous output, if you’d like to be remembered as the explicator of literary agon, as fervent Bardolator, as defender of the Canon, or if you see your different stages as I do, as a single stage that progresses as your thinking progressed, from your first book on Shelley to this latest on memory.

Harold Bloom: I have been publishing books and essays from 1957 until now in 2019. I continue to write and to teach. I can hardly remember what it was like to be 25 or 27. I would like to be remembered as a teacher. Essentially I am a schoolteacher. I do not know whether I have developed or just unfolded. It seems to me dubious that any of my writings will survive. They were extensions of my teaching. Insofar as they have taught strangers, they have done their work. The work of teaching is never over. It has taught me how to listen. When I was young and middle-aged, I was a bad listener. Now I listen very closely as my students discuss Shakespeare or Wallace Stevens with one another. I think when I depart that I will think of myself as a secular rabbi. One reads to the congregation yet also to oneself. Yahweh bewilders me. I cannot accept him. I cannot reject him. The God of my mother and my father cannot be just an old story. I do not trust in the Covenant, but I cannot deny the transcendental and extraordinary.

#harold bloom #interview #literature #classics #critic

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ladye11e · 6 years

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Deception pt 13

The conflict between the Assassins and the Templars is getting out of hand. Lies, deceit and subterfuge, now you must pick a side...

Tagging @geekgoddess813 @ermergerd517 @sweet-flash @i-wontgivein 💕

Link to the full fic so far is Here

Characters: Jacob Frye/Reader

You had been here over a week now, and you were starting to become impatient at there being absolutely no sign of any activity around the warehouse. Connor had been reaching out to his contacts here in hopes they would have even a scrap of information on a timeline for the deal, but they had all come back to him empty-handed. Even Jacob who had been prancing about rather cheerfully for the past few days (forcing you to lie out of your ass when everyone started bombarding you with questions as to why he was in such a good mood) had begun to become surly with the lack of action as he put it. In hopes of boosting everyone's morale, Henry in his world of wisdom had decided to cook one of his legendary dinners tonight, and you had been tasked with fetching the obscenely long list of ingredients from the market.

Squinting to try and decipher the man's ridiculously swirly handwriting for the next thing he required, you gave up with an exasperated sigh and handed the slip of paper to the spice vendor, hoping that he could figure out what you needed. While you waited as he began spooning some kind of yellow powder into a bag, the tingly feeling at the back of neck erupted and your eyebrows raised when you spotted Gist at another stall, directly behind the one you were at. He had followed you it seemed, as when you caught his eye he tilted his head in a subtle gesture to the right, confusing you at what he could possibly want. Paying for your purchases and stuffing them in your backpack, you continued to walk down the narrow pathway between the stalls, keeping your gaze on him out of the corner of your eye as he followed his own route to the end. Just as you reached his position, he took an abrupt left turn and stumbled, crashing into you and almost sending you flying. Usually, you would have been annoyed at someone doing something like this, but as soon as you felt a slight pull at your coat pocket, you knew there had to be a good reason for him to approach you this way.

"So dreadfully sorry miss, how clumsy of me. Are you alright?"

You waved your hand dismissively at his unnecessary gesture and pulled your bag back up on your shoulder, walking briskly away towards the side streets eagerly to find out what he slipped into your jacket. As soon as you were alone and convinced that no-one could see you, you closed your hand around the contents of pocket and slowly pulled it out, quite surprised to see an earbud in your hand. You hissed when the whistle of interference screeched in your ear for a second as you put it in, pretending to look for something in your bag when a couple strolled past you leisurely as you were now on high alert.

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes, very subtle Christopher." You whispered mockingly, but it was completely lost on him through the transmission. "What's the matter? I haven't got long."

"I know, I'll be quick. I have no idea where you got your intelligence from, but I can assure you it's wrong. Starrick is not at the warehouse that you have been watching."

You literally felt the colour drain from your face as he spoke, staring into space as you contemplated just how on earth such a grave error could have been made.

"(Name) are you still there?"

"I'm here. How did you?.... Actually, it doesn't matter. Where is he if he's not at the location we've been told?"

"Just over the river from where we docked. In Southwark, Butlers Wharf. You need to hurry, the deal is happening tomorrow night."

Breaking out into a sprint back towards the curio shop; narrowly missing several cyclists who were on the pavement, you tugged out your phone and sent a mass message to all of your colleagues, telling them all to meet you at Henry's as soon as humanly possible.

"Gist. Thank you."

"Not a problem dear. Arms should never be sold onto the streets, especially when they could find their way into the hands of children and it's easier for you to stop him than us. One other thing...."

"What?" You panted, encouraging him to hurry up with whatever he was going to say when he just trailed off.

"Nothing, we can talk about it another time. You're nearly back, so I'll say goodbye for now. Good luck."

It was not lost on you that you were an Assassin working for the Templars, who were helping the Assassins, stop a Templar. You would have laughed if it had not been so ironic. Pulling the earbud out and slipping it into your jeans, you glanced around briefly when you realised that he knew exactly where you were at that moment in time, actually chuckling and picking up your pace when you saw a drone fly off into the distance. Men and their toys...

You were met with four gawking expressions when you burst through the door of the Curio shop, two of them turning into glaring as Jacob rushed over and rubbed your back when you held on to the counter, trying to slow your breathing so you could speak.

"We... were wrong... Starrick. Wrong.... warehouse.." You puffed, grabbing a map off the side and unrolling it in front of Connor.

"What?! Are you sure? How did you come across this information? I was certain that the intel I received was correct."

"Someone must have paid your contacts off to feed you lies. I still know one or two people around here, trust me, I'm right. And I've been told it's happening tomorrow night, so we've gotta act fast. That's where he is."

Everyone leant over to see where you were pointing at on the map, slightly bewildered before immediately scrambling to gather the equipment that you would need to relocate, all silently hoping that you weren't too late.

Peering over the side of the Tower Bridge, you picked up the camera and zoomed in when you saw another van stop outside the warehouse, watching several quite heavily armed men with red shirts get out.

"That's four in the past hour. What on earth are they doing?" You whispered to Evie as you passed her the camera so she could take more photo's if she needed.

"I have no idea (name), but it's big whatever it is. It seems that you were correct after all. Now, where is that idiotic brother of mine?"

At that exact moment as if he had been waiting to do a dramatic entrance, Jacob dropped down from the ledge above and sauntered over to where you were, leaning on the edge of the rail casually and staring out into the distance.

"You rang?"

"At last. You need to follow that van when it leaves, find out where they're bringing those crates from. Do you think you can manage that? Do stay out of sight, the last thing we need is somebody spotting you."

A devious grin crept up his face when he saw the men re-emerge from the warehouse and get back in the truck, cracking his knuckles and rubbing his hands together now that he had actually got something to entertain himself with for a while.

"Of coooourse. I am the night....."

"Jacob, no."

"I am. Batman." He growled mischievously.

Both you and Evie slapped your foreheads at the same time, dragging your hands down your faces as Jacob let out a 'Mwa ha ha' and shot his zip line to the factory next to the bridge, swinging out of sight.

"You're sleeping with him again."

You slowly turned your head to Evie as she just came out with that matter of factly; your eyes as wide as saucers and panic consuming every fibre of your being when you saw that she was staring at you, her face completely void of expression.

"Evie... we're not.."

Trailing off when she just raised her hand and turned her attention back to the warehouse when yet another van pulled up, you racked your brain in the several moments of uncomfortable silence in trying to figure out how she could have possibly found out about what happened between you and Jacob last week.

"That was not a question, so I'm not expecting an answer. Don't even think I've not noticed the way he's been acting around you. I am only going to say one thing. Break his heart, and I break you. Is that understood?"

