#I said I was doing this reread to talk about john and by god I am Talking About John

[morethanwonderful]

Rereading and really thinking about page 82/the title page after not looking at early Homestuck for a long time makes me feel unhinged. I know the page has been analyzed to death but god there really is just so much in there thematically to unpack.

From more or less the first moment that both concepts come up in Homestuck, wind and loneliness are tied together. It's partly a joke about John being melodramatic about the desolation of his empty mailbox, but it's also the core of his entire character.

John is the Heir of Breath. He's all about freedom and individuality on a symbolic level and wind on a literal level. And as we see time and again, the inherent price of his power is that achieving freedom also cuts him off from others. He's the opposite of blood and bonds. He becomes unmoored from reality and can retcon his own story, teleporting to where and whenever he pleases across the multiverse, but it comes at the cost of relocating to a new timeline where his friends have all shared a reality different than his. And that's just one example.

For John, the aspect of freedom and wind comes at the cost of isolation. Wind is the space that keeps neighbors apart.

Hell, you could even say something about the fact that it's specifically the wind in the gaps between suburban homes that brings up the imagery of desolation. On one hand, talking about loneliness alongside suburbia is an old trope, and for good reason. American suburban architecture and city planning is designed to put people in nuclear family bubbles and isolate them from their communities (and god forbid, anyone outside their immediate community). So the isolating wind in the gaps between picket fence houses is a classic image.

But also, it's really fitting for the specific sense of loneliness that John experiences.

Lots of Homestuck characters have loneliness as a major recurring theme. Even among just the beta kids, Jade's isolation is even more iconic than John's. She spends most of her life alone on an island with just her dog, and in the retcon, she spends three years alone on the ship between realities. She's constantly isolated by great gaps of physical space (heh) between her and the people she cares about.

John's isolation is different. He's never so cut off as Jade from the people he loves, but there's always some gap between them. He has a loving father that he often feels adversarial toward as a kid, and their conflict circa John's thirteenth birthday is in large part because of the harlequin misunderstanding. Dad Egbert is right there in the same house loving John, but there's a fundamental disconnect, and he fails to understand something major about his son.

Plus, we never see any mention of John having friends in his offline life. From his attitude toward himself (constant self-mockery) and the lack of any reference to him having friends that die in the apocalypse, he probably lives a pretty lonely life at school. He's a goofy nerdy insecure kid that can't connect with his peers and has to turn to faraway friends on the internet. Classic suburban isolation.

And it's the same in post-canon! John doesn't have to be cut off from his friends! He can fly and teleport and call/text them any time he wants. There's nothing subjecting him to physical isolation. All the loneliness of his depression is social and psychological. He's living on an empty suburban street—lonely while surrounded by people.

Genuinely, I don't know if there's a better image for him and his arc than the wind that blows through the gaps between cookie-cutter houses. The breeze keeping neighbors apart.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading updates: august 2024

the good news is that I did a lot of reading this month, the bad news is that honestly? I think that my birthday month has had the biggest percentage of literary letdowns, duds, and outright bullshit than any other month of this year so far.

but at least there's plenty to talk about, so let's get going!

Unlearning Shame: How We Can Reject Self-Blame Culture and Reclaim Our Power (Devon Price, 2024) - uh oh gamers, we're starting on a doozy! I've enjoyed both of Price's previous books very much, but with Unlearning Shame I couldn't help but feel like I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I wasn't getting what I had signed on for. the issue, I think, could be corrected by an adjustment to the title, which seems to be promising a very broad tackling of the concept of shame and is therefore making some pretty big promises. in reality, the book is much more narrowly focused than that, interested primarily in the shame that arises in the activism-minded when they feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of awful things in the world and their perceived inability to do anything about it. fairly early on Price introduces an apparently relatable anecdote about himself and a friend having mutual breakdowns in a grocery store because they were both so paralyzed by the conundrum of trying to buy the most ethical groceries possible, and I realized this book was maybe not really for me or my particular experiences with shame. I think this book will be really helpful for a lot of people for sure, would love to pass it on to a lot of my freshmen, but overall it did not live up to the expectations I brought to the party.

A Separate Peace (John Knowles, 1959) - so I wanted to reread this because someone on here sent me an ask about, I don't know, my favorite required high school reading or whatever, and I said it was A Separate Peace but then I realized it's been over a decade since I read the book and I had to go see if it still actually held up. and god, does it EVER. this is such a brutal and heartbreaking novel, beginning in the last carefree summer that best friends and roommates Gene and Finny will experience before their final year at their boys' private school and their seemingly inevitable draft into WW2. although Gene is seethingly jealous of Finny's seemingly effortless charisma, popularity, confidence, and athletic prowess, the two boys are also inseparable - until a tragic injury changes the course of Finny's life forever. this book is a mess of unspoken pain, from the looming end of innocence on a global scale to the intimate ache of loving your best friend so, so much and having no healthy way to express it because you're a repressed little rich boy in the 1940s.

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea (Rita Chang-Eppig, 2023) - Chang-Eppig's debut novel follows the career of Chinese pirate Shek Yeung, also known as Zheng Yi Sao, immediately following the death of her husband, fearsome pirate Sheng Yi. you've probably seen a post or two about her floating around on this very hellsite, calling her a pirate queen and accompanied by this image:

Chang-Eppig isn't interested in portraying Shek Yeung as any kind of heroine or feminist icon; over and over again it's acknowledged that she's simply a woman who has survived massive hardships and will do whatever she needs to do to survive. manipulation? spying? extortion? torture? murder? you name it, she's done it, and she does not feel remorse. while the novel wasn't a knockout for me either in terms of plot or prose, it's nice to see an entry into the trend of "retelling" stories from history and mythology centered on women that isn't determined to justify every step a maligned woman ever made. Shek Yeung is what she is, and her story makes for a gritty, bloody adventure.

Victim (Andrew Boryga, 2024) - this book is pure sleazeball fun; if you've ever wondered what I consider a romp, this is it. Victim follows our manipulative king Javi Perez as he builds a writing career for himself by turning in one essay after another about racial discrimination that he never really experienced, inventing stories of hardship caused by racism and poverty from his college application essay to his school newspaper to the story that finally brings the whole lie crashing down when he stretches the truth too far. the novel is written like Javi's apology in the wake of getting #canceled, and while I do sometimes feel that this premise makes some of the writing seem a bit implausible (why would you admit that!!!) it's a fun setup for a scandal that would have been a bloodbath on the twitter of old. come get your mess!!!

Bad Girls (Camila Sosa Villada, trans. Kit Maude, 2022) - this is my first time reading Sosa Villada's work but OH BOY, do I need to seek out more. this is a skinty little novel following a dramatized account of the travesti (or transgender) women who live and sell sex in Córdoba, Argentina. the women build an unsteady but beautiful and magic-infused family under the protection of the ancient Auntie Encarna. the protagonist (who is named Camila Sosa Villada, no relation I'm sure) watches as her unconventional family grows, changes, and frays over time, struggling to find ways to stay afloat in a world that see them as disposable. Sosa Villada's turns of phrase are brilliant and searing, and she weaves fantastical elements so nimbly into her narrative that it's utterly believable to see women becoming animals and courting headless men in the streets of a modern city. strongly recommend for fans of Kai Cheng Thom's Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars.

Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism (Aileen Morteon-Robinson, 2000) - this book serves as a scathing literature review indicting Australia's white women anthropologists and feminist scholars for the ways in which they've dehumanized and discredited Aboriginal women, stripping them of the right to be authorities of their own experiences and barring them from a white-centered feminist movement. Moreton-Robinson's account is excellent, contrasting the wok of white women academics with the accounts of Aboriginal women to reveal exactly how massive the disparities in understanding are. as a USAmerican previously aware of Australia's colonial history but unfamiliar with the specifics, it was jarring to discover exactly how similar the mechanism of colonial violence are between my country and Australia, with countless genocidal parallels to be drawn. one particular highlight of the book comes via my purchase of a 20th anniversary edition, which includes a new post-script by Moreton-Robinson in which she dissects and responds to various criticisms of the book at its time of release, taking several critics to task for the belittling tone they used to describe her work and the tools white feminists use to absolve themselves of blame in the face of critique from women of color. fascinating and thorough articulation of Moreton-Robinson's point, and deservedly blistering. I love when academics call each other out by name.

The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance (Sabrina Strings, 2024) - so the thing about this book is that there are really good PARTS. Strings is still an excellent historical writer, and I found a lot to appreciate in, for instance, the segments on the history of Black American pimp culture and the analysis of Playboy and Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl. the more personal segments, where Strings contorts herself to fit her own failed relationships into the narrative she's building, are decidedly less consistent in their quality, with some feeling like they would have been better off staying between Strings and her therapist. there's a long and convoluted digression about Sex and the City, and a strange anecdote towards the end in which String recounts a phone call with a friend's college-aged son who, String believes, was masturbating during the call. a yucky experience, to be certain, but I'm not sure it justifies Strings filing a police report against the youth and his mother, who she accuses of having groomed her on the son's behalf. she also casually drops in the same chapter that she considers herself pansexual because she's attracted to trans men in addition to cis men? idk man!!! this book was so uneven that I found myself genuinely questioning whether Strings' first book, Fearing the Black Body, is actually as excellent as I remember it being. I'm pretty sure it is, but god it sucks to get shaken so hard that you have to wonder!

The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures (Phoebe Gloeckner, 2002) - another book that I had to read for class, years ago! I read Diary of a Teenage Girl in one of my gender and women's studies classes in my undergrad, for a class with a title along the lines of Girlhood Stories in Fiction and Film. Gloeckner's novel (though heavily informed by her own life, she insists that it's a work of fiction) sees its young protagonist, Minnie, navigating a great deal of sex, alcohol, drugs in 1970s San Francisco. I started thinking about the book because I was listening to a trio of episodes of You're Wrong About in which Carmen Maria Machado guests to talk about the pervasive sham that is Go Ask Alice (great series, check it out) and I started thinking about Diary, which is so much less preachy and didactic and is, you know, actually drawn from a real teenage girl's diary, unlike Go Ask Alice, and lacking Alice's preachy didacticism. as a diary based on a real diary this book is largely lacking in any particular plot (the most consistent through line is Minnie's ongoing and tumultuous sexual relationship with her mother's 35 year old boyfriend), but if that's not a turn off then you'll find yourself rooting for Minnie to find her way all the way to the uncertain but ultimately optimistic conclusion.

One and Done (Frederick Smith, 2024) - okay, so. this is a romance novel that I picked up because I saw a review talking about how it's an incredibly realistic depiction of working at a university. now that's obviously an insane thing to look for in a romance novel, but I like romances, ESPECIALLY gay romances, and I work at a university, so I figured sure, I'll bite. spoiler alert: it's not great. I posted some examples of the prose here, and even if the two protagonists talked like actual human beings it wouldn't make up for the stale-ass plot or devastating lack of chemistry they have going for them. more like One and Glad to Be Done With This Book That Isn't Very Good, am I right, ladies?

Seduced (Virginia Henley, 1994) - guys, I'm gonna be so fucking real with you. this is the most batshit novel I've ever read, period, let alone the most batshit romance novel. this book was the winner of a poll I ran on patreon last month in which my wicked patreonites got to nominate romance novels of their choosing for my next reading project and voted amongst themselves to crown a winner, and against all odds and my own light attempts to sway the voters, Seduced won it all. this book has everything: a historical setting, a bold young lady disguising herself as her own brother, wildly unchecked orientalism, a murderous cousin, high society scandal, and some of the most torturous sex scenes I've ever encountered in my life. truly this write-up cannot do justice to what I have experienced; I've already promised by patreonites that I'll have to do a little youtube live in order to fully express the extent of my dissatisfaction.

and that was the month of August, babey!!!

[llovelyclouds]

notes on alecto

hii!! so a few months ago i did a full reread of the locked tomb and took note of anything i thought seemed particularly relevant. I want to share what I have but I'm not sure exactly how i want to format everything quite yet- but im just gonna go for it so bear with me if its a little disorganized!

throughout the process i've started coming up with some of my own theories, but i thought it would be cool to post everything i've compiled, so people could use that to make their own conclusions as well :D

I have sections for anything that seemed important about all the original lyctors & their cavaliers, so I'm going to start off with all my information gathered about alecto! buckle in, folks, there's a lot :-)

you can find links to the other posts in the project here!

(also ofc spoilers for the up to the end of nona ahead!)

ALECTO

titles:

Also referred to as “A.L.”, “Annabel Lee,”or “Annie Laurie”  John’s cavalier, the soul of the Earth. (And of course, nona <;3)

Annabel Lee poem  (mentioned htn. pg. 196)

Annie Laurie poem (mentioned htn. pg. 345)

notes from harrow the ninth:

Harrow's psychosis seems to begin after seeing Alecto for the first time (htn. pg. 51)

Augustine describes her as "more lucid" than Mercy as an insult to Mercy (htn. pg 168)

"'God, who did you bury?' [...] 'I buried a monster,' he said." (htn. pg. 195)

(depending on how much of The Body is real) Agrees that Harrow should kill G1dieon (htn. pg. 226)

“Augustine said, ‘To sisters, and to the women we‘ve left behind.’ God’s mouth was cheerful as ever, but his eyes were not when he said, 'Do I have to drink to that?’ For the first time, you were witness to the Saint of Patience discombobulated. ‘Apologies, John. Wasn’t meant as a jab.’ ‘It doesn’t hurt anymore- most of the time,’ said God, and he was still smiling.” (htn. Pg. 277)

"Even the devil bent for God to put a leash around her neck… and the disciples were scared! I cannot blame them! I was terrified! But when the work was done- when I was finished, and so were they, and the new Lyctors found out the price- they bade him kill the saltwater creature before she could do them harm… Oh, but it is a tragedy, to be put in a box and laid to wait for the rest of time." - Teacher (htn. pg. 328)

