#anarchy of the divine - of love and eternity

[intogenshin]

The Roles of Atheist and Priest: Balance of Faith between Alhaitham and Cyno

The profoundest eternal questions are met only with a boundless and eternal silence

This line in Alhaitham’s teaser is a reference to a poem by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore in the collection titled Stray Birds.

Tagore’s work is deeply religious in nature (heh) as it is largely influenced by the creation myths of the Rig Veda.

The recurring theme of nature, present throughout the entirety of Stray Birds, expresses and explores the relationship between man and spirituality in the tradition of Indian literature:

(...) when Tagore writes of nature —of birds, trees, a singular blade of grass, a sunset, sunrise, a boat ride, a fading view of water— while all of these external objects belonging to the natural world may make Tagore appear much like western Romantic poets, such as Wordsworth or Yeats, Tagore’s mission is actually quite different. In Tagore, what is expressed is a thoughtful relationship of poet to sacred text, of poet to the mythical or cosmological origins of the world. In Tagore, love of nature equates at one level to love of God; for, in recognizing the worth of the natural world, one is giving assent to the fact that there is a God who created it. (...) in Stray Birds Tagore writes: “To-night there is a stir among the palm leaves, as well as in the sea Full Moon, like the heart throb of the world From what unknown sky hast thou carried in thy silence the aching secret of love?” The lines echo the concept from the creation hymns wherein the sacred text posits that no one knows how creation came to be because no one witnessed it except for the creator God itself, and who can truly know this God but to seek him? As if this were not enough, also in Stray Birds, we read Tagore’s development of this concept as he writes: ”God comes to me in the dusk of my evening with the flowers from my past kept fresh in his basket” This is the mind of a religious poet at work, not a Romantic poet.

—Love of Creation and Mysticism in Tagore’s Gitanjali and Stray Birds, by Paula Hayes

Silence is another major element of Tagore’s exploration of nature as the connection with god, which represents divine wisdom through introspection:

This power of silence is attributed to its heavenly origins. Silence is the voice of God, as well as the place where everyone finds and worships his god: ”God’s silence ripens man’s thoughts into speech” In another poem, this eternal silence of Heaven is juxtaposed with the eternal quest of earthly creatures, a process that affirms the superiority of the former as the ultimate province of trust, beyond the doctrines and divisions created by the mind with their ensuing doubt and uncertainty: ”What language is thine, O sea?” ”The language of eternal question” ”What language is thy answer, O sky?” ”The language of eternal silence” (...) Silence, therefore, is not merely a recurrent theme in the poems of Tagore, nor is it a distinct element that can be extracted from the rest of the poem. It is organically interwoven with other elements, establishing the unity of the poem, its coherence and its uniqueness as well.

—Language of eternal silence, by Muhhammad Hesham

In the poem referenced in Alhaitham’s teaser, the “eternal question” represents man’s quest to find meaning through spirituality, while the “eternal silence” represents introspection and a connection with the wisdom of God.

The role of eternal question fits a character like Alhaitham perfectly: one who seeks wisdom for personal fulfillment, but it is also one that questions this eternal silence —the word of god. One who raises questions against belief, not for the sake of negation, but understanding. An ethical atheist, if you will.

Alhaitham’s ideological worldview of individualism is inspired by the work of Max Stirner, originator of egoist anarchy. Stirner is highly critical of religion, but he also looks down on atheists of his time for replacing the god of western religion with morality and humanism. For him, true freedom can only be achieved through individualism.

Whether then the one God or the three in one. whether the Lutheran God or the être suprême or not God at all, but “Man,” may represent the highest essence, that makes no difference at all for him who denies the highest essence itself, for in his eyes those servants of a highest essence are one and all — pious people, the most raging atheist not less than the most faith-filled Christian.

—The Ego and Its Own, by Max Stirner

Stirner doesn’t seem concerned with denying the existence of god, but rather with the origin and care of his own desires, centering himself instead of “man” as a collective or an idea. He does not act for the good of anyone but himself (or that’s his ideal, at least).

Here’s where Haitham deviates from Stirner’s egoism. He’s not concerned with archons and he does favor individual comfort over Kaveh’s altruism, and he’s not afraid nor ashamed of trespassing conventional rules or institutional laws to get what he wants, but he does recognize the importance of order in society.

Sumeru is the nation ruled by the god of wisdom, so wisdom and knowledge can be understood as the fruit of worship for the archon. Akademiya rules are, much like in religion, a moral code that shapes the ideal believer and punishes those who break the order upheld under these rules. Funny enough, the Akademiya’s original Chinese name is (according to the wiki) Sumeru Institute of Religious Decree —the religious context is lost on the English translation.

Understanding the Akademiya as an allegorical religious institution, Cyno serves as a guardian of the principles and moral code of this church. His historical predecessor is none other than priest Kasala, after all, who was a faithful follower of the Scarlet King (that he calls his “eternal lord”) and later aided Rukkhadevata.

Cyno’s priest-like figure is a fair counterpart to Alhaitham’s atheist: when the ethical atheist raises questions, it is the duty of the priest to answer on behalf of the divine.

The eternal question, an introspective search for answers and meaning; the eternal silence, the wisdom of divine scripture.

Alhaitham and Cyno are the only characters in Sumeru having an association with the theme of silence, especially Cyno. Alhaitham through Tagore’s poem and the description in his default outfit in which a member of the Temple of Silence warns the listener not to bother him if he’s wearing his headphones; and Cyno through direct references in his lore as well as his official affiliation to the Temple.

Much like in Tagore’s poem, the exchange of question and silence is not a hostile one, but rather a conversation, a means for growth for both sides. In dialectics, an argument is held for the same reasons: when offering a thesis, it must be reasonably defended against an equally reasonable contradiction.

Putting these two characters who fulfill these specific roles with religious undertones in a storyline where they work together to overthrow a government, then I simply am reminded of Enjolras and Grantaire from Les Miserables.

YOU SEE they’re part of the revolutionary group that fights in the barricades.

Enjolras is completely driven by ideology, every aspect of his life revolves around his ideals of revolution and freedom to the point that he just isn’t approachable by his colleagues. He’s more a walking ideal than human. While Grantaire is a skeptic who refuses to believe in anything (that is, except Enjolras) (they’re canonically super gay, the author went out of his way to compare them to a bunch of gay Greek historical and mythical couples so go figure).

Grantaire is rather a self indulgent nihilist, but Stirner’s vibes of cynical egoism are there (just described through the eyes of someone who does favor altruism instead lmao):

All those words: rights of the people, rights of man, the social contract, the French Revolution, the Republic, democracy, humanity, civilization, religion, progress, came very near to signifying nothing whatsoever to Grantaire. He smiled at them. Scepticisn, that caries of the intelligence, had not left him a whole single idea. He lived with irony. This was his axiom: “There is but one certainty, my full glass.” He sneered at all devotion in all parties, the father as well as the brother.

Grantaire believes in nothing, which is why he’s in love with the personification of ideal and belief.

A skeptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the light like the blind man. (...) Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, upright, hard candid nature charmed him, without his being clearly aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having occurred to him. He admired his opposite by instinct.

Their contrast is mainly ideological, with Grantaire barely participating in the revolutionary acts of the group, but (although lesmis seems to be heavily shaped by religious narratives, especially Valjean’s main storyline) the way Enjolras is described very much fits Cyno’s own commitment to his duty as the General Mahamatra:

Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. He was angelically handsome. He was a savage Antinous. One would have said, to see the pensive thoughtfulness of his glance, that he had already, in some previous state of existence, traversed the revolutionary apocalypse. He possessed the tradition of it as though he had been a witness. He was acquainted with all the minute details of the great affair. A pontifical and warlike nature, a singular thing in a youth. He was an officiating priest and a man of war; from the immediate point of view, a soldier of the democracy; above the contemporary movement, the priest of the ideal

Enjolras role as a revolutionary is heavily colored by religious and military undertones.

For most of the story Grantaire is rejected by Enjolras, often scorned by his lack of commitment and his lifestyle. It is at the last moment when Enjolras is cornered by a fire squad after the barricade fails that Grantaire declares himself a Republican and volunteers to die with him. Enjolras ideals have not succeeded in his quest for liberation, but Grantaire offers him a last hope in leaving his skepticism to believe in those ideals. If a skeptic was capable of believing, then surely it was not in vain and many others would carry Enjolras beliefs beyond his tragical death. And in taking his hand Enjolras basically accepts his feelings because les mis is of course a yaoi

Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant glance of the transfigured drunken man. He repeated: "Long live the Republic!" crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras. "Finish both of us at one blow," said he. And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him: "Do you permit it?" Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile. This smile was not ended when the report resounded. Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed. Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt.

Either way, haino in sumeru aq did succeed in overthrowing Azar and lived to tell the tale. But, well, they didn’t need this exchange. Alhaitham understands the value of rules, of Cyno’s duty, as they cooperate with each other.

so anyway yea enjoltaire haino, atheist and priest, gay ideological opposites of faith working together to overthrow the government u get it

further readings:

On the Couple of Silence by hibarifish

Alhaitham and Egoist Anarchism by lotusparadisaea

Love of Creation and Mysticism in Tagore’s Gitanjali and Stray Birds by Paula Hayes

Language of eternal silence by Muhhammad Hesham

#haino #cytham #long post #analysis #enjoltaire propaganda #listen i had to put the thoughts somewhere #Alhaitham #cyno #this is south park’s fault Elaborate on that No

[radioactivemelody]

Holy Quintet and their paranormal elements

I have been twirling this idea around my head for a good amount of time until I finally indulged it (and because I got some free time) so yeah. But first, let me explain to you what "paranormal elements" I'm talking about.

Simply, the paranormal elements from the Brazilian RPG called Ordem Paranormal (Paranormal Order if you will) and it has four main elements in which people can connect with.

BLOOD - Everything starts with Blood. Blood is the flow that drenches the eternity of the Other Side.

Blood is the entity of feelings. It seeks the intensity: pain, obsession, passion, love, hunger, hatred - everything evolving feeling an extreme emotion pleases the Blood entity.

DEATH - Everything has a start and an end, and time takes everything with it. Nothing transformed by Death can return to what was before.

Death is the entity of time. It seeks the lived moments, distorting the egocentric perception of each individual's existence for its own satisfaction.

KNOWLEDGE - To know everything is to lose everything.

Knowledge is the entity of consciousness. Discovering, learning, knowing, deciphering. Having one's perception of the Other Side and its entities pleases the Knowledge element.

ENERGY - Chaos is inevitable.

Energy is the entity of chaos. Everything that cannot be explained, the intangible, anarchy. The constant change, the heat and the cold, the light and the darkness. Everything that involves unpredictability and transformation pleases the Energy entity.

With that aside, let's get into it (and please, know this is my opinion based on their personality and character design overall).

Homura Akemi – Death/Knowledge

With the characterization of the anime and half of Rebellion (Devil Homura comes later), Homura has always struck me as a mix of Death and Knowledge.

For Death, obviously, her time powers. She doesn't have the ability to speed or slow things, only pause and reset. Her journey can be defined as "running around in circles" and the main symbol for this element is spirals. She seeks to live once again the happy moments with Madoka, in order to change her fate. Her mind is old but her body is young. Homura is an anachronistic. But playing with time - every story has an end eventually.

Along with that, there's Knowledge. Homura prefers logicality, she's strategic in her steps and plans. She takes mistakes as an opportunity to learn and turn better. She doesn't let emotions blind her sense of awareness. She stands on the side of reason. All of those traits are perfectly descriptive of the element of Knowledge. And yet - the holder of information, she can't even tell the others. The truth kills those who know, hence: to know everything is to lose everything.

Now, Devil Homura. She's blood and energy. Why?

