#but implied to have happened innumerable times

[radioactive-earthshine]

Been reading Jack Kirby’s original Mr. Miracle and this is literally what happens on Apokolips in issue #9. 

#himon #new gods #apokolips #darkseid #mr. miracle #scott free #jack kirby #dc comics #it's depicted six times #but implied to have happened innumerable times

[morrieandlicky]

Edward Carpenter's full response letter to E.M. Forster after reading Maurice in 1914.

(The images of the letter can be found here at King's College's archive. Below is my transcription followed by photocopies of the letter. )

PS: 1) "MS" is the abbreviation for "manuscript".

23 Aug. [1914?]

My dear & blessed E.M.,

(I wish you had a name. Why do you always hide behind initials? What do your friends call you? My name is Edward, or ‘chips’!)

I have read your ‘Maurice’ after all, and am very much pleased with it. I don’t always like your rather hesitating tantalizing impressionist style - though it has subtleties - but I think the story has many fine points. You succeed in joining the atmosphere with the various characters, and there are plenty of happenings which is a good thing. Maurice’s love affairs are all interesting, and I have a mind to read them again, if I can find time - so I won’t send the MS back for a day or two. I am so glad you end up on a major chord. I was so afraid you were going to let Scudder go at the last - but you saved him and saved the story, because the end though improbable is not impossible and is the one bit of real romance - which those who understand will love.

I wish I could write more, but I am devoured just now by innumerable things. I expect to be in and about London from the 1st to 8th Sep. - so give me a cue to see you.

Your Edward C.

Transcription of vertical writings on the second page of the letter: 

I am sending my birthday reply to the papers on Sep. 1 with a lot about the war in it. 

Only a small part of the letter has been transcribed then included in reviews, or different Maurice editions. Which is why I wanted to transcribe the whole response from the real-life Maurice to the author of fictional Maurice after he read Maurice. The entirety is far more interesting.

Below: Edward Carpenter in 1886 and 1897.

Some contexts: based on Forster's diaries, Maurice was first finished in June/July, 1914, so Carpenter did read the first complete MS—with or without the epilogue is unclear since there's no solid proof for when the epilogue was written (though it appeared in the novel by February 1915 at the latest.)

However, since Carpenter said he liked the happy ending he read (and fun fact: the first complete MS which he read actually had a fairly different ending between Maurice and Alec than the published version's), we know that even from the first draft, Forster remained unwavering about how a happy ending is imperative.

More contexts: according to a letter from Forster to a friend, he thought Carpenter was "too unliterary to be helpful"—meaning Carpenter probably wasn't much interested in reading literature. And Carpenter sort of confirmed that in writing "I read your 'Maurice' after all", implying he was indeed reluctant to read at first.

Still, it made absolute sense for Forster to send the story back to the man who, in a manner of speaking, held the copyright of Maurice in flesh before Forster even finished it.

So the question is: did Carpenter know that Maurice was inspired by him and his lover George Merrill? Did he know that he was the real-life Maurice and Merrill was the real-life Alec? Perhaps that was why he was reluctant to read the novel at first?

#edward carpenter #em forster maurice #maurice em forster #em forster #edward morgan forster #maurice #maurice 1987 #maurice hall #maurice 1914 #maurice 1971 #alec scudder #george merrill #clive durham #1914 #1910s

[grindeldore3]

My answer to the Dumbledore hate

So there's been a lot of hate regarding our professor (A.D.) here and there. And it seems to be lurking in the darkest corners of our heart where there happens to be an unwillingness to accept light. While imposing certain accusations on A.D., we seem to forget that whom we are judging is a mere human and is obviously tend to make mistakes. See, its not much possible to innumerate at once all the complex situations he was in, so I am not doing it here particularly. When one person is devoid of support and right guidance, they tend to fall into wrong path. But A.D. changed for good, like Hermione said, like Harry later realised too and like Hagrid and Minerva knew all along. Just to mention one thing that bothers a lot of us- when he was such a capable person why didn't he save Harry? This question bothers us because we see him as an all-rounder person who is capable of anything; but just think about it a bit deeply. He wasn't all-rounder, if he was so then he would have saved his own sister back then and get removed of all his responsibilities, he didn't do that because it wasn't just possible. Which clearly implies that a person cannot control everything, he can't decide everything and can't rectify everything for the simple reason that he is just a human. A human isn't God so why to blame him for not being right at every point of time? One may say he raised Harry to die, which is wrong ofcourse. For example, God created mortals to be born and eventually die, but does that mean the sole reason we are here is to die? NO, we are here to test our strengths, to put some use to our abilities and do something worthy in this world. So did A.D. say. He knew Harry's survival was difficult but he never thought to kill him or to raise him as pig for slaughter (like just for the sake that he has to die by prophecy!??). A mortal can't change the fate of the destined future, all he/she can do is to make things right in the present. So A.D. protected Harry to save him and let him see how his life is and leave it upto him to decide own his own.

We can't judge him when we are by no means in his shoes. Whatever he suffered made him indeed saint like. There's no denying in that because if we stretch the bounds of our constricted mind, it is pretty evident that he was never selfish. All he did was for greater good only, though his perspective of greater good was tampered early in life from which his disillusioned return led to his lonely path where he had to walk to bring about the right change. So easily we put him to fault, but in the end he always did what was necessary. He never kindled with hate, it can be observed often that he has a genuine love for everyone and he became a down to earth personality. He didn't favoured Harry, he cared for him like he would have to anyone who was in dire need. It can be admitted that he knew everything beforehand but to correct this statement, he didn't knew 'absolutely' everything. Can we normalize that in the vast expanse of this mysterious thing called Time, a single person can make only one choice and act on it once. So did A.D., he had to make difficult choices, they were hard and demanding. How could he or anyone else make such a choice which satisfies everyone? No one can. Newt summed it up pretty much clearly about most us being ultimately imperfect. Even if we made mistakes and did terrible things, we can try to make things right, and that what matters, the TRYING. So just think- what else A.D. did in all his life instead of trying hard to correct things and help people see light? What did he have to gain by doing any harm or discrimination to others? He had no family for whom he can turn selfish for or what did he ever demanded for his own gain? Remorse was his lasting companion, where too one would complain that he imparted his miseries and problems to others, which isn't true. Know him by being in his place, that's all required to make up some space for understanding.

Giving it all a divine perspective, I would like to say that God is capable of forgiving the greatest sins but we as mortals are too arrogant to accept the existence of naivety and child-like ignorance. What I am trying to say here doesn't means that A.D. was free of any flaws because he wasn't exactly. The whole point of his character is make us realise how imperfection is not a sin, rather a natural trait. And when in our deepest conscience there's only empathy and selflessness present, we can attain the level of a holy figure. Remember, humans have a knack of choosing precisely those things which are worst for them? Humans are incarnation of foolishness where they divert from goodness, only those who admit it and work on it lead the right path. A.D wasn't bad, he wasn't even grey I think; he was a polite tender soul who suffered so much oppression, excess of burden, loss and lack of mutual understanding. He (as his name means) belongs in the white light, a white just stained with black imprints of his little mistakes (little mistakes which had drastic effect because of him being such prominent person to influence the world) the mistakes_which we are kind enough to forgive and overlook, right?

So can we all just accept him as he is? Can we have tollerance for differences and choices of others? Can we stop spreading hate just because we disagree or dislike what a character is or how the other person views it? Can we take all the postive morals and values of love and compassion from A.D. such that affection prevails in our minds whenever we read his name, not his errors alone? And can we give ourselves time to ponder upon and improve the flaws in ourselves which reflects his imperfections?

When there exists so much to learn, we must not limit ourselves to unnecessary critisism. Its not about remaining silent if misdeeds happen but to ensure that it never hurts anyone- otherwise what's the difference between us and opposite position. Let's give it a try to love everyone as much as we can.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me because ideally its not possible for just words to change anything.... Like there's nothing one can say that can ME hate them, so there's nothing I can say that can have any tremendous effect, just hoping for good 🤞❤️❤️❤️

#Albus Dumbledore #I stand by him #And in favour of everyone who at one point of their lives realised that they did something wrong and tried to rectify it. #This post has NO intention to spread any kind of hurt or hate

[mystichedgie]

A piercing shriek tore through the halls of Grimmauld Place. Draco, who had been pacing back and forth across the sitting room, froze. He’d been alone in the decaying home of his cousins for days. Who had arrived and why were they making a bloody racket?

Another blood curdling sound rang out and this time he followed it upstairs to a small, dank bedroom. Hermione Granger sat in the middle of the floor, her body battered and bloodied. She was crouched over the unmoving form of a man. The corpse was badly damaged, unrecognizable.

A miserable, keening wail escaped from her as he carefully took a step forwarded. In the months he’d been trapped in this house following his capture, the Order had been careful to send anyone but their brightest witch to bring his meals and conduct his interrogations. This was the first time he’d seen her up close since Hogwarts and he took a moment to survey her. Four years of persistent battle had honed her body into sturdy, well muscled machine. Her wild hair was captured into tight braids. With the blood on her face she looked exactly like what she had grown to be in the time since they’d last met- a warrior.

He took another step towards her. He didn’t think she knew he was there, consumed as she was by grief over the dead man in front of her. As he proceed in her direction he made his steps heavier in hopes that he wouldn’t take her by surprise. Finally she turned to face him, but her dark eyes didn’t seem to register who it was she was seeing.

“Help,” she pleaded. “It’s Neville. None of my healing charms are working and, oh gods, please. Help him.”

Draco was now standing over them and saw the body was wearing a jumper he had indeed seen on Longbottom.

Draco lowered himself to the ground beside Granger and the remains of Neville Longbottom. Up close he could see that there were innumerable wounds covering both of them. A jagged cut that was seeping green fluid ran from below her ear to her collarbone.

“Granger, what happened?”

