Shamelessly yoinked from facebook, but it’s hard not to see our current pandemic panic in these words from C.S. Lewis:
“How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.” … “the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.
They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
From “Present Concerns” New York: Harcourt, 1986
Devil John
Chapter 6 - Whiskey
Fandom:Sherlock
Rating: Explicit
Excerpt:
“She's leaving us, Harriet. Too good for the likes of us, I guess.” His mother smiles, one of those sad smiles that are meant to reassure, but never do. “At least I have you to depend on, Love. You won't leave me, will you John? Come here.”
She opens her arms and wraps them around him careful to hold her cigarette hand out, so she doesn't burn him. John reaches his left hand around to pat her back as she rests her head against his shirt. A moment later, he feels it grow damp from her tears.
“Don't let this happen to you, Johnny. Find yourself a good gentle wife to settle down with. One that doesn't drink or smoke too much. Then maybe your kids won't hate you and run off.”
“Mum, Harry doesn't hate you.”
“It's all right if she does. I don't blame her for it. And when you finally leave, I won't blame you either.”
John wraps both arms around his mother and holds her tight. “I'm not leaving, Mum. I won't abandon you, not ever.”
“My loyal John. Some girl is going to love that about you. My best, my brightest son.” She kisses his arm. Then everything fades and they are on the grey plane again.
John covers his face with his hands. How long had it been since he had even thought about his mother.
continued on AO3
Wow, another BlackDragon
From James A Owen’s FB page:
To paraphrase the old joke about eating elephants: “How do you eat a Dragon? Easy – one bite at a time.” That’s how you tackle big goals with big challenges, and how I’ve been managing the new Kickstarter for the trio of coloring books. Focus on enough small achievements, and before you know it, you’ve crossed the finish line. So for today, I have TWO goals I’m trying to reach: First, I need SIXTEEN more backers to reach 200. This is a very doable goal. smile emoticon And second, I want to bring in just $1546 in pledges – that amount puts the project at over $14k, but more importantly, it reduces the amount still to reach to four digits. And then it’s simply a race to the finish line. smile emoticon So please share the link with the friends and family you think will like three new books filled with pictures to cherish and color, and let’s see if we can find sixteen more people to take a bite out of a Dragon.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1401678214/all-the-colors-of-magic-a-trio-of-coloring-books
Since James posted this he’s had a handful of new backers, but is still a few shy of 200, and the $14k immediate goal. His art is gorgeous. The quality of the first coloring book is fantastic. If you like dragons, or coloring books, or art, take a look. Please reblog, or go find the post on FB and share it there. Or both. Both is good. :)
It is sad that in every age we must be reminded that it is wrong to kill children.
On July 1942, 2, most of the children of Lidice, a small village in what was then Czechoslovakia, were handed over to the gestapo office of the gestapo.
These 82 children were then transported to the of extermination camp 70 kilometers away. Once they arrived, they were gassed to death. This remarkable sculpture by Marie Uchytilová commemorates this massacre.
A group of Bronze Sculptures, paying tribute to the children who died. Its construction was decided in 1969 by the woman sculptor, Marie Uchytilova. As a symbol of an imaginary tomb of the 13 million most innocent victims of the war - children, she chose as model, 82 children of lidice asphyxiated in the gas rooms of chelmno.
She took 20 years to make this beautiful sculpture because she used the vintage documents to reproduce the faces of the missing children and to represent them according to their exact size.
Test - a podfic a day keeps the sadness away.
A Harry Potter fic
Holmes not giving a single damn about where he’ll have to go or how far he’ll have to run, because as long as Watson is there with him it’ll be home to him.
And Watson agreeing to leave everything behind and follow Holmes wherever, for however long, to the ends of the earth if must be, without even a second’s hesitation.
I’ll never not be crying over this scene.
The Lying Detective: cinematography ↪ requested by @white-dress-purple-shirt
handwashing can dramatically lower the risk of contracting coronavirus because it's an enveloped virus, it's specifically surrounded in a lipid (fat) and the majority of soaps are designed to break up grease and fat bonds which means if you break up that outer layer? the virus dies! it's not super hardy without that outer layer, so washing your hands beyond just physically removing the virus, kills it as well if you use soap.