#not sure if it is only orthodox or if other groups do it too

[minty-bunni]

#danny phantom #pamela manson #I put the wig answer in because all we know is that sam is jewish but not what type of jewish #and married women in at least one of those groups cover their hair with a covering or a wig so #not sure if it is only orthodox or if other groups do it too #my info comes from my jewish friend so naturally I only really know about her family #kinda like a catholic wouldn't know everything about all the other christianity groups #anyway so I added that as an answer as a reference to Sam's background and maybe Jeremy and Ada are Jewish and Pam isnt #but still #and I mean she could wear a wig for other reasons as well

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — I first met Alice Shalvi, the mother of religious feminism in Israel, in the mid-1990s during a meeting of ICAR, the International Coalition of Agunah Rights, a coalition that she founded to advocate for women denied a religious divorce by their husbands. She was in her early 70s at the time, and had been fighting for agunah rights for 20 years.

I was in my mid-20s, and new to the cause. I was there as co-chair of Mavoi Satum, which a group of us founded in 1995. This coalition was meant to be advancing systemic solutions to this awful problem. But, of course, we were stuck. As stuck then as we are now.

At one point in the meeting, Professor Shalvi started to cry. “I am 72 years old. I have been talking about this for so long,” she said, “and nothing is changing.” She was crying because the suffering of women didn’t seem to matter to our people. Then she turned to me and said, “It’s up to you and your generation to fix this.”

At the time, I felt her passing the mantle, and I didn’t want to let her down. But I’m sure I did. At least on this front. On others, too, despite our best efforts.

Shalvi, who died Monday morning in Israel at age 96, fought crucial fights decades before the rest of the world caught up with her, before the religious community had any kind of language for what she was doing, before there was any kind of feminist movement to speak of in Israel. 

She pioneered feminist ideas in Israel in the early 1970s when there were only a handful of women doing such work — Marcia Freedman, Naomi Chazan and a few others. And she was the only one coming from the religious world, and able to see the need and potential for change before everyone else. 

Starting in 1975, Shalvi began running the Pelech School for Haredi Girls, a religious feminist school, before Orthodox feminism existed as a movement — before Women of the Wall, before women’s tefillah (prayer) groups, years before Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and Kolech, Israel’s Religious Women’s Forum, existed, before anyone even dared to put the words “feminist” and “religious” together in a sentence. Before even the Conservative movement had women rabbis. Everyone else is still catching up.  

She also worked in the non-religious arena, creating, in 1984, the first feminist lobby in Israel, the Israel Women’s Network, which still pioneers on many fronts.

She also dared to work on issues of peace, taking positions that were considered pas nisht, or “unsuitable,” in the religious world — and for the most part still are. She dared to see Palestinians, especially Palestinian women, as equal human beings. This was not a position that religious Israelis, or Israelis in general, were comfortable with. It’s still an uphill battle.  She spoke and acted from a place of humanity first. 

And she could remarkably work on a multitude of  fronts, all at once, including education, academia, advocacy, politics and peace.

Alice Hildegard Shalvi was born in Essen, Germany, on Oct. 16, 1926. She, her mother and brother joined their father in London in 1934, and she later earned degrees in literature and social work. She immigrated to Israel in 1949, taught at Hebrew University and led efforts to create an English department at Ben-Gurion University. Denied the deanship because she was a woman, she mobilized female faculty members in protest.

Professor Shalvi was my formal mentor when I was on the Jerusalem Fellows, a program in Jewish education. We would meet regularly and talk about feminism, politics, religion and Israel. It was a privilege to spend those hours in one-on-one conversations. Prof. Shalvi always talked to me with complete honesty, passion and belief in what she was working for. She entrusted me with her vision, and made me feel like she believed that I would hold it for her and continue to birth it in the world.

By the time changes started to take place in Orthodoxy for women — evidenced by Shira Hadasha, a Jerusalem congregation dedicated to halachah (Jewish law) and feminism, and Orthodox women in clergy roles — she had already moved on to the Conservative movement, serving as rector of what is now the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, a graduate school and seminary associated with the movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary. She needed to go where her vision was valued and welcomed and celebrated, instead of where everything was a fight. She was highly criticized for that decision and was treated by some as a sort of traitor to the Orthodox feminist cause. But she deserved to be in a place that supported her and brought her comfort and respect, and she had earned that right.

She offered words of support for me when I took a similar leap and enrolled in Reform rabbinical school. Even though I am no longer in rabbinical school and do not associate with the Reform movement in any meaningful way, I do not regret the decision to step away from an Orthodox version of feminism and try on other hats. She inspired me and so many others to take leaps, be courageous, live from the heart and ignore the haters.

I am so glad that she found her well-deserved place in the world, and that she received many well-deserved honors and accolades along the way, including, in 1991, the Ministry of Education’s Education Prize in 1991 for teaching Talmud to girls and insisting that Pelech alumnae serve in either the IDF or the National Service. In 2007, she won the Israel Prize for her life’s work, and in 2019 a National Jewish Book Award for her memoir, “Never a Native.”

She left an incredible legacy of activism that has birthed generations of change agents in Israel.

I have often thought over the years that I wanted to be Alice Shalvi when I grew up. I loved her unstoppable courage, her ability to wear many hats, her resilience in standing up to the haters and naysayers, and her constant belief that she could make a difference. I’ve tried to follow that kind of path, though I have not had nearly the kind of strength and fortitude — and successes — that she had. But her personality and vision continue to have a permanent resting place in my heart. And I will continue to endeavor to carry her torch in this world.

[fierceawakening]

So this is going around:

And I don't want to derail or belittle the excitement of the people sharing this as a wonderful thing. I agree that it is.

However, I am making my own post to note this:

Queerness is a fraught subject in modern Orthodoxy, whose adherents generally abide by halacha — Jewish law — and engage fully with secular society, unlike Haredi Jews who tend to live in insular communities. A pair of verses in Leviticus explicitly prohibiting male gay sex provide Biblical pretext for excluding queer people, and Yeshiva University — Rabbi Brick’s alma mater — has made national headlines over the past two years for refusing to recognize its LGBTQ+ student club. A gay Orthodox man who was ousted from his Florida shul early this year took to picketing outside it. The clinical director of an advocacy group called Jewish Queer Youth says that among the 2,000 young people from Orthodox families it has served since 2016, some 70% have considered suicide. One, a YU graduate like Brick, died by suicide this summer, just before the Shabbat when the portion of Leviticus with the prohibition against gay male sex would be read.

and

He is also single, and declined to say whether he plans to date — or whether he thinks people can pursue same-sex relationships within the bounds of halacha. That silence may be helping him win — for now — tolerance among his colleagues. After all, a 2022 white paper on welcoming queer Orthodox Jews begins its second paragraph, “Our starting point as Orthodox Jews is clear: Sexual relations between people of the same sex is forbidden.” But Brick much prefers to talk — and teach — about other things. He has developed a series of lesson plans that consider halachic issues for queer Jews, and is teaching them to his high school students. And they have nothing to do with sex. “What’s missing in the world is not another person trying to re-understand this verse in Leviticus,” Brick said. “That’s a closed book. We know what it means, we know what it stands for. But talking about queer experiences is not as two-dimensional as talking about the permissibility or non-permissibility of very specific sex acts. There is a lot more to a person — a lot more to these questions — that is worth exploring.”

I do not ever want to hear "It's just Christians" ever again.

I have seen the Tumblr posts that just say "oh, you're a little unclean after gay sex, it's no big." I am glad to see them, but that isn't what this looks like it says at all.

So while I'm sure I will see "only Christians are Like That, because Christianity is uniquely authoritarian" again...

...this is me officially putting "maybe don't" in writing, so I can point people at it when they do this thing again.

[wutbju]

Dear +++Positives+++,

You won. You absolutely won. Congrats to you all.

I imagine that the most convincing argument in your favor is that without Steve Pettit, BJU would have to close its doors. It's the bald truth. BJU needs Steve Pettit. He's charismatic, fatherly, and palatable.

I disagree with you all that his preaching is orthodox. It's absolutely not. And I disagree with you that he's made BJU so new and different. It's the same abusive legalism as always. See Pettit's response to the GRACE report. See the countless stories about life in the dorms and faculty behavior in the classroom under his watch. See what is preached in the pulpit. Everything's the same at BJU except now people wear skinny jeans and have facial hair.

I understand that that's enough for you all. I accept that. You feel like you can send your kids to BJU without embarrassment. I get that. I don't agree, but I understand.

I see you all talking about Board Reform. Frankly, there's no need for Board Reform if the Board voted the way you wanted them to. Granted, it took a ground swell of activism and a heavy dose of shaming, but it did work.

So let's talk turkey in this Thanksgiving week. If you want to make a change with the make-up of the BJU Board, there is a strategy in place. Since you have exactly zero academics in your group (Sorry, BJU faculty, I've been on both sides. It's different out here.), let me explain how it works. It's not like a corporate board or an elder board. This is a different animal and hiring a lawyer to change the Board is a big waste of money and energy. Drop that idea. You have no ground legally.

The ideal academic governance is "shared governance." A document crafted in 1966 explains this. Representatives from faculties, administrations, and boards created that statement about how all the parts of a university should fit together. Read it. If it's too boring and thorny, you can listen to a distillation here:

That explains the "best practices" for university governance. It's what academics aspire to. Do we ever reach it? I'm not sure. But that's our goal.

I bring that up because you all have to adjust your thinking about what a university board should look like. Old people -- even ancient people -- on a board is normal. That's just the way it is. Graduates of other institutions on a board? That's normal too. In fact, that's exactly what you want on a governing board. A minority group who is kind of snotty and old-fashioned? You want that too. You want tension on a board, not unanimity. An out-of-touch board that doesn't know who the faculty are and what they teach? Oh honey, that's so normal and expected. Usually we faculty like being ignored by the board. ;)

So your conclusions about board reform -- that they should be younger, compliant, BJU grads who know the employees -- will get you absolutely nowhere. Toss all that out. That's nobody's standard. The standard for governing boards is that they should "conserve the past and shape the future."

Now. What might work is this: acquiring the stated BJU policy for Board appointments and seeing if BJU met its own standards.

That's your strategy. That's the only strategy that will get any change. Let me explain.

SACSCOC's job in accrediting any school is to regularly test if an institution is following its own stated policy. That's it. For example, if I say in my Public Speaking class that at the end of the class, students will be able to deliver an informative speech, then I am held to that standard. If I don't have an informative speech on the list of assignments, I'm not meeting my own standard and I get pinged.

Get it?

Thus, what does BJU state in its Board Handbook as its standard for Trustees? I have offered the 2014 handbook. Rick Altizer might have a later version. What is the standard? Comb through it. Read it with a clear, outsider, lawyer-like eye. In 2014, the standards for the Board of Trustees are kind of silly, tbh. See "Responsibilities of Board Members" and "Responsibility of the Board to Evaluate Its Own Functions." The stated standards are ambiguous and impossible to track. Are they praying for BJU? Are they unselfish in serving BJU? Who can know that?

But can you say that the Board members are meeting that standard? If not, you've got an argument.

Now SACSCOC does have its own standards for governing boards. Those are in the mix too. You can read them here (see page 15).

The institution has a governing board of at least five members that: (a)  is the legal body with specific authority over the institution. (b)  exercises fiduciary oversight of the institution. (c)  ensures that both the presiding officer of the board and a majority of other voting members of the board are free of any contractual, employment, personal, or familial financial interest in the institution. (d)  is not controlled by a minority of board members or by organizations or institutions separate from it. (e)  is not presided over by the chief executive officer of the institution.

That's the second argument: is BJU following SACSCOC's standards? Can you make that case? Think of this like value debate in high school or undergrad. That's how you have to build this argument.

Because here's my hunch on this matter: Boards are intended to be a check on the President. But they are also appointed by the President. BJU's board is -- in its entirety -- not appointed by Steve Pettit.

The BJU Board of Trustees has been completely appointed by Bob Jones III.

The Board members' tenure proves that. John Lewis's own statement proves that.

And there's your in. It's not their age. It's not their alma mater. It's not their division. It's not their detachment. It's that they are a puppet Board for Bob Jones III instead of an ally of Steve Pettit.

To put it in SACSCOC's vocabulary: The BJU Board of Trustees is controlled by someone separate from the Board itself -- someone with familial interest in BJU.

And that's a recipe for disaster like we've seen in the last month.

The way to get the reform for that is by making a complaint to SACSCOC. SACSCOC describes that process here.

Therefore, here's your to-do list:

Get the stated policies from BJU (from the most recent board handbook) and/or from SACSCOC for the Board (see above).

Apply the current state of BJU's Board of Trustees (including these latest actions) to those policies.

Compile your complaint following those instructions to the letter. Get all the documentation. Over-prove rather than under-prove. I took about 50 pages in 2016 to prove this point.

Mail two printed copies to SACSCOC's president.

Wait. It might take months.

This is slow, tedious, and methodical. But it's possible to force BJU to change its Board makeup by using the system in place. This is the system. This is how it works.

Best to you all. Congrats again. And good luck.

Camille Kaminski Lewis, BJU Class of 1990 and 1992

#Bob Jones University #Make Pettit Prez Again #Make Bob Shut Up Again #Positive BJU Grads #Board of Trustees #SACSCOC

[hekate1308]

Leaves That Before The Wild Hurricane Fly, A Destiel Advent Calendar, December 24

Masterpost

Read it on AO3

Christmas Day

“There are our heroes!“ Charlie drew Cas into an enthusiastic hug. “We thought we’d come by earlier to help…”

“So did Crowley and Benny and Andrea” he told her, “We’re almost finished.”

Gilda shook her head. “We should just start celebrating at eight am, would allow us even more time.”

“And we’re not the heroes of the hour”.

“Oh, the national media disagree with you on that.”

He was very aware. Their interview had aired only three days ago and already they were bombarded with questions – some were as upset as they had foreseen, some wanted to do a follow-up, others were humans curious as to how life with the Fae was like, and some were teenagers who found Dean admitting that he had a demon as a friend so indescribably amazing that they wanted to move to The Quarter as soon as possible.

Dean, of course, had been withstanding the attention with a smile on his face and a friendly answer to everyone, no matter how hostile some of the reaction and turned out to be.

As for Cas himself….

Well, he would have told anyone who asked that being with Dean was worth any price he had had to pay, and that that price so far had been very small anyhow. He’d gone from working a job he hated and spending most of his time alone to being free with a large group of admittedly somewhat orthodox friends and…

Dean laughed at something Gilda had said, and as always when they Fae looked so carefree and happy, he could feel his heart beat faster.

“God, you’re whipped, it’s adorable” Charlie chuckled. “Anyway, I’ll check out the food, can’t wait to see what Dean’s come up with this year.”

           --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Christmas party was… a lot. After a few hours, Cas had to admit defeat – or rather, pop up on the roof for a few minutes to catch his breath.

The party was still in full swing, and much more fun than any other he had ever been top – he just wanted a few moments on his own.

Snow was falling, just like on the night he and Dean met for the first time. Had it really been only a few short weeks ago?

“There you are, Feathers. Just wanted to make sure you don’t run off and ruin Christmas.”

By now, he was composed enough to smile at Crowley. “I wouldn’t think about running away.”

“Good.”

And somehow, he had the feeling that even Crowley meant it.

            ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

He stole back to the party a few minutes later and was promptly found by Dean, who took his hand and led him to a corner. At first, he thought he was trying to get him under the mistletoe again – an activity they had already enjoyed several times over the past few hours – but instead he said, “I’ve got another present for you.”

All of them had exchanged presents not too long ago, so he was rather confused. “But I don’t have anything else for you…”

“Well, it’s technically not really that much of a present, I just thought you’d like to open it without any prying eyes…”

Cas eyes’ wandered to the other party guests.

“You know as well as I do that this is the best place for no one noticing anything.”

He was right, of course, as Dean often was.

So he opened the small box he handed him.

Inside, a key was nestled on a small pillow.

He drew a sharp breath. “Dean is that…”

“Before you say anything, let me explain” he said quickly. “I mean, you’ve lost your job because of us, anyway I feel responsible, so rent might become tricky, and you’ve spent most of your time here anyway, lately, and I think we get along just fine, right, so there is really no reason why you shouldn’t have a key –“

He simply kissed him. “You know” he decided to be bold once they separated, “You’ll be making it awfully hard to get rid of me.”

Dean Lougheed. “Have you ever considered that that might be the goal?”

Music started playing and Charlie call dot, “Hey, you two love birds! How about setting an example for your guests?”

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to say no” Dean told him, holding out his hand.

What an ample description of anything to do with Dean Winchester, Cas couldn’t help but think to himself as he accepted it.