“Tonight’s raid…everything went wrong,” her voice was distant. The look on her face told him that her mind hadn’t quite traveled back to the safe house yet. “Neville and I were the only ones who made it back to the portkey. But just as we got there we got hit. Can you help him?”

“He’s beyond help, Granger.”

A sound reminiscent of a tortured animal escaped her lungs. She crumpled onto him, body heaving with sobs. How had he ended up here? Prisoner of the Order, the only person available to console a defeated Hermione Granger.

They sat for a while like this, her sobbing and him contemplating his existence, until she seemed to force herself back to something resembling calm. She sat up and looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time.

“Malfoy? What are you…why…?”

“I heard you scream.”

She stared at him blankly in response.

“I’ve been alone in the house for days. When I heard you I came to see what had happened.”

“I was screaming?”

It was concerning to him that she couldn’t seem to remember what had happened only moments ago. If the order had suffered as heavy of losses as she implied, this woman might be his only hope for escape. He needed her to be sharp.

“Granger, what happened?” He asked for a second time.

“There was a safe house,” she said. “Similar to the one where we found you. Only, it wasn’t quite right. As soon as we breached the perimeter there were so many Death Eaters. I think…I think someone must have told them we were coming.”

“So you tried to abort the mission?”

“We didn’t even have time to discuss what to do. The rest of the tactical team was dropping around us at an impossible rate. Neville and I could see we needed to get out. We ran back to the portkey, we almost made it, but just as we reached out our hands some sort of explosive curse hit us.”

“It looks like he took the brunt of it,” Draco said, eyes glancing to the mangled body in front of them. “But you need to get the wound on your neck taken care of—it looks like the curse may have had an infectious element. It wasn’t producing nearly that much fluid a moment ago.”

She rose, crossing to a small mirror on the wall to survey her wound. Her face paled.

“I’ve never seen an infectious curse before. I don’t…I don’t know how to treat this.”

“Nott Sr. has been developing them. You need to draw out the infection and then you can treat the injury.”

She’d become unsteady on her feet. Was it the infection? The grief? He wasn’t sure as he watched her stumble her way to the small bed before taking a seat.

“What were you, a Death Eater slash healer?” She asked.

“A test subject,” he replied.

If possible, even more color drained from her face.

“My mother lied to the Dark Lord during the Battle of Hogwarts. He’s used me to punish her ever since.”

“Malfoy, I…”

“Don’t, Granger. There was plenty I could atone for with a pound of flesh.”

She nodded, he sensed there would be no argument from her on that point.

“We need to take care of your neck, Granger. It’s not an ideal place for an infection. If it continues to spread it’ll make it into your blood stream rather quickly.”

“Can you explain the counter steps to me?”

He could, but she looked as if she might lose consciousness soon.

He saw that Longbottom’s wand was on the floor, having somehow made it back with the body intact. Draco bent to retrieve it. When he stood, Hermione had her wand trained on him.

“What are you doing?”

Her voice was unsteady. Her wand hand quivering.

“Healing you, Granger. You’re too weak just now to do it yourself.”

He approached the bed, hands held aloft to show he wasn’t a threat.

“I won’t hurt you. I’ll never get out of this bloody house if every member of the Order is dead. I need to keep you alive.”

Miraculously, this seemed to satisfy her. She lowered her wand.

“As I said, we’ll need to start by drawing the infection out. This part is…well it’s quite brutal. The shock you’re experiencing might be blocking most pain from your wounds now, but I need you to know that it will get much worse for a bit. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Good. Now I’m going to start by cleaning you up so that I can see what I’m doing.”

She nodded again. He waved the unfamiliar wand. The blood and dirt vanished from her body. He could see an angry red ring beginning to form around the gash in her neck.

“I’m going to quickly heal your superficial wounds, hopefully that will reduce your overall pain while I work.”

“Ok.”

He muttered a string of healing spells for the cuts, burns, and bruises that she’d accumulated during her escape. Only the foul gash remained.

“Granger, this is going to be properly awful. Are you ready?”

“More ready than I am to let it kill me, if that’s the alternative.”

He almost smiled at that response.

“Does the Order have any stores of pain relief potions in this house?”

Hermione shook her head.

“Old fashioned way it is,” Draco sighed. He placed the wand in his pocket. Using both hands to undo his dragon leather belt and pull it from his trousers.

Hermione watched him with a look of great trepidation.

“Malfoy, what are you doing?”

He held the leather near her face.

“Bite,” he commanded.

She did as she was told.

“Bite down hard when it hurts. Focus on that.”

She made an “mhm” sound around the leather.

He placed one large palm against her cheek, bracing her head in place as he prepared to begin.

“Good girl,” he said. “Ready?”

//

This was originally written in response for the prompt “Bite”

#in which I move all my drabbles over from twitter before its impending doom #dramione #drabble #draco x hermione #hermione granger #draco malfoy #draco fic

[jaws-and-canines]

Thirteen Frames

A Verschlimmbessern story. Following The Butcher And The Fool. Three weeks later, Fennec is discharged from the custody of the butcher. Contains depictions of institutional abuse, mild mouth gore, passive suicidality, implied torture and implied sensory deprivation.

---

He isn’t sure if it’s over or if this is just an interlude. The moment the interpreter sat at the table with him and the Specials he almost cried- frustration and relief and exhaustion threatening to brim over. He told them again what he had been saying over and over since they brought him here- I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it. This time they listen- or perhaps they had been listening all along. He told the butcher it innumerable times in German, in broken English, in every sort of nonverbal communication he had- so they must have heard. They just chose to ignore him. He signs something and can barely get his broken fingers to grip the pen. He shakes nobody’s hand.

The Special who spoke to him at the start of this all offers him another can of coke after the paperwork is signed, opening it and setting it in front of Fennec- it is not easy to open a can with broken nails or broken fingers- who stares at it for several long minutes after the man has left and it is just him and the interpreter left. The coke is lukewarm. He takes a sip of it and then retreats back into his leaden body. He doesn’t really understand what has happened to him.

The moments are fragments, buzzing around his head. The last time he had a cigarette, the butcher gave it to him in silence. He’d shared the lighter with the butcher, and been relieved beyond relief the moment the nicotine hit- all a nasty habit but he really has never cared- that he had tried to thank the man in English. It was at that point the butcher had reached over and put his cigarette out on Fennec’s tongue. You don’t speak to me like that, he’d said as Fennec had spat blood onto the floor, apologising for something he didn’t quite understand. We’re not the same. 

Even tasting the memory of ash in his mouth again, he wants a cigarette. Desperately. He finds himself salivating at the smell of second hand smoke in the room- every small space here he can smell it- and the ashtrays are dotted around- one in the middle of the metal table they’re sitting at, next to where the can of coke sits, barely touched.

Dignity was something he lost a long while ago, he thinks. He may as well take the opportunity. Slowly, he reaches over to the ashtray, picks out three or four cigarettes, and carefully field strips them, collecting the tobacco into a little pile, and peeling the most intact paper he can find apart, filling it, and then sticking it back together with his spit on his thumb and forefinger. He doesn’t try to salvage a filter, just wordlessly holds out a hand to the interpreter. 

She lends him her lighter with a look of disgust on her face. He doesn’t notice and just lights up. She takes her lighter back and leaves. The cigarette tastes awful, but to him it works its way into his psyche as something much more than simple used papers and old tobacco, the same way the taste of the ones given to him before when someone took pity on a man they saw as a dead man walking lingers on his tongue even months or years later. The gesture transcends language and culture. Not quite sorrow, not quite regret. He finishes the cigarette and then shifts around in the ashtray a little more until he realises there’s not much more to be had. He wipes his hands on his trousers.

Some time later they return and take him back into the workroom, arms over their shoulders in a casualty carry. The floor is damp but clean. His blood- his own name traced in it with a shaking finger- is gone. There are several black bin bags scattered around a blue plastic chair. He sits down on it, and it cracks beneath him. He doesn’t weigh much- not now, the fat and muscle dropped from him- so he looks at the chair and thinks it might just break beneath the slightest shift in weight.

They tell him to undress, and slowly, he does. His clothes go into an orange biohazard bag. It is sealed up and they try to get him to stand in the corner. He takes his eyes off the bag for a moment as he sits on the floor, and then crumples onto his side, watching them take the bag from the room with his cheek pressed to the cool tiles once again. He is not sure what becomes of the bag, but lies naked on the tiles and doesn’t think about it. A Special leans over him and holds out a hand. “Glasses,” she demands.

He sits unmoving for a moment before his brain starts to work. “Glasses,” Fennec repeats with numb lips, and then slowly takes them off and hands them over to her, propping himself up with an arm that aches like it is broken. He lies back down on the tiles again, staring into space through the blur.

He hears the noise of the water running through the pipes before he hears the hose hissing. It's just like the times they have hosed him down before. It hits him with a tangible force and it hurts. It hurts anew, and it makes old wounds hurt once more. The water is freezing. He can’t quite comprehend how cold it is- just that the cold is what makes it hurt so badly. He opens his mouth with a silent gasp, eyes widening, but still doesn’t move.

Then they rustle in the plastic bags over the other side of the room a little more. Out come two bottles of soap. They pour it onto their gloved hands and start to wash him down with it. It stains his skin an off-yellow before it foams up. Fennec freezes up as they scrub at his neck and head and stays frozen for anything less impersonal than his arms or legs. He doesn’t like it one bit and they are not gentle. “Look at this,” says the man rubbing knuckles against his scalp. The man tries to pull fingers through his hair and is stopped by the web of knots and mats that it has become.