You nodded somberly at her ultimatum, not even for a second doubting everything she had just said. In the middle of cursing yourself for getting in a predicament that you had hoped to avoid entirely, you jumped when a hand lay on your shoulder; turning around to see Connor carrying a large black case.

"Are you okay (name)? You seem disturbed."

"Er yeah, I'm fine." You blurted, clearing your throat before you adorned a face-splitting grin when you realised what he had brought with him. "Is that what I think it is?!"

Crouching down beside him when he took a knee and lay the case on the floor; undoing the clips enthusiastically, you couldn't help but gaze in envy at the newest addition to his collection. You trailed your fingers over the smoothness of the recurve bow, plucking the string gently before tugging out a small leather clad box and shaking it gingerly. You moved out of his way when he pulled the bow out along with several untipped arrows, taking the box off you and flipping it open to reveal what looked like miniature cameras attached to a vast array of tips.

"I had to call in a few favours to get these, but given our circumstances, I believe it to be worthwhile."

Both you and Evie watched Connor admirably as he assembled six of the arrows and lay five of them neatly on top of the rail, knocking the last and taking aim at the top of the building next to the warehouse.

"Connor, wait!" Evie hollered when she suddenly spotted something that made her face twist up in loathing. You looked out into the distance to where she was pointing, seeing a well dressed red-haired woman, carrying a briefcase and yelling at a short, stocky man who looked to be some kind of doctor.

"Lucy Thorne. I must find out what's in that briefcase, I'll meet you back at the train."

You stood there at a loss for words when she jumped down the side of the bridge and onto the street without a moment's hesitation as a town car pulled up beside the woman, then turned to face Connor who had the same bewildered expression as you. Shrugging your shoulders and turning your attention back to the warehouse, you nudged Connor with your elbow when you saw that everyone had left and he could carry on placing the new cameras. It only took him a few seconds to get the whole street entirely under watch, firing the arrows rapidly with deadly accuracy before anyone came back and noticed something whizzing through the air.

"Pleeeease teach me how to use one of those? I'm a good student, promise."

Connor chuckled when you made grabby hands at his bow as he began packing it away, passing you a small remote type contraption which you stared at quizzically while he adjusted the strap so he could carry the case over his shoulder.

"I am surprised that you don't already know, I will happily show you when we return home. Fix that somewhere safe, it will transmit the signals back to the Frye's train."

You let out a little excited squeal and threw your arms around him briefly before hunting around for somewhere decent to hide the black box, snapping your fingers when you spotted an ideal nook in between the rails. Skipping back over and linking your arm through his with a huge grin, he tutted and frowned at you when you cursed out loud as the unmistakable sound of a steam train came from your left.

"Shit! Oops, sorry. Come on, I don't fancy running around London chasing the thing!"

You made it to the tracks just in time; the driver had apparently been told you were coming as he had slowed down significantly considering he was in between stations. Grabbing Connors extended hand after he had jumped up first, you made your way into the middle carriage; inhaling deeply and smiling when the familiar smell of gunpowder and old books tickled your nose. Other than the couple of laptops that were on the desk and a few boxes stacked up in the corner, it was just how you remembered it. Your reminiscing was suddenly cut short when two heavy thuds echoed out from above, followed by some very loud arguing. Evie was the first to barge through the door with a resounding bang, making you and Connor wince when Jacob came in straight after and continued with the quarrel.

"Please tell me, dear sister, how is it MY fault you lost Thorne?!"

"You know exactly how!" Evie growled as she stormed over to him and poked him in the chest forcefully. "Always getting in the way, your incessant need to be in the middle of everything! You always let your personal feelings compromise our missions!"

"Excuuuse me?!"

You looked up at Connor again when Evie stared at you pointedly, seeing he was to trying to get a word in edgeways for probably the third time since the twins came in, pursing your lips together and sighing when you could see that he was getting riled up at the bickering. You couldn't hold back the giggle that erupted when he suddenly pulled out his tactical tomahawk from his belt and slammed it into the desk; taking a rather hefty chunk out of it, making the siblings instantly clam up and stare at him wide-eyed.

"Enough! We have more important things to be doing than arguing over something so frivolous! No better than children the pair of you, I suggest that the matter is dropped so we can carry on with our preparations."

Both Evie and Jacob nodded shamefacedly before giving each other one last death stare, Connor dragging her off to the other side of the carriage and leaving Jacob with you.

"Well, now that I definitely didn't miss. So what happened?"

"Oh, nothing much, just Evie blaming me for her mistakes!"

You elbowed him hard in the ribs when he said that last bit purposefully louder, making him grimace from both the pain that you had caused him and the seething expression from Connor.

"You know that's not what I meant, I've never gotten involved in your arguments, you know that. The crates, where are they coming from?"

Standing there with your hands on your hips irritably as he flopped down on the sofa and put his feet up, you lashed out and knocked his hat off his head when he pulled it down over his eyes without answering you.

"Oi! Don't you start, I've had enough of women harassing me for one night thank you."

You rubbed your face when he picked his hat up off the floor and exaggerated brushing it off before placing it back over his eyes, then tapped your finger on your bottom lip when you knew you weren't going to get anywhere like this, so as usual, you had to come up with some other way of coercing what you needed out of him. Glancing over your shoulder to see Evie and Connor with their backs to you and deep in conversation about some documents on the desk in front of them, you gracefully sat down on top of Jacobs' legs, shuffling about slightly and leaning over close enough so he could hear your whispers.

"You've never been able to hold back from me, what makes you think you can start now?"

A sly smirk crept up your face when you could see him biting the insides of his cheeks to stop himself from grinning, so you decided to push things just that little further, knowing it wouldn't take much more to get him to break. Putting all your weight on the balls of your feet, you slid yourself up him a bit more so you were sat straight on his groin and wiggled your lower half suggestively, which made him lightly groan and grab your hips firmly.

"Fine! Bloody tease. They're coming from further down the docks, there's a whole shipping container full of them, way more than we thought. Was tempted to take a look but I couldn't be bothered."

"That wasn't so hard now was it?" You chuckled as you pried his hands from around you so you could get up and tell Connor this information, then scowled when he silently imitated what you just said tauntingly.

Leaning around Connor so you could see at the blueprints he was looking at on the desk, you chewed at your bottom lip when you realised that this mission was not going to be as easy as you initially thought.

"Jacob said that there are more of those crates than we expected, It's gonna be hard to get them all."

"Did he now?" Evie grumbled, scoffing when she looked over to see him on the sofa half asleep.

"Well before I was interrupted earlier, I overheard when the deal is going to be made. We shall have to split into two groups to start, Henry will stay here on surveillance. You can take him with you to the warehouse, Connor and I will start at the docks, then make our way down to you."

Shrugging your shoulders when that was fine by you; actually preferring being paired with Jacob as you would both go off and do your own thing, you nodded when you saw she was still staring at you, waiting for an answer.

"Then it's sorted. Eight o'clock tomorrow night is when we will make our move."

#assassin's creed #assassinscreed #jacob frye #jacob frye x reader #henry greene #evie frye #connor kenway #sfw #modern au #fanfic

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video-game-imagines · 6 years

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Song Lyric Prompts

AN: Alright, Love letters and Ships are done but continuing with my follower celebration because I love you guys! Anyway, I saw a cute idea in a post, I don’t remember where I saw it. My apologies to the OP but it was an idea for short 500-1000 word drabbles based off of specific song lyrics. So, below the cut I’ve written up some song lyrics that are angsty or fluffy. Idea being that you choose 2 characters and one set of song lyrics and I’ll churn out a little drabble. (Reblog from my original 925+ Follower Celebration)

Important: If you want a character x reader story then please state that in your request! Include ‘The Reader’ as a character and please list your preferred pronouns. Thank you! These lyrics will be first come first served (So I’m not writing multiple drabbles for the same lyrics) So, once a set of lyrics is requested I’ll cross it off the list below!