What was the factor that made Homura do her board flip? Love and obsession. She tainted the entire universe with her feelings alone, creating a new world just for her beloved. This intensity is what the Blood entity seeks. An emotion so strong that is capable of changing the entire fabric of the universe.

This twines finely with her rebellion against the law and order the Law of Cycles set. Anarchy, the other side of the coin. Nobody expected her to suddenly overthrow Madoka. She's the darkness to Madoka's light. She's evil and unholy to Madoka's purity and divinity. Those traits fit into the description of Energy. Not to mention the entire purple motif going on.

Kyoko Sakura – Blood

A pretty damn obvious one. Intense with her own feelings, has a red motif. Bold, seeks carnage and hunts witches and if needed, magical girls. With a mindset of survivalism and refusal to lose against the chain of food with anger, hatred and bitterness in her heart, Kyoko's erratic intensity is basically a perfect description of what the Blood entity is.

Madoka Kaname - Knowledge

Meanwhile Knowledge is all about being logical and constantly seeking to discover, it also has this motif of purity and holiness. One of the creatures from the RPG associated with this element is literally the Angel from the bible, you know, biblically accurate angels?

Madoka, even much more in her Goddess form, fits into the category of Knowledge. The entity messes in a "psychological" way, spilling truths about things that are out of our reach - like a concept or an universal being. It maintains the balance of reality so it doesn't collapse. Guess who did something similar in the anime? The two colors which are commonly used to those who connect with the entity of Knowledge are yellow/golden and white. Once again, guess who uses this exact palette when she ascended to godhood? Madoka Kaname, you're Knowledge through and through.

Mami Tomoe - Knowledge

Just like Kyoko, Mami's also an obvious one. Thinks in the side of reason, has a yellow and white motif. She's elegant, not failing to have this aura of purity and holiness (hence, Holy Mami). When not having emotions blinding her sight, she's extraordinary. And yet… The truth is cruel in killing her. Despite fitting into the Knowledge entity, being aware of the truth behind Magical Girls makes her lose her mind without pity. She's a great explanation behind the meaning of the phrase "to know everything is to lose everything".

Sayaka Miki - Knowledge/Blood

Oh boy, I do love to analyze multifaceted characters.

Sayaka might not fit entirely into the Knowledge mood but she has some traits of it. A knight who fights for justice, for what's right or at least, what she thinks it's right. Through Sayaka's eyes, that's logical and reasonable. She fights to maintain peace and balance. In Rebellion, she used to be literally one of God's angels and lived in the Magical Girl heaven.

Despite these traits, Sayaka lets herself be swayed away by her own emotions. She's intense and isn't afraid to hide them. Despite sharing similar traits, she heavily conflicted with Kyoko, who's Blood as well. But later, in Rebellion, they connected more than ever. She summons Oktavia through her own blood because everything starts with Blood. She made a wish because of an emotion - love. Died because of that and with that because Kyoko loved her.

And for bonuses…

Nagisa Momoe - Energy

This sweet little ball of chaos. Who cares if it is God or the Devil who's in control of the universe? As long she's alive and has cheese, she's apparently fine. While Homura and Sayaka go down into an argument, she's seen running in the background, laughing. Maybe because she's free or maybe it's cool as hell to run through a river of punch juice. It's really funny to see a character who aligns with the entity of Energy be the family of someone who aligns with Knowledge. Oh, the irony. That's what Energy seeks for.

I hope all liked my shameless crossover between my two favorite pieces of media. It's fun to analyze characters through the lens of another universe. Don't care if it's cringe, at least I'm free. And if you're interested, search for Ordem Paranormal on YouTube! Recently, a special two-shot has been released with global creators, it's all in English. Other seasons have been subtitled in English as well. :)

#i swear. death is gray and knowledge is yellow but TUMBLR DOESNT HAVE ANY THESE COLORS TO PUT ON TEXT #pretend theyre there </3 i did everything so pretty on google doc.... #me ranting about things only 3 people will understand (the two voices of my head and a silly fellow from the shadow corner) #puella magi madoka magica #madoka magica #pmmm #ordem paranormal #paranormal order

[cyllux-the-imaginary]

and we meet another one!

#voltage inc #slbp #slbp event story #samurai love ballad party #slbp yukimura #sanada yukimura #slbp kamanosuke #kamanosuke yuri #slbp sanada ten braves #anarchy of the divine - of love and eternity

[sakurakamanata]

wot

From ‘Anarchy of the Divine -Of Love and Eternity-’ Story Event.

The contents in these screenshots belong to Voltage Inc. I do not own anything.

#deception 100 #i still havent read but lmaooooo #katakura kojuro #date masamune #samurai love ballad party #slbp #voltage inc

[lioninsunheart]

I once kneeled in shaking thrill I chase the memory of it still, of every chill Chided by that silence of a hush sublime Blind to the purpose of the brute divine But you were mine Staring in the blackness at some distant star The thrill of knowing how alone we are, unknown we are To the wild and to the both of us I confessed the longing I was dreaming of

Some better love, but there's no better love Beckons above me and there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love Darling, feel better love Feel better love

And I've never loved a darker blue Than the darkness I have known in you, own from you You, whose heart would sing of anarchy You would laugh at meanings, guarantees, so beautifully When our truth is burned from history By those who figured justice in fond memory, witness me Like fire weeping from a cedar tree Know that my love would burn with me We'll live eternally'

Cause there's no better love That beckons above me, there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love So darling, feel better love 'Cause there's no better love That's laid beside me, there's no better love That justifies me, there's no better love So darling, darling, feel better love Feel better love

Feel better love Feel better love Feel better love'

Cause there's no better love That beckons above me, there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love So darling, feel better love 'Cause there's no better love That's laid beside me, there's no better love That justifies me, there's no better love So darling, feel better love Feel better love

#hozier

[tawakkull]

ISLAM 101: Spirituality in Islam: Part 78

Chaos and the mystical world of faith

Today, everyone breathes resentment, swallows hatred, curses all that is deemed to be an enemy with a fixed and determined passion, as if programmed for fury. The ink that flows on the pages of newspapers, the pictures that are broadcasted over the television, the electromagnetic waves that resonate on the radio scratch our ears like illomened screams emitting from a variety of places—in the mountains or on the water, in the valleys or up in the hills; they strike our eyes like photographs that make us shudder and they open wounds in our hearts. These epics of hate that we hear of day and night and that startle us, all these illomened screams, make us sick at heart, and yet the people who seek a cure for these ills are few indeed. Their thoughts go in different directions, but they always seem to arrive at the same point: money, financial prosperity, and success.

… emotions base, desire consuming The meaning that flows over from the gaze is full of contempt for the subject of God. Akif

Very few are exempt from such a turbulent point of view; no difference remains between what is collective and what is not, between capitalism and communism and no difference remains between these and liberalism. The distance in nature—between those who attach their lives to the considerations of eating and drinking, resting, and earning money, having a good time in general, and, other beings who are obliged due to the unchanging character of their nature—becomes smaller day by day. The basic differences between the two sides vanish into thin air one by one, and humanity seeks new directions, despite its own nature.

Religion, piety, morals, free thought, our own perceptions of art are thought little of; power has become so ulcerated as to be unrecognizable, fantasy has taken on the image of ideas and these disagreeable ideas are being forced upon others. Indeed, I have to say that I have a hard time understanding the inner drama of such a terrible fanaticism. Nowadays, when enlightenment has become widespread, when intellectualism is at its apex, the fact that science and ignorance should meet at the same spot, contrary to the distance that one would expect to exist between them, suggests a dark complicity and makes the existence of a serious problem obvious. Such a contradiction gives us the impression that the emotional will of some people is miles ahead of their intellectual and logical will.

I believe that in such a dark period, when opposites have become intertwined, when in different sections of society chaos is heaped upon chaos, when dark acts of different origins have darkened the face of the Earth, when what is underground reigns over what is above, when polemics and dialectics have become so popular with so many, when hearsay, especially through the use of media, is welcomed as acceptable merchandise, when the lives of others has begun to be the sustenance of our existence, when the soul of unity has been shaken and different groups are scattered everywhere, when hopes are shattered and wills are paralyzed, when souls give up the fight against desire, there is a burning need to turn toward our own spiritual sphere and listen to our own inner world, to tear ourselves from the dark atmosphere of the bodily realm and sail into the magical atmosphere of a hearty and spiritual life. Those who do not fall into lethargy and return to themselves as soon as possible will feel the magic and charm of their own inner world; the unfortunate who fail to return and remain in between, or who remain on the other side, continue to resent, hate, slander, lie, and feel contempt, they continue in the dissolution and obstinate disagreement which they have practiced until this day, and even in climates where the sun continues to shine they will dream of dark things, they will mutter dark thoughts, always seeking dark places in which to hide and dark corners in which to live.

One hopes that they would be able to feel the joy of the blessed days and nights that we experience, when showers of light reach everywhere. One hopes they too would abandon the heresy, atheism, dissension, and sedition in their hearts and that they would be able to respect the chosen understanding and stance of every single soul! Maybe one day these wishes will be fulfilled, but the selfproclaimed enemies of God, the prophets, religion and piety—once having breathed nothing but materialism, having gone into a frenzy denying divinity, and having plunged into the quicksand of anarchy and nihilism—will never be able to breathe this reviving air. Oh dear Lord, had you only made yourself known to them and released the chains from their hearts!

In every community and society there are people who are inclined to abandon their faith and there have been many times when such people have spun out of control; other communities and societies do not have such powerful places to seek refuge when faced by these abysses and weaknesses as we have. Indeed, they have thoughts which soothe, beliefs which reconcile, days and nights which tremble with joy, festivals and carnivals; but, these days, these nights, these festivals, these carnivals are devoid of any holiness. They are like fireworks, shining for a moment and then are gone, giving only instantaneous pleasure; they are ephemeral and physical, not promising anything in the way of spiritual joy. Indeed, in their worlds you cannot feel the greatness of faith to God, nor can you feel that souls are free from the boundaries of time and space; everything starts with a false and transitory happiness, and takes place in a delirium of flesh. All is then transformed into painful memories, regrettable dreams, and disappointed hopes, and finally everything simply disappears.

In this spiritual atmosphere where we are closely bound to God, every sound, every word, every action is felt like a nursery rhyme and listened to like a melody. These shower down upon us like the rain; we soak up the bounties of these showers. The moon changes its form every night, as if signaling particular times and happy hours, the sun moves to a new spot on the horizon at every dawn, awakening our feelings and thoughts in a new period of time, causing our dreams to follow it, presenting memories to us that resemble the river Kawthar, promised to us in Heaven. The past becomes like a veil of many colors draped before our eyes, the happy future is the apex of our dreams, waiting for us with open arms and we, who have been freed from the narrow confines of time, live the multiplicity of yesterdaytodaytomorrow simultaneously and, like the angels, feel all the joys of surpassing time. It is impossible for those who are not fed from the same source as we, those who do not share the same feelings and thoughts as us, to feel and understand the holy depths in which we lose ourselves or the happiness and joy that we sip like the rivers of Paradise.

Our faith, our horizons of thought, and our manner—characteristics of the fortunate, but at the same time belonging to a littlewronged nation of this part of the world—have become, through being formed and reformed in the mold of the collective personality, greatly refined and adorned with universal values; this is a situation that exists in no other community; this is so much so that those who spend time with us need not stay long to be aware of this difference. The truth is that in these differences, the holy sadness of our hearts and the enthusiasm of our souls, like water running between the rocks, is felt and heard. Indeed, those who listen to what we have to say always hear the melodies of the pain of separation voiced along with hope; they hear the notes of reunion, of the sweet and eternal search for home in our intonation and manner. Indeed, while on the one hand we murmur “Oh, cup bearer, I have burnt in the flames of love, give me a cup of water,” on the other we say “I have dipped my finger in and tasted the honey of love, give me a cup of water,” and thus we are able to turn our grief into smiles. Our tongues speak sometimes of love and sometimes of weariness; though love and weariness cause pain to others, in them we always hear, like Rumi, the poem of longing for the realm that we have left to come here. Love and weariness to us are like a plea from the tongue of the soul, stemming from a sorrowful desire for eternity. Since our beliefs and feelings take us to the magical worlds of beyond, we almost always feel sadness and joy intertwined; we hear the sounds of crying and laughing as different notes of the same melody. We respond to the troubled heaving of our breasts with smiles on our faces, as our eyes overflow with tears, our conscience takes upon a red hue with the roses of the Iram[1] gardens.

