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spacedace · 1 year ago

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Reluctant War AU Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

More of the brain worm that has taken me over, gonna probably post it to Ao3 here before too long. Already got another part started and so many ideas for additional stuff, someone please send help I've been consumed by this thing lol

Sorry if Waller seems out of character, outside of fandom I'm mostly familiar with her through Justice League the animated show & Justice League: Unlimited and her vibe there has always struck me as "deeply incredibly unlikable character that also kind of has a point but also has done so much fucked up shit in the name of her goals that you don't really care about her point anymore." So you know, complicated lol. If she's completely unrecognizable let me know, but I'm hoping she feels at least somewhat like Waller.

Forgot to say this in the last update, but still feel free to use all this as an overly long prompt if yall want. Literally anything I throw out to the void should be treated as a prompt lol If there's anything at all interesting to you in any of this nonsense go for it <3 <3 <3

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Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Ruthless, heartless, vicious, cruel.

She’d been called it all. Wore the words thrown as insults as a badges of pride and valor. Because at the end of the day, when it came to the problems she was given to face, the issues she was meant to solve, those words meant she’d done what others had been too squeamish or cowardly to do. Life was a never ending slog of trolley problems and she the only one unshakable enough to pull the levers that needed pulling.

It wasn’t so simple as a matter of greater good.

Greater good was what the weak willed muttered to themselves after having feelings over doing the bare minimum. A justification used by people on all sides to do what they wanted with fractured, faulty logic thrown around like truth was a thing immutable. To assuage their guilt when they were forced to make a call they didn’t want to.

It wasn’t a matter of greater good. It was a matter of preservation. Of protection. Of digging through the filth to find the threats skittering beneath and crush them with ruthless abandon. Of facing a god and not blinking because if you did it could cost the world.

Of doing what needed to be done, no matter how underhanded or atrocious it was.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the throat of something that could threaten to destroy it all.

When the Ghost Investigation Ward had been shoved her way with it’s sucking wound of a budget, it’s bloated incompetent staff, its asinine methods she’d seen a rotted limb in need of hacking off. It hadn’t been until she’d been conducting her inspection, digging through the trash for a few pearls of effective agents she could snatch up and put to work elsewhere, that she’d truly seen what they were working on. The potential.

Potential to better arm themselves with in the forms of the strange new weapons being created.

Potential for threats far greater than anything even she had thought possible before.

The GIW as it had been when she’d first come across it was a fetid waste of time and resources. A laughing stock agency only secret because no one took them seriously enough to look. Made stupid and useless with its own conceited delusions of importance it didn’t actually have. Yet.

She went to work on it. Hacking away as she’d originally intended, but this time with a different goal in mind. She ripped out the weeds with bare, calloused hands and planted proficiency and loyalty in their place. She took over as director herself, tossing the self-aggrandizing fool that had been running the place into the ground to the dogs as the culprit for misappropriate spendings, saving the agency by tweaking things until their ballooning budget was pinned neatly onto the former director as an embezzling charge.

Then she got to work.

The Fentons were brilliant, if entirely insane. But Amanda could work with that. She’d reigned Harley Quinn in - more or less - she could do the same to the two deranged scientists that so eagerly wanted to be apart of the fight against the dead. Especially when the benefit came in the form of the inventions they threw together so easily, especially when those inventions were weapons.

It took very little to get them on board with her plans for the GIW. Keeping their focus could be a chore, at times, but she didn’t even have to really do much in the way of pressing to get them back where she wanted them. They craved knowledge and understanding nearly as much as they craved the eradication of the entities themselves. Letting them have the first look at a new subject here, free reign over a vivisection there, it took so little to fuel their fervor and keep them busy working on the projects she set for them.

Things had been going smoothly.

For a time at least.

Until Phantom.

He’d been the main focus of the previous director’s attention, the big fish he’d so desperately wanted to catch and put up on his wall. Amanda wouldn’t lie and say it wasn��t a tempting prospect, but not one she’d put above the other projects she had set in motion since taking over. No, Phantom was powerful, enough to be a real problem one day, but she could the awkward youth in the way he held himself, the inexperience in how he handled situations. She had time to get everything else in order before focusing on getting Amity Park’s would-be hero brought to heel.

And he would be brought to heel. One way or another.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the Core of a fledgling god and bending him to her will.

An artifact, old an powerful, recovered with some effort. A means of controlling specters, of chaining them to the will of the artifact’s wielder. Dangerous in the wrong hands. Dangerous in the right hands.

It was shattered, and even whole and functional Phantom was resistant to its power. But Amanda Waller prided herself in her ability to see the potential in things. It could be repaired, be made better. Even gods could be bound, be made to kneel, with the right pieces, with the right application of force.

It was just a matter of time to gather everything needed.

Phantom didn’t know he could single handedly destroy every last member of the Justice League. The baby fat, the innocent eyes, the split-second hesitations when he fought. He knew enough to be confident in fighting the usual ghosts that haunted Amity Park, but he still very much saw himself as a little fish. Maybe it was the part of him that was still Daniel Fenton, gangly teenager not quite sure what he was truly capable of yet.

She had time before the Fenton’s son truly became an issue. Time to judge if his parents’ obsessiveness would overcome their - rather shoddy, by Amanda’s estimation - parental instincts and continue to hunt him once they knew the truth. Time to get as much out of them as she could before hand, should they falter at the idea of attacking their own son. Time for the staff to be repaired and returned to working order, to get the other items needed for the truly big fish hidden on the other side of the veil between worlds.

She had time.

Until she didn’t.

Pariah Dark had not been something she thought she’d have to account for - not yet, at least.

If he wasn’t already dead, she’d ring the Ghost King’s neck with her bare hands. His arrival had opened Phantom’s eyes to what he was capable of, of just how big of a fish he was. Worse still, Phantom’s defeat of the war mongering King changed the state of play. Phantom was no longer an impressively powerful half dead teenager.

He was King Infinite.

He was an Ancient.

He was getting on her last damn nerves.

Phantom’s rogue gallery were now firmly under the boy’s control. Still distinct nuisances around Amity Park, but no longer considered true concerns. They were loyal to their boy king, delighting in ruffling his feathers but never crossing the line into treason or attempted regicide. Which meant that the GIW was the only thing that held his attention.

Amanda took the time to send a care package to the former GIW director in his tiny, dank prison cell. As thanks for his carelessness in revealing to the entire town - both living and dead - of the agency’s existence and their intentions. Had he stuck to standard protocol, Phantom would have been none the wiser to their presence. Would have scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders at the ghost that went missing upon occasion. Would have been boredly uninterested in the people his parents had begun working with. Would have been taken by surprise when they finally came for him.

But no.

No that self-obsessed, fame chasing imbecile had to go and announce to everyone and their dead mother that the GIW existed and exactly what it was they were in Amity Park to do.

Phantom knew what they were there to do.

They could only count on his naive certainty that he could broker peace with them for so long.

Peace. As if he and his people weren’t the invading force, the monsters slipping in through the cracks between worlds, the latest threat that had to be accounted for. As if he himself hadn’t rent their world asunder himself in another world, another time. No. Peace was not something they could hash out with this baby-faced monarch with his too-big crown. Peace was the assurance of safety, security. Of control of the situation.

There could be no peace.

The higher ups were somehow surprised when Phantom took that to mean there would be war.

Amanda Waller was not.

The Fentons, as suspected, took the right side when all was revealed. Steady hands and flinty eyes as they crafted the weapons that would be needed for the coming fight. Minds even sharper in their maddened grief, hearts set on revenge for the son lost and the entity that stole his face and friends and sister in his garish pretense at humanity. They were blinded to the reality of the situation in its entirety, the potential in what their son truly was, but at the end of the day it didn’t really matter. They did what she needed them to do, they could believe whatever it was they wanted so long as they did.

By the time the boy king and his armies marched upon the Amity park facility, preparations had been put into place. The base in Amity had been stripped back to bare essentials, everything of importance moved to more secured locations.

The weapons labs.

The artifact.

The girl.

All tucked well away from the front lines where Phantom and his motley crew could not reach. Their time to be put in play would come, but not yet. First she needed to gauge what Phantom and his people were capable of, what they were willing to do in the name of what they wanted. Amity Park was a pawn well sacrificed on that front. As were the other facilities she’d left easy to find.

The problem with making children gods, with giving them crowns and calling them King and giving them armies to play with, was that they thought there should be rules. That even in the trenches tearing apart their enemies, there was a certain level of playing fair that everyone was held to. They thought there was a way the world worked, of how things should be that blinded them to more effective options even as time stretched on and desperation set in.

It was the Dead’s problem though, not hers.

She reached out to the Justice League. Sour faced, unhappy, bitterly reluctant to accept that she needed their help. Stone faced and barely containing their rage at what little they knew of the situation, they agreed to a meeting.

She didn’t let herself smile until she was well and truly alone in her office.

Greater good. A lie people told themselves. A fairytale told to children. A means of convincing the weaker willed that they had no choice, that they had a noble duty to bend to. A belief that could be wielded like a weapon if the fantasy of the idea had dug in deep enough. And there were few it had dug into so deep as the members of the Justice League.

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands clenched tight on a victory long in the making.

---

Part Four

#dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #danny fenton #amanda waller #GIW #ghost investigation ward #Jack Fenton #Maddie Fenton #bad parents jack & maddie fenton #cause none of this is angsty enough yet lol #tw references to vivisection #tw references to death #waller out here playing 3d chess #of course she wasn't surprised by the inevitable war she was just hoping she'd have her secret weapon ready before it actually kicked off #oh well she still has plans B - J to get through #and all the variations for each #gonna take care of her ghost problem and her justice league problem in one fell swoop if she gets her way #just throw some GIW agents into the meat grinder for a bit while she gets stuff in order & so she can see just what Danny is willing to do #anyway wonder what Elle is up to during all this #i'm sure she's fine and there's nothing to worry about #waller playing the long con yall

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matan4il · 8 months ago

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Some thoughts, on this complex Purim...