*Some lyrics will have an angsty of fluffy result. Sometimes a little of both. ;)

💕= Fluff

💔= Angst

1. “Breathe, release it all. Come on now, I need your love. Come on now, never give up.” Breathe (Jacob Frye x F! Reader)💕

2. “But if we're strong enough to let it in, in, in. We’re strong enough to let it go. Let it all go, let it all go. Let it all out now.” Let It All Go 💔

3. “When your world is feeling heavy you can lay your armor on me. You can lay your head down on me.” Constellate (Connor RK800 x F! Reader) 💕

4. “I can't help but love you. Even though I try not to I can't help but want you. I know that I'd die without you.” War of Hearts (Desmond Miles x F! Reader) 💕💔

5. “Come inside from the cold and rest your weary soul. You belong, you are loved, you are wanted. You're not alone. I've missed you so.” Welcome Home (Ezio Auditore x F! Reader)💕

6. “There is a light, in the dark, and I feel its warmth. In my hands, and my heart. Why can't I hold on?” Waves (Connor RK800 x F! Reader) 💕💔

7. “But, you don't know what it feels like to fall in love with you. No, you don't know what it's like when you can't go back. 'Cause I only lose my mind when I ain't got you. And how can I not win when I'm always bound to lose.” Lose My Mind 💔

8. “The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out. You left me in the dark. No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight. In the shadow of your heart.” Cosmic Love 💕

9. “You break the fall, it’s not easy to trust. I wanna love you but I’m just too cynical. Relive the words. They never heal.” Break the Fall (Connor RK800 x F! Reader) 💔

10. “I just wanna be where you are. Until the life leaves my body I'll help you stand your ground. No looking back on our mistakes they can't touch us now.” Where You Are 💕

11. “Watching moments pass I wanna run away from it but I still won't take that step. Locked inside the glass, an empty box of memories and a heart full of regret. Do you know where you're going? Don't even know where I am. I don't wanna miss I don't wanna miss anymore of this. Letting go I wanna feel all of it. I'm hanging on every word you say ” Anymore of This 💕💔

12. “Just let me know I'm not forgotten out here alone. The air is cold. The night is long. I feel like I might fade into the dawn; fade until I'm gone.” Far From Home 💔

13. “Cause I wished you the best of all this world could give. And I told you when you left me there's nothing to forgive. But I always thought you'd come back, tell me all you found was heartbreak and misery. It's hard for me to say, I'm jealous of the way you're happy without me.” Jealous 💔

14. “I will always hold you close but I will learn to let you go. I promise I'll do better. I will soften every edge. I'll hold the world to its best and I'll do better. With every heartbeat I have left I will defend your every breath.” Atlas: Light 💕

15. “But the feeling we once had starts to fade beneath the bad. And it’s everything… it’s everything. I’m losing you, yeah, I’m losing you. And I’m almost at the point of giving it up.” Losing You 💔

16. “'Cause I’m on fire like a thousand suns. I couldn’t put it out even if I wanted to. These flames tonight, look into my eyes and say you want me, too. Like I want you.” Hunger (Vampire! Cole Macgrath x F! Reader)💕

17. “Once in a lifetime does not happen again. So, I took a chance in a gamblers' game put my heart on the line. And maybe I'm crazy, but I'll never regret what I said to a girl I knew, before we even met.” Running Around in My Dreams (Garrus Vakarian x F! Reader) 💕

18. “There's something in your eyes that reminds me; the worst days of mine are behind me. My heartstrings and yours are winding down. And baby you speak, and your whisper heals my mind. You lay down a kiss where I need it the most.” Heartstrings 💕

19. “Hoping for a moment that I turn around and you'll be coming after me. 'Cause all that I can say is that it's obvious… It's obvious you're all I see.” Stay (Hero! Cole MacGrath x F! Reality Conduit! Reader)💕💔

20. “When I heard that sound… When the walls came down I was thinking about you, about you. When my skin grows old when my breath runs cold I'll be thinking about you, about you.” Skin 💔

21. “You still get my heart racing, for you. I’ll never stop trying. I’ll never stop watching as you leave. I’ll never stop losing my breath every time I see you looking back at me.” Never Stop 💕

22. “I knew from the first time, I'd stay for a long time 'cause I like me better when… I like me better when I'm with you.” I Like Me Better (Nathan Drake x F! Reader)💕

23. “Retrace my lips. Erase your touch It's all too much for me. Blow away like smoke in air.” Six Feet Under 💔

24. “Fools rush in and I've been the fool before. This time I'm gonna slow it down ‘cause I think this could be more. This thing I'm looking for.” Please Don’t Say You Love Me 💕

25. “When my head is strong but my heart is weak. I'm full of arrogance and uncertainty. But I can’t find the words you teach my heart to speak. You make it real for me and I'm running to you baby. You are the only one who save me.” You Make it Real 💕

26. “Sunshine and rain make a beautiful thing. Everything you are is everything I'm not. Night and day, light and dark. Everything I need is everything you've got. All your hate and all your love.” Hate and Love 💕💔

27. “I leave it all when I feel you near. What I'm saying is I need you here. Even though love never seems to last. If you think we’ve got a chance, stay awhile.” Stay Awhile 💕

28. “Together can never be close enough for me to feel like I am close enough to you. You wear white and I'll wear out the words "I love you". And you're beautiful. Now that the wait is over and love has finally shown her my way. Marry me.” Marry Me 💕

29. “Is this the end of the moment or just a beautiful unfolding of a love that will never be or maybe be… Everything that I never thought could happen or ever come to pass? And I wonder, if maybe, maybe I could be all you ever dreamed.” Anywhere But Here 💕

30. “Oh, give me a sign; I'm starting to wonder if you've lost your way. I've been right here waiting patiently, your lane should be right here next to me. I need you tonight, think of you all of the time. I wonder how you kiss, how you fight, how you laugh, how you smile. All of the time.” I Need You Now 💕💔

31. “And I do want you to know I hold you up above everyone. And I do want you to know I think you'd be good to me and I'd be so good to you. I would…” Good to You 💕

32. “Explosions, on the day you wake up needing somebody and you've learned… It's okay to be afraid but it will never be the same. It will never be the same.” Explosions (Markus RK200 x F! Reader) 💕💔

33. “And from the ballroom floor we are a celebration. One good stretch before our hibernation. Our dreams assured and we are, we'll sleep well. You have stolen… You have stolen my heart.” Stolen 💕

34. “I could make you happy, make your dreams come true. There's nothing that I wouldn't do. Go to the ends of this Earth for you… To make you feel my love.” Make You Feel My Love 💕

35. “Highway run into the midnight sun. Wheels go round and round, you're on my mind. Restless hearts sleep alone tonight; sending all my love along the wire.” Faithfully 💕

36. “I wish you were a bad man. I wish you made it easier. I wish you'd done something unforgivable. 'Cause holding onto you is all that I can do until I learn the hands around my throat are my own.” Don’t Let Me Know 💔

37. “Wisdom tells me to turn away. Broken once, it's all the same. My arms will grow, chest expanding. Of all the boys you could have landed. Why'd it have to be me? You...can't take my eyes off of you.” Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You 💔

38. “If you love me, don't let go. Hold on, Hold, on to me… 'Cause I'm a little unsteady. A little unsteady.” Unsteady (Faith Seed x F! Reader)💔

39. “Open up your heart to me now. Let it all come pouring out there’s nothing I can’t take. If it’s love just feel it and if it’s life will see it. This is no time to be alone, alone. Yeah, I won’t let you go.” I Won’t Let You Go 💕

