#| God and i will sort ourselves out and whatever happens happens

[loveisadove]

LOVE IS OUR NATURAL STATE why I love LOA Tumblr...no limiting beliefs on here. You can imagine how you want and whatever you want, sky is not even the limit. (>>> my take on it >>>) Manifestation is Imagination and feeling (knowing). Manifestation is the faith of a child skipping in the holy land of his spirit, in absolute trust and innocence. We are beings of pure love. And then we start thinking counter-intuitively against this pure love we are...why? Like we've been programmed to for eons. But not you, na han...you are a glorious sovereign being who heard and felt the Law to be real. The realest real reality :) ...imagine your self sitting on the dewy grass of a meadow filled with endless miles of colorful flowers...you can hear the birds chirping, crickets cricketing, the breeze breathing, the soft sunrise sun caresses your cheeks and you hear light footsteps in the grass behind you; you shiver with anticipation, you know who it is...it is your love coming to sit behind you and cradle you in their arms...you don't even look back, you just safely lean back in this perfect familiar haven of warmth...and feel the love engulf you in a safe bubble of bliss... have you noticed? when you imagine...you don't think. when you bask in your wish fulfilled you don't think...when you come out of this communion with your spirit, where you and spirit become one...back to the physical world, you start to think...did this really happen? Is this real? Is it going to manifest?... ...all the while overlooking you felt that love and more over...you generated that love within...all on your own... when someone shows you love in the world of matter it's a reflection of the love you gave your self...and you have the ability to give your self that love and feel that love because you are love... we are meant to be love, not to think all day about love (or the lack thereof), besides our thoughts come from our state of being...not the other way around... so there is nothing to expect from the physical world, manifesting is an inner occurrence, isn't it wonderful? and since you know all your desires are yours, because to desire is to instantly have, there is nothing to do then to be fulfilled, which is feeling good... Feel good for no reason Feel good because you can feel Feel good because you can imagine Feel good because you are breathing Feel don't think about what you are feeling See, touch, hear, smell, taste without thinking... (yes you can think, of course, when in the right state of being (well, in truth, in any state of being, the bad ones too, but we are learning to allow ourselves to feel the bad to release it, instead of suppressing it with thought, I will preach this forever), thoughts flow effortlessly, because your feeling state, your energy, overfloweth without any dams in the way) (feeling is being in your body not in your head. we can't stop thinking, otherwise, it's a sort of disease lol. with practice you can do away with the need of thinking all the damn time and feel more, deeper, and even more and it feels divinely good. we really need to stop dismissing our body, the temple of our Imagination)(from a human point of view, of course, we know the body as well the cosmos are within consciousness… but we still as human turn inward to channel it.) We are human BEINGS...we are human Gods. We are love. Just feeling the love within is the ultimate master manifesting hack. ps: check my addendum in the comment section because somehow Tumblr won't let me edit this post.

[herearedragons]

The Dreaming Detective...

A waifish thing of golden curls, sky-blue eyes and disarming smiles. And one of London's most formidable crime-fighters. They have someone on their arm more often than not, but perhaps they can spare a moment for you tonight?

...has you in their sights

Unlocked with: Time Remaining... exactly 5, Suspicion 2

They are walking briskly towards you; the look on their face spells focused intent. They are not here for an idle chat. Oh, God, do they know about that incident?

Persuasive 80%

Success: Merely a coincidence

You are not the one they are looking for — but you know who is. You gladly provide the necessary details. Their smile turns almost predatory; you do not envy that poor soul.

"I see. Thank you; you have been a true friend today. You will find that I do not forget my friends."

Suspicion is dropping...

Talk Of The Town is increasing...

Failure: A thorough questioning

Your worst nightmares have come true. You stutter and fumble your way through one flimsy explanation after another, but the Detective is relentless.

"And what hour was that? Are you quite certain? Curious; an eyewitness claims the opposite..."

Your conversation has attracted a crowd. Good grief. Your wrongdoings will not soon be forgotten.

Scandal is increasing...

Suspicion is increasing...

...is having a disagreement with their dance partner

Unlocked with: Time Remaining... exactly 4

There are stormy looks. There are icy comments. Whatever happened between the two, this next dance promises to be miserable; could you be so bold as to swoop in?

Persuasive 77%

Success: A much better match

"Typical!" the Detective's partner calls after them, but the two of you are already off to the dance-floor.

They are a graceful dancer, subtle, deferring to your preference more often than not. You make affable, witty conversation between dance steps. You cannot help but express your wonder that their partner should have found any fault with them at all.

They smile.

"I have my faults, I assure you. One of them seems to be the imbalance between how much my company is desired, and how much I am able to give."

A quick glance to the side, and you understand what they mean. You are being followed by more than one pair of envious eyes.

Talk Of The Town is increasing...

Failure: "We will sort this out ourselves, thank you very much."

The looks they have been giving each other are nothing compared to the ones that are shot at you as soon as you open your mouth.

There is nothing more to be said. You retreat in shame. And it seems like the shared indignation has reconciled the pair enough to enjoy their dance, after all.

Scandal is increasing...

...has a distinct listless look about them

Unlocked with: Time Remaining... 2-1, 50 x Drop Of Prisoner's Honey

Their eyes are unfocused; their smile distant, their conversation monotone. They are teetering on the edge of all-consuming boredom.

You know exactly what they need.

Your Hedonist quality gives you a 50% chance of success.

Success: A lovely way to end the evening

You approach discreetly and indicate, through the use of code words and gestures well-known to those who frequent honey-dens, that you are in possession of some fine liquid gold, and you are willing to share.

The two of you excuse yourselves. You miss the rest of the event, but truly, you do not miss much: the stuffy conversations, the self-important guests are as boring as dust compared to the vibrant landscapes you explore together.

In dreaming, they are somehow even more radiant, full of energy and much less ceremonious. They joke and banter freely, sharing juicy details from cases long closed.

When you awake, they are gone, you find something by your side. Have they dropped this? Or is this their way to thank you for your time?

Talk Of The Town is dropping...

Connoiseur Of Neathy Delights is increasing...

Hedonist is increasing...

You now have 5 x Scrap Of Incendiary Gossip.

You now have 2 x Inkling Of Identity.

You now have 1 x Implacable Detective's Calling Card.

Your Time Remaining... quality has gone!

Rare success: A night to remember

You approach discreetly and indicate, through the use of code words and gestures well-known to those who frequent honey-dens, that you are in possession of some fine liquid gold, and you are willing to share.

The two of you excuse yourselves. You float from dream to dream, now dancing, now talking, now running through an endless field under a mesmerizing shifting sky as the wind whispers around you.

More than anything else, you laugh.

"I needed this," they confide in you towards the end of your journey, as wakefulness begins to creep in. "I truly, truly needed this."

You awake to find something tucked in your pocket. Their way to say thanks.

Talk Of The Town is dropping...

Connoiseur Of Neathy Delights is increasing...

Hedonist is increasing...

You now have 10 x Romantic Notion.

You now have 1 x Stolen Kiss.

You now have 100 x Jade Fragment.

You now have 1 x Implacable Detective's Calling Card.

Your Time Remaining... quality has gone!

Failure: A blank look and a flat dismissal

Perhaps you are wrong about the source of their plight. Perhaps you overstepped. Perhaps they simply don't like you. Who's to say?

Scandal is increasing...

Hedonist is increasing...

[flagellant]

I remember you once giving an EXCELLENT explanation of how magic “Doesn’t Exist but is Real” and how that kind of contradiction and reconciling it is so powerful?

Whenever you feel like answering this could you restate those concepts? I am working on actually thinking about my Practice and it’s Methods more lately and I feel that I highly agree with that sentiment you gave, but Tumblr’s search sucks.

I think I’m just now understanding a lot of that much more than when it was first said so I’d like to compare when you’re able to restate it

Religion isn't unscientific at its core. I think that's how I might phrase the contradiction these days: the idea that religion is fundamentally not unscientific at its core. Whatever else you can say about it.

Religion is fundamentally magical thinking, though, or at least often incorporates magical thinking. Religion is a sort of magic, also, after all--organized or unorganized, it is belief in something else. Something unexplainable. The idea that there is something you cannot see or cannot understand, but that this something matters to you, to your world.

And looking back, we see religion form again and again, in vacuums and when cultures meet and share and intermingle or oppose. Studying history at the end of the day will always require at least a little bit of studying religion with it. It is omnipresent--for better and for worse--in the way that it affects us, changes how we think, influences how we behave, structures the societies we live in.

Humans are illogical creatures, made of emotions and subjective dread. Magical thinking is fundamentally illogical. It is an attempt to find and understand reason in darkness, to comprehend the things we only see in the peripheries of our visions--but not always. Only often.

Because just as much as religion is magical and illogical, it was often borne out of our craving for understanding, for logic or explanation. We see a rainbow in the sky and we do not know where it comes from, or why we can never seem to reach it, so we try and find a logical explanation for this apparent impossible thing. The answer is magic--fairies, gods, witches. Or perhaps we look at the catastrophe of a storm, look at the all-encompassing wreckage of our homes, and we need to find a reason why this could happen to us. This couldn't be an accident, it has to be by design, because if it happened for a reason, we can understand it; we can give ourselves, if only slightly, the illusion of control. We propitiate an angry god, or we find someone who we have decided isn't like us and blame them for it.

Because the thing is, as much as we are creatures of illogic, we are terrified of it. It becomes existential rather quickly--the idea that all of this is for nothing, for random accidents, that you or your community isn't special or noteworthy or safe? The idea that your pain is shapeless and your terror is aimed at nothing at all? That's hard to imagine, let alone to find comfort in. Gods give a shape to the suffering. The invention of them is one which lets us take the illogical thinking and turn it against illogical thinking. Yes, it is unreasonable. No, it doesn't make sense. It is emphatically unempirical and there will likely never be any concrete proof of any religion's magical thinking being definitively confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt as True.

But it isn't unscientific. It was borne out of the same reason as science, the desire to understand and comprehend. It went only in a different direction than scientific thought did.