The woman isn’t interested. “Just shave it off. Don’t have time for this shit.” Fennec doesn’t understand until, over his head, one Special presses a pair of hair clippers into the hand of the other. The clippers go on, buzzing, and he flinches, bringing his hands up to cover his face. Chunks of soapy matted hair fall to the floor, and he squints through the blur around him as they take the clippers to his beard. A gloved hand under his chin tips his head up, his mouth twisting into an expression of resigned fear as the first matted pieces fall from his face. When there is no more to shave, they rinse him down again with the hose. It’s so cold he finds that the tears that reflexively pour down his cheeks are the warmest part of him, and he curls up with his knees as close to his chest as he can get them. 

One of the Specials takes him under the arms and pulls him a little way backwards, sitting him against the wall on the dry part of the floor. He starts to shiver. Watery blood runs from the stitches on his leg. His lazy eye drifts off to the left, looking at nothing in particular. They dry him off with a towel so rough it reopens wounds he forgot he had. He puts his hands back over his face and lets them do it. They do not give him his glasses back, even as he looks around for them, blinking slowly. He puts his arms through the T-shirt they hold out to him and they pull it over his head. One of them holds him by the elbow so he can balance to put on the underwear. They have to help him put the white socks on. They don’t give him shoes.

The taller of the two men holds up a dark green set of scrubs to him, a large fluorescent orange star on the back of the top, smaller ones on the right side of the trousers and the right breast of the top. Fennec stares at them blankly. It doesn’t really occur to him to put them on or make any move to do so. Another moment passes, and they just grab him by the shoulders and pull it over his head, and then put his arms through the sleeves. He looks from left to right as they pull the trousers up on him, confusion written all over his face, brow furrowed. They tie the trousers at the waist with the tattered drawstring. It all smells of disinfectant. He smells of iodine soap- skin, hair, he can even taste it in his mouth.

The woman who took his glasses pulls a woollen mitten over one of his hands. He offers up the other, stretching out his fingers under the mittens, staring at his hands as they bring out the duct tape to tape the mittens in place. He sits there unmoving as they smooth the end of the tape down to his skin. The duct tape is wrapped around his wrists several times, sticking woollen gloves and already-fragile skin together tightly. He looks at the breeze blocks in front of him and wonders where exactly his life went to shit as they cuff his hands together over the top of the mittens. It takes two of them to stand him up and hold him up- although he tries to take his own weight, his legs tremble violently- and they wrap another chain around his waist, to attach his hands to it. Midway through that, someone slips a blindfold over his head- an elasticated sleep mask. He can’t help but notice the little improvisations made- clearly tried and tested and deemed more than good enough. On the first attempt, it falls from his face and ends up loose around his neck- the second try, they knot the elastic of it at the side of his head, over his temple- and it stays put.

“I can’t see,” he says, almost a reflex. Nobody understands him- and he is almost relieved when it dawns on him what a stupid thing that is to say. He tuts quietly. A moment later, he’s sat back down, the hands now pressing him back down against the back of the chair as he feels the ankle cuffs go on- biting the skin above his socks. 

Someone touches his face. He panics, crying out. They touch his face again, just above his ear and he shakes his head, pulling away with stuttered protests, not really understanding what’s going on, until someone slaps him across the face. He stops moving again. They put a surgical mask on him, the metal pinched over the bridge of his nose and the elastic looped over his ears- and slowly it dawns on him- it’s so he doesn’t spit at the people around him, or try to use his teeth to pull the mittens from his hands. His cheek burns. He feels so, so exposed. Cold, blind, defenceless, he crawls back inside himself.

Any other time he might wish he were dead. Now he worries that he will be soon- and he worries how much it will hurt. So he sits there and he hopes it won’t hurt too much, and it won’t take too long. Death, he thinks, is too broad of a word. He wishes for quick and painless. 

He remembers seeing a film when he was in his late teens- far too violent for a child like him, but at the same time, he was enraptured by the cinematography. The film ended in a peculiar manner- the main character, reaching across the villain’s desk to shake his hand- the two face-to-face, in profile, over a vast expanse of white and grey and mahogany- and then a cut to black so abrupt that for a moment before the lights came up he thought the projector had blown- not an uncommon occurrence- but no. The film was over.

As the credits scrolled, everyone in the theatre knew the character was dead- he could not piece together what made them all so sure. Maybe the film had just ended there- maybe that was just the start of another arc of the story, the beginning of the antagonist being brought to justice. But he knew the main character was dead. He couldn’t work out how he was so sure until he asked one of his friends who worked in the theatre to show him the reels. 

Thirteen frames before the cut to black- a little over half a second of film- the protagonist’s head jerking forwards as if hit from behind- abrupt white, abrupt bright crimson red, then the cut to black. Too fast for the eye to process- but his brain knew and pieced together the frames a few moments after it happened. And then he knew for sure the film was made by artists, a labour of love and skill. Thirteen frames, too fast for the eye to see- solidified the idea of unseen art.

He supposes death, when it comes, will be much like that, but there will be no moments after for his brain to catch up with what has happened. He discards the train of thought after that, and just sits there, feeling the heaviness in all his limbs. A distant argument he doesn’t understand drifts into earshot, and then footsteps, and then someone tugs the blindfold from his eyes. “Check his pupils if you think I've turned him into a vegetable, then,” says the butcher- Fennec doesn’t quite follow any of his words, but the smell of the man’s breath- chewing tobacco and rotting meat- is unmistakable. The face of the medic swims into view. Fennec watches the finger of his hand as he holds it up, moving it across his field of vision, and then the medic pulls out his penlight.

Fennec scrunches his face up with a tut as the man turns his penlight on. The medic waves the light over one eye, then the other. Fennec’s pupils constrict and his face twitches. He pulls a face of discomfort as his eyes start to water. “Reactive to light,” says the medic, and pulls the blindfold back down. “Neurologically intact.”

“Intact but he ain’t moving,” says the butcher. “Nothing I did to him. It’s psychiatric. Sign off on him, don’t dick me around.” Still Fennec doesn’t understand much of what is said, but what he does grasp, isn’t particularly flattering in his direction.

“Fine.” The faceless man tuts- Fennec can’t see him, but recognises the voice, even in English. "I'll sign the detainee's transfer papers, then."

Fennec hears the butcher spit on the floor, and startles as the light blow of the butcher clamping a hand on his shoulder lands on tender skin. The hand stays there as someone fits the ear defenders to his head over bristly, still-damp hair, and then withdraws. He can hear nothing but a low mumble of conversation, and his own laboured breathing. They pick him up from the chair with hands under his armpits- his feet scrabble for purchase, his knee burning- but they lift him from the floor, and his legs simply drag along the concrete for a few moments, until more unseen hands pick them up. 

For a moment it is as if he is weightless once more- and then it ends as his back meets metal plate flooring with a bang. Ears ringing, the non-slip pattern digs into his back and he lies there, unmoving and winded. 

The ringing in his ears slowly fades away but the pain in his ribs remains. Someone sits him up- hands under his arms again, twisting him a little, pushing him back against something metal- sharp edges digging into his back- and a tug at his wrists tells him they are securing him to it. Another tug at one ankle, then at the last, secured to the floor like any other piece of cargo.

Footsteps move back and forwards in front of him. They're going somewhere, he realises, and the terror makes his heart tremble in his chest. An ignition starts, an engine rumbles through the metal floor beneath him. He cannot hear it, only feel it. He still can’t find it in himself to really move, he turns his head to one side, and it sticks there until he lets it drop.

The world jerks forwards as they move off. Fennec wishes for his thirteen frames between being and unbeing, and he wishes for that to be all there will be waiting for him now. He knows there will be far more. Life, he thinks, isn’t fair- and he thinks, it’s not art either. It just hurts. His face crumples but there are no tears and there is no sound. He dare not.

#implied torture #yeah the ashtray thing is gross i know #someone buy him a vape or something idk #mouth gore #just to be safe #sorry my guy #there is worse to come

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

19th October >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Luke 11:47-54 for Thursday, Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘They did the killing; you do the building’.

Thursday, Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA) Luke 11:47-54 You have not gone in yourselves and have prevented others who wanted to.

Jesus said: ‘Alas for you who build the tombs of the prophets, the men your ancestors killed! In this way you both witness what your ancestors did and approve it; they did the killing, you do the building. ‘And that is why the Wisdom of God said, “I will send them prophets and apostles; some they will slaughter and persecute, so that this generation will have to answer for every prophet’s blood that has been shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was murdered between the altar and the sanctuary.” Yes, I tell you, this generation will have to answer for it all.

‘Alas for you lawyers who have taken away the key of knowledge! You have not gone in yourselves, and have prevented others going in who wanted to.’

When he left the house, the scribes and the Pharisees began a furious attack on him and tried to force answers from him on innumerable questions, setting traps to catch him out in something he might say.

Gospel (USA) Luke 11:47-54 The blood of the prophets is required, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah.

The Lord said: “Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed. Consequently, you bear witness and give consent to the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you do the building. Therefore, the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and Apostles; some of them they will kill and persecute’ in order that this generation might be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who died between the altar and the temple building. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood! Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.” When Jesus left, the scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.