Even though it may not be easy for every individual, our connection to God is the most natural attitude that we can adopt; our relation with Him is like a spell that transforms all the moments of our life into enthusiasm and joy. Our hearts that beat with feelings toward Him fill and refill with the dream of this gaze; we are able to live through the bitterest autumns in our hearts because we have the joy of spring. Our souls adopt the most enviable attitudes with instincts of particular feelings and joy that are the result of our connection with the AllGlorious One; thus transformed, they make us feel a refreshed enthusiasm, a new opening and revelation, even at moments when we are filled with sadness and grief. Pleasure or sadness, revelation or sorrow, all these emotions undergo metamorphoses in our hearts that beat with faith and speak to us of the most natural pleasures and the most realistic expectations. It is a fact that we, too, experience interconnected moments of ease and hardship, sweet weeks and bitter days, light and darkness which come and pass, like day and night. However, we sip the unsurpassable benevolence and joys from the hands of all these tribulations, because we have our beliefs, our connection to the Just One and our hopes! Those who do not recognize the trials and pleasures to be the product of the same will writhe in neverending agony, while in our own atmosphere we see clearly that everything will be transformed into deep compassion. Taste a whole life, with its bitter and sweet facets like Kawthar, in everything that we eat and drink, at every place that we inhabit, with all the beautifully divine discoveries of our own inner world, with all of their different wavelengths, feel our sorrows shrink in the face of happiness, feel our pain melt away in pleasure and feel how our lives flow into glazed cisterns in a spectrum of colors. Our mortality is transformed into eternity; we exude smiles even when we cry.

In our world, the beliefs and the expectations that emerge from the heart of those beliefs are so intertwined with our lives that each chapter of our lives lends us the wings of the station of prayer and takes us to the gate of the Hereafter. It takes us there and lets our hearts drink of the beauties of heaven. In this way, we feel as if we are inhaling the scents of heaven. Even if we should let ourselves be swept along by our daily lives, the calls for prayer, songs that exalt God, the various sounds of prayer, the recitation of the names of God, those who give Him thanks, calling out His Uniqueness, letting this spill from the windows of the mosques, all draw us to their climate; they paint our souls with their hues, they give a tambourlike voice to our hearts, they make them sigh like a flute and excite them with the happiness of music. These sounds excite our souls and we are charmed by the mysteries pertaining to God, the charm of these mysteries which comes galloping from the depths of our inner world and which spreads to all our senses, this charm which tints the gardens of heaven in our thoughts and which flows past our lips like cascades of inspiration. Thus charmed, we stand awestruck.

This charm, this recognition of the mysteries pertaining to God, reaches a higher level on the blessed days and nights when limitless abundance and bounty are showered upon us. This is true to such an extent that everything around us ascends in a state of joy, every corner takes on a spiritual hue and the excitement of our souls, aiming at metaphysical destinations, reaches its apex, or in Sufi terms, our souls reach the highest heaven of maturity. To the degree that we can hear and listen to what is all around us, we too, rejoice like children who feel as if they are in the fair grounds of joy; thus we experience the happiness and joy of a feast day.

In such a world, the dawn flows into our houses from the doors and windows like an awaited guest; the evening comes into our private chambers like a lover and sits by us; the night clings to us with its associations of reunion with the Confidant; and in every valley hands are raised up toward Him in prayer, ready to receive the gifts that will come from Him, assuming a state of metaphysical tension with the power of the soul, sighing, saying “Hold my hand dear Confidant, hold it, for I cannot do without You.”

In such a world, the prayer roars like the booming voices of Gulbang hymns[2] and echo like the voice and breath of the divine depths; the warm solitude of the night envelopes our souls like silk; our pulses beat with the excitement of one who has received good tidings. Perhaps some of us keep singing His praises, come rain or shine, like the nightingale that breaks its heart in an effort to express the ideal rhythm for its emotions with the most touching of sounds. In a word, everyone is humming a melody with neverending agony and joy, neverfading love and excitement, listening to the shivering of their souls and letting others hear it too. Everyone sighs with the fever of love and makes other people feel it too. Yes, as they reflect on the excitement in their souls and the inspiration of their hearts, expressing themselves one last time, they become the mouthpiece for the feelings shared by all and they are able to speak of the hidden meanings that they want to speak of but fail to verbalize.

The horizon of living yesterdaytodaytomorrow at the same time with such a degree of faith and hope, of love and recognition of the mysteries that pertain to God gives such a depth to life that each heart in the orbit of the hereafter finds itself wrapped up in the melodious harmony of emotions and ideas and is freed from the limiting, stifling effects of matter. I believe that the strongest basis of all human relations, the purest source of all pleasures, and the fountain of all love, longing, attraction, and gravity is this faith and hope. Every disciple of the heart who attains this faith and hope can experience and feel the state of being outside of time, with the ability to sense all of its depths.

Indeed, to the extent that one can attain this view, one can feel existence in a different manner, evaluate things in a different way and melt in on oneself with the color, taste, aroma and accent of manifestations from the Eternal; these attributes pervade everything and people can reach a second existence with a new “birth after death.”[3] During such joyful hours, when the internal gaze is focused on that which is behind the visual scene of existence, one feels all the joys of being. One feels as if one has taken a shower in wisdom, as if one is freed from the weight of all things that are alien to one. The distant heavens shower blessings down upon these hearts, hearts thirsty for love and galloping with longing and affection; all hearts that live in fear of drying up are quenched. Celestial flowers flourish in these showers adorned with dreams!

Some of us may not be able to comprehend the state—a state which becomes a succession of struggle (to come over the darkness with its all connotation) and dawn—of these people of faith and horizon; but all these are phenomena of the heart, soul and emotions. Living through the countless revelations of life, no one but the active heroes of the dawn and of the great strife can understand this love, enthusiasm, poetry, and music poured into our souls by the Eternal One. Those who do not understand this will not be able to understand us, either. Those who remain distant to this fine and delicate life live in the darkness of this distance, while the comprehension of those who have found a position from where they can view the truth in such a way that it appears as obvious as it really is always feel this gift in all its wavelengths, sip it like the rivers of Paradise and live their earthly lives as if in Heaven.

Who knows how many more times we will speak of this neverending pleasure and joy, in the delight of a festival, of a feast day! How ever many more times we may speak of it—the faults of the speaker’s mode of expression aside—we will still listen with pleasure and try to share it with others.

[1] A place mentioned in the Qur’an (al Fajr 89:7-8), “… the city of Iram, with lofty pillars; the like of which were not produced in all the land.” [2] Hymns sung in the mosque in unison by the congregation. [3] The change communicated along these lines is not to be related to reincarnational notions.

#allah #god #islam #convert #convert islam #revert islam #reverthelp #revert help #revert help team #help #islamhelp #converthelp #prayer #revert #salah #muslimah #reminder #pray #dua #hijab #religion #mohammad #new muslim #new revert #new convert #how to convert to islam #convert to islam #welcome to islam

[whitherliliesbloom]

quietus

[ ffxivwrite2021 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #13 - oneirophrenia ]

[ kaye & illya ] ★ [ 1,883 words ]  ★ [ wozwald au ] a continuation / sequel to fragrant sorrow, a previous fill i did

a hallucinatory (dream-like) state that is caused by such conditions as prolonged sleep deprivation, sensory isolation, and drug use

in the midst of his delirious, drunken haze he saw her - he can’t tell if it was meant to be his final blessing or an eternal curse

When the man felt the effects of the strong intoxicants begin to take its toll on him, they had already long left the domain of the last minor god he’d slain, dragging his bloodstained scythe behind his back. 

Though Lily had insisted that they scour the area for medicine in order to purge his body of the toxins, he’d stubbornly refused and instead stumbled his way back to their base. They both knew that a god of the original pantheon would not be so easily felled by drugs in his system.

But Kaye hasn’t been the same since they’d last visited the ruined temple of the first goddess of creation - his refusal to sleep, eat or even communicate past singular words of acknowledgements or fatigued grunts troubling to no end. She had thought it best to simply leave him in his grief, that time would come to heal him back to normalcy, and that she needed only but to wait for the painful memories to fade. 

It was a decision she regretted immensely as she watched as he finally crumpled to the floor. And as she cradled him in her arms and watched in tearful horror as he stared back up at her with an emptiness in his eyes, light slowly fading, she cried out his name that sounded nothing more than like the muffled trickling of water ringing distantly in his ears.

“Kaye! Kaye!”

Perhaps this was the ending he had always longed for, a fate that he has long awaited at far end of the tunnel... and it certainly took it’s sweet time to arrive. 

As the closest thing to divinity, it would be no small feat to kill him. No amount of drugs, sleep deprivation or even starvation would be able to grant him eternal rest - he knows first hand. He’d spent many millennia injecting his body with nicotine and alcohol, but they never did anything more than to dull his senses - a small mercy granted for him to put up with the karmic retribution that constantly struck him with pain like hooks sinking into his very flesh.

The only thing that could kill him was one of the other pantheon members - and they’re all gone. The life he has led thus far as the sole survivor is one he saw as divine punishment. 

But even a god has his limits - and he wondered if it would perhaps benefit Lily more if he’d just passed on from his own hands, unlikely and irresponsible as that may be.

“Kaye. Kaye.” 

He hears his name being called again, but his eyelids feel too heavy to open... until the scent of daisies fill his nostrils. 

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself in an old, familiar body... a long almost forgotten form of himself from ages ago that he abandoned with the passing of the last of the divine pantheon. 

He’s silent as he looks down at his tattered robes, loose and out of fashion for the modern age compared to his leather jackets and high laced boots. 

“Kaye.” 

He turns his head to the sound of the voice behind him, and his eyes widen - but only briefly. 

“You seem troubled. Is something wrong?”

An ethereal maiden clad head to toe in silken white garbs rests against the stone pillar, her back resting against the cold cobblestone and a singular white flower clasped tightly between her small fingers. Her once familiar vibrant and sparkling violet eyes are now a muted, murky hue - a luster in which he’s had to watch being lost gradually to the cruelty of time. 

Was this a dream? A lucid nightmare? Or perhaps he was in limbo - caught between the realm of the living and the underworld of the dead that awaited his arrival. Where do the souls of dead gods even rest after death? He’s unsure - but he’s certain there is no place for him in heaven.

Despite his initial confusion, Kaye doesn’t seem perturbed or panicked in the least... the sight of the girl filling his heart up with a sorrow that he hadn’t known was even possible for him anymore. He had thought himself incapable of feeling anymore - and yet here he was.

“Nothing.” he answers before he can even think, just like he had back then... Perhaps he really was in a dream - reliving the memories of his biggest regret as punishment for his transgressions. 

“Are you sure?” the girl asks, her voice weak and soft... and he furrows his brows at her insistence. “You can talk to me about whatever is bothering you.”

“I’m not the one who is-” 

The words die in his throat, caught in a choked mutter that gives away his lapse of weakness. He cannot bring himself to say the words, but she has abandoned all shred of self-pity and spells it out with her own voice... and he can only wonder why she is being so nonchalant about her own fate.

“Going to fade? I know.” 

How can her voice remain so gentle? One would assume nothing was amiss about her had she not been wearing an obviously drowsy expression on her face - and even then, she is still smiling. 

