#Crowley is a philosophy professor

[zeldahime]

Highway to Pail Bonus #2

[Day 1] [Prev] [Next] @do-it-with-style-events

Bonus prompt 2: You had me at Merlot.

Keanu Hawke Harrison-Montoya, known to his friends as Halcón or Hal and to his coworkers and customers as Harry, hadn't exactly dreamed of giving wine tours in Sonoma Valley when he was a kid, but it paid okay and you met interesting people. Once some actor from like Ireland or something had been on one of his tours with his wife and oldest kid, and his sister had called him a couple days later to ask if he'd seen them, because the kid was her favorite character on the new Game of Thrones. Not exactly Johnny Depp levels of fame, but they'd been pretty nice and Brit was impressed.

Unfortunately, interesting does not always mean nice. Two of the customers on today's tour were both interesting and irritating as hell. He could tell already that by the time he got home to Pancho, he just was not going to have it in him to do date night, Wednesday or not. Maybe he'd be cool with just cuddling on the couch and watching some dumb reality TV.

The two guys were both middle-age and English and obviously loaded, but otherwise they physically were the opposite of each other in every way, like they'd been designed to be The Odd Couple in a kid's show. One looked like if the Easter Bunny was a gay professor, and the other like the former frontman in a broken-up Clash cover band who hadn't gotten a new personality yet. They argued with each other at the back of the pack like they were either: a) about to get divorced, or b) had never believed in marriage philosophically but nevertheless intended to be in one another's pockets for the next fifty years and die within five minutes of each other so they could continue arguing at the pearly gates. He would not have been surprised if one of them was an anarchist, although based on the boyfriends and girlfriends Pancho's cousins usually brought home, he figured it'd be Easter Bunny rather than Rocker. Every tight-laced looking one talked about the fine points of German philosophy and schemes they had to redistribute wealth to third-world countries and every punk-looking one introduced him to a new "Viking" rune he'd google later and find out was a Nazi symbol. (Desirée was not very good at picking boyfriends.)

It had been more than half an hour since Hal had begun this tour, and despite Easter Bunny saying several times "do be quiet, Crowley" and Rocker saying "shut up and listen, angel" just as often, neither of them had actually stopped talking that entire time. They were quiet, was the worst part, clearly trying to be polite to the other guests by keeping their conversation down, but the whispers were much more distracting than if they'd just talked at a normal conversational level and harder for Hal to call them out on.

His smile was starting to become plastic as they finally hit the first wine break and, hopefully, a break from the English couple's half-heard conversation. He poured the wine for his dozen guests and explained how wine-tasting worked for any newbies. Like he always did, he asked for the guests to first sniff the wine, see if it reminded them of anything. All but one obediently copied him, and most had the look of people who didn't smell anything in particular but didn't want to say so and look stupid; totally normal. Rocker, however, stuck his tongue into the glass, prompting Easter Bunny to nudge him and whisper "do try to act like a human, my dear," and Rocker, at a normal conversational volume, said "Merlot with notes of tea, angel, you'll like it for sure."

"Notes of tea! Very keen nose! That'll be the tannins," Hal said cheerfully, hoping to remind them that there were ten other guests plus him on this tour. "Anyone else smell anything?"

Easter Bunny at least had the grace to look a bit embarrassed. "Thank you, er," he squinted at his nametag, "Harry," presumably on behalf of Rocker, who just smirked and whispered something in what Hal thought was French. Hal assumed it was a Harry Potter joke, because it always was. He ignored them and smiled at the rest of the group.

A round of silent, politely confused faces stared back at him. "Time to taste!" he announced, modeling taking just one sip from his glass. The Englishmen, he noticed, drank their whole sample.

Christ alive. If these two were this annoying sober, he was not going to have fun dealing with them drunk.

Author's note:

I don't know a damn thing about wine, but I do know a bit about being an underpaid tour guide, and Air Conditioning would be the absolute worst. At least they'd tip well. All knowledge of wine comes from the Wikipedia article about Merlot.

Shout out to David, Georgia, and Ty Tennant in paragraph 1. Johnny Depp is mentioned because I read once that the studio had wanted to cast him as Crowley in the never-made movie, and also because he's the most famous person I didn't quite meet while living in a tourist town.

Hal is named after Keanu Reeves and Tony Hawke, and I figured he's probably about my age. Halcón is just Spanish for Hawk. I did Google to make sure it's not accidentally offensive or funny in some dialect like how Concha* can be, and some Mexican reality TV star is being called that because he's got an aquiline nose, so I think we're solid for California at the very least. If it is accidentally funny please let me know! I also liked how you could arguably get Hal from Harrison, via Harrison -> Harry -> misattribution of Harry to Henry -> Hal. Why does Hal come from Henry? Because English is weird.

*Concha means seashell and is a regular woman's name in Spain, a pastry in Mexico, and slang for vagina in Argentina.

[alexesguerra]

The Aleister Crowley Tarot Book & Card Deck: Includes a 78-Card Deck and a 128-Page Illustrated Book (Sirius Oracle Kits) The Aleister Crowley Tarot Book & Card Deck: Includes a 78-Card Deck and a 128-Page Illustrated Book (Sirius Oracle Kits) Paperback – May 16, 2023 by Tania Ahsan (Author), Aleister Crowley (Author), Paula Zorite (Illustrator), Mogg Morgan (Introduction) ---Brand New--- Aleister Crowley's instructions for the Thoth tarot have been faithfully rendered in this beautiful collector's deck with brand-new artwork, presented in a sleek lidded box with accompanying guide. The Thoth tarot deck was conceived by famous occultist Aleister Crowley who made remarkable innovations to the traditional deck. Rich in astrological, numerological and Egyptian symbolism, it encapsulates a very life-affirming philosophy, helping readers to expand their horizons and find joy and direction on their life. This new deck and vibrantly illustrated guidebook has been created by respected occult writer Tania Ahshan in collaboration with illustrator Paula Zorite. Together they have interpreted Crowley's vision of the tarot for a modern reader, with beautiful rainbow-hued card illustrations and clear instructions on how to read them based of Crowley's The Book of Thoth. It also includes an insightful forward by Mogg Morgan who examines Crowley's departure from classic card interpretations and the reasons behind them. The Aleister Crowley Tarot can be used for divination, to gain greater insight into your spiritual journey, or to use in magickal ritual. As you work with the cards over time, you will connect to not just Crowley's thoughts on the pack, but also your own insights garnered through open-minded practice. Includes: • A 78-card Deck • A 128-page illustrated book ABOUT THE SERIES: Sirius Oracle Kits contain everything you need to get started in a spiritual practice. Each kit includes practical guidebook alongside the equipment you need, from tarot cards to pendulums and I Ching coins, presented in a sleek lidded box. About the Author Mogg Morgan is publisher at Mandrake of Oxford, responsible for the discovery of many authors, including his friend and onetime mentor Jan Fries. He is a practitioner-cum-scholar of all aspects of occultism. A Welcomed research student at Oxford, one of his teachers was the late Professor B K Matilal, a widely respected expert on South Asian thought. Over the years he has been exploring the connections between the popular magick of ancient Egypt and its continuation/crossover with the living magical traditions of the middle East, and the Kaula/witchcraft of south Asia and beyond. He is author of Egyptian Magick: A Spirited Guide and Aleister Crowley, Thelemic Magick. Tania Ahsan has written for a variety of publications on occult subjects, as well as giving talks at events such as The Pagan Federation conference and Pendle Witch Camp. She is the former editor of astrology and occult magazine Prediction and also edited Kindred Spirit magazine. She has a lifelong interest in spiritual topics. She is author of Protection Charms, Everyday Calming Rituals and The Astrological Tarot. She has previously ghostwritten, edited and consulted on many famous tarot decks. She can be found online at taniaahsan.co.uk. Paula Zorite is a digital artist based in Valencia, Spain. She developed an interest in drawing at a very young age, spending much of her free time painting and creating characters. It was during her time studying Fine Arts at the Polytechnic University of Valencia that she discovered her passion for digital illustration. Since then, she has participated in exhibitions, art events and taught drawing classes. A versatile artist, Paula has worked with a variety of authors, publishers and companies creating vivid illustrations, book covers, logos and characters. Her style is characterized by a rich and harmonious use of color's and her strong sense of narrative. Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sirius (May 16, 2023) Language ‏ : ‎ English Paperback ‏ : ‎ 128 pages ISBN: 9781398825833 Physical Info: 3.5" H x 7.8" L x 5.5" W (1.28 Pound) 128 pages

[moveslikebucky]

WIP Wednesday

Hello friends <3 It's WIP Wednesday and I have something that has been a long time coming.

I am FINALLY working on a sequel to It's Not The Years, It's The Mileage (my fusion between Good Omens and Raiders of the Lost Ark).

This one will be based on The Last Crusade, and feature Aziraphale and Crowley in many shenanigans that stem from Gabriel showing up for Aziraphale's bicentennial performance review.

Will Aziraphale be able to influence Doctor Elsa Schneider on behalf of Heaven and find the Holy Grail? Are Gabriel's motives really to be trusted? How is Crowley finding a work/life balance between his time with the SIS and lounging about in Aziraphale's office?

All these and more will be answered in Pilgrims in an Unholy Land (coming soon to an AO3 near you*!)

*Popcorn and floor-splitting Diet Coke not included (if you know you know)

And now! A little teaser trailer for you all:

Oxford University, 1938 “The thing that all of you must remember, if you take nothing else away from my class,” Aziraphale said, peering out at the students of his lecture hall over the thin gold rims of his glasses, “take away this one simple lesson.” Turning to the board, he scrawled out four simple letters. F-A-C-T, appearing on the board in a puff of chalk dust. “Fact. Archaeology is not the pursuit of truths, but of fact.” He adjusted his bowtie as he turned back to face his classroom. “But, if you did want to know more about truth, I’m sure Professor Ward’s philosophy class down the hall would suffice.” He smiled as a murmur of laughter passed through his students. Professor Ward was a fair shake, but his class was solidly the philosophy of religion. He hadn’t the heart to tell the man that his philosophies were quite a bit off base. After all, Aziraphale would know. But he’d also never offered himself as a source. “Now then, that will conclude class for today. Now we don’t have time to dawdle!” He shouted over the commotion of students rushing to leave. “I’ll expect everyone to be well read on our textbook, chapters 5 and 6, Egyptology and specifically a focus on Seti the first! We’ll be discussing the findings around him first thing in class. I’ll be in my office for further questions, only for the next hour and a half or so!”  Aziraphale shook his head as the students crowded past his desk, chuckling under his breath. He was getting used to it, the whole professor thing. Teaching was something, oddly enough, he had turned out to be pretty good at. He found it funny how time worked, like it had a sense of humor. Charged with keeping humanity away from knowledge in the Beginning, and now willingly giving it to the next generation. It was a nice symmetry, in his mind anyway. He gathered up his papers, neatly stacking them before slipping them into his briefcase. It would be nice to have a quiet evening, maybe have a glass or two of wine. As he made his way to his office, he thought about putting on a nice soothing record or two. As much as he enjoyed the chaos of collegiate life, it was nice to escape it as well. There was a spring in his step as he turned the handle of his office door. At least, until he made it to the other side. “Professor Fell, I needed to ask–” “–Sir, if you don’t mind, that letter of recom–” “–and there still isn’t a grade posted, it’s been two weeks–” A horde of students mobbed him at once, shouting questions one right after the other. He could hear his secretary behind them, saying something about scheduling and unexpected visitors. He always did forget to do his paperwork. Or answer his messages. Or his letters. “All in due time, all in due time!” He tried to be both loud and calm, feeling much like he was failing at both. He waved to his secretary, shouting instructions to her. “If you would please, take down names and issues, give me that list and I will see to it that I speak to each one of you in turn.” As he spoke he inched his way through the throng of people, closer to his inner office door and to what he hoped was freedom. Maybe he could sneak out the window. “Now, if you will excuse me – “ “–sir, the man in your office, he –” His secretary tried to shout over everyone else. “ – If you’ll excuse me.” He turned the doorknob, hurrying in and locking it behind him. He leaned against the frosted glass and took a deep breath. “Hello, Aziraphale!” Aziraphale did a double-take and the source of the overly cheery voice. Someone he hadn’t seen in over a century. Not since he had tried to drag him back to heaven with a commendation and a pat on the back. “Gabriel? What are you doing here?”

[sweetayako15]

To Reason Religion

I’m so happy to present this story to you all! There is also great art for this story by @goodomensislife​ that can be found here!

Rating:  M

Summary:  Majoring in anything philosophical is usually seen as killing a career before it can even begin. Majoring in anything with a religious focus sends you down a narrow and poorly paved path to changing majors to archaeology or linguistics. Creating a cocktail of the two is a bitter and confusion-inducing field of study reserved for the more masochistic crowd. 

