fate keeps on happening

"Of course, old man, I only saw the kid once, and then only for a moment, but--but it was an ugly sort of kid, wasn't it, if I remember rightly?" "As ugly as that?" I looked again, and honesty compelled me to be frank. "I don't see how it could have been, old chap." Poor old Corky ran his fingers through his hair in a temperamental sort of way. He groaned. "You're right quite, Bertie. Something's gone wrong with the darned thing. My private impression is that, without knowing it, I've worked that stunt that Sargent and those fellows pull--painting the soul of the sitter. I've got through the mere outward appearance, and have put the child's soul on canvas." "But could a child of that age have a soul like that? I don't see how he could have managed it in the time. What do you think, Jeeves?" "I doubt it, sir."

Once more I tried to drive it home to him that it was Edwin who had done all the what you might call heavy work. Bertram having been throughout merely an innocent bystander, but it didn't penetrate. He was left with the settled conviction that I and the child had got together, forming a quorum, and after touching off the place with gunpowder, had nursed the conflagration along with careful injections of paraffin, each encouraging each as you might say, on the principle that it is teamwork that tells.

To a mountain village    at nightfall on a spring day       I came and saw this: blossoms scattering on echoes    from the vespers bell.

One of the most effective ways to curtail a cult's exit rate is to manage the pace of indoctrination, introducing recruits to some of the group's more colorful teachings only after a period of time where they're deemed to be sufficiently invested to accept said teachings. Put another way, save the really crazy shit for later.

Your faith in human nature really pisses me off, you know that?!

It was one of those things, one of those moments... You meet someone and right there in the first flush of new acquaintance- forget about taking time to be sure- sometimes you can feel it in your marrow! No hesitation. Right there in that first moment you think, "Well this isn't gonna fucking work, is it?"

Inside, Jackson Lamb squatted in an armchair like a yeti in a biscuit tin.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

Jin Rou had wanted to become a powerful cultivator, a master among masters, and do whatever it is the dickbags who run this place did. Which was presumably to be dicks, dickishly.

The bracelets of Hetep-Heres are decorated with a similar motif. They are all adorned with moths or maybe butterflies and in between they have orange circles. These orange circles probably represent sun disks; the symbol of the god Ra, which, I have to wonder... if you take a moth and Ra, what do you get? Well apparently, Hetep-Heres was an early fan of the kaiju, Mothra. All hail our insect queen!