“But melancholy doesn’t suit you... You’re usually more... passionate, more angry. Like when Roko pranked you into drinking the stale wine.”

“I’m surprise you still remember that.” Kaye huffs, but his words aren’t entirely true. Because of course she would remember - of course the kindest, most pure-hearted of the six of them would remember everything... She loved everyone more than she even loved herself, foolish and naive as she is.

She giggles lightly, like tiny bell chimes ringing and carrying its melody in the wind and into the starry night sky... but none save the trees and himself are here to hear it, and it does nothing to soothe the thorns that are wrapped in his chest. 

“Maybe I should take you to the shrine after all.” Kaye suggest, has already suggested multiple times before... But the girl merely shakes her head. 

“I’m tired. I don’t think I’d make it even if you carried me.” 

He would in a heartbeat if it would help, but the both of them know it’d be pointless. He’s in denial of the situation, clamoring for what little hope there was left. Were his brother around, he’d certainly point out the irony of the situation with a laugh. 

“Besides... I want the remainder of my energy to remain there... So you can remember me by.”

Beneath sealed lips, Kaye grits his teeth and bites the insides of his cheeks. He knows she doesn’t mean for it to be... But her words felt like they were meant to be a punishment for him - a promise that he wasn’t ready to commit to and make yet.

“Illya.” At the sound of her name, she quiets, fiddling with the petals of the lone flower in her hand gently. “I probably won’t last long enough to remember anything.”

“Don’t say that.”

Finally, he catches a hint of strain in her words, pain flashing in her eyes as she shakes her head.

“All creation will always meet an inevitable end... But death is everlasting, it’s eternal for as long as the world exists.” The goddess pauses for a moment to let her words linger, to let her voice hang in the air and embed itself into his memories for as long as she can afford it to. “You were always the strongest of us... You’ll keep protecting the world for us, won’t you?”

Kaye doesn’t respond her question, but he doesn’t need to... He knows Illya already knows what his answer would be - she knew even before the world began to fall to anarchy.

“Without life, there can be no death.” He murmurs bitterly, and she smiles sympathetically back at him.

“Which is why I will never truly be gone. As long as you live on, you will be living in my memory.” 

A selfish part of himself says he doesn’t want to. He was never known to be the most altruistic of gods, back in the beginning of the world and even now. She knows full well the burden he must bear - and the weight of the words that she spoke to him. 

But beneath the surface level, there is a reason for her blind optimism. She sees her urging him to live not as punishment.... but because she still, even after the ugliness of humanity and life has presented itself fully, carries a flickering hope in her heart that he is sure will die with her.

Illya wants him to live because she believes he will one day find a way to be happy... and if that is what it takes for her to pass on in peace, then he is willing to indulge her with that juvenile, unimaginable fantasy. 

“Can I ask a favor of you, Kaye?” it was to be her final request out of many... She knows of her own self-centeredness as she asks him apologetically. 

Her hand slowly raises, the white flower in her palm grasped weakly between her little fingers. The golden ornaments dangling from her armlets knock together and let out a soft ominous chime. 

“When you visit me in the future, could you bring flowers?” 

He hesitates to move... knows that if he were to take the flower from her hand, that he’d be sealing her fate... and he was far from ready to accept that.

But the swirling of her hopeful, radiant eyes... even as they were slowly losing their usual jewel-like shine bids him take the flower with his left hand, and he holds it delicately in his palm - so softly that he was afraid it would wither away. 

“What kind of flowers? You still haven’t told me what your favorite was.”

“Hehe... you’re right. I am a little indecisive when it comes to that, aren’t I? Let’s see...”

He turns away from her, staring intently at the flower in his hand.

“There are lilies... particularly white ones, but other kinds are pretty too. I really like hydrangeas.. did you know that they bloom in different colors depending on the soil they grow on?”

Her voice is getting softer - more distant. He swallows back the lump in his throat, even if he can tell that she was closing her eyes.

“Yeah, I know. You told me before.”

“I also like plum blossoms... They represent resilience and hope. They’re also called the harbingers of spring.”

She’s so lost in her enamor for flowers that she failed to realize that she hasn’t answered his question... but he cannot bring himself to interrupt her.

“Carnations, hibiscuses, delphiniums...” 

Kaye can no longer remember what her final words had been - only that she spent the final seconds of her life listing the names of flowers - of the things that she loved even unto the very end.  

By the time he realizes she’s grown quiet, and he turns his head to look behind, she has vanished, leaving naught but the lingering, quickly dissipating warmth of the stone she sat upon and the flower in his hand that swayed gently in the nightly breeze. 

#ffxiv #final fantasxy xiv #ffxivwrite2021 #ffxivwrite #kiwisffxivwrite2021 #illya skawi #kaye #wozwald au #fanfic #mine #HEY GUYS WHO ORDERED A FRESH SERVING OF ANGST TODAY

[robotblues]

Why did Hozier go off so hard on the Legend of Tarzan soundtrack? I can never stop thinking about these lyrics

I once kneeled in shaking thrill I chase the memory of it still, of every chill Chided by that silence of a hush sublime Blind to the purpose of the brute divine But you were mine Staring in the blackness at some distant star The thrill of knowing how alone we are, unknown we are To the wild and to the both of us I confessed the longing I was dreaming of

Some better love, but there's no better love Beckons above me and there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love Darling, feel better love Feel better love

And I've never loved a darker blue Than the darkness I have known in you, own from you You, whose heart would sing of anarchy You would laugh at meanings, guarantees, so beautifully When our truth is burned from history By those who figured justice in fond memory, witness me Like fire weeping from a cedar tree Know that my love would burn with me We'll live eternally

#better love #hozier #the legend of tarzan #lyrics #music #m #like fire weeping from a cedar tree...

[incarnateirony]

I think the issue with death as a happy ending (to a story, I should point out - death can be many things in many places, but I’m specifically talking about it in fiction) is that it’s usually written so badly that it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and it just feels like shit. There’s a very limited number of fictional works that I’ve seen actually manage it well - though in saying that, I have a very limited range, and I don’t really enjoy new things because (reasons). The ones I do recall, it’s because they were just that good and bittersweet is exactly the way I would describe them as a happy ending.

Firebringer was a novel I read when I was 12 or 13, and I still recall it. It was about a deer and it was his entire life - birth to death - and it was a happy ending. I cried through the last few chapters. Then I reread it and cried some more. It was good.

There’s also a fic I want to mention, because it’s on the topic. It’s called The white whale. and it’s by an author named orange_crushed. The entire premise of the fic is that Dean (and Sam, but it’s a destiel fic) is already dead. He died years ago. The title itself should say a lot, and the fic itself is about finding peace. It’s brilliant and beautiful, and I love it.

My perspective on death is a bit. Odd, maybe? I grew up somewhere between Christian (mum and dad and church, a mix of Baptist and Anglican) and animist (local indigenous spirituality), and while bit of both inform my interpretation, I’m very nearly atheist.

I don’t really believe in an afterlife, or rebirth, or anything like that. I believe that this is it. We get one shot at being who we want to be and acting as we choose with what we’re given. (“And isn’t it so wonderful, that we were alive at the same time?”)

I first heard the Freedom From vs Freedom To argument when reading the handmaid’s tale in my English class at school. It wasn’t even presented as an argument, everyone just seemed to agree that freedom to is better. I believe that, too. But freedom from has structure. It’s not “peaceful” and it can’t be when it is enforced, but it is informed by rules, and there it has expectations and is reliable (where reliable means we know what the consequences are, even if they’re awful). Freedom to is anarchy (which I have come to appreciate more). But neither freedom is peace.

There’s a quote I really love, and I can never recall it properly and it goes something like this: “War is an ugly thing, but it is not the ugliest. The decayed and degraded state of moral feeling which thinks nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing more important than his own personal fucking safety, is [the worst thing]” clearly I don’t recall it very well. It’s from an old bit of hp fanfic, of all things, a very violent and disgusting version of civil war - as war is. It was the beginning of why I’m not a pacifist.

I dunno. I guess I really feel like peace - true, genuine peace - can’t be done. It’s certainly worth striving for, worth trying, but peace is either isolation and loneliness or death. Peace is knowing you’ve done everything you can, that it was enough, and being able to let it go.

Any way I think I had a point somewhere in this, maybe something about being unable to put down a fight while you’re living, maybe something about how death can be kind, maybe something about how good writing can make sad things happy, maybe that bittersweet is still sweet. Idk.

Feel free to reply to this mess of ideas or not - or pick and choose what you want to reply to, if you’d like to reply to specific parts. I mostly just wanted to share (I can do discussion, but idk if I’m still gunna have any focus later to do so, or if I’ll even see a response) some thoughts and you’re usually the only person I see on my dash with this sort of ~vague philosophy things~.

Woah when did anons get to let someone submit something so long.

Either way, a few points on this.

1. a thoughtful piece, this is a philosophy piece I will gladly entertain. However, if we are entertaining philosophy we must

2. acknowledge this is a nihilistic piece contingent on your personal world views, that while valid, and I will not take any effort to undermine on a personal belief system level

3. do not have much to do with (dependent on fringe atheism or, perhaps, agnosticism) a piece that is far from secular and atheistic while also

4. relying on the idea that “I really feel like peace - true, genuine peace - can’t be done. It’s certainly worth striving for, worth trying, but peace is either isolation and loneliness or death.”, which is itself the very nihilistic idea imparted by Chuck’s matrix but, whether you believe it in the real world, is the active target of subversion within this fantasy world, (eg, a heaven revolution where the doors are opened just like they were in hell.)

5. Finally, presumptuous that it would not be ‘well written’ and predesignating a potential discontent with the delivery that would sour it, especially with the previous points.

That said, while I’m not going to argue directly with your real life belief system -- even if they clearly disagree with my own -- I do remind you--falling back to your point that you do not believe in an afterlife: we know this fictional story does not hold this belief, ergo using that as a judgment for how it would deliver the concept of eternity is itself already wounding oneself to receiving the moral of the canon. One can not suddenly expect SPN to become a secular show just because a viewer has secular and atheistic beliefs. It is inherently asecular, theistic, and gnostic in its bones and the story will thus tell itself within that structure, which then begs if one is willing to suspend a personal belief system for a fictional canon setting they are digesting the story of.

Similarly-and-so, this is contingent on believing that the heroes’ journey will end with them maintaining the current status quo, rather than making a world where--in this fictional world in which an afterlife exists--death does not itself mean loneliness, but rather reunion.

If we can suspend our beliefs in some shows with fighting dragons or farting lightning bolts (after all, nonnie references HP fanfic), I would hope people could suspend them in regards to a moral telling of found family and the sovereignty of man in a divine and moral play.

If one were to demand SPN have entirely atheistic storytelling, the only real way to handle an ending would be to have one of the characters wake up from a 15 year coma where none of it was real and it was all a dream or something to that affect which--lol, we’re not doing, I promise. I’m sorry, but we’re not.  We’re not taking the “none of it mattered because none of it happened” angle. We’re not going to a world where angels and the afterlife don’t exist, we’re not going to collapse it where suddenly death IS the true end and life sucks and then you die, it’s just not going to happen.

So the point then is an active choice on the part of the viewer: is this suddenly the line you draw after watching a theistic show for 15 years, doubling down that this specific theistic point is the one thing we can’t accept (despite it existing in the past already), or do we continue to watch a theistic show and interpret its theistic points as the story is trying to depict? And if it’s the “drawing the sudden line,” that is, quite frankly, a personal choice to have spontaneous discontent with a critical part of a canon story’s telling at a very sudden drawn line in the sand. 

The point to exit would have been pilot 1.01 if we were going to have fundamental problems with spirits and an afterlife as crucial elements of a story. And if not then, 4.01 with angels. And if not then-- you see where this goes on. There were multiple exit ramps if the idea of an afterlife, which became more and more directly explored, was going to be an issue in reception of or enjoyment of a text. So now we’re 15 years later, and we can’t expect the highway to reroute just because we didn’t take the other 100 ramps.