Reflections (7)

(i) Thursday, Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s first reading, Saint Paul speaks about the free gift of God’s grace. We often hear the saying, ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’. In other words, what might appear to be a free gift often has a hidden expectation of getting something in return. The saying implies that most people give with a view to getting something back. That may or may not be true, but what is certainly true is that God gives his love freely to us. When God gives to us, there are no strings attached. Yes, God wants us to receive his love, but his gift of love does not depend on our receiving it. God continues to love us even when we refuse the gift of his love. We receive the gift of his love by receiving his Son, the greatest gift of his love. God looks to us to receive his Son by believing in him, entrusting our lives to him. In the gospel reading, Jesus reflects on how often his own people did not receive the gift of God’s love, expressed through his sending of the prophets. Those prophets, those gifts of God, were often rejected in a very violent fashion. God’s own Son, God’s greatest gift, was rejected by some in a very violent fashion, resulting in his crucifixion on a Roman cross. Yet, even when this happened, God did not take back the gift of his Son. He continued to offer him in love to all humanity by raising him from the dead and giving him to all as risen Lord. God continues to hold out to us all this ‘free gift of his grace’. Every day is an opportunity to receive afresh this free gift of God’s Son, allowing this gift to shape our lives. God graces us in this way, with the gift of his Son, so that we can live graced lives, lives that reflect the love that burns in the heart of God’s Son. If we were all to live in this way, then the face of the earth would indeed be renewed.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus accuses the lawyers, the experts in the Jewish Law, of taking away the key of knowledge. These were the theologians of the day who claimed to know God’s will and God’s ways. Yet, when Jesus tried to teach them about God, they refused to learn and they tried to prevent other people from learning from Jesus too. In the words of the gospel reading, they did not go in themselves and they prevented others from going in who wanted to. It seems that their learning and expertise was an obstacle to God’s work in their own lives and in the lives of others. Those who were much less learned were often much more open to the teaching of Jesus. On one occasion Jesus prayed, ‘I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and revealed them to infants’. ‘Infants’ in that context are those who have the openness to learn, to receive from Jesus. We are always learners when it comes to the Lord. We are always on the way towards knowing him more fully, not just with our head but with our heart. We need the Lord to be our teacher. On one occasion the disciples came before the Lord like ‘infants’, like people who wanted to learn. ‘Teach us to pray’, they said to him. It is this humble, seeking, attitude that the Lord delights in and responds to.

And/Or

(iii) Thursday, Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

We all have knowledge of some kind or another. No one knows everything about everything, yet everyone has some knowledge about some things. We try to benefit from each other’s knowledge and experience. If we need a certain job done we get someone who knows something about that particular job. We don’t try to attempt what we know nothing about. We need to share what we know and to receive from others what they know. We serve out of our knowledge and receive out of our ignorance. In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus addresses the lawyers, the experts in the Jewish Law, theologians as we might call them today. Jesus states that they have taken away the key of knowledge, not going in themselves and preventing others from going in who wanted to. As theologians they should have recognized God acting in Jesus. However, not only have they failed to recognize God in Jesus; they have prevented others from doing so. Their religious knowledge was an obstacle to God’s work in their own lives and in the lives of others. Whatever knowledge we have, in whatever area, including the area of religion, it has to serve our relationship with God and other people’s relationship with God. Our search for knowledge is, ultimately, a search for God and needs to be at the service of that greater search.

And/Or

(iv) Thursday, Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus criticizes the lawyers, the experts in the Jewish Law, the Law of God, for taking away the key of knowledge. They have failed to come to know God themselves, as Jesus reveals him, and have prevented others from coming to know God. Their calling was to be teachers of the ways of God, but they have not been true to that calling. Jesus himself was the key to the knowledge of God, because he reveals God more fully than any other human being could. In rejecting Jesus, the lawyers were taking away the key of knowledge, failing to recognize God at work in Jesus for themselves and not allowing others to discover God in Jesus either. God has given us the key to knowing him, by giving us Jesus. Jesus is the key to the knowledge of God, and we are all learners. Indeed, we will always be learners when it comes to God. The mistake is to think ourselves learned and clever when it comes to God. On the contrary we are more like infants, always having much to learn. Only if we recognize that will we come to know God more fully. That is why Jesus prayed a little earlier in Luke’s gospel, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the learned and the clever and have revealed them to infants’.

And/Or

(v) Thursday, Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus is very critical of lawyers in today’s gospel reading. In those days, lawyers were not what we think of as lawyers today. They were the experts in the Jewish Law, in God’s Law. They were regarded as people who had pondered long and hard on the ways of God as revealed in the Scriptures. They are more like what we would call theologians today. There was an expectation that they were the ones who would have the key to the knowledge of God, knowledge that they would share with others. However, Jesus says that they have taken away this key of knowledge. When God was making himself known in a new way in the person of Jesus, these experts in the Law were deaf and blind to what God was showing them and they were preventing others from learning these new ways of God as well. As Jesus says in our gospel reading, ‘you have not gone in yourselves, and have prevented others going in who wanted to’. Their knowledge was a block to their own learning and to other people learning too. The gospel reading is reminding us that when it comes to the ways of God we all need to be very humble, recognizing that we are always learners. Just a few chapters before this passage Jesus bless God for ‘hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children’. Before God we all need to recognize our status as ‘children’, as people at the beginning of a journey. We come before God acknowledging how little we know, because it is always the case that his ways are not ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts, and his wisdom is never the wisdom of this age.

And/Or

(vi) Thursday, Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

At one point in this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus is very critical of the lawyers. The lawyer in the time of Jesus was the expert in religious law. He had made a special study of God’s law, both the written law in the Scriptures and also the oral law that had grown up around that written law and that sought to apply the written law to the changing circumstances of people’s daily lives. They lawyers were considered experts in the understanding of God’s will for people’s lives, as that will was expressed in God’s laws both written and oral. They had the potential to penetrate to the truth of what God wants of us. However, Jesus accuses them of failing in their task. Yes, they have the key of knowledge, the key that gives access to God’s truth for our lives, but they haven’t used this key to gain access to this truth for themselves, and more seriously they have become an obstacle to others gaining this truth. Jesus speaks here as the one who is himself the access to God’s truth, to God’s will for our lives. He is the door; he is the key to the door. In looking at what Jesus does and in listening to what he says we discover God’s truth. Elsewhere in the gospel Jesus declares that it is above all the wise and the intelligent, people like the experts in the Jewish law, who are failing to receive this revelation of God’s truth in Jesus, whereas, what he calls, ‘infants’ are doing so with ease. Perhaps the gospel reading is suggesting that sometimes learning and intelligence can be a block to faith, in so far as it makes us too sure of our own position. We need to bend low to receive God’s visitation in Jesus, to humble ourselves, to become like little children.

And/Or

(vii) Thursday, Twenty Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus criticizes the lawyers, the experts in Jewish religious law, for taking away the key of knowledge. Their study should have given them access to God’s truth and to the person of Jesus who was the full revelation of God’s truth. However, not only are they in the process of rejecting Jesus, they are also influencing others to do the same. In the words of the gospel reading, ‘they have not gone in themselves and have prevented others going in who wanted to’. Jesus was always very critical of those who were an obstacle to other people coming to faith in him, who prevented others from coming to discover him as God’s truth for themselves. If, like the lawyers, we do not go in ourselves, if we are not trying to come to Jesus ourselves, then we will not be able to lead others to Jesus and may well find ourselves preventing others from coming to him. The reverse is also true. As we grow in our relationship with Jesus, we make it easier for others to do the same. We have an influence on each other’s faith, in one direction or another. If we are trying to grow in our faith, we won’t necessarily lead others to the Lord. However, if our faith is growing ever weaker, we certainly won’t lead others to the Lord. Our primary responsibility is to go in ourselves, in the language of the gospel reading. Having done so, we can be sure that the Lord will find a way to work through us to touch the lives of others.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

[abyssalpriest]

Selkie, 24/9/23

Lying in bed post-meditation with Lev, a mouse sounds from under my bed. As much as it is to be expected in an old house in Ireland I haven't had mice in this room in ages. It's loud, biting, gnawing; desperate teeth scrape louder than the whips of the Irish flag in curling Irish wind outside my window. Scraping. Tearing. What's under there? Under where we're laying, right behind me, what is that? Old keepsakes: Photos, toys, memorabilia... "Keepsake" implies pleasure but it's more a ghost, a haunting of guilt, I'm so tired of all the things that are in there. They bite my flesh with pangs of forced identification and puppet around the corpse of a self that I just can't lay to rest. I always dream of school, a place I don't remember, and I refuse to throw out these things trying to rebirth them under a guise of nostalgia because "One day it will click, Dei, one day you'll get it, one day you'll identify with these and that returning self will hate you for destroying all it has tying it to this world." I hate myself now, there is no "one day". This is a puppet of my own creation, I am the one desecrating the corpse of a child by stringing it up in unrecognised webbing and opening and shutting its mouth to make it tell me it hates me, that I'm a disgrace, that it is the "true" me to which I am an imposter.

The rebirth cannot be externalised, it cannot be in a puppet. Eat, mouse. I'm tired of tying myself to an obligation of others. Tired of the angsty angry teenager I used to be waiting for their heart to be judged against a feather by hands that have already firmly and lovingly greeted me. I attend the Otherside already, my judgement-before-entry came stamped by birthright. I've lived a life where I've wanted to die for what's now approaching more years than I've lived not suicidal, and I've been afraid to die the entire time. Ghosting death itself. I'm my own 'corpse' shoved under my own bed, terrified of what my hands are done - but I am not dead under there, suffering, bleeding out, concussed, beaten, bruised, abused, maimed, screaming with no vocal chords to my current self to just finish the job but I am a coward. So happy to flirt with death, never brave enough to be executioner. What will happen to my body when I go? At one point in my life my hope for post-death treatment would be to have my corpse thrown into water to be eaten by fish, but I never embraced it. A Wednesday I was going to kill myself in school if something happened, if not I wouldn't. That river I was going to throw myself into haunts me, snakes under my bed, incessant cold of its scales running down my back.

Lev, take me, drag me, to the airport - no, not good enough. The need to "go", the need to walk to somewhere else, is not satiated by staying on this plane where all is monotonous lectures from a monotonous teacher grating across monotonous life goals and lack of vision. Nothing here snakes with me. God, this plane is so restricting, like a latex bodysuit bought for Mother Earth by her lover, the Polar Sky Kings: beautiful in its synonymity with the obsidian mirror - causing virulent visions in each of her writhing movements - but so restrictive. Fun until the claustrophobia knocks on the door of comfort like a clock striking 13.

