#it's not even that he hates the creators so it's different cause I hate Adam so like

[scoliosisgoblin]

gyat damn it dude, I joking called my friend's drawing Peter (cause he had a round head) and bro said he was gonna play me a video going over the allegations of Fuboo and her fucked up husband????

#I DON'T associate with the creators and I DON'T value them as people #I just like the characters tbh. and a lot of the community #and why does it even fucking matter that much that I called him Peter??? HE LITERALLY ALWAYS CALLS MY HUMAN YB ADAM SANDLER #it's not even that he hates the creators so it's different cause I hate Adam so like #plus I gotta be cool with it whenever he jokes about that stuff but won't be cool with my teasing? #so annoying dude. what's the point even #idk. my yb is so far from the source material that I don't even count him as apart of the universe that much anymore #I won't call him my oc really but he's so far from the yb we have now that he might as well should be called that #but idk. maybe I'm being too silly #personal #vent post

[scekrex]

Would you write for fallen angel Adam? Like readers a sinner and is reassuring Adam that he's still fine af as a demon, he's constantly defending Adam because that's his boo, like fighting for his life levels of 'hear me out' because everyone at the hotel genuinely thinks he's nuts for dating Adam (Charlie you don't understand, the dick is GOOD)

Stick It To The (Wo)Man

pairing: Adam x male!reader

warnings: language

note: not beta read bc fuck you I don't have beta readers

Ever since Adam had arrived in hell, things were different. Not only between you and him, but also between you and… well pretty much everybody.

When Adam had arrived at the hotel, he had been furious, because how was it possible for the first man, the og dick, the creator of all mankind after Eve to end up in hell? There was simply no fucking way. And yet there he was, sitting on the couch in the lobby, playing on his guitar. With a sigh he dropped his guitar onto his stomach and laid down, his hands supporting his head from behind. Things were so different, so ew. Charlie was constantly glued to his ass to make sure he was attending to group exercises, Angel was getting on his nerves ever since the porn demon had figured out he was fucking you - dating you even and Vaggie, well she hated his guts.

The fallen angel looked up when steps on the stairs echoed through the empty lobby and his mood brightened at least a little at the sight of your face. “Sup babes,” he lazily smiled at you as he put his guitar on the floor. “Sup Dickmaster,” you grinned at him in return. You sat down on the armrest of the couch, Adam was quick to lift his head in order to rest it on your lap. Your hand softly stroked through his hair. How early was it? You weren't sure, it was - however - way too fucking early to be awake. But Adam's missing warmth had caused you to get up and look for him because whenever the first man left your shared bed early, he wasn't doing well. “How fucked are we?” you asked and Adam's golden eyes shot up to look at you, a dead serious expression on his face. “Fucked babes, completely up the ass without any mercy or preparation,” he answered your question and his eyes moved from yours to the roof. What had he done wrong to deserve this? The brunette didn't know.

“Like who the fuck will take me serious in heaven with these fucking horns, a motherfucking tail and in God's mighty name claws. They'll laugh at me, fuck, they're probably laughing right now,” the last sentence was nothing more than a whimper. You grabbed a fistful of Adam's hair and pulled on it, the first man yelped in pain as you brought his face close to yours, “You hate all these features and yet they make you look so fucking hot.” Adam's tail flicked to slightly slap you on the forehead and you smirked at that as you let go of his hair, “See, that's what I'm talking about. Your angelself could've never.” Well yeah, Adam guessed you had a point with that. Instead of slapping you again, the fallen angel used the sharp tip of his tail to tickle your nose, earning himself a soft and warm sounding chuckle. He liked to see you happy, especially because hell was depressing as fuck. “Still a fucking hottie,” you hummed as your thumb softly hovered over Adam's bottom lip, playfully the taller man wrapped his lips around your finger before you were able to pull back and shot you a wicked grin.

“Fucking go to your room,” Husk grumbled as he walked past the both of you, Adam shot the winged cat a venomous look but you simply patted his chest softly, a sign that you would handle the situation. “What crawled up your ass?” you asked with an raised eyebrow and Husk turned around to eye you, then Adam. His eyes were filled with disgust and hatred, “His existence in this fucking hotel.” That was something you wouldn't let slide.

When Adam had been an angel, before he had fallen, he never cared for sinners, if he would've found you during extermination day, he would have killed you like he did with the rest. But you were always able to look past his facade, you had been able to tell the difference between an act and real emotions. And then he fell. He fell and you took him under your wing, guided him to the hotel and gave him new self esteem.

“The fuck's your problem man, everyone deserves redemption, Adam's no expectation,” you raised your voice a little which made Adam's attention shift yet again, his focus was on you and only you. Because while the fallen angel was very much able to stick it to the man himself, he loved to watch you when you got all worked up because someone was trash talking Adam. “Yeah right, after killing thousands of us, he sure does,” Husk bit back sarcastically and rolled his eyes as he was about to turn around again. But in your book, he wasn't clean yet. “Honestly? Fuck you Husk. We've all made mistakes, no fucking matter if it was as a human or a sinner. Angels make fucking mistakes too,” Adam wanted to disagree, wanted to put his finger on your lips to silence you and clarify that he had never made a mistake in his fucking life. But apparently that had been a lie anyways, so there was no point for him to interrupt. “He made mistakes but he's here now to get better so up your fucking ass, I hope you choke on your motherfucking bitterness,” you flipped the gambler off. He could suck your fucking dick.

And then Charlie entered the scene. Her face scrunched up as she saw the both of you on the couch. It wasn't that he had a problem with you and Adam being a couple in general, but she was worried. The devil's daughter was also convinced that you could do better than Adam and even if that was true - which you highly doubted - you didn't want better. You wanted Adam, with all his stupidity and imperfections. “Hey guys,” the princess of hell greeted those who were awake already. Adam raised his hand and hummed tiredly while you petted his hair and gave her a nod. Husk didn't respond at all.

“Before you say anything,” you stopped the princess as she was trying to make an announcement, “We’re not in.” Charlie's smile fell from her face and she looked… sad? Disappointed? Worried? Maybe all of it. “Babes isn't feeling well and we'll take today off to fix that,” the brunette closed his eyes as he leaned into your soft touch, agreeing with a quiet, “What shawty said.” Charlie visibly cringed at the pet names and mumbled quietly to herself, “You could do so much better, Y/N.”

However, her words had been loud enough for Adam and you to hear. Adam's eyes watched your every movement, fascination was visible in them as he drank in the emotions that were on display. “You can go fuck yourself too, Charlie. It's not your fucking position to decide what's good for me ‘n’ what's not. You don't like Adam? Fucking fine. But shut your fucking mouth and keep those thoughts to yourself,” Adam's hand reached up to caress your cheek in order to calm you down and even though you didn't quite know why, it helped. “I don't fucking like Vaggie but do you hear me bitching about her being your girlfriend? Fuck nah, because it's not my goddamn position,” while Adam's touch helped, it didn't turn your emotions off and while there were only a few things you truly hated, everyone being a fucking cunt towards your boyfriend was the one thing you hated most. “I love this fuckhead and he loves me, we're happy. The rest is none of your fucking business,” you turned around to point at Husk who had been watching the scenario with curious ears and eyes. “The same goes for you, mind your own fucking business and leave us fucking be,” the brunette's hand tilted your head to look down at him, a proud smirk was on his lips as he lifted himself up slightly and pulled your face down at the same time to place a soft kiss on your lips. “Fucking love it when you stand your ground, babes,” he hummed against your lips, the others were long forgotten as you leaned in to kiss the fallen angel yet again.

Angel stumbled down the stairs and whistled at the sight of you and Adam kissing, “Fucking hot,” the porn actor commented. Once the kiss had ended you turned towards Charlie while pointing at Angel, “See? He's a bitch but at least he's supportive.” Angel simply shrugged as he sat down at the bar to have a chat with Husk, “Y’know, I can't hate on love darlin’.”

It made Adam feel a little better to know that you were there for him, that - no matter what - he could count on you. And he loved you for that.

“Besides,” Adam peeked up as you raised your voice again, sounding quite proud, “The og dick is fucking fantastic, so you go fuck Vaggie 'n' I'll continue to enjoy getting dicked down.” Charlie's cheeks turned bright red as she turned on her heels and left the lobby with a quiet, “Too much information.”

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel adam #adam x male reader #male reader #adam x y/n #adam x reader #adam x you

[dreamcaught]

There have been so many of these posts, and what looks like an entire website pretty much dedicated to this topic, but nevertheless here I am adding to the mix.

Thoughts on Buffy Season 6, Sex and Seeing Red

This is long and only kind of edited. Content warning below.

CW: Discussions of abuse, addiction, and rape.

Let me just start out by saying: Spike is my favourite character in Buffy. I love him completely. He is contrary and interesting and if there is anything I would do to improve the show it would be to add more scenes with Spike. But, unlike a lot of Spike girlies – and especially many of my favourite fanon creators – I don’t think Spike is out-of-character in Seeing Red. There are some serious problems with it, but I think it’s an important scene.

My reason for saying this comes from the claim that Buffy and Willow are the main villains this season. Well, no, to be fair: in season 6, the main villains of the show are the internal villains within the characters, specifically Buffy and Willow, expressed through their actions of addiction and abuse. The Trio is a red herring Big Bad; they’re pretty much just there to provide laughs and move plot. They’re not like the Master, or Angelus, or Adam, or Glory – there isn’t ever a “gather the troops, we’ve got an apocalypse on our hands” attitude toward defeating them… because they’re just human people, making human mistakes and causing human havoc. (Much like how Buffy and Willow would be if they weren’t already saturated in the supernatural.)

Buffy and Willow’s stories run parallel in this season. They are both dealing with the aftermath of Buffy’s resurrection: Buffy is majorly depressed to the point that she feels essentially soulless, whereas Willow is guilty to such degree that the only way she knows how to cope with herself is through control and the overuse of magic.

Tangent about Sex Because That’s How I Roll:

Before we go further to discuss this, just, briefly, let’s take note that this show does not do justice to sex. In both cases, Buffy and Willow’s “addiction” is to, essentially, use sex like a drug to (sort of) feel, but more accurately numb themselves. Buffy’s use of Spike is blatant, but we must remember that Willow and Tara’s first prominent romantic/sexual connections were initially all linked to their use of magic.

It’s made clear that this idea of magic = sex between the two is continued even in season 6, as exemplified in the Once More with Feeling song Under Your Spell lines: “You make me complete,” which are cut off at the most deliciously appropriate time – and if you haven’t noticed that until I’ve pointed it out here, then well done, you!

Here there is a bit of a problem I have with the show’s messaging because it’s essentially saying that sex is bad. Tara asks Willow to stop using magic (yikes, imagine asking your lover to please stop sexing so much, babe, it’s bad for you) – and at the same time, in the parallel story, Buffy feels the need to hide her sexual tryst with Spike because it’s wrong to want to feel good.

I think it’s important to note that Buffy isn’t really upset about it being Spike, specifically. She makes a big deal of saying that he’s “everything she’s supposed to hate” and “soulless” and “evil,” but Buffy had every opportunity to have this affair with literally anyone else – in fact, she could have very easily gotten her rocks off with a different, random person every night, but chooses to use Spike. And here we can move back to the main points –

Miscommunication

Buffy and Spike’s relationship is abusive, but hardly for the reasons they make it appear on the show. At this point, Spike is a soulless demon. That he doesn’t just kill her as soon as he realizes that he can hurt her is a testament to how much he loves her, despite this. But, because he is a soulless demon, he does try to take advantage of Buffy’s attention to him by trying to convince her that she should be with him. He plays on her fears of being soulless/evil/demonic. Other than trying to persuade her to stay with him, this is the full extent of Spike’s abuse of Buffy.

At no point in their physical relationship does Spike ever abuse Buffy’s consent.

Between Spike and Buffy is a travesty of miscommunication. Need I say again: Spike is a soulless demon. From the moment he realizes his feelings toward Buffy, he is constantly trying to figure out what she needs from him, because he simply does not understand. (“What’s it take?”) He actively tries to learn what Buffy wants and how to respond to her desires. From their passionate kiss in Once More with Feeling: “The day you suss out what you do want, there'll probably be a parade,” to literally his last lines of the show, “No, you don’t,” Buffy and Spike’s communication is the worst!

And this is all Buffy’s fault, by the way! She absolutely, stubbornly, resolutely refuses to talk – to most people! It’s practically a miracle that Spike understands Buffy at all – and to that end, I truly, fully, completely believe that Spike is the best partner for Buffy, simply because he’s the only one who does.

Their first time together, Buffy is verbally telling him it’s never going to happen while at the same time ripping off his clothes. At nearly every encounter between them during their affair, Buffy says it will never happen again, it will be the last time, it was the worst thing ever. These are outright lies, and Spike learns through conditioning to see right through them. When she says “Stop,” he doesn’t have to stop – because that is not what she means. He learns through the complicated, complex, contrary Buffy Talk what she actually wants and then proceeds to give it to her.

Up to Seeing Red, Buffy’s consent has always sounded like: “No.”

Buffy the Villain

Buffy has chosen Spike as her lover because he already loves her. He is emotionally invested in their relationship. He takes care of her. (“I can get money.”) She can be herself with him. (“I can be alone with you here.”) She is safe with him. (“Dawn is safe with Spike, so I can stay as long as you need.”)

During their affair, Buffy takes everything that she’s feeling about herself out on Spike. She calls him soulless, she calls him nothing, she says he’s empty; she beats him up, she kicks him out, she refuses his affection and forces him to hide his own. Spike takes it because he is loyal and in love with her, and this is the extent that Buffy abuses him. She conditions him to think that she can’t love him, she conditions him to think that saying “No” means “Yes,” she conditions him to think that her abuse of him is kinky and will lead to sex.

Buffy’s goal is only to feel something. She wants Spike to take advantage because it makes things a lot easier for her to deal with. If she says “No,” that means that she’s tried to stop him, despite it not being what she really wants or expects of him.

Because of this abuse, in a very real way, Buffy is the one who destroys the safety that Spike represented. Her abuse of him corrodes their trust, but she doesn’t know that. Buffy, despite denying it or acknowledging it, still believes in Spike’s loyalty. And not only that – by this point, Buffy has fallen in love with him. The bathroom scene in Seeing Red happens, in part, because she’s pushed Spike too far – and she’s not ready to admit to anything, because she refuses to acknowledge that she was an abuser.

The events of Seeing Red are the culmination of Buffy’s actions with the complete absence of honest communication. It is because she tells Spike to move on that he sleeps with Anya. It is because she expected his loyalty that Dawn talks to Spike. It’s because she trained Spike to do the opposite of what she says that he tries to connect with her physically to make her happy.

It is because she refuses to acknowledge not only her abuse of him, but also her love for him, that he chooses to show her instead. Because Buffy doesn’t talk – she only acts, and that’s what Spike tries to do, in the way that she taught him – from the start of their affair to the explicit events in Gone, all the way to this scene, Buffy has told Spike that sex is how to get close to her.

The Bathroom Scene

A lot of people have been traumatized by this scene. It is very difficult to watch, since we’ve got these two beautifully complicated people trying so hard to communicate and failing so badly at it. Buffy, finally, is saying what she means, but Spike can’t hear it. Spike is, as he’s been taught to do, servicing her to show her his devotion. These two people are in love with each other but are deeply hurt. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Buffy is hurt by Spike’s actions while he’s hurt by her words, since these are the languages they understand.

If done well, this scene could have been healing. They could have finally come together in grief of their broken relationship and tried to fix it to something healthier. But instead, they were using the scene to push Spike into getting a soul, so he had to go too far, and she had to say too much.

I don’t think that Spike is out of character. I think that both Spike and Buffy act exactly within their character consistencies. Spike would totally seek Buffy out if he thought she was hurting – especially if he had any hope at all that he was the cause of her hurt. Buffy would completely deny, deny, deny any emotional attachment to Spike and take no responsibility for having hurt him. She’s still stuck, here, projecting her own numbness onto Spike with the false idea that he can’t love because he’s soulless.

Because of the constant, completely screwed up ideologies within this show about sex (that sex is bad, that too much sex is bad, that kinky sex is wrong, etc.) and because of the cumulative events that arise from their abusive sex=closeness relationship, the only way they could think of to make it even worse was to escalate to rape.