-> As a reminder that the Bible never forgets to root the stories of Jews anywhere in our eternal bond to the Land of Israel, because Judaism itself is intrinsically Zionist, the story of Mordechai begins by recounting his family history, and how his family in Persian originates in Jerusalem (Esther 2:5-6).

-> The story of recruiting Esther to save the Jewish people (Esther 4:10-14) includes a warning from Mordechai to his niece, not to think that she of all Jews would be spared the genocide of her people that Haman is planning, just because she dwells in the house of the king. This is absolutely relevant for all self-hating / self-erasing Jews, who have internalized antisemitic narratives, and think they will be treated better, or simply be better, by adhering to the idea of being"good Jews," meaning throwing the rest of us, along with essential parts of Jewish history and identity, under the bus.

-> But the meaning of the warning goes deeper than that. Esther is not being unreasonable when she doesn't want to go to the king without having been summoned. If he accepts her, she would be fine, but if he doesn't, which seems more likely (as she states he hasn't called for her in a month), she will be killed (which is not a fate she's likely to escape even as the queen, when King Achashverosh has a history of getting rid of defiant wives, as recounted in Esther 1). Is Mordechai's warning enough, then? Esther's death seems much more assured if she defies the king personally, than the possibility that her being Jewish might be discovered. Appealing to her sense of self preservation alone would not be enough, then. Which is why I think Mordechai did more than that...

-> Mordechai uses words of warning, but he's reminding her of a core Jewish value: that WE see our fate as being inherently linked to that of the entirety of the Jewish people. When Mordechai says she alone will not escape, he may not be talking about concrete death. Maybe no one would figure out that Esther is Jewish. Maybe she will be safe in the king's palace. Maybe she would physically survive Haman's planned genocide of Jews. But would she actually survive in such a case? She IS a Jew. And as such, one of our core values is Jewish solidarity, caring about every other Jewish person, being a part of the greater Jewish community. If that's all gone, if every Jew other than Esther is killed, and if the only reason she remained alive, is because she betrayed a core part of being Jewish, which is caring about her people, didn't she truly survive, is she still herself?

-> And then Mordechai also makes her an offer. He has faith that somehow, even though there's no reason to believe this would happen, the Jews will be saved. Mordechai doesn't ask her to save the Jewish People, because otherwise they are doomed. He trusts that there will be a miracle. He's offering her the chance to be that miracle, the chance to be remembered as the savior of the Jews, instead of her memory forever being tainted as a traitor to her people. If she did choose her own life instead, it is certain in his mind that she's as good as having perished, even as all the Jews will be physically saved.

-> And after having shared with her his faith, he appeals to hers. Maybe she can trust in God, that she of all girls in the vast Persian Empire became queen, exactly so she could help save her people.

-> And in response, Esther asks Mordechai and the Jews to fast for her. She will go to the king, she will do what she can to stand by her people, by her Jewish values, by her identity, by her faith, even if it will result in her death (Esther 4:15-16).

-> Purim is the ultimate story of how much Jews can make a difference. God is not mentioned in any way in the Book of Esther. There's faith expressed in the salvation of his people, there's the implication that it was possible thanks to him, but this story is about the bravery and strength of regular Jewish people, and how their choice to stand by their morals, by their faith and by each other can even prevent a genocide.

(in the following photo: Purim 1946, Jews reading the Megillah, the Book of Esther, at a Displaced Persons camp in an American-occupied part of Germany)

-> And to me, that's the ultimate reason why Purim is such a cause for celebration, when we have to be happy. Not just because we were saved (and as always when we have been, we get to eat). It's also because we get to celebrate ourselves as regular people, our values, and what we can achieve when we don't give up on them. That in turn becomes a source of strength as well, and helps us to keep going. It's a self perpetuating cycle of the best kind. It is no surprise to me then, that even during and after the Holocaust, whenever it was in any way possible, Jews celebrated Purim.

(in the following photo: Purim 2024, kids in the Golan Heights laying down on the ground in their costumes, as a siren goes off)

-> For most of us, this is the hardest Purim to celebrate in our life time. I pray it stays that way, and we never experience anything near what happened on Oct 7 again. And still, I feel called upon to remind myself and anyone interested, that we must celebrate. That we have to make sure genocidal antisemites don't rob us of our joy and strength, of our sense of community and what we can achieve together. That we should remember even more than in other years what regular people (Jews and allies) managed to do, simply by standing by their morals and humaneness. That we can have faith this will continue to fuel us as we move forward and, as we have had to do in the past, find a way to re-build ourselves and our future, committing ourselves to making it better than what we had before.

(in the following photo: Tel Aviv's Purim street celebration in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel declared Independence)

(in the following photo: Jerusalem's Purim street celebration, 2024)

Chag Purim Sameach!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish #israel under fire #israelunderattack #purim

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the-mountain-flower · 2 months ago

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The Exiled and The Outcast

Chapter Five: A Rose,

Dainix noticed his leg was bouncing when it bumped against the desk, startling him out of his reading stupor.

How long had he been doing that?

He tried not to worry about it too much, and went back to scanning the open book in front of him for anything useful.

Except… once interrupted, it became surprisingly difficult to go back to focusing on his task.

His mind kept wandering, and he found himself fidgeting with anything he could get his hands on.

Dainix sighed and leaned back in the chair.

He was bored out of his mind, subconsciously looking for anything else to do other than sit there and read for hours on end. Doing nothing but his exhausting search for-

Wait a second.

Just how long had he been at this? How long was it since he last got some exercise, how long since he’d been outside?!

He’d arrived at the castle only a few days ago, almost a sef at this point. The second day he’d gone to buy food, but other than that… he’d been in the same two rooms, repeating the same routine. Wake up, eat, research, eat, sleep, repeat. For five days .

Gods, no wonder he was so restless! He hadn’t stretched his muscles or even seen the sun in almost a sef!

Dainix stood up the second that realization set in, almost knocking over the chair in the process. He was out of that library that exact moment.

It was past time to get some fresh air.

The sun on his skin felt good . It wasn’t nearly as bright or hot as it was back home, the light broken up by the occasional cloud or leafy tree. Still, Dainix practically basked in the sunlight like a lizard. He breathed deeply, letting the fresh outside air into his lungs to replace the dusty, stagnant air of the castle.

It was probably the first time he found the world outside the desert not as cold and unfamiliar, but instead as a warm, welcome relief from the monotony he’d found himself in.

Dainix took his time familiarizing himself with his surroundings. The castle grounds had long since been neglected, the original gardens reclaimed by nature, trees and vines covering every stone arch and pillar. The amount of vibrant green still made him a bit uncomfortable, but not nearly as much as when he’d ventured into a forest for the first time. It was actually beautiful, in an overgrown, ancient way. The plant life here was so vastly different than anything he’d seen growing naturally in the desert, even in the underground oases.

He considered preserving something to take with him to show his family back home, settling on some brightly-colored flowers that looked like the wild descendants of what once grew in the flowerbeds. He’d seen something similar every once in a while, sometimes worn by traders and travelers passing through his village, and its likeness replicated during the Feast of Serenis. He hadn’t known roses came in colors other than red and pink, though. This one had petals that were white, its neighbors various shades of orange, yellow, red, pink, and white.

Careful of the thorns but knowing the wyrmsilk would block the sharp points, Dainix tucked the flower into his belt. He was aware that even dried out, it might not last for as long as it might take for him to return home if ever , but he tried to ignore that thought. It didn’t hurt to have a little token of hope.

Dainix started looking around for somewhere with enough space for him to get some exercise. He wanted to go over some of his forms and such, at least enough to keep his skills honed even if he wasn’t actively having to use them. He was still Ravvan, no matter where he was, and he wanted to hold onto that.

He thought he found a suitable place to practice, but stopped himself from entering all the way he noticed something off to the side, and realized this area was in use.

East of his position, back turned to Dainix, was Falst. He was sitting on the ground, a stick in one hand, and drawing something in the dirt in front of him. It was a little too far away for Dainix to see what it was, though what he could see were multiple pictures drawn in the ground around him. Falst was clearly absorbed in his work, detailing the lines in the ground with great care.

Dainix left try somewhere else, leaving Falst to draw in peace.

Falst’s ears picked up rustling and footsteps. Immersed in his drawing, he initially dismissed it as probably just an animal.

Sure enough, it stopped soon after. Then it came again, and Falst realized it didn’t actually sound like some random animal.

He whirled around, and saw the stranger- Danix- as he turned away and left the clearing.

Falst scowled. Someone so heavily armed had seen him with his guard down like that, and he hadn’t even noticed! He hadn’t seen Dainix outside the castle before, but context clues told him that of course he wouldn’t be the kind of person to willingly stay inside for too long. Falst was getting sloppy with keeping his guard up.

In frustration, he threw away the stick he’d been using, and raked his claws through the drawing in the dirt in front of him. It was a hobby he’d picked up in his time here, something he’d never had time for in the past. It gave him some comfort, at first just reminding him of the drawings gifted from a caring mother long ago, eventually becoming something he did fairly often.

Falst walked away from the small collage, leaving his newest drawing unfinished. Through the scattered dirt could be seen a rough sketch of tight, circular petals wrapped around each other above a thorny stem.

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

Y'all have no idea how excited I was writing that last paragraph.

I'd like to give lots of love to everyone who's been SO supportive so far!! Seriously, your comments have made me so happy, and reminded me why I love sharing my stories. Thank you so so much!!! <3

Remember to drink water, eat food, take your meds (if applicable), and get enough sleep. Love you all, and have a great [insert time here]! <3

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theblackestnight-ffxiv · 2 months ago

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[ffxivwrite2024] prompt 16: third-rate

“Seven hells, I’ve had it!” D’zinhla threw up her hands, scowling daggers at the paperwork on her desk.

From behind her, she registered Airraim’s curiosity-tinged concern. “What’s wrong, love?” she asked, and after the sound of a few footsteps, a hand rested on her shoulder.