On the dance floor, Dean drew him very close. “You know, don’t get me wrong, bit I’m very glad you almost froze to death.”

“Me too”.

He laughed again. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. Well, as long as I’m around to keep an eye on you…” He kissed him.

“Merry Christmas, Cas.”

“Merry Christmas, Dean.”

#my writings #spn #destiel #dean winchester #castiel #advent calendar

[songmingisthighs]

Hooked

introduction pt. i | pt. ii | pt. iii

ch. xxxv - NYOOOOOOM

<< previous | masterlist | next >>

??? × reader, ateez × reader

A freshman hookup rekindled into something new. With an incentive, of course. But what would happen if your 'relationship' led you somewhere you never thought would happen to you ?

Wooyoung and Yeosang were rushing you into the frat as quick as they could. Wooyoung carrying your bag and Yeosang practically hauling you away.

When you entered the frat, you could see that every single one of them is sitting around the living area. Some were seated on the couch as some were on the floor.

At the sight of you entering, their eyes lit up and smile bloom on their faces automatically.

"Is this an intervention?" you asked, walking slowly to where they are, slightly wary of the situation as they would rarely gather together to talk. More often than not, all communication happens in the group chat.

"Because I swear I'll return all your shirts and hoodies," you said, scrunching your nose in nervousness.

Mingi stood up and glomped onto you, nestling his face into the crook of your neck. He had to hunch because he's way taller than you. "You can take our clothes any time you want, this is not an intervention," he mumbled into your skin before detaching and planting a soft peck on your forehead, "missed you," he grinned.

You instinctively held onto Mingi's ring and pinkie as he led you to sit on the available spot at the left end of the U-shaped couch.

"So? Who wants to start?" Yunho asked, breaking the initial building silence.

The boys looked at each other for a bit before their eyes slowly zeroed in on Hongjoong. At the sudden attention, Hongjoong's eyes widened for a split second before scoffing, "one of you better start because I'm not doing it," he said, crossing his arms.

"But you're the leader," Yeosand stated matter-o-factly with a straight face. The others nodding along, agreeing to what Yeosang said.

Hongjoong grumbled at the fact that they're ganging up on him, using his own title against him. This is one of the rare few times he regretted having his title and even using it to his own advantage sometimes. The K in karma stands for Kang Yeosang, it seems.

You pursed your lips, still nervous and slightly uneasy. Historically, when a person is called by a group or collective, it was never for good reasons.

"So, (Y/N)," Hongjoong started, looking directly at you as his fingers fiddled slightly with the rings in his fingers, "do you like being with us?" he asked.

You visibly swallowed the lump in your throat. You couldn't help but feel like they're kicking you out, or the board is making them kick you out, that's the only reasonable explanation to the opening question Hongjoong threw at you, right?

Unconsciously, you leaned closer to Mingi for security and held his fingers tighter. Mingi thought nothing much of it. "Well, I like you guys like a lot, and living with you all has been great! More than great, actually, I never really had a roommate and initially the thought of having 8 roommates scared me especially because well you're guys and guys tend to be dirty and all, but it turns out you guys are freaking awesome, and I couldn't ask for better roommates honestly," you rambled, grinning awkwardly at them.

Most of them had a look of confusion on their faces. They didn't know why you were talking about your living situation when they're obviously asking about something much more substantial than that.

"(Y/N), sweetie," Seonghwa called out, "we're... glad that you're happy living with us here and we honestly wouldn't want it any other way," "wait, so this is not about anyone having a problem with me living here for quite some time now?" you asked, cutting Seonghwa off.

Wooyoung gasped loudly at your question, "no, it's not, sweetie, believe me! Who'd make you feel this way?" he then snapped his head to San who's sitting next to him, "was it you!?" he asked dramatically, holding onto the collars of San's hoodie, "fuck you, if anyone would've made her uncomfortable, it would've been you with your incessant claim on her as her boyfriend which is as true as Yeosang being able to pop unicorn horn from his ass!" San retorted back, grabbing onto Wooyoung's collars as well.

Seonghwa and Yunho immediately jumped up and separated the two, sitting them in next to Jongho and Yeosang who had been snickering at the childish argument.

Once they both calmed down, they all shifted their attention back to you. "We weren't talking about our living situation at all, we're kind of... needing to ask you something important..." Yunho said, trailing off to look at the others as if in confirmation.

No longer feeling nervous, you just shrug at them all, "okay, shoot."

Though you asked them to talk, they all stay glancing at each other. Even Wooyoung, the most confident man you possibly have ever known, couldn't look you directly in the eyes without blushing.

After a while, the tension didn't seem to dissipate and it started to bug you. "Oh, come on! You guys have seen me naked, what could you all possibly have to say that made you all sweating like an old man in a sauna?" you grumbled, crossing your arms on your chest.

Jongho cringed at your words, "don't put you and a sweaty old man in the same sentence, that image's gonna haunt me for weeks," he complained. San stared at him weirdly, "why would you even think about a sweaty old man?" "It's called prompting," "It's called nasty,"

Yeosang exhaled sharply, bringing everyone's attention to him, "since none of you seems to want to seriously ask her, I'll do it," he glared at the other boys before looking straight at you, "how do you feel, non platonically, about all of us?" he asked directly.

While you tilt your head in confusion, everyone else in the room seemed to broke into a meltdown altogether. Some were covering their faces in their hands, others were slumping so lowly on the couch their asses were basically on the floor.

"I... honestly haven't really thought about it," you shrugged, furrowing your eyebrows, "but I can't say I'm not attracted to all of you, sure we're friends and this might be just a fascination thing, but I really can't deny that I definitely feel something for you guys," you continued.

When they heard you say that, they visibly relaxed.

"That's good, because, well..." Yeosang trailed off, waiting for someone else to say it as a rosy tint bloomed on his face, showcasing his bashfulness to everyone.

Thankfully, Hongjoong stepped up and continued Yeosang's sentence, "because we, all eight of us, also can't deny that we feel something for you," he smiled shyly.

Seeing the boys all soft and shy made you giggle. Butterflies formed in your stomach and you had to admit that you like the thought of all of them liking you more than on a platonic level.

"So... every single one of you has feelings for me?" you asked, trying to make sure before you made your conclusion. All eight heads nod and you can't help but to focus on Jongho and Mingi, "you both too?" you asked them both, eyes darting between the two.

While Jongho grinned cockily and nod, Mingi covered his face with one hand in embarrassment, "yeah, kind of," he mumbled. You giggled and reach to try to pry his hand from his face, wanting to see how he look, "when did you start feeling like that, huh? I thought you only think of me as a stress reliever," you whined but eventually succeeding in prying his hand off.

Mingi raised an eyebrow at you, "the fact that we've been sleeping together combined with how amazing you are, it was never about if I'd fall for you, it was about the when," he said. You couldn't help but blush at his words, "so you liked me because we were fuck buddies?" "it sounds bad when you put it like that, but I was intrigued when I first met you which is why I approached you,"

You then shifted your gaze to the others, "When did you all realize you like me?" you asked, "as cliche as it sounds, it was the night we all did it together," Yunho answered.

"Not me," Wooyoung said, raising a hand, "I realized it like a solid couple of weeks after we started our whole fake relationship thing," he grinned proudly, "I began liking the way I call you my girlfriend more than I would like to admit, but I couldn't think of another person more perfect for me than you,"

It was your turn to melt. You covered your face in embarrassment, letting out a muffled squeal at how cheesy Wooyoung's words are. The others chuckled at how adorable you're being.

"You know, the eight of us talked about it before you came back here," Hongjoong said. You calm yourself down before being able to look at him directly in the eyes again, "and... we just wanted to know whether or not you'd like to date us,"

You tilted your head to the side, "like... All nine of us? One girl and eight boys?" you asked, making sure you're not hearing things wrong. But all of them nodded firmly. "It's not orthodox, I'd have to admit, and usually we would each try to win you over for only one of us, but when we were together last time, it just felt natural and I can't speak for these guys, but I didn't feel jealous whatsoever, because I know that you deserve more than just what I could and am willing to give you, and they can fill in where I lack because you deserve nothing but the best," Seonghwa said. He had somehow moved to kneel in between your legs, hands rubbing your knees gently as his eyes shone what you could only describe as pure affection and adoration.

The others piped in agreement with the eldest. It seemed like they know what they're doing and what they want. So the ball was in your court.

On one hand, you adore them to the heavens and back, you couldn't possibly think of having things any other way. And the thought of having to choose between them doesn't sit right with you. Sure, you're just one person, but you're sure if they're right, things will be okay.

But on the other hand, Seonghwa was right, this is highly unorthodox. Sure, you've heard of poly relationships here and there, heck one of your classmates' sister is in a poly relationship with three girls. But you can't deny you live in a society that's filled with judgment and harsh criticism, more than yourself, you're worried about how going down this path would affect them. And besides, how did one went from not wanting to even have random hookups due to wanting to have a relationship with 8 guys?

"See the look on her face? The wheels are turning in there," you heard Jongho muttered to the rest of them who had moved to kneel in front of you somewhere during your thoughts.

You glared at him shortly before pouting, "I do want to know if there could be something more to this," you started. The boys were about to celebrate when you cut them off, "BUT, I'm not sure on how this is gonna be, let's face it, you guys seemed to realize that you like me after we had sex," "I didn't," Wooyoung cut you off which was immediately shut by Yeosang, putting a hand over his mouth, "feelings tend to mash then and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the sexual pull talking," you sighed.

Their shoulder seemingly slumped hearing you say that. They didn't even discuss that, they were pretty sure that they genuinely like you and want to be more with you. Maybe they didn't want what you said to even be a possibility.

Suddenly, San perked up, "wait, if what you're worried about is whether or not our feelings are the real deal or not, then why don't you just test it? You can just decide later if we're gonna officially date or not. Take things slowly, you know?" he grinned brightly.

Slowly, each of the boys' eyes widened and shone with hope, thinking that San's plan is actually probable.

"Finally, San said something fucking smart for once," Yunho muttered, earning a harsh nudge to his hip by a glaring San.

The idea wasn't bad. It was actually good. This way, all of you can be sure and there would be no regrets, no one got hurt.

You squint your eyes at him, "but what would that make us?" "that's the beauty of it, there would be no official title until we make our decision," he said proudly. You pursed your lips, feelings swaying and leaning on the positive, "and how long do I have to make a decision?" this time, Yeosang answered, "as long as you need, we won't rush you," he smiled gently at you, making your stupid heart flip.

The idea WAS appealing, it was a win-win for sure.

When a smile broke on your face, the boys had to hold themselves together to let you confirm their suspicion.

"I'm in, let's try and see where we all can go,"

Before you could even take a breath after answering, the boys had pulled you forward in a giant group hug on the floor. You found yourself squished by eight men who are hollering, cheering, trying to kiss you, and trying to hold onto you as tightly as possible. While the position was uncomfortable, you couldn't care less.

Because being in the centre of them all felt right. It felt like you belong.

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[mypoisonedvine]

Hungry Like The Wolf | soft!dark!Ari Levinson x reader

summary: when you need ari’s help for a secret mission with the CIA, he expects gratitude from you— and he wants a lot more than just a thank you card.

word count: nearly 6.5k

warnings: smut (dub con/coercion/sex as bartering tool), oral sex (f receiving) and vaginal sex, overstimulation, possessiveness/very very slight yandere vibes?, some violence and gun use, mentions of human trafficking/warfare, religious discussions and traditions but not particularly orthodox ones, vague discussions of sexism and misogyny with implied religious background, overall just lots of global politics and all that fun stuff

(a/n: I went ahead and wrote the hebrew and arabic in english lettering because tumblr doesn’t support right to left text so just a heads up.  my arabic is very weak so I apologize if there are any errors.)

Taking a deep breath, you ran through your pitch in your head again.  Sure, you’d had plenty of time to go over it on the plane, but one last recitation couldn’t hurt, right?  Unable to stall any longer, you turned the knob and entered Ari Levinson’s office.

You’d heard he was good-looking but his appearance still surprised you; his long hair and thick beard made him look like he’d fit in with a rock band better than an intelligence agency, and his half-buttoned shirt put his Star of David necklace and muscled, hairy chest on display.

He must have caught your gaze trailing down because he smirked at you, making your cheeks feel a bit warm.

“Mr. Levinson,” you greeted as you looked up to his face again.

He greeted you as ‘Ms.’ instead of ‘Agent,’ but you let it slide since you were about to ask him for quite the favor.  When he motioned for you to take a seat across from him, you did so with a nod and a quick smoothing of your skirt.

“So, what can I help you with?” he prompted. 

This was the easy part; this was the part you’d rehearsed a thousand times.  “There is a group of trafficked women and girls who have been rescued from all over— Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait— and gathered in Riyadh.  We are working on a plan to move them to Cyprus and, eventually, Greece where they will be accepted into a camp there.  Maybe they’ll end up in the States at some point, if we can swing it, but… Cyprus is step one.”

Ari nodded, listening to your story with more patience than anyone else had so far.

“As you can imagine, it would be a lot easier to move through Jordan and Israel and use your ports, rather than go around through Egypt or Syria…”  He stared at you expectantly as you trailed off, and you cleared your throat before finishing:  "The CIA would greatly appreciate Mossad's cooperation in the movement of these refugees."

"How much would they appreciate it?"

You paused, unsure what he meant.  "Um, quite a lot, I'm sure…"

"I just mean that we have missions the CIA could be a useful assist for, too,” he clarified, interlacing his fingers and resting his hands on his lap.  “You guys have a lot more resources than we do.  If we help you out, is this going to be an allyship we can rely on?"

You swallowed dryly, pondering if there was a way to get out of this before you sighed and slumped down in your chair, leaning a little closer to him.  "Alright, I have to be honest with you: it's not really the CIA that's asking for your help."

"Then who is?"

"Me.  Just me.  I'm the only one who believes in this mission; I'm the only one fighting for these people.  The CIA won't help you because they won't even help me and I work for them."

He slumped his shoulders a little bit.  "Then I'm not sure if I can afford to say yes to you."

"Please," you implored, "I know I can't offer you as much as they can, but I'll do whatever I can to make this work.  Please," you repeated as you laid your hand over his, noticing the way his expression shifted a bit, "help me."

"I've been the one person fighting for a mission before," he remembered, voice a little softer.  "I know how hard it is to go it alone."

You smiled gently at him.

"And, I know how far I would've gone to get my people to safety." 

His hand flipped around suddenly and grabbed yours tightly, pulling you closer as you gasped.

"How far will you go?"

You shivered, the darkness in his eyes burning right through you even when you tried to look away.  "Mr. Levinson, I—"

"Call me Ari," he instructed gruffly, grip tightening around your wrist until you yelped softly.

"Ari," you corrected, "I have money—"

"Don't want it."

"I can offer you my assistance in—"

"Don't need it."

"Tell me what you need,” you requested softly.

"I need to know you're gonna show me this 'great appreciation' you promised,” he answered quickly.  “I need to know that if I take care of you, then you'll take care of me."

You gulped but nodded.  "O-of course…"

"Good."

He released you from his grip and stood up, smiling at you like nothing had even happened.

"Pleasure doing business with you, madam."

You stood up and left his office in a haze, unsure if what had just happened was a dream or reality.  But, sure enough, he showed up the next day where you’d told him to meet you, and brought some money and fake passports that you desperately needed.  Frankly, just having a man around was going to make things smoother for you, even if it was a white man who didn’t exactly blend in by any stretch of the imagination.  Seeing him again the next day only reminded you how big he was, tall but moreso heavy with muscle; he looked pretty cramped in his tiny coach seat on the plane to Dubai (your connecting stop where you’d spend the night before flying out to Riyadh).

“Bloody mary, please,” he requested from the stewardess with a gentle nod, turning to you.

“Uh, just water, thanks,” you ordered quickly with a tilted smile.  You had brought a book to read, but Ari insisted on barraging you with personal questions about your job, your personal life, your favorite things— he seemed fascinated by the most mundane things, and disinterested in giving his own backstory.  

Of course you considered that it wasn’t a great idea to tell him so much about yourself, let him in your head and under your skin.  But then again, you’d put your trust in him enough for the mission, so you ought to trust him completely, right?  

So why did his stare send shivers up your spine?

//  

There was room for you and Ari at a CIA safehouse outside Dubai; it wasn’t exactly luxurious or anything, but at least you weren’t going to have to share a room… or a bed.

Normally staying in a safehouse meant sharing common areas with a random assortment of other agents, but it being a Friday night in Dubai meant they were all out enjoying the local nightlife while you two stayed in.  Hoping to review a game plan for the mission with him, you found Ari’s door open, peeking around to see him on his knees on the floor, a candle burning before him, and his hands raised to cover his eyes and face.