I know why they did it, because it makes sense within the story of their physical affair. It’s The Worst Thing you can do to someone else. We have to remember that Buffy doesn’t care about being killed, because she sort of wants to die. Also, Spike would never want to kill her. The only other thing he might want to do is turn her, but, to Buffy, that’s the same thing as being killed. Since her belief is that a demon takes over the human host, she might even welcome being turned as much as she would welcome death.

But importantly: there is the significant and completely intentional reverse of their villainousness actions here. In this scene, Buffy can’t be the villain anymore. It doesn’t matter how much she’s abused Spike, it doesn’t matter that their relationship was murky and confusing. Because it is rape, the only villain is the person committing the act of rape.

Spike must be made the villain here because anything else is victim blaming. It was the only action the writers could take to give the title of villain back to Spike away from Buffy. Spike has to end this season being the Big Bad because he must absorb all the hurt, the pain and the soullessness that was entangled with Buffy and incorporate it into himself (“You think I like having you in here? Destroying everything that was me, until all that's left is you, in a dead shell. You say you hate it, but you won't leave.”)

He takes Buffy’s pain and heals them both by – after these events – getting his soul.

The Problem

The writing staff knew their characters (for the most part). They knew that Spike was soulless and needed something drastic to instigate his search of a soul. Hurting Buffy this way did make the most sense in the framework of their affair and in the framework of making sex akin to drugs. But attempted rape was too, too far for the viewers. Talking about sex is already difficult for society, especially at the time this show was made. Talking about and explicitly showing attempted rape caused trauma to viewers and made a lot of people turn away from the otherwise very beautifully complicated relationship between Buffy and Spike.

People against Spuffy use this scene as the ultimate fodder against Spike, but doing so is disrespectful to the story, the lore and the characters. Spike loved Buffy enough soulless, but she was only strong enough to accept that once he went out and got one. In addition to that – Buffy forgives Spike for what he did that day. She admits to her side of the abuse, acknowledges that what they had was real, and doesn’t blame Spike for his actions. This conversation exists in bits-and-pieces in the Buffy comics – it would have been incredible to see it on screen in season 7, but I guess by that point the writers didn’t want to bring it up again and had way too many other things to deal with (which is another topic altogether).

I like the bathroom scene in Seeing Red. I think it’s horrible, and raw, and terribly authentic. The portrayal of hurt and betrayal by both actors is one of the strongest scenes in the show. I do wish, though, that they hadn’t taken it quite so far.

My Problem

Season 6 of Buffy is my favourite season. It is powerful and painful. But, if I could change it, I would have changed the messaging that sex is bad, because it isn’t, and both Spike/Buffy and Willow/Tara deserved something better.

#btvs #btvs meta #long post #spuffy #sex in btvs #seeing red

[kob131]

Me: *looking around someone’s blog. Sees a familiar name* Hm...where have I heard that name before?

... Oh. Him.

Well, maybe he grew up some. It has been like four years or so-

*Sees him calling me a right-winger incel who thinks feminism is a hate movement*

You know, for a guy simping for James Ironwood and Adam Taurus, I would think you would, I dunno, have some level of maturity.

*sees him calling Jaune’s outburst ‘over-blown’ and ‘manpain’ alongside Blake’s*

... Good to see that lack of empathy is still going.

*Sees him trying to say Emerald was retconned into being remorseful because ‘hurr durr, puma joke about Tuskon!’*

You do know there’s a difference between ‘murder’ and ‘genocide’ right? The difference between causing someone to bleed a drop and the blood geyser from A Nightmare on Elm Street right?

*All of this*

You know now that we’re so far out from Monty’s death, a lot of us need to start piping up with more force when it comes to Rooster Teeth acting like they never took advantage of that, never changed anything.

I see people roll their eyes in response to “whining” about Monty’s “vision”, but I mean–Volume Three hits, and suddenly Adam is a wifebeating incel, Emerald is just oh-so-stricken, and Ruby has eye beams?

Come on. This shit’s written on the walls. If this were a fandom besides RWBY, for a product under a company besides Rooster Teeth, everyone would see it., it wouldn’t even be in question. If they wanted people to be able to trust in them, maybe they shouldn’t have taken a jackhammer to the show and started drilling holes in it the very second the show creator passed away?

... So let me get this straight-

Because they decided to give Adam an actual CHARACTER-

Because the girl who killed one guy is disturbed by a GENOCIDE-

Because of a Deus Ex Machina...that was also pulled in Volume 2 with RAVEN-

A man’s friends and family took advantage of it? And not say, the piece of shit using his corpse like. a. fucking. BLUDGEON.

You know, I vaguely remember apologizing to you at some point. 

I take that back. You deserved EVERY fucking bit of headache and anger I caused you.

And let me go ahead and throw it back at you-

If they decided to give you your ‘tragic secretly-always-right Adam!’ despite the fact that the ONLY line he had in the first two Volumes (”No, but they’ll listen to me.”) indicated that he WASN’T that-

Would YOU have cared? Would YOU be saying this shit still? Would YOU give a shit about their overworked employees?

Or would you be screaming bloody murder in their defense because all YOU care about is your own satsifaction?

“But you-”

Helped break the original Tumblr post about RT’s glassdoor reviews? Why yes I did!

Just as always, SaltWukong, you’re fucking immoral.

[graciousheaven]

THE MOST GLORIOUS AND UNFATHOMABLE GIFT

We live in a sin-filled world, where depravity has established its dominion in the heart of every single man. When sin entered the world through Adam, the entire human race became morally corrupt. As a result of the original sin, all human beings are inherently evil and hostile toward God. Men in their natural state seek not after God, yet think that God is under obligation to bless them. They think they have the right to exist, to be healthy, happy and prosperous. Their hearts long for the blessings and benefits that God alone can grant, rather than for God Himself. Nevertheless, they do not thank the Lord, nor do they honour Him. But instead, they take everything He provides for granted and grumble when suffering and trials hit home.

All these characteristics, which reveal the fallen nature of man, are embittered by man’s high estimate of self and by his tendency to belittle the majesty of the Lord God, because he knows not the Lord. Many people do not have a proper view of God; they do not know who God is. Moreover, they underestimate the sinfulness of sin and have a poor understanding of human depravity. Consequently, they assume that God is obligated to fulfill the desires of their hearts. They think that God exists to keep them happy. Although they despise his laws and commands and are hostile toward Him, they expect the Lord to bless them. They view Him as someone who is just like them or somehow a bit superior to them. In Is. 55 the Lord affirms his uniqueness in kind, his separateness and differentness, the greatness of his ways and his unsearchable wisdom. Thus declares the Lord Almighty in v. 8-9, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

But many people believe that God’s love precludes Him from exercising his justice and pouring out his wrath against those who dishonour Him. They cling to the biblical declaration that 'God is love', and thus disregard his holiness and portray God as someone who overlooks the deeds of man, even when they violate his sovereign will. And so we hear people say things like, ‘God loves you unconditionally; it does not matter what you do, He still loves you.’ This statement does not describe the Holy God, the Great I Am of Scripture, the God who hates sin and sinners, and who rightfully thirsts for justice, for all have sinned against Him. On the other hand, it does not expose the moral corruption of man, nor does it urge him to abandon his evil ways. It must be noted, however, that sin separates man from God his Creator, for God is holy and righteous. This is what declares the psalmist, in praise of the Lord, upholding God’s true nature: “You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity” (Ps. 5:4-5).

God is not indifferent to the wickedness of man; He pronounces doom on anyone who rejects Him and disobeys his commands. Those who refuse to turn away from their sins are alienated from God’s glorious presence. For instance, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in Ch. 59:2-3, Isaiah brings to the attention of his people the cause of their alienation from the Lord their God. He writes, “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity.” This reality and truth applies to any human being on the face of the earth who practices lawlessness, i.e. God turns his face against all those who refuse to abandon their evil ways, and to put their trust in his Son, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is the only righteous, the means by which sins are forgiven.  

What all must know, then, is that God is not a man and He is perfectly holy and righteous. He created us for his own glory and has given us laws and commands by which we are to live and to which we are to submit. A violation of any law or command of the Lord is a sin against Him, and each sin is punishable by death. The reality is that there is no one under the sun who has not sinned against the Lord. This means that what we all deserve is death. In other words, we deserve nothing good from the Lord, “for (we) all have sinned and fall short of his glory” (Rom. 3:23). The Lord is under obligation to none of us; He is not bound to meet our needs, and even less to satisfy our appetency. What we all deserve, as a result of our sinfulness and hostility toward the Lord our God, is death, eternity in hell. Yet He has not banished us, but rather He continuously sustains us in spite of our sinfulness and hostility toward Him.

However, it must be noted that although the Lord always sustains his creation, all that He does is neither a requirement He has to fulfill, nor a reward for our merits or good works. How, then, are we to understand God’s continuous provision and care for us, sinful and rebellious as we may be? It must be understood that all that God does is a manifestation of his intrinsic character. I.e. the only explanation for God’s ongoing care and preservation of men is found in God’s character. God sustains us not because we deserve to be cared for, but instead all that the Lord does is a revelation of who He is, a manifestation of his attributes – He is the LORD, and thus He does what is inherent in his nature. God’s supreme greatness and uniqueness contrast with human depravity.

However, it is critical for us to acknowledge our depravity and to have a proper knowledge of God in order to understand and appreciate what the Lord does for us. Only a proper view of self and a proper knowledge of God can draw man to worship God and to be grateful toward Him. The Lord is a holy and righteous God. He created us for his glory; but we all have sinned against Him. “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.’ ‘Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit’; ‘the poison of asps is under their lips’; ‘whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.’ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known.’ ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes’” (Rom. 3:10-18). So are we by nature – people who have no fear of the Lord.

Ever since the fall, man has been at enmity with God, because our deeds and thoughts are evil. We are all born in sin and in sin we live. Hence we all deserve the same fate – death – which is the reward for sin. Nevertheless, the Lord continues to sustain and bless us. This means that our deeds must not be seen as what give us access to God’s tender care, for none of us is right with God as to deserve a privilege of some sort. We must instead refer to God’s intrinsic character to understand his act of preservation of creation. God is not like us; He is YAHWEH. All He does is inherent in his nature, and his nature is not a mystery to us. In other words, God’s nature is not hidden from us – the works of his hands, i.e. Creation, gives us a general revelation of God, and the Lord personally reveals Himself to us in a special way through the Holy Scripture. For instance, when Moses went up to Mount Sinai with the second set of stone tablets to meet the Lord, the Lord descended in the cloud and proclaimed his holy name. In one declaration, He has revealed to us his nature. Thus declares the Lord in Exo. 34:6-7, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”  

These two verses sum up the attributes of God while demonstrating his greatness in his dealings with man. The Lord is the Almighty, the Holy One, the Judge, the God of compassion, goodness and tender mercies, the loving and gracious God. The Lord is the righteous One; He is not like us. Although God is love, He does not fail to punish those who commit iniquities. God’s nature sets Him apart from all other beings; it reveals to us who the Lord is and what He does. The Lord is the Supreme Being, the Revealer of all truth, the Source of all life, the Provider, the Sustainer, the Redeemer and the Judge of all.

After the fall, the human race would have normally ceased to exist, were it not for the grace of God. The entire human race was condemned to destruction, because of the disobedience of our first parents. Yet God did not destroy us. Rather, He continues to preserve us graciously, although we all deserve to be damned. By nature we are enemies of God; but day after day He lavishes grace upon us to preserve us. God’s grace toward us knows no end. As the psalmist writes, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” (Ps. 103:8). For instance, for many centuries Israel rebelled against the Lord and He sent prophets to warn them. But they did not abandon their evil ways. The Lord then delivered his people into the hand of their enemies. However, He did not utterly destroy them, “But in your great mercy (reads Neh. 9:31) You did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.”

The story of Israel is my story, it is your story too, for we do not spend a day without sinning against God. Yet He continues to sustain us. Alongside of our depravity there is a perpetual feebleness and frailty that defines who we are. We are unable to sustain ourselves; we can do nothing without the Lord God our Creator. But the problem is that instead of expressing their gratitude to the Lord for all his provision for them, many people often think that the Lord is obligated to be there for us. The truth is we deserve nothing good from our God, for we all have broken his commands. If we continue to exist today, it is only by the grace and mercy of our God. However, for us to properly value the abounding grace of God in our lives, we must first grasp the biblical meaning of the word grace.

Grace is an unmerited and unearned favor bestowed freely by God on undeserving sinners. In other words, grace is God’s undeserved gift to us, sinners; it cannot be earned; it is not something that is merited nor are we worthy to receive it. Rather, it is a favor, a free gift from God, not something that is required of Him; for God does not owe us anything. Rather, we owe Him everything “since He gives to all life, breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25), and we can do nothing without Him. God’s abundant grace in our lives reveals who He is and is perceived in what He does to preserve, sustain and to redeem his creation (cf. Rom. 5:15). However, for our finite mind to grasp the concept of God’s grace, a distinction must be made between what is called common grace and what is called special grace or saving grace.

https://www.faithintheoneaboveall.com/post/the-most-glorious-and-unfathomable-gift

#the most glorious gift #unfathomable gift #uncommon gift #God's grace #appreciate grace #sermon on grace #graciousheaven

[midnight-dreamerness]

It’s Always Been You

(This is NOT my gif. Credit to the creator <3)

summary: Jay stopped speaking to you unexpectedly and then you see each other at Molly’s.

pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

warning: Curse Words??

word count: 2.4k

A/N: theres a slight mention of the reader being plus size…

You never thought you’d be replaced. But in came Erin Lindsay and suddenly she was all he talked about. And eventually he didn’t call anymore. He didn’t pull up in your driveway with pizza and a pack of beer out of the blue anymore. There were no Saturday movie nights or Monday monopoly despite you both knowing he always won.

You were lonely. After meeting Jay in high school, it was the two of you against the world. And when he left for the rangers, you were lost. But he came back to you. And you were the happiest you’ve ever been. But this time was different. You were losing him, falling right between your fingers right In front of your eyes and there was nothing you could do was watch from afar as he loved someone else and ached to be that someone.

Erin was a good person with a good heart. She was good for him. But you couldn’t help but hate that you couldn’t give him everything she could. Whatever that was you didn’t know. Maybe it was because you were bigger. Maybe it was because you were different. Whatever it was, you didn’t want to know. It would only break you in the end.

You tried to go out but it seemed the ghost of him followed you wherever you went.

You glanced at him for a moment, noting the stubble covering his jaw and remember how much you ran your hands over it giggling when he spun you around in the middle of his apartment.

You both were closer than normal best friends. You slept in the same bed and cuddled countless times. But every time you woke you he was gone.

Your friend snapped her fingers in front of your face with a laugh.

“You’re staring,” she commented, sniggering. You grimaced, biting at your lip and removing your intense gaze from the man across the room.

He was with a group of people but his arms were laying across the chair of the girl you wanted to hate but couldn’t.

“I hate nice people,” you grumbled, only making your friend laugh more. You ended up grinning, her laugh being contagious.

“Hello, ladies.” You now noticed the blonde who had walked up to your table, recognizing him from Jay's group from across the room.

“Hello, handsome,” you flirted, resting your chin on the palm of your hand, fluttering your eyes at him. He chuckled and ran a hand through his hair.

“I’m Adam. I couldn’t help but notice you from across the room. Can I buy you a drink, both of you?”

“You can buy her a drink. I’m going to talk to the guy who's been eyeing me since I walked in. Good luck!” Your friend exclaimed and started to walk away but turned around and added, “Oh! She likes the fruity stuff. Berry Lemonade Margarita is her favorite. Thank me later.” She gave the blonde, Adam, a wink before finally walking away. You place your hands in your hands, a blush settling over you cheeks.

“Berry Lemonade Margarita it is.” Adam said walking to the bar. You sat there and chuckled, shaking your head. You could feel eyes on you, so you looked up and met his eyes. His hand had fallen from behind Erins chair, a sad smile on his face. You looked away letting out a sigh. Adam was back in a matter of minutes, sliding your drink in front of you and settling in the seat in front of you, a glass of what looks like Whiskey in his hands.

“Thank you,” you muttered, giving him a small shy smile.

“You don’t talk much do you?”

“When I open my mouth I usually embarrass myself.” He only laughs, shaking his head.