Chapter 1:

Majoring in anything philosophical is usually seen as killing a career before it can even begin. Majoring in anything with a religious focus sends you down a narrow and poorly paved path to changing majors to archaeology or linguistics. Creating a cocktail of the two is a bitter and confusion-inducing field of study reserved for the more masochistic crowd. Curious parties often find themselves in crises of faith and become fodder for online forums of Christian mothers claiming the evil of universities. 

Foolish scholars, the lot of them.

Those who decide to study one of the two aforementioned fields, and dedicate their lives to it, usually find themselves with two options when faced with the current job market. Firstly being a life of scraping by in some job at a corporation where their knowledge will cause questions of if their jobs and, by extension, their lives have any purpose. The second is going all in, attaining a PhD, and then become a professor that will watch the vicious cycle of their own mistakes repeat with a group of new faces every semester. 

The second option is where one Doctor Azariah Fell found himself, in his office with sleeves rolled up to his elbows and dust rag in hand. His usual coat was hanging by the door, bowtie draped over the hook as well, the first couple of buttons of his shirt undone. Blue eyes gazed over his small office of bookshelves of various sizes and one large mahogany desk, that took up most of the space, while a few chairs and boxes filled in the rest. One lone Epipremnum aureum plant draped over a bookshelf. He scratched his head, short, blond wisps of hair waving back and forth. 

“Where to begin,” he gave a wondering sigh, but not even an echo came to answer.

Each book in the small office was a prized piece of literature. Some were more modern analyses of recent global issues that were rooted deep in religious history. Most were original theories and investigations into social repercussions of the creations and deaths of various religions. The few more dedicated students that made it into Dr. Fell’s office hours were graced by the presence of great religious scholars through texts dating back to 440 BCE. Most were wise enough to know better than to touch the books. Others were promptly asked to leave. On top of the bookshelves and the desk, pictures of Azariah’s expeditions from Ajanta Caves to L'Abbaye-aux-Hommes were the only evidence that could convince his students that he did leave the small college town. 

While he found the rumors of his life outside of the classroom rather immature, he could understand where they came from. Azariah took great pride in each of his books and had created a rather clever system to read each one in a cycle. He didn’t want any to feel left out, after all. Which is also why he took the time, even if it kept him late into the early mornings, to personally clean his office. Especially at the end of each school year.

While the university did have janitorial staff, he found himself in a rather enjoyable tradition of cleaning and reorganizing his office before the beginning of the summer vacation. He found it therapeutic, taking each title into his hands and removing what little dust sat on the top and cover. It wasn’t essentially uncommon for him to become lost in them, losing hours on end, and having to extend the cleaning into the nights and days following. His record for the quickest cleaning was 5 days, according to his co-workers. During his fifth year of this tradition, Gabriel came on the third day and gave him a copy of the keys to the department building with annoyed and sleep-deprived scrutiny. 

He didn’t mean to keep the man, he really didn’t. It also wasn’t his fault that the building that kept their offices was one of the oldest on the campus, having no automated doors like the STEM buildings or keycard access like the Language Departments. It was a small, outmoded building with only four offices, creaking doors, and few windows. But it was like a second home to Azariah, even if his co-workers made their disdain for the building known regularly. His office offered him a reprieve from his obligations to the administration and students alike. The building was so well hidden, tucked behind a new, taller building that had been in the process of being erected for the past few years. In fact, if it was not for Gabriel’s popularity with students, Azariah was certain that the students would never know the building even existed. It would be much easier that way, he assured himself as he took down his personal copy of Frank M. Cross’s Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic.

Dr. Fell had tried the book as a required text for his first semester of teaching, but it was proven out of the range of most students—if the mid-term tests were anything to go by. It led to a rather demeaning conversation with Gabriel about their “commitment to the students’ education and making knowledge more palatable”. Azariah quickly took on a commitment to figuring out ways out of commitments. He had fulfilled his last commitment of the year to the university by attending the all too hot graduation ceremony, feeling as if hell itself was rising up around them that year. It was quite unfair that the fall graduation, being an annoyingly diminished number comparatively, used the campus’ gymnasium for their ceremony every year. He was never asked to attend that ceremony. Or rather, he had politely denied the request three times in his early years and the administration finally got around to understanding subtlety.

Azariah’s personal copies of History of Religions from The University of Chicago Press were next, all 39 volumes. He took great pride in his collection of books and had gone to great lengths to acquire a few of them. However, the volumes of this particular journal pre-dating 1980 were quite elusive. He could access quite a few articles online from various universities’ databases, and probably could find some copies in libraries, but…

“Who would settle for just sampling such material?” Azariah picked up the newest volume, sitting down to take a quick break.

A loud knock at the door saw to it that the break was exactly 3 minutes and 33 seconds long. Quick indeed. 

“I’ve already sent in grades to administration. If you are looking to persuade me to change yours, go home,” Azariah called out, not bothering to look up from his book. 

“Azariah, it’s Gabriel,” a familiar and muffled voice responded.

“Oh, come in then!” Azariah called out again, marking his page as the Department Head entered his office.

Long legs, wide shoulders, strong jaw, violet eyes, and a few dignified silver hairs made up one Doctor Gabriel Leone. He had been the Religious Studies Department Head Teacher before Azariah had even begun working at the university. The students flocked to Gabriel’s classes as if the man was Jesus himself, but Azariah knew better if the way he spoke of his students (and colleagues) after a few beers was anything to go by. Gabriel looked around the room before lowering his eyes to the book in his colleague's hands. “Annual cleaning, I take it?”

“Yes, well,” Azariah promptly stood, clearing his throat as he set the book aside, “Did you know there is an interesting piece on animal sacrifices in Judaism, Christianity, and-”

“Yes, very interesting,” He turned around, eyes scanning over the walls and floor, “Azariah, when was the last time you checked your emails?”

“Last week, I believe. Is something wrong?”

“Well, yes,” Gabriel retrieves his smartphone from one of his slacks’ pockets, unlocking it and holding it up, “I think it’s been longer than a week, Azariah. I sent this notice out two weeks ago.”

Azariah takes a step back as he adjusts his glasses to focus on the words on the screen.

Religious Studies Department Faculty:

I hope your students have finished their final exams, essays, or projects. It has been a long year, but we are at the final stretch. And as the school year comes to an end, changes are taking place. We have long loved our little corner of the campus, with all its faulty wiring, lack of air conditioning, potential asbestos, and absolute lack of access to the wifi. That being said, I have the honor to announce that our patience has paid off! Our department will be moving locations into the new Liberal Arts building on the North side of campus. The current building will be demolished over the summer vacation to make way for a new lecture hall. Please see me about your new office room number and prepare your belongings to move. We will officially cease operations in our current location a week after graduation.

Congratulations to us! Doctor Gabriel Leone

Azariah looked up from the phone, swallowing at Gabriel’s smile. One week. One week from graduation would be the next day, giving Azariah–

“You have until 7 PM tomorrow to pack everything up and move it to your new office. You have 26 hours to do so,” Gabriel pocketed his phone and headed towards the door. “Oh! Your office is 302 and the door is a code lock. The code is your ID number, so no more keys!”

Azariah was thankful for the click of the door’s bolt, bringing a quiet pause to his thoughts. He stood, taking in his office once more, and felt his heart begin to race. 26 hours. Why had no one told him? Did everyone else already move out? How was he going to move everything over? Would there be enough room for everything? What about his desk and bookshelves? What was wrong with their current building? Why hadn’t they noticed he wasn’t-

“Oh, you are not a first-year student! Get it together, Azariah,” he smacked his cheeks, leaving pink traces across them. “I suppose I should see the new office before I begin hauling boxes.”

The new Liberal Arts Building was in the North quad while the old Religious Studies building was in the East quad. In theory, they were close. In practice, with buildings being locked up for the summer, it took Azariah nearly 20 minutes just to reach the front doors. Sweat dripped down his forehead, but a few books and his lone plant in his arms kept him from reaching his handkerchief. Soon enough, the building (all white, box-like, and uncharacteristically new) loomed over him, offering a reprise from the sun. He jumped a couple of centimeters when the doors opened, a gust of cool air rushing out to counter the roasting heat waves. 

‘Well, that is a nice change, I suppose,’ Azariah thought as he elbowed the elevator button. 

The first thing Azariah noticed was that corridors were immaculate and very white, save for the light wood floors. His steps echoed down the hall as he passed various study areas for students, coming to rooms 310 and 311 before realizing how far down his room was. Curiosity came over him as he paused, looking right and left to read the names on each door. 

310 Doctor G. Leone Religious Studies Department Head 

311 Doctor B. Bubb Philosophy Studies Department Head

“Philosophy? Well, it’ll be nice to have new neighbors,” Azariah muttered before continuing his trek, arms beginning to feel sore. 

Passing the offices of Micheal, Uri, and a couple of other familiar faculty (along with many unfamiliar ones of the left of the hallway that Azariah couldn’t put enough energy into remembering names), Azariah let out a sigh of relief. As he was only a few steps from room 303, muffled music drifts through the air. The source was coming from the room across from Azariah’s office, room 302. Azariah stared at the door, attempting to make out the music for a brief moment before scoffing.

‘Bebop,’ Azariah rolled his eyes as he set down his plant to punch in his faculty ID number into the keypad above the handle. The door opened easily, almost weightless, to a space that was… well, for lack of a better term, bland. It was large– almost twice the size of Azariah’s current office. But it was so clean, bright, and empty. The only color came from a large tree that could be seen from the large bay window, pushing out from the wall to create a nice nook to sit. The floor was the same as the hallways and Azariah was eager to move his rug that he received from a nice man (that he may or may not have had relations with one summer) from Casablanca into the new space. 

Setting the books down on the nook, Azariah gazed out the window to find a small courtyard below. A couple of benches faced each other along a diagonal path that connected to the outlined paths of the square. It looked as though plants were in the process of being integrated into the space, but only dirt so far. Which made the large tree quite out of place, taking up a large portion of the courtyard. 

“Speaking of plants…” Azariah pushed away from the window, heading back towards the door to retrieve his Epipremnum aureum.

He opened the door, only for a sound ‘What the fuck’ to follow a rather loud thump. Azariah quickly pushed the door open wider looking for the source, only for another thump to come from behind said door.

“For fuck’s sake! Close the door!”

Head whipping around the door, Azariah looked down at his plant, the only living thing he could trust himself taking care of. However, it was no longer on the floor, but rather in the lap of someone with their ass on the ground, hunched over, hands pressed into his face, and with very little sense of grace. Shoulder length red hair was the first thing to catch Azariah’s attention, shortly followed by the now clear and loud sound of an electric guitar coming from across the hall. 

“Oh! I’m very sorry about that!” Azariah stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. He bent down, trying to get a better look at the redhead. “Excuse me, but what are you doing with my plant?”

A pair of black sunglasses, round in shape, were perched on the man’s pointed nose. Said nose was quite red along with his right cheek that a hand was still pressed to. He tried to snarl but winced with a slight groan as his other hand came up to rub his nose with his thumb and forefinger. The stranger was a mess of sharp edges that were accentuated by tightly fitting black clothing.

“Well, if you hadn’t left the thing out here in the cold air like an imbecile-”

For a split moment, confusion of several factors in this situation collided within Azariah’s head. One was the plant. Two was the stranger. Three was the poorly chosen music. But of all things to focus on, his mind decided:

“Aren’t you worried about heatstroke in all that black clothing?”

Azariah quickly regretted opening his mouth, his cheeks heating up as silence overcame the two parties, both staring at each other for more than a few seconds beyond what would be socially appropriate. Azariah looked away in shame before laughter erupted from the stranger. Maybe ‘laughter’ is too generous to describe the cackle that overtook the music. The man seemingly calmed down enough as Azariah’s embarrassed face slowly morphed into one of disdain, blue eyes narrowed at the man’s feet. 

“Hey, don’t be glaring at me like that. You’re the one that abandoned this guy out here!”

“Well, you don’t have to laugh. It’s a serious concern! And I didn’t abandon it, I just set it down as I saw to my new office.”

The stranger looked up at the closed door then back at Azariah before snickering. He stood up, plant in one hand while the other dusted off his jeans. Azariah followed suit, with eyes on his plant and a piece of his mind that wanted to yank the pot out of the man’s hands. But before that piece could convince all the other parts, the plant was held out before him, the pot balancing in the man’s palm. Taking the plant, Azariah looked up at the man, mouth open but tongue still.

“Name’s Anthony Crowley, but everyone just calls me Crowley, from the Philosophy Department. And,” Crowley held his thumb towards the open office door, music quieting down towards the end, “This is my office.”

A feeling of relief came over Azariah, knowing now just who this stranger was that he had hit with his door. And then a wave of panic set in as he realized he had hit his neighbor in the face, with his door. 