“Shema Yisrael,” he sung to himself below his breath, “Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Ehad…”

He jumped a little when he uncovered and opened his eyes only to find you standing there.  “Shabbat Shalom,” you greeted.

“Shabbat Shalom,” he nodded back.  

“I’m sorry you’re forced to take your Shabbat alone,” you apologized, “and that there’s nobody other than me to appreciate your vocal chops.”

His cheeks tinged pink at that.  “It’s all part of the sacrifices we make for our missions, eh?”

“Then I suppose you don’t mind that you’ll be doing plenty of work tomorrow,” you presumed.

“You probably realized by now that I’m not actually so traditional,” he chuckled, extinguishing the candle and standing up.  “I work on the sabbath quite a lot.”

“I hear work is permitted if it is needed to save a life.”

He smiled, but he looked a little sad; maybe not sad, but tired.  “With me, it always is.”

The silence was thick as you tried to reconcile that this was the same man that had grabbed and threatened you— was it a threat?  You couldn’t even tell anymore.  Apparently he wasn’t going to take whatever it was that he wanted until you’d finished the mission, and that should’ve made it easier to procrastinate your worry, but the extra time to ponder what it was actually going to be only brought further anxiety.

Of course, you had an idea of what he was going to ask of you, but the fact that nothing too untoward had happened in his office when you first met him was throwing you off.  In that moment, you were just waiting for him to tell you to get on your knees and show him how bad you wanted these women rescued, but he didn’t.  Wouldn’t have been the first time somebody tried to bribe you into sex; it would’ve been the first time, however, that you actually considered doing it.

Now, the anticipation just made it worse; you were working with him every day and he always acted normal, as if there wasn’t this looming threat of whatever favor he was going to ask from you in return.

Once you actually got to work the next day, it was easier not to think about that.  You barely had any extra brainpower to think about anything except survival and extraction.  Still, each time you looked at him only to find him already looking at you, your hands shook a little.

//

“You’ve been driving for 10 hours, you’re sure you don’t want me to take the wheel?” you offered, watching him blink a few times to clear his vision.

“Not worth getting arrested,” he frowned.

“We’ll only get arrested if we get caught.”

“Not worth the risk of getting caught.  And I don’t know about you, but if I get arrested here, I’ll probably be killed, too.”

You chewed your lip as you appreciated that it was probably worth avoiding as much trouble as possible.  It’s not like the CIA was popular in these parts, either, and for good reason.

“What’s that up ahead?” he asked, leaning further forward against the steering wheel and squinting.

“Um,” you stalled as you unfolded the paper map in your lap, “I’m… not sure.”

“Looks like a barricade,” he announced, and it did; a gate with two guards and barbed wire on either side.

“There isn’t supposed to be a stop here,” you reminded him as you frantically shuffled around the map, making sure you were where you thought you were and that there wasn’t a mark indicating a vehicle stop on the road.

“What do we do?” he asked, looking around as if he was considering veering off the path even though that would be equally dangerous.

“There isn’t supposed to be a stop here,” you repeated, more anxiously.

“Well, there is,” he replied, his own agitation clearly increasing, “so we’ll have to go through it.”

“They’re going to pull us over.”

“Probably,” he admitted.

“And they will search the back of the truck.”

“I’d be surprised if they didn’t.  How well do you think they’re gonna take it when they see eighty-something women packed like sardines?”

You chuckled a little even though you were anything but amused.  “Um, not good.”

As the men at the stop waved to signal your car to slow down, Ari sighed a little.  "I'll ask once again: what do we do?"

"Act natural," you suggested quickly as you lifted the scarf draped around your head to cover your nose and mouth.

Ari slowed down to a stop, lowering the window to talk to the officer outside and putting on a fake English accent.  “How can I help you, sir?”

“Identification please,” he requested sternly.  Ari smiled as he grabbed his and your passports, handing them over through the window.  It was a long, awkward moment as he flipped through the thick papers slowly, his partner leaning down to look through your window but never taking his hands off his gun.  “What brings you out here?” the man finally asked.

“My wife and I operate a restaurant in Jordan, and we get most of our equipment here because the workmanship is better,” Ari explained.  “Just passing through with our new stoves and oven hood.”

The officer glanced back over your truck, his expression mostly unreadable but overall not necessarily friendly-looking.  “Could you step out of the vehicle please?”

“Hal hdha daruri?” you asked quickly; Is this necessary?

“Alsamt,” he replied in a hiss; Silence.

Ari looked around like he was thinking but nodded and reached for the handle to his door.  You did the same, the second guard stepping out of your way so you could swing open the rusted metal and step out.

The men guided for you to circle the car with them, stopping at the back and staring at the metal sliding door that was latched shut.

Turning to address Ari, the guard’s face dropped completely as he got a bit more serious.  “What am I going to find in your vehicle?”

“Kitchen supplies, like I said,” Ari insisted.

As the officer reached for the latch on the back of the truck, Ari shot you a wide-eyed look and you gave him a quick nod.  He lunged at the second guard, wrestling him for his gun while you went after the first, who was much easier to take down with him being distracted by trying to unlock the back of the truck.  Your CIA instincts told you to shoot him once you’d grabbed his weapon, but thankfully you knocked him out with the butt of it instead.

Loud pops of gunfire beside you made you fear the worst, but Ari had managed to push the gun toward the sky before pulling it out of the officer’s grasp, swinging it wildly until it made contact with his head and he fell to the ground.

Gun in hand and panting heavily, Ari looked back at you with a grin.  “That wasn’t so bad.”

“You almost got shot,” you reminded him.

“A little more than almost,” he corrected, showing you a gash where a bullet had grazed arm.

“Shit, Ari!” you yelped, running over to him and inspecting the wound.  The way he looked down at you as you clutched him made you sort of regret it, though.

“It’s fine,” he assured you, but he made no effort to push you away.

“I… should check on the girls,” you decided, a little bit distracted but making your way back to the truck to roll up the metal back and examine the women inside, who looked scared at first but relaxed when they saw you.

“Kli shay' ealaa ma yaram,” you assured them that everything was fine, “nahn taqribaan 'iilaa al'urduni, wasawf nasil 'iilaa alsafinat allaylat.”  We're almost to Jordan and will arrive at the ship tonight.

They relaxed a bit and smiled at you, a few muttered ‘shukraan jazilaan’s (meaning ‘thank you’) echoing from inside.  You hated to shut the back and plunge them into darkness again, but they had assured you before that they would brave any conditions for a chance at freedom.  You hoped they meant it.

“Please, let me drive, you’re injured,” you offered to Ari as he started to make his way toward the driver’s side door.

“It’s not even that bad, and we’ve had enough run-ins with the law today,” he dismissed.

“Then let me patch you up first, okay?  Is that so terrible?”

He smiled a little.  “No, I guess not.”

And that was how you ended up leaning on him in the passenger seat, supergluing his arm shut, trying not to think about how his bicep was probably bigger than your head.

“You’re a pretty good medic,” he observed, speaking quietly since you were so close.

“When you’re as clumsy as I am, you have to be,” you responded, sounding monotone due to focusing mostly on your work.  “It shouldn’t scar too—”

You stopped when you looked up at him, because the way he was staring back down at you made you completely devoid of the ability to speak or even conjure words in your mind.  You’d never seen him so close before and those piercing blue eyes made your head spin.

“What were you gonna say?” he asked softly, 

“It… shouldn’t scar too bad,” you finished, “as long as you keep it clean and dry.”

“I generally aim to keep my entire body clean and dry,” Ari chuckled.

“Right, yeah, well— keep up the good work, then,” you stammered as you wrapped some gauze around his arm and rolled his sleeve back down over it.

“Let’s hit the road before we waste any more time,” he suggested, and with a nod you leaned back into your seat.

//

The radio blasting was the only thing keeping both of you awake as you drove through the dark.  The border to Jordan was easy enough, and both of you sighed with relief as you crossed into Israel.  It was by far the biggest blockade you’d seen so far, but of course, Ari got you in faster than you’d moved through anything else.

“Good to be home?” you asked when you saw Ari smiling as he looked around at the streetlights through the windshield.

“You could say that,” he answered.  “Think we have time to stop for falafel before we get to the port?”

“Not unless you plan on buying for all your passengers,” you laughed, motioning toward the back.  “If they have to wait until we reach the ship, so do we.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” he relented.  “Besides, probably better to be seen by as few people as possible.  Even if we’re in friendly territory, it’s still a covert operation and all.”

“Wow, so you do have some desire to play by the rules,” you gasped in faux shock.  He smiled and shrugged a bit.

“More like the rules and my desires occasionally overlap.”

It was past midnight when you pulled into the port, surrounded by ships so big that you couldn’t see the tops of them from inside the car.  A cargo ship was waiting for you, along with some Navy men who helped you escort the women onto the vessel.

Since it wasn’t meant to accommodate this many people, the refugees occupied extra crew space while you and Ari were given sleeping bags in an unused office; you were so tired, though, that it actually looked enticing.

As soon as you’d set your pack down and shut the door, you heard a distant horn and felt the ship begin to move.  You let out a long sigh as you leaned against the desk, watching Ari take a seat in the chair and start laughing exhaustedly.

“We did it,” you smiled, “we fucking did it.”

“We’ve still got a long boat ride ahead of us,” Ari mitigated, “but yeah… we should be in the clear, and tomorrow afternoon we’ll be in sunny Cyprus.”

You were so elated from the high of a successful mission that you forgot to worry about Ari’s vague request all those weeks ago; it was probably the first time you hadn’t thought about it since then, truthfully.  That changed when his smile fell as he looked up at you, eyes darkening a little and scanning your body.

“You’re a great agent,” he nodded slowly, “and an incredible woman.  You saved a lot of people tonight.”

You shifted nervously under the weight of his stare, but tried to hide your discomfort.  “I… couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I know,” he informed you coldly, standing up and approaching you.  “I think I’ve gone above and beyond on my end of our deal.”

A pit formed in your stomach, growing with each step he took towards you.  His eyes stayed trained on you except for when he glanced to the side to flip on the radio, American music suddenly piping through the speakers.

— discord and rhyme, I’m on the hunt, I’m after you…

You looked to the radio as well but his hand gently guided your jaw until you looked back at him; he was closer than ever, and you had to look up to meet his gaze, shivering as he ran his thumb over your bottom lip slowly.

“Are you good for your end of the deal?” he asked lowly.

And I’m hungry like the wolf…

You swallowed, hoping it would somehow ease the ache in your gut as you realized what was about to happen, before nodding meekly.

He smirked a little.  “Good girl,” he praised, only a bit louder than a whisper, as his hand moved to cradle your face.  “You want me, don’t you?”

Your brow furrowed as you tried to figure out how you were supposed to answer that.  “I want to repay you, for all you’ve done for me.”

“No, not just that,” he disagreed, “you want me.  I know you do.  You don’t need to hide it, we’re alone…”

Hesitant but catching on to his desires, you nodded a little.

“Say it.”

“I want you, Ari,” you whispered.  

It felt like forever waiting for him to kiss you as he leaned in slowly, eyes half-lidded and dark but never leaving you.  As his lips brushed against yours, you finally let your eyes flutter shut and reciprocated his kiss.  His hands felt especially big as one slipped behind your neck and the other rested on your waist; in fact, with the way you had to crane your head up to kiss him back, all of him felt big.  Including the part you were pretty sure just bumped against the inside of your thigh.

His kiss was soft and patient but determined, slow but somehow still moving faster than you were ready for.  You gingerly reached up and rested your hands on his shoulders; they were strong and warm beneath your touch, even through his shirt.  You couldn’t think of the last time you’d been kissed like this, or held so tenderly like this, but then again, you were also sure that nobody had scared you like this in a long time, either.  For a woman who always knew what to do in a dangerous situation, you couldn’t seem to get a read on Ari Levinson— mostly because you didn’t truly believe he was dangerous.  But maybe you should.

When his hands reached up to start unbuttoning your blouse, you pushed him back a little.

"N-not here," you protested, "someone could hear, or walk in."

"There's nowhere else to go, and I'm not waiting 'til Cyprus.  I need you now."

He kissed you again before you could respond, more forceful and desperate.  You let him work open your shirt this time, his fingers dancing over your skin as he pulled it off your shoulders and tossed it aside.  The feeling of him working your bra open made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, but his tongue slipping into your mouth distracted you and before you knew it, it was gone as well.  Your nipples hardened in the cold air— or maybe they’d been that way already, for whatever reason— but they reacted even stronger to his thick fingers gently pinching them as his palms cupped your breasts.

You gasped against his mouth a bit, your breathing getting heavier as he moved his hands down to your trousers.  The idea of being naked when he was still fully-dressed scared you, but you didn’t have time to think about that anymore when he pulled back to drop to his knees, taking your pants and underwear to the floor with him.

He looked back up at you with a mischievous grin as you cautiously stepped out of them.  After guiding you to sit up on the table, neither of you stopping to consider how rude it was to put your bare ass on somebody’s desk in a borrowed ship, he slowly parted your legs.  As he kissed a trail inside your thigh, you felt your hands clutch the edge of the table tightly with anticipation.  You felt so exposed with his face right there, to the point that your cheeks were burning with embarrassment, and yet you couldn't manage to tear your eyes away from his as he leaned in to lick you teasingly with the tip of his tongue.

"Fuck," you shivered, feeling your inner walls quiver as he moved so delicately.  You kept waiting for him to really get into it but he was determined to stay gentle and slow, circling your bud for one glorious moment before stopping again.  "Ari, please," you whispered without even realizing you’d said it.

"What do you want, baby?" he asked darkly, his voice deep and gravelly as he ran his hands up the back of your legs.

Your begging whimper was so pathetic you could hardly believe you were hearing yourself.  "More, please…"

He dove right in after that, suddenly latching onto your clit and letting his tongue explore every fold, every wrinkle, every sensitive spot with thick, wide licks.  Your head fell back and your hands jumped to weave into his hair— that gorgeous fucking hair that had driven you halfway insane.  It was soft between your fingers, and in this light you could see the touches of red, blonde, and maybe even grey scattered into the brunette.  Better yet was the way he moaned against you when you accidentally pulled it, your hands clenching into fists against his scalp each time he sucked on your clit just right.

"Ari, baby, fuck," you groaned, feeling your hips shift a little as if to try to get more of yourself in his mouth.

Sensation was sparking under your skin faster than you knew what to do with it, faster than you had ever figured out on your own, and definitely faster than anybody else had ever managed.  You felt your body shaking and couldn’t suppress it at all, every part of you (inside and out) quivering uncontrollably.  It would’ve been embarrassing except that he seemed to be enjoying it quite a bit, egging you on with his tight grip on your thighs, and his deep moans that reverberated over your body, and the way his brow furrowed like it almost pained him to see you like this.  Your back arched so dramatically that he had to hold onto your hips tight to keep you in his mouth, but he managed to maintain what he'd been doing— in fact, he didn't stop even when you started to whine and cry, feet digging into his back as you tried not to explode from the overstimulation on your sensitive clit.  

"S-stop, s'too much, can't take it," you pleaded, looking down at him.

He looked back up at you with dark, dilated eyes that said 'you're gonna take it.'  His tongue lapped at you with renewed vigor, sending you tumbling over the edge again and again and again.

Tears were streaming down your face when he finally relented, standing up slowly and staring you down as he wiped his face with the back of his hand; your arousal had coated his mouth and most of his beard, too.  You bit down on your lip to stop it from shaking as he slotted himself between your legs again, slowly unbuttoning his shirt and smiling as he watched your gaze trail down every inch of newly-exposed skin.

You knew he was in good shape, because it was always obvious, but you still shivered a little when you were greeted with chiseled muscles, dusty-blonde hair, a few stray freckles and scars, and last but not least, the gauze wrapping on his arm where you’d patched him up before.  It was nice to see a piece of your handiwork on something so flawless, like how it must feel to design the frame that holds a Monet.  Your mouth was even watering as you followed the trail of hair down to where it was interrupted by his jeans, which were misshapen with the unmistakable outline of his neglected cock.  Either you could actually hear it throbbing, or that was just your heartbeat in your ears as he made a show of undoing his buckle and fly slowly.  

A breath caught in your throat as he slid the jeans down and kicked them off with his boots, his cock bouncing up against the bottom of his abs once he’d freed it.  You hoped to hide your intimidation, but you must have failed from the way he smirked and licked his lips as he stepped forward and pressed it against your stomach; you felt a little dizzy seeing the head of it reach past your bellybutton.  "That's how deep I'm gonna be in you, baby."

For all his delicacy and tenderness in everything before now, he must have had a change of heart; with a little growl, he pushed all the way into you with one brutal thrust, watching darkly as your head fell back in a choked scream.  He didn’t stop for very long, either, setting up a pace that was slow but unyielding, his length filling every part of you and then some with each slam of his hips into yours.