You ended up talking for a good twenty minutes about anything and everything. He was easy to talk to but you couldn’t help but ache for another man who would glance at the two of you from across the room ever so often. He hated it. He hated watching Adam making you laugh. It was really his own fault. He has no right to be angry or jealous. But he was. All he wanted to do was march right over there and rip him from that seat. Instead, though, he watched from afar, detaching himself from the conversation his friends were having. You brightened up the room as soon as you entered, his eyes on you as soon as you stepped foot into Molly’s.

“You know Jay?” Adam asked, leaning back against the booth. You nodded, swirling the straw in your half empty drink.

“We were best friends. Things happen, though. People change.”

“Well you're glancing at him every couple of minutes so apparently something happened there.”

“Oh fuck, Adam. I’m sorry,” your shoulder slump as you feel the guilt build inside you. He simply laughs and shakes his head.

“No need to apologize. Does he know?”

You wanted to ask him what he meant but you knew. So you shook your head, “No.”

He purses his lip. “Have you thought about telling him?”

“Only a thousand times. Erin is good for him, though.”

“If Jay wanted to be with Erin he would’ve made it official. So clearly something is holding him back.”

You hated how your chest filled with hope that maybe he held back because of you. But he left you. Stopped calling. Stopped texting. Stopped everything.

“C’mon,” Adam said standing up, glass in one hand and the other held out for you to take. You gave him a curious look but took his hand anyway and grabbed your drink before he could pull you away. When you noticed the direction you both we’re headed you tried to stop but it was no use. The two of you had gained the attention of the entire group.

“Hey, this is my girl, (Y/N). This is Kevin, Kim, Erin, and Jay.” Adam said, pointing them all out with their name. You gave them all a shy smile and a wave. Anxiety filled you and you suddenly felt sick to your stomach.

“Oh no, has he talked your ear off yet?” Asked Kevin who only made the rest of them laugh, aside from Jay, who only glaring at him. He hated the way the words “his girl” fell from Adam's lips.

Your shoulders dropped as the anxiety left and you let out a small laugh.

“He’s getting there.”

You didn’t even have it in you to look into his eyes. You tightened your grip on Adam's hand, who simply nudged you towards the empty spot next to an African American man, who you now know as Kevin. Adam sat next to you, sending you a wink before throwing his arm over your chair.

“Truthfully. She loves me,” Adam says shrugging. You take a sip of your drink, eyes widen, a laugh nearly falling from your lips.

“I’m just waiting on my chance to run,” you suddenly spoke. There was a slight pause before laughs were heard around the table and a whine came from Adam.

“Babe, that is so mean,” Adam moaned, holding his hand over his heart as if you broke it.

You simply giggled and slapped his chest lightly.

A conversation started and you added in a couple of times but mainly you were putting your focus on avoiding his gaze or trying not to cry at the sight of his hand resting on Erins shoulder.

As a certain song came on, you were suddenly pulled into memories of only a couple months ago.

It was the night he made you dance with him. You remember giggling and letting him spin you until you were dizzy and ready to pass out. You remember how his hands fell on your hips to try and steady you before you fell. He was laughing the entire time until his face came close to yours. And he almost kissed you. He was so close and you prayed that he would. But he didn’t.

The memory only causes your heart to ache and knowing that the man you loved was sitting right in front of you with another girl on his arm made it ten times worse.

You wanted to scream and to cry but you trapped it inside, bottling it up until you could let it out once you got home.

The sound of your slurping pulled you from your thoughts. You were out of adult juice. With no intention of going home, you were going to need another drink to get you through the night.

“I'm going to get a drink. I’ll be back,” you told Adam before hopping out of your seat. He gave you a nod.

“Yeah, me too. Anyone want anything?”

You pushed through the groups of people trying to get away but there was no use, Jay caught your arm and pulled you away before anyone at the table noticed. You were in a hallway suddenly and before you could say anything Jay was in front of you.

“Adam? Really?”

“What? What’s wrong with Adam? And why do you care?” You are getting upset now. Jay had no right to question you on who you were seeing. Not anymore.

“He’s not really your type.” You snorted at his reply. What were you supposed to say to that? You didn’t understand why he cared when he had left you and all of a sudden he wants to look out for you.

“Jay, you have no idea what my type is anymore. People change. Maybe I like blondes now.”

“Yeah well I remember only a couple months ago you much preferred brown haired, blue eyed men.”

“What are you implying?” You asked, stepping closer to him, your eyes set in a glare. He folded his arms over his chest, his muscles catching your eyes for a split second. Your thighs clenched before you copied his stance, your nails digging into your arms.

“You know exactly what I’m implying, princess.”

The nickname made you weak at the knees and so did that fucking smirk on his face. But you stood your ground, slipping your hair over your shoulder and attempting to walk around him. He caught your wrist, pulling you into his chest. You took in a breath at how close you both were. It had been so long since you touched him and every part of you wanted to melt into his arms.

“You left me, remember. Replaced me. No calls, no text, no goodbye. And no excuse. You have no right to try and tell me who I can or cannot be with.” As you spoke you snatched your wrist from his grip and pulled away, walking right out the side doors. You walked up to Adam, the excuse falling from your lips easily.

“I’m not feeling too well, I’m gonna head home, Call me. It was nice meeting you guys.”

And you were out the door before they could say anything. Your phone was blowing up as soon as you sped off down the road but you didn’t once pick it up knowing who it was.

It was your turn to ignore him now. You blocked his number later that night and cried yourself to sleep, trying your hardest to let go of that stupid schoolgirl crush you had for him and grow the hell up. You only wished it was as easy as saying it. But your mind betrayed you and you thought about him for the next two days. And then he showed up.

When you heard the knock you assumed it was the package you had been waiting on for three days now but when you took a peek through the peephole, you closed your eyes and sat your back against the door.

“Please open the door,” he begged, resting his head against the door. You let out a sigh and pushed yourself from the door, turning and swinging it open. He stood there with a pizza box in his hand and a pack of beer resting on top. You couldn’t help but smile as you noticed the flowers hiding behind his back. He pulled them out, a grin overtaking the sadness on his face. The look of excitement cured the nervousness that had settled in his stomach.

“Can I take the pizza, beer, and flowers and leave you on the doorstep?” You joked about taking a hold of the flowers, bringing them to your nose to smell them. You closed your eyes as your favorite flower's scent invaded your nose.

Jay let out a laugh. “No, princess. It’s a package deal.”

You let out a chuckle and opened the door wider for him. Jay walked inside, instantly making his way to the living room where he sat the pizza and beer on the table. Instead of following him you entered the kitchen and placed the flowers in a vase and filled it halfway with water. You placed them on the counter, cocking your head to the side as you arranged them perfectly in the vase. Jay watched from the entrance, leaning against the frame with a smile on his lips.

“I’m sorry. And I know it isn’t much, but I hope this is a good start to getting you back.”

His voice causes shivers to roll over your spine. You purses your lips, taking in a breath.

“I don’t want to play anymore, Jay. I want a relationship and if you can’t give me that then please just say so.”

He walked forwards, cupping your face in his hands.

“I didn’t know what I wanted back. But I do know now. And it’s you. It's always been you.”

With a sigh of relief you captured his lips, your hand running up his chest before clasping around his waist. You wished you had done it before, that you both hadn’t played around the thought of a relationship and just did it. But you had him now and that’s all that mattered.

His kiss made you fuzzy and you Found yourself leaning against him for support. His tongue swiped across your bottom lip and you parted your lips eagerly. You moaned at the taste of him and moved your hands to then settle on his chest. You have never been kissed like this before. And you loved every part of it.

You pulled back, taking in a much needed breath as he leaned his forehead against yours attempting to catch his own breath.

“So, you want me to beat your ass in monopoly or what?”

#one chicago #Chicago PD #Chicago PD imagines #Jay Halstead #Jay Halstead x reader #Jay halstead x plus size reader #Detective Jay Halstead #reader insert #Jay Halstead imagines #Jay Halstead oneshots

[porcelaintoybox23]

A more thorough review of Sk8 the Infinity

I’ll be focusing on the characters and their development. There will also be spoilers.

1. Gender ratio

Why isn’t there a single female character of substance? Maybe I’m too old to still be holding out the hope that creators will realize men can empathize with women. I desperately hoped that Miya might be a girl so there could be some variety. None of the female characters are adequately developed or focused on. We see no actual grief from Langa’s mother who lost her husband. She only exists to be a sort of soundboard for him. Reki’s family is pretty much dull until his sister points stuff out to him.

The detective…

Even Adam’s aunts could use more development.

Women in this show only existed as prizes or tools.

2. General Character Development

The show, now that the ending haze has worn off a bit, didn’t really develop anyone. Like there was progress, but it felt hollow. Part of me wants to blame the 12 episode limit but I don’t think that’s an excuse. Time was not used adequately. I feel like most of our character can be boiled down to a few words. Langa: Reki Reki: Skating Tadashi: Ainosuke-sama Shadow: Flower shop manager

I find it a disservice to reduce these characters to being fully focused on other people. It limits their character progression and makes them one dimensional.

By the end of the show, I feel like Miya really didn’t have that much growth. Joe stayed the same. Langa, I feel, regressed, and Reki went through the most basic character arc in recent decades. I feel like Reki and Langa’s fight shouldn’t have lasted nearly four episodes out of 12. That time could’ve been used to develop everyone more.

3. Detailed Character Analysis

Reki: Reki was so boring and basic that I almost want him removed from the story entirely. I not going to sit here and lie by saying that the arcs in this show aren’t archetypal, but Reki’s in particular is not unique. He’s happy go lucky, positive, he wears his uniform differently, he’s not too smart or too dumb, etc. I do like him, but he’s so basic that it would be hard to dislike him. The most unique and interesting aspect of his character is his love of skateboarding. Reki clearly reads about the subject, he learns and studies, he LOVES everything about it. Reki brought me into the show and made me care. That is how wonderfully written his passion is.

Besides that…Reki feeling insecure and causing his friendship break up was too drawn out and boring. I want there to be some strife for Reki so he can grow, but I wish it was done in a more interesting manner. Maybe Reki could’ve told Langa directly, in a rage, that he felt insecure. Hell, if you want to keep the arc, make it shorter. Have those two make up a little sooner but let Reki take the time to rekindle his passion. The fight was boring and I knew it would be resolved, so it felt pointless. I’m not against tropes. Sometimes, the best part is seeing how each story executes them differently. Reki just fell flat. Of course he stands up for Miya, of course he gets jealous but comes around.

Langa: Baby boy, I do love this Canadian. Langa became one note towards the end. “Reki” this and “Reki” that…I understand it’s ship bait, I understand the story centers their relationship, but that’s no excuse to limit Langa’s character. I wish during the fight that Langa didn’t lose his passion for skating. I’d be fine if he enjoyed it a little less, but not to the point that was shown. I hate leaving a character’s development dependent on one person, it’s one of my biggest critiques of Fe3h. If anything happens with Reki, Langa will lose himself which is not the mark of a developed character. Show Langa and the rest of the gang more. Develop the relationship between him and his mother. I am an only child, I promise you the loss of 1/3 of my family would be devastating. We’re close knit and I’m sure the Hasewaga’s were too. Let Langa rebel a bit, let him be angry with Reki, let Adam tempt him a bit more to the dark side so when he frees Adam it’s more of a growth moment. Langa rekindled his passion racing Shadow, he wasn’t friends with Reki yet. He wanted to skate against Adam because he love the thrill of competition and getting better. Why does that all leave because of Reki?

Let Langa exist outside of Reki. That would make the pairing stronger. There really isn’t any complexity to it as is. As an introvert, I have been attached to one person but the show goes too far with it. I still have other connections. Miya literally agreed to be Langa’s catdog…why was that dropped? I also disliked Langa being too op at other things besides skating. We get it, Reki feels insecure, but this just makes Langa more basic.

Look me in the face and tell me what would change about Langa’s character if everyone but Reki wasn’t in the show. Replace Adam with any no name douche. Nothing. No one else affects Langa.

Adam: Adam is clearly the tertiary protagonist and probably had the best development in the show, though it wasn’t super great either. His backstory is entirely implied. I understand show don’t tell, but it was too much. Why did Adam “quit” skating? Why did it hurt him so much considering S was a thing and he clearly was practicing. Was it the loss of his friends? The pieces are there but… I had an inkling that Adam was the informant, but I kinda had hope he would lose his political career and be free from his creepy aunts. Adam isn’t evil, though I wish his ire toward Tadashi was better explained. Their relationship really needed more exploration. (It doesn’t fit his analysis but the “zone” concept was so weird…)

Cherry: honestly, I don’t have much criticism. I liked him and his aesthetic. I do wish there was more elaboration on if he and Adam made up.

Miya: baby boy #2. He does end up a bit one note, cocky younger kid who’s mean because he’s lonely. I love him but he’s basic and kinda disappears toward the end. Would’ve been nice to use those “fight” episodes to develop him. Reki also owes him an apology for abandoning him and shoving him. Like, bro. Miya is proof you can have someone retain their passion but feel sad that they lost their friends. Miya’s ex-friend suddenly talking to him again came so far out of left field you’d think it was Adam. Completely unearned and made no sense.

Joe: he exists…I don’t do muscle heads. He’s most interesting with Cherry and their dynamic is cute.

Tadashi: whoo boy this man does nothing. Why does he lobe skating? What got him into it? What did he do outside of playing with Adam?

I do not understand why he is so loyal to Adam. I don’t. It’s not shown and it’s honestly very weird. The moments where he starts to be interesting, he backs out and becomes a shadow again. He’s literally Langa 1.0, everything is about Adam for him. Dude, get a life.

Shadow: I do love him and I did want him to get the girl. He doesn’t really do anything…

Might’ve been nice to develop our main cast.

4. Updated Rating

8/10 overall, 9/10 for animation and art style

5. Final thoughts

It’s a good show and I do like it a lot. If there’s a season 2, I do hope some of my criticism is addressed.

Edit: I haven't deleted comments before, but if I see one more about "well the author is female" and "we don't need developed female characters because gay shipping" I will start. Women deserve to be developed. Choke

#sk8 #sk8 the infinity #reki kyan #sk8 adam #langa hasewaga #shindo ainosuke #sk8 tadashi #joe sk8 #sk8 cherry blossom #shadow sk8 #miya chinen #sk8 spoilers #show review

[redxblueihateloveyou]

I'm surprised people see Tadashi as the victim in his relationship with Ainosuke, when it's Tadashi the one who time and time again takes away Ainosuke's agency, without being able to see that he is throwing him unto unhappiness. I can't help but think that if Tadashi was not working at Shindo's house, Ainosuke would have maybe left or broke with the family. But he can't do that if he wants the relationship with Tadashi going on, seing how Tadashi is set on enforcing the family rules...

Hmm.. I def agree with the fact that Tadashi is not what most fandom makes out of him, my man (I mean, Adam’s man) is a 100% Slytherin. But I disagree with blaming him for this, after all the revealed info. The environment they were both raised in made their situation complicated.

I like Tadashi a lot, he’s probably my fav thing about this anime, bc he’s a dark horse, and I’m once again surprised, that so little ppl see him for who he really is, portraying him as an innocent puppy, which he is definitely not.

Now to why I think both Tadashi and Adam are victims of the dad and aunties in this situation. 

We can of course say “if only they told each other how they really feel...”, but like we can say it about any love story really. Every author knows it’s no fun. The truth is that yes, they both hurt each other, and yes, if they were honest about their feelings things would’ve been different, but as I’ve already wrote under that “toxic” commentary on YT, lets look at the whole situation from both of their point of views:

We know that Adam when he was little always treated Tadashi as an equal, he never ever thought of him as someone lower than him and after their fall out, the only reason for this “harsh” treatment (well, besides their confirmed kink) was that Adam tried to get a reaction out of him, so Tadashi would stand up for himself, bc Ainosuke got mad about Tadashi caving to his dad’s wishes and abandoning him, when he needed him the most. 

But now, knowing the fact that Tadashi was his dad’s secretary and was under his control, let’s see it from his perspective: Tadashi wanted to stay by Adam’s side, Adam’s dad implied that if Tadashi did say smth, he’s gonna be.. well, dismissed and they won’t see each other ever again. That’s what caused Tadashi to stay silent in that moment. Ainosuke instead saw this as a “he’s not on my side” thing, well, because. Tadashi won’t tell him his problem, bc dad and aunties control everything, so even if he does tell him, what a teen would do really? He didn’t have any powers back then to make his dad do anything. 