The space between science and religion is the difference between what exists and what is real. We walk along paths of trying to understand the world around or within us, and the paths in between those two points is where magic can be found. Neither existing nor unreal.

[impala124]

Love in the Big City Part 1: A friend is your needs answered

I still remember it as vividly as it were yesterday, starting college and moving to a new city, which felt like a world away from where I grew up. Adults love telling young people that the world is their oyster and that they'll meet new people every day.

After my defense of her sort of outed me, the two of us developed a relationship that consisted in the first place of talking trash about boys, as neither of us had previously had anyone with whom to share such thoughts, making us both desperate for a sounding board.

But what no one mentions is the loneliness and desperation that hit you once you enter adulthood. I remember begging, praying, and bargaining with God to meet one person with whom I would get along. Lucky for me, I met someone. Well, actually, I was fortunate enough to meet many someones.

We met whatever men we wanted without putting much effort into it, drank ourselves torpid, and in the morning met in each other’s rooms to apply cosmetic masks to our swollen faces and exchange tidbits about the men we had been with the night before.

Looking back, the foundations for many of those relationships were very shaky. Whatever the reason was, I latched onto them because they were that one constant thing in my life—the one thing I could count on. That was my Jaehee.

Even though the author refers to Jaehee as his best friend several times in this part, he later questions if he really knows her during her wedding preparations. This part asks the pertinent question: Do we really know our friends?

The author definitely knew Jaehee, but did he ever understand her? He knows what's happening in her life—if she's in contact with her parents, who she's dating, etc., but does he really understand the motivations behind her actions? Acceptance without understanding will most likely lead to diverging paths for friends.

What I'll be taking away from their friendship is that not every relationship needs to last forever. Some people come into our lives unexpectedly; being with them becomes as important as breathing, and then they just fade away into the background one day, and that's okay. The impermanence of the relationship doesn't take away anything from everything you've been through together.

[momentsbeforemass]

Habit

Force of habit. Momentum. The rut.

Whatever we call it, there’s no denying that our routine, our habits are powerful.

When we’re confronted with a problem in life, nine times out of ten the biggest obstacle to dealing with it isn’t the actual solution. Mostly, we’re pretty good at sorting out what we need to do. We can figure it out.

But we still don’t do it. Because the biggest obstacle to dealing with it isn’t the actual solution.

It’s us. Our routine, our habits.

It can be hard to see this in ourselves. Not because it’s not there. But because we don’t like to admit that we are our own greatest enemy.

Let’s do something that’s a lot easier. Taking a hard look at someone else’s problem. So we can criticize them.

Look at today’s Gospel. Jesus has just delivered two people from demonic possession. You would think that their neighbors and friends would be overjoyed.

You’ve got two dangerous people. So dangerous that nobody could use the road out of town without being attacked by them.

Thanks to Jesus, now they’re okay. And even if you don’t care about them, now everybody’s safe. Nobody has to worry about being attacked anymore.

And their response to Jesus? Please leave.

Why? Because Jesus messed with their routine, their habits.

But what Jesus did was good for them, in so many ways? Right. But it still messed with their normal.

The problem with that? The normal that Jesus disrupted was unhealthy. And then some.

Why? Because their routine, their habits had created a normal that had no place for God. Or that kept God in the Sunday-only box.

That’s the only way you get the kind of mess that they were dealing with.

It’s easy to criticize something that extreme. But the unhappy truth is that each of us has within us the potential to become just as lost in our own routine. Just as separated from God in our habits.

It may not take the horrifying form of separation that we see in today’s Gospel. But you and I are totally capable of letting ourselves drift into a deeply unhealthy – even dangerous – normal.

It’s not something that happens quickly. It’s subtle. The work of years and inches. Unknowing. Unthinking. Until something goes horribly wrong. And you realize how far you’ve fallen. How far away you are from God.

Our only protection? Our only hope? God.

But making that leap back to where we need to be is hard. Even though it’s our only hope, setting everything right all at once is no small thing.

Our reaction to that kind of seismic shift? It’s going to look a lot like the people in today’s Gospel. Please leave.

So instead, let’s do one thing. Something intentional. But something so small, you can’t fail.

Create a micro habit. An intentional place for God. In every day.

Set an alarm on your phone. For the same time every day. When it goes off, say the Lord’s Prayer.

That’s it?

That’s it. That’s all it takes.

Do that for 32 days. And you’ll have a new routine, a new habit. An intentional place for God. In every day.

When you do, it’s going to grow. After the first one, you’ll create another place for God. Then another.

Not because you have to. Not because “it’s good for you.”

But because it feels so good. And you want to.

You’ll keep doing it. And one day, you’ll realize that your routine, your habits support you.

Because they’re filled, and you’re filled, with the God who loves you.

Today’s Readings

[the-elder-polls]

so. i was enabled. tags courtesy of @trickstarbrave (hope you don't mind being tagged, if you do i'll remove it) who is what started my nerevar/lorkhan fascination because i him saw mention this once, causing me to lore deep dive and come out the other side, once again, like this.

once again, disclaimer that i am scatter brained and bad with getting my thoughts into words etc etc please be nice to me or i will cry

so. about the parallels between nerevar and lorkhan

to even try to start, lorkhan was killed/mutilated/brutalized/etc and his heart was separated from the rest of him. there are conflicting sources with saying this was a punishment, while others say he consented to it. regardless of his willingness, his divinity was subsequently exiled/fell/whatever to the nirn. there's a VERY obvious parallel here of nerevar being betrayed and killed/mutilated by whoever it was that killed him and the subsequent nerevarine prophecy.

nerevar, son of boethiah. this is a title given to nerevar, supposedly by lorkhan himself, in the five kings of wulfharth. that's not particularly much on its own. nerevar being a demiprince would hilariously not be that big of a deal considering everything else about him. the reason i'm mentioning this is the 10th sermon of vivec, which notes boethiah as saying about/to lorkhan, "We pledge ourselves to you, the Frame-maker, the Scarab: a world for us to love you in, a cloak of dirt to cherish. Betrayed by your ancestors when you were not even looking. […]" the gods of tes are known for being weird (to put it lightly). i personally think boethiah was in fact the mother-father of nerevar; that nerevar was created for the purpose of being the shezarrine; and that lorkhan, in his weird state, was still fully aware of this. also, again, the parallels of betrayal and mutilation are obvious when you compare whatever happened to nerevar to whatever happened to lorkhan.

nords revere lorkhan as shor, believing he sacrificed his life to help create the world as it is. nerevar and the nerevarine prophecy have some parallels here, i think. nerevar's life was sacrificed "for the greater good" (the eventual downfall of the tribunal as gods, the destruction of dagoth ur) to help "create" the world as it is.

at least one myth (the favored daughter of fadomai) describes azura as finding "[…] broken and bleeding, and there was a hole in his chest." and that she then tore his heart out due to it being corrupted by rot (hi, namira). foul murder is NOT canon, but i think it's worth taking it into consideration here, given that nerevar is depicted in foul murder as impaled through the heart. (i can't really get my thoughts together with what i want to say about this, but i want you to note azura and lorkhan being so strongly associated in this myth. given the EVERYTHING ELSE, it makes sense.)

following on the previous point, the claim that azura appeared and cursed the tribunal for their usage of the heart and their betrayal of nerevar is a good parallel for her finding the wounded lorkhan.

one nordic source (five kings of king wulfharth) states that lorkhan reappeared somehow at the battle of red mountain, reunited with his heart, and that he wounded nerevar before nerevar defeated/killed/etc him. given the absolute absurdity of tes lore, i don't think it's far fetched to say that this could be true in a roundabout way: nerevar WAS lorkhan, or more accurately, the shezarrine. whatever happened at red mountain was a Whole Thing that we don't have concrete answers to. i personally think the proximity to the heart gave nerevar a fucking power up of some sort/allowed him to channel lorkhan much more intensely, which helped him in the next point:

the same source claims that lorkhan said the dwemer would die by his hand which, again, while i'm stretching (all of tes lore is stretching lbr but anyway), i gotta point out that nerevar and the disappearance of the dwemer are intrinsically linked. there's no denying that. if nerevar was the shezarrine, then this could be true - when dumac was struck down by nerevar and kagrenac truck the heart, the dwemer vanished. it's a bit roundabout, but it's not incorrect. ["Nevertheless, it is true that they will die by my hand, and any whoever should side with them."]

also the tribunal's jealousy of nerevar + his outright refusal to use the heart makes a lot of sense if he already had some of that godly power and they didn't. if they saw him at his full potential due to the heart and wanted it for themselves.

anyway. who said that

[catamaurrr-star]

YANQING MASKED FOOL THEORY!!

[CHAPTER 1: WATER]

so yanqing has a Bunch of secret water motifs, such as this moment in his trailer and this entire post i made

plus generally being near water in many of his scenes (his trailer, myriad celestia trailer Cloud Knights Martial Doctrine, On Swords, fighting dhil + blade)

there's also his clothing! his sleeves have a wave pattern

swirlingish designs like water mixing with something else on his Whatever's at the end of his clothes i dont know the name

also i might just be reading too hard but his hair drooping down feels a little bit like water flowing down

misc motifs: his boss's skill names being "CASCADING laceration", his bp pfp being named "yanqing: ODYSSEY", the story where they go on a ship in the SEA, ult name being "amidst the RAINING bliss", swallow motifs and swallows being commonly found near water (source)

[CHAPTER 2: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT]

so why am i telling you all this on the masked fool theory? well the path of elation does have some ties to water! such as:

s: masked fools databank

s: mourning actors databank. this is a bit of a stretch but Bare with me

s: "inquiry into the gods: the sacrosancts" readable

plus, two of our confirmed masked fools have fish/water motifs [feroluce made a great post on sampo and the elation's fish/water motifs go check it out !!!!] and while yanqing doesn't exactly have fish motifs, he sure has a lot of water details on him. and both of them dont really have anything in common in terms of gameplay so its fine if he also doesn't really fit either of their playstyles.