He grabbed your hair tightly and suddenly, pulling your head back to expose your neck to him.  He licked and sucked along your pulse until you were shaking against him, nails accidentally digging into his shoulders a little bit as you held onto him.

His lips trailed up to pull you into a frenzied, sloppy kiss, your mouth slack wide for him to explore however he wanted.

"Tell me how it feels," he growled against your lips.

It feels like my body is on fire but I like it.  It feels like you're shaping my insides to fit you exactly how you want.  It feels like you might split me in half before you're done with me, but if you stop now I'll fall apart even worse.

His grip on your hair tightened at your lack of response.  "Gettin' fucked too good to answer me, huh?  So full of my cock you can't even speak.  Is that right, pretty baby?"

You nodded as you buried your face in the crook of his neck, your hoarse moans and sobs muffled by his skin.  

"Aw, poor thing," he purred, wrapping his arms around your back.  His lips brushed against your ear as he spoke to you in a deep mumble, the bass of his voice sending shivers down your spine with each word.  "You don't have to tell me, I know how it feels… you're so wet that you're fucking dripping, your needy little pussy is clamping down on me like it's the end of the fucking world, and you're screaming for me so loud I bet half the ship can hear you.  I know how it feels, baby; it feels so good that you're already about to come for me."

You gasped as he pushed you to lay back on the table, hoisting your legs up over his shoulders; you felt a bit whorish seeing your legs up in the air like that, especially when he leaned to the side to plant a wet kiss on your calf.

Soon he was letting your legs slip back down to his hips, leaning over you and caging you in with his thick arms, watching your face as he started to fuck you harder.  His long hair was at risk of tickling you as it fell down beside your face, but it was that Star of David necklace that was dangling from his neck and swinging right in your face with every thrust.  Slightly annoyed by it hitting your face from time to time, you stuck out your tongue to catch it, holding it between your teeth and finding that biting down on it helped you cope with the slight pain of him so deep inside you anyways.

"Baby," he moaned, inspired by the sight to grab your hips even tighter and slam into you even harder.  "Fuck, I'm close," he hissed.  "Gonna fill you up so good, baby, gonna ruin you for anybody else, huh?"

"Yes, Ari," you whimpered.  "I'm close, too…"

"Go ahead, pretty girl, wanna feel how tight you get when you come— when I make you come."

Trying to hold it back only made it hit you harder, and as your moans grew louder and your body began to shake, you felt your walls flutter and flex intensely.  He pulled his necklace out of your mouth and kissed you suddenly; it kept you grounded as you feared that the rest of you would float away, lost in pleasure so thoroughly that you'd never come back to reality.  His moans mixed with yours as they moved between your tongues, and just when you thought you'd break into pieces if he didn't slow down, you felt his movements stutter and his cock pump inside you.  You couldn't feel the warmth of it because you were already so hot all over, but the way his cock swelled as he came was unmistakable and overwhelmingly erotic.

He broke the kiss but didn't pull away, catching his breath while he stayed inside you, resting his forehead against yours.  

After cooling off for a moment, he scooped your limp body into his arms and lifted you into his chest; you wrapped around him and let him carry you to the other side of the room where he set you down on the pallet sleeping bags and blankets.  You whimpered as he pulled out, his softening cock still big enough to make you wince.  The gush of warm, sticky come made your cheeks burn even if it also sent a dulled tingle of arousal up your spine.  He was gentlemanly enough to wipe you off with a towel, mumbling something about how pretty you looked stuffed with his come, but you couldn't really focus on any of that because you were still waiting for sensation to return to your numbed extremities— brain included.

He turned his head and laid it on your chest, and you found yourself absent-mindedly scratching his scalp with your nails.

"That's nice," he whispered, but you could tell that already by the way his skin was erupting into goosebumps, and the way he held you tighter.

You must've laid like that for hours, or maybe it was just a few minutes, but it was one of those moments that felt like a piece of forever.  He lifted his head to look up at you, pulling you down a bit so his face hovered over yours.

"What's next for you after you get these women to Greece?" he asked quietly.

You chewed your lip as you thought about that.  "Back to DC, I figure, and then wherever they send me next.  I hear they might want me undercover in Cuba or Russia…"

"How often do you end up in Jerusalem?"

You squirmed a little beneath him, but he slipped his arm under your neck and pulled you closer; how were you supposed to think with his bicep right by your face like that?  "Uh, not often, but if I'm in town I'll give you a call—"

"Come with me," he requested softly.  "Get to Cyprus, go to Greece, and then meet me in Tel Aviv."

"Ari, I can't—"

"Why not?"

You laughed a little, but he clearly wasn’t joking.  "Because I have a job?"

"You won't need a job," he shrugged, "I make good money and you can just live with me."

Your throat went dry as you stammered, trying to figure out if he had seriously just asked you to quit your job and move in with him.

"You'll like Israel.  You speak some Hebrew don't you?"

"Uhh, yeah but—"

"Then what's stopping you?"

You couldn't answer because you didn't even know where to start with all the things that were stopping you.  Your mouth opened and closed silently like a fish out of water, and he laughed at you lightly.  

"Just say yes," he encouraged gently, and your heart twisted as you wondered if this was part of the deal, if you needed to do everything he wanted to keep him on your side.  You were on an Israeli ship, sailing international waters; if he changed his mind now, he could still sell you out and have these people arrested or worse.  But he wouldn't do that, right?

Perhaps the more important question was not 'would he do that?' but rather 'are you willing to find out?'

"Yes," you heard yourself answer before you even realized you were considering it.  

He grinned, hugging you tightly.  He was already rambling about how great it was going to be and how he would spoil you all the time and maybe find a way to get you hired as a contractor at Mossad so he could bring you along on missions, but you couldn't hear it past the ringing in your ears. You desperately needed sleep, and his arms were warm and welcoming as you drifted off.  He kissed your forehead before letting his eyes fall shut as well, joining you in unconsciousness.  

The swaying of the ship was like being rocked to sleep, so much so that you slept for an uncharacteristically long time: you were just a few hours out from your destination when you awoke, in fact.

Instead of getting up and attempting to acquire some food, you laid there staring up at the ceiling as his heavy arm draped over your chest.   Even in his sleep he had power over you, refused to let you go.  You tried to remember how you'd ended up in this situation but instead you found yourself fantasizing about a chance at love.  After running around the world for so long, there weren't many good men left to settle down with.  And Ari was maybe not an entirely good man, but you believed him when he said he would treat you well.  You'd shacked up with a lot worse in your time, when you were young and reckless and thought the worst thing you could be was alone.  Still, a long-suppressed desire for companionship was awakening in your mind and you weren't going to swallow it back down this time.  Smiling, you lifted his hand to your lips and kissed his knuckles.  If what he wanted in exchange for his cooperation was your affection, you could do that.

#ari levinson x reader #dark!ari levinson x reader #ari levinson smut #chris evans x reader #ari levinson x you

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 3 - ao3 -

The closing ceremony of the discussion conference was dignified and serene, as appropriate for an event hosted by the Lan sect, and after it was done everyone milled around to chat a little more before starting to break off into groups to leave.

The leaders of the Great Sects naturally gathered together.

They were an unusual mix. Wen Ruohan was the eldest by an entire generation, technically hailing from the generation of Lan Qiren’s grandfather even if his extraordinary cultivation made him seem as young as Lan Qiren’s brother; after him there was Lan Qiren’s father and the Jiang sect leader, Jiang Menglin, who themselves were a generation above their younger counterparts from the Nie and Jin clans – Jin Guangshan especially, having only inherited his position in the past year.

Lan Qiren’s brother stood beside them, speaking with them with his head held high. Their father planned to slowly transition sect leadership to him over the next half-decade so that he himself might be allowed to retire from the mundane world to focus on cultivation, as Lan An ultimately did. In accordance with that plan, he had allowed him to take the lead on hosting certain small events at the discussion conference, like the night-hunting.

Lan Qiren was there, too.

He was lurking as far to the back of the platform as he could get, trying simultaneously to perfectly reflect his sect’s expectations for proper behavior while also doing his utmost to remain beneath anyone’s notice – Lao Nie had caught his gaze at one point and winked, a friendly older man’s indulgence of a junior, but that was in large part unavoidable given the man’s gregarious personality – and enjoying the rare moment in which he could see his father at something other than a distance.

He usually only saw his father when he was brought before him to report on his achievements, typically once a month. When he was younger, he had been accompanied by one of his teachers, who would report on him while Lan Qiren anxiously examined his father’s face for signs of approval; now that he was older, he went by himself, dipping into a deep salute as he recited anything of interest, and sometimes if he really exerted himself his father would reward him with a word of praise.

Lan Qiren was only allowed to stand with the rest of them on the basis of a technicality – his father hadn’t officially transferred power to his eldest son and wouldn’t for a while yet, so he had brought along both of them on the transparent excuse that they could provide company for Jin Guangshan and Lao Nie as members of the same generation. It was very much a technicality in Lan Qiren’s case, given his much younger age; he fell on the very tail end of their generation on account of the circumstances of his belated birth.

Lan Qiren’s birth was very late to allow him to be considered a peer to those a decade or more older than him, in fact, but that was the way of things.

He was a child of duty, rather than pleasure.

His parents had been very much in love, as was the Lan sect’s way, and together they had had two sons and a daughter within six years, each one of them deeply beloved. But perhaps their joy had been too complete, because the heavens had not permitted it to last: they lost their younger son and daughter both – one to an unexpected illness, the other to an accident. Their eldest, Lan Qiren’s brother, was still there, but it would have been irresponsible to have only a single heir to a Great Sect. Accordingly, under great pressure from the sect elders, they had sought to have another child, only to fail time and time again, enduring countless miscarriages and stillbirths alike.

There had even been some debate as to whether such a situation permitted the sect leader to take on a concubine, regardless of custom or even his own wishes. Desperate to prevent such a result, Lan Qiren’s mother had inadvisedly taken certain drugs to encourage conception and at last Lan Qiren had been successfully born in a slow and bloody labor that had sapped his mother’s already poor health. She had died a few years later, suffering a recurrence of the infection left behind from his birth. Lan Qiren had been too young to really remember her, but he knew that his brother had blamed him for her loss ever since.

He sometimes wondered if his father did, too.

Of course, unlike his brother, his father had never said as much. As the Lan sect leader, he was graceful and refined, educated and reserved, a venerable and venerated cultivator; it was widely agreed that he would never have planned to retire so early if it hadn’t been for losing his true love all those years ago. Perhaps he might even have been another Wen Ruohan, seemingly ageless, striving for immortality – at any rate, he would never be so petty as to mistreat a person due to the circumstances beyond their control. It was something he had heard that his father had said from one of the other Lan sect juniors, and at any rate it was in the rules, and Lan Qiren believed in the rules.

Besides, it wasn’t a surprise that Lan Qiren would be an afterthought in comparison to his brother, the already famous Qingheng-jun, who his father treasured like a pearl cupped in his palm. His brother was the much-anticipated first child of his father’s happy youth, the reminder of good days gone by, a child who had survived the misfortunes that had taken his siblings, and Lan Qiren’s brother repaid his father’s adoration with strength, intelligence, and endless potential. He was a cultivation maniac, yet good at managing the other juniors; he was cold and aloof, elegant, yet capable of being personable and even charming when needed. He was one of the shining stars of his generation, already a powerful cultivator and a respected gentleman even though he’d only just passed twenty-one. Even the name which he was commonly called, Qingheng-jun, was a rarity, a personal title unusual in this peaceful day and age.

Lan Qiren, in contrast, was slow and clumsy, with only average cultivation skills and positively dire social skills. While his teachers praised his strong academic skills and musical talent, the Lan sect followed first and foremost the orthodox path of swordsmanship; once his weakness in that area had been discovered, many of his sect elders lost interest in him as anything other than the inferior back-up plan that he was.

Undoubtedly that was why, when Wen Ruohan turned to Lan Qiren’s father and said, “Your son is a credit to you,” everyone assumed he was talking about Qingheng-jun.

“Sect Leader Wen does him too much honor,” their father said, clearly pleased despite his deprecating words. After all, Wen Ruohan, Sect Leader Wen, was well known to be extraordinarily sparing with his praise for any who didn’t share his bloodline or surname. “My unworthy son is still young and foolish. His eyes are always fixed upon cultivation, never straying – he doesn’t even spare time for girls, despite his advancing years!”

The other sect leaders were smiling, and Lao Nie already opening his mouth to say something teasing, when Wen Ruohan said, “I meant your other son.”

Lan Qiren wasn’t prepared at all for all the sect leaders to turn to look at him.

He shrunk back.

“Qiren?” his father said, almost as if he were checking to confirm that that was the right name, a trace of doubt in his voice even as Lan Qiren’s brother’s face went white with humiliation. “I didn’t realize you’d had a chance to hear him play.”

“Regrettably I have not yet had that pleasure,” Wen Ruohan said, a slightly strange expression on his face. “We merely exchanged some charming conversation, that’s all. Is that his most notable skill?”

“His accomplishments as a musical cultivator are sufficient to rank him among the adults of his already talented sect,” Lao Nie volunteered when there was a brief pause, and Lan Qiren’s father was quick to smile and nod along. “You missed out, Sect Leader Wen.”

“Perhaps another time,” Wen Ruohan said, his return smile still strange and almost subtly displeased, though Lan Qiren would hardly trust himself to know for sure.

At that point, Jiang Menglin spoke up, changing the subject, and most everyone joined in, all of them evidently relieved – not least of all Lan Qiren himself, who had started wondering if there was some way he could become invisible or else fall into a deep chasm that might conveniently open up beneath his feet.

Nothing more was said on the subject until the ceremony was done and the last of their guests departed, when Lan Qiren’s brother tracked him down and hissed, “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Lan Qiren cried out. “We only talked!”

“You mean you talked at him the way you always do – ”

Their father cleared his throat, having come up behind them, and they both turned at once and dropped into deep salutes.

“Do not think about it too much,” he said, voice distant as the cold wind on a winter night. “Sect Leader Wen sometimes likes to make trouble for the sake of making trouble, especially if he thinks he has found a weakness. You will need to be on your guard against that when you are sect leader.”

He was talking to Lan Qiren’s brother, of course. Lan Qiren could count, and had, the number of times his father addressed him directly in a given year, but it was only reasonable – he wasn’t the heir, doomed to take on the burden of leadership, and so there was much less his father needed to say to him.

“Yes, Father,” his brother said. “I’ll remember.”

“Do not trouble your younger brother over nonsense.”

Lan Qiren felt his brother’s angry gaze like a flame against his skin, even if it wasn’t anywhere as weighty as Wen Ruohan’s. He did not understand what he had done wrong, whether to Wen Ruohan to decide to make trouble using his name or to his brother now that had made him angry, but that wasn’t so much different from the usual.

“Very well, Father,” his brother said. “I won’t.”

#mdzs #lan qiren #qingheng-jun #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls

[struggling-with-time]

SBI Racing AU Headcanon

Paring: SBI Family

Summary: Racing headcanon for how the family of 4 adrenaline junkies function.

Warnings: Fluff, racing au

Words: 1.6K

Masterlist: SBI Masterlist - Wilbur's Masterlist - Full Masterlist

A/N: Racing AU brain rot, lets goooo. REQUESTS ARE OPEN. Request here.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Let’s get this on the road, ha road get it, anyway

Phil is a retired F1 driver, having had his years on the road chasing the adrenaline high.

He now helps out in Techno’s shop as a mechanic. While working for the nearby racing ring, he claims it’s to make sure nobody gets hurt too badly. In reality, everyone knows it’s because he misses racing himself.

Phil was forced to stop after an injury that left him with a bad knee, a true old man, according to his youngest son, Tommy.

Phil is a now single father, raising his three sons, that are all seeking adrenaline the same way as him. Which horrifies him.

Because if there is one thing Phil is never going to forget from having been behind the wheel in some of the fastest cars, is the absolute high he got from it.

He had to get the nickname Angel of Death from somewhere.

While the man has a calm and nurturing aura when met for the first time, don’t be deceived. The second he gets drunk on speed, and high of the sound. He is nowhere near calm.

Phil is a horrifying force behind the wheel, having multiple track records still standing around the world from before the accident. Not to mention an even longer list of crashes that was potentially his fault. But if you ask the man, nothing was ever proven.

Phil drives a stick shift, specifically a stick shift Chevy Camaro. His children likes to call him an old man for the stick shift.

Techno, Phils second oldest son, and his pride and joy if you ask Wilbur.

Techno can do it all, he’s a mechanic, owns his own shop, where in Phil helps out. In said shop, Techno also does the upkeep on his own car.

