A-writer-shade-of-pale - "Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost"

The Gospel of Alfie Solomons

Written by Steven Knight, Performed by Tom Hardy

PART I - LISTEN HERE

You see, the idea I fuckin’ hate the most, right, is that everything starts off perfect, yeah, and then it gets worse. That is demonstrably not fuckin’ true. Some things are just born bad. Some people are born with no intention to do anything good on this Earth and they carry out their plan to deceive and cheat and rob and desanctify all that is Holy, just because that is the way that they were born. That’s how they are. That’s what they do, is relentless, relentlessly. 

Their creed runs thus: If I can, I will rob you; if I must, I will kill you; if you let me, I will fuck you; when I’ve fucked you, I will leave you. My father, Alfred Solomons, said it was such a man, with such a creed, who was a dispenser. A dispenser of semen to the gullible and the bewildered. A make of bastards on a scale unseen since Ghengis fuckin’ Khan. A barbarian, for whom every empty womb was Rome. He planted the seeds but he did not tend the gardens, he stayed only long enough to piss on the compost. And he had the roses to sell in Summerstown in the market there. With his stolen roses in his pockets, he would leap the garden gate, leaving behind only the scent of rum. Miles he passed. Tobacco and Portugal, water, which he did. He sold out of his suitcase, right, at six pence a bottle. At least that is what I’ve been told. 

Yeah, so I’m fucking told because all I ever saw of him was his fuckin’ hat. It was hangin’ on a wall, on a nail, above the sink where my mother washed other people’s laundry. That hat was a holy relic, size 8 ½, made in Luton where the hatmakers go insane on the fumes of their trade, and leave little messages sewn under the hat bands. The message in my father’s hat was this: “This hat is a kettle, in which to boil up your wicked dreams and make a soup of your soul.” It is a hat that actually I wear to this day It still smells of Portugal water, and when I wear it, the schemes and proposals come out of the darkness as if seeping out of the felt and the leather that is stained with his erotic sweat.

My mother washed bedsheets, my father was a fucking hat. No kisses, no bedtime stories, just parcels of sheets to deliver to the hotels, and the brothels, Camden Town for nothing more than flat bread, and a pinch from the priest who would then open up his robes when I passed, and from that I drew my dark and accurate conclusions on religion. 

So! Alfie Solomons Jr. grew untended and wild, a stem with hardly a root sticking up like a skinny cock out of the gutter so every nasty little Christian kid walking by their nasty little Christian school with their gropey old Christian masters could kick it down, and stomp on it and shout, “it was you lot who killed Jesus, so have that in your belly, and have that in your face, and see it as charity. We’re not nailing you up like you did our Lord.” But every time I got stopped down, I fuckin’ stomped back off again, mate. I survived out of spite. And instead of learning how to fight, I learned how to put right the wrongs done unto me tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold, yae, unto the fuckin stars, right, by using the bit of my body that God had cleverly put inside a strong-boned box, so the kicks and the digs could not reach it. 

The bit of me that is my brain. 

With the help of the alchemy of my Portugal water hat and the strong-boned box I processed the schemes and solutions the mad hatters in Luton and my father had put there, my brain a factory producing schemes and solutions, dodges and speculations, ways around, ways to undermine, a trickle at night and a flood in the day when I unlock my bakery and smell the aroma of secrets and sin and begin the process of accumulation. 

I am the chairman of Alfie Solomons’ Aerated Bread Company, Bonny Street, Camden Town, to be precise. My two vice chairmen are Mr. Threat and Mr. Violence in the form that I prefer but, but, the latter is necessary to support the former, because without violence there is no threat, and without threat there is no accumulation, and without accumulation, well there’s just no fucking point, mate. As a baker I occasionally sell bread. As a bookmaker I occasionally let the fastest horse win. As a landlord I occasionally have a roof fixed, but mostly I find it is quicker and it easier to deal with the complainer, right, than deal with the complaint. 

From all of this you are drawing your conclusions - Alfie Solomons, begat from a bad man, and beguiled by a hat band, became a bad man, inspires bad men to do bad things in bad ways to good people with bad, bad luck, but is good enough to at least admit he is a fucking bad, bad man. [grunts]

But, consider this, right? In all my years, yeah, as a baker in Camden Town, I have overseen, I have organized or otherwise been responsible for the deaths, right, of 35 fucking men. All of whom, I’ll have you know, attend my dreams each night in various disguises in regular order, with no pattern or logic to it, but with the consequence that I wake up each morning in sheets that have to be wrung out from sweat, right, by my maid, Edna, yeah who, it should be noted, I have never had an evil thought about in fifteen years because when she washes my sweat from the sheets, she reminds me of my poor mother, now residing in Hell and washing the robes of Satan himself.

So, 35 men, 35 times I am a bad man. But here is where mathematics comes to my rescue. Logic rides in like an accountant on a penny farthing just in time to make proof of mitigation before moral bankruptcy is officially declared, yeah?

Here is, [clears throat], here is what logic puts forward, in my defense.

