190 posts
Latest Posts by oldsaints - Page 3
Paris is always showing its teeth. When it is not snarling, it is laughing.
Les Misérables, Part III, Book I, Chapter XI (via sextmen)
THE TRAGEDY OF LOVING A SOLDIER: the battlefield never really leaves them. (you see his hands still shake, finger glued to the trigger) THE TRAGEDY OF LOVING A GENERAL: the battle may be won, but the war never ends. (you watch sleep continue to elude her, eyes dull with grief) they both look at each other as though begging the other to be selfish. (the bloodshed ends, but they never find peace)
THE WAR & OTHER METAPHORS ( a.c. )
me @ the demons that stand at the end of my bed:
it’s a lot warmer under the covers if you wanna come cuddle
yeah a boyfriend sounds nice but a supreme enemy you can make out with sometimes in secret sounds a lot more hardcore
Sofia Sanoh photographed by Savanna Ruedy for Nylon Magazine
Stylist: Heather Newberger Hair: Kiyonori Sudo Makeup: Tony Tulve
Anti-villain motivations besides "tragic past"
They do bad things because they’re scared.
They’re gullible or misinformed. Example: somebody who has been told the heroes are out to hurt them.
They are desperate for interaction, validation, kindness, or attention, and the dark side gives them those things.
They want to change their allegiance, but are pressured by people close to them to stay evil.
They have an otherwise noble goal that they will do literally anything to achieve. Example: somebody who wants to protect their child, even if it means throwing other children into danger.
Sophocles, Elektra (trans. Anne Carson)
Which OC celebrates every holiday they can?
Bonus which OC celebrates none?
Ask any woman & she’ll tell you why Eve bit / into that apple. Why she chose the universe instead / of you.
Topaz Winters, from “Witch in Red,” published in heather press (via lifeinpoetry)
On November 5, 1917, 100 years ago today, Wilfred Owen wrote a gorgeous love letter to fellow gay World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon. It continues to be one of my favorite love letters of all time.
The gods are right here, as far-fetched as it sounds: everyone’s a god, no kings, no crowns, just us, one being, infinite and holy, gods, messed up, lonely, squashed, stressed out, dumbed down, raging, wasted … Same as it ever was: brand new ancients.
Kate Tempest, Brand New Ancients (via antigonies)
The gods are among us. Zeus drinks himself half to death at the bar. He makes bedroom eyes at every pretty girl to walk in the room. They will clutch their cans of mace a little tighter as they walk home tonight. Aphrodite helps a beaten girl to her feet, holding her tight as her young body is racked with sobs. Artemis stands nearby, preparing to hunt the thief of this young girl’s innocence. These are the only hunts she participates in anymore. Athena glares at Ares as bloody knuckles and booted feet connect with battered bodies between them. The fight clubs are their temples now. Dionysus stands behind a bar, serving drinks to rowdy men and pretty girls. Later, he will be found holding back the hair of girls, too young for the drinks they swallowed, as they vomit the concoctions they drank to forget the pain in the world. Dionysus understands and so he drinks more than anyone, if only to forget the suffering that has filled his immortal life. Hestia mourns the numerous broken homes. She puts extra effort in protecting the scant few happy families left. So Hestia has created a home for those lost and abandoned, for she too knows how it feels to be cast out by the family who should have loved you unconditionally. She understands what it feels like to be adrift and homeless. Apollo sits on a busy, crowded street, strumming his guitar and singing a song of loss and pain. He uses poetry and music to mourn the pain in the world. He berates himself constantly, because for every life he saves, ten more are extinguished. He has stopped visiting hospitals because he can’t help but feel his efforts are futile. He hasn’t seen his sister in years, and he misses her most at night, when he can see her beloved stars and moon. Hermes slumps in a chair, exhausted from the horror gracing the human news. He decides he is no longer deserving of the title “messenger of the gods,” since he hasn’t delivered a message in centuries. Not when the gods no longer keep in touch. So he reverts to his favorite pastime: stealing. But what use is mortal money to a god? Hera sits in the shadows of a bar and struggles to summon the dredges of the vindictive, jealous anger that used to come so easily to her when she saw her husband with another woman. Hera thinks that perhaps in this modern world, she would do better as the goddess of divorce. Because, really, how can she profess that marriage is the best gift the world has to offer when she can’t even keep her husband in her bed? When he doesn’t even bother pretending that he loves her? Yes, goddess of failed marriages has such a lovely, miserable ring to it. Poseidon wanders the beach, picking up the scattered trash that poisons his domain. His tears mix with the salt water on his cheeks and he weeps for the suffering of his oceans. He feels the pollution like a phantom pain, and he scoffs at himself, full of loathing for the god of the sea who could not protect his oceans from mortals. Hades lounges in his extravagant mansion, smiling at his lovely wife curled at his side. Blessed is he, for there will always be death, and mortals will always worship his riches. Of all his siblings, Hades, the scorned brother, cursed to rule the underworld, is the only one to still enjoy immortality. Persephone is as beautiful as ever and she is happy with her loving husband who always joins her in her protests, right alongside her as she weeps for for the dying of this earth, as she cries herself to sleep at night when she thinks of all the loss of nature’s beauty and life. This world is suffering and she is the only one to hear its cries. They haunt her dreams. Hecate flips the sign on the window to say closed. She longs for days gone by when people knew the truth. Magic is very real. Instead, she has to smile politely while customers come to her store to purchase items they know not how to use and religious men preach about how witchcraft is a sin, and she will burn in hell. Hecate does not care. She is as immortal as magic. Cupid narrows his eyes with scorn every time he hears the word love fly from the lips of people who do not understand the meaning of the word. Though who is he to judge them when all his matchmaking attempts end in failure. Perhaps the mortals simple do not want him to decide who they love. Perhaps it is their turn to choose. Athena prowls through college campuses, holding signs high in protect with the students around her. These fearless children are her people. She scoffs at the professors who are simply going through the motions, who fail to appreciate the brilliant minds all around them. She never fails to notice. Ares picks his way across a battlefield and finds himself at the ruins of what used to be an elementary school. He no longer understands war, hasn’t for centuries. This was not brave, this was not heroic. This was senseless bloodshed. He sees nothing holy in this ruined world. Aphrodite swallows the bile in her throat as she hears another rapist has been left free. She glares daggers at boys yelling obscene things at women. She’s long stopped romanticizing love. However, sometimes she sees a young girl handing over her baby to an older couple who tried for years, and she remembers what she once represented. Sometimes she sees Ares across the room of soldiers returning from the horrors of war, and as they embrace the loved ones they left behind, she smiles at him. Artemis takes her role as protector of young women seriously. There’s a gun tucked into her waistband and a switchblade in her pocket. She can’t save them all, so she has also become an avenging goddess. She can be found in the streets or at battered women’s shelters, preparing for the next hunt. The gods are dying. The gods wish they were dead. Is immortality a blessing or a curse?