He does only illegal racing, the man isn’t the greatest with rules, and legalities when it comes to the legal parts of racing.

Not to mention Phil would have his head if he even tried walking the same path as him. So illegal street racing with his dad cheering him on it is.

(Phil did have a lot of problems in the beginning with Technos seemingly endless craving for the adrenaline. But he over time warmed up to the idea it was better Techno races under Phils wings, than sneaking out and making it more dangerous, than the past time already is.)

Techno does all his car upkeeps by himself, esspcially because the car wasn’t only sponsored by himself, but Phil did give him some money from his own days for the car. A Ford GT in red.

He is known famously as the Blade, but infamously as The Blood God. That red Ford GT leaves nightmares and losers in the dust.

Techno has yet to lose any races, always on top of his game.

Much to the dismay of Dream, the guy who is forever stuck in the 2nd position right behind him.

Technos racing style is known for being aggressive, but for those who have raced him, knows nothing is impulsive. Every single move is highly calculated and precise.

Techno is a college dropout, with the support of Phil and his family. Unlike Wilbur.

Wilbur is the oldest of the three children. The only one who went and completed college. Earning a degree but ended up back home.

Because to him there never was nothing like the nights him and Techno would sneak out to join the racing ring.

Despite Phils insistence that his oldest doesn’t have to be behind a wheel. Wilbur feels no other place quite fits him like that.

Phil knows how Wilbur drives. Because he taught him how to do so himself. Due to Techno just being 1 year younger than Wilbur. The year being enough for Techno to having cleaned up Wilburs mistakes when he ages a year.

Leading to Wilbur, still like Techno, having an aggressive driving style. But unlike Technos nothing about it is refined or precise. Wilbur is an absolute terror behind the wheel. A madman some have called him.

Because like his dad and younger brother. Wilbur craves the adrenaline. And he will do whatever it takes to get it.

So he races, always never first, always just close by. The oldest yet standing in the shadow of his younger brother.

Leading to unlike Techno, Wilburs pride and joy, is their youngest brother. Tommy.

But a close second would be his car, a vintage 1969 corvette stingray. That much to his dismay is mostly upkept by Techno, for while Wilbur is good on the track, he cannot fix a thing on his car alone.

Meaning Techno and Wilbur sometimes have long nights just bonding in Technos workshop, fixing their cars, talking about races, and talking about their starry-eyed younger brother Tommy.

A loud-mouthed blonde, that has been banned from getting behind a wheel. Phil taught him how to drive far too young. Leading to Tommy teaching his friend group how to as well.

And Phil is so not letting the flock of 4 adrenaline junkies with the name of Tommy, Tubbo, Ranboo and Purpled anywhere near the racetrack in any form of car. Phil would very much like to not die of a heart attack.

The group of 4 however had made it their mission to prove Phil wrong, that they should in fact race. Because according to Tommy.

“They are the biggest men” And deserve the glory that comes with that.

Phil still refuses, however, he has provided the four with an old Volkswagen from 2007, that has all the safety it needs, but no plates. A small insurance for Phil, hoping the 4 can be satisfied in cruising in it around the area behind Technos shop.

All this meaning, that while Tommy has his license, he has no car. And neither does his friends. Not that any of them would ever let him drive any of their cars if that had.

Tommy is a speed demon, and much to the dismay of his father and brother. He is as much of an adrenaline junkie as them.

So the when the rest of the family pulls up in their cool cars.

Tommy pulls up on his red Big Man Puch Maxi. Named after the crudely drawn Big Man made in black spray paint over the side. Of course filled with attributes to the people he cares about.

A drawn bee made by Tubbo, who helped him paint it red.

A crown in black and white from Ranboo, who helps him fix and repair it. Ranboo works as an apprentice in Technos shop.

A purple alien face from Purpled, whose brother Punz also drives in the racing ring.

A flag, more specifically the Logo of L’Manberg. Wilburs car. Because as he says.

“All the important things have flags.”

The sticker and design was made by the two, who sat up all night in their garage at home. Wilbur rambling on for hours about the colour meanings and how important flags and recognition is. Techno had ended up joining them after midnight, mostly listening, but sometimes adding his own 5 cents into either the conversation, or a quick piece of advice. That the hard-working brother always seemed to listen to.

So when Phil found the 3 passed out in the garage, and all he did was find pillows and blankets for them. Who is to blame that he ended up taking photos of them.

A sword, to signify his older brother Techno.

And lastly a pair of black wings, to signify the only Man. His dad Phil.

While the 4 of the minors are chaos in person, they certainly are so too when they play around in the car. Tommy driving, Tubbo as his co-pilot and stick manager. Ranboo behind Tubbo. Ranboo usually being the voice of reason, whenever he isn’t drowned out by Purpled, who sits behind Tommy, irking them on to go faster.

The 4 of them also having started what they call a biker gang, in reality it’s just them on their old Puch Maxis.

And Tommy, oh Tommy.

Tommy likes to run his mouth, especially in front of Dream, the number 2 in the racing ring. Unlike his brother Wilbur.

Wilbur has a silver tongue unlike anyone else, that convince nearly everyone, that he did in fact not nearly make the other driver crash. Because like his father, he has a long list of things that can't be proven to be his fault.

Tommy has offered Dream to race the man so many times everyone lost count after the 7th try. Not that Dream doesn’t want to shut the teenager up. More so because he is afraid of his father.

Everyone knows Techno never loses, but that runs in the family. Phil has never lost a match, even in the stick shift that he drives now. Getting into a match with him is an automatic lose, and Dream has too much pride for that.

So there on racing ring stands Phil with his 3 sons, as much of adrenaline junkies as himself, and while it isn’t the most orthodoxic family, it certain is his. And he can’t help but be proud of them. Even if his youngest and oldest is currently yelling “suck it green boy” after Techno has beat him.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

#sbi #sbi fanfic #sbi headcanon #sbi racing au #sbi family dynamic #racing au #wilbur soot #philza #tommyinnit #technoblade #dsmp racing au #delias own writing

[writingwithcolor]

Jewish character as adoptive parent/patriarch of a found-family that ostensibly contains children from xtian backgrounds?

@lymanjosh asked:

tl;dr: how to approach Jewish character as adoptive parent/patriarch of a family that ostensibly contains children from xtian backgrounds?

(this is about fandom but i take it fairly seriously and want to do it right!)

so i’m not jewish, and i portray/hc a (relatively important/main) character A as a Jewish man. character A is at the center of a large found-family network, and he has a number of children adopted + otherwise who come from a variety of backgrounds and who are variously headcanoned by other fandom members.

a lot of the time (mostly in a roleplay context, where other people have equal control over the storyline) i’ll be faced with the assumption that the family would operate by the xtian norms dominant in a us context (particularly regarding xmas.)

id like to push back against this, but i hesitate to portray character A as asking his children to share in his own customs; i don’t think it would be in character, since he is very very reserved + rarely speaks about his birth family in the source material, but even if that were something he did i don’t have much interest in writing about it, nor do i think it would be my place.

what’s a realistic way for this kind of family to navigate the holidays? i’ve done some reading about adoption of children from oppressed groups by white/gentile families, in which it’s generally best to preserve the child’s connection with their culture, but i’m not sure if it would be different in this context? i worry about implying that A has to let xtian norms into his home to some degree in order to properly parent his children. 

Hi! OK, so when I first read this ask I completely read it as Magneto and was all set to give a complex and thorough Magneto answer, and then I realized I was jumping to conclusions and asked and I was VERY wrong – this is Batman! Which is also awesome. I’m not as familiar with DC but I still enjoy this premise.

So the question becomes: how does Jewish Batman handle the holidays if Robin and whoever those other found-family kids are, are Christian. How do we give them a Christmas without having to “do” Christmas ourselves? If I were in Batman’s Bat Shoes here, I’d ask the kids what it was they wanted. In other words, what part of Christmas would they need in order to feel like they weren’t missing out. And then I’d find a way to make sure they were getting to experience it. If they wanted to go to Midnight Mass, I’d ask if (Christian?) Alfred was okay taking them, or Commissioner Gordon, or some other gentile character. If all they wanted was Christmas cookies and everyone baking as a family, I’d orchestrate that without feeling uncomfortable. If they wanted to watch a movie it would depend on how overtly Christian it was vs. something like A Muppet Christmas Carol. (Note: this is going to be a big “your mileage may vary” here because of our varying discomfort with having to participate in Christmas, so I am definitely not saying all of us are comfy with secular Christmas movies.) If they wanted a Christmas tree, remember this is Wayne Manor so there’s gonna be room for there to be a Christmas tree or even a whole Christmas room that doesn’t have to be my space or my room. If I’m Batman. (Did I really just type that sentence?

Batman is so Alone TM that this post makes me lonely for him to have other Jewish characters to do his own holidays with. But. The whole time I was in grad school I was in a situation where I was celebrating all my holidays with all gentiles, and I basically did my own thing and taught them what I was doing and why, and then had movie parties. Like for Passover we had a “deconstructed seder” where I made all the seder foods as party foods and watched Ten Commandments. That way I got to feel like I wasn’t missing out. That would be a sort of secular way that the BatFam could participate in stuff like Passover without having to actually sign up to practice a different religion.

–Shira

I only have a couple minor things to add. Firstly OP, definitely pay attention to the ‘mileage may vary’ point and, as we’ve mentioned before, listen  to many Jewish experiences of Christmas from those who engage to those who are neutral to people who have negative associations and memories about Christmas. The examples Shira gave all work, as long as they fit with Batman’s wider Jewish identity and you’re aware that whatever option you go with, many Jews will feel completely differently to your character and that’s OK too.

Similarly, Shira’s suggestions for Jewish holidays like Passover are great, but this would again depend on Batman’s denomination and personal preferences. An Orthodox seder still has plenty of room to make it your own, but with a lot more do’s and don'ts. For example, (this obviously didn’t happen in 2020 but) my dad usually heads down to the local Jewish retirement home on first night Passover and leads a kind of 'highlights of the seder’ for the residents. All the songs they will remember from childhood, but shorter; all the food, but made a bit more palatable, as Shira also said; and all condensed into about 45 minutes. Your Batman might do something similar for his kids if they show interest in Passover. However, when my dad gets home he will still make sure he does seder night, even if he is by himself if the rest of the family are with my mum. It will depend on Batman’s denomination and beliefs as to whether he sees a condensed or modified seder as having fulfilled his religious obligation. 

–Shoshi

#Jewish #Adoption #Adoptees #families #Jewish families #batman #fanfiction #holidays #Christmas #Christian #Jewish holidays #asks #submission

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

Into The Thick of It (1)

Loki x Female Reader

Chapter 1: The Cult

Series Summary: Her work as an agriculturist nearly takes the readers life is not for a stranger (and his weird looking dog) who later turns out to be the God of Mischief. Thrown into a completely different realm, you want to figure out a way home while trying to stay out of the way of this literal God. But fate has its own plans for the two of you.

Written for @tarithenurse and her #Taris1Kchallenge

Warnings: torture, sacrifice, undertones of rape

Word Count: I am on a break. It feels good to just breathe without dreading the rest of the day. Why is work so punishing?

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

One single machine whirrs in this dull laundromat. The light above you flickers at intervals so regular you have already made a beat out of it. The only other sound distracting enough is some old music playing on the radio at the front desk where no one sits at this hour. And that fan that seems to be breathing its last over your head. "Yeah, it's unbelievably quiet here," you mentioned in a soft tone before looking around the empty space. "I guess I'm glad I only had to stop for three days here." "What? Are you not going to explore this place?" your friend, Zaira's voice crackles through the phone. You shrug despite knowing she cannot see you. "I don't know, Zai, this place gives me the creeps for some reason. I am only hanging around here because Prashant wants to revise the reports I sent him of the soil composition before he gives me a green light to leave this place." "Damn! That bad?" "Oh! You have no idea!" You look around once again. The front desk guy has just come back in his old Chevrolet and the clock has struck nine. "Zai," you whisper in the lowest tone possible, watching the man whistle as he gets out of his car without closing the door, "there are no kids in this village-slash-town." He walks to the back to open the trunk of his car, whistling a somewhat familiar tune. "That's...not haunting at all!" Zaira's sarcasm can be heard in her surprised tone. "Well, what's more haunting is the fact that the youngest person here is an eighteen-year-old boy who keeps showing up anywhere I go and keeps staring at me funny." The man shuts the hood with a loud thump and you can see a fresh bundle of store-bought rope, a baseball bat, a bottle of some chemical-probably for cleaning- and a pair of rubber gloves as he starts walking to the entrance. "Allah-" Zaira takes the Lord's name in surprise- "no wonder they have The Sacrifice playing somewhere there." The man sets everything on the front desk, still whistling the same tune, which you now come to realise is the song that is currently playing on the radio. "The...the what?"