40. “Shadows, you took away the shadows. Before you, life was black and white. Though, tonight the room's gone gray. Golden, all the love you gave was golden. Gold that I would gladly pay, to show the love I meant to say.” The Love I Meant to Say 💔

41. “And I wanna hold you in my arms I wanna let you break my heart. I wanna feel the way it feels to make you stay. And I know you'll bring me to my knees. I know you're way out of my league. I know I can't afford the price I'm gonna pay but I want you anyway.” I Want You Anyway 💕💔

42. “Darling, so it goes, some things are meant to be. Take my hand, take my whole life too. For I can't help falling in love with you.” Can’t Help Falling In Love (John Seed x F! Reader)💕

43. “Have you ever wished for an endless night? Lassoed the moon and the stars and pulled that rope tight. Have you ever held your breath and asked yourself, will it ever get better than tonight?” Glitter In The Air 💕

44. “You're in my arms and all the world is calm. The music playing on for only two. So close together, and when I'm with you… So close to feeling alive.” So Close (Wheaty x F!Deputy! Reader)💕💔

45. “So, take your time close your eyes. I will be there here with you. They may be right I may be foolish but I will wait for you.” Take Your Time 💕

46. “Hold my head inside your hands. I need someone who understands. I need someone, someone who hears. For you, I've waited all these years. For you I'd wait 'til kingdom come until my day, my day is done.” Til Kingdom Come 💕

47. “And when the tears you cry are all you can believe. Just give these loving arms a try and have a little faith in me.” Have a Little Faith in Me 💕

48. “All your acting, your thin disguise. All your perfectly delivered lies. They don't fool me. You've been lonely, too long.” Dust to Dust 💔

49. “Off in the night, while you live it up, I'm off to sleep. Waging wars to shape the poet and the beat. I hope it's gonna make you notice… Someone like me.” Use Somebody 💕

50. “When it’s too hard and too late. When I’m too tired to run away. When it cant stay the way it was. I need you ‘cause you smash the trouble I can’t take. And all the pieces of the break, evaporate” Evaporate 💕

51. “I don’t even need to change the world. I’ll make the moon shine just for your view. I’ll make the starlight circle the room. And if you feel like night is falling I wanna be the one you’re calling. 'Cause I believe that you could lead the way” Someone to You 💕

52. “Let me wash away you can find me after the flood. Let me wash away. Caught in the storm, caught in the rain. Caught in the rush that hides this pain. When you love someone you find a way to stay.” Caught In The Storm 💔

53. “I’ll be the light in the dark if you lose your way. And if you wait for me, I’ll be your voice when you don’t know what to say. I’ll be your shelter, I’ll be your fate. I’ll be forever, Wait for me.” Last Train Home 💕

54. “Tell your secrets to the night. You do yours and I do mine. So we won’t have to keep them all inside.” Save Yourself 💔

55. “Give me oceans or canyons so deep they stretch for millions of miles. I’ll cross any divide, not a flicker of doubt. No danger I wouldn’t dare, to be with you.” Goodbye 💕

56. “If I see you in my dreams tonight and you take my hands and tell me, "I've been waiting for you." Then I'll tell you, "Me too." If I see you in my dreams tonight.” In My Dreams 💕

57. “Do you feel something pulling you back in? Do you see something you wanna see again? I could be the one. I could make it up to you.” Lonely Boy 💔

58. “I’ve been there before hoping and trying to make things right. But now I don’t know. Honey, these arms that once held you are ready to fight.” Ready to Fight 💔

59. “And I’ve always lived like this keeping a comfortable, distance. And up until now I had sworn to myself that I’m content with loneliness. Because none of it was ever worth the risk.” The Only Exception 💕💔

60. “All my nights, taste like gold. Yeah, when I’m with you it’s like everything glows. And all my days we can lay low. Yeah, when we’re waking up; we’re waking up slow.” Waking Up Slow 💕

61. “Said a lot of words along the way. I meant them all while we reigned. But shores of love get beaten by the waves and after it was done I wish I’d saved time.” Tokyo Sunrise 💔

63. “Your losing sight, of your favorite pair of eyes. And the part of you where she was too made you feel alive. But nothing fills the space of things you can’t replace. She has to go and you know you can't chase.” Favorite Pair of Eyes 💔

64. “I get to love you It's the best thing that I'll ever do. I get to love you it's a promise I'm making to you. Whatever may come, your heart, I will choose. Forever I'm yours, forever I do.” I Get to Love You 💕 (Connor RK800 x F! Reader)

65. “Can I stop the flow of time? Can I swim in your divine? 'Cause I don't think I'd ever leave this place. Oh, turn the lights turn the lights down low. Yeah, now I'm feeling you breathing slow. Cause, baby, we're just reckless kids trying to find an island in the flood.” Lights Down Low 💕 (Delsin Rowe x F! Reader)

66. “ If your world falls apart I'd start a riot. If night falls in your heart I'd light the fire. In the dark, when you sound the alarm we'll find each other's arms. For your love, all you are... I'd start a riot.” Start a Riot 💕

67. “Oh take me back again. When I was sixteen with an open heart windows down in a beat up car. When I was dumb and the world was young and she was beautiful.” Beautiful (Sam Drake x F! Reader)💕

68. “But I'm just content with time well spent savor the taste of sugar. But all you want is milk more than you can drink. All you want is honey, you can't take the sting. You live for overkill but you're ungrateful still.” Milk and Honey 💕💔

69. “ The night is blind so hard to find the way back home. Losing grip but it's worth the risk. To brave the cold. No matter where you go, I'll find you. Hold on for your life. It can't be time I won't say goodbye.” Hold on for Your Life 💕💔

70. “You have my all. You are my downfall. Crush me, and keep me for eternity. Break me in your hands, love, where I will always be. Crush me, into pieces, all of these pieces. Crush me, and keep me for eternity.” Eternity💕💔

71. “‘Did we take too many chances or did we let too many pass us. Did we throw it all away? Did we light too many matches? Turn ourselves into these ashes? Did we throw it all away? We walk through the fire. Is there a way out?” Walk Through the Fire 💔

72. “So here I am, stumbling on every word that comes to me. Do you know, that every single beat of your heart starts another fire in mine? Opposite of dwindling is violent like a hurricane.” Beat of Your Heart 💕

73. “I'm not scared to tell the truth I've been to hell and back and I went with you. Remind me what we were before. When we said,’You are mine and I am yours’. I don't know much but I know myself and I don't wanna love anybody else. So let's break the spell and lift the curse. Remember why we fell for each other, head first.” Heart-shaped Wreckage 💕💔

74. “Oh, please don't go. Let me have you just one moment more. Oh, all I need, all I want is just one moment more. You've got to hold me and maybe I'll believe. So hold me, even though I know you're leaving.” One Moment More 💔

75. “Go down with me, fall with me let's make worth it. You rise, I fall. I stand, you crawl. You twist, I turn. Who's the first to burn? You sit and stay I don't obey.” Black Sea 💔

76. “I didn't know if I could tell her. I didn't know if I could make her see. She didn't need to find her beauty. She didn't need to find a way to show me. They took her moments of feeling alive and made them moments of dying inside. She needed someone to scream her name. To take her pain and it's why I screaming” Annie 💕💔

77. “And if I was running, you'd be the one who I would be running to. And if I was crying, you would be lining the cloud that would pull me through. And if I was scared, then I would be glad to tell you and walk away. But I am not lying, I am just trying to find my way in to you.” Find a Way 💕

78. “For a while, you had me going but it’s all over now. You thought you got the best of me but you never realized I don’t break so easily, so easily. Once you tried you keep me from flying now you’ll see me up there defying gravity, gravity.” Gravity 💔