Says she has to go away for a while immediately after Varun appears (htn. pg. 334)

John says that G1deon doesn’t talk about her, but Augustine and Mercy still feel guilty about what happened (htn. pg. 345)

“When I first met her I just called her First, One. She had a real name, but I buried it with her, and nobody says it anymore.” - John (htn. Pg. 345)

“Annabel Lee was my- what do I call her? Guide? Friend? I’d hope so… [...] She was the first Resurrection. She was my Adam. As the dust settled and I beheld what was left and what was gone, I was entirely alone. The world had been ended, Harrowhark. One moment I was a man, and the next moment I was the Necrolord Prime, the first necromancer, and more importantly, a landlord with no tenants. [...] I was dazed… I was bewildered… and she was my defender and my sole companion, and my colleague in the scholarship of learning how to live again. It was bloody difficult. I had never been God. [...] She lived to see what happened at Canaan House. Not that she took much interest. My first Resurrection was not a normal human being, Harrow, and she struggled to pretend. Anger was her besetting sin. We had that in common. And when the cost of Lyctorhood was paid, when the emotions were at their peak… we found out the price for our sin. The monstrous retribution. To be chased for our crime to the ends of the universe, to have our deed stain our very faces and follow after us like a foul smell. She died after that first terrible assault.” - John (htn. pg. 346)

"That freak would have gone for me already… she could never act human." -Mercymorn (htn. pg. 408)

the lyctors knew some amount of truth about Alecto's resurrection, likely that shes essentially a resurrection beast (htn. pg. 478)

"'A monster, John!' Augustine barked. "She was a bloody monster in a human suit! She was a monster the moment you resurrected her, and then you went and made her worse!'" - Augustine (htn. pg. 478)

Gideon & Pyrrha liked Alecto despite the fact that the other lyctors (at least Mercy and Augustine) didn't (htn. pg. 479)

One of the reasons the lyctors wanted her dead was because the RBs were partially coming for her (htn. pg. 479)

Appears to claim Harrow's body after Gideon "dies" in the river (htn. pg. 500)

notes from nona the ninth

"Sometimes, [...] I don't like when you do- the necromancy word- [...] -but it feels nice at the same time. It's mixed up. It's like when you do that, it makes me sad- not sad that you did it, but sad that you can do it." - Nona, to Palamades (ntn. pg. 65) 

"Nona loved the blue sphere as much as she loved everything else. She, and nobody else, could hear it sing." (ntn. pg. 125)

"'And I'm not scared of dying. Really truly, Cam, I'm not…' 'Why not?' said Camilla. Nona thought about it. 'Because I like letting go of the pull-up bars and falling off,' she said. 'I don't like the part just before you let go and I don't like the part where you hit the floor, but I like the letting go.'"- Nona and Cam (ntn. pg. 125)

"Dust of my dust- such similar star salt- what they did to you and what they wrung from you and what shape they made you fill- we see you still- we seek you still- we murdered- we who murder- you inadvertent tool- you misused green thing- come back to us- take vengeance for us- we saw you- we see you- I see you." - Judith, (as Varun) to Nona (ntn. pg. 164)

Nona likes Gideon's (originally Pyrrhas?? maybe?) sunglasses, but only so long as nobody wore them (ntn. pg. 165)

"then she told herself sternly, Stop it! If she was going to do it, she thought, she might as well do it. She had some vague notion that when you committed to a thing you had to do it all the way. Who had said that to her? Who had taught her that? Once you've stepped in, said the voice in the back of her head, you're in. This isn't the Hokey Pokey. She had remembered something- she had finally remembered something! Only she didn't have anyone to tell." (ntn. pg. 203)

"Nona had thrown exactly two tantrums in her entire life. She couldn't remember anything about the first one, but Pyrrha had told her about it. Pyrrha had been laughing with her mouth, but not with her eyes: her eyes had been very brown and distant and uneasy, as though this tantrum had reminded Pyrrha of something her brain didn't want to bring back." (ntn. pg. 275)

"'But you see, Palamades, I don't mind dying,' said Nona, trying to make him understand. 'I've been doing it for ages. I'm not scared.'" (ntn. pg. 289)

"'I am glad you did not tell us this. We had no idea there was any recourse from Varun the Eater's effects, nor any beast.' 'Its pure theory,' Camilla said curtly. "Something's being transmitted through the light spectrum. Absorption through the eyes is worse for the brain.' This made Nona think of something. It tugged at the edges of her memory and stayed there, nagging.'" - We Suffer & Cam (ntn. pg. 322) 

Nona says that she never liked her hands (ntn. pg. 357)

"She wanted to shout. She wanted to be listened to. She wished the barrier had taken her hands. She wished she had thrust herself into it- become that big seething mass of flesh and meat and tendrils- ruined her body, just melted it; come back messed up, so that nobody could want her body but her, so that it would be hers and nobody else's. This was a horrible thing to think. Nona hated herself immediately and fervently." (ntn. pg. 358)

She hates having just two feet (ntn. pg. 390)

“You were the noise that was everywhere. It was like trying to talk to someone down a phone line with someone screaming through a megaphone in the same room. You drowned everything out. You were so huge and so complicated, and you were screaming, You wouldn’t stop screaming, You were so scared. You were so goddamn mad.” (ntn. pg. 405)

“You were screaming. I wanted you to stop, I wanted… I wanted you. I wanted you like a caveman wants a wildfire… or the sun. I thought you were going to take me, somehow. Purge me. Use me as an instrument. But you didn’t say anything…I was babbling, Show me. Come on. I’m ready. You kept screaming and screaming… like a baby in pain. So I tried to hurt you- I did hurt you. I reached out for you, and it hurt you… but I wasn’t strong enough. The caveman. The wildfire. The Neolithic priest staggering in front of the falling star.” (ntn. pg. 407)

“I wanted to make you the most beautiful body I could think of. He paused and said: “But I was stressed, okay? I was insane. Most of what had made me John had gone somewhere else. There were a few little thoughts left…a handful of things that made me me… a couple scraps of id. It’s not fair to judge me, right? I didn’t do this thinking… I didn’t do it like art. When I was seven, you know, all Nana had to play with in her house was some of Mum’s old toys. And my favourite out of all of them…” He gave a long, shuddering sigh. “My favourite was her old Hollywood Hair Barbie,” he murmured. “I loved her little gold outfit and her long yellow hair. She was the best. She got to have all the adventures. [...]” He said, from my blood and bone and vomit I conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in. I was terrified you’d find some way to escape before I was done. I made you look like a Christmas tree fairy… I made you look like a Renaissance angel… I made you Adam and Eve… Galatea. Barbie. Frankenstien’s monster with long yellow hair. He said, As the world went up I remade us both. I hid me in you… I hid you in me. And when we were together… once the shaman had claimed the sun… I became God.”- John (ntn. pg. 408)