"The thing playing in your background," Zaira comments, "it's playing on a two strong instrument with a looping chorus. It's a pagan ritual song that is sung by some orthodox communities that still present a sacrifice to their pagan gods. We learned this in the summer session for cult studies, boo. Oh, wait. You were back home that time. The chorus basically says 'here's your sacrifice, now pay my dues'." Not a word of what Zaira said is heard after the pagan ritual song because suddenly all the materials resting on the front desk are making sense. So is the creak of the back door that opens to let the only teenager of the town in. Your body is frozen in place, your mind has gone blank. One moment you are running for the exit. And the next, you are lying on the floor with the two men hovering over you while the song calling for your sacrifice slowly fades away. . It is the discomfort from the heat that wakes you up. The sweat and stickiness all over your body slowly registers in your brain that alerts of a throbbing ache at the back of your head with a bang. Everything is a blur for a few moments; till the lights morph into fire beacons and the sun transforms into a bonfire, the figures moving around you become humans with faces smeared in blood. Your clammy skin shines in the light of the bonfire, your hair sticking to any part of you. Tears are rolling down the edge of your eyes while your brain is registering this new pain altogether from the gag in your mouth. You try to move your hand to touch your skull where it hurts, but are unable to do so. My hands...I can't move them. Your dizzy brain gives your body the command again but in vain. "She's awake!" a raspy voice pierces through the air.  And within a speck of a second, all the memories start rushing in. Y/N? Hello? Babe, can you hear me? Adrenaline shoots up in your system and your senses are heightened. The smell of kerosene is heavy in the air along with the crippling stench of burning flesh. You have been bound to a pole with your hands behind you, the bonfire in front of you, the forest surrounding you from every corner and the moonless sky on top of you. The faces in the fire are all familiar. The residents of this town, all staring at you while you struggle to get out of the ropes cutting through your skin, stop their movement to pick up the bowls kept in front of them and drink its contents. Your cries are muffled; partly because of the gag and partly because of the sobs that want to escape your throat just like your tears. Your already broken body jumps when the oldest woman in the group starts shouting phrases in a language unknown to you. And just as she begins, everyone around her takes out a dagger and starts moving in your direction. Your heartbeat seems to drop for a moment. They can see the horror in your eyes. But that does not stop their moments. The woman's chants grow heavier as her hand moments grow more vigorous. The youngest of them all skips a step or two to straight away jump on the platform where you are kept on display. He looks around once and turns to you to move your sweat laden hair strands away from your face. His pale fingers are cold, almost icy to the touch. "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here," he whispers close to your ears. Your sobs turn to sniffs to hear his words and look into his eyes. Those grey irises are trying to dig straight into your soul. "Trust me." Your instinct- which has never been wrong in your life- is already moving your leg to bend the knee and get his balls. And you do. Watching him writhe in pain for one long satisfying moment as he curses you from heaven to hell. But he gets back up, with the eyes of a madman ready to kill. You are crying out still, for anyone who will listen, in heaven or hell, as he takes you by your throat. The venom in his hold is enough to take your life. "The only way out-" he says close to your face- "is through, you cunt." One last prayer comes out of you as a whimper before you wait for his dagger to meet you.  In the next heartbeat, everything turns white. . Everything is blinded by a white light. It does seem to be the end. Why did I have to die like this dammit?! A Buzzfeed Unsolved episode?! But something does not sit right.  The white light should be the end, right? Then why can feel something wet under my h- Before you realise you are tumbling down the steepness of the forest. Your body can feel every rock and every pebble on the way down the seemingly endless slope. It seems like a long while when your limbs finally skid on flat rocky terrain, bringing the ringing pain to a halt before it can bounce all over your body a bit louder in the deafening silence. The first thing your senses do is look for any sign of danger around you. The forest is dark. And apparently different than the one you were in before. The trees are taller and with trunks that would not fit in your hugs. You cannot see their ends in the sky from where you lay. Not weird at all. The silence too sends your wounded heart into an anxious stir. Not even the cicadas speak here. Am I...dead? Now that definitely stirs something out there. A twig breaks in the distance. You pause your breath and shush your racing heart. A soft rustle of leaves can be heard somewhere that lets your sweat run cold all over the body. It is hard to breathe through the gag as it is, and you are standing nowhere near a hiding spot, making your basic instincts run wild with any shadow you see in this treacherous night. So all you do is stand as still as a trembling mouse and wait. And that wait isn't long. Call it nature's mysterious ways or just a random event happening at the right time, a cool breeze stirs the air for the first time in this place. From where you stand, the breeze hits your back, tickling those sweat beads on the nape of your neck before letting you smell the odour of blood it carries with it. All the neurons inside you make you turn around and face a familiar figure emerging from the shadows with a dagger in his hand. The basic instincts inside you are already making your body break into a run in the opposite direction. The rush of the flight instinct is overpowering all the injuries and you forget for a second that your hands are still tied behind you as you speed straight ahead. But that devil of a man is fast. He has already closed the distance and his hands are grabbing your hair, pushing you both to the ground. He presses you down with his body, not giving you any room to get up or free your limbs. But he does untie your gag before turning you around and holding your neck in a choke-hold. "Please, please, please..." Nothing else is coming out of you at this point; except for hot tears streaming down the side of your face.  "Well," the bastard sighs, pressing down his pelvis on your abdomen while having the audacity to smirk when looking down at you, "we had to sacrifice a virgin. But surely it's going to work the same if I put that mouth to work." The dread of his words does not set in till his free hand reaches for the button on his pants to undo it. The more you try to push away from him, the tighter he grips your throat. Oh, Gods! Just let me die instead. He is halfway undoing his zipper when a sound cracks through the air. It almost sounds like a very quiet motor either just starting or just stopping. And the closer it gets, it starts taking the shape of a growl coming from the throat of an animal. The man is distracted now; looking for the source of the sound. Loosening his grip a bit, he turns around to let his vision get as far in the dark as it could to look for anything out of the ordinary. And while he is busy, it is you who notices its presence and choose not to make a sound. The man turns around to look right into red eyes gleaming at him from a distance of three inches, sending him jumping up and crawling back on the ground as far away from you as possible. Huge white canines visible even in this darkness are on display as this four-legged creature growls in your captor's direction. A twisted horn rests majestically on each side of its head. Paws as huge as a lion's, but claws twice as big and dark as the night are resting on either side of your shoulder. The fur seems dark and dense except for where pointed bones are protruding out on its back. The growl revving in this creature's throat is enough for the predator to crawl back further with his heart stuck in his throat. And before he can figure out what demonic hell this creature had walked out from, he comes to discover another wave of fear when he sees a shadow behind it in between two trees. That shadow seems human. Human enough at the very least until he thought he was hallucinating that figure with gleaming green eyes. "Wh-who's there?!" the man's voice starts in a scream ends up in a squeak. "Get that ugly dog away from here!" The 'ugly dog' shifts from your side to take a few steps towards the bastard, metaphorically pinning him in between the roots of the trees he was sweating in. "Hey!" he shouted again at the shadow, "can't you hear me?!" You sit up, watching the creature slowly ready itself for attack mode. Turning around, you too are able to see a figure. It looks tall and is evidently clad in something heavy. Is that a sword in his hand? But that sword is not as concerning as those illuminated green pupils. "You son of a bitch! Get the fuck out of here before I stab you and your filthy farm ani-" "Rífa hann í sundur," is all you hear in a low hum from that figure's end one second. The next, there are growls and blood-curdling screams emerging from behind you; haunting enough to make you jump and curl up where you sit but never move your eyes away from that shadow that still stands as still as a rock. Tears still fall from your eyes; your legs pulled as close to your chest as possible. The screams continue to come out for a long time...long enough for you to notice a snowflake fall on your knee. More snowflakes come after the first one. And once the screams die down, you feel something brush your hands, almost making your heart fall out, only to realise that creature standing right behind you nudging at your ropes to gnaw your hands out of them. The adrenaline rush has diluted now. The pain and exhaustion that comes with it now lie heavy in your bones. Your eyes cannot take it anymore. But they still want to see that figure which now takes the liberty to walk out of the shadows underneath the clear light of the nearest moon. Your body is ready to fall but the creature provides some support to your lifeless limbs. Its fur feels so good on your cheeks. And that pale face coming to a stop in front of you feels almost angelic. Those green eyes are looking at you with both concern and judgment but what your brain registers first is the moonlight falling on those otherworldly cheekbones framed with clean braids. You want to keep looking at that face for a few more minutes. But there is only so much your wounded body can take before everything is a blur. . You have already hit deep slumber when the God comes to stand before you. He gets down on his knees to get a close look at your face buried in the hound's face.  "What do you think she's doing here, Agni?" Agni huffs and shifts enough to let the God have a better look at the face marred with wounds and bruises. A face that still looks so serene after putting up such a fight. The long pale fingers move those few strands of hair away that are blocking your features under the light of the moons. Calculations have already been done in that mind. What's left is to figure out whether to leave you here in the depth of the endless garden or... "Agni-" that voice commands with zero emotions, still studying your features- "call out for help. We are taking this one back to the camp."

#loki #loki x reader #loki x female reader #loki x you #loki x y/n #loki fluff #loki smut #marvel fluff #marvel smut #mcu fluff #mcu smut #fluff #smut #fanfic #loki fanfic #loki series #into the thick of it #taris1kchallenge #tarithenurse

[pxedpiper]

Horizon (20)

Plot Summary: Once a princess of a kingdom you loathed to call yours, you have somehow found yourself aboard a pirate ship, stuck on the ocean waves. Now you try to figure out how to escape them, but as you continue to journey with them, you find yourself wondering if you even want to.

Pairings: Ateez x Reader (Kim Hongjoong x Reader)

Content Warnings: Mentions of death and sexual implications throughout the fic, nothing ever specified in detail

Previous / Masterlist / Next

A/N: I don’t even want to think about how long it’s been since the last update but I am here now with a longer chapter for you all so hopefully that will make up for it !! And perfect timing since Ateez just had a comeback (which is AMAZING AS ALWAYS)! Hopefully I can get the next chapter out sooner but I won’t make any promises rip.

Inwardly, you cursed again as you looked back at the shocked faces of your mother and father, a reunion you were very much trying to avoid.

Trying to keep your voice calm, you responded to them, “What are you doing here? Where’s (B/N)?”

“He’s back at the castle- Never mind him, (Y/N), we’ve been looking everywhere for you! What were you thinking, letting that dreaded pirate take you away like that? We didn’t know if you were alive or dead!” Your father was quick to turn attention back to the situation at hand.

“He was going to kill everyone on the ship if I didn’t go with him, I figured one life was better than however many were on the ship that day,” You answered back, keeping your composure. Internally, you were hoping that your parents wouldn’t notice who you were with- or what you were wearing, for that matter.

“Well, it’s very well good that Admiral Reeves found you,” Your mother sighed in what you could almost be fooled to be relief, “Months of searching finally paid off, especially since that Sweet who’d taken you up and disappeared on us, we should’ve known better than to trust any of those filthy pirates.”

“Sweet is dead,” You told them, trying to leave out as many details as possible, “That’s why he never showed back up.”

“How do you know that- and where is Admiral Reeves?” Your mother exclaimed, huffing slightly as she waited impatiently, “Honestly, he tells us he’d be here with our daughter and sure enough, she’s here, but he’s nowhere to be found! Maybe we should-!”

“Reeves is dead, too. The whole ship is currently sinking, probably already at the bottom of the ocean right now,” You cut her off, knowing this wasn’t going to lead anywhere good.

“What do you mean, he’s dead-?” Your father cut himself off once he noticed your appearance, “By, god, what happened to you?! You’re covered in blood!” Hongjoong’s jacket had opened up due to you having moved your arms, making the massive bloodstains apparent.

“My, god, (Y/N), are you alright?!” Your mother rushed to you, checking you for any apparent wounds, “How did you get so much blood on your clothes?! Are you hurt?”

“It’s not mine.”

“What?” Your mother looked at you, confused.

“The blood,” You spoke slowly, “It’s not mine. It’s Admiral Reeves’s.”

“Admiral Ree-,” Your mother still seemed lost until the meaning of your words finally seemed to sink in. She let go of you, backing away slowly, “(Y/N), you didn’t.” It wasn’t a question, but you could tell how much she was hoping for you to deny it.

Instead, you shook your head, “I did. I killed Admiral Aldrich Reeves, just an hour ago, in fact.”

“Don’t be silly, now, how could a girl like you possibly-,” Your father started to scoff at you, but stopped once he noticed the serious look on your face, “(Y/N), cease this preposterous joke this instant!”

“It’s not a joke, Father,” You looked at him with a neutral expression, “The precious princess of this kingdom has just committed murder. What do you intend to do about that?”

“(Y/N), what have you done?!” Your mother fumed, finally dropping the concerned parent act, “You’ve committed one of the gravest crimes you could ever commit, and to a respected admiral no less! How can we look our people on the eye with a murderer as their princess?! We have no choice but to disown you!”

“No choice? Please, you disowned me from the moment I was born, don’t act like you care now.” You laughed humorlessly, “And don’t make me laugh, looking your people in the eye. All you do is look down on them, ignoring their suffering and their disgusting acts so you can live comfortably up in the palace! Half of them don’t even know there is a princess because you kept me locked away for so long! Please, for once in your lives, stop acting more righteously than you are! I’ve been around pirates for the past six months, and they’ve all proven themselves to be better people than you!” It was at this point your parents realized who your company exactly was.

“…So, this is where you’ve been the entire time,” Your father spoke slowly, “You truly are the most disobedient child a parent could ever loathe to receive, hanging around the very people I taught you to be wary of.”

“I was wary of them, at least at first,” You stepped forward with a glare, rushing to defend your friends, “But then I realized that they weren’t the true monsters; they never were. The real monsters were the Royal Navy, kidnapping normal sailors and putting them through hell- did you know Reeves physically and psychologically tortured his crewmates? Did you know that some of them even died because of him? Innocent men who wanted nothing to do with anything lost their lives because of monsters like him who were the ones who truly deserved to die! Tell me, were you aware of this, father?”

Your father was silent before he answered, “You have to understand, (Y/N), sometimes the methods used by the navy aren’t the most… orthodox, but-!”

“But, what?! You curse pirates for kidnapping, stealing, and murdering, but here you are, defending it once it’s someone of your own naval force! You’re no better than the pirates you love to hate so much!” You fumed, finally letting the frustration that had built up with your parents over the years out. “You say you have no choice to disown me? That’s perfectly fine by me, I already found a new family anyway.” As if to prove your words, Hongjoong, Jongho, and Wooyoung stepped up behind you, all of them on edge in case your parents tried to pull anything.

“So, you’re just going to turn your back on us, on the kingdom, to go off and play pirate with our worst enemy?” Your father just scoffed at you, “Time and time again you’ve proven yourself to be a disappointment, but nothing ever came close to this.”

“Don’t talk about her that way,” Hongjoong stepped up, glowering at your father, “If that’s truly how you felt about your daughter, why even bother to look for her? If even I, your so called ‘worst enemy’, can see how amazing she is, how blind to your own children must you be?”

“Don’t bother, Hongjoong,” You shook your head, “It’s probably just as I thought; the only reason you went looking for me was for sympathy, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t look good if the princess was kidnapped and there wasn’t even an attempt to find her, would it? Should’ve just said I was dead and be done with it, make things a lot easier for the both of us.”

“(Y/N), if you go with them, it’ll be war,” Your father warned, “It’ll be the entire navy against a ragtag group of pirates, even if it is the Pirate King. There’s no way you could win, not in a million year.”

“Oh, and if I stay? What, would you throw me in jail or have me executed?” You challenged, “You’ve already said you have to disown me. Are you too proud to just let me go?”

“You killed an admiral, how are we supposed to just let you go?!” Your mother shrieked, “You’ll be a wanted criminal!”

“Better than a captive princess,” You retorted, gearing yourself to run at a moment’s notice, “If it means going to war, then so be it. We’ll be more than ready to face your army. I’m not afraid of you, either of you!”

“Enough of this, guards, capture them!” Your father ordered, the guards surrounding them making their move towards you, but luckily you realized the situation quickly and began to run back towards the ship, the others following suit as you made to get away.

“San, please tell me you’ve gotten everything you need,” Hongjoong demanded as soon as you were back on the ship, meeting up with the carpenter who’d only just made it there himself.

“Yeah, at least enough to be able to fix it while on sea- why?” San asked, but Hongjoong just shook his head.

“No time to explain, we have to go, now! Everyone, get ready, we’re leaving!” Just as you were pulling away from the dock, you could still see your parents running up toward the pier, their faces filled with anger and disappointment. All you could do was look back at them, your own face showing your determination to prove them wrong, until finally you couldn’t see their faces anymore and you flopped down onto the deck.

“Ohhhh, what did I just do?” You groaned, cursing yourself at your actions, “Please tell me I didn’t just do that!”

“You did, and it was bloody brilliant, if you asked me,” Wooyoung spoke up, “I’d never seen you so mad before; Other than when you first got here, of course.”

“Brilliant? I just declared war on my own parents!” You exclaimed, sitting straight up, “I’m not even the captain, what right did I have to do that?! Not to mention that there’s no way a single pirate crew can bring down an entire kingdom, this is insane-!”

You were cut off by Hongjoong grabbing onto your shoulders, “(Y/N)! Calm down! We’re going to be alright! If you hadn’t declared war, I was certainly going to by the way they were talking about you. And you know I wouldn’t lead us into a fight if I didn’t think there was a chance we were going to win.”

“She has a point, Hongjoong,” Seonghwa spoke up, “We’re just one ship, how could we go up against the entire naval army?”

“I never said it would be easy, but have you forgotten that I am the Pirate King? Come now, you must know me better than that by now. Besides, I know someone, someone who can help, though I admit I am… slightly hesitant to ask for it,” Hongjoong replied, his voice certain until the last sentence.

“Why? Because they might not agree?” Mingi asked curiously.

“No, because it’ll give him an opening to criticize me and I’m not exactly looking forward to that,” Hongjoong answered, “But if that’s what it takes, then I’ll do it. I’d rather swallow my pride than let us go in at a disadvantage.”

“Who is it?” You questioned, curious to know about the man who made even Hongjoong hesitant to ask for help.

“You’ll be meeting him soon enough, so I guess I could say it, though I’m really not looking forward to it,” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, “It’s my mentor, Eden. The one who taught me how to be a pirate.”

“Ah, that’s right!” Seonghwa nodded, “He’ll likely be able to help. It may not give us the winning edge, but it’ll be something, at least.”

“And maybe we can go back to Elysia, try to see if we can squeeze anything out of Maddox,” Yunho added, “Better to try and fail than not try at all.”

“I’ve been wanting to pay a visit to Maddox again anyway,” Hongjoong frowned, “There’s some questions that need answering and he’s the only person who’s able to do it.” His eyes quickly shot to you before looking back towards the rest of the crew.

“I’d still like to go back to my family, if it’s alright with you, Captain,” Jongho spoke up, “It’d probably be for the best to let them know what’s happening, especially if we’re going at war with the kingdom.”

“Of course,” Hongjoong agreed, “If anyone else would like to see their families as well, I’m more than willing than to sail wherever we needed to.” He paused for a moment, as if waiting for an answer, but was met with silence. “Alright, we’ll head for Jongho’s family and then I’ll send for Eden while we’re there. No doubt he’ll take the chance to give me an earful…”

                                                               ~

Later that night, you quietly climbed up the rope to the crow’s nest, now being quite adept at being able to do so without falling. Once you arrived at the top, you were shocked to find Hongjoong already there, seemingly waiting for you.

“Hongjoong? What are you doing here?” You asked, climbing up properly before sitting down next to him.

“I had a feeling you’d come up here, it’s what you always do during a stressful situation,” He replied, giving you a soft smile, “I figured we should probably talk about things, especially given everything that’s going on. And there’s something I wanted to bring up with you, as well.”

“What’s that?”

“How the hell are we from the same kingdom but never knew each other until that day at the auction?” In all the chaos that’d happened, you’d almost forgotten that you and Hongjoong had found out you were from the same kingdom.

“Well, I was a princess, and I was locked away for a long time, so it’d make sense we’d never met,” You reasoned, “I remember hearing about people thinking my existence was a myth, I was seen so rarely.”

“But that’s the thing, we did meet before, remember?” Hongjoong recalled, “In which case, it would’ve had to been then. But not once do I ever remember hearing of a princess, a prince, certainly, but not a princess. At least, not while I was there. I left when I was twelve, so you would’ve had to been born after that for me to not remember you, and clearly, you weren’t.”