79. “She's the fire in the sin and I burn breathing her in. Now it's love suicide and I sell my soul for the high. Truth be told I don't mind 'cause her hell's my paradise. She can crush every hope.” Horns 💔

80. “We had the songs that we sang along to. You had the moves to make me dance with you. I always saw you reaching and catching stars. We had the thing that everyone wanted. Hung on your sleeve, you wore your heart on it. Did you get out? I'm wondering where you are. Did you follow your fire?” Follow Your Fire 💕💔

81. “There's someone I've been missing I think that they could be the better half of me. They're in the in the wrong place trying to make it right but I'm tired of justifying. So I say to you. Come home, come home 'cause I've been waiting for you for so long.” Come Home 💕💔

82. “Do you remember a boy? On the porch swing beside me, the brush of your hand, was all I could stand. You’d send my head spinning. It’s been a long time I know. I don’t see him round here no more. I’m not in love with the man you’ve become but I remember a boy.” I Remember a Boy 💔

83. “And I'd like to hold you here in my arms and have you never leave. And I'd like to give you all that I have to have you stay with me. Oh, but you, you don't see me; you don't see me that way. You don't see the way I look at you when you are not looking at me.” You Don’t See Me 💔

84. “I heard there was someone but I know he don't deserve you. If you were mine I'd never let anyone hurt you. I wanna dry those tears, kiss those lips it's all that I've been thinking about. 'Cause a light came on when I heard that song and I want you to sing it again.” Can I Be Him 💕💔

85. “I didn't want us to burn out I didn't come here to hurt you. Now I can't stop. I want you to know, that it doesn't matter where we take this road, someone's gotta go. And I want you to know you couldn't have loved me better but I want you to move on. So, I'm already gone.” Already Gone 💕💔

86. “What have I done with my heart on the floor? I must be out of my mind to come back begging for more. But if you stay if you just stay for the night. Swear that I'm yours and I'll prove that I'm right.” Litost 💔

87. “Stars fading but I linger on dear still craving your kiss. I'm longing to linger till dawn dear, just saying this. Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you. Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you. But in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me.” Dream A Little Dream of Me 💕

88. “You're my funny valentine, sweet comic valentine. You make me smile with my heart. Your looks are laughable, un-photographable. Yet, you're my favorite work of art.” Funny Valentine 💕

89. “Every little thing that I've known is every thing I need to let go. You're so much bigger than the world I have made. So, I surrender my soul 'm reaching out for your hope. I lay my weapons down I'm ready for you now.” On My Own 💕💔

90. “Chaos, in the atmosphere. Maybe, I bring it everywhere, the shadows are the look on your face. I just want a way to escape. At the, point of no return. Can we, bandage up the hurt? Will we change the way we are, the way we are?” Bridges 💕💔

91. “You were alone left out in the cold clinging to the ruin of your broken home. Too lost and hurting to carry your load. We all need someone to hold. You’ve been fighting the memory all on your own. Nothing washes, nothing grows. I know how it feels being by yourself in the rain. We all need someone to stay.” Someone to Stay 💕💔

92. “I surrender who I've been for who you are. For nothing makes me stronger than your fragile heart. If I had only felt how it feels to be yours. Well I would have known what I've been living for.” Turning Page 💕

93. “I wish that I could stay forever this young. Not afraid to close my eyes. Life's a game made for everyone and love is the prize.” Wake Me Up 💕💔

94. “ Wishing I could find the rain to wash away the past. Knowing that my heart will break, but at least the pain will last. I die each time you look away, my heart, my life, will never be the same. This love will take my everything. One breath, one touch, will be the end of me.” Love Song Requiem 💔

95. “Falling, yes I am falling, and she keeps calling me back again. I've just seen a face, I can't forget the time or place where we just met. She's just the girl for me and I want all the world to see; we've met.” I Just Saw A Face 💕

96. “But we're gonna start by drinking old cheap bottles of wine. Sit talking up all night, saying things we haven't for a while. We're smiling but we're close to tears even after all these years. We just now got the feeling that we're meeting for the first time.” For the First Time 💕💔

97. “Falling slowly, eyes that know me and I can't go back. Moods that take me and erase me and I'm painted black. You have suffered enough and warred with yourself it's time that you won.” Falling Slowly 💕💔

98. “You're high upon the tower now don't look down. I will be okay here on the ground and you can always call to say hello from time to time. When you're no longer mine.” Tower (Don’t Look Down) 💔

99. “So don't look any further, don't stray too far. 'Cause I'm right here with you and I'll keep your loving heart. When the night rushes in girl I'll hold a light to the dark. Please understand, I am your man.” I Am Your Man 💕

100. “Tell me that we belong together, dress it up with the trappings of love. I'll be captivated, I'll hang from your lips instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above. I'll be your crying shoulder. I'll be love suicide. I'll be better when I'm older. I'll be the greatest fan of your life.” I’ll Be 💕

101. “Why would you put up with all my crazy? Say yes when I’m saying maybe. It’s got to be a crime, that’s what you said. I’m gonna get myself arrested for stealing your heart. Well, you don’t know how easy it is to be in love, to be in love with you. You’re the only one I’ve ever loved who feels about me the way I feel about you. The way I feel about you. Feels 💕

102. “You and me we’ve been fast asleep walking back & forth in the in between. No escaping these days are fading. Let’s lose the weight of this gravity, gravity. If we take some chances and break some plans. Would you hold my hand through the running wild? Yeah its frightening but perfect timing is how you live with not knowing why. Could we touch the sky? Could we touch the sky, with your starry eyes?” Touch the Sky 💕💔

103. “So hold onto hope, love I've searched high and low for you, for you. Each day gets closer so hold on stronger to me and you.” Hold Onto Hope Love 💕💔

*Don’t worry about the pronouns used in the songs they can easily be changed/ignored for your request

[Listen to the songs here]

#song lyrics #Song Lyric Drabbles #900+ follower celebration #Angsty and Fluffy #my taste in music

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hoodie-2-shoemaker · 6 years

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Reinhardt never wanted any of this. Coming back to Eichenwalde that houses all his demons was the last thing on his mind, but the swarm of Omnics marching towards them would not wait. All he had holding him together was Ana, Torbjörn, and the metal shell of the man whose voice used to ring through the halls and call him by his first name. It never seemed to have left the castle, and Reinhardt had a feeling history has its own way of catching up.

Inspired in parts by Gladiator(2000), Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for Dunkirk(2017), the poem “Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep” by Mary Elizabeth Frye, as well as the land of Fólkvangr in Norse mythology.

My entry for the Stories From Watchpoint Gibraltar Zine, a wonderful project dedicated to OW fic writers!

Playlist inspired by the fic

Excerpt under the cut:

Silver moonbeams showered down from the skylight, glittering as they rested on Balderich’s armor, cobwebbed and overgrown with moss. The sight made him shiver; to see the majestic, battle-hardened armor of gold still intact and well brought back memories of the last great war. The wind howled against the window panes, and Reinhardt felt the cold seep through the impossible crevices in the stone. He knelt.

“I am home, Balderich,”

The name felt awkward spoken. Balderich wasn’t even in there; the military retrieved his body after the war, buried him somewhere in his mother’s hometown of Ulm, resting alongside his brother. What was Reinhardt even doing here? He should be preparing. He should be out there, getting the soldiers checked and running through the plan with the other Crusaders—

You have done enough, a voice within him reaffirmed. Spit it all out. This is all there is left.

“Another battle is coming to us, Balderich,” he heard the weariness in his own voice and god, did it remind him painfully of his master. Old man talk, the younger Reinhardt used to think, and now it filled him with bitter irony. “The Omnics will not leave Stuttgart alone. Now that I am in your shoes, it is not as funny as I remembered.”