“Do you remember what you said to me once I had done it? When we stood here together?” She looked at him and she said, “Yes.” He said- “You said, ‘I picked you to change, and this is how you repay me?’” She said- “What else did I say?” He said: “You said, ‘What have you done to me? I am a hideousness.’” She said- “What else did I say?” He said, “Where did you put the people? Where did they go?” She said, “I still love you.” He said, "You said that too.” - John & Alecto/Harrow (ntn. Pg. 410)                                                

Nona has some kind of blackout on top of the truck and something happens in that time that convinces Pyrrha of her true identity (ntn. pg. 413)

Also based on Nona’s reaction at that point, maybe Alecto didn’t like Pyrrha even though Pyrrha liked Alecto (ntn. pg. 413)

“She’s scared to die. You’re afraid of so many things, but she’s only afraid to die. Then when the disciples come to you and say the word Lyctor, she does not understand that they want the thing you did to her- she watches as you watch… watch them misunderstand the process.” - Harrow, to John, (ntn. pg. 434)

“In [Aiglemene’s] hands was a huge black-metal pike about the same height as her, with an edge that gleamed in the light. Nona couldn’t stop herself looking at that edge: for some reason it made her palms sweat, and the back of her neck itch again.” (ntn. pg. 454)

“I might not help you when.. I'm back," she said, not quite understanding I. “I'll be different. I'll remember everything. I'll remember the thing I'm trying to forget. And Palamedes-  I won't love him. I won't love Camilla, or Pyrrha, or Hot Sauce, or even Noodle. I won't love anything… I won't know how. I won't be me at all, or.. I'll be the me who knows the thing, and knowing the thing means I'm not Nona- I'm someone else." (ntn. pg. 460)

she recognizes the tower, and the devils (ntn. pg. 440, and 447, respectively)

“You let that monster out of its box," said Ianthe, "and you start us down a path nobody can save us from. If God truly wants her out… if Teacher set this all up… if he wants her…"  “Wants her? He told me to kill her. He said Make it quick, but kill her, said me with my blood could do it- said me with my blood, I was the only one… " [...] “He loves her! " Ianthe howled. “John loves Alecto - John needs Alecto! Without that piece of Goddamn fridge meat, he's nothing- and we need to keep him that way!” - Ianthe & Kiriona, accidentally prompting nona to remember everything (ntn. pg. 470)

“She had been taken down this corridor: she had squeezed through this crack in the rock- not a passageway, not at that point. John had told her he had something to show her. He had said, It's very pretty. You'll like it. [...] John loved her. She was John's cavalier. She loved John. For she so loved the world that she had given them John. For the world so loved John that she had been given. For John had so loved her that he had made her she. for John had loved the world. [...] She hadn't come on purpose; the scrap of black-eyed meat had asked for it- the chain of a kiss: the ice that burnt the flesh of the mouth that had stuck to the mouth that was frozen.The teardrop on the hand. The hand that John had fashioned. [...] John had said, It's so beautiful. Come and look. She had said, There are almost no beautiful things left. where is Anastasia? Let me talk to Anastasia. [...] Glowworms, she had told John. Technically beetles, said John, but I always loved them. Narrow beetles with long strands hanging off them- a carpet of shifting, dead, winking lights at the top of the grave. Greenish, orangish, yellowish, moving over one another silently with those long filaments hanging down. [...] And the water- the huge pool of real salt water, where she had knelt and drank- [...] John and she had swum to the centre hummock rising out of the pool. Not an island, not really. An outcropping. With the marble pillars, and the marble top, and the long low marble table. He said he thought it was a nice place to be. To lie down. She had liked hard things to lie down on. It was hard to endure having a spine.” (ntn. starting page 471)

“There she was; John had made her so ugly, so unbearably ugly. The terrible face, with the terrible arms and legs and the terrible middle part, and the terrible hair, and the terrible ears: the nose too short, the ears too brief. But there she was- and within her the child, asleep, with the strange sword. The sword- her sword- her own edge had been pushed out, her swinging edge, her toy. Her plain bladed sword. And her body was chained up…” (ntn. pg. 474)

“Then Alecto remembered the vow, and turned back upon the altar to face the second child and raised the sword with wrath in her heart, for they meant to bring destruction upon her. But when the black-eyed infant showed her countenance to Alecto, Alecto recalled her, for it was a face one dreamed in Alecto's dream. and Alecto stayed the sword.” (ntn. pg. 476)

“And Alecto said, Pyrrha, he laid me down as an appeasement to them; he fed you to them as an appeasement to them; but he has never appeased me, and now all he has done was teach me how to die." (ntn. Pg. 476) 

"Alecto said, I am very sorry about Samael. The child made no answer. Alecto said, I remember my vows. As I swore to Anastasia I swear to you. I am in your service until you bid me the favour, and whatsoever you appoint I shall perform, and consider the vow rendered. This is what I promised, until such a time as you deal with me as you see fit.” (ntn. pg. 477)

[fruitcoops]

So I just reread the fic about Jules birthday, and I’ve always liked the part where Remus tells Jules that he’ll always be more important than hockey. Could you write a fic about that if you haven’t already? Like Remus leaving in the middle of practice or something like that? Idk it’s up to u:)

Fic O'Ween Day 3: Midnight! Read more amazing works from these prompts at @noots-fic-fests and of course, character credit goes to @lumosinlove <3

TW illness (coughing, mentioned vomiting, fatigue)

Remus leaned against the countertop for support and stared at the floor. “But he’s okay, right?”

“He’s okay,” his mother answered. She sounded beyond exhausted.

Remus nodded and rubbed his fingers under his eye. The night suddenly seemed so much darker. “How’re you and dad? Taking time off?”

“We’re alright.” He knew that low edge to her voice—it was the same one his own took on when he was trying to hide his hurt. Silence fell over the line.

“Mom.”

“Your dad can’t get PTO this week and neither can I.”

She cleared her throat; he closed his eyes. “Can Leanne keep an eye on him?”

“Visiting her daughter in Florida.”

No parents, no neighbors, no way they’re getting a babysitter for a sick kid… “I’ll be on the next flight.”

“Remus, no.”

“There’s nobody else—”

“Honey.” He could see the way her eyebrows drew together in his mind. “Honey, you’re on the road this week.”

“I know.”

“In Montreal.”

“They can handle a couple games without me.”

“You’re practically a rookie, Remus,” his mother insisted. After a pause, she lowered her voice. “You’re not going to damage your career when we can get a babysitter, or—or I can find a couple days off. Hell, your dad’s got a pullout at the office he can rest on.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon, okay?”

“Remus John, you have a responsibility to your team.”

“Jules comes first.” If there was one thing Remus would stand by no matter the circumstances, it was his family. The Lions would survive a roadie without him. Jules would never be alone and sick on his watch.

His mother was silent for a long time.

Remus picked at a chip in the granite. “There’s no babysitter that will watch him, is there?”

A sigh traveled down the line. “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too, baby. Give Sirius my best. Sleep well.”

“I will,” he lied. The call went dead and he turned, bracing both hands against cool stone. Sirius’ footsteps were soft, his hand gentle. Remus sniffled. His chest was a vise. “Mom says hi.”