“I don’t know, Hongjoong,” You shook your head, “I don’t remember you either, it’s not like I had the opportunity to. I’m not sure how we met before, but you’re definitely right, it had to be then…”

“If I can be honest,” Hongjoong spoke after a beat of silence, “I had a dream last night. One I couldn’t explain. It was the day I stowed away aboard Eden’s ship, but it was different this time. Before, I’d always remember running away alone, but this time, there were two other children with me. One boy, one girl. I woke up before I managed to get her name, but I have a feeling I know who it is.”

“Me,” You whispered, “But how? I don’t remember running around with anyone but my brother, let alone helping someone stowaway on a pirate ship.” Things were silent between you two before you spoke up again, “How…. How did you end up on Eden’s ship, then? Maybe if you tell me, then I can remember.”

“Being completely honest, I don’t remember anything from around that time very vividly, and I don’t like to, either.” Hongjoong sighed, “I was a slave, no parents in the picture. I used to be beaten within an inch of my life almost daily until, as I remembered it, I finally got the guts to runaway and snuck onto Eden’s ship. He found me almost right away, of course, but somehow he decided I was worth keeping around and ended up becoming my mentor. But if my dream is truly what happened, then you and I assume your brother saved me.”

“My mother always went on about how I wasn’t allowed out of the palace because I caused a scene in town, but I could never remember exactly what the scene was, and she’d never tell me,” You frowned, “But if what you’re saying is true, then maybe… that’s the scene she was talking about? It’d be very much like her to be mad because I left a slave get away. But then wouldn’t my brother remember as well? He’s never mentioned anything of the sort.”

“Well, you have said you aren’t the closest, maybe he does and just never talked about it,” Hongjoong wondered, “All this is mere speculation, anyway, at least until we talk to Maddox again. Let’s just hope we’ll actually be able to get some answers out of him.”

“All this is so complicated,” You laughed out, a bit out of exasperation, “To think this all started because you saw me at an auction.”

“It is hard to believe,” He chuckled, “But I don’t regret it. Honestly, that was probably the best decision I’ve ever made. I can’t imagine my life without you in it now.”

Pushing down the fluttering feeling his words gave you, you responded, “Neither can I. I’m glad, at the very least, I can be back on this ship with you. …I’m sorry, by the way. About not keeping my promise not to leave.”

“It’s alright, you’re back now,” He shook his head, hugging you close to him, “I’ll just have to make sure the opportunity for you to leave never comes again, is all. I plan on keeping you with me for a very long time.”

“That’s good, because I plan on staying with you for a very long time,” You smiled, “And this time, I mean it. No more running off without your permission.”

“Great, since you nearly gave me a heart attack with that stunt,” Hongjoong exclaimed, exaggerating his relief, “We really do need to talk about this hero complex of yours.” “Sure, right after we talk about yours,” You shot back, making him laugh out loud, you joining in right after.

He shook his head, grin still on his face, “We really are too similar, at least in that regard.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” You replied, “Just means we’re protective. Not a bad trait to have, I think.”

“You’re right,” Hongjoong nodded in agreement, “It’s not. But what is a bad trait is staying up all night. Come now, we’ll need our rest now more than ever. Let’s go.”

“Right,” You agreed, making your way to the rope ladder, “Good night, Hongjoong. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight, (Y/N). I’m so relieved to hear you say those words again.”

                                                            ~

“Why is it that whenever you come back lately, it feels as though you don’t have any good news?” Chunhei sighed, setting down Kangdae, who quickly ran his way up towards you.

“(Y/N)! You’re back!” The small boy cheered, making you giggle in amusement.

“Of course I am, I’m part of the crew now, remember?” You responded, kneeling down so he wouldn’t have to look up at you.

Jongho ignored the scene, answering his sister, “Unfortunately, good news seems to be rather hard to come across lately. Has anything new occurred while I’ve been gone?”

“I’ll fill you in as soon as you fill us in, you all look like you’ve gone through a war zone,” She joked, before her smile fell at seeing all your serious faces, “What’s happened? What’s going on?”

“Get mom and dad,” Jongho said grimly, “We’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

As such, you soon found yourselves once again in Jongho’s living room, explaining everything to his parents and Chunhei. Once they’d heard you’d been kidnapped, Jongho’s mother gasped in shock.

“My god, (Y/N)! You aren’t hurt, are you?” She asked you, rushing over to you and checking for any major wounds.

“No, ma’am, I’m alright,” You chuckled slightly, “A little worse for wear, but nothing life risking. I’m healing up nicely thanks to Yeosang.” You could feel said boy straighten up beside you, likely gleaming with pride.

“That’s good to hear, dear, but if anything bothers you, come to me alright? I don’t like the thought of you being hurt,” She frowned, still looking over you just in case.

“I will, ma’am, thank you.” You agreed, satisfying her and making her sit back down. From there the explanation continued, and once you were done, you could hear a pin drop from how silent it was.

“Well,” Jongho’s father breathed out, “That’s a fine mess you’ve ended up in this time, eh, Pirate King?”

“It was inevitable anyway,” Hongjoong replied, “The Royal Navy’s been looking for a reason to start a full on war, we just beat them to the punch.”

“You do know this isn’t the same as the battles you’ve had in the past, do you?” Jongho’s father raised an eyebrow, “This is war. It’s not a simple business. There’ll be likely plenty of casualties, you might even be one of them.”

“I’m prepared to take on the consequences,” Hongjoong stated intently, “And it’s not like we’ll be going in alone. My mentor Eden has already agreed to meet us here, he’s on his way as we speak. He’ll likely arrive within the week.”

“We’ll also be going to visit Maddox, see if there’s any help he’s able to give us,” You chimed in, “It might not be much, but every bit of help counts.”

“Are you sure that’ll be enough?” Chunhei asked, looking extremely worried for her brother’s safety.

Hongjoong replied, “It’ll have to be. There’s not much else I can do, otherwise. But, I think it will be. I can’t quite explain it, but I have a feeling that things will turn out alright in the end.”

“Well, let’s hope that’s the case,” Chunhei sighed, “Oh, by the way, do any of you know a young girl around my age, Jiae?”

In a flash, Mingi’s head shot up, “Jiae? Did you say Jiae?”

“Yeah, she came in sailing a couple weeks ago looking for her older brother, said he was a pirate. And since you’re the only pirates I know, figured I might as well ask,” She shrugged, “Do you know her?”

“That’s my sister, what on earth is she doing here?” Mingi asked, urgency in his voice, “Is she still in town?”

“She’s staying in the inn in the town, I’ll go collect her for you! I imagine you likely wouldn’t like to have a reunion where people would be watching, especially since I’m sure you’d have much to talk about,” Chunhei got up making her way through the door, “I’ll be back as soon as I can! Hold tight, Mingi!” Once she was gone, you could see the way Mingi was starting to panic.

“Mingi, are you alright?” You asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Nodding, he started to take deep breaths, “Yeah, yeah I’m alright. Just… I wasn’t expecting this. I wasn’t expecting to ever see her again, and now she’ll be standing right in front of me soon. I don’t… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, or say, or feel, and it’s all coming at me at once.”

“It’ll be okay,” You replied, grabbing his other shoulder to face you, “She’s been looking for you, so clearly she wants to see you. She’s likely missed you just as much as you’ve missed her, and she’s probably got the same thoughts going on in her head as you do. Just calm down, take a few deep breaths, and wait patiently. She’ll be here soon.” Mingi nodded again as he followed your advice, taking deeper breaths as the started to calm down.

It wasn’t too long after that a young girl, who you presumed to be Jiae, came running in, looking frantically, “Mingi!”

At once, Mingi was on his feet, rushing towards his sister until he was right in front of her, “Jiae!”

“Mingi!” In a second, Jiae had thrust herself into her brother’s arms, hugging him tightly as he returned it as much as he could, “I found you! Finally, I found you!”

“You did, you did!” Mingi beamed, pulling away to get a good look at her, “Look as how big you’ve grown! I can’t believe it…”

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when we haven’t seen each other in years,” Jiae joked, tears coming to her eyes.

Mingi had his own tears as he asked her, “What are you doing here? What happened to mom and d-!”

“Dead,” She cut him off before he could finish, “They were blamed of piracy the same way you were, only they didn’t get so lucky. They deserved it, the rotten bastards, I’ve never forgiven them for how they framed you like that.”

“Who framed them?”

“Who indeed?” She answered back, “There’s a reason why I wasn’t framed either. I accused them anonymously, they never even had a clue. The minute they were hanged, I got on board a ship and made way to wherever I could that I could possibly find you. Anywhere that had a dock, I went on, looking for you as much as I could. Finally, all my searching’s paid off!”

“That was too dangerous,” Mingi frowned, hugging her close to him again, “But nonetheless, I’m glad to see you again, Jiae. I’ve missed you so much over the years, you’ve no idea.”

“Actually, I do have an idea, because I’ve missed you just as much!” She grinned, hugging him back just as tightly as before, “Now, care to introduce me to everyone?”

                                                             ~

Eden arrived at the island within the week, just as was expected. If you were being completely honest with yourself, you felt a bit nervous at the thought of meeting him; this was essentially the man who raised Hongjoong, after all. You could only hope it went better than how him meeting your parents went down.

“What is Eden like, anyway?” You asked Seonghwa, standing next to him as you waited for the other pirate captain to board.

“Well, it’s a bit complicated,” Seonghwa tried to explain, “He’s not exactly the most agreeable person in the world, so you might not get along with him at first. But he’s a good man, truly, at least as good a man as a pirate can be.”

“That’s what you said about Hongjoong when I first came here,” You noted, “That he was a good man.”

“Where do you think he got it from?” This comment made you laugh a bit, “No, but you shouldn’t worry. Despite his attitude, Eden truly does care for Hongjoong and vice versa. The fact he’s meeting us here at all when it’d be in his best interest to stay away says so.”

“I see. Then it’ll be good to have him on our side,” You nodded, starting to feel less nervous.

It wasn’t long after until an older man with about shoulder length black hair appeared, a scowl on his face as he looked at Hongjoong and said, “And what a fine mess you’ve ended up in this time.”

“It’s not my fault!” Hongjoong instantly tried to defend himself, “I was simply just trying to protect my crewmate, they were the ones who declared war!”

“Yes, and whose wise idea was it to accept a princess as a crewmate, as if there wouldn’t be any consequences for it?” Eden raised an eyebrow, “You might be known as the Pirate King now, but I know I taught you better than that.”

“My god, you sound like his father,” You blurted out without saying, quickly covering your mouth as soon as you realized you’d spoken out loud.

“I’m not!” Eden argued.

“He’s not!” Hongjoong agreed.

“He is,” Wooyoung commented, the rest of both crews agreeing.

“Ignoring that,” Hongjoong turned away, trying to will away the red on his face, “It’s a more complicated situation than you think. I knew what the consequences were.”

“Tell me everything, then,” Eden ordered, “I’ll need a full rundown if we’re to have any chance of winning this fight.” After giving him a full explanation of everything that had transpired since you first boarded The Utopia, Eden nodded in understanding, “That’s quite a story. One I likely wouldn’t believe if it weren’t for the fact you were the one telling it to me, and I know you know better than to lie to me. So, what’s our plan of action then? Because me alone won’t give you the edge you need to win, though more numbers do help.”

“We’ll go back to Elysia and see Maddox,” Hongjoong stated firmly, “There’s bound to be at least some help he could give us. Having some sort of mystical help has to be some sort of leg up against the kingdom.”

“They’ve just lost an admiral, so that’s still a blow, even if only a minor one,” You added, joining the conversation, “And after that confrontation, I doubt they’ll be in the best mental state. Those are both advantages we can’t ignore.”

“But the same could be said of your mental state, Your Highness,” Eden responded, “How do we know you can keep your head clear and do what must be done to win this war?”

“Don’t call me that,” You warned, “I have no titles anymore. And don’t worry about me. I can handle this, especially since I’ve got the rest of the crew with me.” You could see Eden looking at you, seemingly scanning at you before looking back to Hongjoong as his eyes filled with what seemed like understanding.

“I see. Very well then,” Eden stated, turning back to Hongjoong, “You have me and my crew at your service. But don’t think that means you can order me around for no reason, I’m still your mentor.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Hongjoong rolled his eyes, “Now, if nobody has any objections, let’s make our way to Elysia! We leave tomorrow morning at dawn!”

“I’ll go let my family know,” Jongho sighed.

Mingi spoke up, “I will, too. I have to let Jiae know what’s happening and why she might not see me for a bit.”

“You just reunited with her, you won’t take her with you?” Yeosang asked.

Mingi shook his head, “No, it’s too dangerous. She shouldn’t be anywhere near a war zone. After the war, then maybe I’ll see about having her join us. For now, though, she should stay with Jongho’s family where it’s safe.”

San agreed, “That’s smart. That way, she won’t be alone either, she’ll have people to talk to. Especially since she and Chunhei are around the same age.” While they continued on with that conversation, you couldn’t help but notice that both Seonghwa and Yunho were both being uncharacteristically distant, Seonghwa excusing himself from the conversation and Yunho’s mind seeming to be somewhere else. It was then you remembered that they were the only two of the crew left that you still didn’t really know that much about.

Maybe it was about time that you fixed that.

#ateez pirate au #ateez fanfiction #ateez fanfic #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines #hongjoong fanfic #seonghwa fanfic #yunho fanfic #yeosang fanfic #san fanfic #mingi fanfic #wooyoung fanfic #Jongho fanfic

[arcticdementor]

The devout and observant Christian is undoubtedly aware of the precarious state of the faith in our modern world and is becoming increasingly open to out-of-the-box solutions. One such possible solution is to take a cue from our bearded Amish neighbors and form rule-based religious communities—but maybe without the horse and buggy.

A brief peak at the current state of American Christianity should disabuse anybody of the notion that this is unnecessarily drastic.

America’s traditional Mainline Protestant denominations are bleeding out so quickly they will likely be gone within 20 years. That is not my prediction, but their own. The ELCA (the main Lutheran branch) projects they’ll only have 16,000 worshippers by 2041; the PCUSA (the main Presbyterian branch) lost almost 40% of their members in the last decade, causing one analyst to note, “At its current rate of shrinkage the PC(USA) will not exist in about 20 years;” and data for the Episcopal Church shows the same 20-year timeline until the denomination runs out of people in the pews.

More conservative denominations used to chuckle at these headlines and say, “If only they preached the Gospel instead of liberal activism, they’d be growing like us.” But they don’t say that anymore. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest of the Evangelical churches, has lost 14% of their members since 2006; the Methodists are losing members while in the middle of a brutal split; and for Catholics, according to Bishop Robert Barron while speaking at the 2019 bishops’ annual conference, “Half the kids that we baptized and confirmed in the last 30 years are now ex-Catholics or unaffiliated.”

There is one major exception, though: the Amish—a mustard seed that is growing into a large tree in front of our eyes. The Amish arrived in the United States shortly after their founder, Jakob Ammann, split with the Mennonites in 1693 for being too lax on enforcing their communal rules, as laid out in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith. For the next 200 years, the Amish were just a few eccentric families in Pennsylvania that spoke an archaic Swiss German. By 1920, these few families had grown to 5,000 people and since then have doubled about every 15 to 20 years, including between 2000 and 2020 when they doubled to 351,000.

Unless something changes drastically within their culture, this doubling is projected to continue. One demographer, Lyman Stone, showed that at their current rate of growth, they will easily make up a majority of the United States in 200 years. This means the current moment may mark the halfway point between them arriving as a small band of friends and their inheriting the most powerful nation on the planet. They may seem like a backwards remnant of the past, but in reality, they will almost certainly play a major role in the future. This will become more evident after they soon dwarf more well-known churches like the Episcopalians and Lutherans.

…

So, when virtually all other Christian groups are seeing plummeting, or at best stagnant, numbers, why are the Amish seeing growth like this? The answers people typically give are that they have a very high birth rate and an over 90% retention rate. But that’s like saying someone is wealthy because they made a lot of money and then saved most of it. It begs the question—how? How do they have such large families—with 6 or 7 children per woman—while the country at large has a below-replacement rate of 1.6 children? And how are they able to keep all those children within their communities?

I believe it all comes down to one thing—the Code—or as the Amish call it, the Ordnung.

The Amish Ordnung is different in each community, but if it strays too far, other communities will no longer associate with that community; so there are limits. While outside observers will just see strict rules about hats and beards and technology use, the Amish see the glue that holds them together as a people.

It’s very important to realize that each rule is chosen as a group and with the goal of strengthening individual virtue (especially humility), family and community ties, and their faith.