In France, right, Passendale, for example, take one day, one hour, one fucking second, I am standing, right, in the uncultivated mud, a stem with hardly a root in my hands, I have an artillery shell. It is the size and weight of a newborn baby. A little bastard made in Birmingham, sharp nosed, the color of the morning sky. And in that one second, right, one fucking second of one day, of one month, of four years - in that one second I feed that baby to the upturned mortar barrell ass-first, upturned, I put my fingers in my ears, and boom, I send my baby into the morning sky. To do the only job it was ever, ever intended to do. Two seconds later, another boom, and there in the mud, over there, lie 36 men. 

Brown bread.

The 36 killed by the soldier, right, are just as dead, right, as the 35 killed by the baker, but the 36, they do not attend my dreams, and are not there in God’s ledger counting the good against the bad. I was given a medal for the 36, but I took a bullet by the Peaky Blinders for the 35, so. 

Therefore, my beloved congregation, I will leave you with this conclusion, right. There is no good and there is no bad that is categorical in this world beyond the calculations of powerful men, right, who shift the definition according to their own selfish schemes of accumulation. The only things that are categorical are life and death and for arguments’ sake we say life is good, and death is bad - purely, purely for arguments’ sake. 

Which means - which means my father was fucking right, mate. You dispense your semen, you piss on the compost, you deadhead the fuckin’ roses, leave the garden gate, take what you’ve stolen to market and you sell it at a reasonable price, leaving behind only your hat and the scent of your fucking wares, mate.

That is the creed of Alfie Solomons. A lame shepherd among nimble goats who nevertheless at the stable door shall be counted and accumulated as lambs to my gentle slaughter. 

Because never forget this, right: 

Alfie Solomons, he is always waiting.

The Outdoor Type - Malcolm Bench x Reader (Vertical Limit)

Author’s Note: I kinda hope you forget you ever gave me this idea and that I asked if I could write it… What can I say, I like surprising you from time to time - as much as I love telling you what I’m currently working on and sending snippets 🤷‍♀️

I literally found this song googling “Songs about mountains / hiking” when I was trying to make him a playlist. So, all of this is just really perfect timing. The Stars Aligned-!

Disclaimer: Vertical Limit Characters not mine - as the idea to put Ben in brown contacts wasn’t, but brilliant job guys! 🙏 / Gif not mine / lyrics not mine 

Premise: Malcolm wants to take you on a nice summer hike in the Great Outdoors… There’s only one flaw with his plan, you’re afraid of heights. And you haven’t told him yet.

Words: 1483

Warnings: N/A 

Keep reading

So true!!!

good omens is accurate to real life because crowley and aziraphale knew for 6000 years that the apocalypse was coming and they had to stop it, but they waited until the day it was due to pull off 90% of the job

The priests for whom I would go to hell.

Home in England

THENORDROOM.COM - INSTAGRAM - PINTEREST - FACEBOOK

Control - Ralph Anderson x Shifter!Reader 2 (The Outsider)

Sequel to Halfway Home

@mandy23b​ @wltz-bby​ @happyskywhale​ #mendotagsquad

Author’s Note: This song, this damn song, oh my god. I confess I hadn’t listened to any Halsey at all (besides a couple of collabs with other artists I like) until I was music swapping with @mandy23b​…  But I honestly don’t think I’ve loved an album this much lyrically in a very long time! Anyway, a second part was always in the works. This song for sure inspired the finish of it.

Thank you @mendelskrull​ and @crawlingmist​ I really REALLY hope the sequel was worth the wait 🙈🙈🙈🙈

Control - Halsey

Disclaimer: gif not mine / lyrics not mine / The Outsider & all associated characters not my property!

I wrote this before I read ‘If It Bleeds’ but I see the immediate eerie similarities in my Shifter species. I think I might cover it off in the finale…

Premise: After a particularly erratic encounter with Ralph Anderson, you wait on your fate… can you trust the Detective to make the right choice? Can he trust you, at all?

Words: 5737

Warnings: Swearing  

⚠ Major Angst/Hurt Caution Warning (Again) ⚠

Keep reading

Almost Maybes - Ralph Anderson x Jeannie Anderson (The Outsider)

@wltz-bby​ @happyskywhale​

Happy Birthday @mandy23b​ 😘💕

May I proudly present to you, your babies!

Author’s Note: Pretty much entirely book canon and references, which is how we like things in this house!

I’m not gonna lie, when I very first heard this song (in… April?) I thought about it as a Ralph song, and then a Ralph/Jeannie concept and I knew that if I was going to do it - I would write it for you for your Birthday, so, it’s been a little while in the making, to say the least!

I hope you enjoy, and that you don’t mind that it’s not a reader insert for your birthday 🎁💙

Love you lots @mandy23b​! 😘😘

Almost Maybes - Jordan Davis

Disclaimer: Show watchers only, a whooole bunch of book references ahead / The Outsider & characters belong to Stephen King / gifs & lyrics not mine

Premise: Ralph reminisces on everything that has led to him being right here, right now…

Words: 1452

Warnings: N/A - literally there is more swearing in the lyrics than there is anything in the story.

Keep reading

we all become part of the landscape in the end…

Very tough choice but, for me, it would have to be Jackson Brodie.

If you had to be stuck in quarantine with one of these characters, who would you pick?