The gods were always too human for their divinity (inspired by the writings of @crossroadsbela )
sometimes you just.. fuck a demon. have a one-night stand w/ an age-old malevolent entity. maybe even sometimes that blossoms into more. life's just like that, occasionally. like that's just how it is
“You each get your own private room.”
You fools. You think this will stop me, a fanfic writer, from writing those OTP moments? The gay is only beginning, my friends.
Please consider:
- “I had to jump three balconies and crawl up two flights to see you”
- “I’m stuck in the stairwell to your room because there’s another couple making out and they’ll spot me”
- “our rooms are right next to each other but we still text all the time”
- “you live down the hall from me and it’s only now that I’m realizing that you have the cutest pajamas ever”
- “you play shitty music at 3 in the morning and I’m not afraid to kill you”
- “you’ve been reading those notes out loud for the past four hours and I’m just listening in because I’m learning more from you than I did the entire two weeks of lessons”
- “dude you’ve been playing sad music for the past three days are you okay”
- “I’m the stress baker and you’re the stress eater and we’re always stressed so we end up become best friends”
- “I tried to do laundry for the first time ever and it looked easy but now there’s soap everywhere and all my white clothes are pink will you stop laughing and help me please”
- “we’re study partners before we moved into the dorms so we don’t change anything but we do find out that everyone else thinks we’re dating so they end up leaving us alone to study how convenient”
- “someone keeps stealing my favorite socks and when I find out who I’m going to strangle them with their shoelaces”
- “someone through the gaudiest pair of shoes up on the roof who in their right mind would wear those - oh they’re YOUR shoes?”
- “I ran out of hygiene supplies so I’m borrowing yours but I keep forgetting to buy more so we always share but I end up liking you a lot so I always say I ‘forgot to buy more’ and I think you’ve caught on but you’re not saying anything”
- “I have twelve tons of homework I kept putting off but you’ve had yours done for weeks but you won’t let me copy so I have to sneak into your room for the answers and wow you really love weird socks”
- “you keep burning candles and the smell keeps drifting over to me and I’d usually be fine with that but you have a terrible taste in candles”
Guys this is our chance for every single “dorm room shenanigans” thing EVER
tattoo artist who can encode magic into tattoos but doesn’t want people to know she can so she just puts low-level luck spells on her clients’ bodies without telling them
jeweller who makes body jewellery and pendants which have amulet properties and draw love and luck and happiness to their wearers without them realising it
piercing artist who keeps the remnants from her piercings and puts them all in little jars in the back of her shop to work sympathetic luck spells on all her clients
and then all three of them slowly realise what the others are doing and end up in a poly relationship living in a little shop in the shitty end of town, which gets curiously less shitty the longer they stay, and people think it’s just the development of the area but the three artists know
and they’re never rich and they’re never famous but they’re always happy because they have everything they need
they have the shop and they have their customers and they have each other
and when their customers are happy and content, they pack up and move on, all together now, to find another space with skin to be coloured and jewellery to be made and magic to be done.
Modern Witches
- Nervous witches collecting rainwater in mason jars and purifying it for non visibility spells. Dousing their wrists and necks and behind their ears to prevent unwanted attention.
- Witches brewing tea and coffee and leaving it to sit for days so that the spirits in their homes will be pleased.
- Twenty year old witches squinting at their scrawled runes in a composition notebook in a cramped apartment as they study for exams.
- Witches arming themselves with non-lethal hexes and curses when they have to walk at night in the city because you can never be too careful.
- Witches adopting their black cats from shelters, and maybe several other cats that aren’t black as well.
- Witches creating fairy lights of floating candles that sometimes drip wax on the floor but will refuse to burn the witch’s dwelling.
- Familiars doubling as therapy pets and service dogs.
Cracks
Thundercracks; chasms; those in coffee cups; crevasses; crispy crackling; cracks full of bones in the mountains to the far North and the snow has mercifully covered them but in Summer you can still see the traces; those in badly-constructed alibis; those on which you must not step; those that start small and widen until they have split a whole country in two and spilled out all the hidden vaults and subway routes into the chasm; those which stare back; those of doors opened just a smidgen; the varnish-cracked faces of china shepherdesses in the spider attic; the crack that cracks a case; that cracks a skull; those in valuable vases; fractured air; those whose fixing is part of the art; cracks that spill forth ants; those that are breaks in reality; whip cracks; bum cracks; those in broken biscuits; the first cracks in a wall that you wish gone.