[CHAPTER 3: BUT WOULD HE REALLY]

but now we gotta ask ourselves. WOULD he be a masked fool? he is indeed smiling in almost every picture of him, but it wouldn't really fit with his personality sadly… he has a strong sense of justice and even though he's playful, he never breaks it just for fun. there is a chance that in his backstory, he could've been a masked fool that just happened to forget all his memories. but considering how young yanqing is and was when jing yuan first found him, its highly unlikely unless hes some sort of rebirthing species like the vidyadhara.

(side tangent you can ignore this) an npc does talk about (qingzu) this but i really do not think she is being serious about it. however she does also say jing yuan spent the first 500 years of his life as a crosstalk comedian and yanqing only stayed with him to learn it so it does tie in to the theory a bit. i still really do not believe her since even the trailblazer doubts her words, and they sound really outlandish with little evidence.

the idea of yanqing not being a xianzhou native is really easy to believe though. there's the whole six phased ice thing, but id like to bring something else up to the table. all human character bosses have physical weakness such as bronya, argenti, kafka, etc. cocolia doesn't but your encounter with her in the storyline wasn't actually her, it was a fragmentum echo of her, and even then her echo of war doesn't have physical weakness. so this implies that yanqing isn't human, unless one of the other bosses is also not human. also nobody knows where he came from or who his parents are, even himself.

[CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION]

so basically: theres proof that he could be a masked fool but unless we know his age or know what his backstory is if he just suddenly got amnesia we will never know. he's probably not one and im just smashing puzzle pieces that dont fit together but im going to tell everyone hes secretly a masked fool though anyways because its funny

[chronosh0t]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ⸺ 𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 .*ೃ

───────────────────────────

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒: Lee's pov, gn reader, canon-divergence,

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒: “I hoped for luck, I looked for it and believed, not knowing it had your name in it” — just something silly, maybe a log from him. might be ooc 〔 NO BETA 〕

…………

It wasn't easy. I think it never was. But at least, for a few years we weren't all by ourselves, maybe it didn't seem to be that way, or that's how I'd like to remember it. The point is, it really wasn't easy.

Young, inexperienced, and people would gradually try to take advantage of our situation, of our own nativity, innocence, or some would just try to help us for their own selfish reasons, personal satisfaction or beliefs, eventually leaving us alone. Waiting for some good luck to strike us and change a little bit our cruel reality, only to find out life doesn't work by luck. The world doesn't work by luck.

Luck is false hope for the powerless, the less fortunate, to feed their delusions, that one day things will change, one day perhaps their luck will change and misfortune will leave their side and be replaced by a God that'd help them. That is luck, and I keep thinking so. I believed in luck back then, desperate for a chance, merely to be met by the unwavering proof of reality.

I swore to do whatever, anything and everything, just to keep him safe. Growing up by the taste of bitterness, the mould in the walls and the cold sheets, inside a room that was not safe for either of us, it made me realise I was part of those adults. Working nonstop for some exchanges that barely kept us alive my mind was going numb, my hands were too cold and my logic was losing focus. I believed in luck. But luck was not an option, never was, never will. However, things needed to be done, anything was good and valid if it meant I could get the chance to save his body from his weak heart.

Did it ever cross my mind the idea of becoming some sort of hired assassin? No. I don't think anyone ever grows up having those ideas. Yet, there I was. Loading a gun, hiding in the darkness, my hands tinted with crimson red, cold as the river. Money was the only thing occupying my mind, my reasoning blind due to the lack of time. Yet I know it was also a bad idea, what if I end up dying? What if, for a single stupid mistake, I end up getting killed and disposed of like a bag of trash? He would've ended up alone. Risks needed to be taken.

So I took them. And I kept going. One step at a time, and I thought things would get better, falling in the traps of luck. Because even if I was smart enough, I was still a teenager, I was still a young, inexperienced kid trying to make it to another day. Eighteen years old, and I should be studying. I should be concentrating on which university I wanted to go to, maybe going out with some friends, maybe celebrating my birthday, his. Perhaps travelling to other places and taking pretty pictures for the memories with our family. Anything but whatever I was living right now.

Eighteen years and I was holding a gun, pointing at someone I didn't know and I didn't want to know. The more I knew the less I wanted to be part of this, the less I wanted to keep going, but that wasn't for me. I was selfless, as the older brother, that was what I was supposed to do. My job was to take care of him, to save enough money and help him. Did I ever regret it? No, I don't think I ever did. But I did wish for luck to come and help me. I couldn't never sleep properly, the idea of being unaware of what was happening was unpleasant to me. The same fear hunting me down whenever he went to sleep and I didn't know if something bad would happen. His heart was weak, and the days were harsh and cold.

But we made it work.

Did I mention how bitter is reality? I did all that, I killed so many people, I was betrayed and for what? For the world to take away the slim chance I built for a better tomorrow. Crushed by humanity's mistake. I refused to let go, so I took yet another risk.

I had the chance to give up my humanity for him to remain, for him to be strong, to finally have the chance to grow up in a stable environment, experience what people of his age do. That, I don't regret it. Even if it means to be betrayed again, to be used and disposed, to me neglected and hurt, to be left alone. It didn't matter, for the reality was slightly better than before.

But I didn't want to test luck. Yet I kept hoping. Even if I was against some of his choices, I still thought it was good because it meant he was growing, he formed his own opinion, forged his own paths. And that was more than enough, I couldn't ask for more. I shouldn't ask for more, right? Because that was all that I ever wanted. For him.

What about me, though? How laughable. Calling myself selfless when I was still greedy enough to wish, to hope for luck to come and save me. I was okay with how my life turned out to be because I was too busy to even think about it deeply. I thought of giving up. Of accepting my own reality.

I was someone who would judge those who believed in luck, or those who would wait instead of taking actions and change their fate. Yet, there I was. Inside that cold room, the dim light of the fluorescent lamps hanging from the ceiling, the industrial design of the metallic tables, and some digital screens beeping in the desk, filling the awkward silence between the three of us.

I was pondering what was the reason behind their decision of becoming a Construct. Did they have an unfortunate life like me? Or was it out of sheer selflessness and their sense of justice? I didn't care enough and I didn't want to know more than their names. Lucia and Liv. Because, from experience, I knew getting to know someone too much meant developing a sense of closeness I didn't want to. Their name was fine, that was more than enough.

It was the same with you. I just needed to know your name, nothing else, nothing more. Because we were made for war, made to fight in humanity's name, looking as human as possible but never being treated like one. We chose to, or forced to, give up that side of us for reasons no one but us would ever know.

Constructs were just that, war machines. To be used and disposed of. Yet, there you were. With your gentle voice and touch, leading us forwards but running at our side, giving us order but hearing our opinions and suggestions in every single step you decided to take. For you, the three of us, meant more than just machines to fight the enemy, we meant more than just a frame and a dog tag. To you, we were equal to humans. To you, we were friends, companions.

And I believed in luck. Because of you. I was able to let go of prejudice and decided to let my guard down, I decided to leave my past and traumas and give you my trust. You ended up being the reason I thought luck actually came and saved me. I wasn't betrayed, I wasn't used, I wasn't disposed of and I wasn't left behind. Because, for you, I was more than just a three letter name, I was someone you cherished deeply, I was part of your team, I was part of this… family.

I wasn't just Lee. I was Lee from Gray Raven. And I was not alone. The world, still as cold and harsh, the fights endless and my hands still hold guns, but now even if they're made of metal, they're not cold anymore. When I walk and I look at my side, there's my teammates and you. You, ready to risk that precious life to protect us, to give a chance for a new tomorrow, to give other people the chance to believe in hope.

You.

That's why, once again, I didn't think twice in risking my life if it means to bring the same chances, to deliver the same hope. Because I am Lee from Gray Raven, I decided to do what I only could do, fighting against time, against any odds, giving my life, my past, present and future to hope. Giving myself to this new family, giving my life to you, refusing to give up and settle for less. I made up my mind never resting again, not until I could meet a reality where Gray Raven is always together, the four of us.

And I will keep doing so. As long as Gray Raven exists, as long as you are here with me, I will keep fighting, I will keep holding those guns I used to hate the most, I will keep going forward, I will keep hoping. Because even if the world is cold and dark, every day the sun rises from the horizon. Because every single time, spring comes after the winter and the flowers bloom admits the chaos.

I once wished for luck to come and save me, not knowing it had a different name. Your name.

───────────────────────────

[grossdyke]

do youuuuu…… can youuuuu…………. speak about rhaenicent…..??? pretty please <3333

oh god. you have no idea what you’ve asked for. they make me absolutely sick in the head. sick to my stomach. like im close to hyperventilating whenever a new episode drops…

like obviously im a rhaenicent girlie down to the bone but honestly ?? i genuinely see them as the unrequited trope. alicent being my repressed lesbian princess angel who’s in love with her childhood best friend who’s just so painfully heterosexual. yes, sadly rhaenyra gives me heterosexual vibes…:/ (however lets talk about the tension between rhaenyra and mysaria in the last episode.. i was going insane jumping up and down. so now i have to reevalute if rhaenyra is actually heterosexual to me or if she’s just not. in love. with alicent. violently throwing up at the thought like imagine you’re in unrequited in love with your childhood best friend but shes straight so whatever what can you do <- what she does is slut shame out of pure jealousy<3. but then shes NOT straight and she STILL doesn’t want you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lets all kill ourselves.)