D’zinhla was immediately contrite–but still very frustrated. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, Airraim,” she said in a softer tone. “It’s just… Well, this folio!” She wrinkled her nose as she gestured at the offending documents. “It was so promising! There’s some very old works in here! Padjali and Gelmorran, besides Gridanian, things I’ve never found before! But because it wasn’t stored right, and especially because it wasn’t printed on the right materials, I could teach a class in incorrect archival procedures from just what’s wrong with this singular folio!”

“Mmm,” and she felt Airraim gently squeeze her shoulder. “That’s a deep disappointment.”

“Gods, is it ever. The only pieces that haven’t had parts lost to degradation are pieces I already have well in evidence in other, much better preserved folios.” She couldn’t help the scorn in her voice. “Meanwhile, the pieces new to me? I can tell, even as old as it is, that the paper was hardly worth the pulp it was made from. Too thin in some places, too thick in others, the thin places have worn away entirely and left me with missing sections.” She sighed, shaking her head. “It was kept well, there’s hardly any book-rot, the spine is cracked but that’s manageable, but when the very paper is fallen apart, that hardly helps preserve the information within!”

“Perhaps it was all the paper they had available?” Airraim ventured.

“Perhaps,” she said, biting her lip. “But that means whoever took possession of it later should have seen to it that copies were made, if not a restoration. Though there’s not a whole lot that can be done to restore what was already of poor quality to begin with.”

Her partner kept her hand on her shoulder, brushing back and forth with her thumb. “Though it could mean that copies are out there that were not kept with this piece.”

She flicked an ear. “True enough,” she conceded. “But they haven’t been found by me, or anyone I know of, so they might as well not exist until they are found. Still, I suppose that might have been done, make copies and keep the original as intact as it was… I could only hope that such copies, if they exist, were made before all this damage.”

“But for now, it doesn’t get you the new material you wanted.”

“Well,” and she hummed, considering the documents. “It does get me evidence of these songs, incomplete though they are. And they are new to me, even if they could have been whole and entire, and are instead piecemeal. Still,” she sighed, and lifted a hand to pat Airraim’s. “Thank you for hearing me out, love. I know the minutiae of document preservation hardly interests you.”

“But it interests you, and therefore, I care to hear about it.” Airraim bent and pressed a kiss to the top of D’zinhla’s head. “You heard me out about my latest batch of fragrance failing miserably.”

“But that I can follow better, it’s-” She stopped herself with a wry smile, twisting in her chair to look up at her partner. “Sorry, you’re right, thank you.”

Airraim smiled, and it filled her with a flood of warmth. “Of course,” she said. “Now- what do you need to go on from here?”

D’zinhla knew she was being shepherded away from her indignation and onward into something more actionable, but she could bite back the ridiculous obstinate urge to resist the attempt. “Well, now I need to start transcribing what I can, before this terrible paper degrades even further. So I’ll need my inks-”

Her partner chuckled. “I’ll leave you to it then. But I think I will take this time to go put some more tea on.”

“A lovely idea, but no rush for me, I’ll need to keep it off the desk while I’m working.” She was already preparing her workspace, thinking mindfully of what needed to go where, what hazards needed to be mitigated, what steps would need to be taken. She heard another chuckle, and Airraim’s steps away, but it faded into background as she focused on the work in front of her. She could indeed salvage something of worth out of this, even if it wasn’t the prize she had hoped it to be!

#ffxivwrite2024 #wol: d'zinhla rhee #timeline: some ill-defined period after EW MSQ

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milich96-ocs-blog · 1 year ago

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sooo what's the story of caden's return? I need to know. What has malakay been up to all this time

Caden was born in a small village in the hills, into a peasant family. He made himself known when at 16 he managed to chase away a vampire spawn that had been oppressing his fellow villagers for months. Having become a small local hero, he defended the village from other attacks by little monsters until he was 20, after which he left to become a soldier of the Flaming Fist. During the military service his dreams of doing something good were soon destroyed: many soldiers only aimed at power, making money, they didn't care too much about defending others. The straw that broke the camel's back was seeing one of his legion companions beat the hell out of a boy slightly younger than Caden.

He abandoned the hood and decided to return to his origins: son of farmers, the land and nature are our greatest assets and we must preserve and protect them. He became a paladin of the ancients - venerator of Chauntea. He led his happy life for many years, protecting the druid coven of Emerald Woods, but he also realized that his life was limited. Being human, he could only help them until he was 70 at most. Seeing his friends elves, gnomes, dwarves, halflings not age like him brought him a sense of sadness and anger towards himself, his nature. He decided to do something crazy: he made a pact with the hag from the nearby forest.

He asked her to have the chance to live forever and never grow old again. The hag agreed at the price of adding another purpose to Caden's life: fighting for someone he loved. The human was surprised. That's all? Fighting for someone he loved? But he was already fighting for his friends in the woods and his loved ones at home. The crone replied: "It's not enough. You have to have someone, a favorite person and fight for them too." However, he didn't have a favorite person, he had never bothered to cultivate love as he was too busy defending nature. And he didn't even think he had a chance with other people. The hag spoke "there is no problem - I will find them for you. But you will have to swear to fight with soul, mind and body for them"

Caden did not understand the gravity of that request and accepted. The person the hag chose was a devil who had recently stolen 4 crow's feet from her: a certain Malakay Avaritia.

Malakay until then had lived a normal life in Cabrafè, together with his family. He met Caden when he was 20. He found the paladin more of a nuisance than dangerous: annoying at best. He never hurt Mala, but it was creepy and kinda weird. At 24 Mala met Octo for the first time and fell deeply in love (he would never admit it). So much that he left home to follow the god. Caden was devastated and began roaming the world to look for Malakay, while also following his paladin path.

Mala has travelled for centuries with friends and lovers, and has now bought at home in Porto Veneno, where he lives with his 3 husbands and 2 children. As for Caden we are still cooking up something for him.

#caden #malakay avaritia #malakay avaritia tonic phander polpi #malakay #ask and you shall receive

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vickyvicarious · 2 years ago

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God preserve my sanity was told like a legit prayer in the audio!!

It's like. Preserve my sanity. Let me die sane and leave the real me behind. Let me fight the madness clawing at the edges of my mind until I can preserve my soul in these pages and help someone else. And because it's not a story about Individualist Hero conquering all, he manages to save his sanity until he could no more. And then, mad and at the mercy of kinder souls, he waits for his love, whose name was the very first thing he could manage remember, to come to him.

I have been trying and failing to come up with an eloquent response to this for days and days now. Well said. God.

I can't get the image/sound of Jonathan praying into his diary out of my head. There's something here in finding faith and in his desperation and determination keeping him going when he doesn't even have hope anymore, because he wants so badly to live, to leave this place, to return to the one he loves. He just keeps going and going and pushing himself through as long as possible, but as soon as he is out of immediate danger he just can't anymore. He's been running on fumes for so long already. But it's okay, because even if that diary (diary as sanity, diary as soul, diary as ability to help prevent this happening to others) is all he has when he leaves, he still has it. He lost so much else but he managed to protect the most important things long enough. It's okay that he couldn't keep going longer, because as soon as he managed to get out he wasn't alone anymore. The kindness and care of strangers bookends his castle experiences and ensures Jonathan's survival. This novel isn't about an Individualist Hero at all, it's about bonds that bring people together, trust and love and support, and when Jonathan simply can't carry the weight of everything he's experienced any longer, others are there to support him. Even before Mina physically arrives. But she was there all along...

The thought of Mina gave him the strength to stay alive long enough to make it back to her, she was the first one he could speak about, his first clarity in the depths of his madness. And she accepted him, as changed and weakened as he was, with immediate and complete joy. She accepted his diary, the gift of his horrible experiences (diary as sanity, etc--), and treasured and protected it and him. Never betrayed his trust but only sought to help him, and once she learned what he'd been through she believed him without hesitation. Sought to validate him immediately, to reassure him that the sanity he scratched and clawed to preserve was indeed real - and yes, thus his nightmares too, but he did it. He made it out. And his record achieved what he wanted all along, it helped to protect others from Dracula and his like, it helped them to end him forever. (But not alone. None of them could have done it alone.)

His prayer is granted, more than granted because he makes it out the other side of this in the end. Forever changed, but not in the way he feared so badly, the way he was willing to die to escape. And instead of dying alone with only the desperate desire that his words can serve to help someone, anyone... he lives on, surrounded by a new family. Having defeated his former tormentor for good. And while the original diary no longer exists (just as pre-castle Jonathan can never come back), there are copies. The knowledge (his soul, his sanity, every metaphor or symbol ever applied to his diary as well as all the other letters and journals of everyone else) will never be lost.

#dracula daily spoilers #dracula daily #idk if this is coherent i got emotional #jonathan harker #jonmina #anonymous #replies #dracula documents

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nullbutler · 2 years ago

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Do you have any Alois headcanons

HI HI THANKS FOR THE ASK! I have a number of them!! I'll try to categorize them best I can! (Design, Relationships, Backstory, Extra)

DESIGN <3

AS YOU CAN KINDA SEE FROM MY ART...I like to draw him with slightly longer, wavier, curlier hair. This isn't just to differentiate how he looks next to Ciel, but it kinda emphasizes his more 'high-energy' nature

I really do think my favorite part of his anime-design are his eyelashes, so I try to preserve those!

ALSO I DONT KNOW IF THIS COUNTS AS A HEADCANON BUT!! He's got such an interesting color scheme if you look at it from an analytical point of view. here, see-

You can see, his outfit (specifically his tie/vest) are green when he was a kid, as in before the 'incident' took place.

Around the time that he is a new earl/chronologically speaking the former Earl Trancy is still alive, he wears red. Red is a direct contrasting color to green. Red is also the color of that god forsaken kimono (but also, additionally, this outfit here)

His clothes in the current/majority of the story are this sort of reddish-purple, with a green vest. This, in a way, shows that he has reclaimed some of his original self, but he's still wearing something reddish -- the past is not gone. It should also be noted that, while black, Claude has a reddish undertone, and Hannah has a blue scheme. Hannah wants to save Alois, and Claude wants to drive him to ruin. They clash, and he wears a purple coat.