The mouse again claws in my room but it sounds like it's at my door. Tired. Restrained. This is a fun game, to tie myself up and wear the suit, to play the Shakti role, to house... But the illusion becomes suffocating. Where am I housed when all I house is other people? Where am I?

Gnawing under my bed, there is no mouse, there is Shiva in the form of one; there is no I, there is Shiva in the form of me. I then in myriad forms scrape and scrape and scrape and chew and bite and salivate and grasp and grope at decade-old photographs, toys. Meaningless to me, for my mouse mouth cannot speak English, meaningless to me as my innumerable bred mouse children will die before a human child begins playing with such things. Meaningless colours, meaningless handwriting, meaningless red threads of fate, just the sensory satisfaction of plastic and fibres and chewy regurgitated trees made in territories bigger than mine for purposes I'll never get -

Leviathan is by my door behind me, a haunting, feet-less silhouette of black, his hat clear in its form but its body like a lava lamp exploring and therefore detaching off into nothingness, uncontained by a glass vase and instead by the glass of the firmament dome. A hat on... The need to leave. Ready to. Shiva the visitor, the transient guest. The need to explore, to know. The need to become the self. In one form as universal Shiva I am stuck on a pillar in the frothing ocean dragging the cosmic weight of my scaled, fishlike, snakelike tail of a bottom half to the surface. I hold on with incapable human nails, and I realise I'm struggling not against the storm but against myself: the stormy sea is writhing and frothing with anger with me, swaying with my unaccomplishment and inability to hold on stably. I'm so long, the more I look back the more I see my tail must be fifty times my length and I'm... Why am I questioning how long I must be. Surely I can feel its entire length...

The answer I don't want is to be told I'm fine here. I am strong here, but I am not deluded as to my state. I'm haunted by being a child dying, rotting, haunted by scraping my throat with words I don't want to be speaking about how I'm hallucinating, no one listens. They tell me I may have anxiety. They don't hear my mind cracking and breaking. I tell them I am losing my mind, that I am seeing things, that I am hearing things, that I am out of reality, they tell me everyone is anxious. I cry and cry for years and years at people I labelled parents that I'm suicidal and having psychotic symptoms - without the word "psychotic", I'm told by my communities I don't have enough issues to dare use that word - and I get told I'm fine, that what is asked of me isn't much, it's laziness if anything. I'm fine. We all have to deal with what I go through. I get told 1000 times that what I experience isn't real, the 1001st time will not be me. I will not say that to myself again.

The world is a spiralling mess. I am eyes. I am the gliding bird over the top of reality woven into the firmament paradox that watches, I am the bird that has raised in vision this human race from its conception, I am the rolling clouds of the Storms, I weave with the Sky Fathers. I do not hate to be normal, I hate that all my abnormalities that I slide through like mothering ocean water are condemned as unnecessary fiction. Rise on to the pillar and stay there? Deal with it? No. It is my choice to make. To be seen and unseen, to be the perceiver. You cannot see into my retina, the shadowed place where all light falls. 

This is not a suicide note, this is an obituary to my skin before I peel it off.

#ramblings // #Priest // #visions // #emphasis on that last part lmfao im talking about dying bc i want to fucking kill the false self and kill my obligation and kill the image #of who i used to be because im Transitory and Deluded. im sick of being my own doubter. I know what im doing

[ansu-gurleht]

My source was originally from some friends who are into the deep lore. When I researched further, I found an MK quote:

"A single Wheel? More like a Telescope that stretches all the way back to the Eye of the Anui-El, with Padomaics innumerable along its infinite walls." -Michael Kirkbride

As well as another quote from an NPC in ESO:

"The Aetherius is simply the first layer. I have seen outside the Aetherius." -Lilatha

All of this seems to imply the existence of wheels beyond the wheel of Aetherius, but to what extent I don't know.

so as a general rule, i don't consider most of what kirkbride wrote outside of the games as canon. not hard-and-fast, but general. this, at first glance, seems like one of those quotes i would disregard in such fashion.

HOWEVER, upon closer inspection, i think it's somewhat interesting, and in line with how i understand the deeplore, actually. let me try to explain:

The Wheel as described by vivec is The Wheel, definitely. it's the one that matters most, because it's the one that's easiest to look outside of and see sideways as The Tower. but before that were other wheels. those wheels, more or less, are the et'ada - serpents eating their own tail, narratives that begin where they end. this was lorkhan's criticism of pre-mundus existence: it was too self-referential, too self-contained. it had no way out of its own loops. lorkhan wanted to give the serpent something to eat OTHER than its own tail, and thus conspired to create the mundus, a Wheel that contains all wheels while at the same time not being bound by them.

it's interesting that kirkbride says the wheels go "all the way back to the Eye of the Anui-El." as we know, anu is the "soul" of anui-el - therefore also its "eye", perhaps. anu is the "dreamer," a.k.a. the first being, the "I" before all "I"'s. therefore, anu is the first wheel. but anu is not The Wheel. mundus (nirn + oblivion + aetherius) is The Wheel. anu kind of just makes the way for The Wheel to come about, clearing out conceptual (and literal) space in the void for The Wheel to occupy.

now, there's a few ways to interpret "wheels beyond aetherius" i think. first is to somehow conceptualize the void beyond aetherius as a wheel, which i think is not quite apt. the void is existence without a wheel, without any kind of conceptual structure at all.

the other two ways are related to kalpas. there are two ways, i think, to understand kalpas, the former of which i do not agree with, but the latter i do. the first way is that kalpas are what they say on the tin: life-cycles of existence. note: cycles. they are each a wheel, and within themselves they are The Wheel. they are aeons that literally pass through time, each kalpa beginning and ending as you would expect.

however, i like to view kalpas as wheels separate but in a sense coexistent with each other. outside of wheels/kalpas time is meaningless, so one could say each kalpa happens at the same time as every other. so, for example, lyg happens at the same time as mundus, but exists almost completely separately from it. (sudden thought: is lyg more equivalent to "nirn" or to "mundus"? is lyg part of a greater "mundus" as well? i digress.)

i think, however, that mundus is a kalpa with utmost importance compared to the ones "previous." (quotes bc, as i said, "time" as we know it lacks meaning outside of kalpas.) it is an amalgam of other kalpas, a kind of throwing things at the wall to see what sticks - a melting pot of different world-concepts. it is, according to lorkhan's vision, the ultimate kalpa, the one that will really set everyone free this time, whereas most previous kalpas were about control and imprisonment.

that's my understanding of these concepts. i'm not up-to-date on all the overly-intricate and kirkbride-centric theories that no doubt are commonplace in places like r/teslore. but this is the understanding i've come to over my years of research and thought

#thank you for your questions! i love talking about this stuff #and i rarely get the opportunity to anymore #tes #tesblr #teslore

[insomniacsvirtualobservatory]

The Masks We Take Off

The night of the banquet is at hand and Vasco and Ira are stressed beyond belief. How do the two of them deal with their anxiety before the potentially life changing duet they are to perform?

This is the part two of The Masks We Wear

Google Doc Link

There is a song to listen to with this one!

Content warnings: Implied Dubcon/sexual activity [Both characters are adults], implied homophobia(?)

The banquet was in full swing, musicians rousing the band into a lovely chorus, overlaid by the susurration of murmurs drawn by the crowd of nobles walking jauntily around the grand ballroom.

Everyone dressed to the nines in an array of colors from deep rich blues and violets to stark white and gold in every shade and hue, in rare form even Corvo dressed for the occasion (though it’s still in his signature midnight blue, so dark it's nearly black and of course specially tailored for innumerable hidden pockets for stowing away his sword and other useful tools that come in the territory of being Lord Protector and Spymaster).

Vasco’s leg bounces nervously as he fusses with his cufflinks, thinking himself to look utterly foolish, (despite the painfully obvious looks he’s receiving from young women and men alike in the crowd). His hair half tied back frames his face in a way that Emily finds slightly reminiscent of Corvo, back during those horrible six months- though notably less disheveled and not soaked with freezing rain and river water. Sweat maybe, which is apparent by his constant loosening of his collar and fanning himself with a hand.

She stepped up beside him, and in that special way sisters could, spoke to him out of the corner of her mouth, “Vasco if you keep worrying yourself over nothing you’re going to give yourself a stomach ache, relax! You look fine.”

“I don’t feel fine! I feel like a heretic in a church- which by the way is essentially what's happening! Why are there so many of them here?” He responds frantically in a clumsy approximation of a whisper.

Emily chuckles, giving him a pat on the small of his back, “Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen, and if something does you know Corvo will handle it. Besides it’s not as though you’ve never been to a dinner party before…”

Vasco turns towards her finally, nervous blue gray eyes meeting soft amber, “Yes but those were just- they were business meetings! I knew what to do at those- just stand there and look important and or menacing like father but here-?” He gestures to the room at large with a sweep of his arm, “I haven’t a clue what to do with myself until the duet- and oh Outsider’s eyes why do I have to do the duet?”

“I’m doing a WHAT?! With WHO!?” Vasco had stared at Emily incredulously with wide eyes, who in turn simply gave an exasperated chuckle.

“A duet with Vice Overseer Bolton! What's the matter? You act as though playing the piano with the man is like the end of the world! Don’t tell me you’ve already found a way to cause trouble for him-”

“No! No it's not that it's just-” the words catch in his throat at which he looks to Corvo for a life line who raises his brow as a silent way of saying ‘I’m not going to lie for you.’ a look that Vasco returns with a desperate one of his own which communicates ‘Well at least give me SOMETHING to say please!’

Corvo relents and moves his hands fluidly in response.

‘I believe the issue lies more in the fact that he’s concerned for our well being, considering our connections’ he states, tapping the back of his left hand which pointedly, (albeit covered by a crossing network of black silk belts and buckles up to his wrist), was where the Outsider’s mark resided.