Slow circles pressed between his shoulder blades. “What happened?”

“Jules got the flu, and they can’t get time off work to stay home with him.” Fucking assholes in fucking corporate. Remus swallowed around the clog in his throat. “Sounds like he’s pretty sick.”

“Does he need to go to the hospital?”

Remus shook his head. The hand on his back slid down and wrapped around his side, guiding him to lean on Sirius’ chest. “Do you want me to book your flight while you call Coach?”

“Yeah.” His voice was rough. He didn’t let go. “God, I hate being so far away.”

Sirius’ other arm came around him and held him tight.

--

Remus and his father talked the whole ride home from the airport, and said nothing at all.

The house was just as he left it at Christmas. No snow remained, and little frost—crocuses peeked out of the lawn where the squirrels had snatched and buried them.

Apologies for the late notice, but due to a family emergency, I will be in Wisconsin until the 22nd. Thank you for your understanding.

Rapid responses. Cranky responses. Remus had tried to keep a level head, even through the tremor of his hands on the computer keyboard. The organization wasn’t happy with him, but when were they ever?

It didn’t matter either way. Fine or not, suspension or not, they weren’t going to stop him from making chicken soup and raspberry Emergen-C for his sick little brother. He was damn lucky to have Arthur on his side, easing the retribution from men in offices who had hardly bothered to meet him at the start of the season.

“Your mother’s worried.”

Remus glanced up from his hands. His father was facing forward, brow pinched while he pulled into the driveway. “Yeah.”

The engine turned off with a sputter. “Be gentle, okay?”

“It’s not your fault they wouldn’t give you time—”

��Be gentle.”

Remus bit the inside of his lip and nodded. A goldfish cracker peered out at him from the crevice by the door. This passenger seat always made him feel so small. He slung his backpack out of the seat well and stepped out, letting the crisp air nip his face and bring him back. He needed to come back more. The heartache had lessened, and distance was simply exhausting now. Running fast and far to Gryffindor had seemed so smart before.

The front door still squeaked when he turned the doorknob. Remus was glad for that, at least.

His mother smiled when she saw him. “Hi, baby, how was your flight?”

“Hey, mom.” It was good, he started to say, only to have the words fall from his mind the moment she stepped around the kitchen table and wrapped him in her arms. It’s been a lot I love you I missed you how are you where’s Jules—“Uneventful, thankfully.”

“Good, that’s just the way you want it.” She gave a little sway, one hand cradling the back of his neck. He felt a light pulse of pressure. Her back, ever tense, relaxed slightly. “It’s so good to have you home.”

Remus breathed deep. Lemon-scented cleaning spray and drugstore shampoo, laundry detergent and just-sharpened pencils. He pressed his nose tighter to her shoulder and felt her squeeze him, just a little. “Missed you.”

“Oh, Re,” she sighed. A hand rubbed along his spine for a few hard, grounding, wonderful seconds. Warmth seeped in around his edges. The floor was solid beneath him, the walls sturdy. A kiss found his temple. “Baby, we missed you, too.”

A rattling cough made him wince. “Jeez.”

“I know.” Her face crinkled into a grimace when they separated and she looked back down the hall. “That started up two days ago. Poor thing. Keeps him up at night.”

“Aw.” The cough was followed by a rough throat-clear that made Remus frown. “Fever and everything?”

“102, as of this morning.” Hope ran a palm over his shoulder, the way she tended to right after he came home. Remus tried not to think about that too hard, or else he made himself sad. “You’re sure about this? You could get sick. It’s the middle of the season.”

Remus tried for an encouraging smile. “My immune system’s great, mom. I’m in good shape, I take my multivitamins. Eat my Wheaties, and all that.”

“Hmm.” She scrutinized him for a beat. “You better be.”

“I’m basically indestructible.”

Her laugh bounced off the corners of the house like it always had. “Let’s not get hasty, hon.”

“Mom?”

Remus’ heart sank.

“Dad?” Jules croaked, a little louder. “Did the neighbors come over?”

“Hey, J,” Remus called. The floorboards gave a light groan when he set his bag down at the end of the hall. “It’s me, bud.”

Silence followed. The bathroom nightlight was on, casting the hall in gentle blue. His hand drifted toward the first door on reflex (cool metal knob, lock on the inside, jimmy it three times in the winter when the frame sticks), but he managed to step past it and knock lightly below the ‘J LUPIN. DO NOT ENTER.’ sign scotch-taped to the old wood.

“Jules? I’m opening the door.”

The first thing that hit him was the smell. Stale, sweaty, feverish—Remus did a double-take without meaning to.

“Jesus Christ, dude.”

“Oh, you weren’t kidding,” Jules rasped from somewhere to his right. “Hey. Hi, why are you here?”

“You slept too long. It’s June. I’m here for the summer.”

“Hey.”

“You’re sick, dummy.” Remus tried to be subtle about propping the door open wider with a loose hockey glove. “I’m taking care of you.”

With the new, faint light from the hallway, he could see just how terrible Julian looked. His unconvinced squint didn’t help the sallowness of his skin or the heavy bags carved under his eyes. “Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Nuh-uh, you have a roadie in—” Another hacking cough interrupted him. It shook his tiny frame hard enough to make his knees bend under the covers. Remus’ heart gave an acid lurch.

Agitated heat radiated off him to the point that Remus could feel it when he perched on the edge of the bed. The sheets were a tangled mess; one blanket half-tucked, the other mostly on the floor. “Deep breaths,” he soothed when the coughing turned to a few aggressive sniffles. “Take it easy.”

“Montreal,” Jules finished in a mutter. He wiped his nose on the edge of his baggy t-shirt (almost certainly their father’s, with the way it dwarfed him) and laid back with a long huff. “You got a roadie in Montreal. Dad ‘n me are gonna watch the game.”

“Dad and I.”

“Shhh.”

He smiled to himself and tugged the top blanket down to shimmy the next one into position. “Well, you and I can watch it. How’s that sound?”

“No, you need to play,” Jules groaned, but even that was weak. He curled onto his side and peeked out of his huddle, dull-eyed and flushed. “How come you’re here anyway?”

“Told you. I’m taking care of you.”

“But hockey.”

“But you.”

“But…hockey.”

“But you.” His stomach gave a little pull. “You’re more important than a couple games, bud.”

Jules didn’t look like he believed him. “…okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“No, you’re R—”

“Don’t you—” Remus bit back his words (and his grin) and whacked lightly at the outline of Jules’ legs under the blankets, coaxing a crunchy sort of laugh from him. “Watch it. I’m in charge of feeding you for the next few days.”

Jules’ giggling trickled out with a last sniff. “Mom and Dad gotta go to work, huh?”

“Yeah.” The wrinkle of his nose was almost certainly reflected on Remus’ face. “But hey, we’ll have fun.”

“Mmm.”

The air shifted, along with his gut. Jules’ breaths were heavier. His eyes, lidded. His forehead was far too hot against the back of Remus’ hand when he checked it. “Tired?”

“Mhmm.”