And that’s when it all gone to shit, since they both were hurt for their own reasons. It’s easy to say leave the family, but 1stly nobody explained to Adam still that he’s physically and psychologically abused by his family, he sees it as them “loving him” and sadly also loves them, bc nobody told him, that love wasn’t supposed to be like that really. He definitely feels that smth is not right and feels emotionally exhausted there bc of this treatment, but did he ever consider leaving? I really don’t think so. He feels obligated to be worthy of a family, who “loves” him.

Do you think, for example, that Akashi Seijuro hates his dad for what he did to him? No. Does he understand that he wasn’t at fault for what happened to him and that his dad instead of comforting his child after his mother’s death, who was his only safe haven, made everything worse? I don’t think he does. Like his mom gave him basketball, an escape from all that family’s obligations and strictness. After her death, it was the only thing left that brought him joy, but his dad ruined even that, saying that if he’s gonna be bad at it/lose, he’d take it away from him too. Does Akashi see this as emotional abuse? No, he sees it like “well, I have to be the best bc I was born in such powerful family, so if my dad says that I must be best at everything, then I must.”

I personally hate such parents a lot. To me it doesn’t matter if Adam’s dad didn’t know about aunties hitting his child. Like if he was too busy to notice this and have no time for his kid and made his childhood miserable, it doesn’t make it any better really. 

Same as with Akashi’s dad. Some are like “he was probably also grieving about his wife”. Emm? He was like this from the beginning, bc he treated Akashi not as his son, but as his heir. And yes, that’s different things. Same with Endeavor and Todoroki. Your child is not your post production thing.

2ndly they were too young, even if they knew about each others feelings and he didn’t feel obligated and told everyone to fuck off, they’d be on the streets now, but also Adam’s dad doesn’t seem like a guy who’d leave them alone really. Also eloping seems very romantic, but I don’t think it is, esp when you’re teens. Did you want him to sell some expensive watch and go live on Hawaii or smth? Bc finding a decent job there would be difficult at this age, esp with everyone knowing who your dad is. Chen Ke from “Antidote” survived bc he was 27 and had connections and some great friends. Adam was in high school, where would he go exactly?

Now let’s go back to now. Obviously all this time it didn’t even cross Tadashi’s mind that for Ainosuke he comes first and that he would throw everyone under the bus to make Tadashi stay with him. As we see at the end, he legit believed that Adam was planning to send him to jail and didn’t get that he said it just to shaken he up and that he knew who he’d set up for this from the beginning. 

To Adam obviously it doesn’t matter whether they’re in a quarrel or not, he would never him go. Yes, he’s mad at him, he’s angry and hurt, but Tadashi’s still the person he needs the most, he’s still the person who brightens his days, even tho he deliberately behaves like he annoys him. He always looks at him and looks at him and looks at him, but then hisses smth to hurt him. Bc he knows that he needs him, but he also hates that he needs him, bc he thinks it’s unrequited.

And that’s how their classic romance goes in hellish circles. No one wants to talk as usual. Adam is mad Tadashi is like that bc his dad turned him into a slave with no opinion, while Tadashi is scared that Adam would be taken away from him bc of his ugly family. 

Now I still think that no one and I mean no one can take Tadashi from Adam now, he is his precious. So my plan is... if Tadashi made aunties do smth against him or to get rid of him, aunties will go for sure. The problem is Tadashi still doesn’t get that he comes first, so we’re stuck in this hell still.

So anyways, my point is Adam’s heart basically sings “you got a hold of me, don’t even know your power” to Tadashi, but he doesn’t hear it, bc of his insecurities, the way he was raised and his status. But yes, he holds all the power. He’s both Adam’s sanity and insanity. No matter how cheesy it sounds he was basically his only ray of sunshine in the darkness, if you take it away, that’s what it leads to, that’s why Ainosuke-sama needs more ppl who care for him. I don’t want anyone to die next time, just cause Tadashi and Adam fought about where to put their new couch lmao. I’m kidding, but you know what I mean. And kill the aunties, pls seriously, we need to be free.

Also ppl need to remember that like lots of animes/characters are parcially inspired by some other animes/characters, also the chosen seiyuus are also very important, there are lots of stuff like jokes and references, that creators use, from characters being fully inspired by smth like “Assassination classroom” characters based on KNB, to little stuff like Levi dressed in Akashi’s uniform in chibi AOT bc Hiroshi Kamiya. Utsumi already said before stuff like she sometimes think of a perfect voice for the character and then fully forms him, we also know her clear love for sports animes. So yes, I doubt Tadashi/Kuroko thing is a coincidence and even tho someone was like “zone? is this knb or smth?” I was like no, zone is actually a common thing in sports, even tho most associate it with KNB including me, it’s not like its their invention, but there were things inspired by this for sure, and from other sports animes too and no, I don’t mean the basic sports anime tropes, I mean, like way too specific things, some character designes, too. And yes, Langa appearence and personality wise is a rinharu child for real, I can literally split his scenes in “that’s Haru”, “that’s Rin”.

That’s why I’ve said that this situation in fandom reminds me of Kuroko/Akashi situation a lot, bc same as here in KNB ppl for some reason automatically thought that Kuroko is this innocent sheep and Akashi is the wolf (but also like it was Akashi who chose to dress as red riding hood, while Kuroko was a wolf lmao), not even seeing who is in reality more dangerous and who can easily control who. It just buffles me bc it’s not some deep analisys really. I mean once again there’s a reason for the saying that the sub holds all the power over the dom. 

And like just bc someone yells or threatens ppl constantly doesn’t necessarily mean he is a psycopatic killer, and just bc someone is quiet and doe-eyed, doesn’t mean he isn’t. I didn’t think we needed to explain this to someone, but aparently we do?

And it honestly kills me just how superficially ppl are watching things these days. It really gives me war flashbacks to stuff like the last mdzs s1 episode, where ppl started to comment things like “how LZ can be so heartless” lmao. Or that anonymous ask “do you think haru misses rin?”. Like you don’t see thing at all? Grey substance no needed, while watching things?

P.S. I also would die to see Adam vs Tadashi race just bc I for some reason can bet all my money, that it’s the same situation as with Akashi refusing to ankle break Kuroko, no matter how mad he is. I just can’t imagine Ainosuke hitting Tadashi in the face with a board. Like 100% sure he wouldn’t even try tbh.

#answered #anonymous #tadaai #tadashi kikuchi #shindo ainosuke #adam x tadashi #sk8 #sk8 the infinity #anime #this is what i think about these two at least

[spaceorphan18]

I read with interest your view and that of @hopefulobjectmiracle about tumblr Klaine fandom. Is there more shipping these days than 2010-15? I ask because there seems to be a smaller group that only ship Kurt with Blaine but there seems to be a huge rise in Kurtbastian and Hevans shippers. Likewise, there’s many more pezberry or faberry shippers. And a lot more of those shippers trying to discredit Blaine or Brittany as OTP for Kurt and Santana. There seems to be new younger people joining Tumblr declaring a love for all things Klaine, and then a week later shipping Kurt with everybody else!! Has there been a change since the show aired?

Hi Nonny! :)

Hmmm.... There's not really a clear answer to this because the way shipping evolved is different than people just finding things now.

There are kind of two different things going on here -- Kurt related shipping and non-Kurt (blaine/klaine) shipping. I can't tell you much about non related Kurt things -- however, I will say that Faberry was HUGE when the show was on. It's a subsection of the fandom I never interacted with but it was around in season 1, and loud enough that the show makes nod to it from season 2 forward. Brittana was always around, too, and the reason Brittana became a thing on the show was, partly, due to fans crying out that they should be a couple -- and more than the throwaway joke the writers made in the first season.

I don't know what happened to those ships over time, or how the evolved since the show ended -- I'm sorry :/

But now, I will tell you the epic history of Kurt shipping. (Again. i should really dig out my old notes on this, lol)

Here we go long post...

I found it! I'm going to quote myself so I don't have to write it out again, lol. This was originally from an ask about the BBO (Better Boyfriend Olympics), but it'll work here, too.

Okay, so let’s go back to 2010 when there wasn’t a Klaine fandom, there was a Kurt fandom.  A lot of the BBO stemmed out of the Kurt’s Boyfriend Shipping wars of 2010.

Back then, there was just a Kurt fandom, and a lot of opinions about who he should date.  Believe it or not, Kurt was shipped a lot with the other guys on the show, there was a healthy dose of Kurt/Finn, but Kurt/Puck was huge, and there was a smattering of Kurt/Mike (I never really did see much Kurt/Artie now that I think of it, which is kind of funny in retrospect, but I’m sure it’s out there.)  Anyway - when the show announced Kurt was getting a boyfriend – well, things began to get heated up.

Three big ships emerged

Kurt/Sam - because the rumor was that Sam was originally supposed to be Kurt’s bf (probably not, but that rumor was big at the time).  Btw, they were the canoe ship (I have no idea why) and was also known as Kum (rolls-eyes).  This ship’s fanbase was so huge and lasted so long, that the show felt the need to address it head on in Season Two’s Rumours (not a joke).

Kurt/Karofsky - Also known as Kurtofsky, they were also called themselves the Pirate ship (god, Idk why, shipping wars are weird, yo).  These people were also really passionate, mostly about Dave, but liked the whole idea that Kurt would save Dave and they would have this weird - enemies to loves love affair or something.  I don’t know, I could never get past the squicky assault aspect, but whatever.

Kurt/Blaine - which. at the time, was… the biggest possibility? It’s funny cause the other two ships were just as big as the Klaine ship, and really the fighting became over who was going to be the best option for Kurt.

And that’s the thing.  Fans of Kurt were so passionate about who was best for Kurt, because everyone had seen him go through hell and back on the show, so his boyfriend needed to be perfect for him.  And you know who was perfect (at first) – Blaine.  More on that in a second…

However, Blaine brought his own bit of baggage – namely fans of Darren Criss (and/or Starkid fans).  Unlike Chord Overstreet or Max Adler, people knew who Darren was before he was on Glee.  So his own fandom joined in on the Klaine of it all.  At first it was all fine – as the shipping wars continued, it was less about Kurt vs Blaine and more about Klaine vs the other shippers.  Well, that was going to change….

Original Song happened and Kurt and Blaine got together ending the question of who would ultimately be Kurt’s boyfriend.  And things were nice and cozy headed into season 3.  You’d think the Kurt/Sam and Kurt/Karofsky ships would die out, but not really, they stuck around for a long time, and kinda morphed into something else.

See, The First Time happened.  And for the first time Blaine wasn’t the perfect prince that he was in season 2 – he had more of a developed personality, and more flaws.  And… some people didn’t like it.  (Also added to the mix was Sebastian – and the Seblaine and Kurtbastian ships were born, but those kinda go off on their own thing and I’m not really going to bring them up much here.)  Anyway, what really got fandom split was Dance With Somebody.

You had two sides of an argument, people who saw Kurt’s POV and people who saw Blaine’s POV – and guess what happened.  The two sides began to fight with each other over who was “right” in the argument.  (My god…) And thus started what fandom started referring to as The Better Boyfriend Olympics.

See - for reasons I don’t fully understand - instead of seeing that each of the boys have a fault and each were wrong in the episode, each side wanted to say that their side, and their POV was the correct way – that one boyfriend was more oppressed and the other was not as good a partner.

On the Kurt side, though, you had a lot of the old Kurt fans and ships who didn’t like Blaine (and/or didn’t want Blaine as his partner) so they vehemently decided that unless Blaine was the perfect boyfriend again, he didn’t deserve to be with Kurt.  Meanwhile, you had the Blaine fans, many of them Darren fans who wanted Blaine to have more depth to him than just being Kurt’s boyfriend, and not being Kurt fans first (or originally) they were going to push back at the Kurt fans who were lashing out at Blaine.

Compounding this was the fact that during season 3, there were so many cast members and characters that unless you were Finchel, you were begging for scraps and your featured episode to come along.  Meanwhile - Kurt got a ton of screen time, but didn’t sing much, while Blaine sang a lot more, but didn’t get much story.  The Kurt fans resented that Blaine was always singing.  The Blaine fans were annoyed that the Kurt fans resented it, and tried to remind the Kurt fans that Blaine barely got any development.

Either way, a war had begun.  And then The Break Up happened.

Now Kurt fans had a specific reason to point at – Blaine being a terrible boyfriend.  He cheated.  He’s terrible.  The end.

The fandom was not firmly split into sides - you were either a Kurt fan - a lot of them who HATED Blaine - partly because he was getting more attention at the time, partly cause he did sing more, partly because they were made up of Kurt ships that didn’t work out, and partly cause they saw so much of themselves in Kurt that they projected onto him their own feelings, and loving Blaine was not a part of that projection.  Or you were a Blaine fan - who spent a lot of time defending Blaine to the point of exhaustion, and became so resentful of Kurt that they wished Blaine could be with anyone else because Kurt (fans) didn’t understand Blaine and should just stop trying.

Weren’t there any Klainers you ask? Ha, well…. Klainers, people actually liked Kurt AND Blaine were stereotyped into two categories.  Category A) the really really loud fanbase (usually on Twitter) that harassed the creators, RM, Chris, Darren, various crew about Klaine every second that they got – to the point that it started to feel embarrassing (that’s probably my own projection).   Category B) People who thought (think) that Chris and Darren were (are) in a secret relationship.  (Spoiler alert they aren’t, never have been, and never will be.)  The two of these categories overlapped A LOT, and many of the fans of one boy or the other just disassociated completely.

You could still be a fan of the Klaine relationship, but you had a preference to which boy you were actually a fan of – you couldn’t like both, or else you were a Klainer, and that was not cool.  (I spent a long time NOT identifying as anything, and trying to make sure everything I did and said was equal – a) cause I was new to fandom and b) cause I hated that either one or the other of these characters were villainized so frequently.)

Anyway - Season 4 continued.  Adam showed up, and Kurt fans got all excited, but the problem was that a lot of them saw him as the perfect boyfriend again – not a real character but a prop that could make Kurt look good and be everything for Kurt.  Look, I liked Adam, I did, but he was underdeveloped, and this weird idea that your boyfriend needs to be perfect in order to be a functioning relationship is just unrealistic.  I digress.  Meanwhile, we didn’t get a lot of Kurt POV, which didn’t help things, and meant even more projection over his character.

Meanwhile, the Blaine fans had formed their own community, which became viciously defensive of him.  I think the whole fandom was toxic during this time for a lot of reasons, and I really wanted to quit it.  Many people did – the show wasn’t being fun anymore.

Season 5 came along, the boys got back together, tempers simmered, but the whole idea of the Better Boyfriend Olympics came back every time a conflict happened.  Arguments about who was the better boyfriend ensued, gatekeeping as to why their pick was best and why your opinion sucked still ran through the fandom.  Not helping was the fact that Cory had died, and the creators, actors, and crew – as well as media – was tired of Glee.

The one nice thing, though was that a lot of the old crowd had moved on by then, and there was an influx of newer people coming in during season 5 (and season 6) – they weren’t here for the season 3 droughts and season 4 wars, and brought in a newer and fresher perspective.

But still - we had the end of season 5 and the summer of spoilers and season 6 to get through.  At this point, the Kurt and Blaine camps had moved to their parts of the internet and really not speaking much to each other if they could help it.  When an argument happened on the show, the same kind of Better Boyfriend Olympics came up again – one boyfriend was worse than the other, and unless they changed xyz they were not good enough for the other.  But at this point, it was incredibly tiring.  I know that I was just ready for the show to be done with.

I should say, as an aside, not helping things were the rise of some rather vocal BNF-ish fans, who dug their heels in about their own opinions.  The refusal to even acknowledge that one side or the other might be right, or have valid points was not helping anything.  A lot of people on both sides refused to even listen to the points on the other side – and instead of being frustrated at the show, the creators, or whatever, they took it against each other, which wasn’t fun to watch either.

Season 6 happened - Blainofsky happened, and that killed enthusiasm for the season on both sides, most people just kind of wanted it to be over.  And then the ending came quickly, and I think a lot of people who were just plain unhappy about everything left for good.