Emily finds herself rubbing her thumb across her own left hand unconsciously, but she looks resolute.

“That’s precisely why you’re doing the duet instead of either of us, I don’t know about you but I can’t exactly play the piano with gloves on- and Corvo hasn’t played in years! And we don’t exactly have the time to give him a refresher, considering that the banquet is next week.”

“But why have the duet at all? Can’t it just be a dinner party where you shake hands with High Overseer Khulan and call it an evening?” Vasco belly aches, wringing his hands

“Because the entire point of the dinner in the first place is to strengthen the relationship with the Abbey, and although I would also rather avoid relations with them if possible, it doesn’t hurt to get on their good side so that in the event of a problem we aren’t the first they suspect.” she reasons, crossing her arms and tapping a foot

Yes but that isn’t the point… Vasco thinks hopelessly, but he nods finally without another word.

He’s up all night the next day, practicing in the music room at the grand piano, playing his part of the duet (a piece entitled “A Lighthouse in the Void” by an unnamed composer) until his fingers grew sore from the constant movement and even after.

Around two in the morning Corvo finds him there, slumped over the keyboard very softly snoring and drooling on the keys. He chuckles soundlessly and crosses the room to sit on the bench beside him, the old wooden seat creaking slightly which unfortunately wakes the poor man with a start, causing him to clamp down on the keys with a discordant and resonating clang of notes all rushed together.

“AH-! Where’s the fire?! Oh-! Da- Corvo it’s just you…” he clears his throat and straightens up resting his hands in his lap and looking sheepish.

“You can say ‘dad’ Vasco, I sent the guards away, it's just us…” Corvo intones, and at this Vasco visibly relaxes, shoulders untensing.

“I’m sorry…” he says, not looking at Corvo but instead becoming very interested in his knees.

When his father doesn’t respond Vasco elaborates, “For last night I mean…”

“You have nothing to apologize for, son, except for making me worry…” Corvo says softly, turning his head towards Vasco with a rarely seen tenderness.

The young man can feel his eyes prick with tears that he blinks away in a hurry, he’s not going to cry again- he refuses to cry again.

“So… Ira Bolton hmm?” Corvo offers a starting point for the conversation, Vasco groans and hides his face in his hands.

“It's not what you think dad we just… it's a- we only-” Vasco stumbles, grasping for an explanation, before weakly settling on, “A friends with benefits sort of situation…I suppose” it sounds like a lie to him but he wouldn’t even begin to figure out what to say as the truth if he had one.

“Well from what you said yesterday I don’t think it's just a ‘friends with benefits situation’ as you aptly put it.” Corvo wasn’t a fool, he knew the signs of young love when he saw it he should know really what with Jessamine, and Vasco and Emily were proof enough of that.

“Yes but it's-! It's complicated! I don’t even know why I said that to him at all but something just- something pushed it out and now I don’t even know if I meant it!” Vasco exclaims, running a hand through his hair and tugging at it in apparent dismay.

“I think the fact that you’re still thinking about it even now is proof enough that you did Vasco.” Corvo puts a hand on Vasco’s shoulder and turns on the bench to look him in the eye. Vasco attempts to hold the gaze but his eyes twitch every which way anxiously.

“But what if he doesn’t feel the same way- what if I said it wrong and he got the wrong impression?! At first it was just a transactional thing- I mean we'd- you know- and then I'd leave but lately it's been…different, he asked me to stay more than once now and sometimes instead of…you know- we'd just sit and talk and then he'll look at me like…" Vasco doesn't feel his face flush but Corvo can see the color come to his face all the same

Corvo stops him silently by taking his face in his hands and looking at him intently.

"The more you overthink it Vasco, the worse it's going to feel. Take a deep breath son…" he instructs

Vasco does as he's told, takes deep breaths and allows his anxiety to settle, he relaxes and finally looks Corvo in the eye.

Corvo finds the task difficult despite having years of practice, but he manages anyhow.

"No one, unless you're the Outsider, can see the future. You're worthy of love Vasco, and if this Ira Bolton isn't the one to give it to you then you'll have to make peace with it one way or another…" Corvo says, "I for one never thought that your mother would even consider me for my position, in fact there were several people in the empire who were all vying against me becoming Lord Protector at the time. I never imagined that she'd even look at me."

Corvo looks wistful, turning to look at the portrait of Jessamine that hangs on the wall of the music room, her soft gaze looking down into the room.

"But out of everyone, Vasco." he continues, "Out of every nobleman from Gristol that were hand picked by the Emperor himself as candidates your mother chose me, a rail thin boy from Serkonos who could barely speak and couldn't even look her in the eye when she spoke to me…"

Vasco's shoulders are already shaking as he tries not to cry, but Corvo already beats him to it, as silent tears run down his face. He looks away from the portrait and back at Vasco, his son.

"Sometimes people surprise you if you let them. Don't let yourself worry so much about the 'What if' that you fail to see what is…"

Vasco spots Corvo from across the ballroom and the two share a knowing nod.

That's when upon turning his head away from his father his eyes meet Ira's and time seems to freeze. The two of them stare at each other as if they were the only two people in this crowded space. Ira wears a rich red almost uniform suit, his hair slicked back and he's even sporting a pair of half-moon spectacles on golden chains.

To Vasco's gaze he's beautiful, and he can feel his face and the tips of his ears heat up as he blushes. Emily's speech is little more than background noise in this moment.

Ira looks at Vasco and something in him hungers, wants to stride across the room no matter who was in his way, grab the prince's face and kiss him right then and there.

There have been a lot of thoughts like this in his mind lately.

Ira curses as he hits a sour note on his violin and nearly throws the priceless instrument across the room, he's frustrated beyond belief and he's been trying to get this note right for hours, and by this point it was well into the late evening.

All he can think about is Vasco Attano. Vasco void-damned Attano and those words he had spoken that night.

'I wish I could stop hiding you…'

Someone knocks on the door to his study.

"Yes, who is it?" Ira snaps

"Erm, it's brother Harris sir, I heard you shout, is everything alright?" comes the nervous voice from outside

Ira hates that voice, every single word out of the man's mouth drew his ire in a way that he couldn't describe.

"I'm fine Harris…" an idea crosses his mind, "come in…"

Harris enters, just another overseer out of many.

"Yes sir? What seems to be the trouble?" he asks

"This piece is giving me some issues, I think I need to take a break." Ira says, very gingerly setting his violin back in it's case along with the bow.

"Ah I see! Well there is no shame in that brother, sometimes things are best done in moderation-"

Ira stops him by grabbing him roughly by the collar of his uniform's jacket, and shoving him against his desk, to which Harris gasps in response.

"I could use a distraction, brother Harris…do you think you could stand to provide me with that distraction?" he says lowly, leaning in close so say it in his ear.

Harris shivers breath muffled by his golden mask with its engraved grimace.

"Y-Yes sir-"

"Good, don't say a word, do you understand me?"

Harris nods.

"Good boy."

_____

After he forces Harris out of his study Ira feels nothing, in fact he even feels worse than before he had bent Harris over his desk and had- well it didn't matter now he just felt empty.

'I wish I didn't have to hide you.'

He grits his teeth and picks up his violin again staring at the sheet music to 'A Lighthouse in the Void' and begins to play the piece again, his mind on Vasco all the while.

About their times spent together- not even when they had sex but just when they sat in the same space and simply talked. When Vasco laughed- even when he just smiled…

He finds that, thinking back he loved to look at him, and he loved to listen to him speak and well…he-

Ira plays through the entire piece without stopping and when he's finished he realizes…

"Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you very much for attending this banquet, on behalf of myself as the empress of the empire, and on behalf of High overseer Yul Khulan!" Emily has taken the stage, where the musicians have cleared the space to make room for the large grand piano. The room erupts in polite applause.

Ira and Vasco stand beside each other, Ira holding the neck of his violin like a sword. Vasco looks straight ahead as if frozen on the spot, avoiding eye contact at all cost.

Emily's voice as she introduces the night's festivities isn't real in his ears; it instead sounds muddled and far away. Ira looks over at him and flashes him his signature fox tooth grin.

"I trust you've been practicing diligently?" he says in a whisper

"To be honest, yes, but more importantly I've been stressed out of my wits about this…" Vasco replies

Ira hums in response.

"Please welcome to the stage; Vice Overseer Ira Bolton, and Crown Prince Vasco Attano Kaldwin."

The crowd cheers as the two of them step up onto the stage, Vasco takes his place on the Piano bench as Ira positions himself to stand before a music stand. The lights dim and two spotlights click into life with a droning hum of electricity.

Vasco freezes.

Sitting at that bench his throat feels tight, his stomach a pit in which he feels he's going to fall into.

Then he catches Corvo's eye. The Lord Protector flashes a smile and gives him a slight nod from his place in the crowd. Emily looks on and clenches her fists, mouthing words of encouragement in silence- and finally Vasco looks at Ira.

The two of them lock eyes again.

Before the crown prince sighs a deep breath and begins to play.

And as he plays he remembers moments between himself and Ira during those long nights, their conversations, of his fox-like charm, and all the little things like the way his eyes looked almost red in certain light, the quirk of his brow that always made him look smug.

Ira's attention turns from the sheet music to Vasco as he drags the string of his violin's bow across the strings and realizes with some alarm that the prince is weeping. Very softly as he watched silent tears rolled down his face and onto the piano's keys.

His own heart clenches in his chest, but the two play on, and the duet is beautiful. The crowd watches with rapt attention and if they can see Vasco's tears or the look of nervousness on Ira's face they don't break the beautiful serenade to make comments about either.

At last the song is over and the two slowly lower their arms from their instruments and even before they can breathe a sigh of relief the entire crowd roars with a standing ovation, and looking at each other the two come to the wordless conclusion that a bow is in order.