And, at long last, when he finally accepts Hannah's love for him, he is in Ciel's body. And what is Ciel? Blue!

THAT WAS LONG BUT I'VE BEEN SITTING ON THAT RANT FOR A WHILE! I might repost it, is just find it so damn interesting!

Onto the other stuff!

RELATIONSHIPS <3

Part of the reason he hates Hannah so much is this innate '6th sense' he's been shown to have (he's actually quite good at reading people!). He can tell she's deceiving him in...some way. So he doesn't trust her one bit!

Another reason is because, genuinely, he feels like she's trying to distract Claude away from him. While I don't ship them, I think the story has much more depth when he's portrayed/interpreted as having a one-sided crush on Claude. Erasing that, or at least erasing the codependency of that relationship (whatever form it might take), is to the story's detriment. Even if you don't think Alois wants to kiss Claude, it's undeniable that he has an unhealthy bond with that spider demon.

Also, part of the reason I even ship cielois is because they have such a unique and interesting dynamic of 'I'm/you're the only other person who understands, yet we are so incapable of showing it.' I think if there was ever anyone who could get on Ciel's level, it would be Alois.

BACKSTORY :(

it's kinda shown in my fic moth wings, but I believe Alois was probably ostracized a bit by the other boys in his situation

I always saw 'Alois' as a concept he grappled with for a number of years. First Alois was like a persona he 'went into,' but later on, he just became more and more of his expression of himself. And, later, an expression of revenge and anger at the rest of the world

He definitely has some memories issues/a bad memory. I wouldn't be surprised if he only really recognized Luka in dreams, or went weeks without thinking about his face.

Also! Since he had to look after Luka, he is/was surprisingly good at taking care of himself.

Someone brought up the headcanon that Luka and him were Irish, and that was part of the reason the village hated them. While I think that's super interesting, I don't know enough about that history to fully adopt it!

EXTRA!!

He absolutely hates other rich people. I think he knows he's going to die soon, so he wants to basically...fuck with as many people as he can. he had little to no qualms destroying that entire ballroom/the nobles trapped inside because...they're just nobles! eat the rich!

He was also...so eager to put on that dress HGJAJ Gender Non-Conforming AF and I love that for him. if he was in a modern setting, I honestly think he'd be perfectly happy with any/all pronouns.

He's also a lot more animated than Ciel. Even during a quiet scene, he's most-likely tapping his heel or fidgeting with something

#alois trancy #headcanons #I probably have more #long post #asks #answered

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m0e-ru · 2 years ago

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hey just changed my discord icon into a kagu one who wants to hear about gsaslau ep iznmi /crickets/ alright ‼️🎉🎉

well the main p4 plot’s ended; Mim’s rescued from themself (izanami-no-ōkami) and the world of the human unconscious has returned into a forest now cleared of fog. Mim coexists with Marie as Inaba’s deities and are in the middle of a rehab period and trying to figure out their own identities while doing their job as gods.

While the two have the powers of a collective unconscious’ deites, Izanami-no-Ōkami, who separated from Mim had been defeated with “Myriad Truths.” This dispelled the entity being powered by humans’ desire to hide the truth. However, it wasn’t enough, and remnants of power still survived; Hi-no-Kagutsuchi. He continued to exist from the people’s self-preservation and desire for solitude, which originated from the hysteria during the late-year fog.

Now all three of them are fighting for the collective’s focus, to see which desire humans would lean towards and grants these deities their powers in the first place.

Even when the forest was cleared of fog, there was no guarantee anything was really “back to normal.” Kagutsuchi had already recruited Sho Minazuki, making a deal with him after coming forward, attracted by his beaten and battered heart.

A separate pocket realm had been created in the forest almost hidden from the other two’s perception, but they found it anyway; a gross reconstruction of the hollowed world, trusses spread about, cables scattered everywhere, gross blaring lights that lit up a scene. Labrys’ heart sprouted a new TV studio, as ambitious as a whole school enough to withstand a tournament where friends would fight one another.

The floor of the forest shook and quaked, the two couldn’t stand around doing nothing. But they were told they couldn’t intervene with the guest’s new trial, said Margaret. Seething with anger, the taller deity bared their teeth making a wonderful first impression to the woman they wanted to express their gratitude for taking care of Marie when they haplessly threw her aside.

But as deities, it was their duty to look at the bigger picture, figure out what was going on. Not focus on a single poor soul that another handful of good hearts could help. They agreed not to intervene, but they observed the best they could.

It wasn’t enough. The forest had grown dark and the moon turned a blood red. Fog flooded the area and everything changed so dreamily, like blood seeping into fabric and turning into a deep brown rust. The worlds had merged. Again.

It was Kagutschi’s homemade “Dark Hour,” or whatever he could get out of those red headed brats. Their poor Inaba had been turned into a nightmare-ish hellscape. People “transmogrified” and were left like coffins standing tall and silently in the makeshift night. Fortunately, the two prepared a place to keep them all safe beforehand, using much of their power to bring the normal folk into their pocket haven and keep it working, lest they all get swept up in this fiery god’s excitement.

The two devise a plan to reach Kagutsuchi and the boy that wished for the world, and see that every Persona user remaining is safe and sound. The two split up from there, Marie heading for her friends and their friends and her unnamed company climb the gaudy tower that reached the moon.

Tohru Adachi had been “recruited” himself. Ushered quite aggressively into the world to help complete it. A world he once tried to complete already, in exchange for a promise that would never had been granted. Nodding and agreeing and negotiating a handful here and there to hear what he needs to hear. He hoped not to show the heavy heart he had thinking of friend he had to point a gun towards just to save from their own foolery. Where are they in this mess? he thought, the ones who were supposed to take care of the world(s).

But it’s not like the sun and moon hadn’t thought of that. Why even bring him here in the first place? He was nothing but bait. And they just told him to help around, beat up a few a Persona users or too, make use of the freak he awakened to.

[ I WILL NOT LIE I HAVENT FLESHED OUT THIS PART YET. OR THE NEXT. SORRY I’LL PROBABLY MAKE A SEPARATE POST INSTEAD WHEN I FIGURE IT OUT SORRY FOR MASSACRING YOUR BOYS ARENA THINKERS ]

bullshitting this part a bit but Kagu made Marie and Mim fakes and he generally calls the two blue Izanami (derogatory) and red Izanami (derogatory) he’s so silly

theyre both exaggerations of the concept that Marie is nothing but a crybaby who wants to live and wants to make mim as guilty as possible over matters they’ve already resolved but gnaws on the fact they wanted to kill Marie once before the whole euthanasia thing

and Mim is a heartless and empty husk of a god born to do nothing but accomplish a duty no matter how immoral it actually is because humans asked for it ! and this thing wants to scare the wit out of Marie and tell her that her dumb sibling is a stagnant and never changing piece of shit that thinks they know what’s best for humans despite not being human or having a heart at all

they’re both designed to Kill making them the strongest and the most hassle of Fakes to make but Kagu is a bit proud since watching them fight is entertaining. ohh the drama hes so good at making impostors that chew on the darkest parts of your soul

i must’ve mentioned this before but sho has like . mommy issues now sorry ikutsuki.

2010, a whole year before the split actually, Sho and Minazuki were able to spend time with Izy before she was torn apart into Mim and Marie.

Sho saw her as a mother figure while Minazuki sort of made himself her mentee and learn from her how to be a good guardian especially for Sho.

Sho kept their hair long just so Izy could still comb it which is usually what gave them time to talk besides waiting for a sun shower to happen. and other times they’ve been able to meet.

Izy had split and the two felt nothing but betrayed. Sho lost someone he really could call a loved one and Minazuki fell back into his mindset they should’ve never trusted another parent figure despite her departure being out of her hands. They still kept the same comb she’d use for their hair which allowed them to keep their memories of her when Mim erased it from everyone else’s head out of spite.

Kagutsuchi made a vague agreement that he’d end the world and offer them solitude with Izy. The whole plan being to gather Persona users and chip off their powers to make his body and/or take Marie and Mim and “put them back together.”

Sho and Minazuki knew this was sketchy so they decided they’d just get Izy back and do the merging ritual themselves and she’ll be the one to fend off Kagu. Why bother rounding up a mass of power when theres already one solution to get things back? nobody really trusted each other

Kagu just wanted the Persona fragments to get an upper hand at the two remaining deities. Or he could order them to be brought to his presence and he’d defeat them easily. There was no way to bring two pieces together when they’ve already grown into two things so different.

Adachi is uh . well. he’s there. he’s authentically awakened to his Persona so his head doesn’t hurt and he has a proper tarot to crush and his aura’s blue instead of red. i havent really properly mapped out his involvement and motives yet.

it’s established he knows Mim and Marie are deities and this bear. thing. is also one he assumes as its spearheading the whole tournament thing and says outright he made the world. He knows the worlds are merged and gets flashbacks to his time in Magatsu-Inaba, being bestowed a bit of god’s knowledge and all.

So! Those two guys are in danger and this bear thing gritting its teeth whenever he’s around should mean something. Kagu doesn’t really want him there but keeps around as bait for Mim specifically, and to distract Sho from its true plans or whatever i’ll get a dream about this all sooner or later.

this part gets even blurrier but adachi still gets beaten up i don’t know when but he should.

souji AND labrys they’re uh. they were supposed to be able to talk to sho and zukki i forgot how i implemented that ohhh well sorry for the tunnel vision

Marie gets to check on everybody but gets abducted to the tower. Mim was crucified and has been holding out the whole time. Sho and Minazuki try doing the merging ritual but after a whole video game monologue of him being explained to how nothing was going to work and holding up the comb keepsake was pretty stupid, Kagu comes over and is like ‘boo boooo you took too long im going to use his body and rightfully realize my true self as god with these gathered Persona fragments and end the world. haha’

They get to resonate with one another and summon Izy in the form of a Persona, their own Izanami-no-Mikoto with the strength of both of their hearts as one because im dramatic. the myth has changed and izanami herself has been able to calm down her own child instead of killing her

Izy had been able to talk to Sho and Minazuki resolving mostly everything. She herself may be gone but her love has never left. just reborn into those who do still care about him and those who will care if he ever lets them into his life. Minazuki lives on as Tsukiyomi and he floats down to meet Souji and Labrys. they duke it out and Marie and Mim settles down with Kagutsuchi. whatever remnant of a child’s pitch black body might it be.