SPN will tell the full spread of its moral and divine play within the full spread of its moral and divine sandbox, which someone has--to reach the ending--accepted for fifteen years at this point. If one has a fundamental problem with the entire premise of the show, it is not an obligation to any writer to cater to someone who intrinsically disagrees with the entire structure of the body of work to fulfill something within a completely different paradigm. It’s not.

Am I lucky in that it matches my beliefs? Maybe. Also cursed. Very very cursed. Because it’s led to being Through The Looking Glass for two years to the point there’s a segment of fandom that treats me as a magic 8 ball--and sometimes rightfully so, not to sound like I’m tooting my own horn or whatever. It just knows I get the structure in play to a fault. But cursed knowledge aside -- and trust me, it’s cursed as FUCK most of the time -- in the end, even when I watch shows that don’t match my personal theology, I don’t sit here and suddenly expect them to do so. There’s plenty of shows I completely suspend my beliefs in to enjoy within the sandbox they were designed in the constraints of so I find it very weird to project a discontent with a body of fictional canon presenting ideas within its own rule set based on personal beliefs in a real life lens. I mean, I don’t believe dragons exist, but if I watch the Dragon Prince for many seasons, I can’t suddenly expect the ending to have nothing to do with Dragons?

I mean, the show is literally called Supernatural. It's right there in the name. There are going to be supernatural elements about the show. My banner image is literally a reborn soul floating down the aisle. This isn't gonna suddenly be irrelevant at the end.

#supernatural #fandom #meta #pagan life #my meta #philosophy

[theholycovenantrpg]

In the beginning was ABADDON, a DEMON loyal to the cause of the DEMONS. She is said to be IMMORTAL and uses SHE/HER pronouns. In this New Testament she serves as the KEEPER of the BLACK CELLS. Blessed be her name.

THE INDELIBLE MARK.

Her prowling grounds lie deep within the charred belly of Infernum’s Black Palace, in the company of traitors, usurpers, and demons with the blackest of hearts -- along with anyone whose whims are fickle enough to tip the controlled disorder of the realm into calamitous anarchy. Such prisoners find themselves dragged from the marble palace floors to rugged stone steps that spiral into a cyclical, winding void; along which they are tugged along beside rows of cells and arrays of reaching hands before finally hurtling to a stop at Abaddon’s feet. She is both their keeper and their guard; the captor and the caretaker, the whip and the commanding hand. The Black Cells are hers to govern and hers to employ; a slice of Hell as it is remembered within Hell as it has been remade, granting dominion that remains hers and hers alone. Beneath the watchful eye of the Conclave, Abaddon dedicates the cells to the service of its goals, with idle duties such as harboring prisoners and overseeing their sentences, and diabolical ones such as torture and interrogation. A mirror image of the home Abaddon had once found before the world was made anew, the Black Cells are her sanctuary, and she holds it so very closely.

THE HISTORY.

Her earliest memory was of a hand dipped into the vast, milky expanse of Heaven’s sky. A trail of the gaze along an elegant wrist, and the bones would shiver beneath the ageless skin; the tremor a whispered declaration of their belonging to the angel whose eyes they clung to. It always played out the same way, and it was always at the crucial moment when she leaned in to usher the words into her ear that Abaddon would remember. Those were her bones, that was her hand, and such had once been her life. It was all too easy for her to then lose herself in the ritual of remembrance; to sink into the scene plastered along the inside of her lids and relive it as though it was splayed out before her eyes. Her hand, tangled up in the shimmering mists of Heaven’s winds, stuck out in front of her while she lay, pressed against the pale stretch of sky as though it was close enough to touch. She would gently run it back and forth, like the caress of a palm over the eager ocean waves, caught in what felt like an eternity of wonderment before she was abruptly, inevitably, called away, gaze drawn towards the gathering of her fellow angels around God’s throne. She would rise, and then she would fly over and join the reverent cluster, eyes closed and neck arched around the gentle reverberations of her chants. Her beginning, after all, was that of an angel not unlike any other; the mark of an unexceptional existence that she had been all too content to keep -- and all too mournful to lose.

Upon first glance, one wouldn’t think to distinguish Abaddon from any other angel kneeling at God’s feet. She went through the same worshipful motions, bore the same selfless burden, and carried the same serene gleam in her eyes. Yet in reality, she didn’t belong nearly as readily as her monotonous image would portray. Among the angels, there was the devout and the disillusioned; those who had grown to scorn their ancient ways and He who had designed them, and those who were so entrenched in their devotion and obedience that they were buried far beyond any grasp on free will or independent thought. Abaddon, however, simply lingered along the divide. She was full to the brim with love and loyalty towards her Creator, yet not enough for it to drown out her identity and sense of choice. In the end, such was precisely what had driven God’s hand to pluck her off the boundary line -- only it did not cast her on either side. Instead, it hurled her into Hell as though she was just another one of Heaven’s soiled drippings to be licked up and swallowed. All because of a caring, criminal act of protection. All because of a vigorous, righteous strike at an angel cruel enough to torment another. How self-indulgent God was in his omnipotence, in his skewed, selective justice. Yet even so, Abaddon still trailed her hand along His as she fell.

Once anchored into a pale stretch of serenity, it was now flailing in search of purchase as Heaven’s glorious visage soared beyond her sight, its starkness melting into a cloying, all-encompassing blackness before slowly blooming into a scarlet backdrop as ashen as the scent of her tarnished wings. Abaddon landed in Hell, and all she did was look up and see God’s great eye peering through the half-dead sun that hung above. In the end, she still harbored nothing but love for Him, understanding as she was of the delicate balance she had upset with her actions, and fully trusting God’s judgement that she had been worthy of punishment. It settled within her like an ever-present organ, that love; rooted and thrumming with life as she carried it through her treks across Hell’s planes and her halts before Lucifer’s throne. It was an essential piece, a steady fixture; yet it was also an imposter, an abomination, nothing short of an anomaly in a realm with its very foundations steeped in the decay of devotion and the denunciation of divinity. Hell seemed to come alive in its wake, and no sooner had it gnashed its teeth and bared its claws that Abaddon began to wither away, succumbing to its predation with gradual, agonizing inevitability.

Blight gripped her across many centuries; what had begun as a plain numbness in the fingertips of one hand soon growing into an infestation of pestilence, the planes of her flesh ripe grounds for Hell’s punishment to plant itself, wrath morphing into rot as it ate its way towards the repellant core of light harbored within her heart. Yet for all its ravenous efforts, it never came close enough to sink its teeth in. The last dredges of Abaddon’s divinity persevered, and so did she, easing into her existence as a demon with the same serene strength that had propelled her eternity as an angel. She was made the Keeper of the Abyss, and granted the duty of guarding mortal souls as their torment languished along the limitless string of time. Even though she prospered as if she had always had a home in Hell, Abaddon was ruled by the tear that was slowly splitting its way up her arm and stabbing its fissured edges into the side of her neck; not entirely an angel, and not entirely a demon, but rather something in-between. She was half-rotten by the time Lucifer was vanquished and Hell was made anew, and so she never got to know which part of her would prevail. When she rose to Earth, she found herself right where she had been and somewhere entirely different, all at once; still tangled up along the split between both her halves, yet free to lean into one or the other if she so wished. With her rot hidden away beneath glamours and enchantments, with her dominion over the dead revived and restored, Abaddon was whole before the eyes. All that was left was for her to reach out her hand, and make the illusion a reality.

THE CONNECTIONS.

JUDAS, AZAZEL & DAMIEN WARD: Dynasty. She had sought a sanctuary in Hell, and she had found it. In the howling abyss she had watched over, in the chaotic company of her fellow demons -- yet Abaddon never felt as though she truly belonged until she had come upon the chosen few that had found their way into her torn heart. Now, even though she still clung to her foregone lifetime with as much love and longing as ever, she did not believe that her place within it was any more crucial than her place among these hellacious demons that she so fiercely adored. Their band had grown into vast renown in Hell, one that they had carried with ease into the New World; yet while Judas, Azazel, and Damien thrived on it and wielded their influence among the demons with the utmost wit and relish, Abaddon simply lingered on the outskirts and offered them brimming support on their endeavors. They brought a rare brand of hope and happiness into her existence that she had once believed was long lost, and she would cherish and protect it no matter the cost.

RAPHAEL: Shadow. It had burned him from within, to be among God’s favored, with stars and eternities in his grasp, and to find himself struck down in spite of it by a nameless, groveling angel. Abaddon could see it, the scorn that had instantly flitted through the murky timber of his eyes while he lay within the shrinking shadow of her descent, thrown back by the violent thrashing of her wings as she swooped in to come to his victim’s aide. She had known who he was, just as keenly as she had known his place and power within the circle of God’s arms -- and none of it had mattered to her. She could see nothing beyond the snare-trap of torment to which he had lured their fellow angel with relish; and she had chosen to stand against it. It was clear that Raphael still simmered in the ashes of that age-old offense, as he had been prowling around her relentlessly since the onset of the New World had brought her within his reach. He mistook her for prey, and in his mindless pursuit, neglected to guard his own exposed side. After all, she saw right through him, and she would not hesitate to strike him down a second time if pushed far enough.

ARAEL: Intrigue. It had been a rather curious thing, to find herself lashed with the blizzard-like current of an icy gaze, only to glimpse angelic wings beyond the dastardly draft. Though Abaddon was not intrigued by the notion of a cruel angel; after all, her lost brethren epitomized ruthlessness in her eyes. Rather it was the unexpected sight of an angel deep within the blackened belly of the infernal realm, with rage in her eyes and a heap of prey at her heel, which stirred Abaddon’s curiosity. It was quick to turn into sympathy, however, when she had cut into tongues to bring forth the blood-soaked answers that the angel demanded, and it had cast Abaddon against the edge of her great blade once Arael had sensed it. Although she hadn’t flinched nor faltered, Abaddon had regarded her differently since then; greeting her each time with sharp knowing and gentle understanding. Arael’s vigorous visits had dissipated over time, yet the memory of her still skirted through Abaddon’s thoughts. She had already played a part in the angel’s tale, and she longed to hear it in full.

DMITRI: Spark. One day, the Horsemen had acquired the use of the Black Cells for one of their operations, and as the caped specters drew close in eerie arrival, Abaddon’s gaze had clung to no visage other than Dmitri’s. His reputation preceded him, flowing behind him in waves of reverence and adoration leashed to the tender heart of his palms, yet it wasn’t until Abaddon felt their tangible ebb and flow for herself that she had begun to put stock in them. In that mindless, fleeting moment when her eyes had lingered on theirs amidst the flickering torches of the dungeon, something about Dmitri had called to her; a strange tug on her fissured core that she couldn’t help but be lulled by. Perhaps it was the air of tranquility that surrounded them both, so serene and fine-edged that it was almost lethal, or perhaps it was the gentle lilt of his words as he coaxed her into a quiet conversation -- or perhaps it all came down to nothing more than a brush of their influence. It did not matter, as Abaddon was convinced that she was not ensnared by him and instead, merely intrigued. Sometimes, however, she found herself wondering if she might end up being proven wrong, after all.

Abaddon is portrayed by Nazanin Boniadi and was written by JEN. She is currently TAKEN by MAI.