Vasco stands from the piano bench and wipes at his eyes with the back of his hands, and crosses the stage to take hold of Ira's hand and the two dip in a bow. And after they rise from their bent position they don't let each other's hands go, and they laugh as they each exhale a shaky sigh of relief at a stressful job well done And they don't let each other's hands go.

And they keep not letting go.

"Vasco… Could we go and talk somewhere?" Ira asks in an uncharacteristically small sounding voice.

Vasco exhales and turns to face him, and then looks down at their hands, and back up at him.

"Yeah…"

And so the two exit the stage.

Several people in the crowd are quite confused at the strange display they've just seen, others namely Corvo (and finally at last Emily connects the dots about the situation and perhaps realizes the true reason behind Vasco's previous anxiety about the event) simply have a knowing look on their faces.

High Overseer Khulan wades through the crowd and attempts to locate Ira and question the man about his actions but neither he nor Vasco can be found within the ball room.

They're already out in the Dunwall Tower's gardens, hand in hand.

Without the masks they wear.

#typewriter.exe #ira bolton #vasco attano #dishonored #tw dubious consent

[acradelius]

Could we get Jonah smut headcanons? 👀

"Jonah~"

Fandom: Dead By Daylight

Character(s): Jonah Vasquez

Rating: Lemon [🟡] (NSFW!)

Warnings/Mention Ofs: Fluff, Implied Slice of Life Relationship, Foreplay, Hickeys, Marking, Switch! Jonah, Soft! Dom! Jonah, Blindfolding, Riding, Cum, Cum Ejaculation, Facial, Cum Swallowing, Aftercare

Word Count: 740 Words

Author's Note: Jonah would just be an ideal sweetheart when it comes to sex and romance.

Jonah’s quite the romantic type, especially at times when he knows that there’s a possibility or definite chance that sex is going to happen later on in the evening. He’ll spend the day absolutely spoiling his partner, doing things such as taking them to their favorite restaurants, taking them out shopping to their favorite shopping outlets or Jonah taking them by shopping outlets he thinks that they would enjoy. Finally, as it’s getting closer towards the evening, he’ll excuse himself for some time away from (Y/N), secretly sneaking back to whichever apartment to which was agreed to end the evening at, cooking up such a luxurious, candle-lit dinner complemented with some expensive, tasteful wine and soft, romance genre music. It’s definitely noted that it’s practically impossible to miss the innumerable amount of diverse rose petals covering the floor, Jonah having made a pathway to the bedroom and covering the bed with said rose petals. 

Definitely more of an individual to engage in some foreplay instead of jumping straight into the action of sex. He prefers to have some hands-on time with his partner, taking his time to undress them, hands trailing down his partner's curves and ghosting his fingers across any marks that his partner might have. If his hands aren’t doing enough, don’t worry. He’ll eventually get to the point of using his lips and teeth, sucking gently, but also with enough force, onto the skin to cause hickeys, and biting gentle enough to leave indentions into the skin but not harsh enough to draw blood. If that’s what his partner would prefer though, he’s not against it. Either way, he’s all for marking up his partner and encourages that they do the same to him if they’re comfortable with it. He’ll bare the marks with pride, and a blush spread across his face. 

Jonah’s not necessarily someone who prefers to be completely dominant or completely submissive. If anything, he’s most likely something considered a Switch, but plays more into being a soft Dom. He’s all for blind folding his partner, gently commanding them throughout the bedroom, but will never turn down the opportunity to be submissive to his partner, obeying their commands. In fact, he would also encourage this, and finds it quite arousing to do. While he’s all for any position that his partner is wanting to do, he’s more for positions that he’s able to maintain eye contact, being able to hold his partner’s hand, and positions that make it easy for him to be able to latch his lips and teeth onto their neck. You want to absolutely destroy this man in bed? Ride him. God forbid, it’s his absolute weakness in the bedroom. 

Will always ask his partner where they would prefer for him to cum, seeing as if protection or precautions aren’t being used, seeing that Jonah doesn’t want to put anyone into an unfortunate situation if it can be avoided. No matter where his partner says that they would like for him to cum, he tries his best not to make a complete mess with his cum if it’s on the outside of his partner’s body. Therefore, he enjoys ejaculating onto his partner’s stomach, chest, or even their thighs. Yet, if you want to go one step further to drive him much more crazy, making it almost a guarantee that he’ll cum again, allow Jonah to cum on the face or in the mouth, and swallowing his cum will drive him absolutely crazy. 

An absolute king whenever it comes to initiating and going forth with aftercare. After everything has been said and done, he will start to clean his partner, running them a warm bath paired with their favorite soaps, joining them in the process. He’ll then massage their now sore muscles, gently kissing at the marks that he had made, muttering that he didn’t mean to be too harsh upon his partner’s body and he’ll be more gentle with them next time if that’s what they would prefer. Hydration is definitely a must, as so is making sure that he has his partner’s favorite snacks as well just in case they end up hungry. Usually then the activity is that Jonah will turn on some sort of cheesy, sappy romance movie that he knows both him and his partner enjoy, or that they can just lay there and chat about anything and everything until they both end up falling asleep.

#jonah vasquez #dead by daylight #lemon rating #requests?! thank you<3

[waitingforsecretsouls]

Once you take a moment to look at Gothmogs actual battle record he’s kind of a flop, actually. Oh sure, he got two big names on his list, but looking at the actual circumstances:

1) Fëanor. Dude had been fighting (and eviscerating) Morgoths forces for ten days, and contrary to popular belief did not get ambushed by Balrogs (that’s what happened to Maedhros); but the fleeing remnants of said forces he was pursuing turned back around to fight him (seeing how he was separated from his main host by his pursuit) and were then reinforced by multiple Balrogs. He fights these combined forces for an unspecified but ‘long’ amount of time (’surrounded’ and with ‘few friends about him’), and it’s only then, and after he’s been ‘wrapped in fire and wounded wth many wounds’ that Gothmog gets in his big hit (it’s also unspecified whether Gothmog was among the Balrogs Fëanor was fighting the ‘long’ time or only approached bc he had to step in to bring an end to the fight. Given what happens with Fingon I’m inclined to go for the latter). Also beats a retreat as soon as the Sons of Fëanor catch up with reinforcements (not related to the point, but interesting to note how only the Balrogs are mentioned to retreat; so either the remnants of the lower servants of Morgoth already retreated while the Balrogs were occupying Fëanor, or they were all killed by Fëanor and his ‘few friends’ despite Balrog reinforcements).

2) Fingon. Had been fighting for five days  by the time Gothmog arrives to the battle, who forces aside Turgon and Hurin and surrounds Fingon (presumably with his Balrogs). It can be read as implied that he was the one to kill Fingons guard but Fingon himself is only killed in their duel when another Balrog comes up behind him and gets him with his fire-whip, which is then exploited by Gothmog. Is also the one to bind Hurin, but the main effort of that battle fell onto the Orcs who burried him with sheer numbers.

3) While the BoLT II has a bit more to offer, in the published Silmarillion version of the Fall of Gondolin all he’s noted for is getting killed by Ecthelion, apparently in a one-on-one duel (which none of his other notable opponents got the opportunity for), who’s pretty much a nobody in the wider war  (the only other battle he or any of the Gondolindrim would have participated in was the Nirnaeth. #NoHate but you won’t convince me that the people who spent the centuries of conflict only participating in one major (failed) offensive and a (failed) defense of their city were tougher opponents than those holding the Siege of Angband with its innumerable and constant skirmishes (especially on the marches); and regaining ground after the Bragollach). It also seems to have been a fairly short ‘siege’, unlike the numerous days of continuous battle of the Great Battles, meaning his opponents would have been less exhausted overall (though I admittedy could be wrong here, no expert on Gondolin stuff). Even consulting the version of the BoLT II doesn’t make him look any tougher: while Gothmog does get more to do in the actual battle, e.g. beating Tuor and injuring Ecthelion prior to their final clash, it also makes said battle even less impressive on his part, since Ecthelion is already grievously wounded and still manages to take him out.

Which is not even mentioning his nature as an Ainur and assured numerical superiority of Angband, which immediately makes everything related to combat prowess less impressive to me, admittedly.

#silm #Gothmog #sometimes you gotta bully the servants of Morgoth a bit they deserve it #if it weren't for Morgoths constant supply of new armies the story would go very differently but alas

[nebris]

George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

“It is a sign of the speed at which events are moving that Hurst and Blackett’s unexpurgated edition of Mein Kampf, published only a year ago, is edited from a pro-Hitler angle. The obvious intention of the translator’s preface and notes is to tone down the book’s ferocity and present Hitler in as kindly a light as possible. For at that date Hitler was still respectable. He had crushed the German labour movement, and for that the property-owning classes were willing to forgive him almost anything. Both Left and Right concurred in the very shallow notion that National Socialism was merely a version of Conservatism.

Then suddenly it turned out that Hitler was not respectable after all. As one result of this, Hurst and Blackett’s edition was reissued in a new jacket explaining that all profits would be devoted to the Red Cross. Nevertheless, simply on the internal evidence of Mein Kampf, it is difficult to believe that any real change has taken place in Hitler’s aims and opinions. When one compares his utterances of a year or so ago with those made fifteen years earlier, a thing that strikes one is the rigidity of his mind, the way in which his world-view doesn’t develop. It is the fixed vision of a monomaniac and not likely to be much affected by the temporary manoeuvres of power politics. Probably, in Hitler’s own mind, the Russo-German Pact represents no more than an alteration of time-table. The plan laid down in Mein Kampf was to smash Russia first, with the implied intention of smashing England afterwards. Now, as it has turned out, England has got to be dealt with first, because Russia was the more easily bribed of the two. But Russia’s turn will come when England is out of the picture—that, no doubt, is how Hitler sees it. Whether it will turn out that way is of course a different question.