“Oh Lord, I am so very sorry!” He paused in a slight panic, stepping forward to try and look at the damage he had caused. The panic increased as he pulled Crowley’s hand away from his nose, apparently opening the gates for blood to dribble out. “You’re bleeding! I should have looked earlier to see if there is any damage…” He looked around, spotting a restroom sign right down the hall. 

Now, Crowley, for all intents and purposes, was not one to be simply dragged along in things. He was such a petty enough of a being that he went out of his way to do quite the opposite, much to the constant annoyance of his colleagues. But, whether it was due to the curiosity of his new neighbor or the smack to the face had caused a delay in his brain, he found himself being dragged down the hall quite willingly. He also willingly let the man wipe his face with a wet paper towel before watching him look around for a first aid kit, plant still in hand, as he instructed Crowley to hold the towel to his nose. Curiosity indeed.

He finally found his voice after a few minutes of just watching. “Hey, it’s alright. It’s not broken or anything, and I have ice in my office.”

Azariah finally stopped moving. “You do?”

“Yeah, I have a mini-fridge in my office. It has a freezer.”

Taking a step forward, Azariah moved the towel away from his face. “Can you remove your glasses? I would like to just make sure it’s not anything serious.”

Crowley took a step back, bringing the towel back up to his nose. “Nah, it’s fine,” He poked and pinched his nose like some sort of proof. “Come on, I have some coffee on in my office.”

“But-”

“It’s fine, uh…” Crowley stared at the man. ‘Shit. I forgot to ask for his name!”

Azariah returned the look for a moment before gasping. “I’m so very sorry for not introducing myself! I am Doctor Azariah Fell.”

“Azariah?”

“Azariah.”

“Bit… religious. Isn’t it?”

“One of the many reasons for my field of study.”

Seeing no reason to argue such a simple question, Crowley nodded. “Well then, shall we?”

Azariah’s smile seemed to shine as he followed Crowley back to his office. He could spare a minute or two before worrying about moving his belongings. 

Bonus:

Many hours later, as the sun was setting with the illusion of cooler temperatures, Crowley found himself regretting his clothing choice. He silently cursed his choices that lead to him, Azariah, and strange woman from the English Department that knew Azariah from some conference, hauled boxes of books from the East Quad to the North. At least there was a promise of alcohol for his good deeds.

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

Dean and Sam have to infiltrate the college in Scream Queens, go

oh jesus fuck how do you always do this to me??? this is INCREDIBLE there are 2 options of course: early seasons Sam and Dean and later seasons Sam and Dean 

Early Seasons Sam and Dean go undercover as students and rush the Dickie Dollar Scholars frat. Sam is like "I have done the College before, I know and understand the culture" and then promptly fails to be accepted by the Dickie Dollar Scholars. Dean, who was running a prison after being an inmate for a day, is wholeheartedly accepted by the Dickie Dollar Scholars despite actively hating golf. He and Boone are bone buddies. Dean and Chad collectively Do Not Understand Sexual or Gender Norms and they would absolutely have bro sex? It’s OKAY for them to have sex because neither of them are gay! It’s just two straight dudes going to pound town. Enjoying how absolutely ripped the other is. But it’s NOT GAY, Chanel. What, are you saying two dudes, two bros, two completely heterosexual guys can’t have sex with each other without is suddenly becoming a gay thing? That’s Not Cool, Chanel. What man doesn’t want to bone or get boned by his friend every once in a while? Are you saying men don’t want that, Chanel? Are you trying to say that my good buddy Dean Winchester isn’t a real man just because he likes to suck a dick every now and then? Well, then you must not think I’M a real man because guess what, Chanel? I like to suck a dick every now and then, too! That’s really small minded of you, Chanel. I don’t think I can date someone like that. 

Meanwhile literally everyone else is just. Staring. Grace is BEGGING you two to take a gender and sexuality studies class, oh my GOD. And Sadie!Chanel (i don’t remember their numbers!!!) is like, no, no, I totally get that. She pulls out her phone and starts googling stuff for Dean and Chad, Meanwhile Chanel is like, GOD, why is everyone so INTO sex, it’s like. Ugh. WhY! WHY AM I NOT JUST ALLOWED TO BE ARM CANDY! WHY MUST I CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS AND ALSO SEX! Sadie!Chanel pokes her head up all “hey, wait, you don’t like sex? have you thought maybe you’re asexual?” “UH NO I’M NOT ASEXUAL I ABSOLUTELY HAVE A VAGINA” “that’s not what asexual means chanel”. and it’s a whole day of Let’s Learn Queer Vocabulary

Sam winds up friends with Zayday and Pete. He and Grace don’t trust one another at all. Chanel is constantly making remarks about how they are Too Tall. Chanel #3 becomes a hunter by the end of it.

I feel like there’s also a lil somthing something between Pete and Dean.

Dean Munch is constantly hitting on Sam.

Denise is constantly trying to teach the boys about self defense (which is hilarious) BUT she knows a lot of obscure lore and winds up doing some hunting of her own. She’s in the FBI later and runs into Sam and Dean on cases all the time and TOTALLY covers for them. She NEVER thinks they are right about what the monster is, but she’s always good at reading people. Also, with as much as Sam and Dean change their aliases, she does NOT ever remember their fake names. She’ll be like “look at these two big white boys, they have to do whatever I say because I’m their boss, ain’t that something? You! Tall one! Sasquatch, i don’t remember your name, go and get me a coffee. Bowlegs, what you laughing for? Don’t you have paperwork to do?” She makes them do paperwork, she thinks it’s only fair if they’re going to pretend to be FBI. Anyway, they love Denise. She’s the one who is like “Dean when are you going to admit you’re in love with that angel?” which prompts a Dean freakout and Sam conference calls Chanel #3 and Charlie to figure out how to talk Dean through his sexuality crisis

The OTHER option is Late Seasons where Sam and Dean go undercover as professors. Obviously it’s easier for Dean to be like, security or cooking with Sam stepping in for a philosophy/religion professor who got killed but I LOVE the idea of Professor Dean Winchester because you KNOW he would be that insane professor that everyone wants in on their classes and every single student is madly in love with him. He doesn’t really want his students to come to class so he tells insane batshit stories from his life experiences as they pertain to the topic of the day, but this OBVIOUSLY backfires and makes him the single most memed professor on campus. He also has a reputation for Big Mom Energy. He sends emails like “hey class, I got thrown into a minivan by a demon-possessed soccer mom so class is cancelled tomorrow. please make sure to do the discussion board questions and come to next class prepared to discuss the significance of cattle mutilations. xoxo Professor Winchester”. THE MAN DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO FORMAT PROFESSIONAL EMAILS, WHEN WOULD HE HAVE LEARNED THAT I ASK. He has snacks in his office ALL THE TIME and when he learns one of his students has a wheat allergy suddenly gluten free homemade snacks start appearing.

At some point Crowley stops by and everyone is like “??? is that Prof Winchester’s ex??” because OBVIOUSLY the guy who wears a trench coat and pops up at the most random times and stands super close to Dean is his HUSBAND (”who was that?” asks a student who sees Cas right before Dean’s office hours. “he’s an angel. he pulled me out of hell”. Prof Winchester is OBVIOUSLY a hopeless romantic!! who knew!!!)

meanwhile Sam is Losing His Shit. He keeps texting Eileen, Rowena, and Jody. Dean Munch will Not Stop Hitting On Him. 

I don’t know what the plot is, it’s mostly Shenanigans and soft bois in sweater vests. Claire might pose as a student. With Kevin and Jack. It’s just highkey chaos for them while Dean and Sam are being the most abnormally normal people they’ve ever been

[ahalal-uralma]

1. What is Chaos magic to you?

2. If someone has used it to affect change on a major scale in this world but those around have mismanaged these changes, how does one evaluate responsibility to those changes?

3. If someone has abilities in a world where others have none, is it solely their responsibility to fix everything and save everyone?

4. Have you experienced observational paradoxes? (You see or experience something alone, but attempts to explain what is seen cause things to change or cease existence)

1. Chaos Magic is a philosophy and practice of varying energies pointed to a single path. It’s a goal set by it’s practitioner beginning from a state of emptiness. All that isn’t in order to arrive to what truly is and shall be.

“Nothing is limited, because all things shall exist without limit” and yet “everything has meaning, but not all things have purpose.” To understand it, you have to understand what is contradicting your understanding.

I would recommend researching the works of Hugh Urban as his studies relate to many topics of religion, spirituality and the principles taught in chaos and discord magic. You might actually be able to make a personal inquiry and directly contact him at: urban.41@osu.edu You can find more info about him here: DOCS

He is a theology professor at the University of Ohio. He proposes in his book Magia Sexualis that chaos is “the rejection of all fixed systems of reality.” He studies many topics relating to the secrecy of religion (ie. from Christianity to Scientology) and the practices of magic. He is also well-read on the works of Anton Lavey, Aleister Crowley, etc.

Make sure, if you decide to establish any kind of communication, you do so with kindness and appreciation for his time. It’s vital you practice good manners, patience and courtesy. You have to remember that you are not entitled to his time, energy or knowledge. I would make at least one effort to read one of his publications before making an effort to reach out to him, in the event you might not be one of his students. 

One book to start your reading on Urban’s observations of magical practices is: New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements. His other work ‘Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism’ further ventures into the ideas of defying the rules of magic while giving a niche analysis on historic, cultural and religious impacts on sexuality.

Other authors include: Peter J. Carroll, Adam Blackthorne, Andrieh Vitimus, etc. I am not read on all of these, but know they look into the specific work of chaos magic.

One site I swear by for books relating to witchcraft, the occult, ceremonial magic, etc. is MiskatonicBooks.com.

Miskatonic Books are a wonderful retailer in my personal experiences with them. I was referred to them by a reputable esoteric magician I am close friends with. This shop carries many high quality, beautiful and well-researched products. You are bound to find a good assortment of books that provide further knowledge on the practice of Chaos Magic. I own a couple of volumes from Mark Alan Smith myself that I got from this shop. Not chaos-related, but still informative. Costly, but worth the money. 

If you want access to a free database full of resources and knowledge, I would look into Project Gutenberg which is an online library of over 60,000 free books. You are bound to discover free content to assist your learning.

As with anything, cross reference and further research any information you choose to absorb. Do not be afraid to crack open a history book or to look up records. Do not settle your education on the words of one person or location.

Chaos Magic is magic that inherently is not, while arriving to the observation that what is not magic could become it.

Magic works by the rules of existing energies—Chaos Magic defies and denies these rules. It declines the traditional methods that create magic to arrive to it’s own process of creation.

It’s what might be and could be, once you wipe out the distractions of stars. You are building from the vacuum with nothing confining you. You are not depending on earth or air alone. Your options become wider and more infinite and yet you are only focused on a singular direction.

It’s a rejection of everything in order to first observe nothingness and what needs to be created in spite of it. You are setting forth to create something from that nothing.

Personal words I like to apply are “anti-cosmic magic” or “anti-matter magic.”

Words known to describe it are “results magic,” “discord magic,” “havoc-related magic,” “the magic of cause and effect,” or “success magic.” These all make it more straight forward, but overly simplified and still misunderstood.

This might seem like a destructive process, but it’s a destruction of distractions on a mental and spiritual level. Self-discipline is one of many important elements to Chaos magic. It is not physical destruction. It’s not self-destructive. You are creating physically in the state of your best and most focused self.

You are eliminating what does not serve your soul purpose. It can mean the elimination of negative energies or material removal of what is lacking value and growth. It can be as simple as the changing of a few articles of clothing or the more nuanced changing of relationships and/or locations.

You are basing your needs and wants on internal necessity and not external desires. You are not to be bothered by the will of others. They might serve a setting, but they are neither the explorer or the map. Your only duty to the external is to understand how it connects to your path potentially. How it might impact your work. However, your ability to find your set destination and execute the results of your decisions is your challenge to conquer.

You can put yourself in the shoes of another, see how they might feel and react to the thing you are trying to pursue; but, their reaction can not stop you from reaching the end result. It only means you might have to adjust the details to arrive to the best possible outcome.

You benefit to observe an external force (like a person) as you would the rain.

On a rainy day, look and imagine you are going on an errand. If you let them bother you, you’ll get nothing done. An adjustment would have been to take an umbrella or wear a raincoat. Ride the bus if you have to. Otherwise, you’ll stay indoors wishing away the rain and it can go on for days. Meanwhile, someone else is facing an entire storm and having the time of their life.

Moving on, see yourself in space.

You are a wormhole. An enigma to those who have heard about you.

See yourself operating like a wormhole. You are the wormhole—what spawns going in and what spawns coming out—acting as both process for manifestation and transition. It can look like pure chaos to outsiders—but, it is contrary. You are acting as organized chaos.

Everything has a point it must reach. You are dictating what shall exist and what will not travel through you. What doesn’t, will not be and never was. You are not concerned by what doesn’t fit into the portal. Your only focus and responsibility is what you designed to reach the other side.