#lsrpg #literate rp #biblical rp #rpg #d #abaddon #c #cw

[the-majulian-finds-his-third-ear]

Julian x Mc

Sunlight by Hozier

I would shun the light Share in evening's cool and quiet Who would trade that hum of night For sunlight, sunlight, sunlight Whose heart would not take flight? Betray the moon as acolyte On first and fierce affirming sight Of sunlight, sunlight, sunlight I had been lost to you, sunlight And flew like a moth to you, sunlight Oh your love is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight But it is sunlight Oh, the tale is the same Told before and told again A soul that's born in cold and rain Knows sunlight, sunlight, sunlight At last can grant a name To a buried and a burning flame As love and its decisive pain Oh my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight All that was shown to me, sunlight Was something foreknown to me, sunlight Oh your love is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight But it is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight But it is sunlight Sunlight All these colours fade for you only Carry me slowly, my sunlight All these colours fade for you only Carry me slowly, my sunlight Each day you rise with me Know that I would gladly be The Icarus to your certainty Oh my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight Strap the wing to me Death trap clad, happily With wax melted I'd meet the sea Under sunlight, sunlight, sunlight Oh your love is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight But it is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight But it is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight But it is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight But it is sunlight Sunlight, sunlight, sunlight, sunlight, sunlight

Work Song by Hozier

Boys workin' on empty Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat? I just think about my baby I'm so full of love I could barely eat There's nothing sweeter than my baby I'd never want once from the cherry tree Cause my baby's sweet as can be She'd give me toothaches just from kissin' me When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her Boys, when my baby found me I was three days on a drunken sin I woke with her walls around me Nothin' in her room but an empty crib And I was burnin' up a fever I didn't care much how long I lived But I swear I thought I dreamed her She never asked me once about the wrong I did When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her My babe would never fret none About what my hands and my body done If the Lord don't forgive me I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me When I was kissin' on my baby And she put her love down soft and sweet In the low lamp light I was free Heaven and hell were words to me When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her

Better Love by Hozier

I once kneeled in shaking thrill I chase the memory of it still, of every chill Chided by that silence of a hush sublime Blind to the purpose of the brute divine But you were mine Staring in the blackness at some distant star The thrill of knowing how alone we are, unknown we are To the wild and to the both of us I confessed the longing I was dreaming of Some better love, but there's no better love Beckons above me and there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love Darling, feel better love Feel better love I have never loved a darker blue Than the darkness I have known in you, own from you You, whose heart would sing of anarchy You, who'd laugh at meaning's guarantee, So beautifully When our truth is burned from history By those who figure justice in fond memory, witness me Like fire weeping from a cedar tree Know that my love would burn with me We'll live eternally Cause there's no better love That beckons above me, there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love So darling, feel better love Cause there's no better love That's laid beside me, there's no better love That justifies me, there's no better love So darling, darling, feel better love Feel better love Feel better love Feel better love Feel better love Cause there's no better love That beckons above me, there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love So darling, feel better love Cause there's no better love That's laid beside me, there's no better love That justifies me, there's no better love So darling, darling, feel better love Feel better love

NFWMB by Hozier

When I first saw you The end was soon To Bethlehem It slouched and then Must've caught a good look at you Give your heart and soul to charity 'Cause the rest of you, the best of you Honey, belongs to me Ain't it a gentle sound, the rolling in the graves? Ain't it like thunder under earth, the sound it makes? Ain't it exciting you, the rumble where you lay? Ain't you my baby? Ain't you my baby? Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing can get a look in on my baby Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing If I was born as a black thorn tree I'd wanna be felled by you, held by you Fuel the pyre of your enemies Ain't it warming you, the world goin' up in flames? Ain't it the life where you you're lighting off the blaze? Ain't it a waste it watch the throwing of the shade? Ain't you my baby? Ain't you my baby? Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing can get a look in on my baby Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing can get a look in on my baby Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing can get a look in on my baby Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing

#the arcana #The Arcana Game #the arcana julian #julian devorak #hozier #can y'all tell i like hozier lol

[questionsonislam]

We have difficulty in remaining on the true path; we sometimes act very religiously and sometimes in a very relaxed way. When we think we have attained the level we want in terms of the religion, we demolish our sincerity and piety with one deed suddenly. What is your advice regarding the issue?

We are ordered to pray as follows: in the chapter of al-Fatiha: "Show us the straight way”. Descriptions that are close to one another like “the moderate way”, “the straight path”, “the smooth path” and “justice” are used for the true path. The Quran explains this way as “The way of Allah, to whom everything in the skies and on earth belongs”. And this way leads to Paradise.

Believers read the chapter of al-Fatiha in all rak'ahs of prayers and ask the true path and guidance from Allah. Those who complete this path without deviating from it attain Paradise, which is the unique land of happiness. Hell is under the Sirat; he who deviates in any way will fall into that terrifying land of penalty.

When we ask the straight path from our Lord, we want to be on the straight path throughout our life in this world, that is, we want to pass through the Sirat Bridge, which is thinner than hair and sharper than sword, in this world. It is really difficult to be on the straight path with all of our deeds, words and attitudes in this world. However, it is not possible to pass the Sirat Bridge in the hereafter unless we complete this thin and sharp path without going to extremes.

The Sirat is located on Hell. All of our deeds virtually have Paradise in front of them and Hell under them; if we do any deed by deviating from Allah’s line of consent, we will have committed a sin and disobeyed Allah. They are the heralds of Hell in this world.

Being on the straight path leads man to the land of consent. It takes man to the eternal land of real pleasure and happiness. The straight path is the moderate way away from all kinds of extremism. Is it not also the way to be happy in the world? Is it possible for us to attain happiness unless our body is on the straight path with all of its organs and our heart is on the straight path with all of its feelings?

Our eyes should be neither short-sighted nor far-sighted; our blood pressure should be neither high nor low; the electric current of the mechanism that makes our brain work should be neither low nor high; our heart should beat within certain limits; the same thing is valid for our body temperature.

All of the activities that take place in the seventy trillion cells of the body should be between certain limits so that we can continue our life normally. Otherwise, we will spend our life in hospitals.

We face with a game, a hoax. There is a hidden enemy in us. We instantly feel anything that harms our body and try to find a solution to it but we do not show the same sensitivity toward the spiritual illnesses that wound our heart, deviate our world of feeling and lead our mind to dangerous areas. What is worse, we like them. This hidden enemy, which shows us what is black as white and which drinks poison with pleasure is the soul. When this enemy in us cooperates with devils of humans and jinn, or soul is shaken and moves away from the straight path. However, the real danger for us is not the deterioration of our worldly relaxation but the loss of our eternal bliss. Nevertheless, the soul manages to push it into the background and puts the other to the foreground.

We pray to our Lord to lead us to the straight path in the face of those ferocious enemies. We know that the way there is through ‘worshipping only Him and asking help only from Him”

I think about it but I cannot manage to forgive a friend who has wronged me. I want to retaliate and take revenge. This thought leads me to the following reality:

“I cannot silence even one feeling of mine; how can I arrange my whole world of spirit? It can happen only through my Lord’s grant, generosity and guidance. It is not possible for my spirit to be on the straight path with all of its feelings without the grace of my Lord.”

Believing is the biggest guidance for the heart. A believing heart is on the straight path. The heart of a believer turns toward its Lord, who is free of place. He will see a manifestation of His divine names on anything that he looks. He puts himself next to that work of art imaginarily and says, “Praise be to Allah who educates both of us in a nice way.” Then, threes, fours, thousands and hundreds of thousands are added to that two. The heart turn toward the Lord of realms with praise. A heart that reaches that point is on the straight path no matter what it loves.

A heart that is heedless of Allah adds one more curtain of heedlessness in front of it and moves away from its Lord a bit more.

It is something very important not to lose one’s way among those endless creatures and incidents. This hard test can be passed only through Allah’s guidance. Otherwise, man will be drowned in matter, be lost in causes and be destroyed.

A heart that is saved from the dangers of being a denier or a polytheist continues on the straight path. This is possible through the creed of Ahl as-Sunnah. An example regarding the issue:

Qadar is a part of belief. The madhhab of Jabriyya, which denies the will of the slave, and the madhhab of Mutazila, which holds the view that the slave is the creator of his own deed, moved away from the straight path. The moderate way is to believe that the slave wants and Allah creates the voluntary deeds. That is the straight path.

In the book called İşârât-ül İ’caz of Nur Collection, it is stated that sirat al-mustaqim (the straight path), “is justice, consisting of the blending and summary of wisdom (ḥikma), chastity (‘iffa), and courage (shajā‘a)” and the following explanations are given:

“Deficiency in the power of animal appetites is apathy and want of appetite, while its excess is profligacy, which is to desire whatever is encountered whether lawful or unlawful. Its middle way is uprightness, which is desiring what is licit and shunning what is illicit."

"Deficiency in the power of savage passion is cowardice, that is, fear of what is not to be feared and delusive imagining. Its excess is uncontrolled anger, which is the progenitor of despotism, domination, and tyranny. And its middle way is courage, which is giving freely of oneself with love and eagerness for the defense of the laws of Islam and the upholding of the Word of divine unity."

"Deficiency in the power of intellect is stupidity, that is, not being aware of anything. Its excess is the gift of the gab, that is, being so cunning as to show what is right as wrong and to show what is wrong as right. And its middle way is wisdom, that is, knowing what is right as right and adhering to it, knowing what is wrong as wrong and avoiding it.”

Thus, man becomes a believer on the straight path when all of the faculties, senses and feelings in his spirit get rid of excesses and deficiencies.

When the heart attains guidance with the heart, it is time for righteous deeds. Man needs to be on the straight path in terms of his deeds so that he will be on the real straight path. His looks should be on the straight path and should not look at haram things. His words should be true and he should tell the truth. He should neither praise others excessively nor criticize them unjustly. He should be honest in trade and he should be away from deceiving, taking interest and profiteering. They are all things that are not liked by the soul. Besides, the straight path is the opposite of the path that the soul shows.

One of the definition of being on the straight path is to follow the moderate way, by keeping away from extremism, in all aspects of ethics.

Generosity is an aspect of high ethics. A person who is neither extravagant nor stingy is regarded to have this aspect of high ethics.

Justice is another aspect of high ethics. Man should not oppress others; nor should he cause his addressee to oppress him by being too weak to protect his rights. Man oppressing himself is another issue. A person who does not use the things entrusted to him by Lord will oppress his soul when he goes to Hell.

Another aspect of high ethics is reliance on Allah (tawakkul). A person who acts in accordance with causes and who shows consent to the result is regarded to have acted in accordance with tawakkul and is on the straight path.

When a believer prays by saying, “Guide us to the straight path”, he asks his Lord to be on the straight path in all aspects. And he includes all believers in his prayer.

All faces turn toward the Kaaba in prayer; similarly, all spirits need to obey the Quran so that the community will be on the straight path.

Our Lord, who teaches us the prayer “Guide us to the straight path” in the Quran attracts our attention to the fact that peace in the world is based on the straight path just like happiness in the hereafter. He informs us that those who deviate from that path will be “maghdub” and “dallin”. Maghdub means the people upon whom is Allah’s wrath. Dallin are the people who have been enslaved by their own faiths. Both of them will face penalty and will be losers. Tafsir scholars say what is meant by maghdub are Jews and what is meant by dallin are Christians. The following fact becomes clear under the light of those explanations:

“Cultures based on neither Judaism nor Christianity are on the straight path; they cannot lead us to peace and happiness.”

Let us turn our faces away from what is wrong and turn toward the truth. Otherwise, we will be punished for our wrong choice in the world by ethical crises, spiritual problems and anarchy; our penalty in the hereafter will be very severe.

#Allah #god #islam #quran #muslim #revert #convert #revert islam #convert islam #reverthelp #revert help #revert help team #help #islam help #converthelp #prayer #salah #muslimah #reminder #pray #dua #hijab #religion #mohammad #new muslim #new convert #new revert #how to convert to islam #convert to islam #welcome to islam

[im-the-punk-who]

Hello I saw you say black sails and tarzan in the same sentence so I just had to say this because what are the odds. But there's this song Better Love that apparently was written for the new(ish) tarzan movie but that song makes me cry daily about james mcgraw & flint & thomas hamilton & know no shame & "when our truth is burned from history by those who figure justice in fond memory / witness me like fire weeping from a cedar tree / know that my love would burn with me or live eternally"

HELLO ANON I’M VERY GAY IN THIS CHILIS FOR THIS IDEA.