The Better Boyfriend Olympics, or this weird competition that always pitted the boys and their fandoms against each other in the name of one being better than the other, leveled off after this.  I won’t give myself /that/ much credit - but one reason I created @todaydreambelievers was to give fans of both Kurt and Blaine a safe place where we could enjoy and discuss both boys without the BBO rearing its head.  And you know what – it did mend a few hearts.

For the most part, it’s been pretty quiet since.  Fandom is quieter, but I think the people who have come into it after the show has ended are a lot less judgmental and argumentative.  (I suppose it helps if you know how the story is going to end.)  And the cool thing, for me, is finding a group of people who enjoy Kurt and Blaine equally (or respectfully) – and reclaiming the name Klainer as a good thing.

I’ll end by saying this – it’s been relatively peaceful, even with the influx of new people throughout the years, but I have been seeing shades of BBO pop up again.  Look, you don’t have to like Klaine to be a fan of one or the other of them.  But there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world, a lot of things to be angry and get indignant about.  How a fictional couple was written ten years ago is not one of them.  Be respectful of people, and know that maybe the side you understand better isn’t the only side worth listening to.  ;)

////////////////////

So, I suppose that's part 1 of this full picture. Onto Part 2.

Here's the thing -- I've stayed, mostly, in my little tumblr buble over the past five years -- blissfully unaware that I suppose things were going on around me. Except... they really weren't. Until the pandemic happened, and Glee went to Netflix internationally, and a whole bunch of young kids grew up and started watching the show.

By the time I ended TDB in 2019, there weren't many of us left. I knew there was our small, dedicated group of fans. The tinhatters (the group who thought Chris and Darren were in some kind of relationship. spoiler alert -- they're not). And I know the Kurtbastian fans have been kicking around for a while. But no one was around in huge numbers.

And then boom - pandemic, and I'm shocked (not in a bad way) that this show has already seen a resurgence. The weirdest part, for me, is the fact that not only is history repeating itself -- seriously, people are bringing up old conflicts that have been dead for ages, and old shipping wars I never thought I'd see again -- but I think this new group's relationship with the show is much different.

I think that Kurt is a character whom a lot of people can still identify with. And because he's on his own in the first season, it's still easy to project yourself onto him. And then shipping goes from there. Blaine went from being the exciting option, omg are they really gonna do Klaine?? to -- hey Klaine is the boring canon choice, we can choose who we want for Kurt.

Layer over that years of Blaine hate still circling the interwebs. The echo chamber that Twitter and Tiktok create. And the fact that neither Chris or Darren seem to have the army of fans they once did (well -- Darren does, but they don't really watch Glee anymore). And you get this varied landscape of shipping.

No, some days it doesn't feel that different from the BBO days. The fact that I still get asks about Blaine and TFT car scene or Tested makes me feel like I'm back in 2013. Other times I'm perplexed by resurgences -- such as Kurtbasitan and Kurt/Sam. (Please don't bring back Kurtofsky guys)

But there's a saying -- Same Shit, Different Day.

I think there is an entirely different group of people than the original people watching, and their reasoning for shipping whatever is much different. But they've certainly come to a lot of the same conclusions that brought about the shipping wars in the early days.

At the end of the day - I think Kurt will always been a fandom mattress. But ship what you like and be nice to everyone else. There's enough hate in the world -- no need to dump on people's escapism.

#that's how s.o. sees it #klaine history #klaine #and fandom #did I answer the question? #idk

[chibsytelford]

Mayans MC: Period HC

*** GIF CREDIT TO CREATOR ***

Anon requested -  Oh cool! I had a this idea of like all the guys running to buy supplies for their girl's time of the month. And what they react like at the store and stuff. Idk if you could think of all that, but some it would be funny, maybe others sweet, and some confused or however you feel you should write it lol. ❤

Authors Note - This was gonna be hella long, so I only did 6 - If I get enough requests for the rest of the Mayans I will happily do the rest :)

taglist - @agirllovespasta @everyhowlmarksthedead @rebel-without-cause-x @starrynite7114 @whyisgmora @talicat713 @fangirlingaesthetics @sadeyesgf @sheeshgivemeabreak @elcococruz @lady-pswrld @scuzmunkie@trulysuccubus @angelreyesgirl @jadesamhart  - if you want added to my taglist just ask!

Angel - 

You didn’t trust Angel to be able to get you the exact ones you wanted

You told him multiple times you would go yourself

But he was adamant on going so you gave in and let him

You showed him a picture of the pads you wanted multiple times

He left the house telling you he would remember exactly what ones you needed

By the time he got to the shop he had forgotten what the picture looked like

He didn’t want to phone you and ask you again

He was determined to get you the right ones

He found a lady that worked at the store

And asked her what pads she would recommend

The lady pointed some out and explained they were good for wearing at night as much as during the day

Angel nodded along pretending he knew what the lady was saying

He picked up a bar of your favourite chocolate

Because he knew if they were the wrong pads

The chocolate would win you over

He came back with a proud look on his face

Handing you the pads

You smiled and told him they were perfect

You felt bad that you doubted him

Angel high fived himself, happy to have got the right product for you

He gave you your favourite chocolate bar and ran you a nice hot bath

Angel told you he wouldn’t mind going back for you every month

It wasn’t as bad as he thought

You told Angel how thankful you were for him

You knew how much he liked to be appreciated

EZ - 

EZ has a great memory

So when you told him the first time what products you needed he remembered

EZ funnily enough didn’t look out of place in the woman’s aisle of the store

He smiled at the girls and the women getting their own products

They sniggered at him but he didn’t care

He just wanted to make you happy

He also downloaded the period tracker app so he could keep up to date when you were due 

You didn’t have a clue

Confused each time EZ came home with supplies

He was the one telling you your period was due the next day

Even though your app told you the same thing

You asked him how he remembered each month

And he shrugged, telling you his memory was great

Until one night he was in the shower

And his phone went off the same time as yours

You looked and saw it was the same period tracker app you use

He came out the shower and saw you grinning at the 2 phones

He asked what was making you laugh

You showed him the phones with the period app on them both

He went slightly red, embarrassed you caught him out

You told him it was adorable and thanked him for doing that for you

Coco - 

Coco was a complete mess when you asked him to go

He begged you to go in with him

To show him

But you had leaked through to your trousers and didn’t have a spare pair

You sat in the car and watched him enter the store

You phoned him to put his mind at ease and to encourage him

You could see the sanitary products aisle from where the car was

You guided him to it

And he picked up a few products and lifted them up to the window so you could see

You told him no and explained to him over the phone where they usually are

He found the ones you liked, holding them up to show you again with a triumphant smile

You gave him a thumbs up and thanked him

He got back to the car and told you that you owed him one

You told him you would show him just how appreciative you were when you got back home

Coco admitted it wasn’t so bad going in

And vowed he would do it for the rest of his life for you

Bishop - 

Bishop hated how the MC took up so much of his time

He hated not being able to go to bed with you some nights

Or that he had to wake up early and leave you in bed

He loved doing little things for you to make up for all that

Like buying you tampons and pads from the store

You told him you could do it

But he insisted when you were on or due your period

You should rest up

The shop keepers knew him well

And knew him by name

One time they didn’t have the correct product that you liked

So he asked for the manager

He told them he was El Presidente and that his girlfriend needed a certain type of sanitary product

He made the manager check out the back

And luckily they had the ones you liked

Each month since then there have always been extra of the product you like

Bishop only used his President status when it came to you 

He would do anything to make you happy

Gilly - 

Nothing fazed Gilly Lopez

Until you text him asking him to stop by the supermarket and pick you up some sanitary products

You usually went

But the pain was too bad this month

He gulped looking at your text

The colour drained from his face and Angel, Coco and EZ asked him what was wrong

He showed them the text and they laughed

Telling him they would go with him

How hard could it be for 4 grown men to find one product

The 4 of them looked so out of place in the store

Gaining weird stares from everyone

Big badass bikers in the woman’s aisle looking at all the different tampons and pads

Gilly wasn’t sure which ones you liked

He vaguely remembered seeing a blue packet of pads in your shared bathroom

So he went with the blue colour this time

He got less confident about his choice the closer he got to the house

He handed them to you and he had picked out the right ones luckily

You asked him if anyone helped him

He told you Angel, EZ and Coco did

You smiled, thanking him for doing that for you

Enveloping him in a massive hug

Riz - 

Riz was a pro at buying female products

Vicki always made him go regularly for the girls who worked for her

So really it was a walk in the park

Riz knew more about them than you did

He spent ages looking at every packet to see what they did

And you trusted him to pick out the right ones

He often bought different ones each month

Asking you to try them out

As they last longer than other ones

Or they are more comfortable than other ones

He always looked after you too

Running you a hot bath

Giving you a massage

Ensuring you were comfy at all times

You were thankful for him

And always reminded him of that

And he always told you that’s what partners do for each other

You were lucky to have Riz

#mayans mc headcanon #mayans mc #angel reyes imagine #ez reyes #gilly lopez #riz ariza #bishop losa #coco cruz

[oss-crime]

Chapter 4-Project “Ma” –Seth–; Scene 4

Original Sin Story: Crime, pages 167-175

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane.

.

I first met Adam when he had only just been born.

As Miroku’s steward, I had been given the order to take the twins Queen Alice had birthed and discard them in the river.

They were both quite adorable babies.

Though, well, I didn’t get attached to them over that or anything.

But I did wind up having a fairly interesting idea.

I had wanted “friends”.

I had been carrying out several efforts for that purpose.

And my endeavoring to save those twins was also part of that.

.

I met Ceci Vaju through Miroku, and under his patronage I became head of the Royal Research Institute.

At the same time, I also began to meet with other people I viewed as appropriate “friends” and built up a network.

Venom was an extremely useful drug, and so now and then I would also use it when increasing my number of “friends”.

Only, it’s not like Venom was a cure-all for my problems. It also had several downsides, so I had to hold back from using it too much.

When things had calmed down to a decent degree, I decided to go check on how those twins were doing.

But…around then I ended up having a bit of a problem.

That is, I was in “poor physical health”.

Which meant that I couldn’t just go around places willy nilly.

So I decided to entrust one of the twins to a “friend” of mine. Raiou was a considerably skilled man, and so, though he had founded the organization “Apocalypse”, I gave him the order to leave it and go collect one of the twins.

I went to the beach and found the other one—Adam—and took him up myself.

…Ah yes, and there I wound up reuniting with an old colleague. Well, that didn’t matter to me so much. She’d always been a rather stupid woman.

All that aside, it was my first time ever raising a child, so it was fairly novel for me.

I did my best to raise him to grow into someone with my favored “emptiness”.

It was a busy time. My “friend” network was expanding, and I was kept occupied with my work at the institute as well. I also couldn’t forget to go to the castle and dose Miroku with the drug, too.

And then there was something else I had to do—to solve the source of this “poor physical health” problem.

For that, I needed to conduct research somewhere where I wouldn’t be seen by the public.

The facility called “Lunaca Labora”…That was where I had been born “as a human”.

My body at the time was an inferior product, and aged at a rate much faster than that of a normal human.

I needed to create a new body that would be sturdier, and last longer; prodigy that I was, I overcame this difficulty quite readily.

I was quite keen on my completed work, and so while I was at it I decided to create two more “ghoul children”—that is, clones.

It was also part of a new test to give me more “friends”. If I were to implant a fake personality based off of my own mind in the clones that I created, they would make ideal “friends”!

Or that’s what I thought…Well, even prodigies have failures sometimes.

One of them went flawlessly.

But the other one was a miserable dud.

Still, I could probably still use it as an emergency spare…Thus, I wound up keeping the failure in cold storage for the time being.

I named the “ghoul child” that had been successful “Pale Noel”. And then I entrusted him with the “Apocalypse” that Raiou had fled.

Pale is still doing excellent work even now. He is my clone after all, so I suppose you could say it’s only natural. 

…Only, he was doing a little too well, and as such it started to cause problems for my public position.

After all is said and done, Pale, a man who has the same face as me, was causing havoc as the leader of an anti-government organization, so obviously this was putting me under suspicion as well.

It’s not like Miroku could deal with all of it. I had to take care of it somehow before it got too troublesome.

First I ordered Pale to avoid showing himself in public any further, and to just work behind the scenes. Then I had all of the documents on Pale erased from the information bureau, and after that went to “Apocalypse”’s founder, Raiou, and erased his memories pertaining to my physical appearance.

Even then, doubts about the “head of the Royal Research Institute, Horus Solntse” hadn’t completely gone away.

I figured that this inferior body had begun showing its age about then anyway.

I decided to have the man named Horus retire from this world.

I went to “Lunaca Labora” and swapped my consciousness into the new body I had completed.

…Truthfully I did wonder if I should make some adjustments to my flawless features…

But! It would be an unthinkable sin to alter this handsome face!

--And thus changing my mind, I left it the way it was.

Well, I decided that if I ever got pressed on my similarity to Pale I could just tell them we were “twin brothers” or something like that to smooth it over.

It was actually true, in a sense.  

.

The new body was more comfortable than I had thought it would be.

I felt so good that I decided to stop using false names, and went by my true name of “Seth”.

I ended up staying in “Lunaca Labora” until all the excitement surrounding Pale could die down, working hard on making new “ghoul children”.

Though I couldn’t afford to cause another problem like the one I’d had with Pale by making clones that were exactly like me.

So I went on a bit of a venture with my third “ghoul child”.

I would make even the gender different, not just the face…A completely brand new “ghoul child”, that was a clone but also wasn’t!

And this, surely, would be a great enterprise on par with the “god creator of mankind’s bodies, Behemo” himself!

My “old friend”’s face came to mind.

Ha ha…That one would surely be stomping his feet in a rage if he knew about this!

.

…I’ll say it again.

Even prodigies have failures sometimes!

No! Rather, to be a prodigy is to be made up out of one’s failures!

It probably was a bit of overkill to implant in an “inheritor” power on top of changing the gender.

The moment I put in the pseudo-personality the girl took on a rebellious attitude, and as soon as my back was turned she escaped from “Lunaca Labora”.

I was unable to grasp her whereabouts for a while—but eventually I received word from Pale that he’d found her and was taking care of her.

It seemed that she showed quite the obedient side towards him.

…Why!? Pale is a clone of me!

--Well, whatever the situation, I decided to entrust her care to Pale.

.

I grew tired of making “ghoul children”, so I decided to go play with Adam again.

He’d seemed very rattled when we reunited at that bar, but the sight had also been quite pleasant.

Yes, at present, Adam was the one I could enjoy myself with the most—that was what I had thought.

.

I would let slip certain details to get Adam to hate me.

He soundly got on board with the idea, and so started plotting to have me killed.

Gosh, that had been fun…

Though, as you might expect I was a bit upset that my third “ghoul child” had genuinely tried to kill not just the other researchers but also me, in direct opposition to what we had arranged previously.

.

--Adam.

One of the “Twins of God” that had been abandoned right after he was born.

He had been most enticing as raw material.

I wondered how I might change him into one of my “friends”—that is, “evil”.

It was elegant sport.

.

He’d been superb at being “evil”.

And yet…or rather, because of that, perhaps.

Adam withdrew from the stage, and left.

.

For, to cast aside the role you are given, and run away—

That, too, is a type of sinful “evil”.

.

--And then there’s Eve.

Let me say it quite plainly here…the death of “Cain” and “Abel” was absolutely not my fault.

I wouldn’t have minded at all if those twins had been born properly.

For I had the suspicion that a new, altogether different story would have started there.

Simply put…their blood had been too dense.

The survival rate of children born between blood siblings isn’t all that high to begin with.

.

And another thing.

There is something Adam was mistaken about regarding Eve.

And something Eve was hiding from Adam.

.

The explanation I gave to Adam on Venom.

I did tell a few lies in that.

My extracting the genes from an “Inheritor of Levia”—

It wasn’t from a corpse.

It was from a newborn baby.

.

At present, there is one “Inheritor of Levia” in this world.

And her name—is Eve Zvezda.

Adam’s twin sister.

.

Venom has some drawbacks.

The drug was created based on the genes taken from an “Inheritor of Levia”.

So, while it might sound obvious—

On one who has the antibodies to it—that is, an “Inheritor of Levia”, it has no effect.