something i also think about a lot is the scene in season one where alicient grabs the knife and attacks rhaenyra and yells ”WHERE IS DUTY, WHERE IS SACRIFICE? IT’S TRAMPLED UNDER YOUR PRETTY FOOT AGAIN,” <- pretty being keyword. alicent didn’t have to call her pretty but it slips out and they haven’t touched physically in years and there’s so much yearning and desire and resentment and hatred between them and alicent still calls her pretty. and maybe it’s supposed to be in a condescending way, it’s up to anyone to make their own reading of that, but to me it didn’t sound or land as an insult at all. it sounded impulsive and desperate and as if it just slipped out after alicent touched her again for the first time in years. just so much pent up internalized desire and resentment for her childhood companion :/ it also makes me think of the quote ’i confuse instinct for desire— isn’t bite also touch?’ by natalie diaz. makes me absolutely sick in the head

i genuinely, personally, can’t see alicent as anything other than a deeply repressed lesbian and like it doesn’t matter to me that she’s sleeping with crispy cole. to be honest it only helps my argument…. like rhaenyra lost her virginity to him and alicent is sleeping with him in the same sleeping quarters whete rhaenyra slept with him ??? thats genuinely SO interesting to me. i think both alicent and crispy are so deeply obsessed with rhaenyra and are projecting that onto each other. like rhaenyra will always be present whenever they’re together there’s just no way around that. i’d argue that they’re only attracted to each other because of rhaenyra. i had an argument about this a few weeks ago where someone said they dont think alicent is in love with rhaenyra / thinks shes in love with cole / thinks she loved viserys. like. alicent has genuinely only ever loved one single person (except her children but that’s different) and she only ever had one single meaningful relationship and that was with rhaenyra. like bruh be serious… how do you witness alicent having one single meaningful relationship throughout the series and go ’i actually think she loved viserys’. the homoerotic context is right there. but yeah heterosexual people couldnt pick up on queer subtext even if it hit them right in the face

however. i will say. i wouldve actually liked to see alicent sleeping with women/taking a woman as a lover this season and was sort of hoping for it :/ i would’ve liked it confirmed…. but yeah that’s wishful thinking and i doubt that’s going to happen :/ and besides. with how alicent actively denies herself pleasure i don’t think she ever would

anyway. i hate to say it. but i don’t think rhaenyra is in love with alicent. i know a lot of people think she is/read into it as if she is and like this is just me talking about how i personally see them. rhaenyra, to me, doesn’t read as having romantic feelings for alicent and it KILLS ME !!!!!!!!! because i WANT HER TO!!!!!!!! and it hurts SO MUCH !!!!!!!! and i WANT THEM TO KISS!!!!!!!!!!! but yeah. absolutely miserable. there’s just this, to me, disconnect between rhaenyra and her feelings for alicent. it doesn’t pain her in the same way it pains alicent. alicent genuinely can’t think clearly because of her attachment to rhaenyra, whereas rhaenyra can and always could. the codependancy was one-sided <- im going to Throw Up

that’s not to say rhaenyra didn’t love alicent, and maybe she still does. i absolutely think she holds love for alicent and deeply misses her…. i just don’t necessarily see it as romantic from her pov. :(

anyway. this is my phone bg:

[its-short-for-jackalope]

OKAY, WE GOT A TRAILER AND A TITLE AND I HAVE THOUGHTS

You know what that means: it's brainrot time.

🏝 TITLE REVEAL: WHO IS THE SEARCHER IN THE SHADOWS?

quick note, I love this title. It's rad as hell. 10/10. anyway—

of course when I hear the word "Searcher" I immediately think of the one and only Addison Arvad, missing captain of the Antikythera and beloved wrecker of journals.

look at her. I love her. she's beautiful. also I am lowkey obsessed with how Jackie draws hair. (please teach me your secrets.)

We didn't get to learn much about Capt. Arvad in episode 3, but we do know that she was a Searcher who disappeared without any explanation, along with the rest of her crew. Kal probably had something to do with it, since he was attempting to retrieve the ship's orrery and said some vague stuff about fog and vortices, but even he doesn't seem to know exactly what happened to her and the crew.

Whatever the case, her disappearance is the reason most of the events in TGOA even happened, so it would make sense for her to be a big part of the next episode. And if Addison is the Searcher and the Searcher is in the shadows, then I have two (and a half?) theories.

The first is that she (and her crew, if they survived, who are also presumably all Searchers) are lost somewhere and that whatever "fogging the vertices" entails led to her getting whisked away somewhere else. She could be trapped there, trying to get out, and/or maybe she is in shadows in the same way Margaret was—maybe she has lost her memories and her magic.

The second theory is actually an idea @man-down-in-hatchet-town proposed that promptly blew my mind: what if whatever happened to Addison led to her getting corrupted and going dark and she is the villain of the episode? I honestly love this idea so much and I think it would be fun and also delightfully heartbreaking after hearing that entry from Addison's journal and getting a glimpse of the person she once was.

(also every pulp fan I know is in complete agreement that we want a cool female villain, pretty please Matt— 🥺🙏)

🏝 OH GOD, THE TIME TRAVEL

I've already yelled a bit about Rose being separated from Samuel and the others, so I'm not gonna repeat myself here, but I also have other thoughts about the time travel!

The trailer has confirmed that Rose was indeed sent two weeks into the past like Ahlaam said she would be. I think it's safe to assume that Rose will have to wait those two weeks until she can reunite with the others, and I also believe we're gonna have to wait with her.

Rose’s two weeks are going to be important—she's meeting Dakkar and hopefully getting some Travelore™ about the island and The Blazing World, and probably getting into some sort of trouble that better not require a printing press plate to resolve, since she doesn’t have it right now—so I don’t think they're going to just blip by. Otherwise what’s the point of sending her back in time?

I think it’s a pretty safe bet that we (the listeners) are probably going to be doing some time travel ourselves, hopping between Rose's two weeks with Dakkar and the rest of the brick family in the present as Sia takes them to the island and they get started on all that mysterious work they have to do. I have no idea what they're going to find there except maybe a rocket? but I can imagine Samuel and the others following Rose's trail as they piece together what's happened to her and learn about this place and its inhabitants, and then the storylines will connect by the end of the episode and we'll get the twins back together and they'll never be separated again!

Isn't that right, Mr. Dahan?

/lh

Alternatively, I suppose the Ellen Austin could be met on the shore by a Rose who has already spent two weeks on the island and then we could get relevant flashbacks here and there, but I don't think that's as likely. It might be too impractical for this medium when we have a lot of story (and lore) to cover and only so much time to sing about it! Plus, that"By the time our heroes are reunited" bit really makes me think that they won't see each other until closer to the end of the episode. The reunion is absolutely gonna make me cry. I can't wait.

🏝 TRAVELER ISLAND, BABEY!

The island's inhabitants have magic similar to Margaret's, and are led by a new group of powerful Travelers.

...Well, maybe it's not Traveler island, exactly. I'm guessing that most of these ~inhabitants~ are actually Searchers. Sia might not be the only Traveler, but I don't think there are a lot of them out there. It makes more sense for there to be less Travelers and more Searchers to balance things out if the Travelers are significantly more powerful like they've been implied to be.

I definitely think Ahlaam is one of the "new group of powerful Travelers" and I'm super excited to get to know her more. (I am also hoping that maybe we'll get a Jackie Traveler character? 👀) I still don't know if Dakkar is a Traveler or not, but I'm inclined to believe he might be a Searcher—mostly because his portrait doesn't have glowing eyes and flashy gold jewelry like Sia or Ahlaam. (I also feel like it may not be a coincidence that he's wearing a light blue-ish colored shirt like Addison, even if it's a different style and looks considerably less like a space suit, lol.)

They speak of a lost kingdom, The Blazing World, and how what occurs on Lincoln Island will impact an entire civilization.

The Blazing World!!! Rose hasn't heard this name yet, but we have! (and Margaret and Samuel.) The people on Lincoln Island could be survivors/refugees from the Blazing World, or perhaps they are all here on a war mission and this is simply their base of operations. Either way, I'm sure the civilization being impacted is the Travelers'; even if this island isn't currently sheltering all that remains of their people and this is only an outpost for the war, they still have some valuable people here—like Margaret, who is recovering her memories and I am certain has an incredibly vital role to play in this war—and the aftermath of whatever happens will undoubtedly be felt beyond the shores of Lincoln Island. Either our heroes succeed in whatever they're trying to do here, or it goes wrong and the Blazing World potentially loses valuable warriors & resources, and the war against Itzal takes a turn for the worse.

🏝 THE "D" WORD: DESTINY

By the time our heroes are reunited, they will be closer to understanding their destinies than ever before...

Destiny... oh, I've had many thoughts about this and been part of multiple discussions with various friends about fate and coincidence and puzzle pieces coming together in this story. enough that I'm almost not sure where to start.

...Eh, chronologically, I guess.

1817 — the year the Stratford family paper stand was established and the year Anna Hanover's father lost his place in the world. Both of these events affected the characters' lives, helping to cement the twins' love of stories and giving them an eventual connection to the New York Sun that would allow them to publish the moon hoax, and giving Anna her tragic backstory and a goal that would drive her to construct her own moon out of brick rather than ink.

1829 — the year I believe Margaret Cavendish arrived in New York City. She lost her memories and her magic, and the Travelers set her up here to live in comfort and safety and loneliness. We don't know why this happened yet, but I think it's safe to assume the location isn't a coincidence when we know at least one Traveler with precognitive abilities and it's only a handful of years until...

1835 — the year of the moon hoax and the brick satellite. Samuel and Rose Stratford write a story that takes the city by storm, attracting the attention of both Margaret Cavendish, who has been looking for answers and winds up with more questions and magic she doesn't remember or understand, and Sir John Herschel, who doesn't want fantastical stories written about him, thank you very much—but wait, how did he get here? He was in South Africa, a whole other hemisphere! How did he find out about the hoax so quickly?

Well, someone brought him the newspaper that made him come to New York, meet the Stratfords and Margaret, and invite them all to work on the brick satellite with him. They go to British Guiana, manage to finish the satellite alongside Anna, get it into the sky thanks to Margaret's Radiance, and finally meet the Traveler out in space, who somehow knew they would be there and knew Margaret's magic was returning but is surprised that her memories weren't. The Traveler knows more than she's telling, but rather than explain she sends the quartet back to Earth.

1874 — the year the quartet are teleported to. They happen to meet a friendly bosun who offers them a place on a ship that'll take them to New York, right where they want to go. Perfect, right? But in reality it takes them to a ghost ship that just so happens to contain some stuff that helps Margaret remember some things. There's a crazy awesome magic battle, sailors vanish, the ghost ship vanishes, and by the end of it all they're sailing towards a mysterious island and the Traveler, Sia, is telling them they have a lot of work to do.