The tower collapses and the Velvet Room attendants bring everyone to the forest cleared of fog that Mim and Marie are relieved to see again. Time is moving once again and the normal folk are back home as if nothing had happened. The Shadow Ops still astonished how … peaceful Inaba’s unconscious really is without anyone meddling with it or humans causing their own downfall. and comically dumbfounded that the exit is a TV monitor out of all things. didn’t look like it was plugged in at all. I mean it’s something familiar to all of them so why not keep the doorways that way

adachis promptly returned to his holding cell, but not enough time to mend his suit nor fix his face. a few more months of pointless psych evals for him i guess

aaand im pooped go ask about it more sometime but hopefully this transitions to Kusumi Household

#persona 4 spoilers #p4 #p4u #gsa sl au #sulululat #// damn crasy ! iam so tired i am going to regret writing this at ass oclock #// 'damn kai your ass still on pea four?' yeah it's still going have you SEEEN these gaps ? crazy #// i dont actually. know what ive said on this blog or anywhere else just. literally the ask box is there ia m so sorry #// i havent even finished talking about non gsaslau ep iznmi yet !!! insane !!! nor 2010 yet !! or nimonobaasan !! or the shrine fox !!#// thers so mmuch going pn here. pissona four spceical featurer

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tumble-d-wumble-phd · 30 days ago

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So I was talking to a friend today who is sort of fond of AI features. He’s a tech guy, loves the latest trends, and is a very receptive and kind-hearted person who does photography but cannot draw. We were discussing pornography of Clippy the Microsoft officesona, which he immediately assumed had been created by AI. I had seen this particular art piece at around the age of 16, so I told him that was impossible and that, anyway, AI cannot make art because it does not have a soul. It can make images, but it cannot make art.

He balked at this and suggested we debate it, which I don’t think personal opinion with zero impact on the other party needst be debated but off we go because it’s fun. His argument was that art is defined by having a passionate reaction: love, hate, fear, disgust. Therefore, if you hate AI art, that makes it art. We were chatting over pizza in a loud bar, so he didn’t get to elaborate much between slices. However, I think following this line of logic is interesting. It makes me think of urinals in museum displays and swastika graffiti. Do we preserve that which we hate, despise, find generally offputting?

When?

Why?

Recently, I saw images of a sculptural set here on Hellsite. They were made to look like litter in a big stark-white modern museum, scattered haphazardly. One piece got thrown away: a dented soda can.

It was relocated and got a clearer label.

The soda can does not make me disgusted, angry, or insulted. Moreover, it does not summon any sort of passion I can name.

Why do I think it’s art?

My first prong of the argument back was on that very question. I pointed to cathedrals first as I struggled to conjure a better point: they weren’t meant to stir passion, but devotion. Here was something big and vast that had to depict its major facets in pictures because the holy men spoke a weird language you didn’t necessarily grasp called “Latin” and sometimes they couldn’t speak it either and a guy got so mad about it he made a whole other religion. I think I choked something out about brutalist architecture too, more art made to make you feel humble and collective. Therefore, art does not have to stir a passionate reaction in order to be classified as art.

There’s obvious problems with this, namely that we can slightly shift his argument to encapsulate any sort of emotional reaction whatsoever. In this case, the discovery of a spider web by walking face-first in and screaming is art. Maybe it is, to God.

Via the water slide that is ADHD, I found myself discussing artistic depictions of Muhammad (a subject I do not feel qualified enough to explain on the internet) before cascading into Christianity. I told him about how Eastern Orthodox produced depictions of Jesus and co. in what some might find a more “medieval” or “unrefined” style well past the renaissance. They knew about the trends and the gay Italians. However, to them, holy art had to summon up to otherworldliness, sanctity. The face of God cannot cast shadows. Even in Italy itself, the brief rise of Dominican friar Girolama Savonarola (whose name I butchered horribly) in Florence allegedly had even Botticelli torch some of his paintings. To Savonarola, it was to combat the heresy of vanity. All these works cared about was the beauty of delicately rendered bodies, not Christ himself!

The Catholic Church had him executed.

Jesus HAD to stay sexy.

They really needed this at the time.

The second point I was trying to make with this, before I got distracted misnaming dead Italians, was that what ACTUALLY makes art is the meaning behind it. The bit of our soul we mix in is how much fun we’re having with this new brush, or that we really hate our stepdad, or that I need something to cheer me up after school. The soda can is art because the artist meant to make it. They meant to make it SO close to the original that someone could easily be mistaken, which I’m sure took weeks of hard work. They succeeded.

AI cannot make art because it doesn’t mean anything to the machine.

God did mean for me to run into that spider web though. The bastard.

#art #ai #god #spiderwebs

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alexpenname · 2 years ago

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OH my GOD you need to understand here: my mother is a professional scuba diver. Like, she's the Diving Safety Officer for a huge research institution. I hear so many fucking horror stories. I've been diving since I was 12, but my mom's trained me on safety drills about as long as I've been swimming.

Part of her job is to break down accidents so they can re-evaluate their safety rules. (The other part is to make sure people are actually following those safety rules.)

So THIS ARTICLE. Gonna put my liveblogging below the cut.

Immediately. IMMEDIATELY.

Wes rolled off the boat, the water started pouring into his suit, and he should have gotten out of the water immediately.

NUMBER FUCKING A they're drysuit diving in that temperature so not ONLY is the man rapidly heading towards hypothermia he's also rapidly losing his buoyancy control device and both those things together are a great way to die but also it seems like he's in the water ALONE at that point?

So if he freezes and sinks no one's there to do an immediate rescue??

But what we didn't understand, really, was the environment we were going to put ourselves into in these iceberg caves.

Oh god I don't think you do, my friends.

And it was about 130 feet deep — deeper than we originally thought we might want to dive in Antarctica

I'm guessing cave exploration works differently than the science diving my mom oversees, but especially in an unfamiliar environment, you stick with your floor. Technically not as dangerous as the cold-water leak but it complicates a lot--there's a lot of physical stuff the depth does to the gases in your blood, and when you're that deep and you're down for a while it can make ascending a fair bit more... dangerous.

So if something happens and you need to ascend fast, that's a big complication. Blood-literally-boiling complication.

(But to be fair, given what they're doing, I understand why they made this decision and probably would have done the same. Just underscoring how goddamn dangerous this is.)

But, when we finally turned around on that dive and worked our way back slowly to the entrance, there were big, giant pieces of ice where we had entered this cave. And the doorway we swam into was gone.

Yes. This is floating ice. This is not a cave. The labyrinth changes and can, on a whim, close entirely. It does not care who is inside it when it does. Please understand that getting blocked out is actually a best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is the preservation of a smear of red so far inside the iceberg that no one else will ever know it exists.

We had to hang in the water about 20 feet deep before we could rise back to the surface.

This is so your blood doesn't boil. The longer you're down and the deeper you go, the longer you have to wait. If you spring a leak or run out of air, you may really REALLY wish you'd stuck to your floor. But that's fine.

And it turns out that a massive falling chunk of ice nearly capsized their support boat. So if that was taken out they'd be in freezing water, low on air after the dive, with no way home.

It's still guesswork, and it's still a risk, but I guess in that moment I felt it was a risk worth taking.

Let's re-assess: the cave is alive and will either trap or crush you, the water wants to kill you, you can't plan your depth, and not only is the environment trying to kill you but it's trying to kill your way home.

Cool, let's do this.

As we turned back towards the exit, we couldn't kick hard enough to move forward. And we realized the current had us.

Yes. This is LIVING STONE, essentially. When it shifts, the water fills the vacuum. You're stuck in the current, and you know the ice is moving again. You know, potentially sucking you into a crevasse that's going to snap shut a second later. Which you cannot fight.

You don't want to fight against a current directly in any case--it uses up air and wears you out.

But we could see blue light in the distance. We knew there was another exit.

You, uh, you don't, actually. This isn't a cave. Ice is translucent. There might be another exit.

And when my head broke the surface, there was ice around me. And it was higher than I could see over. And I couldn't see the boat.

Yep.

Yep, yep, yep.

Our final dive inside Ice Island, Wes decided he was going to join us.

So there'll be three people, not two. Not a good idea. It's much, much harder to keep track of two people than one. Always dive in pairs.

Also, Wes does not have good scrub instincts.

We dropped down to the sea floor and moved our way inside. And, very quickly, that current picked up again. And so I turned to Wes and Paul, and I put my thumb in the signal that indicates that it's time to turn around and go.

Because you cannot fight the current. You do not try to fight the current. The second it picks up you're kind of stuck with it.

But as we wheeled around, we realized that we might not be able to get out. And we pulled and pulled and dived our hands into the sea floor, and we weren't making our way forward. I mean, my biceps, my triceps, my forearms were shaking — pulling with every bit of energy I had to get back towards that crevasse. We just couldn't make our way forward. I was leading, Paul was behind me, and Wes was losing ground. And he yelled out, "Help me with the camera!"

And I thought "F the camera! We might die!"

And this is why. There's a reason people die in tidal waves--you do not try to fight the current. You can't. Like you actually, physically cannot. It's like fighting gravity.