Venom doesn’t work on Eve.

.

Naturally…I have no obligation to tell any of that to Adam.

<<prev------directory------next>>

[in-christalone]

Former homosexual is such an insult. I'm sorry that you have been caused to think like that. God loves everyone and love isn't a sin. If you went through conversion therapy than what they taught you is all just brain washing. Be true to yourself, if you were experimenting that is fine but former homosexual is an insult.

Hello friend! I’m so glad you sent this message in, you’re giving me a chance to explain in my own words what my conversion from a homosexual lifestyle to one of Christianity is like, thank you for that!

Being a person who is same sex attracted is not a sin. YOU are not a sin, a sinner, yes (as I am too, the worst kind) but you as a person, having same sex attractions, are not a sin.

What is sin?

Sin is cosmic treason against a Holy, Righteous God - Jonathan Edwards

We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. - R.C Sproul

Unfortunately the lgbt community (including myself at one point) had the thought since we are gay, we are therefore a sin. As such there’s no hope for redemption. So why not have fun while we live?

However, the actions/thoughts we do/have are sins.

God created the universe, Heavens, earth, animals, and He created us. He is our Creator! The whole world is proof of His existence, the Grand Canyon is proof of the flood for example! Sodom and Gomorrah to this day is still preserved in sulfur from God destroying the city for its wicked rebellion.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they fell into rebellion against God. We have inherited their sinful nature as we all come from them (they were the first humans, all humanity comes from them)

We have all sinned and fallen short to the glory of God. We’ve all broken the law of God and like the criminals of the Law that we are, we all deserve to be in hell for our transgressions and sins.

This isn’t the end though! We have hope!

There remains hope for the sinner! God is faithful and so merciful to forgive sinners!

He has provided only One way for a sinner to be forgiven of their sins, that’s only through Jesus Christ.

Right after The Fall, God told Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15 His plan of redemption for humanity. We can be washed clean of our sins.

Our hearts are the problem, the Bible says;

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? —Jeremiah 17:9

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.. -Matthew 15:18-20

Where is our hope if this is the condition of our heart? How can we, who hate God, even come to love Him and His Law?

We can’t do it alone. God says in the Bible;

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”— ‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭36:26-27‬ ‭

‬‬The Holy Spirit (which they text refers to) had always existed! He just has a new role now than in the Old Testament era.

The Holy Spirit is put within and only the believer. The Spirit convicts and causes the believer to repent of their sins, first comes spiritual rebirth, then the sinner is a believer and has received forgiveness of sins!

If we are guilty, how do we become free?

In order for a convicted criminal to walk free from their crimes, someone must pay.

We owe our lives to Jesus Christ for His death. His blood shed for our atonement, and equally important, He has taken the wrath of God, something we all deserve, and taken it all upon Himself when He suffered and died on the cross.

Only Jesus (Whom is God) lived a perfect, sinless life as a human, only Jesus was able to pay for our forgiveness of sins, only Jesus has taken the wrath of God for us, and only Jesus has defeated death once and for all.

This is all said to prove this Scripture;

“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

‭‭John‬ ‭14:6‬ ‭‬‬

Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah of God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus we have a perfect, sinless Savior. The Lamb of God slaughtered for our sins and resurrected for the promise of eternal life. Sin cannot be forgiven excepted by sacrifice.. This is why Jesus is the only way to heaven. As long as he has sacrificed himself for guilty centers, and had drunk the full cup of God’s wrath, and has been resurrected for the promise of eternal life.

In order to inherit eternal salvation, one must repent of their sinful living, and place all their hope in Jesus as their Savior.

——

Former homosexual is not an insult to me, it’s a hope that God has placed in me. That I am no longer bound by my past, that I now have hope in Jesus Christ who has redeemed me!

I have never been through conversion therapy, though I really do appreciate your concern, I don’t support conversion therapy in any way, shape or form.

I don’t believe in the hyper focus of one sin when we are all sinners, in need of God’s grace..

I would further challenge you to re-think “love is love”. If such is true, we would then have to accept anyone who feels love for say, their sibling, a young teenager and an adult, or even beastality. There must be a line drawn somewhere when it comes to the romantic type of love.

God created man and woman to be together in a family not to suppress us, but to help us live abundant lives, in fact, once we are adopted into the family of God, then we begin to see that the same is said for everyone of Gods Laws.

A family must have a mother and father influence.

Heather Barwick, whom was raised by two mothers, expresses her childhood, trauma, homosexuality, and deep desire for the father figure she never had in her life.

Heather writes, “I’m not saying that you can’t be good parents. You can. I had one of the best. I’m also not saying that being raised by straight parents means everything will turn out okay. We know there are so many different ways that the family unit can break down and cause kids to suffer: divorce, abandonment, infidelity, abuse, death, etc. But by and large, the best and most successful family structure is one in which kids are being raised by both their mother and father.”

Being same sex attracted is a temptation and therefore not a sin, but when one gives into temptation, they produce sin.

Anyone can be redeemed in Christ Jesus.

Thank you so much for allowing me to speak on this, I really appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me to share more about myself and what God has done in my life.

I have joy in my life, and am no longer held by fear of death. God has set me free, He loves you and desires to set you free as well 💛

#lgbt #pride #gay #lesbian #that took me an hour to formulate my response!! #i hope its okay!!

[lady-divine-writes]

Good Omens - “Saving Face” (Rated PG13)

Summary: A gang of bullies use Warlock to trap Adam on Halloween night, herding him towards a big, old, haunted house where no one goes ... and few who enter are ever seen alive again. (3904 words)

Notes: This is one of two stories I wrote for A Big Spooky Fan Zine. Be sure to check the rest of the collection for some amazing spooky works from other wonderful fandom creators :)

Read on AO3.

“Warlock … man,” Adam implores, backing away, hands raised in surrender “... come on. You don’t have to do this.”

Warlock grins at Adam’s trembling voice, his eyes wide with fear reflecting Warlock’s triumphant grin.

“Yeah,” he says, taking measured steps forward, eating up this moment. “I do.”

A pack of five boys in costume creeps up behind Warlock like the jackals they are. They’re not standing with him. They’re there to ensure their plan goes off without a hitch. This initiation into their gang will not only provide them with a minion in Warlock, whose father’s money and connections make the boy more valuable to them than Midas. But it will knock precious prince Adam Young off his popularity pedestal - a position he’s held on to for far too long.

Adam looks from Warlock to his cronies closing in on him, taking their time since they know he’s at their mercy. Talking will not help him, and he can’t fight his way out. Six against one? The odds are not on his side. So he does the only thing he can do.

He runs.

He turns tail and bolts, feet inside his battered trainers pounding the pavement, lungs burning from the strain he’s putting them through. But he has no illusions that he’s getting away, even when he gains a considerable lead. He knows how this gang operates. They’re herding him to one specific place: The Parsons House - an abandoned house at the end of this deserted lane; a monstrous, crooked, ramshackle nightmare overlooking the largest cemetery in their village. It’s the oldest house in this corner of the countryside. A worn, wooden sign attached to a single post that no longer stands upright proclaims it to be so.

No one ever goes there, regardless of the fact that its last known owner, Emily Parsons, lived for over eighty-three years inside, all alone, until the day she died of old age. But it’s been said that her frail body can be seen hanging from a noose in the upper attic window, leading to speculation by local townsfolk that the story of her dying peacefully in her sleep may be nothing but a tall tale.

This gang of boys (sans Warlock) have done this before - chased some poor, frightened soul that they hate to the house and forced them inside …

Kids that never came back to school, who were never heard from again.

In an act that could be described as simultaneously brave and stupid, Adam heads for the house, leaps over its rickety fence, and runs straight for the stairs.

All six boys crow when they see him skid to a stop at the base of the porch.

He’s right where they want him.

Whether he goes in himself or they grab him by his arms and legs and toss him in, he’s going in that house.

“Go on then!” one of the boys yells. “Get yer bony arse in there!”

The boys cackle, lending further to the impression that they are hunchbacked, sharp-toothed predators.

“And what if I don’t?” Adam calls over his shoulder, not fully facing them. Keeping his back turned to this lot is just as foolhardy as seeking safety inside this house, but he can’t turn his back on the house either. It has an essence - something he can feel deep inside his body, into the marrow of his bones.

“I don’t see you have much of a choice,” a different boy yells. “One way or the other, yer going in there. It just depends on whether you’re walking in or crawling in on two broken legs!”

Adam looks at the boys, stopped by the fence, with a slight smirk and a furrowed brow.

“How on earth am I supposed to crawl anywhere on two broken legs?” he asks.

“I …” The boy who made the original comment chokes on the rest of his sentence, realizing then how much that threat doesn’t make any sense. “I don’t know! You’re just gonna!”

“Adam … buddy …” Warlock grips the pointed tops of the fence posts and leans over “… my friends here are going to make sure you get into that house one way or the other. So you might as well get it over with.”

Adam answers Warlock’s comment with a hard swallow. He doesn’t honestly believe those boys are going to grab him up and toss him into the house. They’re too scared to even come past the fence, standing just beyond the splintered pickets, dressed in an array of stereotypical monster costumes – a werewolf, a vampire, a mummy, Frankenstein’s monster, and a ghost – each one blocking Adam’s escape.

Warlock is the only one among them not wearing a costume, opting for slate gray trousers, a white button-down, and the thick, navy wool coat he wears for school. With the exception of being only twelve, he looks, for all intents and purposes, like he’s going on a job interview.

Just an everyday average Joe.

That’s because, he’d explained, serial killers blend in, look like everyone else.

In reality, Adam has the upper hand. He should run inside and hide.

It’s a good plan.

A reasonable plan.

A solid plan.

So why doesn’t he make his feet go?

He searches for a weapon since it seems that fighting might become an option.

The house shifts on its foundation when a particularly forceful breeze passes through it. Adam eyes the graying wood slats falling from the siding, dusty windows clattering while shutters swing off their hinges, smacking dully against one another.

A rock flies in out of nowhere and strikes Adam on the shoulder. He stumbles forward onto the first creaky step. He glares at the house, as if of all the people there meaning to do him harm, it’s the house that decided to throw the first punch.

But it wasn’t the house.

He knows it wasn’t.

And the stakes in this game of cat-and-mouse have just gone up a notch.

“Go on already!” the boy dressed as a mummy yells, tossing a second rock straight up and catching it as it comes down like he’s warming up for baseball practice. “We haven’t got all night! We still have egging to do!”

“Well, why don’t you go do that and come back? I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

Adam ducks in time to miss the rock whiz by his head, coming close enough to nick his left ear.

“No more jokes, Adam!” werewolf boy growls. “You either go inside and take your chances, or we pound you into the dirt!”

Adam looks at the faces around him – mean, unfriendly, shrouded by masks and makeup, which makes these boys feel braver.

It also makes them more dangerous.

But they’re far from anonymous. Adam knows who the boys are underneath their masks. The vampire is Vince: the leader of the gang and the eldest, having retaken two grades twice. The werewolf is his younger brother, David. The mummy is Troy, their best friend from birth. Frankenstein’s monster is Leroy, and the ghost, in his thin white sheet, hiding him from absolutely no one, is Devin.

Yes, Adam knows them. He knows an awful lot about them, really. They’ve lived in the same village together their entire lives. They’ve been to each others’ houses at one point or another, hunted for eggs in the courtyard of the church every Easter till they were ten. But he doesn’t appeal to them. Because somewhere down the line, they changed. Rumors about them run rampant all over town. Outlandish rumors.

Still, Adam is far from impressed.

But Warlock … Adam had had high hopes for him. But Vince and his merry band of delinquents got their hooks into him.

Now, it might be too late for both of them.

Adam looks at the four short stairs leading to the porch. He knows the devils that wait for him if he doesn’t go up those stairs. He might as well try his luck contending with the unknown.

As a former Antichrist, a murderous spirit might be easier to reckon with.

He climbs unsteadily to the second step, ticking it off in his head.

Three more to go.

Somewhere above him, a shutter slams, causing him to skip step three and fall face-first onto step number four.

In the space of a second, he went from starting to nearly done.

He lifts a foot and plants it on the stair beneath him, raising himself up slowly as the plank bends in the middle. He brings his other leg up to the fourth step.

One more, and he’ll be standing on the porch.

Another breeze blows. The front door swings open, making all the kids present jump. Adam finds himself at a crossroads.

Whether he likes it or not, there’s only one way out of this.

He can’t make it past. He has to go through.

Adam flies into the house, the front door slamming shut the second he’s inside, as if receiving him.

Or swallowing him.

Then … everything grinds to a halt.

The wind ceases to blow.

The shutters hang limply, no longer bang.

The house stops its listing.

And from the pits of the boys’ stomachs to the tips of their toes, the earth stops spinning.

“What … what just happened?” David asks in a hoarse whisper.

“I think he went in there,” Leroy says.

“Went in, or was pushed?” Troy asks.

“Who would have pushed him? We’re all out here! Not a one of us has moved!”

“Maybe it wasn’t us,” Devin offers.

“Who was it then? Who was it!?” Troy asks, becoming unhinged. “Tell me!”

The sound of Adam screaming silences their arguing.

“Help! Help me! Vince! Troy! Devin! Warlock! Help me!”

“A … Adam?” Leroy says. “Is that …?”

“Yeah,” David answers quietly. “Yeah, that’s …”

“David! Leroy! Please!”

The boys have heard kids scream in this house before. And they’ve enjoyed it. It’s part of what they live for, why they do this every Halloween. But something about the way Adam is screaming is different. He isn’t just begging for help.

He’s calling out to them, each one by name.

Not only is it unsettling to hear Adam’s fearful voice calling for them, the thought of this house knowing their names sends chills up each of their spines.

Except for Warlock, who looks bored out of his mind.

Silence falls over the house again. A silence that drags on by the skin of its teeth and goes on for far too long.

Right when three of the boys summon up the courage to organize a search party, they hear another scream, this one worse than the last.

Adam again, but his screams have changed.

He’s beyond asking for help, gone from panicked, to bloodcurdling, to strangled, as if someone is pouring cupfuls of sand into his mouth. Above the sound of Adam choking for air comes a hollow, evil laugh, rising in volume and pitch, echoing around the walls and shaking the whole house.

“Vince!” it mimics, chuckling in between. “Troy! Devin! Warlock! David! Leroy!”

The boys stand up straight when they hear it, stepping back as the sound grabs at their insides and squeezes tight.

“We … we should go check on him … maybe?” Devin suggests.

“Yeah,” Leroy agrees. “Why don’t you go ahead and check on him, Vince?”

Vince glares at the boys flanking him side-to-side. “Nu-uh! I’m not opening that door for shite!”

“This was your brilliant idea!” Devin argues. “You’re the one who wanted to bring him here, despite the fact that we could end up dead! Or worse!”

“What’s worse than dead?” Vince asks.

“My mum could find out! I could be grounded till I’m married!”

Vince’s eyebrows snap in the middle. “B-but … you’re gay!”

“Marriage equality exists, Vince!” Devin crosses his arms. “Don’t be an arse, all right?”

“Point is,” Troy intervenes, “this was your plan from the start, so you should go check on him! Man!” He kicks at the pebbles beneath his feet. “I just want for one year to get some tricks or treats! I’m so tired of this shite!”

“Same here!” Leroy chimes in.

The five boys bicker back and forth. Warlock watches, gaze bouncing between them like he’s at a football match - a dull football match, one destined to end in a stalemate. He rolls his eyes.

He’s definitely done with this.

“Oh, I’ll do it!” Warlock says, blowing through the lopsided gate and trudging up the steps. “Ya bunch of pansies …”

“Yeah,” Vince says, visibly relieved. “Yeah, Warlock should go. It’s his initiation.”

“Oh, shut the eff up!” Troy says, unamused.

Warlock stomps up the stairs without a care, daring whatever is in the house that grabbed Adam to grab him as well. “Adam!” he yells, hand cupped to the side of his mouth to ensure he can be heard. “Adam! Where the hell are you?”

When Adam doesn’t answer, Warlock does the unthinkable.

He knocks on the front door.

The gang takes another step back.

“A-dam!” Warlock calls in a teasing, sing-song voice. “Come out here, ya coward! You trynna pull one over on us? Well, it won’t work. I’m gonna count to five, and then Vince is gonna come in and beat the crap out of you!”