Suppose that Hitler’s programme could be put into effect. What he envisages, a hundred years hence, is a continuous state of 250 million Germans with plenty of ‘living room’ (i.e. stretching to Afghanistan or thereabouts), a horrible brainless empire in which, essentially, nothing ever happens except the training of young men for war and the endless breeding of fresh cannon-fodder. How was it that he was able to put this monstrous vision across? It is easy to say that at one stage of his career he was financed by the heavy industrialists, who saw in him the man who would smash the Socialists and Communists. They would not have backed him, however, if he had not talked a great movement into existence already. Again, the situation in Germany, with its seven million unemployed, was obviously favourable for demagogues. But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches … The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs—and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.

Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’tonly want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.”

–George Orwell, The New English Weekly, March 21, 1940

[ternuphed]

Dear Paolo,

Paolo, As I read your letter many times over I arrived at the conclusion that my name, that sits addressed atop the first page, does not deserve to be there—for I am undeserving of the deep solicitude and affection that you are offering and I have been painfully and ungratefully denying. A fact that I am assured of is this: you are unquestionably deserving of answers to the questions that pervade your mind which I have troubled so. In hopes that I can formulate responses that are similarly assured, here is an insufficient persons’ attempt at a sufficient response.

Do I desire this love? What troubles me the most is the amount of time that I’ve been staring at that question as I sit, struggling to provide an answer. In ways I do, but in others I cannot. I am certain that I despise having to consider you as a stranger, as I care for you in ways that may be classified as above the usual friend—but even I am unsure of what that implies. I’m also certain that relationships are counterproductive for innumerable reasons. There is an assured place of love for you within my heart, yet I cannot classify that placement as romantic love—for that species of love is, to me, a love that must develop gradually, resembling a gentle and newborn dove growing into a beautiful and wholesome being. A clarification question for you in case I’m apprehending an incorrect perspective:

What are the specificities of the love that you so desire?

This brings me to your other question in regards to the flame: Would I rather see smoldering embers or some damp kiln? Do I have hope that your feelings will not change because if we are friends then I might come to consider you differently in time? My hopes are manifested your presumption, for I want to be friends with you in a way that won’t destroy your feelings—which I’ve come to understand is not a possibility for you. I would rather see a damp kiln, and watch it slowly reignite with a love of fellowship that we’d decide whether or not to build further. I, too, want to speak to you again and hear your voice. I wish the differences in our desires did not have to hinder our interactions in the way that they have been. But I respect your boundaries, so I dare not cross them. Though irrelevant, I want to give you a full and earnest apology for the pain I have caused you.

What happened at the intensive was a disaster, and I shouldn’t have pulled you into the mess that is me.

When my unruly thoughts remind me of it, I cringe at the way in which I treated you—for you acted in no such way as to deserve it. I had failed to consider the fact that you had just undergone emotional trauma as a result of leaving a family that you love so dearly, with a quiet and painful past that lingers to haunt you.

Lastly, please know that you deserve so much more than just me. I’m telling you now that you have incredible potential to attain seemingly unattainable goals on this physical plane—and you deserve someone lightyears better to accompany you on the unforgettable journey that is the future.

You are worthwhile. And you are more than enough.

Keona.

#letters #academic dishonesty for me to post this

[munimjiubwebs]

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[princeofgod-2021]

LIGHT OF LIFE 304

John 1:4

UNITY OF THE BODY 7 – SATAN’S FLAW (PRIDE) 2

Eph 4:2-3 ALWAYS BE HUMBEL AND GENTLE. Be patient with each other, MAKING ALLOWANCE FOR EACH OTHER’S FAULTS because of your love. MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO KEEP YOURSELVES UNITED, BINDING YOURSELVES TOGETHER WITH PEACE. GW

By God’s grace, I’ve been trying to show you from scriptures that satan’s real war in heaven was not directed against God – which was utterly senseless – but against God’s Unified Church, which had just been born through the resurrection of Jesus from death. You must remember that he killed Jesus “the Son of Man”, thinking that would end or at least, disrupt God’s programme of redemption for Humanity.

1Co 2:7-8 We speak of God's hidden and mysterious wisdom that God decided to use for our glory long before the world began. THE RULERS OF THIS WORLD DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS WISDOM. IF THEY HAD KNOWN ABOUT IT, THEY WOULD NOT HAVE NAILED THE GLORIOUS LORD TO A CROSS. CEV

So, with satan’s mistake, he lost the key to hell, implying that he couldn’t prevent the resurrection of Redeemed Men, who would make up the Church and must follow Jesus, the Firstborn from death.

Heb 12:22-23 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND CHURCH OF THE FIRST-BORN WHO ARE WRITTEN IN HEAVEN, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, MKJV

satan's passion to scatter God’s plan started from creation of Humanity, in the garden of Eden, where he tempted Eve and made them eat the forbidden fruit.

Right then, disunity evolved between the couple.

Gen 3:12 The man said, “THE WOMAN WHOM YOU GAVE ME, SHE GAVE ME SOME FRUIT FROM THE TREE AND I ATE IT.” NET

One other secret you need to know is that the Fruit of knowledge, which they ate, aside from influence Mr. Flesh, also had the side-effect of producing Pride and arrogance in Man, which is satan’s pitfall.

1Co 8:1 Now, concerning what you wrote about food offered to idols. IT IS TRUE, OF COURSE, THAT "ALL OF US HAVE KNOWLEDGE," AS THEY SAY. SUCH KNOWLEDGE, HOWEVER, PUFFS A PERSON UP WITH PRIDE; BUT LOVE BUILDS UP. GNB

That impact played out when Cain killed his brother Abel. A sense of competition started within man.

Gen 4:4-5,8 Abel also brought some choice parts of the firstborn animals from his flock. THE LORD APPROVED OF ABEL AND HIS OFFERING, BUT HE DIDN'T APPROVE OF CAIN AND HIS OFFERING. SO CAIN BECAME VERY ANGRY AND WAS DISAPPOINTED…Cain talked to his brother Abel. Later, when they were in the fields, CAIN ATTACKED HIS BROTHER ABEL AND KILLED HIM. GW

You must also notice something, beloved: each time satan’s plot against man succeeded, man received sentences similar to satan’s.

Banishment is one major sentence; first with Adam and Eve from Eden.

Gen 3:23-24 SO THE LORD GOD FORCED THE MAN OUT OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN TO WORK THE GROUND HE WAS MADE FROM. God forced the man to leave the garden. THEN HE PUT CHERUB ANGELS AND A SWORD OF FIRE AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE GARDEN TO PROTECT IT. The sword flashed around and around, guarding the way to the tree of life. BBE

Then with Cain, after he killed his brother Abel.

Gen 4:11-12 SO NOW, YOU ARE BANISHED FROM THE GROUND, WHICH HAS OPENED ITS MOUTH TO RECEIVE YOUR BROTHER’S BLOOD FROM YOUR HAND. When you try to cultivate the ground it will no longer yield its best for you. YOU WILL BE A HOMELESS WANDERER ON THE EARTH.” NET

Banishment was what happened to licentious angelic beings who came down to copulate with humans in Gen 6:2-4.

They must have taken on human forms and probably wanted some “fun”.

Jud 1:6 And REMEMBER THE ANGELS WHO LOST THEIR AUTHORITY TO RULE. THEY LEFT THEIR PROPER HOME. SO THE LORD HAS KEPT THEM IN DARKNESS, bound with everlasting chains, to be judged on the great day. ERV

Then with satan and his demonic cohorts. It’s satan’s pleasure to see us suffer what he suffered.

Rev 12:8-9 But the dragon lost the battle. IT AND ITS ANGELS WERE FORCED OUT OF THEIR PLACES IN HEAVEN AND WERE THROWN DOWN TO THE EARTH. Yes, that old snake and his angels were THROWN OUT OF HEAVEN! That snake, who fools everyone on earth, is known as the devil and Satan. CEV

So satan has enjoyed his manipulation of Men from Adam’s fall till Jesus Christ and the Church came up.

2Ti 2:25-26 Then with meekness you’ll be able to carefully enlighten those who argue with you so they can see God’s gracious gift of repentance and be brought to the truth. THIS WILL CAUSE THEM TO REDISCOVER THEMSELVES AND ESCAPE FROM THE SNARE OF SATAN WHO CAUGHT THEM IN HIS TRAP SO THAT THEY WOULD CARRY OUT HIS PURPOSES. TPT

Now the Church becomes the one Instrument that returns men back to God and the Army that will destroy the devil’s kingdom.

That was why satan wanted to “devour” the Church as soon as it is born (as a Baby).

As you saw from scriptures: it wasn’t the Child that fought but Angels defended “it”.

Rev 12:7 THEN WAR BROKE OUT IN HEAVEN. MICHAEL AND HIS ANGELS FOUGHT AGAINST THE DRAGON, who fought back with his angels; GNB

We must know however, that satanic battles still rages on against the Church till the end of time.

Rev 12:17 And the dragon was angry with the woman and went away to make war on THE REST OF HER SEED, WHO KEEP THE ORDERS OF GOD, AND THE WITNESS OF JESUS: BBE

Because the strength of the Church is Love and Unity, too many infiltrators have been posted to Churches to try and ensure that we never have one voice or work together without divisive sentiments.

Gal 2:4 and that was because of FALSE BROTHERS SECRETLY BROUGHT IN (WHO SLIPPED IN TO SPY OUT OUR FREEDOM WHICH WE HAVE IN CHRIST JESUS, SO THAT THEY MIGHT REDUCE US TO SLAVERY), EMTV

They can’t stop the Church and they won’t break us up, in Jesus name.

Join us on Monday for more digging in as we proceed with this enlightening subtopic.

Keep Shinning!

Brother Prince

Friday, January 20, 2022

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Three Mistakes To Keep Away From When Buying Used Louis Vuitton Purses

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