So I looked around. I thought, "What are we going to do? How are we going to climb these walls?" It's just ice. It's slippery. I touch the wall, and it just slides down. [...] maybe I can have enough grip that I can pull my way up and get back towards the surface that was still 130 feet over our heads.

...Yeah. Yeah, like that. Climbing a wall of wet ice in a drysuit with a camera.

Fuck the camera. What the fuck. Who does this. The other thing I learned from my mom: when you need to get out of the water, you get out of the water. The first thing you do if you need to get out is drop your extra gear and your weight belt: you can get your shit later.

Drop the extra weight, watch out for your buddy, and get to somewhere safe. But they're drysuit diving, which makes it hard to drop the weight. They're in three, which means they've got an extra body to watch out for, and the two guys seem to be ignoring the author. And they're in a goddamn iceberg, which means there's not really a safe place to get to.

It's not even just the environment. There are a lot of bad decisions here beyond the iceberg. The fact that they got out of this alive is nothing short of a miracle.

Like good, creative people, it's never enough. You always want more. We decided we wanted to do one more dive.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU. YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

And as we were having a meal, we heard screams on deck. And we dropped everything, and we ran up the companionway, up onto the deck. And [...] The whole square mile of ice we'd just been inside of was breaking apart and dissolving into the sea.

I was just standing there, gobsmacked on the ship's rail. I realized that if we had been in the water, we'd be dead.

Yeah. Because it's not a cave. It's ice. It is still alive. It's been cracking, moving, changing, and shifting the entire time you've been diving in it. Big bits fell off and nearly squished your boat.

When we came home and tried to tell our story, most people just thought we were insane. "How could you do that? How could you go in over and over and over again?" And, "Boy, you were lucky. You're an idiot."

But for me, it was so worth it to have that experience, to document a place that maybe no one will ever see again.

I mean, sure. I can't tell anyone how to live your lives. But dear fucking god, I hear horror stories from my mom. I've been hearing horror stories for years. And I can say without a doubt, without a SHADOW of a doubt, that this is the most dangerous diving experience I have ever heard about in my life.

Yes, it is cool as hell, but if you come out of that experience and everyone says "you're a fucking idiot" and you have to be like "well it was worth it for the artistic experience"...

You know what you did.

so i just learned that people fucking dove inside a god damn iceberg and good to know that even for cave divers, who in my opinion are already a special kind of unhinged, and i say that with all affection, there are people even more unhinged than that

#cw #content warning #descriptions of peril #descriptions of a number of really terrible ways to die #from someone who knows a bit about it #slice of irl I guess #sort of #I'm not dumb enough to do this dear fucking god

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ollieofthebeholder · 9 months ago

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to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr || AO3 || My Website

Chapter 96: December 2017

“Melanie, the bus. The bus!” Gerry practically spat, bracing himself against the roof of the car. “Jesus, you’re going to get us killed.”

“Not if you don’t touch us,” Melanie shot back. “Isn’t that how it works?”

“Only if you have a chance of surviving. The way you’re driving—”

“I’m sorry, did you want to drive?”

Martin rubbed his temples. “You know, you two didn’t have to come.”

“Yes, we did,” Melanie and Gerry said in unison. Martin sighed and gave up. He was only going to have enough energy for one good fight today.

Part of him wished Jon was there. Jon had…not offered to come, actually; he’d stayed silent, but he’d clearly been hoping Martin would ask him to come. And Martin wouldn’t lie, he’d considered it. In the end, though, he’d decided not to—partly because he needed as many people to stay near the Archives as possible just in case something attacked, although they hadn’t seen anything since Jared Hopworth. Mostly it was because he didn’t want to put Jon through what was coming.

He didn’t really want to put himself through what was coming either, but he didn’t have much of a choice. And he couldn’t risk waiting much longer, based on what Celeste had said, very gently, when he’d called.

The clouds were having a hard time deciding if they wanted to be on the ground or just hanging out in the treetops; at any rate, they’d been driving through intermittent fog for the last hour, most of which Melanie and Gerry had spent arguing, bickering, squabbling, and just generally behaving in a way that would have had Martin threatening to turn the car around if he’d been the one driving and instead had him trying to stop the Eye from running calculations on whether or not he could jump out while it was moving or if he should wait to see if Melanie actually stopped at a traffic light first. It was weather more appropriate to nearly Halloween than nearly Christmas, and it was also the only thing that made Martin thankful he’d brought his siblings along. Otherwise he’d have been tempted to believe it was the Lonely.

Melanie and Gerry fell silent as they passed the entrance to Forest Lawn Memorial Park, even though neither of them looked directly at it. Martin did, though. Visibility wasn’t great, but the fog cleared just enough that he could make out the looming shape of the lone mausoleum.

He pressed a palm to the glass and made a wordless promise that they would stop on their way back. No point in coming all the way out here and not seeing both of them.

It was another ten minutes—ten very quiet minutes, during which Melanie did at least drop the car to a reasonable speed—before the sign for Rosewood Forest Hospital and Care Home loomed up in front of them. They’d replaced it sometime in the last five years—God, had it really been five years since he’d been out this way?—with smooth granite engraved in an old-fashioned, gilded script and embellished with trees twining their branches to form an arch, ringed by light tan bricks, something to really display how high class the place was supposed to be. The building itself was a Grade II listed, dating back to the 1800s; they’d preserved most of the original architecture, but the interior had been completely redone several times. From the outside, on a sunny day, it put one in mind of an Austen novel, but on a day like this one, its appearance owed more to one of the Brontë sisters.

There was some story, probably apocryphal, about one of the royals having stayed there when it was still a manor house, but it had been turned into a hospital during the first World War and, due to the location being so good for the shell-shocked and severely injured men to recover, had stayed as a convalescent, then a care home. Now it was one of the few long-term care facilities in the country that admitted patients under the age of sixty-five who weren’t completely unable to handle their own affairs. And it was there—in room 113, East Wing—that Liliana Blackwood-King had resided for nearly eight years.

There weren’t a lot of visitors, which was a bit surprising given that it was the Saturday before Christmas, but it was still a bit early and the weather was bad. Maybe more people would be getting there later in the day, but Martin really wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. Anyway, even when she’d still been at home, mornings had always been better for her.

Melanie pulled the car into a parking spot, and she and Gerry followed Martin into the building. The front entrance was just as he remembered it, white and opulent and sparkling, with lots of cosy, comfortable-looking seating scattered about, soft music piped in, and cheerful prints on the wall. Tinsel and fairy lights hung on a number of surfaces, but none where a hand might need to rest or a walker or wheelchair might tangle—the staff really had thought of everything. It gleamed, despite the gloomy day, and overall gave the impression more of an upscale spa or resort than a hospital.

The room was deserted save a single uniformed nurse behind the wide swerve of the reception desk. It wasn’t Sheila, but it wasn’t Celeste either, and in fact Martin didn’t know her on sight—which wasn’t surprising, considering how long it had been since he’d actually been there. She smiled as they approached.

“Good morning,” she said in a high, pert voice. “How may I help you?”

Martin returned her smile more than half mechanically. “Good morning. I’m here to see Liliana Blackwood-King.”

The nurse’s smile slipped slightly. “Oh—ah—I don’t know if she’s taking visitors today,” she hedged.

“She’ll see me,” Martin said, quietly but firmly. “Please let her know the Archivist is here.”

The nurse picked up the phone and dialed a couple of numbers. After a moment, she spoke into one end. “Ah, Mrs. Temple? There’s an Archivist here to see Miss Liliana, is she…?” She listened for a moment, then blinked in surprise. “Oh—um, of course, thank you.” She replaced the receiver and gave Martin an uncertain smile. “She’s waiting for you. Room 113. Just through those double doors there, first left, and it’ll be the second door on the right.”

“Thank you.” Martin probably could have Known that, or at least remembered it, but he was happy to accept her directions. He started down the corridor with Melanie and Gerry in his wake.

Once on the other side of the indicated doors, the opulence of the front area died down quickly. It continued, more or less, down the length of the hall, but as soon as they turned the corner the floors were cracked, the carpet runners threadbare, the paint blistered and peeling. There were no decorations here, save one or two rather cheerless wreathes or bells on individual doors; far from the front hall with its scents of lemon polish and pine boughs and vanilla scent diffusers, these corridors smelled faintly of mildew and urine and hopelessness. They passed a businesslike older woman with brassy curls under a starched white cap whose name tape read TEMPLE; Martin surmised she was the lead nurse on the ward, or at the very least on this shift. She didn’t give them so much as a second glance. He spotted Celeste going into one of the rooms further down the hall, and two more nurses chatting quietly over a medicine cart, but none of them were likely to disturb them either.

The door to 113 was closed and unadorned; the nameplate next to the door bore only a single name, although the room was clearly a double occupancy. That was good; it meant they would be able to talk without interference or concern.

Martin didn’t bother knocking. He just opened the door and walked in.

The curtains were drawn, the television and overhead lights off; the only illumination in the room came from what looked like one of those Himalayan sea salt lamps that some people claimed had healing properties. It was enough to see by. Certainly enough to see the occupant of the bed. She’d obviously taken some pains to sit upright, hands folded over the blanket in her lap, but equally obviously she wouldn’t have managed it were it not for the bed itself being raised.

Martin hadn’t seen, or been allowed to see, his mother since they had buried his stepfather, and he was shocked at the change in her appearance. Her face was drawn, practically skeletal, and her bed jacket hung loose on her frame. The fine ash-blonde hair she’d always taken care to style no matter how sick she was, the one thing she’d ever allowed Martin to do without complaint, was mostly gone, reduced to a few wisps of brittle white that clung pathetically to the paper-thin skin on her skull. Her eyes had faded to a weak, watery blue-grey that looked almost colorless in the dim light. Only her expression was the same. As was the way it shifted from cold determination to annoyance at the sight of her only son.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice as thin and faded as the rest of her.