“A couple of our men are back. I heard they have come to pay their respects. Sigmund came in his wheelchair too. Says he’s here to give counsel, that bald old bastard.” He chuckled. He could hear Balderich’s exasperated sighs every time Sigmund hauled around new recruits in the mess hall for ‘a chuck o’ the army wisdom’ that was nothing more than drinking traditions and tall tales of chivalrie. “I guess some of us just miss being around the place. Couldn’t really blame him.”

He shifted his knees, settling into the comforting silence as words come more naturally now. It almost felt normal again, just him and the old man in the bar after a long day.

“And what do you know, Germany’s been training a new batch without us. Even took in Waldo’s daughter. Fit as any recruit I’ve seen. Some of them are pretty half-cooked, but perhaps it’s better than a couple of old soldiers holding the grounds. Good to see some young blood around, you know. I suppose we needed that kind of energy.”

“I got us a healer too. Those health packs never were close enough, and running around in the armors is not exactly a walk in the park, hmm?” Reinhardt heard Balderich’s laughter, saw the knowing sideways glance and his master telling him off for trying to be clever. “She patches people up with a sniper rifle. The things they can do these days. Damned amazing aim too. I swear that lady could hit a pigeon in Berlin from here.” It brought a smile to his face as he pictured Ana standing next to him, elbowing him in the ribs at his preposterous claim.

“You should see what the new Overwatch is like, Balderich. The new members are incredible. You would get along with them nicely; all brilliant kids with that fight in them. There’s this twenty-year-old girl and already a soldier for her country. Can you believe it?” Reinhardt snorted at the memory of himself at twenty, a hot-headed mess dying to prove his worth. “And I thought I was young when you hauled me in.”

Reinhardt lifted his gaze, finding the moonlight having shifted to the armor’s helmet, reaching into the darkness of the visor. The sightless helm seemed to stare directly into him and spoke with its master’s gruff, amused tone: Something else you want to talk about, bursche? The voice rang in his head like a bottled-up whisper adrift in the wintry breeze. Reinhardt’s relenting sigh turned to a breath of mist that carrying the weight off his chest.

“Everyone says they are prepared to die for this war. It’s horrible, Balderich, like you can’t do anything but watch them charge out there. I see so much of us in the young ones it scares me. Why, I am no great soldier, and better men than me have barely scraped through the last time around. One day I was the new recruit here, and the next they put the lives of dozens of men under my command. How did you manage? The thought of everyone around you dying, knowing you’re the reason they were standing on that front line?”

If the armor had an idea, it showed no sign.

#reinhardt wilhelm #balderich von adler #overwatch #fanfic #excerpt #portfolio #zine #hoodie-writes #my post

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icefrozendeadlyqueen · 4 years

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Epilogue: Rose’s Mistake

Rose's Pov.

Wednesday, October 28th, 1868.

The rain falls furiously on me. I am standing in the middle of an empty lot. It's empty because there isn't anyone else except for Kaylock. An empty look on my eyes as he drags himself to a lamp post. I don't move from my spot as my dress gets soak. He tries to get there even as he bleeds out. It seems so important to him just like the first time I met him.

Flasback - 43 years ago...

How to let things go? At which point in life can you let it go? Is it when you age? or is it when you achieve wisdom. I have gain both in the course of my life. I want to believe that so deeply; however, sometimes people make mistakes. I wish that was my case then it wouldn't bother me, but I am no 'people' or 'person'. I have past that period long ago, and I don't believe able to return.

Sometimes you run away from your mistake so long; they become your reality soon enough. We have run for so long in so many separate directions. Layla, Claara, Lady Rosaliana, everyone and I. How bad do you want something to be dig deep into your subconscious. You don't want it to return, but its never in your hands. It wasn't ever in mind to get so involve in one person's future as I did....

The London's summer heat falls upon the citizens. The new comers from ships far away from lands known to all men, and some unknown few. A young girl swiftly walks through unaware citizens. She has nothing to her name per say just the clothes she is wearing, and the second chance she was given by her Lady. A chance which she'll use with more wisdom. A dark work blue dress with an white waist apron. A white cloth cover her rebel hair with deep forest green eyes. Her pale complexion blends in with the crowds uneven one.

She seems like a foreigner in one glance which is not true. She is born and raise in London. A place of beauty and magic all together forming something beyond explanations. She doesn't know which part is more genuine. The fact she is waiting for her true calling. The one that shows her where to start apart of her Lady running her life as she sees fit. Rose wants to have something else she can call hers. Something she can work for years to come. An emotional connection with something different than her in any way or form.

A pair of brown evening boots made an abrupt stop. The citizens around walk on the own little life without being able to hear it. Rose looks around seeing countless numbers of people; however, her deep forest green eyes fall upon an alleyway to her left. There she hears the pleads of a woman then a cry of an infant. She holds onto her dress as she sprints forth into the dark alleyway. A speed most humans are unable to achieve. It didn't felt that fast only walking on air like she touch leaf instead of hard cement floor.

She reach her destination stopping inches from the weeping infant. Rose takes in the horror and beauty of the sight in front of her. The dirty alleyway walls splash by the blood of innocents. She sees two man at the end of the alleyway fighting it out while a beautiful high lady holds onto the wall with one hand then an infant with another. Rose locks eyes with the woman for a short second, "Please, help u-us... We.. We were robbed. My husband.. help my husband", she speaks as a whisper slowly falling to the floor. She holds onto her infant tightly and repeats, "Help my.. husband".

Rose nods walking past the woman. The cries of both men fighting each others are now echoing through the alleyway. One man wants what the other has while his opponent wants to protect his family. The woman is obviously injure on her stomach while her husband has her blood all over him. It's a tragic sight for others; however, Rose is so used to despair. A knife on her hand she take from the inside of her evening boots. It fits perfectly on her young hands. She runs forth towards both shouting men. The two men step back from each other while Rose pushes the culprit to the side.

The man knock his head on the cement wall, "Who are you?", the husband ask; he wanted an answer, but his wife cries for his name. He looks into the alleyway then at the young girl. She didn't look at him a simple "Thank you", left his lips as he sprints to his beloved. Rose looks back seeing him carrying her and their infant out of the alleyway. A sharp touches her left cheek and part of her neck. Rose returns her attention to the culprit as he ask, "What the hell are you?!", he shouts terrified as Rose cleans a bit of the blood.

"I am human", Rose monotone speaks stabbing the man in front of her. She doesn't change her empty features as she takes the knifes out. She moves back walking into the alleyway leaving the man to bleed out alone.

End of Flashback.

It was that day that we meet. He was an infant, and I was just a small a young girl. I look exactly the same as I did those years ago. The exact clothes all the way to my white cloth. He didn't believe when I say years don't affect me. They don't, but they affect Kaylock. I watch him age through out the years. He had to die. I didn't want to be the one to do it. The Frye Twins killed him, and I am going to make sure he makes it to the other side. His parents are waiting for him.

Multiple coughs left Kaylock's lips. The rain making the blood on his lips clears while he leans on the lamp post. Rose kneels down next to him, "You.. were right, R.. Rose", he starts speaking as Rose watches him. She doesn't say anything, but let him regret his life choices. Kaylock looks at Rose, "I should've li- listen to you. You were right... you are always right".

Rose sees him holding something on his hands. A golden locket, the one his mother gave him before she died, "I want you to have this, Rose. Don't make the same mistakes I did. I always had somebody behind me. I had you at my side at all times", he speaks as a whispers taking small breath between each word. Rose let's him speak as he wants to get things out, "You can't safe him, Rose. His time is due", A familiar voice speaks a few steps behind Rose, "Let him go".

A silence fall in the empty lot now not so empty anymore. The saddest part is to let go, and the happiest is that its supposed to happen. They say, letting go helps you to grow. Two sides of a coin shows you two path. A sigh escapes Rose as the rain slowly dies down, "There were two path, Kaylock. You had a chance to pick; however, I picked for you. I picked the most horrible without meaning too. I destroy your chances of happiness", Rose speaks out unable to look at the person she once call friend.