Wrapping him in a dozen blankets and cuddling him as tight as possible wouldn’t help. Logically, Remus knew that. The temptation was still there. “Too hot?”

“Warm.”

“Want me to take a blanket?”

Jules shook his head. His eyes were closed fully now. “Weight’s nice.”

Every inhale hitched when Remus rested a hand between his shoulder blades, feeling for his pulse. That, at least, was calm. Jules had sweated through the old grey fabric there. He combed a few strands of hair off his burning brow and swallowed around his dry throat. “Want me to leave you alone for a bit?”

“Gonna nap.” Jules’ twitched, as if he was trying to readjust but lacked the energy. “Here when I wake up?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be here.”

--

The evening passed without issue. Night rolled in with a gust of wind that hissed across the windowpanes while Remus dried the last of the dishes. Jules had managed to get up and come to the table for dinner, but he had looked even worse in the brighter light and barely ate half a bowl of soup. He could see their mother struggling not to fuss over him, not that Jules had any oomph to give real protest.

What kind of family emergency is this, Lupin?

A family emergency. I can come back the 22nd.

You’re missing two games. Do you understand that? Weasley won’t play you for the third, either.

I understand.

Is this a funeral?

No.

A wedding?

No.

It’s a request for nonvital time off, then. This could very well result in a fine.

I’m aware of that. Time off for a family emergency is covered in my contract. I’m permitted to miss four games.

Are you really going to put in a request for this? For a nonvital midweek trip instead of two NHL games?

That’s precisely what I’m requesting, yes. This is an emergency and therefore it is vital.

Remus had not missed the bureaucracy of the NHL during his time on the ice. There was still administrative irritation, of course, but it had not been nearly long enough since he played email tag with someone determined to make his life harder. ‘Nonvital emergency’. It made him want to laugh and lose it at the same time. What a fucking joke.

A sudden rustle and thud—likely Jules’ elbow hitting the wall between their rooms, ouch—startled him from half-sleep. Clumsy footsteps pattered on the floor; a door creaked and closed, quickly followed by a dry heave. Remus winced in sympathy.

This bedroom felt too small. His feet touched the end of the bed if he stretched out. There were only a few inches’ allowance for his shoulders on either side before he hit a wall or the edge of the mattress. Even his stuff felt smaller, as if the books shrank in his hands and the trophies had been made for someone Jules’ size.

He supposed they had been. Juniors was a world away, these days. He had turned the idea of keeping a potential you-know-what ring here instead of in Gryffindor, but never really committed one way or another. That, too, felt far off. He was stuck in the middle of a spectrum, where nothing felt quite right.

The toilet flushed, but he didn’t hear Jules leave. The low timbre of their father’s voice buzzed in the hall for a second; he didn’t catch Jules’ response. Remus swung his legs over the side of the bed with a huff and stood despite the creaking protests of his knees.

The blue light looked eerie in the cover of real night. He propped Jules’ door open again as he passed. A little ventilation couldn’t hurt. He paused in the doorway of the bathroom and crouched down, lowering himself to the cool linoleum with a soft groan. “Sup?”

“M not gonna throw up again.”

“Okay.” Remus flexed his ankles against the cabinets and tilted his head back. The soft towels buffered him from the wallpaper. Next to him, Jules’ forehead was stubbornly pressed into the crease of his elbow where he rested it on the toilet seat. “Still sick?”

A wordless mumble answered him.

“I’m gonna make chicken and dumplings tomorrow.”

Jules weakly raised his head. “Really?”

“Yup. Protein, veggies, sodium, starch. All that good stuff.”

Quiet fell over them for a long moment. “What are you talking about?”

“What, you don’t want a science lesson?”

“Nerd—”

He knew it was going to happen before Jules’ first jerk forward and caught his side when he wobbled, giving gentle pressure until he was upright. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay, I got you.”

“Ugh.”

“I know. You’re doing great, J.” It was over as fast as it started. Jules trembled lightly under his touch, sweaty again, all too warm again. His knuckles stood out in harsh midnight shadows where he gripped the porcelain, thin arms shivering.

Jules sniffled. “I wanna go to bed.”

“I bet.”

“I’m tired.”

“Can you stand up?” It took Jules a moment to even start moving; when he did, it was sluggish and unsteady. Remus hovered his hands close and resisted the urge to scoop him right up. Jules wouldn’t like that. He hated being babied. It was still fucking hard to watch him pull himself to his feet.

A rinse-and-spit and a cool washcloth on the back of his neck made Jules sigh. He leaned right into Remus’ hip, head at the base of his ribs, and staggered along on foal legs while Remus guided him back to bed with a lump in the base of his throat. There was no fuss about being tucked in—he simply sighed again, so content it hurt. Remus smoothed out the hem of the comforter by his neck just one more time, once more, just so he could be sure.

--

Their parents were out by the time Remus woke. He distantly recalled the sound of them leaving, but the plane left him groggy enough not to notice or care. Jules was still snoring loud enough for him to hear it through their shared wall.

Breakfast, then. Something light. Oatmeal or eggs, if he could keep it down. Broth, if not. Remus would have to check the fridge for Gatorade and lemons.

It was strange to be functionally alone in the house. The carpet felt too soft, the curtains too still. A bright pink sticky note was stuck to the table with his name written in big letters at the top. He’d check it later.

Message To: SB <3

Morning :)

Fever’s still going, nasty cough, the works. I’ll keep an eye on him today.

Miss you

He clicked his phone off and set it aside—hopefully, Sirius wouldn’t be awake for some time yet. They didn’t have practice for two more hours in his time zone. He liked to sleep in on days like that. Remus, on the other hand, had work to do.

Quick eggs and bacon for himself took fifteen minutes. He parked himself at his usual seat without really thinking about it, pulling a dish towel and a fork from their drawers with an absent mind. He hadn’t dared to check his email yet and seriously contemplated leaving it alone until he was back in Gryffindor. Time off was time off. Professional hockey wasn’t big on ‘work from home’.

Jules shuffled in half past ten and made a beeline for the couch.

“Good morning.”

A grunt answered.

“Sleep well?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Want oatmeal?”

Jules’ mumble seemed vaguely affirmative. Remus set the kettle on and dug a pot out of the cupboard, then turned to rummage in the pantry. This was setting up to be a silent morning.

Measuring for a sick preteen was almost as strange as picturing his childhood bedroom as a normal size. Remus had only cooked for himself for years, then himself and Sirius, with the occasional potluck dish for a team dinner or holiday party. A single cup of anything was a novelty. “Want sugar?” he checked once the oats and milk were simmering. Jules snuffled in response, dragging one of the knit blankets further over his head. “Lemme check your temperature and then you can tell me, yeah?”

“Mmkay.”

A quick search of the medicine cabinet revealed no thermometer, and the same went for the hall closet. Remus spent a good five minutes riffling through the bathroom drawers and Jules’ desk before he found it propped against the base of his dolphin lamp. It had been left uncapped; gross. He made sure to give it a thorough wash before moving back into the living room.

“Blanket down.”

“No.”

“I can’t see your mouth. C’mon, just for a second.”