...okay, the point I'm attempting to make here is that yeah, it definitely seems like something has been leading them here, to this time and place. I just can't tell if it's ✨️destiny✨️ or if it's just Sia, who can see into the future and had a clear hand in at least some of these occurrences. She sent our heroes to 1874 in a flash of light, right into Morgan's path, into Kal's, into the Antikythera's. And if she did that, who's to say she hasn't been guiding the quartet in more covert ways this whole time? Someone had to get that paper to John. Someone—specifically a Traveler someone—had to get Margaret settled in New York.

You could say that it's all destiny and that Sia's foresight and her actions are simply destiny's way of getting shit done, that it was all going to happen this way no matter what. You could also go round and round questioning how destiny and precognitive abilities work & influence each other until your brain feels like it's melting (why yes, I am speaking from experience) but I think I'm going to skip that and focus on a different question instead:

What does destiny (or Sia) have in store for our heroes?

I don't know, of course. probably a rocket at some point? gotta wait for the episode to find out.

but regardless of who or what has been pulling the strings, it took a lot to get our heroes to this point and the idea that they're meant to be here, that they've always been headed toward something that's more than this the lives they had before is so unbelievably exciting??? even if you don't care for the idea of destiny or fate, you know great things are coming and that the story is gonna get bigger and wilder.

🏝 YEAH I KEEP MENTIONING THE ROCKET, DON'T I?

might as well actually give it its own little section on this ramble-y ass post, lol.

We've had hints that there'd be at least one rocket in the story from the very first M.A.I.A. transmission. (If you haven't seen those, you're missing out!) Now that we're getting new cast photos where everyone has been posing with a little red rocket, it looks like it's time!

Maybe the quartet are going to help the Travelers build a rocket. Maybe they're going to help repair a rocket that already exists. Maybe they're going to go to space again, or another planet—The Blazing World?—or maybe they're only going to see the Travelers off and that'll be it. (Okay, that last one would be a little disappointing, lmao.) Hell, maybe they're only going to Lincoln Island to meet a rocket that hasn't arrived yet! So many possibilities!

...hmm. I think that's it? I think that's all the thoughts I had. I have been putting this post together off and on since last night so if I missed anything or it seems a little disjointed then that's why, lmao.

this is admittedly less of a theory post at times and more of a John impression (it's not my fault I have questions!) but why wait for M.A.I.A. transmissions and more information when I can shout about it all now? the universe simply wouldn't be right if I didn't seize every opportunity to scream about Pulp Musicals.

anyway, if you read all of this then I hope you enjoyed it! you can expect/dread more posts like this in the coming weeks, as soon as we get more info and M.A.I.A. transmissions. can't wait to see my best girl again. 💙

...I really hope Matt and Jackie have gotten that window fixed.

[whoisshel]

The Spy

pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader (are we starting to hint at some steve???)

word count: 4630

tw: swearing

previous part

It was dark out now as Steve drove the three of them to Dustin's house. During the drive, Dustin explained everything to Steve and you, and as the story went on you became more nervous with how much certain details sounded like what happened last year. You were against going with Jonathan and Nancy because you didn’t want to get roped into the same events and have to deal with your feelings that you buried deep down, but now you got dragged along. If the kids were involved, you knew you would go along with it too.

After Dustin explained everything, they sat in silence as you and Steve took in everything. Steve looked at you through the rearview mirror and could see the worry on your face as you chewed your lip. “Wait a sec. How big?”

“First it was like that.” Dustin held up his hand to demonstrate the size with his fingers. He then held up both hands to show how much it grew. “Now he’s like this.”

“I swear to God, man, it’s just some lizard, okay?” Steve tried to rationalize not only for himself but for you too. Looking through the mirror at you again, Steve could see that you were a little more relieved from his statement.

“Yeah, it could be.” You theorized, your eyes growing big as you tried to think of other possible reasons for what this could be. “I mean, dogs grow that fast, don’t they? What if it’s just a new breed of lizards, or whatever?”

“It’s not a lizard.” Dustin grew irritated at their dismissal of what he was saying.

“How do you know?” 

“How do I know if it’s not?”

“How do you know it’s not just a lizard?”

“Because its face opened up and he ate my cat,” Dustin stated matter-of-factly.

You gasped, more at the cat being eaten part, “Oh my god.”

Steve just nodded, he couldn’t question his way out of that, they were just going to have to deal with this.

Steve pulled up to Dustin's driveway and parked the car before the three of them got out and walked back to the trunk. Steve flung his keys at Dustin as he grabbed the bat with nails out of the trunk. He slammed his trunk shut and they walked over to Dustin’s cellar doors. They stood there waiting for something to happen in the basement, but they didn’t hear anything.

“I don’t hear shit,” Steve said, standing over the doors with the bat in one hand and flashlight in the other.

“He’s in there.”

Steve lightly tapped the door with the bat, and when nothing happened again he hit the doors harder this time. When nothing happened again, he turned to face Dustin and you pointing the flashlight in Dustin's face. “All right, listen, kid. I swear, if this is some sort of Halloween prank, you’re dead.”

“It’s not,” Dustin mumbled, his eyes closed from being blinded. “It’s not a prank. Get it out of my face.”

You walked over to Steve, pushing his hand down so Dustin could see, turning to look at Dustin you asked, “You got a key for this thing? We’ll just check it out ourselves ‘cause it doesn’t seem like there's anything down there.”

Once Dustin came back with the key, Steve opened the doors as you stood behind him with your knife now out in case anything did happen. Dustin walked over pointing the flashlight down in the cellar so they could get a better look, and still they saw nothing. 

“Let me see that.” Steve grabbed the flashlight and pointed it around to look at different spots.

“He must be further down there,” Dustin said, keeping his eyes trained on the cellar. “I’ll stay up here in case he tries to escape.”

You nodded at the idea. “Yeah, I’ll stay with him since, you know, I have a weapon.”

Steve just stared up at them in disbelief, he looked back down and let out a loud sigh. You and Dustin stood there, watching Steve walk down the stairs.

It wasn’t too long after, but for Dustin and you, it felt like forever. The two looked at each other with worry, then Dustin nodded at the stairs telling you to go down and look. You just shook your head and nodded for him to do it, and Dustin did it right back. 

You let out a loud sigh like Steve did before taking slow steps closer to the cellar. “Steve? Steve, you okay? What's going on?”

After a few seconds of hearing nothing back, you took the first couple of steps down. Once you got three steps down, Steve popped out of nowhere scaring the two. “Get down here.”

Getting down the cellar, they could now see that Steve was holding something gross and slimy on the end of his bat.

“Ew, gross, is that it’s old skin?” You cringed in repulse at the sight.

“Oh shit,” Dustin grumbled, knowing exactly what that meant. Steve then pointed the flashlight over to a hole in the cellar's brick wall. “Oh, shit!”

The three of them crouched in front of the hole, seeing that it looked like it went on forever. Which also meant that finding the creature now was going to be way harder.

—----------------

The next day, the three had come up with a plan to try and lure D’art, Dustin's name for the mini Demogorgon, to the junkyard. They are parked near the train tracks, digging through the trunk of Steve’s car to prepare for their trap, when Dustin takes a few steps away talking through the headset he has for his walkie-talkie.

You gag a little as you pull out a bucket of meat from the trunk and set it next to the other two. “Ugh, this is disgusting.”

“What, are you a vegetarian?” Steve looks up at you from his crouched position as he tries to fit the bat into a tiny backpack.

“I might be after this.” You grumble as you use the back of the glove to try and get your hair out of your face. “I wish I had a hair tie.”

“Oh, I have one.” Steve stands up and puts the backpack on. He takes off the glove on his right hand to show a hair tie.

You scrunch your face, “Why do you have a hair tie?”

“I have a lot of hair,” Steve states like it’s obvious. Which it is, so you just nod your head in understanding. You go to carefully take your gloves off, but Steve stops you from doing so. “Here, let me.”

“Oh, okay.” You are a bit surprised at that, but allow him to do so anyway. Steve takes off his other glove and hands them to you. He goes behind you and starts to softly pull all your hair together, he does it so gently that it causes a shiver to run down your spine. Once he finishes putting your hair up, Steve stands back in front of you, a little bit closer this time. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem,” Steve replies a bit quieter, he then realizes how close they’re standing and takes a step back. He walks over to the car and slams the trunk shut as Dustin finishes up talking to Lucas. “All right, let's go.”

“Just be there stat, over and out,” Dustin says one last thing to Lucas as they start their walk to the junkyard.

—----------------

The three have been walking on the old train tracks for a while now dropping the raw meat from their buckets in hopes of finding D’art. As they are walking, you and Steve find out that Dustin kept D’art to impress a girl that he has a crush on. You thought it was kind of a cute story, but didn’t think D’art would’ve impressed her; more like grossed her out.

“All right, so let me get this straight.” Steve starts to reiterate Dustin's story while also criticizing him for doing something that was honestly a bit reckless. “You kept something you knew was probably dangerous in order to impress a girl who… who you just met?”

“All right, that’s grossly oversimplifying things.” 

You shake your head, frowning a bit even though the boys couldn’t see it since you were walking behind them. “No, no, that’s exactly what you just told us.”

“Thank you, Y/N.” Steve gives a quick look over his shoulder before he turns back to face ahead where Dustin is walking. “I mean, why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway.”

“An interdimensional slug? Because it’s awesome.” Dustin tries to stick up for his actions once again.

“Well, even if she thought it was cool, which she didn’t, I-I just, I don’t know. I just feel like you’re trying way too hard.”

“Well, not everyone can have your perfect hair, all right?” Dustin mumbles, a little upset now.

“It’s not about the hair, man.” Steve tries to reassure Dustin, but as he continues talking, he comes off as a complete douchebag. “The key with girls is just…just acting like you don’t care.”

“Even if you do?”

“Yeah, exactly. It drives them nuts.”

After listening to the idiot try and explain girls to the young and impressionable, you step forward with a look of ‘what the fuck’ and interrupts the conversation. “That is the complete opposite of how to impress a girl. Don’t listen to him, Dustin, I’ve been in a relationship for three years now, and Steve can hardly keep them around-”

“Ouch-”

“-My boyfriend impressed me by being extremely nice and funny. The funny part is key, girls love that.”