Before you can do all of that, you have to understand the existence of things. All that surrounds you interconnects and follows a specific path.

2. You are not wholly responsible for the decisions and actions of other people; and neither are they wholly responsible for your choices, as they are their own people.

It’s not your problem to fix the moral values of people. If they want to do harm, they will do it regardless of what you say about it. We have to accept there are people in the world bent on creating adversity no matter the time, place or circumstances.

You share partial responsibility if you were a voice of support and complacency and vice verse. How that is resolved is situational. You can not fix a broken knife the same way you can resolve a burned woodland. Some situations require greater patience and diligence to fix.

It takes a discerning and empathetic eye to recognize the wrong that was committed. It takes even more humility and a courageous heart to correct a wrong. You might have to go through many trials and errors before the right choice is made and the better outcomes result.

You may not be able to stop others from doing ill, but you can control what you do. You do not have to be an active participant in the damage being done. It’s acceptable to step back and say “I do not want a part of this situation.”

You might find opposition in your intentions to find peace. Ignore them. If it’s an issue of power falling into the wrong hands, you are just going to have to analyze, plan and counter that grip with a more capable and competent set.

Where there are strong, corrupt people, there are also even stronger, heroic ones willing to challenge them on the battle field. You might not feel the strength to get cut, but there might be someone who shares your values and a thicker skin.

You do not need to disturb the minds of those who are not concerned. Plenty of resources and information can point you in the direction that will lead you to the right people.

You need to surround yourself with strong people that desire the greater good. Research is a wonderful and mandatory tool if you’re going to present an argument for how bad things are to them. It’s not enough to accuse something of being bad.

And if you need to involve someone like the authorities, do so with honesty and integrity. You must have evidence and witnesses. You must have an authentic and grounded story with no loop holes or embellishments. Do not fill information up with data and details that do not exist. Do not create false proof. Keep your mind clean and your actions even cleaner.

Investigators are smarter than you and the criminals involved. It’s their job. Lying helps no one and nothing. If you lie, you will aggravate the problem and the consequences will find and hold you accountable for it.

You can not allow yourself to form a corrupted mindset within the attempts to destroy those with corrupted actions. You have to trust that the corruption will also betray itself. Bad things do come to those who act poorly.

3. It’s not your responsibility to save the world. It’s noble to want to help others, when you see that you possess an advantage—but, do not drain yourself and make yourself a slave to the will of others in the process of accommodating circumstances you feel are calling to you.

Know your limitations. It’s fine to realize you have them. Everyone has limits to what they can accomplish. It’s normal to have limitations. What isn’t normal is to overexert yourself and insist they don’t exist. They exist. You need to rest and rethink your goals in a way that is productive to achieving them.

If you recognize there is an obstacle in your way, then find a person who can assist you to overcome that obstacle. Just because you possess knowledge, skills or powers others don’t—does not mean you can not deplete your existence and do yourself great harm.

You are not invincible. You did not exchange your humanity for these abilities. You do not have to commit to self-destruction to save everyone else. If someone is insisting that you strain yourself for a cause—you have to ask why. Is it the cause they are worried about, or just how things appear to benefit them at your own expense?

4. Everything is a paradox of something else. To quote Charles Addams, “What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” Or to alternatively state it: everything is a contradiction to the existence of something else.

Your best shield, your most effective weapon to cope with and defeat something that appears to contradict you is to understand it’s pattern and how you might adapt it; even though, the contradiction in itself seems like a random occurrence, it is actually not so.

Humans are following a law. Nature is following a law. The universe is following a law. A cycle. If you practice chaos magic, then you are learning to disrupt the direction of a cycle (or cycles); essentially, this means that you are adapting to the idea of embodying contradiction rather than following it’s rules. You are meeting contradiction with contradiction.

(Just don’t actually break the law of the land)

You are no longer seeing the world as the bird locked in a cage with a poor and limited view. You have to see yourself as the person carrying around the cage, unlocking it and releasing the bird back into the world to see it better.

[walpurga-nacht-academy]

Wondering what the dorm leaders would think of Yoru, and what they'd think of her not being able to attend due to the uniform, even after passing the entrance exam? 👀👀

I’m adding Alkin too, ‘cause he’s a good kitty. 

“I remember her from our admission exam and Sorting. ... I kinda wish I told her back then how cool her eyes looked! But if I say this now I’ll definitely look like a weirdo, won’t I?! It’s really frustrating!” 

Rosalia Morgainne: Though they would be in the same year if Yoru had stayed at Walpurga Nacht, Rosa did not find much of an opportunity to talk to her even if she would have liked too. She thinks Yoru’s eyes are very cool and intimidating and wondered if people would take her more seriously if she had something like that as well. The fact that Yoru keeps forgetting her name easily riles her up so she’s not had the opportunity to tell her what she really thinks of them. 

“This girl... It’s an unfortunate situation but rules are rules and we cannot make exceptions even for one person.” 

Blanche Dion: Though she insists this is the way things must be, Blanche understands that Yoru’s situation is unfair since she as a beastfolk knows that customized clothing is usually necessary for them. However, that’s how far her compassion ends since otherwise she would be annoyed by her disregard for rules and would probably try to scold her if she caught her breaking them. Blanche is already annoyed that she breaks into the school library quite often, but is at least tempered by the fact that she hasn’t found a way inside the Grimmaire Great Library. Yet. 

“Oh, man! Those wings would have been a big help with the Delivery Service on campus. Imagine the kind of speed she’d have... Ah, but then again I might have been left out of job, hm...”

Marcia Pyroeis: As a naturally friendly person, Marcia wouldn’t have hesitated to befriend Yoru, especially since they seem to both enjoy the feeling of flying. She’d most likely have invited Yoru to join her in being part of the Walpurga Nacht Post Office since her wings would have given her a great advantage. Also, she would like to try and race against her as part of her flight practice if she ever found the time. She’d express sympathy towards her for not being able to attend due to her uniform issues, but can’t really complain much since hers was a hands down from her older sister. 

“That one... ain’t she friends with that ghoul and the creepy one? Ugh... just thinkin’ ‘bout them makes my skin crawl. Ain’t nothing good ‘bout keepin’ company with them...”  

June Himalia: June’s a difficult person to get along with most of the time, since it’s easy to rile her up and if she sees Yoru get along with Vita and Agatha, it’ll leave her with a bad impression of her. She deeply dislikes those two and would think she’s fool for getting along with such unpleasant people. If Yoru messed with her garden she’d definitely get pissed and won’t hold back. Yoru’s situation doesn’t concern her much since she sees it as merely a case of life being life and thus unfair. 

“I understand. I always get scolded for rolling up my sleeves. Even though animals don’t need clothes...”

Diana Arrow: Out of all the girls Diana would probably understand the unfairness of Yoru’s situation the most, since she herself gets in trouble just for rolling up her sleeves when wearing her uniform. She likes that Yoru is friendly to crows, since she also looks after all the animals that reside in Walpurga Nacht. Though Yoru might have a big of a shock seeing her walk about Monarchia’s plains naked if she ever decides to drop by. Moreover, Diana would compliment her bird features since she genuinely thinks they’re beautiful. 

“Miss Crowley’s wingspan is fantastic! I’ve never seen feathers in such vibrant colours and they’re all well taken care of too- Um! I’m sorry, that must have come across as disturbing.”

Cassandra Delphinne: Much like Diana, Cass would admire Yoru’s bird features, but because she fears she might weird her out, usually keeps it to herself. She also thinks it’s unfortunate Yoru couldn’t attend the academy because then she might have felt more comfortable approaching her in order to befriend her. Cass sometimes spots her when she drops by Walpurga Nacht and makes note of the state of her wings in her little agenda. 

“Yoru... Big Bro and... Big Sis both... like her... so... I like... her... too... And... hehehehe... it’s always good... to... meet people... who think... alike... hehehe...” 

Agatha Voisin: Agatha’s personal philosophy is that anyone that gets along with Sam and Vita is her friend as well, since she looks up to both of them. The fact that Yoru doesn’t recoil from her also earns her some points in Agatha’s book, along with the fact that she’s willing to lend some of her blood for experimentation. Agatha might even ask Yoru to drop by once in a while so she can join her and Professor Yaga during one of their experiments. Yoru should definitely expect a lot of witch cackling and being called ‘crow meat’ during those meetings. 

“Yoru Crowley... Yes, I recall her well. Her father was rather pleased to see her admitted, so much that he became bothersome. It’s a shame that nothing could be done about her attendance, but... Astra’s legacy must be preserved.”

Alkin: Though Alkin is more acquainted with Crowley, he was able to recognize her as his daughter the first time she showed up at the school. Though he thinks it’s a shame how things turned out, he sees it as inevitable since his Mistress’ vision must be preserved. Maybe that’s why he turns a blind eye whenever she breaks in to check out the library and alchemy laboratories as long as she doesn’t cause trouble for the other students. If Yoru brings him a can of sardines it makes it even easier. 

[blackjack-15]

Death, Philosophy, and the Runs — Thoughts on: Legend of the Crystal Skull (CRY)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. Like with all of the Odd Games, there will be a section between The Intro and The Title called The Weird Stuff, where I go into what makes this game stand out as a little strange.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: CRY, mention of CUR, mention of ASH.

The Intro:

 It’s time for New Orleans, y’all.

Legend of the Crystal Skull is a game that’s often rated highly by the fandom, especially for its atmosphere (which is among the most well-done and pervasive of the whole series). Honestly speaking, were it not for the mental health/death/immortality storyline(s), CRY would simply be a Jetsetting game a bit out of order, given its fascination with its location (even if the amount of locations is slightly smaller).

One of the high points of this game is honestly its location and ambiance. CRY takes the idea of the “dark and stormy night” and plays it to perfection, cloaking everything in such thick atmosphere that the players, like Nancy, can’t always see the way ahead, and have to take leaps of faith every once in a while.

The characters contribute to the thick atmosphere; Bruno is a shadow, Henry’s hiding everything under a guise of nonchalance and a fishnet glove, Renée is all gardening grandma hospitality but never says anything about herself, Gilbert has Southern Manners while avoiding saying anything bad even when he means it, and Lamont refuses to get involved in anything outside his shop. They aren’t perfect suspects, but they’re good characters, and it elevates the game.

Bess’ hesitance to delve into this atmosphere makes her the perfect partner for Nancy who begins by investigating just who the Skeleton Man was who attacked her before spiraling deeper and deeper into the mysteries surrounding Bruno Bolet and his crystal skull.

But while the costumes, pageantry, puns, and secrets all contribute to the atmosphere, nothing quite reaches the same level of Sheer Aesthetic as Bruno’s last years being dedicated to finding a crystal skull. Glittery and gothic with power over life and death, it’s easy to see why the game is named after it (which, of course, I’ll get into below).

This isn’t to say that CRY is all sizzle and no substance — far from it. CRY doesn’t attempt to teach the player the entire history of New Orleans, the complex background and practices of voodoo (or any of its other sister practices), nor does it get into iguana physiology or the mechanics of how to make someone sneeze or get the runs.

While education is of course present in CRY, it’s more centered in philosophy than in hard, straight facts. Professor Hotchkiss – a returning character perfectly suited to the French-influenced New Orleans and her love of slightly sinister history – gives the mission statement of the game, summing up its central philosophical question – “Does this mean that there mysterious external forces at work in the universe of which we do not and cannot ever have full knowledge? Or does it all boil down to us? If the human heart desperately wants something to be true, does the human mind have the power to make it true?”

It’s a fascinating question, and touches on all sorts of real-life phenomenon – the power of suggestion, the placebo effect, intelligent design, among others – without ever seeming like HER is trying to Teach a Lesson. Out of all the edutainment elements in this series, CRY (and I would add ASH in here as well) features some of the most subtle work that HER ever accomplishes.

The Weird Stuff:

Of course, a discussion (one-sided as these metas mostly are) of CRY wouldn’t be complete without addressing the things that qualify it to be a truly Odd Game within the Nancy Drew franchise.

The first and most obvious is that we’re dealing with death – and a recent death at that — for the first time in a while. We’d have to go all the way back to CLK to see another death of a relative not long before the mystery starts, and Emily’s mom’s death and Josiah Crowley’s death don’t hang over CLK the way Bruno Bolet’s death hangs over CRY.

Bruno is given instead more weight – part of the mystery is figuring out who he was, what he liked, what he wanted, and what he did every day, especially leading up to his death. The house is almost a stand in character for Bruno; it reflects him perfectly, including all the things that were important to him, and just as determined to keep his secrets. A lot of Nancy Drew games have the house/location as a character, but only a few associate the location with a specific character, and CRY does it possibly the best.

The second thing that makes this game so odd is the showcasing of an abusive relationship. Sure, Summer doesn’t hit Henry or anything, but is just as abusive all the same, and the game doesn’t shy away from showing her horrible behavior and the effect that it has on Henry. He stays with her because, like a lot of abuse victims, he doesn’t think he can do ‘better’ – that somehow this is what he deserves – and the only slight problem with how it’s portrayed is that we don’t get to see Henry leave her and be happier.