“What!?” Vince yelps, his next step backward twice the size of the rest. “Oh, heck no! No no no no no no no!”

Warlock stops knocking. He puts an ear to the door. The boys watch, completely engrossed but prepared to run if anything else should happen.

If anything should eat him, then come for them next.

“Well?” Leroy calls up after a minute. “Do you hear anything?”

“I hear … something,” Warlock moves his ear from the center of the door to the seam. “It sounds like a …”

“Like a what? Like a what?” Troy screams, one creaky floorboard away from losing it entirely.

“I don’t know,” Warlock says, “but it sounds kind of like a … a …”

“A …?”

“... a … burp.”

The boys stare at one another, expressions wasted underneath their disguises.

“A burp?” David says. “Warlock, man! I’m gonna …”

The door breaks off its hinges and flies over their heads. The five boys duck down to avoid being beamed. When the coast is clear, and the cacophony of the door cartwheeling down the street dies down, they stand back up and look to the spot where Warlock had been standing, hoping to get an answer …

… but he’s not there anymore.

Not a scrap of him.

The gaping doorway stands open like a giant mouth breathing in the twilight air.

And Vince can’t stand it anymore.

“Warlock! Adam!” he bellows, then waits for an answer. When he doesn’t get one, he leaps over the fence and storms up to the house. “WARLOCK! ADAM! Come on out, all right? This isn’t funny anymore!”

Vince isn’t necessarily concerned with whether or not Warlock or Adam is alive or dead. He’s much more concerned with his sanity. He’s been to this house dozens of times, and nothing even close to this has ever happened. They have to be making this up. They had to have gotten together before tonight and planned on pranking him, probably hoping to see him mess himself.

Well, that’s not gonna happen!

He makes his way to the doorway with none of his gang behind him. He leans in, looks left and right.

“Warlock?” he calls out. “Adam? Where are you guys?”

He turns back to his crew, all of whom have migrated further down the walkway, preparing to run for their lives.

“They’re not … they’re not in there,” Vince says.

“You’re going to have to go inside then.”

“No way! Fuck that!”

“Vince …!”

“Don’t Vince me! They went into that house on their own! Ain’t no one to blame for that!”

“Adam went in because we threatened him!” Leroy points out.

“He wouldn’t have even come here if Warlock hadn’t invited him,” Vince counters.

“We helped! That makes us accessories!” Devin argues.

“Accessories?” Vince snickers. “What? Are you a solicitor now?”

“Just get in there, Vince!” Leroy says. “Or are you chicken?”

“I’m not chicken! I’m smart! I’m not gonna go in there and die because of fucking peer pressure, and not a one of you can make me!”

A tortured howl shakes the loose boards on the house, pulling the boys’ attention. But it doesn’t sound like Adam this time.

It sounds like Warlock.

“H-holy shit! Holy shit! Vince!” David yells, pointing at the house.

Pointing at Adam, standing in the doorway, two feet in front of Vince, his shirt front drenched in blood. None of the boys can tell if that blood belongs to him or not. Not even Vince, looking him dead in the eye.

But he doesn’t look too much worse for wear.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck!” Vince cries, stumbling backward, missing the stairs altogether and falling straight off the porch onto his tailbone. He lands with a resounding thud, sprays of liquid hot pain shooting up his back.

“What … what happened to you, A---Adam?” Leroy asks.

“I was given a choice,” Adam growls in a new voice as he steps out onto the porch. An inhuman voice. “To submit … or die. And I chose …” He lifts his arms and his body follows, rising into the air above the boys’ heads as Adam grins down at them “… to conquer.”

“Wh-where is Warlock?” David asks.

Adam laughs. “You mean him?” With a sweep of his arm, the limp body of a young boy flies out one of the windows, landing on the ground inside the fence. The five boys scream, staring into the open and unseeing eyes of Warlock Dowling, his face ashen, his mouth opened wide, locked in a horrified scream so that the only conclusion they can come to is that he was literally scared to death.

“L-let’s get out of here!” Leroy yells.

“Oh …” Adam chuckles “… you’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here … with us!”

“U-us?” Troy whimpers. “Who’s us?”

A fist busts through the floorboards of the porch, then an arm clad in rags and the shredded remains of what was once a flannel shirt. Another hand emerges, clawing through the wood to hoist up the rest - the head and torso of a corpse tearing themselves from the earth to do Adam’s bidding. Adam’s eyes - blistering red orbs glowing in their sockets - stare down at his tormentors, so frightened for their lives, they can barely scream. Vince scuttles backward to avoid the eruption. A hand explodes through the dirt beside him, grabbing hold of his ankle, and Vince launches to his feet. He manages a shrill wail as he flips over the gate and sprints off down the street, his four compatriots hot on his heels, one urinating noticeably.

Not until the boys are out of sight does Adam begin to laugh in earnest, his body lowering to the ground, carried gingerly by angelic power. He looks down as the glamour fades – the stain withdrawing, his eyes returning from the spell that made them transform. He pulls at the hem of his shirt, watching as the last remaining blood disappears from the fabric.

Warlock climbs up off the filthy ground. He was never really hurt, helped out the window and through the air by demonic intervention. “That was fun.”

“Better than what we did last year,” Wensleydale groans, clambering out of his hole in the porch.

“Hey!” Brian yelps, pulling off his sweaty mask and sucking in a breath of fresh air. “Last year’s costume contest was epic!”

“That’s because you won it!” says Pepper, pulling off her own oppressive mask.

“Yeah. And that was because your mum was one of the judges!”

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t have the best costume!”

“Don’t you children think that was a little much?” Aziraphale asks, walking out on to the porch from where he and Crowley had been hiding in the living room, peeking out through a downstairs window. He’d disapproved of this scheme from the start, back when the Them found out what those bullies were concocting for Halloween night, how they had strong-armed Warlock into helping them. “Wouldn’t it have been better to approach their parents about their brutish behavior?”

“Nah,” Crowley says, slipping an arm around his husband’s waist. “Woulda done no good. Most of the time, the parents are no better than the kids. Who d’ya think the blighters get it from?”

“Isn’t this all going to be moot when they find out that Adam hasn’t been possessed by the devil, and Warlock did not, in fact, get devoured by bloodthirsty zombies?” Aziraphale asks, grimacing at the absurdity.

“No,” Adam assures him, “because no one is going to find out until school on Monday after they’ve already called everyone they know and told them about it. I can’t imagine the amount of trouble they’re going to get into!”

“Yeah!” Wensleydale agrees. “Look at all of the rules they’re breaking! Bullying, assault, trespassing. With any luck, they’ll get grounded for life!”

“Or at least three months.” Aziraphale shoots his husband a significant look that takes Crowley a moment to catch.

“Oh! Yeah, right.” Crowley snaps his fingers, performing the truly demonic miracle of making sure five bastards get their comeuppance.

“Besides, something good is coming out of all this,” Pepper reminds them. “Mrs. Parsons’s grandniece will have a brand new house after we help get this wreck fixed up. It was nice of her to let us borrow it for the night. We must have sounded bonkers when we asked.”

“Not at all. She understood,” Aziraphale assures them. “She was glad that after years of people using her great aunt’s house to scare people that someone asked permission for a change.”

“I think things turned out exactly the way they were meant to,” Pepper says.

“Yup!” Brian concurs. “Let the punishment fit the crime, I always say.”

“When do you say that?” Wensleydale asks, beating dirt and cobwebs out of his ear.

“All the time,” Brian argues.

“I’ve known you my entire life, and I’ve never once heard you say that!”

“Then you haven’t been listening hard enough!”

“Pepper? Have you ever heard him say that?”

“Don’t know. I tend to ignore every third word that comes out of his mouth.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.”

“You were right, Warlock. Go big or go home,” Adam says over the argument ensuing.

“Yeah.” Warlock smiles at his new friends. They were never angry at him for the part he almost played in conspiring against their leader. They offered to help him out with no arguments given. It was Pepper's idea to pretend to turn into the undead. Brian got their costumes together. Wensleydale found out about Mrs. Parsons's grandniece and suggested they give her a call. Then they spent most of Halloween night hiding out in this creepy old house when they could have been roaming the neighborhood begging for candy.

But the best thing they did was let him join their group even though he probably didn't deserve it.

“We went big." Warlock smirks, watching the five boys clamor down the street and, unbeknownst to them, to a two-hour lecture and three months in solitary confinement. “Let’s go home.”

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #aziraphale #Crowley

[kob131]

Looks like Hbomberguy's hours long crap is up(publicly).

“Made a legendary animator, his most trusted colleage (shows Shane) and two-”

People he outright went to and he acknowledged were better writers, thanks for admitting that HBomberguy and not be an insulting jackass right?

“RWBY’s failures matter because it could have been something-”

So could Twilight- That means nothing at this point other than ‘I made a bunch of headcanons and the show dared to not follow them.’

‘It’s easy to see why this show has such a devote fanbase because it frequently threatens to become good-”

So did Fairy tail (except for real) and that died out. Also you are really chipping away at my goodwill

‘People say what it promised!”

You mean this?

‘Weaken REAL criticism by being given too much attention-”

Hypocritical much douchebag?

“*insert a bunch of sarcastic bullshit mocking critics of RWBY*”

*rolls eyes* You say as you mimick them down to using the DEAD.

‘It’s separated into two eras with issues that don’t necessarily overlap-”

Bull. Fucking. Shit. Most of RWBY’s problems now ORIGINATED in the early Volumes. 

“If you’re a fan of the show you’re probably gonna dread what I’m about to say and if you’re a fan of the second half then you’ll probably agree with what I’m about to say-”

Considering you’re stupid sarcasm is just a less smug version of what I do, pretty clear ‘agreement’ and ‘actual good point’ are very different here.

“If you love RWBY and are still gonna watch, thank you and I love you for joining me on this journey.”

Less a journey and more a Seven Page Muda but sure.

“My goal isn’t to make people think less of the show-”

Which is why you openly insult it in the beginning.

“-but to think more about it.”

So far you’ve shown about as much understanding of the show as FloofArtist, complete with hypocrisy. And considering what I’ve heard about your video, you’re not getting better.

“I hope to give credit where credit is due-/It’s said failure is the best teacher-”

Which is why you openly insult people.

“’Rooster Teeth is starting game development!’ *insert insulting Steam Statistics*’

Fucking wonderful. Like you haven’t already tested my patience.

“*gushes about the Red Trailer after about eight minutes of recaping*”

Cool, eight minutes wasted on knowledge that EVERY RWBY fan knows. Literally every RWBY fan knows the origins of RT and Monty and the bitch basic knowledge of how they came together. You seem to have targeted this to RWBY fans and yet to blab about shit that you get after looking at the fandom for 2 seconds.

To say nothing of how you prove something was wrong with the Red Trailer. Namely, you never mention a plot, a personal conflict, a display of character or anything other than ‘cool music!’ and ‘animation!’ despite the show being pretty plot dependent.

*Gushes about the White Trailer*

Yet another bitch basic gushing with nothing of substance to it. For a guy who says he wants people to think critically about RWBY, you sure don’t do that for what is considered the basis of the show. It’s just talking about shit you like instead of anything worthwhile.

*Yet more gushing with the Black Trailer.*

... You know, I watch these kinds of videos searching for some kind of intellectual stimulation. Something to make me think and engage with. Right now, I get more stimulation and engagement from RWBY itself than a supposedly critical video that doesn’t even have to bother with anything original.

“The show already has generic monsters who just want to destroy humanity and yet you have written your characters to act exactly the same-”

And within your own bitching, you discovered the counter. The Grimm have nothing really to explore about them outside giving them variations and powers whereas the human characters can have these things called ‘motives’ and ‘reasons’. Not to mention even you would say people act like that in real life *cough* anyone NOT of your political alignment *cough*.

“And the audience is left with one lingering though...he can make that jump.”

How does it feel that Family Guy did a better version of your joke?

“She’s written like two adult men who have never written anything professional before except Red Vs. Blue wrote a Teenage girl-”

.... Monty wrote her based off her voice actress.  You’ve also made me regret ever using this same insult against Miles and Kerry so congrats on that.

*Even more gushing...*

You know, I am legitimately considering rewatching the Persona episode of Game Theory because at least MatPat’s faffing about is short and he has more content in his first eighteen minutes than this.

“More people have gone back to watch the trailers than watch actual episodes of the show!”

The trailers are the first thing people would watch to know about the series- no shit they’d be higher in view count.

“It’s so hard to not be onboard with the trailers!”

It’s actually very easy, especially in their release.

Why? Simple, a lot of the depth in the trailers only exists with context from the show itself. The White Trailer is cool and all but it’s symbolism and deeper meaning comes from Weiss’ backstory and the truth depth of Blake leaving Adam and what it causes is found in the show, the two best trailers while Red is just mindless fun that you can get better from other places and Yellow is just kind of neat.

How the fuck am I the more critical of the two of us so far?

“Then the show actually came out and it was terrible-”

Piece of advice, don’t follow this up with a super janky, uncanny valley 3D animation that makes Volume 1 look appealing.

“RWBY isn’t just a bad show, it’s a bad show that could have been something-”

*cracks neck*

The idea that RWBY or any show ‘had potential’ is most often used when a person once had a fondness for the property in question but has long since lost the goodwill to see it in a positive light, trying to make up for the cognitive dissonance of the conflict between liking what it once was and disliking what it is now. The issue here is that these so called ‘issues’ are born of the original creator who either founded the show or helped found it which means that it was pretty much DESTINED to be this way as the creator’s specific interpretation of their own work is what resonated with you in the first place and was likely built up to in the subtle inner workings of the show, thus making the big changes you want so badly would cause a ripple effect that would have affected your past impression of the show because everything in a show is connected. And in all likelyhood, your impression would have soured no matter what.

Tl;Dr- ‘It had potential!’ is self defeating and stupid.

‘The creators are receptive to criticism!...well, they try to be.-”

Oh boy I can’t wait for Mr. ‘kill half of all babies’ to try and speak about THIS topic.

“You don’t engage with any of the good faith criticism and just reward shitty people with attention. And I hope to show them that as a lifelong fan of RT and Monty Oum, that I’m saying this thinking RWBY could have been good...and still could be.”

Says the man who when referencing Miles for the first time, actively SEPERATED him from being a ‘treasured college’ of his friend and insulted him with Yang even though the fault lied with MONTY. 

All while referencing a tweet where he chews someone out for saying EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE SAYING ( ‘God this is why i hate this fandom. You miss the point. If I critise the show I'm a hater because you worship it. I'M OFFERING CRITISM U IDIOT SO THE SHOW SEES ITS FAULTS AND FIXES THEM. HOW THE FUCK CAN U KEEP MOVING FORWARD IF YOU DON'T IDENTIFY YOUR OWN FAULTS AND LEARN’). Yeah great job there jackass- How exactly are you any different from this fucker?

So that’s my thoughts on the first twenty or so minutes. Can already tell it’s gonna be shit.