As an example, most Amish communities don’t allow phones in their homes, but it’s not because they think phones are inherently evil and ban them completely. They often have shared phone booths at the end of the street to use when necessary and at their places of work. They just don’t have phones in the home because they believe it will take away from the purposes of a home—things like family bonding, chores, and recreation. Nobody who has sat in a room of family and friends all silently swiping at their phones can tell me their concern isn’t warranted.

…

The success of this model was discussed by Eric Kaufmann, a political-demography scholar at the University of London, in his provocative 2010 book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-first Century. Kaufmann noted the growth of groups like the Amish and the Haredi Jews (often called the Ultra-Orthodox) and attributed it to their birth rates and strong communities. Haredi Jews, for example, who also live by strict community codes, were only a few percentage points of the Israeli schools in 1960 but are now about a third of students, and he predicts they will very soon eclipse secular Jews. Haredi growth in Brooklyn, New York, is seeing similar growth, with high birth rates and retention.

…

Laurence R. Iannaccone’s 1994 study “Why Strict Churches Are Strong,” which has been frequently cited and confirmed since, gives more detail on the success of certain community codes.

Iannaconne found that groups can be strict on items as long as they provide a “close substitute.” Think, for example, of banning social media but then providing a lot of new in-person social opportunities to make up for that sacrifice.

“Strictness works,” he says, but the rules can’t be so strict they make people miserable and drive them away, or as Iannaconne says, “Arbitrary strictness will fail just as surely as excessive strictness.” The rules do have to be strong enough, though, to keep “free-riders” from claiming the benefits of the community without participating. He called these rules “costly signals,” like the sacrifices the Amish make by limiting their clothing styles and technology use. A person would be very unlikely to go through all of those costly steps for community benefits they could get more easily elsewhere. By eliminating free-riders—whose “mere presence dilutes a group’s resources, reducing the average level of participation, enthusiasm, energy, and the like”—they see the reverse, very high levels of participation, enthusiasm, and energy.

It’s not just Amish and Haredi Jews that have seen success with following a community code beyond the laws of the state—think of the monastics who survived in far-flung places relying on The Rule of St. Benedict; knights that followed the Codes of Chivalry; bands of cowboys on the American frontier who stuck close to the Code of the West, which gave detailed guidance on passing strangers on the trail, when to tip your hat, and with which hand you should hold your whiskey; and the tribes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border who have followed the Pashtunwali code since pre-Islamic times.

…

Modern Christians interested in starting a rule-based community would need to create some real benefits that are harder to come by in society at large. I’d suggest the basic benefits of a traditional community (help with childcare and schooling, coherent customs on dating and marriage, providing purpose and companionship to the elderly, cultural celebrations and gatherings, friendship, and assistance during hardship) would be plenty.

Then, they could agree together on some basic rules that are costly enough to separate the serious from the free-riders while not being arbitrary or unnecessarily strict. Targeting the rules toward areas that are particular downfalls for modern Americans (promiscuity, pornography, social media, screen-addiction, substance abuse) would be a good start. Agreeing to forego these in this time and culture would almost certainly be a costly enough signal.

Also, many of the rules should take into account issues like abuse of power, cults of personality, convenient personal revelations from God, sexual abuse, and a host of other issues inherent to tight-knit communities (and larger ones for that matter). The ability for a trusted leader to turn out to be an evil psychopath should never be underestimated, so rules should take that likelihood as a given and guard against it. The Amish, for example, draw straws to choose their leaders to avoid jockeying for power.

One last consideration is to what extent “walling yourself off from the modern world,” as Kaufmann said, is appropriate. Kaufmann said that was the best strategy for growth, but growth is not the only thing to weigh. There are also things like loving your neighbors, having an influence on the greater culture, and not stifling curiosity and creativity. Some walls are necessary, like between a teen boy and pornographic websites or between a child and an activist teacher, but a balance between walls and open spaces should be carefully pursued as a group. For example, language is used as a wall for the Amish (who speak Pennsylvania Dutch) and the Haredi Jews (who largely speak Yiddish), but that would likely be a step too far for most communities, as would their highly-detailed clothing restrictions.

…

Out-of-the-box? Sure. But with the exponential growth of the Amish and similar rule-based communities (and our own failure to find a workable model for modern Christian life) it may be a paradigm to consider. Even without our participation, it will certainly be how a fair amount of future Christians will live.

#david larson #crisis magazine #amish #maybe the amish are right #haredim

[hasquetzorkukudoneanythingwrong]

An Upgrade

It was time for the group to go to Melt's casino. But before they could, it was clear to them that the Shark god, Xook had decided to take it over. But now was not the time to be frightful, it was time to take action!

Ed: I am very much not a fan of going in with him in there!

Mari: do not be a coward! Hokusai is in there and she needs our help!

Rex: actually, there may be something we can do about this...

Ed: que?

Rex: we need to go under the Casino to find it!

Mari: huh?

Quetz: ooooh!

Jeanne: what exactly do you have in mind?

Rex: you'll see!

The group went into the casino, seeing it in a wreck even flooded for the most part.

Ishtar: how do we go underneath this place?

Rex: hmmm... maybe if we could find some stairs...

Jeanne: wait, you don't remember?

Quetz: it wasn't exactly an orthodox way to get down there at the time.

Mari: wait, there's a bigass hole over there! You think it could take us there?

They looked over and saw a large hole with water pouring down somewhat.

Rex: let's give it a try.

They look down it, and see what looks like a wrecked and flooded factory.

Quetz: this is it!

Ed: a factory?!

Rex: that's only part of what we're looking for!

The servants help take Rex and the kids down into the hole. Then Rex and Quetz started to search around.

Mari: what are we looking for?

Quetz: purple casino chips.

Jeanne: what for?

Rex: it's EXP it can strengthen the kids!

Ishtar: wait, what?! Melt had EXP casino chips? Where'd they come from?

Quetz: the customers themselves!

Ed: why?!

Rex: to become an entire ocean, and absorb this singularity into herself!

Mari: looks like Xook prevented that.

As they were speaking, rumbling could be heard from above, and more water started pouring down.

Rex: ah hell

Quetz: the water from the stadium is going to come down on us!

Jeanne: we better speed it up then!

The group goes all over trying to find the chips, eventually Ed manages to find what looks like it!

Ed: I think I found them!

Rex: you sure!

Ed: they're purple chips!

Mari: but how do we use them?

Quetz: we never actually saw Melt use them! She lost all of them before she could!

Mari: then how are we supposed to use them!

Then, finally, the ceiling gave way!

All of the water from the pool poured into the basement the group was in, and at the last second, Ed grabbed a bunch of the chips hoping for the best.

As the room is filled with water, Melt, Hokusai, an unconcerned Protea come down with the water. With Xook and his small army of sharks following down.

Xook: Ra har har har! What a poor showing for a supposed "Leviathan!" Ra har har!

Melt made an angry face, but unable to speak at all in the water.

Xook: awww, got nothing to say? No witty comebacks?

Melt then decided to swim towards Xook in an effort to attack. Only for one of his sharks to headbutt her, knocking her into some rocks on the floor.

Xook: nice effort, but poor execution!

Then, more sharks start to surround her, while she's unable to do much.

Xook: ur a bit too skinny for my liking, but I'm sure you'll still taste decent enough! Ra har har ha-

Then, a huge marine reptile came and bit one of the sharks in half!

Xook: huh?!

Melt: !!!

A giant Pliosaur was now swimming around the place, with Ed right on top of it.

Xook: boy! Got some new tricks up your sleeve all of a sudden?! How nice, but it won't be enough!

Ed: we'll see about that, chum breathe!

Xook: ohohoho! Ya even managed to grow a pair, huh?!

The remaining sharks go after Ed, while he has his new Familiar attack, managing to crunch another, while the force of the attack in the water knocks the rest back!

Meanwhile, Melt decides to try and swim up, then saw Hokusai and the others try to awaken the unconscious Kingprotea. She decides to help, despite not being a fan of the situation.

Melt swims towards the others, then performs a large kick on the sleeping giant's head, waking her up.

Kongprotea then proceeded to pick up the group in her hands and swim up.

Protea: *gasp* what happened?!

Melt: I'd also like to know!?

Jeanne: monster shark wants Mastersonas's kids dead.

Protea: why?!

Ishtar: prophecy bs, doesn't matter right now. We need to help.

Back with Ed and Xook, Ed was actually managing to keep his own during the fight.

Xook: gotta say boy, I'm surprised how well you've held your own! Normally I've got ya shivering. But now you're standing your ground! Doesn't mean I won't still kill ya, just though I'd let ya know before I do so.

Ed: you're the only that's gonna be dead today, chum for brains!

Then Ed's Pliosaur charged while Xook simultaneously charged too!

Thr group was seeing this from above.

Rex: will he be able to do it?!

Quetz: I don't want to risk it!

Mari: wait, look!

Then it was seen that Ed and his new beast were charging up with Lightning.

Melt: Protea! Get us out of the water!

Protea: ok!

Protea leaped out of the water, just barely making it in time. While Ed and his beasty attack and Electrocuted Xook!

Xook: RAAAAAAAH!

And after it's over, Xook is seen floating belly up at the surface. Ed finally manages to get back up to the surface with his familiar.

Then the group gave him a big group hug!

Rex: holy shit, Mijo! You managed to kill him!

Quetz: you finally managed to summon your own familiar! I'm so proud of you!

Mari: you fucking fried that asshole! Holy fuck!

Ed: hehehehe... gracias you guys....

After the hug ends, Ed is seen more scared again.

Ed: but I was just holding it all in... I Was Terrified the whole time!

Quetz: oh that's OK, Mijo! No one is without fear, all that matters is you fought on regardless of your own fear!

Rex: how'd you manage it anyways?!

Ed: with these!

Ed then pulls out the XP chips they were looking for.

Mari: you figured out how to use them?!

Ed: kinda...? I think I somehow absorbed them?

Mari: man, gimme those!

Mari then grabs them for her own use.

Mari: I wanna put down that stupid bat the same way!

Rex: now that'd be a sight to see!

After that it was time to continue on with their journey.

A/N: so Ed got to grow up a bit more! Got to tough it out against that shark! Things have changed....

Tags

@havetheavengersdoneanythingwrong @hasbbdoneanythingwrong @haskamadoneanythingwrong @hasjalterdoneanythingwrong @hasspartacusdoneanythingwrong

#fate grand order #quetzalcoatl #wife #mastersona #rex #rexcoatl #eduardo #maria #jeanne d'arc alter #ishtar #hokusai #meltryllis #kingprotea #xook

[adventism-atheism-orthodoxy-me]

My first experience with Abba Sisois was in a little Orthodox Church in my neighborhood.

I was taking a walk with my daughter, I don't remember how old she was, but this could have happened 12 years ago or more.

I had been studying Eastern Orthodoxy for years academically, mostly exploring why the Reformation took place in the West, while in the East the church had remained intact - my particular interest was in theologies alternative to the Faith vs Works paradigm that had been the dominant feature of Western Christianity.

I had never stepped foot inside an Orthodox Church though. In my neighborhood an Orthodox group had recently purchased an old decrepit community church and had begun making extensive repairs and renovations to the property. As I walked past with my daughter one (Seventh-Day) Sabbath afternoon, I noticed a car or two in the parking lot. I asked my daughter if she was interested in going inside. She was game. So we walked up to the door and was met by a surprised woman who mumbled something about it not being too late. She ushered my daughter and I into a large chairless room with a pedestal in the center of each half of the room. My daughter and I sat on some folding chairs in the corner, and watched the spectacle being performed for our benefit. I had no clue at this point as to the etiquette and protocols of attending an Orthodox service. I had worn an old sun-hat for walking, and I alternated between wearing it or holding it my my lap, trying to decide which seemed more respectful. I had only wanted to talk with some Orthodox people. I wasn't sure what was going on, and there was absolutely nobody there to mimic. The woman who had invited us in stood at one pedestal and another woman appeared and stood at the other. Sometimes the priest would say something, then one, or both of the women would say something, and I had no clue what was going on. At first it almost sounded like a very loud conversation taking place between the three people in front of me.

Not sure what was happening, I stood back up and looked at a few icons on the wall. That's when I saw Abba Sisoes or Sisois - the icon was original, I have never seen any other icon like it. All the text was in Greek though, so I had to try to remember the first line, and hope that it contained his name.

It eventually became clear that a service was taking place and I stuck still in my chair for awhile.

However, my daughter and I eventually fled once the priest started waiving the censor over us, waiting for a response that we were too naïve to ever give. After I got home I looked up the Icon.

Reading of his life, I stumbled upon this:

A certain brother frequently used to come to Abba Sisois saying, "I have fallen. What shall I do, father?" To which he replied, "Get up again." And he did get up. And again he confessed that he had fallen And again he replied, "Get up again." The brother kept on confessing his fallings and risings and the old man kept on telling him not to fail to get up again, until at last the brother said, "Explain to me, father, how long it is possible to go on getting up." And the old man said, "Until you die - caught  either in the midst of a good deed or a bad one. For in whatever kind of deed you are taken, by that you will be judged." -- Vitae Patrum, VII.xi.5

To me, the message was hopeful: "don't look back", "Never give up".

I forwarded it on to some others who saw it as something of a works based theology, antithetical to freedom in Christ.

Such is life as a Western Christian.

#Fr. Sisois #Abba Sisois #Abba Sisoes #Fr. Sisoes #Vitae Patrum #Orthodox Christianity

[quietpersephone]

bro, what Bo-Katan said about Death Watch and the things we hear Din say about being a ‘real Mandalorian’ and how Mandalore is ‘cursed’ is really skewing everything i thought i knew about Din’s tribe.  i’ve been having some thoughts.

up until this point i was under the impression that this Death Watch splinter group, though coming from questionable origins, were at heart only trying desperately to hold onto their culture and preserve their way of life and doing that in one of the only ways they feel they can, i.e. never removing their helmets; strict adherence to their code.

i’ve seen them described as extremists, but up till now i’ve always thought of them as just very orthodox. i’ve never viewed them as nefarious in their devotion. to me they were just a battle-worn people trying to keep what little of their identity they have left. I certainly would never have said they were extremists for that.  but now, i feel like i kinda have to use that word to describe this particular splinter group. sure we don’t know everything yet, but Din’s negative reaction to his people’s ancestral home and knowing surprisingly little about his own culture was a big red flag.

if the Tribe is about preserving the Mandalorian way of life why are they suppressing information about their long history with the Jedi? why does Din think their homeworld is cursed? why didn’t Din seem to know anything about Mandalore the great and his most infamous enemies? if Din was brought into the tribe during the height of the Clone Wars and was around other Mandos during the Siege Of Mandalore and The Great Purge then why does it seem to be he only has very basic knowledge of those events and doesn’t recognize the names of two of the major players in those battles? (Ahsoka, and Bo-Katan.) and shouldn’t Din at the least be aware of what happened during the siege and that Bo-Katan was heavily involved since Death Watch was one of the major players in that event and she herself was part of Death Watch? (until Maul got a little too power mad, obvs.) there are just so many holes within Din’s knowledge about his own culture, and it seems like it absolutely never occurred to him to question it? which is definitely a huge red flag. and with the revelations we have in this episode it appears it wasn’t because Din’s tribe were just completely off world and shut off from everything, but that the suppression of information was likely intentional? i didn’t really want to jump to the conclusion that the Tribe is an out and out cult, but suppression of outside information and carefully cultivating what the people around you believe and how they act is very cult-like behavior. 

Din doesn’t even seem to think it possible that there could be other sects of Mandalorians who believe differently than his group does, just look how totally scandalized he is when Bo-Katan and her allies remove their helmets. listen to his vehement insistence that they are not real Mandalorians. the idea never occurred to him that there are others who believe differently than they do, because it was not an idea he was ever allowed to have. and this really supports the theory that Din’s tribe had very deliberate plans for how their Mandalorians are to act, what they believe, and how they were to live their lives.

Bo-Katan was part of death watch, she knows everything about them, she knows exactly how they operate, and when she adamantly describes Din’s tribe as a cult I think we have no choice but to take her word for it. because this is cult territory we are in right here. this isn’t just deep devotion to a way of life, this is oppression of specific information and ideas that you don’t want people to have. you’re taking free will and the right to know your own cultural history out of the equation and that...that feels very nefarious to me.   now maaaaaybe this isn’t all what it seems and we’re just lacking vital information that will fill in all these holes and answer all the questions we have and make things look a little less dire. but at this moment, from where I’m standing...it really seems like Din Djarin is part of a cult and he never even knew it.  and to that i say

#TV Tag #Star Wars #The Mandalorian #Din Djarin #Bo-Katan #Bo-Katan Kryze #Baby Yoda #The Child #Spoilers #The Mandalorian Spoilers #In conclusion: GIVE DIN DJARIN A HUG 2K20 #Ya girl is STRESSED