Lastly, in an oddity for Nancy Drew games so far, mental illness is put at the front and center of the game (rather than being a one-off random thing not really mentioned like in CUR). Henry, separate from the abuse he receives from Summer, is obviously depressed, and the game doesn’t really shy away from showing it. Sure, they might not use the term “clinical depression”, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not acknowledged. Henry’s depression, his sadness, his feeling of being out of control and yet still tied down – that permeates every moment of the game, and especially his conversations with Nancy. The whole reason Nancy’s there at the Bolet mansion in the first place is because Ned was worried about his shy, depressed classmate.

Gosh, Ned is such a good guy. He deserves so much better than Nancy “Lacks Tact” Drew.

Unlike a lot of the “Odd” games, the odd things in CRY don’t detract from the game; they make the game what it is. It’s a bit more mature, a little more introspective, a touch less black and white than most of the Nancy Drew games have been up until this point. No characters are simply caricatures, there’s very little stereotyping (for a ND game), and it’s not pointlessly spooky or try-hard in any way. CRY is the rare game that simply is what it aspired to be; while what it aspired to be was odd (and it is Odd), it doesn’t make it bad. It makes it feel genuine and honest – and after ICE, I can’t think of anything better for a game to aspire to be.

The Title:

We’re getting to the portion of Nancy Drew games where, regardless of the quality of the actual games, their titles are smash hits every time. “Legend of the Crystal Skull” is an incredibly good title on multiple levels.

First, it tells us what the game is about – not the Crystal Skull itself, but the legend of it – the myths, mysteries, and effects of the Skull. Not only does it (correctly) indicate that this game is a little more about philosophy than it is about something concrete.

The second thing it does is establish a sense of mysticism that is reinforced the second the game begins. We’re in New Orleans, we’re learning about this Crystal Skull, it’s dark, rainy, and spooky, there’s death and specters and possibly more afoot…and this doesn’t start with the Skeleton Man cutscene, or the phone call, or even the warning on the screen to play with the lights off – it starts with the title.

The Mystery:

We begin with Nancy and Bess visiting New Orleans – the French Quarter, to be specific – for a fun little vacation, only to be met with a Dark and Stormy Night. Ned, knowing of his girlfriend’s plans to visit New Orleans, asks her if she can check up on a classmate of his who’s going through a hard time: Henry Bolet.

Determined to get the visit out of the way, Nancy leaves Bess back at the hotel and traipses over to the Bolet Mansion. When she walks in – I know, honestly, Nancy –  the open door, she’s greeted by a person in a skeleton costume in the front room, rather than a miserable college student.

She’s soon knocked out by the Skeleton Man, coming to when an elderly woman offers her an odd concoction and the Skeleton is long gone. Soon, Nancy discovers that Henry’s dead uncle was in possession of a Crystal Skull that was to protect its owner against any source of death other than murder, the plot starts to thicken quicker than a bubbling roux.

CRY is home to an incredibly solid mystery, full of atmosphere, colorful characters, and even a food minigame as if to draw me in specifically. While I don’t think it’s the best Nancy Drew game by a long shot, I would say that it’s definitely the best of the Odd games, and by far the most successful mystery + atmosphere combination that we’ll have until we reach SAW, quite a few games later.

Now, let’s move on to our colorful characters.

The Suspects:

We’ll start with Renee Amande, as I think she’s our first character who is properly introduced post-cutscene (with her concoction). Bruno’s elderly housekeeper, Renee is a practitioner of voodoo (kind of) and a believer in the crystal skulls – she wants to reunite all thirteen of them to move the world to a higher plane of understanding.

Our villain, yet not our killer – not directly at least – the only thing Renee is guilty of other than attempted murder of a plucky Illinois detective is falsifying a letter. The shock of the “false” crystal skull shocked Bruno so badly that he had a heart attack and died, but Renee didn’t actually kill him. She’s one of those villains in Nancy Drew stories who commit a minor crime, and jump immediately to murder when she’s discovered.

As the villain, Renee is actually the only suspect that could even work. The game plays with Dr. Buford and the mysterious Skeleton Man, but in reality Renee’s the only one with motive and opportunity. But, given that Nancy spends 3/4ths of the game trying to figure out what crime has actually been committed, rather than working with cold hard facts, that works out pretty well.

Henry Bolet, on the other hand, is apparently catnip to a good section of the Nancy Drew fandom, and is the closest thing to a living victim that we actually have in this game. When his parents died, he was shipped off to live with Bruno – and Bruno shipped him off to military school, so he should be a bit more muscular than he is – and he’s never gotten over their deaths.

Like, “Nancy finds him crying over his parents” kind of never got over their deaths.

I’ll be honest, while I know lots of people who did Love him with everything in them, I never really saw the appeal of Henry Bolet as a love interest for anyone, or even as a compelling character. His voice actor – Brian Neel – does a great job, with his voice definitely being the part of him with the most obvious appeal, but otherwise…maybe it comes from my distaste for underdog stories, maybe it’s that I’m no good with crying people, who knows.

As a suspect, Henry’s pretty much out from the moment that he confesses to Nancy that he sold a trunk for quick cash for his abusive girlfriend. HER isn’t bold enough to have that be a lie, nor are they dumb enough to make him the culprit after that. Henry’s out of the running for most of the game, but he never really becomes Nancy’s confidante, not like other early-clear suspects.

Henry’s an interesting puzzle as a character, but that more comes from his place as the central piece of CRY’s “Oddness”, rather than any interest in him as a possible suspect.

On the other end of fandom appeal lies Dr. Gilbert Buford, whose greatest sin as a character is declaring an obvious heart attack an obvious heart attack and using regular, polite Louisiana manners for a man of his age while interacting with a character who obviously has no problem with it at all.

Dr. Buford is hard at work giving the majority of Bruno’s characterization that doesn’t come from his house to him, as well as giving a truly excellent scare when finding Bess in the Secret Meeting scene. As a suspect, Buford is a moderately good one – cagey, a doctor, knows about the Skull – but ultimately falls short as he just has too many of his own secrets to carry.

I personally like Gilbert Buford as a character, and find him an entertaining source of exposition – but then, I grew up around Southern manners (and military manners, which aren’t too dissimilar), so that might be the reason why.

Rounding out our suspect list – though barely qualifying himself, honestly, is Lamont Warrick, owner of a curio shop and intensely vulnerable to hot sauce and sneezing powder.

One can only imagine the Horror that would occur if Nancy were to mix those two allergens. Well, one can also Giggle at the mental image, but still.

As a suspect…well, even HER knew that he was a non-entity; his biggest part to play is actually after the game concludes, where he closes his curio shop in order to search for Bernie, who has swallowed the crystal skull.

I guess someone had to search for it? I’d love a follow-up with him, maybe over Labor Day, or Memorial Day, where Bess goes back to see if he’s had any luck, only to find that he found a dead body along with the alligator, and in order to not get suspected for the murder, they have to bring the body with them and pretend that it’s alive, taking it to bingo games over the course of the 3 vacation days.

Yes, that was all to set up a bad “Weekend at Bernie’s” reference. Hush.

The Favorite:

As you might have guessed from…well, most of this meta, one of my favorite parts of CRY is the sheer atmosphere that the game embodies from its beginning through the closing puzzle.

The Bolet mansion is just the right amount of cluttered yet comfortable, shadowy yet detailed, and gloomy yet homey to be a nigh-perfect location. The graveyard isn’t hard to navigate, is filled with puns, and does a lot of the character work for Bruno and (to a slightly lesser extent) Henry while allowing both characters to be private and a bit mysterious. The greenhouse is simultaneously cozy and elegant and yet slightly cage-ish and slightly claustrophobic.

Even the locations that Nancy stays away from — the hotel balcony, Zeke’s, the food truck, the secret meeting — are thick with a different kind of atmosphere: less wet, less foggy, more brightly lit, more French Quarter than haunting mansion. Bess’ locations are welcoming yet secretive, perfect for the reluctant amateur-amateur detective who just wants her vacation to be fun and mystery-free.

Adding to the atmosphere is the sheer number of cutscenes/cinematic camera usages in CRY. The opening with the Skeleton Man, Bess getting caught at the meeting, opening the final crypt, Renee shutting the tomb…they’re all so perfect, and do a great job at making you feel really immersed in Nancy’s New Orleans experience.

My favorite puzzle is honestly finding the glass eyes. CRY isn’t really a game I remember for its puzzles; they fade a little bit into the background (with the exclusion of a couple I don’t like) because they’re well integrated into the story, and because the game doesn’t really grind to a halt to make Nancy complete minigames like in, for example, CUR.

My favorite moment is split between two very different moments. The first is, unsurprisingly, the conversation with Hotchkiss mentioned above where she lays out the theme of the game. It’s a shockingly nice moment in the game, coming in the start/middle of the mystery and being a familiar face – er, voice – for Nancy to get help from. It’s a moment that lets you stop and think about what Nancy’s actually dealing with, rather than effectively pausing the game through a rhymed puzzle about the skull or other such nonsense.

The other moment is a little more obvious and a little flashy – the moment when Bess is discovered at the Skeleton meeting. The tension right before, the sudden pop-up of the skeleton mask between the boxes, the conversation afterwards…it’s just as close as possible to a perfect scene. It’s long enough before Bess is discovered that the player can kind of get comfortable, but not so long that it drags on. The moment of discovery is startling, but not scream-worthy or too scary to replay over and over or in the dark. It’s just great.

The Un-Favorite:

There’s not a ton to complain about with CRY, but I do have a few small things that make replaying it somewhat of a chore.

The first is my least favorite puzzle: the loquat bug spraying. It takes a long time, it feels shoved in the game just to have an extra puzzle, and Nancy can only take one loquat at a time. I feel like the player should be able to take up to 3, and then come back and do it again if they need/want any more loquats. Honestly, it’s a puzzle in a place where a puzzle really just shouldn’t be.

My least favorite moment in the game would probably be the chest that Henry sells to Lamont. After selling it and building it up for quite a few minutes, it’s kind of a letdown that it only has a few things it in. This would have been a great place to have more character-building work done, but instead the focus is on “how do we find it/open it” and less on “what can this do for the story”.

Finally, I mentioned it above, but I’m not a fan of how Lamont pretty much is a non-entity in the game. I’m fine with one suspect being less suspicious or having less ‘dirt’ on them than the rest, but Lamont really doesn’t have anything on him. He’s never a suspect for the Skeleton Man, he doesn’t really do anything sketchy…he’s just underwhelming.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Legend of the Crystal Skull?

I think really the only fix that I would attempt is to give Lamont a little more plot significance. Sure, his curio shop is beautiful and wonderful and important to the plot, but Lamont himself really isn’t. In order to include him more in the plot, make Lamont a bona-fide treasure hunter that manages the curio shop for cash in between expeditions. He’s heard that Bruno has a treasure that people have killed for, but couldn’t figure out what it was before Bruno’s death. He buys the chest from Henry and searches it top-to-bottom trying to figure out if it’s hiding something since it’s obviously Bruno’s personal chest.

To add a bit more importance, I’d place him at the Bolet mansion on the night of Bruno’s death as well. Renee’s there, Dr. Buford is there, Henry we’ve already written off completely in the actual game as a suspect, so Lamont should be there as well, snooping around to try to figure out what treasure Bruno’s got and if he can persuade him to sell it (or at least let Lamont see it). Nancy can match footprints in the garden to his boots, or some other method of proving he was there. I’d just like for Lamont not to drop off the map early on. It also makes his canonical ending that much neater.

Honestly, that’s it.

Sure, I’d appreciate the loquat bug spraying minigame to be fixed as well, but CRY is honestly a pretty character-based game, thick with philosophy and legends, and it doesn’t need a ton of help in that area. Make all the suspects viable for most of the game, and I think an already entertaining and atmospheric game would be just a little bit better.

[ivory-line]

Good Omens Fic Recs

I know a lot of us are cooped up right now and I’ve read so many good fics I thought I’d put a list together!

Reviews of AZ Fell and Co Antiquarian and Unusual Books | NR | 33k | IneffableFangirl_writes

A fun series based on Yelp reviews for the bookshop

Flowers From The Grave Of Our Friendship | E | 50k | WaitingToBeBroken

Crowley is very good at temptation, not so good with what comes afterwards.

Aziraphale knows demons don't love so he is happy to take anything Crowley would give him.

Both of them are too blind to realize the thing they want is right in front of them.

Instructions Not Included | T | 68K | atalan @seaskystone

"They'll leave us alone. For a bit."

One year after the Apocalypse-That-Wasn't, Crowley and Aziraphale have settled into a new routine: keeping an eye on supernatural happenings in the world and preventing Heaven or Hell from interfering too much with humanity. It's not a bad job - despite occasional rains of fish - and if there are some unspoken things they really ought to talk about, well, they have all the time in the world now to get around to that, right?