“Hello to you, too, Mum.” Martin stepped more fully into the room. He’d worn a collared shirt and one of his better pairs of trousers, along with a plain and serious navy blue jumper; he’d had to change first, as he’d been wearing a wool skirt when he’d started the day, but he’d decided not to antagonize his mother more than necessary. That didn’t mean he was going to just take everything she dealt him. Not anymore.

His mother didn’t rise to the bait, not that he’d really expected her to. “I suppose you didn’t think you’d get past the door if you were honest.”

Martin folded his arms over his chest. “First of all, considering you’ve been refusing my calls since before Dad died, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to expect that you’d refuse my visit too. And second, I was honest.”

“Mrs. Temple said the Archivist was here,” his mother said accusingly.

“Yes. He is.” Martin reached into his pocket and pulled out the tape recorder, which—unsurprisingly—was already on, and set it on the nightstand. “Duly appointed. Contract and everything.”

His mother’s thin eyebrows shot up her forehead. “You? You’re the Archivist? For how long?”

“Six months or so. I wasn’t Elias Bouchard’s first choice, or even his choice at all. The Beholding chose me.”

His mother gave a short, bitter laugh and leaned back against the bed, closing her eyes for a moment. A small, smug smirk flitted across her lips. “I bet Gertrude Robinson is thrilled with that. Did she get fired?”

“You could say that,” Martin said dryly. “Terminated with extreme prejudice, I think is the term. She’s dead.”

His mother’s eyes flew open, and she turned her head sharply to stare at him. “What? When? Six months ago? Why didn’t she—” She checked herself, pursing up her lips.

“Why didn’t she come see you first?” Martin supplied. “And no, it’s been two and a half years. Elias Bouchard murdered her. He appointed someone else as the Archivist in her place initially, but…”

“But the Ceaseless Watcher likes Martin better,” Melanie said. “Most of us do.”

“Melanie,” Martin murmured.

“I didn’t say we don’t like Jon too. I just said we all like you better.”

His mother flicked her gaze back and forth between the two of them. “I find that extremely difficult to believe.”

“Believe what you like. I didn’t come here to talk about my personal life.” Martin grabbed the chair against the wall, pulled it closer to her bed, and sat down without waiting for her permission. “I need to ask you some questions.”

His mother studied him for a moment, eyes narrowed. “And if I choose not to answer them?” she asked softly.

Martin met her gaze as steadily as he could. “You will.”

The huff of air could have been a laugh, or it could have been a defiant snort. “Even she never compelled me.”

“She tried.” Gerry had told Martin about his latest flashback, and Martin still wasn’t sure if he was impressed or annoyed.

“And didn’t succeed,” his mother countered.

“I didn’t say she tried all that hard. It was accidental in the first place. It was also a simple yes or no question. These won’t be.”

“Do you think you’re more powerful than she is, then? Somehow better than Gertrude Robinson was after forty years as Archivist when you’ve only been doing it for six months?”

“No, but I do think you’re weaker than you were thirteen years ago, and I also know that she was doing everything she could not to hurt you,” Martin said, letting some of the acid churning in his gut into his tone. “She cared about you. I don’t.”

“How dare you? I am your mother—”

“And you have never, not once, done anything to protect me,” Martin interrupted. “Or shown the slightest consideration for me, or done anything that wasn’t expected of you as a parent. You trapped me in a world I knew nothing about, bound me to something I didn’t understand, and any time I tried to do something for myself you punished me for it. I didn’t ask to be born, and I certainly didn’t ask you to be my mother, any more than you asked for Gertrude Robinson to be yours, and I didn’t and don’t deserve to be mistreated because those things are true. I gave up twenty years of my life for you, Mother, and the least you can do is give me twenty minutes of your time and the goddamned truth for once. And if you don’t give it to me, I will be taking it by force. You don’t have to like it, but I am here to get answers from you, and I’m not leaving without them.”

A part of him felt guilty about this. Not about intimidating his mother, even in the condition she was in, but about the fact that every compulsion tied him a little tighter to the Ceaseless Watcher. He might have already been inextricably bound to it, but…he didn’t have to become a complete monster. He’d never do something like this if Jon was here.

Which, admittedly, may have also been part of the reason he hadn’t brought him along.

From the doorway, Gerry spoke quietly. “Look at it this way, Aunt Lily. You’re dying either way. You can either go out to him, or you can go out to me. And at least if you die by using all your energy spilling your guts to the Beholding, you’ll probably be free of everything.” He stepped a bit closer, and his voice took on a little of the curious echoing quality it had taken in the House of Wax when he had severed Danny’s soul from its flesh and wax prison. “You will get no such guarantee from us.”

His mother shrank back slightly, eyes widening, before she recovered herself and turned her attention back to Martin. He could taste the tiny bit of fear in the air, though, and it was…at least marginally gratifying. Even if it wasn’t entirely directed at him. “Fine. Fine. Whatever you’re going to ask…do it now.”

Martin took a moment to gather his thoughts, then took a deep breath and drew on the Eye as he locked gazes with his mother. “Tell me what you did.”

As was usually the way when he took a live statement these days, his mother’s attention met his with laser focus. “It started with the talisman your father placed under my pillow, and on your incubator, when you were born. My father had told me about the Fourteen, hoping I would avoid them, but I guessed that the token belonged to Terminus and thought that if I could join the pieces together again, I could keep breaking it to save my life every time I came close to death. But it didn’t work. Joining the pieces together only made me weaker and weaker. I even tried to give it to you, thought that maybe if I put it in your cradle or hung it over you with your mobile it would affect you instead, but instead…whenever it was near someone who wasn’t me, the further I got, the weaker I got and the stronger they—you—got. I kept it with me all the time, but it only helped keep me from getting weaker, it never made me stronger. I started doing research, trying to find someone other than Mikaele Salesa or Gertrude Robinson—or anyone at the Magnus Institute—who would know what it was. I never dared tell my father. He would have only scolded, not helped. Or not helped the right way. He would have tried to make it stop entirely, instead of help me to master it.

“I finally heard about Jurgen Leitner, just before your father left. My plan was to go and visit him, perhaps offer to be his assistant if he would let me see a book that could…so I moved us to London, but I had only just got settled when news started spreading about the attack, the breaking up of his library, and the loss of the knowledge. It was an unexpected bit of luck that the antiquarian book dealer who told me the news also told me about his foremost rival in the rare book market, a woman by the name of Mary Keay. I got the information and made an appointment, and it was then that we visited for the first time. Mary was the one who helped me to understand the talisman. The End and the Corruption both, tied together in a nasty bit of bone and sinew. When split, it put the two in conflict with one another and directed them away from the afflicted, but by putting them back together I had caused them both to fight it out inside myself. It had claimed me, and it would punish me for trying to corrupt another. Even you.

“Mary helped me. First by finding ways to…pacify the two, then by helping me to strengthen myself. And I joined in her work. And then you found your first book of power, and we both knew we could use that, that perhaps you, more than either of us, could find the book with the answer to my problem. You were so pathetically eager to please back then, it was so remarkably easy to coerce you into looking…and Melanie and Gerard were never able to rein you back. Especially since they wanted approval, too.

“If there was anything that was hard about it, it was keeping any of you from finding outside influence, from finding outlets that weren’t part of our world. Easy enough to manipulate you each on your own, but as a unit…a bit of spellwork here and there did the trick, though. Hexes to make other children avoid you. Curses to turn opinion away from you. It never worked on more than one of you at once, but you were so loyal to one another that if someone hated one of you, all of you would avoid that someone, so a bit of dissent here, a bit of annoyance there, and soon enough we had you isolated enough that you were trapped. Meanwhile, we were looking for the books, but also a way for us to become masters of them. The trouble was we never could manage to gain the favor of more than one at a time. And so we kept trying.

“You almost managed to escape. Gertrude Robinson—my mother—facilitated that. I was so angry with her. Not enough for her to interfere with the Rituals—not that I wanted them to succeed, but she didn’t need to interfere—but now she was getting involved on a personal level, encouraging you to audition for that college program. She threatened retaliation if I did anything to you in order to prevent you from going, and I didn’t doubt she was serious, but I had to do something to get you back. Mary was the one who found the way—a little nothing book from the Spiral, just a book of poetry really. Easy enough to slip into the pile on Roger’s nightstand. Then all I had to do was wait. He was beginning to forget anyway, so who would have thought it anything but natural? All we did was…nudge it along a bit.”

Melanie let out a strangled noise of rage and despair; Martin heard a rustle from behind him as Gerry, presumably, wrapped his arms around her. He ignored them both, focusing on his mother, who had faltered briefly at the noise. “Go on.”

Instantly, his mother refocused and continued. “We had hoped to get all three of you back, but Melanie managed to stay away—or you managed to keep her away. At least at first. She came back in the summer and still helped you all, though. Mary kept looking out for a book that would help me. She had her own, of course, the Catalog of the Dead, but we knew there had to be one that I could master and free myself from the torment of it all. And then…we found it. Or we thought we did. The Last Quagga , it was called, a book about Endlings—the last of a species. But in the illustrations, if you knew where to look, was a blueprint for becoming master of death, putting yourself beyond the reach of extinction. And we had a plan. Mary went and spoke to my mother one last time, gave her one final gift from both of us, and then came back and showed me what I needed to do. We agreed we would speak again after we had both reached apotheosis.

“Of course, you know what happened to her. She needed Gerard’s help to finish, and he selfishly refused. My problem was that I needed complete isolation for mine to work. I had to perform the rite on my own. But I was only partly finished when Roger came into the room.

“He didn’t know what I was doing, poor dear. Or what he was doing. It was one of his bad days, and he only wanted a cup of tea, wanted to know where Melanie was. And then he called me Amy, and it broke my concentration. I screamed at him, startled him, and for the first time in all the years I had known him he yelled back, and we had a fight such as we never had before. And it was only after he left, slamming the door behind him, that I realized I had stopped. I reached for the book to finish…and then I fell to the floor.