I just listened to that song and OOF okay!!!! Okay!!!!!!!

I once kneeled in shaking thrill I chase the memory of it still, of every chill Chided by that silence of a hush sublime Blind to the purpose of the brute divine But you were mine

IF THAT AIN’T JAMES FLINT?!?!?!?!

LIKE!!!!

Also 

And I've never loved a darker blue Than the darkness I have known in you, own from you You, whose heart would sing of anarchy You would laugh at meanings, guarantees, so beautifully When our truth is burned from history By those who figured justice in fond memory, witness me Like fire weeping from a cedar tree Know that my love would burn with me We'll live eternally

Like I don’t listen to Hozier usually but like OKAY!!!!!!!!

But yeah like I’m watching the Disney Tarzan and just having a lot of emotions in this chilis about found family and the inherent goodness of humans getting corrupted by colonialist thinking. 

#we're very gay in this chilis #Anon thank you for bringing this song to my attention #black sails #honestly i might have to save this in my to gif folder cause like #Anonymous

[lord-kallig]

The Anfa’bif Pantheon

Prime: The Primordial Beasts

The Anfa’bif is the polytheistic pantheon of the Feraftas faiths and has come far beyond the malefic inspiration from the twisted Warp. Many of the additional aspects have come from associations in local myths and legends which had survived since the Imperial Occupations. Other elements have been imported with external populations which have enrolled into the Unbound Empire, such as Beastmen bringing the Great Horned One.

While some groups believe that the deities have a hand in the creation of reality as is perceived, the Everchosen’s Word refers to them being born alongside life and civilisation with them evolving as life has. 

The gods themselves are divided into three primary castes, based on their power and prominence. 

The deities and their castes are as follows;

Primordia Beastii 

At the very core of the faith itself, the Primordia Beastii are the twin deities which represent the polarising nature of reality. From their radical differences, they have been locked in an eternal conflict which was from before and will last long after Time itself. 

The Chimera

Aspects of Creation and Order rolled in together, the giant beast manipulates the reality around it with the ultimate will to exert control over all existence itself. Within a wider effect, The Chimera’s effects are what drives life towards patterns and rules, coexistence and logic. 

Dictating creation, it is no wonder that its form is ever changing, moving to befit the changing desires of the deity.

The Jackal

The God of Anarchy and Destruction appears much more simplistic at initial examination. The Jackal appears to be focused on the simple counteraction to any Chimerica action but takes many more unexpected avenues in their actions without being able to cause any permanent effects unto its foe. The ultimate will of the Jackalian lord is the drive reality back to a state even before its own existence. 

Where the Chimera’s influence grants order to existence, the Jackal’s is one of freedom and personality but also the breaking of the principles of domination from its fundamental bond with reality. 

---

Beastia Majoris

The Beastia Majoris are those which have spawned from the aspects of life. While sometimes emotional in nature, these aspects are considered universal truths and are a fusion of the Order and Chaos at the root of reality. 

The Beastia Majoris, in their order of relative ages, are as follows;

Helgin, The Hound 

Said to be the First Born of the Gods, The Great Hound came from the mixed blood of the Primordials. 

Having been birthed from the turmoil of reality, the Helgin has become the Patron for the aspects of conflict in existence. Struggles to survive, Conflicts between individuals, groups and ideas. 

Brog, The Toad 

With the first known lull in the Timeless War, The Toad formed as a being of rest and healing. While outwardly appearing sedentary, Brog found and kindled familial bonds between itself and its parents, despite their wills for one another. Kinship was found further with other beings of the aether and the reflected imprint from mortal life.  

When their lull broke down again, Brog was only saved from destruction by the Helgin with who which the strongest bond was formed. 

Rân, The Crow 

As reality bend and broke under the Jackal’s new actions, power seeped ever more into the world of the mortals. The Crow was the byproduct from these rifts in reality and as aetheric energies permeating the mortal planes increased.

Threads of fate began to from from the Chimera and to prevent these being used by the Mantle of Domination they were stolen by Rân. Preventing their use by any other being at large, it wove an eldritch web of destiny which could never be seen in its entirety. 

Using this connection, the Crow feeds power of the aether into being and objects which would soon become magic in its forms. 

Eyr, The Eagle 

More dispersed than others, the Eagle is one of the youngest known deities of major power and is the hybridisation of the intentions multiple 

The aspects of perfection came from the mortal reflections within the Aether. A grand civilization grew tall and brought with it the Chimeric desire to perfect their will unto their domain. 

Pleasure became a more prominent aspect from the rise in minor civilisations. As they didn’t have as grandiose intentions, their own happiness became more important and they imprinted this wish. 

Where the Toad is joy in existence, the Eagle is joy in action.

---

Deus Minoris 

The Deus Majoris are those which are tied to the more subtle aspects of reality. These can tie with the aspects of grander deities, leading to some belief of them being children of the more powerful entities. 

Anfilain, The Great Horned Goddess

Anfilain is the prime Goddess of the Wild and Nature at its more elemental core. She embodies all within life from the adaptation to new habitats, the nurturing of young to grant further life, to the preatory hunt of prey. 

Some take her aspects to imply that she was the being to have ultimately seeded life as is understood, where others just see her as a personification of the existence of life. 

Uniquely for the pantheon, her patrons are not those of specific trades or traditions but more how they are intune with their personal, natural origins. Her origins within beastmen dominated societies have lead to a perception of their natural patronage. 

Maresh Raiu, The Mortarch Warden 

Maresh Raiu is the Guardian of Mortality and Death. Being not the bringer of one’s death, Maresh is considered a primarily benevolent entity as being taken beyond the world of the living is to accompany a greater life, beyond what they achieved. 

Being the guide of souls, his power also allows those granted to power to return souls to the living world, as seen with the Damnatorus. 

Raiu is the most humanoid of the whole pantheon, discounting the Avatars, with a human appearance with the addition of two skeletal arms which pair with his standard limbs. 

Interpretations see him as both the antagonist to or the lover of Anfilain from their contrasting aspects of the perpetuation of life and the inevitable death. 

The Aurum Imperius

A splinter from the Chimera, the Imperius embodies the aspects of Order and Control. When granted total dominion, the Aurum attempts to become a force of domination. 

When tied to another force, It becomes a symbol of order and enforcement of said order. This has led to the minor deity being an enforcer over the other deities. This has reached down to the worship of It as a symbol of Law and Order. 

Within the pantheon, Aurum Imperius has undergone the most evolution. Originally a symbol of tyrannical domination, the gradual influence of Imperial populations has seen It evolve into a power for Order without bias and emotion. 

Zhaar, The Crafter

This bull headed deity is the deity of craftsmanship, production in all forms and to a smaller extent the Arts. While socially isolated within the pantheon, his lessons are granted to all that listen and ‘Moments’ can fall those who worship him. These often result in masterpieces of various crafts, but can be socially destructive if mishandled. 

Within the Legends of the Everchosen, Zhaar is the craftsmen of their arms and armour in their divine purpose. It is currently unknown when Kallig will be granted these boons. 

Ddrana, The Eastern Dragon

Instead of being native to the Aetheric Planes, the Dragon was once a mortal who ascended to being a deific power. Using unknown catalysts, she has become a mistress embodying the aspect of Greed within all forms. Love and social power is as valued to her as material goods.

Despite once having a mortal form, she is now seen in a serpentine draconic form with a tri split tail and secondary maw over her stomach. This mouth is said to have been used to consume the power from others, specialically the Anfilain.

(Pronunciation Note; ‘Dd’ is pronounced as a ‘Th’)

There are other even more minor deities but these are often limited to a single population group. Some examples can be the Thirteen Queens for the Nimah Clan and the Vaemos within Hive Victoria.

#homebrew #The Primordial Beasts #Primordial Beasts #The Primordial Pantheon #The Anfa'bif #warhammer #warhammer 40k #warhammer 40000 #Chaos #Chaos Gods #Chaos Cults #Chaos Cult #The Chimera #The Jackal #Malal #Malice #The Hound #Helgin #Khorne #The Toad #Brog #Nurgle #Ran #The Crow #Tzeentch #Eyr #The Eagle #Slaanesh #Anfilain #The Great Horned One

[wildernessuntothemselves]

Plz do it~I'm heartbroken its not going to be finished but its your story, your choice. Just would have been everything to me to know if they got a happy ending or a bad one. This story is how I found you, and I'm so glad that it happened. I'll continue to love and support your work😭(wow I got really dramatic but its ok lol)

"GIVE US WHAT WE WANT@@!!! SPOIL TLE U COWARD," she said with all the admiration and love expelling from her body. 💜💜💜💜

haha I love you guys so much. Thank you for caring so much about TLE. Well, the song is under here

Hozier - Better Love I once kneeled in shaking thrill I chase the memory of it still, of every chill Chided by that silence of the hushed sublime Blind to the purpose of the brute divine But you were mine Staring in the blackness at some distant star The thrill of knowing how alone we are, unknown we are To the world and to the both of us I confessed the longing I was dreaming of Some better love, but there's no better love Beckons above me and there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love Darling, feel better love Feel better love And I've never loved a darker blue Than the darkness I have known in you, honed from you You, whose heart would sing of anarchy You would laugh at meanings, guarantees, so beautifully When our truth is burned from history By those who figured justice in fond memory, witness me Like fire weeping from a cedar tree Know that my love would burn with me Or live eternally' Cause there's no better love That beckons above me, there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love So darling, feel better love 'Cause there's no better love That's laid beside me, there's no better love That justifies me, there's no better love So darling, darling, feel better love Feel better love Feel better love Feel better love Feel better love Cause there's no better love That beckons above me, there's no better love That ever has loved me, there's no better love So darling, feel better love 'Cause there's no better love That's laid beside me, there's no better love That justifies me, there's no better love So darling, feel better love Feel better love yes this is from the Tarzan movie but it encompassed the ending of TLE perfectly. I would explain but then I’d have to skip over all that happens between chapter 4 until the last chapter and all meaning would be lost if I do that :’) it honestly makes me really sad, I had big plans for this story 

[tawakkull]

Spirituality in islam: Chaos and the mystical world of faith

Today, everyone breathes resentment, swallows hatred, curses all that is deemed to be an enemy with a fixed and determined passion, as if programmed for fury. The ink that flows on the pages of newspapers, the pictures that are broadcasted over the television, the electromagnetic waves that resonate on the radio scratch our ears like illomened screams emitting from a variety of places—in the mountains or on the water, in the valleys or up in the hills; they strike our eyes like photographs that make us shudder and they open wounds in our hearts. These epics of hate that we hear of day and night and that startle us, all these illomened screams, make us sick at heart, and yet the people who seek a cure for these ills are few indeed. Their thoughts go in different directions, but they always seem to arrive at the same point: money, financial prosperity, and success.

… emotions base, desire consuming

The meaning that flows over from the gaze is full of contempt for the subject of God.

Very few are exempt from such a turbulent point of view; no difference remains between what is collective and what is not, between capitalism and communism and no difference remains between these and liberalism. The distance in nature—between those who attach their lives to the considerations of eating and drinking, resting, and earning money, having a good time in general, and, other beings who are obliged due to the unchanging character of their nature—becomes smaller day by day. The basic differences between the two sides vanish into thin air one by one, and humanity seeks new directions, despite its own nature.