At least, until the Archangel Raphael turns up on their doorstep looking for help... and it starts to become clear that the world is changing fast, and so are they.

Or: Crowley and Aziraphale start a detective agency. Shenanigans ensue. Slowburn continues. Apparently, there is plot. I have some thoughts about Heaven, Hell, and humanism. There will be stupid jokes and a healthy sprinkling of angst.

a/n: one of my fave post canon fics, the plot is super engaging and i loved raphael

A Kiss Is Just A Kiss | E | 10K | juliet

“The rules are: apart from kissing, you don’t touch me, I don’t touch you. For the next two days.”

constellations | T | 6k | northerntrash

In which Aziraphale tells a story, and Crowley threatens to burn down the house.

a/n: i’ve read this this fic like ten times. funny and tender and very them.

Remembrance of Things Past | T | 18K | fyre

“You didn’t think we would just forget about your misbehaviour, did you, Crawly?” Crowley locked his hands around the steering wheel and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, heart thundering. The bookshop was up ahead. Couple more blocks and he’d be within the protective mantle that covered the place for fifty metres in every direction. “It’s Crowley now,” he said through bone-dry lips. “Oh no, darling,” Lucifer’s malevolence thrummed in Freddie’s voice. “Not anymore.”

Strange Moons series | E | 145K | @racketghost

A 12 part series from WWI to their dinner at the ritz after the swap. Enough pine to build a house. Heartbreaking and hot and I definitely shed a few tears.

AUs

i've found a way (a way to make you smile) | T | 40k | curtaincall @fremulon  

Crowley worked in Sales. He had never intended to work in Sales. It had just sort of happened. One moment, there he’d been, a newly minted university graduate off to change the world, exquisitely useless Philosophy degree in hand, and now here he was, having sauntered vaguely downwards into a Hell that consisted mainly of cold-calling new customers and sucking up to existing ones. AU based on The Office.

with all your delights | E | 61K | weatheredlaw

Crowley laughed. “I thought you’d have realized by now. I am no ordinary king.”

“No,” Aziraphale said. “You certainly are not.”

or: aziraphale is sent as a gift to the southern king to smooth over trade negotiations. they both find themselves in over their heads.

Slow Show | E | 95K | @mia-ugly

In which temptations are accomplished, grand romantic gestures are made, and two ineffable co-stars only take four seasons of an award-winning television program to realize they’re on their own side (at last, at last.)

a/n: i’m sure most of us have read slow show by now but i just have to include it. it broke me into a million little pieces and put me back together again. i don’t think a day has gone by that i haven’t thought about this fic

Golden Handcuffs | E | 70k | seekwill

Far from any city, near the Scottish coast, Tadfield College has a celebrated history, an unrivaled academic reputation, and two departments at war. When the Biology and English departments are forced to share a building, Senior Lecturer and botanist Anthony Crowley finds himself drawn into the orbit of the polite but strange English professor, Dr. Aziraphale Fell. As the new term begins, two academics navigate the politics of both their offices and academia, and try to solve the puzzle of one another.

This definitely isn’t a complete list, just a few of the fics in my bookmarks. I’ll try to make some more lists (I left WIPs off this list but I have a fair few I wanna share) and in the meantime I’ll go ahead and link a few of my own fics and direct you over to @go-events since the rom coms are being posted and they’ve all been fantastic.

If a link is broken or I’ve missed anyone’s @ then feel free to shoot me a message!

[featherquillpen]

good omens / good place

“I’m completely on board for this Soul Squad idea,” Chidi says, “seeing as it’s way better than the alternative of succumbing to the existential terror, but I still have some questions. Like how? How are we supposed to push a soul on track from the bad to the good? We’re a demon, four hell-bound humans, and a – a Janet! Isn’t there some book we could read?" Eleanor starts one of her full-body eyerolls, so Chidi course-corrects. “An expert we could ask. Are there any, I don’t know, guardian angels on Earth trying to nudge people in the right direction?”

“Each side only gets to have one agent stationed on Earth,” Michael says. “I’ve been warned to stay away from the one from my side, they say he’s gone cuckoo after six thousand years on Earth. We could try the other one, though he might have also lost his marbles. Janet, where’s the Good Place agent on Earth?”

“I can’t live-update his position while I’m on Earth,” Janet says. “But according to my records, the Principality Aziraphale spends 82% of his time at A.Z. Fell & Co. Rare and Antiquarian Books, Soho, London, England.”

Tahani clapped her hands together. “Oh! Does this mean we get to go to London?”

“The only angel living on Earth owns a bookshop,” Chidi says, his eyes lighting up like he’s been promised a thousand chocolate-dipped orgasms. “That makes so much sense.”

“Ugh,” Eleanor says. “Of course the only angel on Earth is a boring nerd. Why can’t angels be hot like demons?” When the others all stare at her, she throws her hands up. “Oh, come on. Michael’s a silver fox. I’m just saying. I’m not gonna make it weird or anything. (1)”

Nobly deciding to ignore this, Michael says, “Fine, we’ll ask him. But if he tries to smite me, I plan to run like a chicken.”

It takes a three-hour stakeout to catch the bookshop opening. Chidi, Jason, and Tahani spend the whole time trying to come up with a list of the questions they want to ask a real, actual angel (2). Eleanor doesn’t want to ask him anything. She knows she’s not going to the Good Place, so why work herself into one of her death spirals of jealousy?

Chidi makes a beeline for the aisles as soon as they walk into the bookshop. “Ooooh! Is that a signed Slavoj Zizek?”

A man who Eleanor could only describe as a cross between an English professor and a historical re-enactor descends on Chidi from the back of the bookshop like the wrath of God. He watches Chidi like he might try chewing or humping the book instead of reading it. He says frostily, “Can I help you?”

“Show me your philosophy section,” Chidi says, in the tones of a starving man asking for a single potato chip.

“Chidi, please focus,” says Michael, stepping forward. “This is the angel we’re here to talk to.”

The bookshop guy’s eyes widen when he looks at Michael. “Crowley!” he calls. “One of your side is here! Could you please ask him to go away?”

“WHAT!” cries a voice from the back of the shop.

“Now, we don’t need to get nasty,” Michael says. “This isn’t an official visit. I have four humans and a Good Janet with me, see?”

“A Good Janet? My, I’ve only ever heard of you from the architects, I’ve never seen one of you before... your design is quite ingenious, my dear.”

“Thank you!” says Janet, beaming back at him. That leads to more beaming, in a feedback cycle of completely genuine smiles that’s starting to give Eleanor a headache just looking at it. 

“He’s really an angel?” Jason said to Michael in a way he probably thought was subtle. 

“Yes,” Michael says, squinting. “He’s actually kind of blinding to look at if you can see in all twenty dimensions.”

“Dope!” Jason says, grinning. “The bible study teacher at Lynyrd Skynyrd High School always said that gay people can’t go to heaven, and I told her that was stupid and got detention. I was totally right!”

“Jason...” Tahani begins, glancing at the angel. “He might just be overenthusiastic about vintage clothing.” Eleanor rolls her eyes at Tahani. Angel or no angel, this guy is obviously gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide (3).

That's when six feet of bad ideas squeezed into a pair of black skinny jeans appears in the aisle behind the angel. “Keteb? Is that you? What are you doing on Earth with a Good Janet?”

Guh. Eleanor was totally right about demons being hot. 

“Please, I go by Michael these days,” Michael says. “When you have to deal with condemned souls all the time, it’s so much easier if you use a name that sounds familiar.”

“You named yourself after an angel? You have some cheek, you have.”

“This is all a very touching reunion,” Tahani says, “but we do have some rather important questions about salvation and the immortal soul, so if there’s some place where we all might gather for tea...”

That finally seems to break the angel out of his endless cycle of glowing smiles and compliments with Good Janet, which were getting so intense that Eleanor’s eyes were starting to water a little just seeing it from the side. “An excellent idea. There’s a table for eight miraculously free at a lovely cafe down the street.”

(more to come? probably. stay tuned.)

Footnotes:

(1) She didn’t make it weird, but Michael felt decidedly weird sitting next to her the whole flight to London. Did she want to touch her wet mouthparts to his? He hoped not.

(2) Jason wanted to know why angels help baseball teams win but not football teams.

(3) This was fine by Eleanor, who was herself gayer than a sleepoverful of middle school girls practicing how to kiss.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Today in historical figures Crowley and Aziraphale definitely interacted with:

I cannot believe it took me this long to think about the fact that Karl Marx lived in Soho in the 1850s. And while I think Crowley maintains a skeptical distance from human political philosophies, he and Marx would definitely have been drinking buddies. Are you even kidding me. This is Crowley’s brother from another mother when it comes to having long rambling arguments while shitfaced.

Maybe they meet at the Red Lion pub. Marx is there after a meeting and Crowley’s just...there. It’s 1851 or so. The titanic revolutionary wave that swept through Europe in 1848 has mostly been rolled back, and Marx and his family are refugees in London, living in a terrible, crowded flat on Dean Street.

Crowley’s not down to commit to any cause (he’s pretty wary after how the whole rebellion in Heaven thing turned out) but he loves drinking and debating, two things Marx does quite a lot of, and if Hell asks it’s easy to spin this into something about fomenting discord and political upheaval. Most of the time Engels picks up the tab; occasionally Crowley does just because the evening’s been so entertaining; he hisses at Engels not to make a thing of it. Jury’s out on who Crowley tells them he is. He’s well-dressed and clearly educated; he can switch between German, French and English effortlessly as the conversation does, and he seems to know an incredible amount about certain specific parts of world history.

Crowley’s feelings on revolutions are...mixed to say the least. He’s seen enough human ones (and one celestial one) to know that the unfortunate thing about revolutions is that they mostly lose, and you wind up back in the same shit, only worse because now you need to be taught a lesson. Or possibly you wind up in a whole new pile of shit that you never even imagined when the barricades started going up.

So he can’t honestly say that he likes revolutions. But he understands them. He has a gut hatred of injustice, and he’s been in the mills and the slums, and the conditions are horrible, and humans are such damnably stubborn fighters; is it any wonder that they try to make things better? A system can only withstand so many contradictions before something breaks.

But Crowley likes talking about history--he was there for it, after all. And Marx is smart, restless and curious and unsatisfied with pat answers in a way Crowley appreciates. He wants to take everything apart and understand it. He could have been a philosophy professor, living a cushy life and thinking very profound thoughts about nothing of importance whatsoever, but he wanted to be a sodding journalist; he saw how unjust the world was and couldn’t resist getting involved, and he’s mostly suffered for it. Constantly abysmally poor, kicked out of every country he’s ever lived in, effectively a stateless person who probably would have starved by now if not for lucking into having a rich bestie who keeps the family afloat. Crowley has a certain sympathy.

(He definitely brings Marx by Aziraphale’s bookshop, and not just because it’s an excuse to see Aziraphale. The angel mostly finds human politics dreadfully boring, but he loves talking about philosophy, and is more than happy to let Marx stay there for hours and read, and the shop has some rare manuscripts that even the British Library doesn’t.)

Sometimes they wind up back at the Marx family’s shitty flat; it’s crowded and the kids are always running about amidst empty wine bottles and cigar smoke and swearing and other things unsuitable for children, and Crowley secretly loves it. Marx’s wife Jenny can hold her own in any debate with a roomful of men and deliver a sick burn that makes even Crowley do a double-take. And Hell help them all if Engels’s partner Mary is also there; she can drink any of them under the table and destroy the most delicately-constructed theoretical argument with a bit of working-class common sense. (She’s a mill worker; Engels is a mill owner; they’re not married; by all rights it should be creepy but no one who’s ever met Mary Burns could think of her as the lesser partner in a relationship.)

They’re always hosting one or another political visitor or recently-fled exile, despite the flat being hardly big enough for the family as it is. Sometimes the guests are hilarious and sometimes they’re insufferable. If they’re particularly obnoxious, Crowley will make excuses to linger in the kitchen with Helene, the housekeeper, and the kids. (Yes, they have a servant, sent by Jenny’s parents; they mostly treat her like part of the family but it’s still a bit weird.) Once she’s convinced that this isn’t some ploy to hit on her; that no, this odd gentleman really does enjoy hanging out with a housekeeper and three precocious children under seven, she’s got plenty of opinions of her own and is absolutely merciless about roasting the various characters who come through the flat.

The Marx family flat in Soho is a roaring good time, except for the times when it’s not. Three of the seven children Jenny births die there. Crowley always stays away for a while after that happens; mumbles something about a trip to the Continent. He has an escape from that pain and he’s cowardly enough to take it.

He thinks about doing something for the kids, thinks about it far more than is prudent. But he can’t; they would notice; he knows they pay attention to that sort of thing. (The only time he can get away with saving individual human lives is during a mass casualty event, when there are so many souls ascending and descending all at once that no one will miss one or two.)