“You know the rest. The doctors at the hospital said we were too much for you to handle and it was time to have us placed somewhere. We went to Ivy Meadows for a while, but they never could help me—obviously, they couldn’t help Roger either, but at least they thought his problems were something they were used to, just ordinary dementia. Mine, though…they recommended Rosewood Forest, and here I am. I was genuinely upset to hear about what happened at Ivy Meadows, but at least I was able to bargain for Roger to be removed. They would not be allowed to use him.”

His mother drew in a breath and sighed, sinking back into the seat. Martin felt the statement settle into his body and hated every moment of it, even as it fueled him. He pressed his lips tightly together for a moment, then asked, “What did the talisman do to you?”

“I called it the Hollowing,” his mother replied. “It took everything inside me and turned it to nothing, made me just…a husk. Easy to fill with…something that shouldn’t.” Her breathing was beginning to get a bit ragged.

Martin had no sympathy for her. “How did you destroy it?”

His mother gave a hoarse laugh. “Fire. Like…the books. Thought we didn’t know?”

“We didn’t particularly care if you did,” Martin said. A bit of a lie, but not much of one. “Why did you kill my father?”

“In the way.” His mother’s voice was nothing but a thread now. “Too close to Salesa. Might have stopped me. Roger was…easier to work with.”

She closed her eyes. Her chest rose slightly with shallow, rasping breaths. Martin stared at her, wanting to feel something of the pity or empathy or, yes, love he’d once felt for her, anything to indicate he wasn’t wholly inhuman—after all, she was, when all was said and done, his mother. But the only thing he felt was disgust, anger, contempt…and a sudden, burning desire to know the answer to one last question.

The Eye sensed it, and rushed in eagerly. The static he was only barely aware of these days rose to near a fever pitch as, unable to stop himself, he asked, “Did you ever love me at all?”

A single delicate snort, barely a pop, and she didn’t even bother opening her eyes to answer. “Never.”

One last rattling breath, and her chest stilled. The temperature in the room dropped, or seemed to drop, several degrees. For long moments, Martin just sat, staring at the corpse on the bed.

Finally, from behind him, Gerry spoke in the ringing, echoing voice of the End. “Thus ends Liliana Blackwood-King.”

Click.

#ollie writes fanfic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest)#Martin Blackwood #Melanie King #Gerard Keay #arguments #hospitals #emotional abuse #misuse of Beholding powers #slight misuse of Terminus powers #chronic illness #death

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runawaycarouselhorse · 1 year ago

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why do people of other religions get punished in islam?

In the Name of God, Most Merciful, Most Gracious...

"Indeed, those who believed and those who were Jews or Christians or Sabeans [before Prophet Muhammad] - those [among them] who believed in Allah and the Last Day and did righteousness - will have their reward with their Lord, and no fear will there be concerning them, nor will they grieve." [2:62, (translation of interpretation of meaning of the) Quran]

This question is phrased in an inlammatory way that tells me you don't sincerely want an answer and just want to antagonize me or you have hang-ups with religion in general and want to take this out on the nearest adherant of an Abrahamic religion or you just hate Islam/Muslims, but seeing as I'm bored, I'l bite.

If there was no right path, there would be no real reason why uou couldn't follow any other path.

Why do you care if you're not even Muslm what any other religion's God says? Why do you care, if this stuff doesn't apply to you or your world view?

Muslims must treat everyone kindly and justly, unless they wage war against us, prevdnt us from practicjng our faith, drive us out from our gomes, etc. Jihad is self-defense in that respect. If peace is an option, we take it!

"Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes – from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly." [60:8, (translation of interpretation of the) Quran]

We believe life is a test, God wants to see if we love Him enough to worship Him. God sent prophets and messengers to every nation, but over the years, the original texts have been altered, lost, mixed with human interpretation, etc. Islam is the final message and, unlike the previous messages, is for all of humanity until the end of time, and the miracle of this last Prophet is an unchanging book preserved to the end of time (when it will be lifted and all good people will gently pass away, so only the worst of humanity will witness the end before resurrection.)

You can find copies of the Quran from a thousand years ago and not one letter is altered. Translations of its meaning can differ and be incomplete, each translator bringing you only part of the meaning, but the original Arabic text is memorized, understood, and recited daily by many Muslims and always has been for 1400+ years.

The people who worshipped God on their own, having received no message or in the gap between God sending messengers, will enter Heaven, like a pious man who lived in the time between Jesus and Muhammad who worshipped one God and saved baby girls from being buried by their fathers, but knew no religion.

People who simply never heard of God or any of His religions in life could be tested on the Day of Judgment and enter Heaven if they believe.

Anyone upon any of the Abrahmic faiths who never learned the message of Islam can enter Heaven.

There was a Christian man who recognized signs of prophethood in Muhammad before the message of Islam, who wanted to follow him, but passed away before the message (wnen he had just see Jibreel/Archangel Gabriel), and he also entered Heaven.

The Prophet (ﷺ) returned to Khadija while his heart was beating rapidly. She took him to Waraqa bin Naufal who was a Christian convert and used to read the Gospels in Arabic Waraqa asked (the Prophet), "What do you see?" When he told him, Waraqa said, "That is the same angel whom Allah sent to the Prophet) Moses. Should I live till you receive the Divine Message, I will support you strongly."

Another longer narration (sunnah.com has some awkward translating from Arabic though)...

'... Khadija then accompanied him to her cousin Waraqa bin Naufal bin Asad bin 'Abdul 'Uzza, who, during the pre-Islamic Period became a Christian and used to write the writing with Hebrew letters. He would write from the Gospel in Hebrew as much as Allah wished him to write. He was an old man and had lost his eyesight. Khadija said to Waraqa, "Listen to the story of your nephew, O my cousin!" Waraqa asked, "O my nephew! What have you seen?" Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) described whatever he had seen. Waraqa said, "This is the same one who keeps the secrets (angel Gabriel) whom Allah had sent to Moses. I wish I were young and could live up to the time when your people would turn you out." Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) asked, "Will they drive me out?" Waraqa replied in the affirmative and said, "Anyone (man) who came with something similar to what you have brought was treated with hostility; and if I should remain alive till the day when you will be turned out then I would support you strongly." But after a few days Waraqa died and the Divine Inspiration was also paused for a while.'

Another narration concering Waraqah, talks about a ru-yah/true dream or vision the Prophet had of Waraqah wearing white garments, after his death, so he could not have been of the inhabitants of Hellfire.

I and other Muslims are not responsible for your own actions. We are not God to condemn you. I am not a scapegoat for your religious trauma either. But if you feel strongly about what my God would think of you, perhaps you should look into that on your own.

#replies #anonymous #if it were ruder I would have just blocked but hey maybe it's genuine #Islam

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unhewn · 2 years ago

Text

Textual Variants of God's Word

A series of brief reflections on the Reformed notion of Scripture, and the questions that textual variants raise in that context.

Judging the Judge

The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture. ... The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as in all controversies of religion the church is finally to appeal unto them. Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.8 & 1.10

"This passage is not found in some early manuscripts."

Why do the findings of textual critics have immediate bearing on which passages of Scripture are the Word of God?

It appears the WCF and confessions like it create a situation where there is an original (albeit long-lost) text which alone is the immediately-inspired Scripture. What we hold in our hands is a modern reconstruction that we trust includes that original scripture. But, it may have additions to it. It is an article of faith that authentic scripture is preserved by God through the centuries. It is not an article of faith that only authentic scripture has been preserved. The Lord gives, and the textual critic takes away. There is an inspired text; the question is how it relates to the text we have. Is the true text a subset of our received text? "Just chip away everything that doesn't look like Scripture."

If the "Supreme Judge" in "all controversies of religion" is "the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture," the question becomes: are there parts of our Scriptures where the Spirit does not speak? Where can the Spirit be reliably found to speak? It appears that this job of discernment has fallen to the academy. Which academics? The ones you trust. Which should you trust? The ones who believe in the authority of— uh oh.

What mechanism is in place to determine whether a passage is Scripture? Who has the authority to remove a jot or tittle? How are these findings disseminated to the people of God? How does the church accept them? By a council? Is every individual supposed to examine the data and decide for themselves? Is the local pastor?

The Critic and the Christian

This is not to downplay the extraordinary wealth of manuscript evidence we have, or the confidence we can have in the reliable transmission for most of Scripture. Clearly we have more manuscripts of the OT and NT than we could ever hope to have for any other ancient writings. The textual critics have plenty to play with.

But—and this is a point that I don't think is taken seriously enough by apologists—the claims on scripture from within the faith are much higher than those from without. The historian thinks it probable a man named Jesus was crucified by Rome in the first century; very well. The lay faithful asks: "Did Jesus really say I must be baptized to be saved?" The woman in the pew does not wonder whether her copy of the Bible is generally reliable; that bar is far too low. She is, or is told she should be, building her life around every word of it. To throw it into doubt is to throw the very material of her faith and her life into doubt. Sure, removing the Pericope Adulterae has no real impact on the Christian faith—unless, of course, you yourself were once caught in adultery.

"Is the Holy Spirit speaking to me through this passage or not, pastor?"

"We used to think God said this, but now we're not so sure."

Pick One

"Nothing we believe to be doctrinally true, and nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardized by the variants."

Mark 16:9-20 is suspect because it appears to teach baptismal regeneration.

"Ought" vs "Is"

If the Holy Spirit worked through history to accomplish both the composition and the recognition of scripture (if the Bible is inspired in a forest, etc.), then the academic's work is just retracing the Spirit's process through time. "Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9-20." Yes, and some of the earliest canon lists do not have Hebrews, 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, or Revelation. But it was the providence of God that led to their acceptance, right?

Is Scripture just the oldest manuscripts we can find? What if we found an earlier draft of Mark, with more sections missing? Do we bracket more passages? "No, it's not the final Gospel." Why not? If it's there, did the Spirit preserve it? "Because it's not what the Church received." Ah, now we're getting somewhere.

Maybe the Spirit has us on a quest for the True Scriptures, and is now working through the academy to clean barnacles from the ark of the Word. Maybe.

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