“Then what?” Dustin asks both of them. Steve takes it as a win and sticks his tongue out at you, who in return, flips him off.

Steve ignores it and turns back to Dustin, “You just wait until, uh, until you feel it.”

“Feel what?”

“It’s like before it’s gonna storm, you know? You can’t see it, but you can feel it, like this, uh…” Steve tries to find the right word. You become worried about what he’s about to say to a kid. “...Electricity, you know?”

“Oh, like in the electromagnetic field when the clouds in the atmosphere-” This kid was too smart for his own good.

“No, no, no, no, no. Like a, like a sexual electricity.” And there it is, that’s what you were scared Steve was going to say.

“Steve, don’t.”

“Oh.” Is all Dustin is able to say.

“You feel that and then you make your move.”

“So that’s when you kiss her?”

“Oh god, no!” You shout with a mix of disgust and surprise that Dustin would say that.

“No, whoa, whoa. Slow down, Romeo.” Steve also tries to stop him from thinking he should do that.

“Sorry.”

“Sure, okay, some girls, yeah, they want you to be aggressive. You know, strong, hot, and heavy, like a, I don’t know, like a lion. But others, you gotta be slow, you gotta be stealthy, like a ninja.”

“What type are you, Y/N?” Dustin looks over his shoulder to ask you and also takes in the disgusted look you have, but assumes it’s from the raw meat.

“Uh, I’m my own type, as are many women.” You tried to Dustin to hear more than just Steve’s horrible version of “wooing” women. “I like to see how the guy really acts, and I make my own move because it’s not always up to the guy. Sometimes women like to do their own thing.”

“Hmm, I see.” Dustin takes in what you say and seems to really consider it. He turns back to Steve to ask a similar question, “What type is Nancy?”

“Nancy’s different. She’s different from other girls.” Steve softens a bit from the question. You notice that he sounds a bit hurt.

“Yeah, she seems pretty special, I guess.”

“Yeah, yeah, she is.”

“But this girl's special, too, you know.” Dustin sounds like he really likes this girl, which you find very adorable. “It’s just, like, something about her.”

Steve however does not think it’s adorable and stops them from walking any further to stop Dustin from going any further than a crush. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, hey, hey.”

“What?”

“You’re not falling in love with this, are you?”

“Uh, no, no.” Dustin hesitated, not knowing how to answer that.

“Okay, good. Don’t.” Steve glares at Dustin, then starts walking again.

“I won’t.”

“She’s only gonna break your heart, and you’re way too young for that shit.” Steve keeps his head to the ground.

“Steve’s right, he could say it a little nicer, but what he means is that you’re too young to be in love in general. Wait to do that until you’re just a bit older” You try to explain what Steve said in a better way for a kid to understand. You get where he’s coming from though, after everything Nancy said to him and then finding out that she and Jonathan skipped together. You still feel bad for keeping what they're doing a secret from Steve but know that it’s best if you do.

Steve looks down at Dustin and sees that he looks a bit upset from everything the two teens have said, so he tries to cheer him up even though he knows you’re going to give him shit for it. “Fabergé.”

“What?” Dustin asks, not knowing what that was or why Steve said it out of the blue.

“It’s Fabergé Organics,” Steve said, pointing at his hair. “Use the shampoo and conditioner, and when your hair’s damp- It’s not wet, okay? When it’s damp, you do four puffs of the Farrah Fawcett spray.”

“Farrah Fawcett, spray?” Dustin chuckles and you are dying laughing in the background.

“Yeah, Farrah Fawcett.” Steve stops them again, pointing a finger at Dustin and talking in a lower voice, “You tell anyone I just told you that and your ass is grass. You’re dead, Henderson. You understand?”

“Yup.”

Once you have calmed down a little, you get closer to where Dustin and Steve are standing and look at Steve with a giant smile on your face and some tears from how hard you were laughing. “I knew it! You always had the same faint smell as my mom and she loves Farrah Fawcett!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Steve rolled his eyes and started walking to hide the faint smile that started appearing.

—----------------

You let out a sigh of relief once you saw the junkyard in sight. You didn’t know if you were more happy to be done walking or throwing raw meat. The sigh may have come too soon though, because now they had a lot of work to be done to prepare for D’art.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, this will do.” Steve said, taking in the sight of the junkyard. Steve started walking away, still mumbling, “This will do just fine. Good call, dude.”

You patted Dustin’s back, seeing the happy smile on his face. They both started walking after Steve, dropping some more meat. Once they made it to the middle of the junkyard, they dropped the rest of the meat into a pile on the ground.

“I said medium-well!” The three turned their heads to see Lucas and a redhead girl across the junkyard.

“Who’s that?” Steve asked Dustin, while the two kids walked over to them.

Steve and you looked back at Dustin when he didn’t give a reply. They both saw him still looking towards the girl with an upset look on his face. You looked over to Steve, who turned to face you, both of you realizing this is the girl Dustin had a crush on.

Without saying anything, Dustin walked over to Lucas and pulled him aside to talk. As they ducked behind a car, the other three got to work finding as much junk as they could to block off the bus they were going to hide in. 

Steve and you looked over at each other exhausted and annoyed that the two boys weren’t doing anything. Walking over to them, Steve banged the metal chair he was carrying against the car the boys were leaning against spooking them.

“Hey, dickheads!” Steve shouted at them, “How come the ones helping me out is this random girl and Y/N?”

“We lose light in 40 minutes, let’s go children,” You said, as you and Steve started to walk away. You then turned back to face the boys who started walking behind them, but not fast enough. So you started clapping at them to go faster. “Let’s go, I said!”

“All right, assholes, God!”

“Okay! Stupid.”

The boys shouted after them complaining as they started hustling. You chuckled to yourself, finding their name-calling funny in their childish voices.

They all got to work, moving as fast as they could to set the junkyard up for their trap. You were moving stuff around as Steve moved behind you pouring gasoline on the ground. As you were moving the junk, you found a ladder that would work great to get to the top of the bus easier.

The sun was now setting and it was getting darker out now; but luckily, they had finished setting the bus up to protect them. They each stepped into the bus and Steve closed it once they were all in. You sat down looking over towards Steve with a worried look knowing there was no going back now. Steve gave you a look of reassurance sitting across from you. 

It was now completely dark out and becoming very foggy, and to say they were bored was an understatement. Lucas went to the roof of the bus to be on lookout, while the rest stayed inside the bus trying to entertain themselves. Steve kept flicking the light while you just picked at your nails and Dustin paced the short amount he could of the bus.

“So you really fought one of these things before?” Max asked, breaking the silence. Steve just gave her a nod before she continued to ask questions not totally believing everyone’s story. “And you’re, like, totally, 100% sure it wasn’t a bear?”

“Shit, don’t be an idiot, Okay? It wasn’t a bear.” Dustin replied, quite rudely. You looked up at him furrowing your eyebrows, surprised by how rude he was being. “Why are you even here if you don’t believe us? Just go home.”

Max looked equally as shocked shaking her head, she stood up to climb up the ladder. “Geesh, someone’s cranky. Past your bedtime?”

“That’s good, just show her you don’t care.” Steve complimented Dustin’s rudeness, making you look over at him confused.

“I don’t,” Dustin said plainly, shrugging his shoulders. Steve gave Dustin a wink before going back to flicking the lighter. “Why are you winking, Steve? Stop.”

“That was not good, at all. You were a complete dick to her.” You were baffled by their behavior. “What the hell is wrong with you two?” 

You and Steve were bickering back and forth when a loud roar sounded nearby. You hurried over to where Steve was sitting to look out the window over his shoulder.

“Do you see him?” Dustin asked them

“No,” Steve said, not taking his eyes away from the outside where the thing could come from any moment.

“Lucas, what’s going on?”

“Hold on!” Lucas shouted from the top of the bus, “I’ve got eyes! Ten o’clock! Ten o’clock!”

“Look,” You pointed a finger in the distance at the creature you saw coming from the fog. “There.”

“What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know.” Steve shook his head at Dustin's question as they watched it just stand there. “He’s not taking the bait. Why is he not taking the bait?”

“Maybe he’s not hungry.” Dustin thought, causing a shiver of fear to go down your spine at what he might want instead.

“Maybe he’s sick of cow.”

You moved out of Steve’s way as he backed away from the window. Looking over at him, you see the look on his face that you have come to realize means he has a stupid idea. When Steve turned his head to look back at you, you shook your head with wide eyes to try and communicate that he shouldn’t do what he was thinking. Steve just turns and walks towards the bus door.

“Steve? Steve, what are you doing?” Dustin called after him, noticing him walking towards the door.

You grab Steve’s hand to stop him, “Steve, don’t do this, please.”

“I’ve got to do this,” Steve said, looking deep into your begging eyes. Taking his hand from yours, he picks up his bat and then hands over the lighter. “Just get ready.”

You pass the lighter to Dustin and follow after Steve. Steve reaches to open the door but stops himself once he sees you behind him. “What are you doing?”

“If you’re going out there then so am I.” You force yourself to sound as confident as you can, knowing you are about to do something incredibly stupid. You couldn’t let Steve do this all alone, and you made a promise to protect these kids. “This is the second year something like this has happened, I can’t let it scare me anymore. I won’t.”

Steve nodded, understanding where you were coming from. “Okay, but you stay close to me.”

“Oh, you won’t have to worry about that.” You pulled out your knife ready to fight yet another Demogorgon.

Steve opened the bus door and the two slowly stepped out of the bus. They took careful steps walking over to where they saw the D’art standing while Steve whistled to it.

“Come on buddy. Come on, buddy.” Steve taunted the creature, “Come on. Dinner time.”

They stopped walking once they got to the pile of meat, you stayed behind Steve not yet brave enough to be up in front which you thought was totally reasonable. Steve swung his bat side to side when it stepped out of the fog and they got a better look at the creature. It was smaller than the Demogorgon they fought last year, but still scary looking.