Sometimes he really does go to the Continent, come back a month later with a few bottles of booze and a couple tidbits of news about the latest unrest in wherever, and he’s always welcomed back.

I’m not sure if Crowley ever consciously works out that he has some feelings about Marx and Engels’s continent-spanning bromance; about the way Engels is always there for his disaster friend without a shred of resentment; there with money for the doctor or the rent when it’s not going to come from anywhere else; there with a bottle of nice wine and the bed linens Jenny took to the pawn shop last week; there with a soothing word to the editor when Marx has missed yet another deadline because he got hyperfocused on figuring out why the fuck the Panic of 1857 was happening instead of whatever he was supposed to be writing about. Or about their constantly-evolving, messy but loving extended political found family where debating and questioning, always questioning, is the lingua franca. 

That’s probably too much introspection for Crowley. Let’s just stick to enjoying a good bottle of red. That hasn’t led him astray so far.

[ineffably-good]

Faeted (Good Omens AU)

Summary:  Ezra fell is an English professor at a prestigious academy for boys. Crowley is the lord of the Unseelie court in the lands without sunrise or moonfall. Somehow fate will bring them together.

Excerpt:  “That’s the only part that concerns you?” Ezra exclaimed. “My heart’s desire is apparently a large reptile and you’re just concerned about the laws of magic?”

Read it on AO3!

Chapter One

Ezra Fell laid down his chalk and turned to face the twelve teenage boys in his care. Twelve bodies ensconced in navy blazers jittered in barely concealed anticipation; twelve pairs of eyes jumped between him and the clock on the wall, ticking loudly as the last minutes of Friday lecture faded away.

There was no competing with the weekend, even at a school as prestigious as St. Aloysius Academy.

“Yes, yes, all right,” he sighed. “I expect you all to read the next section of the Faerie Queen for Monday, and to complete your permission slips for next week’s field trip.”

The bell clanged and the room was suddenly awash with the screeching sounds of chairs being pushed back and students exploding into motion.

“Class dismissed,” he called futilely, over the chaos.

Ezra sighed and wiped the chalk dust from his hands as he returned to his desk and began to straighten up his papers. There was a knock at the door and he smiled to see Miss Device, his friend and the resident art teacher, standing in the doorway. Her dark brown hair was pulled back in a braid and there were tiny bits of paint speckled on her glasses and her cheek. She still wore the smock she’d placed over her dress to protect it from her students’ creative endeavors.

“Survived another week, did you?” she asked with a grin.

“Indeed I did, my dear,” Ezra replied. “And you? Still employed I assume?”

“So it seems,” she said. “So that’s a score of two for us, zero for the urchins. We just might get through this term yet. Supper at the pub at seven?”

“Of course! Wouldn’t miss it.”

Anathema sketched a little wave and disappeared around the corner towards her own room.

Read it on AO3!

--

Ezra gathered his things into his leather satchel and made his way outside. It was a beautiful fall day, and the air was crisp and bracing. He stretched in the angled sunlight for a moment and then headed off towards his home.

He passed through the school gates and enjoyed the walk for another twelve minutes before he found himself arriving at his own doorstep – a small, tidy, whitewashed cottage, just the right size for one. Many of the instructors at the academy lived on campus with the students, but Ezra valued his privacy and his quiet reading time too much for that; he’d felt lucky to find and purchase his own modest little home so close to the school when he’d been hired on five years ago.

He stopped to collect his post and examine the flowers in his front window box, and then let himself in with a contented sigh and immediately set about putting a kettle on to boil. Time for tea.

The clock over the mantel showed that he had a little over two hours before he needed to meet Anathema. With a happy wriggle, he carried his tea over to his favorite arm chair in front of the fire, sat down, and picked up the copy of The Mabinogion he’d been reading. It took him just a moment to find his place, and then the world disappeared as he was lost in tales of pre-Arthurian Britain.

--

Anathema was waiting for him when he parked his bicycle outside the pub later that evening. She waved to him from their usual table in the front window and he noted she had two pints ready for them.

“So, what were you reading that made you late this time?” Anathema asked.

“Oh, doing some background research on old Celtic and British legends,” Ezra answered. “Faeries and mounds and elfshot and fairy stroke and what have you. Fascinating stuff! I’m taking the boys out to visit a few sites on Monday afternoon and want to give them context.”

Anathema nodded. “Faeries,” she said solemnly, “are not generally the nice little creatures that people like to imagine. They are dangerous and unpredictable and not to be taken lightly.”

Ezra examined her closely. “In literature, you mean,” he said pointedly.

“Whatever makes you happy,” she said with an ambiguous smile.

“I know you believe in magic, of course, but are you telling me you believe in the fair folk too?”

Anathema shrugged and took a long drink from her pint. It left a bit of foam on her lip that she licked off before answering. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Ezra tutted at her fussily. “Now, now, using Shakespeare to win an argument with an English professor is completely unfair.”

“Who ever said I play fair?”

“Indeed,” Ezra said with a fond smile. “I keep forgetting that.”

They turned their attention to food, then to sharing the latest gossip from their respective departments as the munched on their fish and chips.

“What is your coven up to tonight, then?” Ezra asked pleasantly.

“Oh, you know. Preparing for the larger gathering next week. Scrying.”

“What are you scrying for?”

She shrugged. “It varies from person to person. Glimpses of the future. The face of your one true love. The essay question that will appear on next week’s exam.”

He laughed. “And you find that this works?”

“Well maybe not for essay questions,” she said with a wink. “Although if the will is strong, anything is possible.”

She stopped and looked at him more closely.

“Oh now, don’t start, my dear,” he protested, knowing what was coming.

“You should come join us,” she said. It was an old refrain and quite possibly the hundredth time she’d brought this up.

“My dear, covens are for women,” Ezra said primly.

“No, they aren’t,” she said. “We are an equal opportunity coven. And you’d fit right in.”

“Perhaps some other time,” he said, signaling for another round of pints.

“Really, Ezra. We’ve got a few men who work with us regularly. And with your powers of concentration and imagination, you’d be a natural.” She peered at him. “What’s the harm in giving it a chance?”

Ezra had to think about that one. Born into a conservative and very rich family, he’d long since abandoned his family’s religious beliefs and instead devoted himself to a life of the mind and the senses. He considered himself an open minded man, and didn’t mind at all that his closest friend considered herself a practicing witch. But to try it himself?

Anathema leaned forward and prepared to break out the big guns. “Really Ezra,” she said. “Where’s your academic curiosity?”

She sat back and tried not to grin while she watched that comment land.

He huffed in mock disgust. “You,” he said, shaking a finger, “are a menace. You are an American menace, come to Great Britain to corrupt the souls of our young.”

She continued to grin smugly at him, one eyebrow coolly raised.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he said. “I’m not coming to your coven. But perhaps you can show me something about how scrying works, after dinner. I do admit to some curiosity about the process.”

Anathema made a fist pumping gesture, which Ezra primly ignored.

--

“Do you have some ink?” Anathema asked as they entered the cottage.

Ezra gave her a stern look and gestured around him at the overflow of books, papers, notebooks, and pens lying on every possible surface. “What do you think?” he asked. “Of course I have ink!”

“Grab it,” she said, “and a pitcher of fresh water, and a silver spoon if you have one, and meet me in the back garden.”

“No niceties? No sitting down for a biscuit first?” he teased.

“I’ve got a coven to get to in an hour,” she said, pushing her glasses back up on her nose. “If you want a little tutorial, we’ve got to do it now.”

Ezra set about gathering the items she’d asked for, placing them carefully on a wooden tray, and then stopped and added a few biscuits on a plate too, just in case someone got peckish.

When he emerged in the backyard, he found Anathema had upended the brackish water and leaves out of his old, stone birdbath and wiped it as clean as she could with just her hands, and then had pushed and pulled it out of its usual corner beneath the plum tree into a spot where it was open to the sky above.

“It’s actually a beautiful night for scrying,” she said. “Nice bright moon, no wind…”

“Oh lovely,” Ezra said, a tad sarcastically.

She punched him lightly in the arm. “You asked for a lesson in scrying. Don’t be a bastard.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, smoothing his face into a more agreeable expression. “What do we do?”

“First pour the water into the bowl,” she said, indicating the birdbath. “And then add a few drops of ink to make it darken. Then stir it with the silver spoon, three times clockwise.””

He did so.

“Now,” she said firmly, “it’s mostly about your intention at this point.”

“My intention?”

“What do you want to see?” she asked. “You don’t have to tell me, but think of a question in your mind, as clearly as you can, and focus on it while you take deep breaths and calm yourself.”

Ezra sat back and thought. What did he want to know? He thought about asking it to show him his family and what they were doing, but he wasn’t really interested in that, to be honest. His parents were undoubtedly at some fancy fund raiser, as that was how they spent most of their weekends, and his older brother was undoubtedly preparing for tomorrow’s sermon at his swanky parish. None of them were thinking about him and seeing them would just point out how hopelessly different their lives were from his.

Did he want to know about the possibility of love or romance? To be perfectly honest, he wasn’t sure. He’d never had a strong feeling that love and romance were for him. He hadn’t ever really met anyone who evinced a strong interest in him, other than the occasional school crush on an older boy or two. These interests were passing and short, and he’d found himself mostly content with his life alone. He had his books, and his students, and a few good friends. It wasn’t out of the question that cupid could encounter him someday, but it hadn’t happened yet.

“I don’t know what to ask for,” he finally admitted.

Anathema studied him quietly. “Why don’t you ask it to show you what you most need to see?”

He straightened up and smiled. “Why, my dear, that’s a perfect solution. Nice and open, difficult to misinterpret. I do like to be precise.” He closed his eyes and took a series of long, slow breaths. He concentrated on that statement, repeating it over and over. Show me what I most need to see. Show me what I most need to see. Show me what I most need to see.

After a few minutes, he felt calm and centered, and he opened his eyes to look at Anathema, who was watching him closely.

“Lean forward,” she said, “and look into the water. Keep breathing and try to relax, and just wait.”

“That’s it?” he asked doubtfully.

“That’s all it takes,” she said.

He placed a hand on either side of the cold stone basin and leaned forward to stare at the reflection of the moon in the dark, inky water. Nothing happened for several minutes. There was only his face, watery and distorted, and the reflection of the moon, wobbling a little as gentle ripples made their way out from the center of the pool. He realized he was holding the edges of the basin with a death grip and tried to loosen his hands a little, letting the tension flow out of him.

He took a deep steadying breath and leaned in a little further, still repeating the words in his head, and suddenly the image in the water shifted, into a pair of golden, snake-like eyes that blinked at him in surprise and then darkened in alarm. He had a brief impression of hair like flames and a sense of agitation as the eyes leaned closer towards the surface and then — disappeared.

Ezra leapt back as if the bird bath had bitten him.

“What did you see?” Anathema asked, taking in his breathless surprise.

“I — I’m not sure!” he stammered. “Eyes. Reptilian eyes. Possibly a snake? I think it saw me, too.”

“That’s impossible,” the witch said. “Scrying is one direction only; no one can see back across the connection.”

“That’s the only part that concerns you?” Ezra exclaimed. “My heart’s desire is apparently a large reptile and you’re just concerned about the laws of magic?”

Anathema started to make a smart comment and then noted his pallor and how rapidly he was breathing. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get a finger or two of scotch into you.” She took him by the elbow and led him into the house.

The encounter left Ezra off balance and out of sorts for the rest of the evening. He saw Anathema off after more tea and a bit of whiskey, then set about trying to settle down and focus on lesson planning, but found himself distracted by thoughts of those golden, reptilian eyes widening in surprise and alarm. Who on earth was that supposed to be? His soulmate? He might not know a lot about the larger world outside of the academy, but he was fairly certain that nobody human had eyes like that.

[sweetayako15]

Title: To Reason Religion

Word Count: 10k

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Rating: Mature

Pairing(s):  Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)

Character(s):  Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens), Gabriel (Good Omens), Michael (Good Omens), Uriel (Good Omens), Sandalphon (Good Omens), Beelzebub (Good Omens), Anathema Device

Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Aziraphale is names Azariah, Crowley just goes by Crowley, Aziraphale is a religious studies professor, Crowley is a philosophy professor, More like a lead up to the class, Rather than the shenanigans of the class

Summary:  Majoring in anything philosophical is usually seen as killing a career before it can even begin. Majoring in anything with a religious focus sends you down a narrow and poorly paved path to changing majors to archaeology or linguistics. Creating a cocktail of the two is a bitter and confusion-inducing field of study reserved for the more masochistic crowd.

[ao3feed-destiel]

Old Haunts

Read it on AO3 here!https://ift.tt/3a7NaID

by Unforth

Usually, Dean loves having a ghost for a boyfriend and a dom, but when Cas starts teasing him during Philosophy lecture? That's just damn awkward...