A wet and cold as snow object touches Rose. She glances up to notice Kaylock dropping his golden locket in her hands, "This is now yours... remember.. the good.. things. We running.. through London. You helping me.. grow. My father got murder... I ought revenge... that got my mother dead as I achieve it", Rose nods knowing very well his past. A hand falls on Rose's right shoulder while she sighs again, "They are here for him, Rose. You have to let him leave. The past is the past, and it can never be change by the likes of us. We are to do what we can to survive as it is. Let his soul go, Rose", Anaya speaks as Rose nods. She stands up and away from Kaylock's dying body.

Anaya touches his hand as Kaylock's eyes lost the light in them. Anaya takes a clear child like figure from Kaylock's dead body. Rose watches Kaylock's soul runs away to their parents that were waiting patiently. Anaya turns to see all three figures walk away and disappear out of sight. Rose places the golden locket around her neck, "You did the right thing, Rose. Kaylock's parents were waiting for him. They didn't want to leave without him", Anaya tries to make Rose feel better; however, there is nothing she can say that could make Rose feel anything.

"It doesn't feel that way", Rose blurts out as she walks past Anaya taking Kaylock's now dead body with her, "I'll let you give him the proper burial", was the last thing Anaya say before she left.

letting go is the hardest thing you can do. You can't change the outcome of something, and it turns deadly. No matter how much you try....

#oc #rexford kaylock #Assassin's Creed #Assasin's Creed #Assassin's Creed Syndicate #assassinforlife

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bryantminqi · 4 years

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Last wisdom words from the legend @kobebryant 🤜🏼🤛🏼 thank you for sharing @djhymn 🙏🏼👍🏼 Posted @withregram • @djhymn Kobe Bryant has some final words of wisdom. #foryou #ripkobe #realtalk #kobebryant #soulpoweR ✨ KOBE BRYANT LAST WORDS: Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna Bryant Passed Away Less Than 24 Hours Ago... But He Leaves YOU With One Last Bit Of Wisdom. "ALWAYS SEEK OUT THINGS YOU LOVE AND ALWAYS WORK HARD ONCE YOU FIND IT" I did this quick edit to give anyone who feels like they don't have a voice to be able to believe in themselves and to NEVER GIVE UP. Lauren Hill Said "It's Not What You Crop But What You Keep"... JUST REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE, YOU ARE POWERFUL, YOU ARE LOVE - ONE My Deepest Condolences To The Bryant Family! My Aunt, Whom I Adore, Just Past Away As Well, And A Poem By Mary Elizabeth Frye Was Sent To Me To Console Me. iT Read. "Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die." WE LOVE YOU KOBE BRYANT THANKS FOR BEIN SUPER DOPE AND SHINING YOUR LIGHT WITH THE WORLD ! ! ! "MAMBA OUT" 👁N E #nba #lakers #kobe #basketball #blackmamba #lebron #ballislife #mambamentality #mvp #michaeljordan #nike #shaq #life #lalakers #jordan #goat https://www.instagram.com/p/B78tDR4nlGtFe31hqqAs51zVYCfnxQ3his9-Pw0/?igshid=1h5oke4zeajjq

#foryou #ripkobe #realtalk #kobebryant #soulpower #nba #lakers #kobe #basketball #blackmamba #lebron #ballislife #mambamentality #mvp #michaeljordan #nike #shaq #life #lalakers #jordan #goat

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wildflower8281 · 7 years

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Adventures in Not Owning A Car!

(I’ve recently chosen to forego car ownership and thought my adventures and challenges in attempting this lifestyle might be amusing or interesting to some. It also helps me to document my process and ultimately see if this is the right choice for me. If you want to skip the adventure parts, then just read the beginning and the end: money, challenges & pros!)

My first week of being 36 was not so hot, well at least from first glance: I lost a new hire and I got into a fender. Of course, I believe that the Universe always works her magic in my ultimate favor, so despite the seeming heaviness of those situations, looking back, I can see her wisdom.

The fender resulted in me selling my car for a few hundred bucks instead of trying to mend a really old car. At that time, I was also leaving the country in like a week and thought it prudent not to take out a loan and purchase a vehicle right before taking an international trip. So, the car situation was put on pause. Take note: pausing is an excellent practice when you’re in a situation and seeking answers! 😊

About two days before I left for Mexico, it came to me that I might be in the position to live my life without car ownership! When I did the math and thought about my lifestyle, it all seemed to make perfect sense. It was one of the most liberating feelings to realize that I, in fact, did not need to take out a huge loan (I love being debt-free and try to keep it that way) and make a purchase of a vehicle that I would then be in charge of keeping safe and healthy.

What made me an ideal prospective non-car-owner were these facts:

*Most of the year, I ride my bike to work. I can also walk if needed.

*I am single with no kiddos – no one else to ride around!

*My grocery stores are within walking or biking distance.

* I socialize mostly downtown, so I can also ride my bike, hitch a ride or take a short Lyft when I go out with friends.

* I don’t regularly take longer trips.

The only longer trips I make were:

* To my dad’s house in Scottsdale (about 20 minutes)

* To go hiking

*Occasionally: library (now that Burton Barr is closed ☹) Goodwill, Target.

So, I decided to give this lifestyle a go. It’s my 3-6 month experiment and so far I like it and I think it may be here to stay! Below are a few main areas of interest:

The Basic Math of It

With Max, I was paying $93/month, plus about $50 in gas, along with regular maintenance and/or repairs. However, if I were to take out a loan and get another car, my expenses would be:

*Higher insurance: because fender and newer car, at least $100+ if not more like $150. Max did not have collision insurance, but a newer car would need that, so it would def be higher.

*Car Payment: probably $2-300/month

* $50 give or take for gas

*Maintenance/Repairs

*Totaling at least $450/month for a car that I would use maybe only 2-3 days a week, if that.

* Yearly total: $5400 and that is without any major repairs!

Without a car, these are my monthly expenses involving travel:

*Lyft Rides & tips: $100-$150 (to Dad’s, stores, socializing, hikes)

*Delivery fees for groceries & other items: $20

*Paying for Friends drinks, coffee, gas: $30-40

* Monthly total: $210 (give or take)

* Yearly: $2520-$3000

These are my best estimates, as I’m still tracking how this lifestyle really looks, but overall while it’s not as cheap as Max was, the situation with Max is no longer an option for me, so in reality, comparing owning a newer car with living car-free is the accurate comparison. It looks and feels way cheaper to live this way. Even if in certain months, I might want to take a roadtrip (rent a car, or zipcar, etc.) I can still afford to drop another hundred or so on using a car for that day, if I choose to go it alone. If I have a partner in crime, obviously I’ll pay for gas or meals, etc.

I’ve realized it does take thinking about travel and cost in a new way. While a trip up to visit my Dad may cost me around $40 roundtrip, and at first that seems “expensive,” I’m training myself to remember that I’m also not paying $300+ a month for insurance and a car. It’s just a new way to think about cars and money.