[la5t-res0rt]

Wanted to ask about beetlelyds, sorry, I thought it was technically cannon? Like in the old comics after the show ended she grew up and married him. Sorry I’m an old school fan and have no idea why this whole thing is such a big deal. Wasn’t the actor like 20 too? I’m sorry if I sound very dumb. I’m not used to this new tumblr.

youre fine you are one hundred percent allowed to especially when you do it civilly as you have done here

first of all the biggest issue faced in the whole what is and is not canon debate is the fact that there are three (four if you count the limited comics run) publicized iterations of my media

i will go over each very briefly just kidding this is going to a long answer so i will spare the dashboard with a readmore

there is the movie which im sure you dont need me to explain the plot since youre an old school fan but basically the climax is that yes beetlejuice does go for the marriage angle in exchange for stopping the exorcism of adam and barbara and his motive for this is so that he can cause as much chaos as he wants on the mortal coil but his plan is thwarted when barbara rides a sandworm into the house which promptly eats beetlejuice sending him to bureaucratic death limbo

the end of the movie features the deetz and the maitlands happily living together with lydia havign a new appreciation for her situation and beetlejuice gets his head made real small which is very funny haha 

so no in the movie they are not canon editors note the actress who played lydia winona ryder was a teenager while filming the movie she turned 17 the year it released 

the next is the cartoon which i will admit has the most grounds for being considered canon but in the end the show is about a middle schooler and her best friend who is a ghost which in itself is a pretty iffy gray area sort of thing but for a childrens cartoon to work a friendship is better than the obvious enemy status they held in the movie

anyway in the cartoon they are potrayed to be very close friends with lydia being the person beetlejuice cares about the most and honestly if you were to watch it with no prior knowledge of the media and if you ignored their massive and obvious age difference than yeah you probably would read it as a romantic relationship 

however lydia is a middle schooler and that is simply immoral

there have been writers for the cartoon who have been credited to say that a relationship is what they were trying to invoke but for obvious reasons they couldnt exactly move forward with that angle with them establishing that lydia is a child in middle school and a fully grown adult man dating a child who is in middle school is immoral and also illegal in the united states and in canada 

this isnt a good argument for whether or not something is canon and i will tell you why with one simple name and that is luke weber

if you dont know who luke weber is he was a storyboard artist on the cartoon steven universe he is known for making a lot of self ship artwork of him and the character pearl

he worked on the show isnt his material canon no of course it isnt it wasnt put in the actual publication and also if memory serves he was eventually asked to leave the project after he drew art of the shows creator giving him permission to date pearl and calling them her otp and a lot of fans hated this because the most generally accepted interpretation of pearls character is that she is sapphic so a lot of people took issue however that again is just a widely perceived headcanon it is never stated what her actual sexuality is no one in that show is because it isnt a show about that its about wait im getting off topic sorry

what im saying is what can truly be considered canon is what you see on the screen and with the cartoon they are definitely the most friendly with each other and that is why so many people in the beetlebabe shipping community take so much stock in the cartoon because it is the easiest to read the relationship between the mas romantic although that is not what the show actually provides in black and white terms

interpretation does not equal canon and in this case no matter what anyone says the fact remains that in the cartoon itself they are friends good friends yes but friends all the same

it is definitely not a show about a grown man grooming an adult and if it were you definitely shouldn’t be stanning it the extreme because grooming a minor is wrong and it is apparently a problem in the fandom

anyway if the cartoon and the movie are both products of their time and there was more leniency on content bear in mind this was the same era as notorious animation powerhouse and known predator john k who was a showrunner on ren and stimpy and he maintained a relationship with a teenager which was an open secret that nobody really took issue with because in that time being a woman in the animation industry was tricky business and your career could be ended easily if you rejected advances luckily time has moved forward and the animation industry although still full of problems of a similar nature at least people are getting called out and punished for it

you can look more into that yourself its really upsetting though

as for comics i havent been able to find good scans of them and im not willing to purchase them but in my search i never found anything about the two of them ever being married in the cartoon again because she is a child i did find a cover where he appears to be getting married and hes asking lydia to get him out of it but im not sure where the comic actually goes all i know is she is standing off to the side shrugging and looking like she doesnt really care

anyway that brings us to the musical which is set in the modern day 

in the original libretto lydia is described as thirteen but since they got an actress who was older in the updated librettos she is listed as 15 and the story is pretty similar to the movie the young girl befriends ghosts and they try to scare her family out etc etc

the major difference between the film and the musical are that lydia and beetlejuice are more like friends like in the cartoon 

she summons him to help scare after the maitlands attempt doesnt really work so he shows up and they have fun terrorizing people together however she drops him for the opportunity to perhaps get her mom back but when no one will help she goes back to beetlejuice who tricks her into almost exorcising barbara

she agrees to marry him in order to stop the exorcism and he only wants to get married so he can be alive again and cause problems on the mortal coil like in the movie in the musical he states several times its a green card thing whihc obviously doesnt make it okay but still

anyway lydia tricks him and runs off into the underworld before the wedding can happen blah blah blah she goes back blah blah and she agrees to go through with the wedding to save her friends and family with a plan to make him go away for good

theres a very tongue and cheek song called creepy old guy which points out how wrong the whole thing is but everyone is going along with it in a very comedic matter and it includes the line 

i cant believe some cultures think this kind of things alright

basically saying yeah this is very very wrong anyway they do get married and beeltjeuice is alive for like 6 seconds before lydia stabs him to death with bad art and he dies thus nullifying the marriage because death do you part etc

so in the musical no at the end of the show they are not canon because he is dead their marriage is nullified and they go their separate ways

anyway sorry about that i just need to make it very clear that these three properties are all very distinct from each other and basically all three are indeed canon since they are publicized material and arguing the validity of which one is pointless editors note all actresses who played with the exception of dana steingold were minors for the majority of their runs as lydia with sophia ann caruso the originator of the role turning 18 during the run and dana being in her late twenties presley ryan however was a minor the whole time and still is one

tldr no they aren’t canon but to the credit of some people in this fandom their interpretation isnt too far of a stretch thanks to the era and some of the writers wishing to imply a relationship between an adult and a child

i also need to address how this is all a big deal and i suggest you take a peak through my discourse tag and check out @leedia‘s blog to see some of the more harmful things done by beetlebabe shippers

the beetlejuice fandom is home to many minors after the musical came out since musical fandom is vast and the ages of its members varies and normalizing pedophilia is harmful to them not to mention the people who have been effected by sexual harassment at the hands of adults

both sides have victims of csa but one side continues to perpetuate the cycle by showing time and time again that this behavior is normal and easily romanticized in the name of coping and literally anyone who has ever been to a good and credible therapist could tell you that posting cp even if it is simulated cp isnt a really good way to cope and you can get mad at me for saying that its totally fine but and im going to remove my character veil here for just a second as a csa survivor myself i think its harmful to not only myself but many others ok the veil is back down

tldr again there is a lot of bullying and harassment going on with both sides having their own issues but there is one side whos issues run a bit deeper in my humble opinion 

thank you for your question it allowed me to talk a lot you are welcome to discuss further with me in dms if you wish i honestly recommend giving the musical a listen because it is very fun and despite what some people say its very clever and if you get a chance to see a boot of it its visually stunning

one last note that i couldnt really fit in here but a large portion of the beetlebabes shipping community ignore the musical because it openly condemns the idea of beeltejuice and lydia having a relationship and a lot of the antis take issue with much of the writing and characterizations of the cartoon just a note that i think is important since were talking about canon

#discourse #long ask #i am so tired #Anonymous

[demoisverysexy]

What is Truth?: A Faltering Mormon Epistemology

So this is my church talk from this past week. I had a lot of fun writing it, so I thought I'd share it here. Do be warned that this is like, full of theology, philosophy, and Christian and Mormon stuff. So if that's not your cup of tea, get out while you still can! But I can say that my takes on religion might be out of the box enough for some people to maybe consider staying longer than the might normally. I hope you enjoy it, or at least can tolerate that I'm posting it. :3

One of my favorite exchanges in all of scripture takes place in John 18. Here, Jesus has been betrayed by Judas, Peter has denied knowing him, and his other disciples have fled, leaving him to be arrested and mocked by the religious leaders of the day. And then, he has this strange conversation with the Roman governor, Pilate:

33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?

34 Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?

35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?

36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? … (John 18:33-38)

In this exchange, Jesus articulates brilliantly the difference between how his kingdom operates, and how the nations and kingdoms of the world operate. While the nations of the world legitimize themselves through violence, Christ’s kingdom is legitimized and sustained by truth, and those who seek and witness it. While the nations of the world are marked by division, anyone who is of the truth is a follower of Christ.

Pilate’s reaction to Christ is telling, I think. He doesn’t know what to make of him. Pilate lives in a world of the rulers and the ruled, the conquerors and the conquered. In short, he lives in a world where winning is everything. The kind of world that Jesus posits is incompatible with- incomprehensible to, even - the world in which Pilate lives. In Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” I think there lies a deep, abiding cynical skepticism of the truth Jesus offers. Or any truth, for that matter.

But what is truth? Even if Pilate’s question was delivered cynically, it’s still important to ask. Countless philosophers and theologians throughout the ages have had different ideas on that. In the medieval era, the common idea that truth was centered primarily on God, and his Word in the Bible is the key to accessing his truth. Then came the renaissance, and people began to use human reason and observation to discover truths, which gave birth to science as we know it today. Other philosophers thought truth was reached through competing ideas being synthesized, or that there was no single viewpoint capable of describing every possible truth. I think each of these views has something unique to add to the discussion on what truth is, and - much to the chagrin of anyone who knows me well - I will talk about them at length with anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot.

For this talk, though, I’m going to focus on what truth does. I think that understanding how truth works is essential to understanding what it is, and how to find it. More though, I think looking at truth in this way can help us know how to better hear the voice of Christ, and understand what he is trying to tell us. To help with this, I will be focusing on something of a look at a case study: the events leading up to Joseph Smith’s First Vision.

Joseph Smith grew up during the Second Great Awakening, a time of great religious upheaval. Lots of religious groups were springing up, all passionate in their love for Christ and the pursuit of the truth. But that passion, sadly, quickly turned into strife. As Joseph puts it in Joseph Smith History,

For, notwithstanding the great love which the converts to these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy, who were active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling, in order to have everybody converted, as they were pleased to call it, let them join what sect they pleased; yet when the converts began to file off, some to one party and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the priests and the converts were more pretended than real; for a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued—priest contending against priest, and convert against convert; so that all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions. (JSH 1:6)

These people, in their pursuit for truth, turned against each other, filled with anger and hatred for each other. Each one of them was so convinced of their rightness, and so convinced that the simple fact of having the Correct Information was sufficient to satisfy their own Righteousness, that anyone who did not have enough of the Correct Information was less righteous, and therefore less worthy. And what they were arguing about was the message of Christ’s love! In using the fact of Christ’s love for us as a weapon, they, as Paul puts it, “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator,” (Rom. 1:25).

And because of the anger, contention, and confusion caused by the dissonance between truth and hatred, Joseph couldn’t find the truth. In his words,

...so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong. (JSH 1:8)

Whatever these people were doing, it wasn’t spreading messages of truth. Divorced from love, and tethered to anger, hate and disgust, these believers of all backgrounds were incapable of listening to one another, learning from each other, and finding the truth. Worse, their strife made it hard for other seekers of truth to find it themselves.

If strife, hatred, and disgust cause truth to flee to the nearest exit, then I think that it is safe to assume that when love is present, so too is truth. Where there is truth, there is love, and where love resides, so too does truth. This leads me to one of the defining aspects of what truth does: It causes love to increase. To find truth, we must have love, and once found, truth increases the amount of love we have. Paul puts this beautifully in Ephesians 3, where he describes his wish for the saints in Ephesus:

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Eph 3:17-19)

Grounded in love, we are more capable of seeing the truth. And seeing the truth, we come to know of the love of Christ, and are thus filled with “the fulness of God.” And as John puts it, “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him,” (1 Jn 4:16). To be rooted in the love is to be rooted in God, and it is only rooted in love that truth can be found.

This love is not thoughtless, and it is not blind, however. If it was, it would be incapable of seeing the truth. The love of which Paul and John are speaking of here is the love that Christ has for us: a love that functions as a form of deep understanding. Animated by the desire to see things as themselves, this understanding makes love possible, by helping us to know how best to address the needs of those around us. I think this understanding of love might help us understand how central to Christ’s atonement was his experience of our suffering, pain and sin. As Alma puts it,

And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities. Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance… (Alma 7:11-13)

On Alma’s account, Christ’s embodied understanding of us was - and is - central to the love and mercy he offers us. Without it, the miracle of his atonement would not be possible.

Understanding and truth as Christ does is central to loving as he does. And loving as Christ does - loving all, even our enemies, radically, fully, and unconditionally - is central to holding truth. More, in loving our enemies, we become more capable of seeing and understanding the truth. Adam S. Miller, my favorite Mormon theologian, puts this idea brilliantly in his book, Future Mormon:

Even sinners love those who love them. Even sinners love those who repeat what they want to hear and confirm what they already know. But such love is thoughtless. Those who hold the truth and are fearless in it will be marked by their confidence that every truth can be thought again-indeed, must be thought again-from the position of the enemy. Their confidence in this extension of the truth will be rooted in God’s promise that the truth must rise on the evil and the good, it must rain down on both the just and the unjust. All truths, in order to be truths, must be thinkable from the position of the enemy. All truths must be thinkable as an act of love for the enemy (71-72).

What if we, as Christ advises, “turn the other cheek?” What if we turn to see what our enemies are looking at? What if we were to try to see what we, from our limited perspectives, are missing? Animated by love, we are humble and fearless enough to know that we do not know everything. We recognize that we are all too shortsighted to know all that we must know, and that it is only through “the least of these, [our] brethren,” that we can hope to more fully see the truth, and in so doing, be filled with the love of God.

I admit now, that this is not really about truth. Or if it is, it is only about truth as much as it is about love. Love is really the central point: Without love, there is no truth. More, as Paul puts it:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not [love], I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not [love], I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not [love], it profiteth me nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-3)

Absent love, knowledge, power, faith, and miracles are nothing. More, without love, we are nothing. Goodness, knowledge, miracles, and faith only gain their power as such through love., and it is only through love that we can be fully ourselves.

[Love] suffereth long, and is kind; [love] envieth not; [love] vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. [Love] never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. (1 Cor 13:4-8)

Animated by love, filled to the brim, we will have everything we need to seek after the truth: humility, patience, joy in the truth, hope, endurance (all traits that the best scientists, philosophers, and other professional truth-seekers share). Even if we don’t have a full understanding of the truth (which is a sure bet), and even if we are wrong (which is also probably the case), if we have love, we can’t go wrong.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, [love], these three; but the greatest of these is [love]. (1 Cor 13:9-13)

If God is to be believed (and I think we should trust him on this, at the very least), there are “many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God,” that are yet to be revealed (Articles of Faith 1:9). There is so much we don’t know: Things that others have learned but we haven’t figured out yet, things that we’re just on the cusp of figuring out, things that we can’t even begin to comprehend. In the meantime, we must be ready for it. And it is only through love, the greatest and most important virtue, which never faileth, that we can be ready for the challenging truths that God sends our way.

In our own pursuit of truth, if we are guided by love, we will have all the tools we need to find the truth. Alma, talking about faith, outlines how this process plays out in our lives:

Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. Now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, Yea; nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge. (Alma 32:28 -29)

Growth isn’t always pleasant. It often hurts quite a bit, to grow physically or as a person. But filled with love for God and the truth, we will be able to tell that the swelling we feel within us is enlarging our souls, and making room within us for an increase of love. Once we give place in our hearts for the truth, even if we do not have a perfect knowledge, we will be filled with the sweetness of the truth, which will in turn fill us with love. Truth fills us with love, and love makes us seek out the truth, hungry for more.

Joseph Smith, when he was seeking for the truth, discovered another resource to find the truth: God himself. In his studies of the scriptures, he stumbled upon one scripture that stuck out to him in particular: 1 John 1:5. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” If our own faltering ability to love is not enough to help us find the truths we cannot see, then God, in his infinite mercy and love for us, is more than happy to provide what we lack. This truth of God’s love and willingness to provide to his children shocks Joseph. He has tasted of this truth, and he becomes hungry for more. As he puts it,

Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; (JSH 1: 12)

But Joseph did know what to do. He had just enough love and truth in him now to know what he needed to do next. And once he did that, the truth and love he received was beyond anything he could previously imagine. That is a story for another time (though I’m pretty confident you all know how that story ends), but I think that this moment shows how the life of a truth seeker appears: as a constant hungering for truth, which in turn leads to an increase in love and understanding, which, once again, leads us to seek more truth. And so it goes.

Returning to the exchange between Pilate and Jesus, I think it’s safe to say that while we might understand truth a little better, we still don’t have an answer to Pilate’s question. But we understand something Pilate doesn’t I think: The truth that the Christ was talking about: “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” The truth that Jesus is speaking of is the truth of his love for us, and by extension, his Father’s love for us. Knowledge fails us, prophecies fail us, our loved ones will fail us, even we will fail ourselves. But God and his love will never fail us. Trusting in his love for us, and loving him in turn, we will be filled with the sweetness of the truths he offers, and a sight clear enough and a heart big enough to seek out the truth ourselves. And when we fail to love, and miss the truth, God and Christ, in their great love for us, will fill us all the more with their love and truth. And thus filled with love, we will have the courage to embrace whatever truths God sends our way.

#religion #theology #mormonism #christianity #philosophy #queerstake