...and unspeakably hot.

Words: 3658, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Supernatural

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester, Crowley (Supernatural)

Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - College/University, Student Dean Winchester, Ghost Castiel (Supernatural), Dom/sub, Dom Castiel (Supernatural), Sub Dean Winchester, Public Sex, Professor Castiel (Supernatural), Age Difference, Bottom Castiel (Supernatural), Top Dean Winchester, Power Bottom Castiel (Supernatural), Implied Vers, Graveyard Sex

Link: https://ift.tt/3a7NaID

[gaslitbyamadman]

Aphorisms On Madness, Philosophy, & Society (from my book, Gaslit By A Madman)

Aphorisms On Madness, Philosophy, & Society (from my book)

Wittgenstein on Otto Weininger.

Wittgenstein once said about Otto Weininger: “If you were to reverse all of his assertions, they would still be equally fascinating and worthwhile. ” That tends to be how I view all utterances. (If only SJWs thought like this about all utterances!) This is much closer to truth as aletheia, the Greek and Heideggerian notion, rather than strict formal, propositional veracity.

If you believe in truth, you are delusional!

.......Thus, as things became even more extreme, and relativism spread from ‘values’ to truth itself, we increasingly began to see the crazed spectacle of Professors of Psychiatry ‘scientifically’ labelling everyone who simply happens to have different beliefs from themselves as ‘sick’ and ‘delusional’i. e meaning they have a ‘fixed false belief’. while their prestigious, highly rewarded colleagues in the Humanities, Philosophy or Literary Studies department loudly proclaim there is ‘no truth, only interpretations’! No doubt somewhere or other, the two doctrines have been combined and solidified in the very same individuals such that if you still believe in ‘truth’, you are delusional, i. e you have a fixed ‘false’ belief and require urgent ‘treatment’! Pretty deranged, eh?

Truth as the best healer

Real truth saves lives; real truth works better than any pill. Especially for the honest.

On self-identity and freedom of conscience

Nowadays, if a ‘woman’ came into a psychiatrist’s office and professed to be a Champion Bull, raring to butt horns in the otherwise peaceful long-grassed meadows of her youth once more . the good Dr. would quite rightly feel obliged to continue the interview in aggressive snorts and threatening raking at the carpet, like any other modern, non-bigoted professional. But if this erstwhile proud Minator were to opine that there is no such thing as ‘schizophrenia’ or ‘mental illness’, someone’s professional opinion would be gravely offended and someone else’s dosage – that of the poor, once righteous monster -- would be judiciously and roundly quadrupled.

Excessive codes of 'civility' as cause of hateful outbreaks

Excessive codes of 'civility', which rule out certain antagonistic, strongly felt forms of speech, when such cosy 'civility' is not truly felt are one of the leadingyet most over-looked causes of hatred and violence. The reason that throughout society and on all social media websites especially there is enforced civility is because the powers-that-be were afraid of people's differences being worked out in a peaceful manner and them growing united and thus harder to control and dominate.

Psychiatry’s inversion of health and sickness.

In all discernment between healthy and pathological behaviors, the key thing to be aware of is that the nature of the former is to be a deliberate, willful action -- realizing one's 'true will' to quote Aleister Crowley -- whereas that the latter is to be picked up unconsciously or half-consciously from one's environment, sometimes with a dimly conscious but burgeoning awareness that it is vulgar, stupid or slavish. Psychiatry precisely inverts the true nature of this dichotomy, labelling healthy, i. e willful liberation as pathological, and unhealthy, slavish unthinking conformity as healthy: it is the exact opposite.  "Its sickness is for its traits and the traits of its parts to be traits by which the soul does not do its actions that come about by means of the body or its parts, or does them in a more diminished manner than it ought or not as was its wont to do them. Al Farabi

Harm, punish, or 'treat'.

If you harm, punish or 'treat' an bad man, he might just re-consider his wicked ways; but if you harm, punish or 'treat' a good one, he is often liable or prone to re-consider his good ways.

The disadvantages of self-control.

The exhortation to self-control is really an exhortation to obedience and submission. (When they said I lacked 'self-control', what they actually meant was I wasn't controlling myself according to their demands. and they proceeded to take actual selfcontrol away from me) If we are really going to free ourselves of the crippling influence of convention and actually arbitrary, oppressive socalled 'authority', we probably ought to rid ourselves of all self-control that is not absolutely necessary.

Real change.

The cave-dwelling masses and everyday non-mental -patients, while all too fatuously and recklessly embracing ideologies of social 'progress', are frightened of a real change in their Being and locked into a pattern of stagnation and decay. The madman, (remember, the etymological meaning of the word 'mad' is to 'change') at least in the normative, ideal sense of that term, (as well as often he or she who is solabelled), has awakened to the need for spiritual becoming, both in himself and others.

Madness and Art.

Madmen and poets are alike: they both give freer reign to their emotional and linguistic expressions than is considered decent. And, both of them too, do it largely for socially admirable, therapeutic reasons. Albeit the 'mad' one is more often misunderstood, since people forget that all life, and the unartistic life most of all, is a good opportunity for art, for therapy.

The unartistic life is the most drab, automatic, unredeemed kind of life, in which salutary disruptions are still possible No one blinks twice if they see an eviscerated heart in an art gallery nowadays. But if they see an eviscerated heart while it is still in someone's chest. That's magic.

Autobiography of values as requisite.

To counter-act the tide of artificial, false pretenses to expert, scientific 'objectivity', and the docile, herd-like conformity that actually entails within social science, within the healing professions, and within society a whole, I propose that a personal account of one's life-story, focusing on how one came to arrive at one's central, integral values, become a standard for all such careers. This would be a move towards bolstering the development of personality and character throughout society, preventing people from hiding entirely behind their professional veneers, and presencing the real-lived experience and actual, rather than false selves, of individuals. I don't propose this merely as a helpful task for the 'professional' on the way to qualifying, but as a central piece that he must present to his or her clients/patients. A kind of C. V., but, as I say, with the focus on HOW HE CAME TO HIS CENTRAL CONVICTIONS ABOUT LIFE

‘Recreational’ drug use is medicinal drug use.

The potential of currently illegal substances such as LSD and DMT, as well as more common and less potent ones such as marajuana, to provide radical new, mad vistas of consciousness, and so heal the mental sickness with which mainstream society is so disastrously afflicted ( see the work of Terence Mckenna), is no less important than their capacity to treat physical illness or relieve physical pain. While all substances can potentially be used ill-advisedly, the depreciation of supposed ‘recreational’ uses ignores the dire and gaping need even so-called ‘normal’ people have for fresh inspiration, hedonic sustenance, and the health benefits that all true enjoyment, relaxation or true insight brings. It merely repeats the fallacious and artifical seperation between these supposedly mutually alien aspects of ourselves, a long with the superstitious, ascetic and crude utilitarian privileging of the mere functionality of ‘health’, over the supposedly wicked nature of happiness in this world --- a sad residue of religious puritanism and centuries of slavery to sadistic dogmas of control --even though it is only Epicurean pleasure that ultimately justifies life itself. This attitude is so pervasive and so perverse that it simply cannot be under-stated.Ravi Das, a neuroscientist at University College London who is researching the effects of ketamine said: “The potential benefits are definitely downplayed in face of these drugs being used recreationally,” he said. “People view their use in a research setting as ‘people are just having a good time’. ”From this vantage point, must one not wager the theory that almost the whole of modern medicine, most obviously in terms of mental illness, but even in its approach to illness as such --- including physical illness- -- as simply a form of prolonged Christian hatred-ofthe-flesh and jaw-dropping sado-masochism on a mass scale ? That is why Prof. David Nutt equated the barriers to research to the Catholic church’s censorship of Galileo’s work in 1616. “We’ve banned research on psychedelic drugs and other drugs like cannabis for 50 years,” he said. “Truly, in terms of the amount of wasted opportunity, it’s way greater than the banning of the telescope. This is a truly appalling level of censorship. ” Ignoring the importance of psycho-active drugs for promoting health is bad enough, but to ignore or denigrate the importance of pleasure to this aim, is like discounting the use of the eyes in driving to work in the morning! --.

Beyond rational self-preservation ((lock him up! He's a danger to himself.

.!)

. Enlightenment thinkers such Thomas Hobbes and John Locke tried to appeal to and foster what is called man's rational selfpreservation, inserting it above all other goals as the centrepiece and pivot of the whole of society. Notice here the two concepts, reason, on the one hand, and self-preservation, on the other, are heavily intertwined, which still remains the case today. Madness, on the other hand, is commonly associated with throwing caution to the wind, tightrope walking over a precipice just for the sheer Hell of it, and embracing a variety of dangers that may very well end in personal extinction. However, when one considers the nature of our own inevitable mortality, is making selfpreservation our highest goal really so rational? In order to face life in all its grim reality, is it not necessary, at some point or other, to eschew 'rational' self-preservation for a bold leap, (if only in the imagination, if not outward practice), towards an affirmation and embrace of this inextricable fatality? Especially if one seeks to give birth to something greater than oneself, like the Christ, and take on the grave sacrifices that sometimes requires. In other words, rather than 'rational self-preservation', isn't the ability for the‘insane self-annihilation’ of loving sacrifice equally, or an even greater sign of maturity - or of true morality? Thus also the Buddha would seem to have it, who equally, in view of the passing away of all earthly things, preached 'Loss of self' rather than the steady incremental Lockean accumulation of an estate that is eventually destined to perish anyway; he who is said, out of compassion, to have given his life up to be voluntarily devoured by a starving tiger. Reminds me of those ‘voluntary patients’ on the ward that I was on!—.

Consequences of the dehumanization of madness on the collective mind.

The villifIcation of madness and the various phenomenon which are labelled as ‘mentally ill’ in our society, such as ‘grandiose delusions’, ‘hallucinations’, ‘paranoia’, etc. , a long with all the other countless  represents a form of collective repression that not only has unspeakably dire results for those so labelled, but wreaks utter havoc on the collective unconscious and the collective conscious. Rather than being the shamen, the spiritual leaders of society, such men and women are quietly tortured and cast into ignominy. Thereby, society is not only deprived of its natural guiding elite, but everyone in society is trained to feel a senseless (‘paranoid’) fear and hatred of their own deepest spiritual roots, that prevents them re-connecting with these forbidden aspects of themselves and manifesting their true potential. Take for instance ‘paranoia’. This stigmatization of questioning the benevolent motives and fundamental agendas of one’s government is one of the most cynical and blatant causes of that government getting out of control and the citizenry failing to protect their own rights and freedoms. The same applies to all the other associated phenomenon of madness, which as has been argued, represent a perenial bed-fellow and midwife of intellectual and spiritual awakening. Just as the criminalization of drugs produces an association between drug-use and general criminality that does not exist independently, re-validating society’s negative view of drug-use in its own eyes, so the category of mental illness and the inhumane, disabling treatments with which those who fall subject to it suffer, is not merely a product of but re-inforces and creates society’s negative attitude to those who manifest these various ‘mad’ phenomenon. All the while, the fact that the sacred key to everybody’s own selfrealization is so maligned and spat upon understandably produces a deep, unacknowledged sense of disconcertedness and pessimism in the population as a whole, the root cause of many other of society’s ailments and self-destructive tendencies. In truth, the real mental illness is the senseless conformity which the ‘mental health’ establishment sacralizes. This sanctified madness then, unconsciously aware of its own shortcomings, in order to sustain its own self-conception as reasonable and sane, is driven to ever more fervent quest to identity and persecute those it delusionally deems ‘mad’, for the sake of externalizing and thereby gaining some sense of control over its own deepest insecuries, and having an Other to label & stigmatize in opposition to which it can re-affirm its own false, insecure and groundless sense of Self  

The question is.

why do 'sane' family members (& Dr.s & nurses) have such an enormous problem correctly even identifying their 'unwell' relatives extremely normal human needs? ~Max Lewy 

[icarusbuck]

give me english lit professor aziraphale x religious studies (and/or philosophy) professor crowley. give it to me right the fuck now please. 50k slowburn of these two orbiting one another and secretly deeply in love

give me aziraphale who deliberately but quietly goes against policy and gives students an extra week for their exam

give me crowley having the most informal class structure one could imagine (we’re using “structure” in the loosest possible way here), having open forums where discussion takes place and he secretly only grades them on how many questions they’re asking, fuck the tests

give me aziraphale asking crowley if he has any recs for books on plato and socrates, and three days later crowley drops a stack of books so high aziraphale, who’s seated, can’t even see his face behind them

give me crowley asking aziraphale what he thinks of the books, a week later, and aziraphale instantly gushing about the floral writings for a solid ten minutes before he notices crowley staring at him, his eyebrows lifted just a little in an unreadable expression, and he trails off, flushed, nervous, stomach fluttering as crowley’s smile breaks free and he asks another question