“Cold. Bright.”

“Twenty seconds, J. I promise. You can count.”

The blanket lump shifted. “Twenty?”

“Fifteen. Then I’ll bring your oatmeal over and leave you alone.”

A handful of shallow breaths filled the silence before Jules’ forehead poked out, then his glazed eyes, and finally the lower half of his face. Remus grimaced. His nose was red and chapped from tissues, and a faint crack split the side of his lower lip. “Have you been drinking your water?”

“Fifteen seconds,” Jules slurred.

Remus knew he wasn’t getting a better number than yesterday. Not with this vague lucidity, and not when Jules was hardly able to hold a fragment of a conversation. All the same, it made his gut sink when the thermometer beeped.

“Whuzzat?”

“102.5.”

“ ‘S worse?”

“Yep.”

A resigned nod told him Jules expected as much. The blanket swallowed him up again. Remus pulled it down over his feet before heading back to the kitchen.

Three hours passed with all the rush of a snail on codeine. Jules rallied to choke down his oatmeal before going down for a noon nap, let Remus rouse him to gulp down about a gallon of water, and overall remained sedentary while Remus channel-surfed for anything even slightly interesting on daytime TV. They settled on NCIS from one to 2:30, NCIS: Miami from 2:30 to four (with a brief break for sandwiches, or toast, in Jules’ case), and rounded it out with NCIS: LA while Remus tossed some rotisserie chicken and chopped vegetables in a simmering pot of broth.

“Re?”

“Yeah, bud?” Bisquick puffed over the side of the mixing bowl in a soft cloud.

“My stomach hurts.” Jules’ voice wavered. “And my mouth feels weird.”

Fuck. “Bathroom, hustle.”

The glimpse he caught of Jules before he vanished down the hall confirmed it: pallid skin, dilated pupils, sweat gleaming on the back of his neck. Remus rinsed his hands in the sink and dug the box of Pepto Bismol tablets out of his bag, and sent a silent thanks to whatever small mercy it was that left him without a reactive gag reflex.

He spent twenty minutes sitting sideways with water seeping into his pants from the bathmat. “I’m gonna throw up until I die,” Jules whined, pressing his forehead to Remus’ palm.

“You’re not gonna die. Definitely not while I’m here.” He slid his hand around to press against the nape of Jules’ neck and gave a light squeeze. “You’re almost done. Work it out, buddy.”

“Gonna miss the game?”

Despite the sweat, despite the illness, despite it all—Remus smiled. Of course Jules would be thinking about that when he looked like death warmed over. He wouldn’t be a Lupin with anything else on his mind. “We’ve still got half an hour.”

Jules gave a faint push back into his hand. His lower lip wobbled. “I don’t want to miss it.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll make it.”

“I don’t—” His voice cracked, but it wasn’t even slightly funny. He took a shuddering inhale and sniffled again, harsher. “I don’t want to be sick anymore, I don’t, I’m so done, I don’t like it.”

“Jules…” The redness had flooded his cheeks and ears, inching down his neck with each horribly choked breath. Jules’ eyes were bright, but not like usual. He blinked and a drip tracked down his nose. His exhale wasn’t much of an exhale at all—it wracked him, made him sway. “Oh,” Remus murmured. “Oh, hey, c’mere.”

The edge of thirteen had left Jules gangly, all bones and joints. He still fit just right in the hollow of Remus’ chest and arms. A shivering, overheated mess, but a mess that fit all the same. Fuck it, Remus thought as he tightened his arms around Jules and let him fall apart in the safe dark. He didn’t care if he got sick. This was the most vital emergency he could possibly think of. If the administration had a problem with that, he’d happily turn his gear in before leaving Jules to burn through this alone.

“I’m tired,” Jules whispered through shuddering breaths. “My head hurts ‘n my stomach hurts ‘n everything else, too.”

“I know, bud, you’re being so brave.”

A damp, wounded noise made Remus wince.

“But hey, you haven’t thrown up in, like, five minutes.”

Jules felt around blindly for a tissue and blew his nose several times before answering. “I guess.”

“You ready to get up? Have some dinner and watch the game?”

“Dizzy.”

“Okay.” He pressed the wrinkles out of Jules’ shirt with his palm and felt him go limp. “I brought some super special secret hockey medicine, if that’ll help.”

“…is it Gatorade?”

“No, but we have that, too.” He rattled the box next to Jules’ ear. “Pepto Bismol. My secret weapon.”

“Nuh-uh. That’s the pink sh—stuff.”

“Nice save,” Remus said dryly. “This is the same. It’s easier to keep down, though. And it works faster.”

“Makes my stomach stop hurting?”

“It might help.”

He waited a beat, then two. A clammy palm extended from the tangle of limbs near his middle. He dropped two of the chalky tabs into it and loosened his hold by a degree, enough for Jules to pop them both in his mouth and frown immediately. “Yuck. It’s crunchy.”

“Keep chewing.”

“Why is it coming apart like that?”

“Keep chewing,” Remus repeated through a light laugh. “Doesn’t work if you talk the whole way through.”

Jules tucked his legs closer to himself, pushing him further into Remus’ lap. As horrible as the past twenty minutes had been, he seemed better for it. The fevered sheen to his face wasn’t quite as nuclear. His breathing sounded more even and controlled.

“You finished?”

“Mhmm.”

Jules might have looked better, but Remus didn’t have the energy to fight the coddling urge this time. He slid his free arm across the back of Jules’ knees and hefted him up like a cat gone boneless, and received no protest whatsoever. Instead, Jules curled into him with a long, relieved sigh. Remus’ heart may have shattered a little.

The pregame show was just wrapping up when he set Jules gingerly on the couch and pulled the blanket around him. Half of his waterbottle was gone in a few desperate swallows; Jules wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and all but collapsed onto the throw pillows, a heap of exhaustion. The belltower by the middle school tolled six. His sandy hair was damp at the root when Remus passed a hand through it. They’d fix that eventually. Fluids first (hockey first), then everything else.

New Message From: SB <3

Heading to the rink. Miss you love you : )

Remus smiled down at his phone as he set Jules’ bowl on the coffee table and folded himself into the armchair.

“Tell Sirius I say hi.”

“He’s literally right there,” Remus laughed, gesturing at the TV. “He’s not gonna see it for ages.”

“Still.” Jules poked around with his spoon for a few seconds before attempting a small sip of broth. An approving nod followed. “It’s good.”

“Glad it meets your standards. Eat. Protein, veggies, sodium, starch.”

Jules’ eye roll was weak, but very much present. “I know, I know.”

“You gotta know that stuff.”

“I’m not gonna be a doctor.”

“Yeah, but you’re still gonna be a person.” Remus cut a dumpling in half with the side of his spoon. “If you don’t know how to feed yourself by the time you move out, I’m totally making fun of you.”

“Whatever.”

They both booed when the Habs skated out, and cheered when the Lions appeared soon after. Jules couldn’t muster much more than a rough whisper, but the soup and a bottle of Gatorade seemed to help. Remus made him get up and stretch during the first period intermission (to immense complaints, but eventual acquiescence) before letting him rest while he washed up in the kitchen.