“Steve, Y/N watch out!” Lucas yelled from his lookout. 

Steve kept his eye on D’art, “A little busy here!”

You turned your head to see what he was yelling about and saw more D’art look-a-likes coming from behind. “Holy shit.”

“Three o’clock! Three o’clock!”

Steve turned to look after hearing Lucas continue to yell, thinking you were only freaked out by D’art. Once he looked, he saw what you were freaking out about.

“Steve! Y/N! Abort! Abort!” Dustin shouted at them, opening the door for them to have a faster way back in.

Without taking his eyes from any of the creatures, Steve wrapped one arm around the front of your waist to pull you closer, talking in a low voice, “Y/N, run.”

“No, I’m not leaving you,” You muttered terrified, but not wanting to give up.

The first creature they saw screeched before running towards them. Steve pushed you away towards the bus, not giving you an option anymore. “Run!”

You took off running towards the bus, looking back a second to see Steve jump out of the way and roll over a car. Hearing the kids yelling for them, you faced back toward them but were stopped when one of the things jumped at you causing you to fall to the ground. It stood over you, opening its face and screeching. You let out an equally loud yell and stabbed it in its side then yanked the knife out. It fell back a couple of steps to the side of you but made enough room for Steve to hit it away with his bat. 

Steve reached his hand out, helping you up before they both took off to the bus. They jumped in and Dustin immediately closed the door as one of the monsters tried to jump in after them. Steve grabbed one of the metal scraps they had and put it against the door to try and make it harder for them to come in.

“Are they rabid or something?” Max asked, still not believing these were anything but dogs.

A second later, the creatures surrounded the bus and pushed it so hard, that the bus fell to the side a little. As they looked to the back, where the shove came from, one of the creatures shoved his arm through where you and Steve were sitting. The kids went to the back to try and hold off the creature while Steve hit the other one’s arm with his bat. As Dustin radioed for more help and Steve continued hitting the Demodog, the others looked up hearing thudding from the roof.

You quickly stood up, seeing the dents make their way toward the open part of the ceiling where the kids were standing. Max let out a scream as you pushed her back and stood in front of the kids. “Step back, kids,” pointing your knife at the creature, “Come on!”

Steve ran over to stand next to you holding his bat up, as the creature screeched at them. It suddenly stopped screeching and looked off into the distance growling to the right before taking off. The group could hear a bunch of them growling farther away as they continued to stand in their spots not knowing what was happening.

When they continued to hear nothing, they walked over to the door and opened it taking slow steps outside.

“What happened?” Lucas stressed each word, confused about everything that had just gone down.

Max muttered from behind him, “I don’t know.”

“Steve scared ‘em off?” Dustin tried to come up with a reason.

“No. No way.” Steve turned to face the rest of them with his bat over his shoulder. “They’re going somewhere.”

“Do we follow them?” You pondered aloud, trying to figure out what their next step should be.

Steve looked over at you, then looked to the side a little concerned, and grabbed your left arm, “Hey, woah, you okay?”

“What?” You looked down at what he was talking about and saw blood dripping down your arm. Pushing down the neck of your shirt, you saw a scratch on your shoulder. “Oh, it must’ve got me.” 

“We should patch this up first,” Steve said, not taking his eyes off the scratch.

“It’s fine, we can’t lose them.” You tried to stop Steve from freaking out, but he wouldn’t pay attention to what you were saying. you put your hand on Steve’s shoulder making him look at you, “Steve. It’s okay, it doesn’t even hurt.”

There was only a dull pain right now from still being in a bit of shock, but you weren’t going to admit that. You just wanted to find where the creatures were going and stop them before anything worse happened. 

Steve just nodded, still looking at every inch of your face to see if there was any sign of pain but couldn’t find any. “Okay, fine, but you have to tell me if it starts hurting.”

You just nodded, giving him a small reassuring smile. 

A short coughing sound made them break their eye contact and look at the kids who were looking at them with slightly disgusted looks.

“Uh, can we go follow them now?” Dustin stuttered out, a bit shocked at what he was seeing in front of him.

You and Steve dropped your arms from each other and took a step back awkwardly nodding.

“Yeah, let’s go get these demo-things,” You said, keeping your eyes toward the kids and not looking in Steve’s direction.

“Demogorgons.” Dustin corrected you.

You just started walking away from him, “Yeah, whatever.”

[fabdante]

I feel like finding out that his parents thought of him and his brother as weapons first and people/children second would fuck Dante up.

I imagine it wouldn't be comforting. This is always something I meant to elaborate on in a like follow up to this post but I haven't finished that one yet asdfghjk

But I do think it's a complicated sitcuation.

If we go under the assumption that Eva and Sparda were actively fighting against Mundus and closing hellgates to keep him trapped so they could deliver the final blow (something I think is implied by the notion that there used to be more hellgates, something Vergil kind of alludes to, and the fact Mundus is trapped to the one remaining hellgate, something we know of in game. and the fact that the family sword is rebellion, its on the family crest, but at some point Sparda had a sword made specifically to close hellgates, yamato). Like I don't think it's an accident that if we headcanon/fanon/assume that this is what Sparda and Eva were up to, that they settled down in Paradise to have Nephilim children, the only thing that can deliver the final blow and kill Mundus.

Now I do think this is a little more complicated of course like I don't think, by the end, Eva and Sparda just saw the twins as weapons. However I do think the intent of their birth in the reboot was to be weapons. Like, if we go off of Eva's speech, she does seem to be strongly alluding to the idea that the twins were born with this goal in mind and were never given the choice, something she regrets, so she is now giving Dante that choice.

Which to me implies that while they were intended to essentially be weapons, and Eva and Sparda wanted them to accomplish their final goal (kill Mundus), they had been seeing them as children increasingly over time. Like it's easy to conceptualize something before it happens, right? Like to sit down and make a plan about how you're going to train the perfect little god killers. It's entirely different to have them born, screaming into life as babies do, and then have to watch them grow up. To see your little god killer crying over a scraped knee or the fact his brother took his toy without asking or something.

Which I think puts Eva and Sparda's views of their children into a complex position. Because like in the back of their minds, yes these children are born with this goal and they need them to achieve this goal. That's why they were born. It paints a lot of their interactions. But at the same time those are children. They are their children to.

Which i guess also brings me to the fact I cannot imagine Eva and Sparda really had....childhoods with parents asdfghj I don't really know that they have a normal, human childhood to base raising their own children off of to begin with which also complicates things. How I imagine the angels working, if Eva even was a child at any point, I don't really know that she was 'raised'. I don't really know that the angels are 'raised' or if they just sort of...Become, if they just sort of Exist. Whatever it is, it's certainly very different then the twins childhood. And then like with Sparda, with what we're implied about Sparda and Mundus's childhood, I'm not sure either of them had parents either. If they did, they obviously raised them to be little warlords in their own right so that's the context Sparda has when he begins raising his own sons.

Which is to say, I don't really know how prepared they were for the babies they got asdfghjk like they went into this preparing for this accomplishable goal, this idea that we can raise them into being the weapons we need because we were raised into weapons ourselves.

And then they got very human babies, very human, squishy babies and things just got very complicated.

Regardless of that complexity, though, I imagine that it'd still be a weird thing to know for both twins. Like you weren't born out of a genuine desire to have children, you were born for a specific purpose and that specific purpose only even if it came with the odd side effect of your parents at some point realizing you are like your own person.

I think it'd fuck up Dante a little bit, though I think largely due to how it compiles with his existing image of himself. This existing notion that he's only good for violence and the anger and what not. But also at the same time at the back of his mind I do think there'd be a notion of like 'are you surprised?'

[noctivagawitch]

༓࿇༓ 𝔱𝔶𝔭𝔢𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔪𝔣𝔲𝔩 𝔰𝔭𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔲𝔞𝔩 𝔠𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔢𝔰 ༓࿇༓

PART 2

(se você fala portugues BR, sinta-se livre para enviar DM ou pedir tradução de um post. boa parte vai estar em inglês, para facilitar minha vida e atingir mais pessoas.)

-`🕯 INTRO 🕯´-

This is based on my experience, the information I have gathered, and my personal take. This isn't a rule book, law, or scientific study. You can feel free to give your own opinions and experiences in the comments but make it respectful. Now, let's get ourselves on the same page: ❅ Spirits are conscious beings who no longer or never have possessed a biological residence, in other words, a body. They are condensed energy, in other words, they might reside in the material world, but not materially. ❅ Harmful Spiritual Creatures/Spirits are those who harm other spirits or living beings in general, whether they want to or not. Here, it is not taken different points of view as in the famous "it depends" to determine whether such actions are harmful or not, but rather the general consequences of their actions regardless of their motives or lack thereof. ❅ Witchcraft is the conscious manipulation of magic in the day-to-day life of a being. It doesn't have ethical or moral rules to follow, or a god that needs to be