Religion, piety, morals, free thought, our own perceptions of art are thought little of; power has become so ulcerated as to be unrecognizable, fantasy has taken on the image of ideas and these disagreeable ideas are being forced upon others. Indeed, I have to say that I have a hard time understanding the inner drama of such a terrible fanaticism. Nowadays, when enlightenment has become widespread, when intellectualism is at its apex, the fact that science and ignorance should meet at the same spot, contrary to the distance that one would expect to exist between them, suggests a dark complicity and makes the existence of a serious problem obvious. Such a contradiction gives us the impression that the emotional will of some people is miles ahead of their intellectual and logical will.

I believe that in such a dark period, when opposites have become intertwined, when in different sections of society chaos is heaped upon chaos, when dark acts of different origins have darkened the face of the Earth, when what is underground reigns over what is above, when polemics and dialectics have become so popular with so many, when hearsay, especially through the use of media, is welcomed as acceptable merchandise, when the lives of others has begun to be the sustenance of our existence, when the soul of unity has been shaken and different groups are scattered everywhere, when hopes are shattered and wills are paralyzed, when souls give up the fight against desire, there is a burning need to turn toward our own spiritual sphere and listen to our own inner world, to tear ourselves from the dark atmosphere of the bodily realm and sail into the magical atmosphere of a hearty and spiritual life. Those who do not fall into lethargy and return to themselves as soon as possible will feel the magic and charm of their own inner world; the unfortunate who fail to return and remain in between, or who remain on the other side, continue to resent, hate, slander, lie, and feel contempt, they continue in the dissolution and obstinate disagreement which they have practiced until this day, and even in climates where the sun continues to shine they will dream of dark things, they will mutter dark thoughts, always seeking dark places in which to hide and dark corners in which to live.

One hopes that they would be able to feel the joy of the blessed days and nights that we experience, when showers of light reach everywhere. One hopes they too would abandon the heresy, atheism, dissension, and sedition in their hearts and that they would be able to respect the chosen understanding and stance of every single soul! Maybe one day these wishes will be fulfilled, but the selfproclaimed enemies of God, the prophets, religion and piety—once having breathed nothing but materialism, having gone into a frenzy denying divinity, and having plunged into the quicksand of anarchy and nihilism—will never be able to breathe this reviving air. Oh dear Lord, had you only made yourself known to them and released the chains from their hearts!

In every community and society there are people who are inclined to abandon their faith and there have been many times when such people have spun out of control; other communities and societies do not have such powerful places to seek refuge when faced by these abysses and weaknesses as we have. Indeed, they have thoughts which soothe, beliefs which reconcile, days and nights which tremble with joy, festivals and carnivals; but, these days, these nights, these festivals, these carnivals are devoid of any holiness. They are like fireworks, shining for a moment and then are gone, giving only instantaneous pleasure; they are ephemeral and physical, not promising anything in the way of spiritual joy. Indeed, in their worlds you cannot feel the greatness of faith to God, nor can you feel that souls are free from the boundaries of time and space; everything starts with a false and transitory happiness, and takes place in a delirium of flesh. All is then transformed into painful memories, regrettable dreams, and disappointed hopes, and finally everything simply disappears.

In this spiritual atmosphere where we are closely bound to God, every sound, every word, every action is felt like a nursery rhyme and listened to like a melody. These shower down upon us like the rain; we soak up the bounties of these showers. The moon changes its form every night, as if signaling particular times and happy hours, the sun moves to a new spot on the horizon at every dawn, awakening our feelings and thoughts in a new period of time, causing our dreams to follow it, presenting memories to us that resemble the river Kawthar, promised to us in Heaven. The past becomes like a veil of many colors draped before our eyes, the happy future is the apex of our dreams, waiting for us with open arms and we, who have been freed from the narrow confines of time, live the multiplicity of yesterdaytodaytomorrow simultaneously and, like the angels, feel all the joys of surpassing time. It is impossible for those who are not fed from the same source as we, those who do not share the same feelings and thoughts as us, to feel and understand the holy depths in which we lose ourselves or the happiness and joy that we sip like the rivers of Paradise.

Our faith, our horizons of thought, and our manner—characteristics of the fortunate, but at the same time belonging to a littlewronged nation of this part of the world—have become, through being formed and reformed in the mold of the collective personality, greatly refined and adorned with universal values; this is a situation that exists in no other community; this is so much so that those who spend time with us need not stay long to be aware of this difference. The truth is that in these differences, the holy sadness of our hearts and the enthusiasm of our souls, like water running between the rocks, is felt and heard. Indeed, those who listen to what we have to say always hear the melodies of the pain of separation voiced along with hope; they hear the notes of reunion, of the sweet and eternal search for home in our intonation and manner. Indeed, while on the one hand we murmur “Oh, cup bearer, I have burnt in the flames of love, give me a cup of water,” on the other we say “I have dipped my finger in and tasted the honey of love, give me a cup of water,” and thus we are able to turn our grief into smiles. Our tongues speak sometimes of love and sometimes of weariness; though love and weariness cause pain to others, in them we always hear, like Rumi, the poem of longing for the realm that we have left to come here. Love and weariness to us are like a plea from the tongue of the soul, stemming from a sorrowful desire for eternity. Since our beliefs and feelings take us to the magical worlds of beyond, we almost always feel sadness and joy intertwined; we hear the sounds of crying and laughing as different notes of the same melody. We respond to the troubled heaving of our breasts with smiles on our faces, as our eyes overflow with tears, our conscience takes upon a red hue with the roses of the Iram gardens.

Even though it may not be easy for every individual, our connection to God is the most natural attitude that we can adopt; our relation with Him is like a spell that transforms all the moments of our life into enthusiasm and joy. Our hearts that beat with feelings toward Him fill and refill with the dream of this gaze; we are able to live through the bitterest autumns in our hearts because we have the joy of spring. Our souls adopt the most enviable attitudes with instincts of particular feelings and joy that are the result of our connection with the AllGlorious One; thus transformed, they make us feel a refreshed enthusiasm, a new opening and revelation, even at moments when we are filled with sadness and grief. Pleasure or sadness, revelation or sorrow, all these emotions undergo metamorphoses in our hearts that beat with faith and speak to us of the most natural pleasures and the most realistic expectations. It is a fact that we, too, experience interconnected moments of ease and hardship, sweet weeks and bitter days, light and darkness which come and pass, like day and night. However, we sip the unsurpassable benevolence and joys from the hands of all these tribulations, because we have our beliefs, our connection to the Just One and our hopes! Those who do not recognize the trials and pleasures to be the product of the same will writhe in neverending agony, while in our own atmosphere we see clearly that everything will be transformed into deep compassion. Taste a whole life, with its bitter and sweet facets like Kawthar, in everything that we eat and drink, at every place that we inhabit, with all the beautifully divine discoveries of our own inner world, with all of their different wavelengths, feel our sorrows shrink in the face of happiness, feel our pain melt away in pleasure and feel how our lives flow into glazed cisterns in a spectrum of colors. Our mortality is transformed into eternity; we exude smiles even when we cry.

In our world, the beliefs and the expectations that emerge from the heart of those beliefs are so intertwined with our lives that each chapter of our lives lends us the wings of the station of prayer and takes us to the gate of the Hereafter. It takes us there and lets our hearts drink of the beauties of heaven. In this way, we feel as if we are inhaling the scents of heaven. Even if we should let ourselves be swept along by our daily lives, the calls for prayer, songs that exalt God, the various sounds of prayer, the recitation of the names of God, those who give Him thanks, calling out His Uniqueness, letting this spill from the windows of the mosques, all draw us to their climate; they paint our souls with their hues, they give a tambourlike voice to our hearts, they make them sigh like a flute and excite them with the happiness of music. These sounds excite our souls and we are charmed by the mysteries pertaining to God, the charm of these mysteries which comes galloping from the depths of our inner world and which spreads to all our senses, this charm which tints the gardens of heaven in our thoughts and which flows past our lips like cascades of inspiration. Thus charmed, we stand awestruck.

This charm, this recognition of the mysteries pertaining to God, reaches a higher level on the blessed days and nights when limitless abundance and bounty are showered upon us. This is true to such an extent that everything around us ascends in a state of joy, every corner takes on a spiritual hue and the excitement of our souls, aiming at metaphysical destinations, reaches its apex, or in Sufi terms, our souls reach the highest heaven of maturity. To the degree that we can hear and listen to what is all around us, we too, rejoice like children who feel as if they are in the fair grounds of joy; thus we experience the happiness and joy of a feast day.

In such a world, the dawn flows into our houses from the doors and windows like an awaited guest; the evening comes into our private chambers like a lover and sits by us; the night clings to us with its associations of reunion with the Confidant; and in every valley hands are raised up toward Him in prayer, ready to receive the gifts that will come from Him, assuming a state of metaphysical tension with the power of the soul, sighing, saying “Hold my hand dear Confidant, hold it, for I cannot do without You.”

In such a world, the prayer roars like the booming voices of Gulbang hymns and echo like the voice and breath of the divine depths; the warm solitude of the night envelopes our souls like silk; our pulses beat with the excitement of one who has received good tidings. Perhaps some of us keep singing His praises, come rain or shine, like the nightingale that breaks its heart in an effort to express the ideal rhythm for its emotions with the most touching of sounds. In a word, everyone is humming a melody with neverending agony and joy, neverfading love and excitement, listening to the shivering of their souls and letting others hear it too. Everyone sighs with the fever of love and makes other people feel it too. Yes, as they reflect on the excitement in their souls and the inspiration of their hearts, expressing themselves one last time, they become the mouthpiece for the feelings shared by all and they are able to speak of the hidden meanings that they want to speak of but fail to verbalize.

The horizon of living yesterdaytodaytomorrow at the same time with such a degree of faith and hope, of love and recognition of the mysteries that pertain to God gives such a depth to life that each heart in the orbit of the hereafter finds itself wrapped up in the melodious harmony of emotions and ideas and is freed from the limiting, stifling effects of matter. I believe that the strongest basis of all human relations, the purest source of all pleasures, and the fountain of all love, longing, attraction, and gravity is this faith and hope. Every disciple of the heart who attains this faith and hope can experience and feel the state of being outside of time, with the ability to sense all of its depths.

Indeed, to the extent that one can attain this view, one can feel existence in a different manner, evaluate things in a different way and melt in on oneself with the color, taste, aroma and accent of manifestations from the Eternal; these attributes pervade everything and people can reach a second existence with a new “birth after death.” During such joyful hours, when the internal gaze is focused on that which is behind the visual scene of existence, one feels all the joys of being. One feels as if one has taken a shower in wisdom, as if one is freed from the weight of all things that are alien to one. The distant heavens shower blessings down upon these hearts, hearts thirsty for love and galloping with longing and affection; all hearts that live in fear of drying up are quenched. Celestial flowers flourish in these showers adorned with dreams!

Some of us may not be able to comprehend the state—a state which becomes a succession of struggle (to come over the darkness with its all connotation) and dawn—of these people of faith and horizon; but all these are phenomena of the heart, soul and emotions. Living through the countless revelations of life, no one but the active heroes of the dawn and of the great strife can understand this love, enthusiasm, poetry, and music poured into our souls by the Eternal One. Those who do not understand this will not be able to understand us, either. Those who remain distant to this fine and delicate life live in the darkness of this distance, while the comprehension of those who have found a position from where they can view the truth in such a way that it appears as obvious as it really is always feel this gift in all its wavelengths, sip it like the rivers of Paradise and live their earthly lives as if in Heaven.

Who knows how many more times we will speak of this neverending pleasure and joy, in the delight of a festival, of a feast day! How ever many more times we may speak of it—the faults of the speaker’s mode of expression aside—we will still listen with pleasure and try to share it with others.

#allah #god #islam #muslim #quran #revert #convert #convert islam #revert islam #revert help #reverthelp #revert help team #help #islamhelp #converthelp #prayer #salah #muslimah #pray #dua #hijab #religion #reminder #mohammad #new muslim #new revert #new convert #how to convert to islam #convert to islam #welcome to islam