Grocery

Produce Adventures

When I had Max (my old ford taurus,) I would regularly hit up Food City for my produce, tortillas and pan dulce usually 2 times a week, as well as Frye’s for other items (cereal, organic milk, coconut oil, etc.) For the past 3 weeks, I have successfully ridden my bike to Food City for my produce. Since it’s a little sketch, I have been bringing my bike inside the store with me and no one has said a word! The lock I currently have is just a cable and I don’t trust it enough to leave it locked outside of any store. So, I take my bike in, I even walk it through the check-out line and it has not been a big deal. Until this weekend. Enter bald white dude security guard! I walked into the store as usual, going to grab a basket and he glared at me. Who glares at me?!?! No one glares at me! I’m the same gringa who always comes here to get her ready to eat avocados, cilantro and pan dulce! WTF. Why are you disrupting my happy weekend food routine?! Anyway, he told me in no uncertain terms that I could not bring my bike into the store, that there was a sign posted, etc, etc. I explained to him that I’ve already done it 3 times and no one has said a word to me, that I do not have a lock because I never lock my bike anywhere (basically true story b/c other than work, I rarely used to actually ride it anywhere.) He said he wouldn’t be doing his job if he let me in. I said, well then other guards are not doing their jobs because I’ve done this already 3 times, Mister Bald White Dude. And I explained how I literally walk it thru check-out like a cart and no one has said anything to me, etc. In the end, he would not let me stay to shop and there was no way I was leaving my bike outside unattended just for some produce. (Side-cultural-observation-note: the other weeks I have gone, it was earlier in the day and there were Hispanic male guards…I wonder if they didn’t stop me because I was a white girl, because they were unconcerned that I would cause trouble, because they really don’t give a shit about me and my bike, b/c they were scared to ask me to leave…..just interesting to note and I wish that they were all hispanic guards b/c they get me! <3!)

So, I am now exploring other ways and options as to how I can get my cheap produce. Inevitably, I’m going to invest in a strong u-lock that’s for sure. Just good to have. But, I also asked the Coronado Message Board (thanks, neighbors!) and discovered Carniceria Los Reyes, which is closer by about 4 blocks, smaller and on a major intersection. It’s a smaller Mexican grocery & bakery. I’m going to bike there next time and see how it goes! I need a place with fresh, cheap produce and I need tortillas (local, real ones) and pan dulce. This is my life.

Instacart Trial Run

For my other items, I have tried out Instacart and it seems to be a great option for me. I basically order enough of these goods for about 2 weeks or so (cereals, milk, gluten free bagels, crème cheese, etc.) Instead of these 3 steps: Lyfting to Frye’s, doing the shopping myself, then Lyfting back, I just order what I want online and done! While they are shopping for me, I can be home doing whatever I want. It’s a lot simpler this way and allows me to have more free time instead of about 1 hour of travel & shopping. If they do not have what you ordered, the shopper will call you and ask if there is a substitute option you’d like. You can tip in the app and I can give them my plastic bags to return to the store.

Lyft would be about $10-12 round trip, whereas delivery fee for Instacart is about $5, plus the added bonus of my time. They do have a membership option for free delivery which amounts to about $12.50 a month, but I’m not certain that commitment is worth it for me just yet.

Shopping/Gifts/House Items

I don’t shop or need much honestly, so it’s not like I’m Lyfting to stores every weekend, nor did I shop much even when I had Max. Maybe once a month if that, I would go play at the various Goodwills or need a birthday gift for someone and hit up Target, etc. However, with this lifestyle challenge, I am really pondering getting Amazon prime. I already have a Target charge, so anything I purchase from there is delivered for free, which is great, but they don’t always have what I’m looking for. For example, bike locks, specific journals, specific cell phone cases, etc. I’ve purchased or shopped for all these items recently from home. I probably will end up doing a Prime membership at some point, but I’m seeing how it pans out right now.

As for clothes, shoes, things I need to touch and feel, I’ll need to take a Lyft or wait until I go visit my family in Scottsdale and ask to use their car to make some trips. Most likely, I’ll only be up in Scottsdale about once a month, so it’s not like I’ll be mooching and I try to be aware of paying my way, filling up the tank or other ways of repaying them for the favor of free car use!

Challenges So Far

*Locking My Bike – I just don’t trust people and have heard too many stories about a stolen bike here in Phoenix. Even if I invest in a really good lock, I still have hesitation about leaving my bike outside, unattended.

*Thinking Twice About Trips – sometimes I opt out of family gatherings or other possible trips simply because I don’t want to be extravagant with this lifestyle and spend $100/week in lyfting. I don’t like feeling like there is a limit on how much I can spend on transportation. Maybe this feeling will subside once I get a few months under my belt and see that I can totally afford to live this way, and then some. It’s a part of the new way of understanding travel + money. My brain is still learning it, so sometimes it feels like a struggle.

*Weather – It hasn’t happened yet, but there will be rains in winter & summer, and there will be unsafe heat in the summer, when I won’t be able to walk and bike everywhere. Thankfully that’s only like 10% of the year, but still something I’ll have to consider and deal with.

*See above: Bald, White Security Guard who cramped my style.

Overall Pros Thus Far

*Creative Thinking and Exploring: Not having my own car these past 3 weeks has ushered into my life new ways of thinking, new ideas and new challenges. I welcome all of them, honestly! While I enjoyed my life with Max, I also greatly enjoy the new energies that new pathways, routines, habits and choices bring into my life. I like breaking the mold of how my mind works and thinks about how things are supposed to be and feel. I never would have thought I’d be a person who made use of a grocery delivery service, but it really is so easy, affordable and a time saver! Living without a car has also made me explore what is right in my own neighborhood more! For example, taking my bike to The Velo, which is the bike shop like a block south of my work. What a freaking cool place! A bike shop with cute, friendly guys AND a café right next door. Can I just stay?! Or discovering McDowell Market/Café and Palabras Book store literally in my neighborhood! I’m totally enamored!

*The Art of Receiving: It has made me remember the grace with which it’s important to receive – receiving rides from friends, family, neighbors. Sometimes I pay for gas, other times for drinks or coffee for my friends or family. Sometimes I invite over for dinner or cook for them. I honor their generosity, feel grateful for it and desire to energetically balance it out in some appropriate fashion. Isn’t this how cultures used to live? I’ll give you some corn and in return you gift me a weaved basket. Here, hitch a ride on my wagon. Thanks, here’s some bread I baked. Those were the days! Well, in some small ways, I get to live that way now too. Here, ride with me! Thanks, here’s some salsa verde I just made!

*Less Things: I also LOVE the feeling of not owning a huge thing!!! Owning a car is a big responsibility that can get you into a lot of trouble and stress at times and when that does happen, it really sucks and can sometimes last a long time. By not owning a car, I basically avoid any and all of those possible situations. Currently, the most expensive item I own is this little machine I’m typing on. And that, for me, is a super liberating feeling. The way I look at owning things like cars, property, large technological things is that they take time and money. You often have to pay monthly for them or at least occasionally to upkeep and maintain them, maybe some kind of insurance or taxes, plus they cause you stress and time when they break, or just in general maintenance. I’ve seen both parents work at maintaining a home – yards, air conditioning, appliances, plumbing, etc. It’s just not for me. I’d much rather spend my time exploring a new city or taking a watercolor class, and happily pay rent or Lyft to take care of the practical things like housing and travel.

*Time Saving: It has also made me consolidate my shopping and think creatively. Instead of making a few grocery trips a week, I make sure that when I get it delivered or bike/walk myself to a grocery, that it’s all the things I need for a good while: produce enough for my week and dry goods enough for at least two. Ultimately planning this way is actually saving me time. Again!

*Living With What I Have: The above being said, if I forget an item or run out of something, instead of making a trip to the store for that 1 thing, I choose to make use of what I still have at home. If I run out of cereal, then I eat something else. Simpler that way.

*Vitamin D: Inevitably not just hopping into my car allows me ample time outside riding my bike or walking places, almost daily! In this beauteous desert, where it’s sunny, pleasant and dry about 9 months out of the year, I’m a lucky girl!! I’ll see about next summer when it’s over 110 and cross that bridge for a few months when I come to it, but for now, I’m enjoying this Arizona fall weather, cruising around on my bike! 😊

#ponderings #bikelife #minimalism #freedom

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