-`🕯 THE LIST 🕯´-

❅ RESTLESS/RESTLESS GHOST As the term already suggests these are spirits who are indeed restless and can be found in a deep state of paranoia. Personally, I use such a term to refer to spirits of deceased beings (humans or not) who have not, for whatever reason, crossed the barrier to the afterlife. So, as many say, after we die we are supposed to rest and let the cycle of life follow, yet, some of us don't do that and as a result stay trapped in the material world as a restless spirit. Now, the cause for this is often due to denial, either that one has died or that they have died and were not able to conclude some sort of goal. In some rare cases, humans will purposefully hold these deceased souls down as slaves. Either way, these spiritual beings are usually found in a very vulnerable and pitiful state, of what seems to be an endless agony, paranoia, and restlessness. Still, in order to get rid of them, I do not recommend banishing them as this will likely make their pain much worse and make it difficult for them to move on. Exorcism should be done by someone with experience and knowledge only. Thus, if you don't want to banish and exorcism is out of the question, I recommend praying for the soul or souls and offering love. Of course, I know this might be hard if you're dealing with a restless soul who is some sort of criminal or abuser but try your best. A good example of this can be found in the anime Ghost Hunt, released in 2006, the episode of the Dollhouse case. In such a case, the ghost-hunting team is dealing with the restless ghost of a mother who committed suicide due to the extreme pain of her daughter's cruel death, who was kidnapped and tortured. As a result of the denial of everything that happened, the mother, as a ghost, ends up looking for her daughter in the body of other kids of similar ages. Thus, the team's leader decides to trick the woman in believing she found her daughter, using a wooden totem in which the daughter's full name and date of birth are written on. Of course, the anime covers other details, but the idea here is that in order to "get rid" of such spirits, is to kill what kills them, their agony. ❅ SKINWALKERS are not found in every place of the world, they are usually found in the USA in native lands. Overall, I have to say I never had an encounter with one, but I have contacted native people to learn more about them so I'm sharing what has been told to me. Basically, skinwalkers were natives in charge of helping people with their health problems, and one of their tasks sometimes involved traveling long distances in a very short amount of time. Yet, they could do this quickly if they shapeshift, but shapeshifting took years to learn. However, some of these natives were impatient and decided to make "dark" ceremonies that involved the sacrifice of an immediate loved one. This resulted, in the mid to long run, the lost of their morality and eventually becoming very desensitized. Still, these skinwalkers are more often than not found in the Navajo lands and they mainly use native animals such as coyotes and deer as their shapeshift. They eventually become bloodthirsty and act similar to haunters, in which they silence pets, usually not by killing them but by using a "dog whistle". They make scratching noises and growl, and you can usually hear their totems crackling. Their weapons are nature-based, so knives and poisons are made of dead bodies, rocks, or plants. They use a type of power in order to curse you that will eventually kill you. The ShanclenShadowProductions on YouTube has videos on them, so if you're interested you should check them out.

link to part 1, link to part 3

[tommyssupercoolblog]

speaking of marriages, have you and your husband got each other rings and such or? I'm actually unsure how your love story and stuff started so I'm kinda curious...

We used to have a ring!!!! but we couldn't afford to get it sized properly so one day I was stimming really hard and shaking my hands autism style and it flew off.... One day I hope to buy a new one and get it sized good so it won't disappear again. That was a STRESSFUL day I was in tears looking for it and Seán thankfully calmed me down and reminded me that a ring is just a symbol and isn't actually that important, and everything was gonna be okay. He is so amazing and POGGERS 🙀😻

I posted a comic about how we got together at some point on here!!! I definitely have it on my old webbed site that I don't use anymore. Lemme go grab it- FOUND!!!

This is old as fuck and honestly needs to be redone but it has a quick TLDR!!! And a mention of the headspace kids- deep cut Tommy Mcloughlin lore.... (I was feeling really depressed about not being able to have kids so Joey, who's sort of like our boss because he was the first alter to split off, suggested we look into basically pretending we have kids. He pointed out that if we can manifest whatever in headspace, then while they wouldn't actually move or think independently or be ALIVE, we could make fake babies to hold and take care of. So sometimes when I catch baby fever and feel like I need to be motherinnit I will use my headspace babies to calm down, but they are not real alters and when I'm not using them they stop existing. They're more like dolls than real kids)

But yeah for a while we weren't aware of the rest of the system, so me and Seàn were in this weird limbo of alternating between being a couple, being platonic friends with crushes, and confessing or making a move, wildly jumping from one to the other or being in a gray area because we didn't think the other one was real, so it was a coin toss on every interaction wether the other (or ourselves) would act like something that already happened, like, happened. One day we're cuddling, the next it's as if it never happened even though we both remember it, because we don't think it was a real experience that "counted".

Then when we had the system egg cracking, it made us realize that that meant that the other person was real, and by extension, all of our moments together, and it was like. "OH SHIT. OH SHIT I HAVE A BOYFRIEND AND HE'S REAL. OH SHITTTTT /pos" and we were both SO hype and excited. It felt too good to be true, that like, all of my memories of us talking to each other while fronting were real. That I wasn't "going crazy" when the body moved on it's own and I was chilling and offering commentary while Seàn was doing things, or vice versa and I was moving around and Seàn was talking to me; he's real and we were spending time together. It was the BEST actually.

Seàn proposed, and when he did it it was actually on impulse because we were mid conversation and he was just. SO in love with me and overwhelmed by it that he got up, dug around in our closet to find a ring (it was a silver replica of the one ring from LOTR that we'd gotten for Christmas) and proposed on the SPOT and I CRIED.

We weren't sure at first how a wedding would...like, work? With us sharing a body and all, but eventually we figured it out; we both believe in God, and Quakers, who also believe in God, don't have a preist figure because everyone is equal in their church, so they get married by literally just praying to God and being like, "this is the person I choose to be with for eternity, we're going to pledge our love and faithfulness to each other at you DIRECTLY instead of having some guy do it for us" and they'll have a witness there if the want to have it legally recognized. So we did the same thing!!! A friend witnessed over discord and we prayed and got married that way; and we don't have legal paperwork ofc but the part that actually MATTERS- swearing oaths to each other and promising to be together for our whole lives and afterlives too- is all covered. So we did that a bit after the proposal since it took a minute of planning to figure out the logistics of how that like....works.

We wore that ring on the body's ring finger for months and months before it fell off- I still haven't seen it, actually? Searched the carpet and the stairs, washer and dryer in case it fell into a laundry basket, no sign of it. Must have no-clipped into the backrooms or something because it EVAPORATED, I haven't seen that thing at all even though it's been forever since it fell off??

Anyway. Soulmates are real, love is real, gay people POG, I love my husband, YIPPEE !!!!!!!!!!

[momentsbeforemass]

God gets us

God gets us.

I know, that’s a pretty non-surprising claim about God. God made us. In His likeness and image. Of course, God gets us.

But there’s more to it than just stating the obvious. It’s about how God gets us.

God isn’t sitting back like some sort of disinterested observer.

Like you or I might watch someone we know well do the same stupid thing they always do. Again. Saying to ourselves, “here we go again.”

That’s not how God gets us. Actually, it’s kind of the opposite.

In today’s Gospel, a father asks Jesus to heal his dying son.

Jesus’ response? “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”

That’s harsh. Nothing good ever follows after a “you people” statement, right?

That’s why it feels like there’s more to come. Like Jesus is loading up to go off on the guy. For his lack of faith. Where you expect Jesus to shut him down with some “you’ll see it when you believe it” inversion of the conventional wisdom.

Letting him know what perfect faith looks like. And that he doesn’t have it. That he has failed.

None of that happens.

Instead, a desperate parent pours his heart out.

And in that moment, we get to see in real life what it means to say that God gets us.

God doesn’t wait for perfect faith. God doesn’t keep us at arm’s length until we’ve got it all sorted out. Until we get it right.

Even imperfect faith moves the heart of God.

Even an ungainly mess of fear, love, belief, humility, doubt, and desperation.

But as far as God is concerned, the ingredients of our imperfect faith don’t matter.

What matters to God is the flame. Even the slightest flickering glow. However imperfect. From whatever source.

It’s enough for God to look at us with love and say, “Come here. Come home.”

Because God gets us.

Today’s Readings

[zombubble]

From In Memory; In Truth, Chapter 26:

Things are getting busy in the story, which means finding snippets without spoilers is getting more and more difficult 🤣

Still, have 75% of the Junior Quartet:

“We know not to trust rumors,” Lan Sizhui says. “If Xie-qianbei really is Wei Wuxian, then the rumors are obviously wrong about him.” “My dad knew him, though,” Ouyang Zizhen points out. “Your dad met him,” Lan Sizhui says. “Hanguang-jun studied with him in the Cloud Recesses, and he also fought alongside him during the Sunshot Campaign. He told me Wei Wuxian’s intentions—and his heart—were good. And… Xie-qianbei’s a good person, you know? Don’t you guys feel safe with him, too?” “Yeah, sort of,” Jingyi says. “Until he starts cooking.” Ouyang Zizhen manages to both snort and look nauseous simultaneously—a feat for which Lan Sizhui’s half-tempted to congratulate him—but ends up nodding. “Don’t tell Lan-xiansheng I said this,” Jingyi continues, “but if Xie-qianbei really is Wei Wuxian, then Wei Wuxian’s actually pretty cool.” “Why would he be Wei Wuxian and not use guidao, though?” Ouyang Zizhen asks. “You’d think he would, because it would have helped us a lot, but he never did.” Lan Sizhui shrugs. “Maybe something happened and he can’t,” he says softly. Maybe it’s because he’s a god. A god! Xie Yuan is a god, Lan Sizhui knows this. But if Xie Yuan is Wei Wuxian, that means Wei Wuxian became a god, which means he must be a good person. It’d be cool, and… also kind of funny, given how people talk about the Yiling Laozu. “Maybe he got his power from the Yin Hufu,” Jingyi says. Ouyang Zizhen shrugs. “No one ever did find out how it worked. That might have been it.” “Whatever his reason, I’m sure he was also wary of being exposed,” Lan Sizhui says, “but we mustn’t gossip. We can ask Xie-qianbei—or Wei-qianbei, if he is, in fact, Wei Wuxian—our questions once he’s been located and his safety ensured.” There’s a communal sigh. Lan Sizhui dips up through the trees and peers far ahead, looking for the flash of purple and white through the treetops. He sees it, and comes back down, redirecting them in the right direction. “Where do you think they’re going?” Lan Jingyi says. “Can’t be anywhere too dangerous, right?” Ouyang Zizhen looks worriedly at them. “If it is, we ought to turn back,” Lan Sizhui says softly. “Xie-qianbei told us that knowing when to retreat is also a valuable skill. If it seems more than we can handle, then… we must. We must retreat, and maybe get help for them, if needed.” “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Ouyang Zizhen says softly. “If it’s dangerous even for them…” Lan Jingyi nods. “Yeah. Xiao-guniang might…” “There’s no use getting ourselves worked up about this,” Lan Sizhui declares. “We must press on.” They must. If they stop to think of what might be going on, what might have happened, they might falter, and that is not something they can do.

Ohhhh being sneaky and determined, but what else can you expect when they're on a rescue mission?

Thanks so much for reading, I'll see you next week!!