New Message From: SB <3

First period up.

How’s J?

New Message To: SB <3

Haha yeah we’re watching

Temp’s high, still pretty sick. Getting better tho

Made soup

The response was almost immediate. Remus’ heart skipped at the thought of Sirius glued to his phone even after a rough period, just to chat with him.

New Message From: SB <3

Oooo jealous

New Message To: SB <3

Yeah you should be

It’s a real rager up here

Miss you. Go get ‘em.

A simple heart and hockey stick emoji followed. The grey bubble cycled for a moment before disappearing. That would be the midgame meeting. Remus was glad to be home—wouldn’t trade this—but he had to admit the hockey ache was still there. Even easy choices had consequences.

By the time he looked back, Jules was asleep. Remus checked his forehead as delicately as he could and was pleased to find it slightly cooler than that morning, if altogether too warm. The pattern of creaky floorboards laid a map in his bones as he moved through the house: first to open Jules’ window, then to let his blankets air out, and while he was at it, he may as well wash the sheets. The nightstand and bookshelf needed to be wiped down. It wasn’t hard to get that done while the washer rumbled on the other side of the hall. In the meantime, the soup had cooled enough to pack up in Tupperware to stack in the fridge for later. Who knew if Jules would suddenly get his appetite back? The kid was a bear when he was hungry.

He lingered for the end of the second period and swapped the sheets into the dryer at the start of the third with a cookie and a cup of Emergen-C for himself. He damn well better not catch whatever germs Jules had percolated from the hellscape of middle school. Sirius had called him ‘stubbornly healthy’ on too many occasions for it to be disproven. Besides, the administration might actually fire him if he came back from an emergency and was immediately out for three more games.

“Re?”

The sound of a quiet voice took Remus’ off-guard in the last few minutes of the third period. “What’s up?”

Jules shifted around until he could prop his chin on the throw pillow and blink blearily at Remus. “Did we win?”

“Game’s still going. 4-3, Lions.”

“How much time?”

“Just under five.”

Jules attempted a whistle, though it came out as more of a shaky breath. “Almost there.”

“Dad texted. They’ll be home in a few, traffic was rough.”

“Oh, okay.” A small smile lit his face. He burrowed back under the blanket. “That’s good.”

“They’ve been asking about you all day.”

“Did’ja tell them I was fine?”

“Something like that.” Sort of. Maybe. He had been gentle about it, at least. Gory details would only make them panic.

He made sure to poke Jules awake for the last minute of the game before shepherding him down the hall to brush his teeth and shower. It was only 8:30, but Remus felt weary all the way to his core. He made Jules’ bed while the water ran and tried to tuck the sheets in along the wall a little deeper this time, just in case one tried to end up on the floor again. If he had the time, he may as well do it right, pinched fingers notwithstanding.

It was all worth it when Jules trudged back into his bedroom and threw himself into bed, only to gasp aloud. “Aw, man, this is great.”

“You’re welcome,” Remus laughed.

“Oh, wow.” The bumps of Jules’ feet kicked happily under layers of fabric and down. “It’s all warm, and cozy…”

“Get some sleep,” he reminded him, and turned out the big light. “If you need anything, I’m right next door.”

He made it halfway across Jules’ carpet.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“You—” The faint outline of Jules’ head was backlit by his lamp. Remus could see the shadows of his hands fidgeting with the top blanket. “Will you…can you tell me about the soup stuff? The proteins and all that.”

Remus hesitated. “For real?”

“Yeah,” Jules said with a surprisingly enthusiastic nod. “It sounds cool.”

“I mean—yeah, sure. Uh…” Jules’ desk chair looked wildly uncomfortable for this time of night, so edge of the bed it was, he supposed. The sheets provided a nice cushion when he sat. “Okay, have you ever heard of macromolecules?”

“That’s a made-up word.”

“It’s what you’re made up of, actually. How about DNA? You know that one?”

--

Lyall opened the front door with a muttered curse for the bitter wind and the worse traffic. It was brutally unfair that the one day he tried to come home early, everything went to hell and kept him an age and a half longer. What kind of karma came after a father trying to get home to his sick kid?

“It’s awfully quiet,” Hope remarked behind him. The door opened at last; warm air rushed over them. “Boys? Are you up?”

The NHL postgame show was playing at a low volume, next to a plate with crumbs on it and a mug so old the pattern had washed off it. One of Hope’s blankets from her knitting phase was haphazardly piled on the couch. The evidence of both of them there, present and accounted for and safe, plucked at his heartstrings. “Why do I feel like this is exactly where they sat for the entire day?”

She shook her head. “Good for them. I’m jealous. Remus? Julian? Are you home?”

Remus’ bedroom door was closed. The bathroom fan was still on, and steam clung to the corners of the mirror next to a still-damp towel. It couldn’t have been long since they went to bed, then. Lyall pushed Julian’s bedroom door open wider and covered his mouth with his palm.

They had nearly rendered each other invisible, save for Remus’ legs stretched over the side of the bed and Julian’s arm resting atop his pile of blankets. Julian’s congested snoring drowned out the heavy, even rhythm of Remus’ breathing. As far as he could tell, only one of them had actually been prepared for bed.

“Oh my goodness,” Hope whispered at his shoulder. Her grin was radiant, even half-covered by her palm. “I don’t want to move them.”

“Re’s going to wake up with one hell of a side cramp if we let him sleep like that.”

“You do it, then.”

“…no.”

Hope scoffed fondly and tossed her hands in the air, then kissed him on the jaw as she stepped deeper into the bedroom. The whole place felt lighter, Lyall noticed. Julian had been holed up in here for two days, refusing to come out for anything but necessities. Whatever Remus had done, it worked wonders.

“Remus,” Hope singsonged in her quietest voice. She shook his shoulder, soft enough that for a moment, Lyall forgot Remus wasn’t a toddler anymore. “Baby, you need to wake up. It’s bedtime.”

“ ‘M asleep,” Remus mumbled without opening his eyes. “In my bed.”

“This isn’t your bed, lovey,” she laughed. “Come on, up you go.”

“Goin’ to sleep, promise.” His eyelashes fluttered, nose crinkling. “Talking ‘bout—‘bout proteins. Jules wanted to know.”

At the head of the bed, Julian didn’t show so much as a hint of waking. Lyall stepped forward and braced his hands under Remus’ arms, then hoisted him into a sitting position as gently as he could manage with the unexpected weight of an athlete to counterbalance him.

Remus jolted, startling into consciousness. “Woah—”

“Shh, shh.” Lyall helped him stand on clumsy legs and guided him to the door with a last playful glance at Hope. “I’ve got you, buddy.”

“Fell asleep.” Remus blinked hard. “Jules’ bed. Wanted me to stay. Time is it?”

“Almost nine.”

“Oh, god, ‘s early.” A yawn overtook him, spilling more of his weight into Lyall. He didn’t seem to know where his own feet were, but he went easily into the room next door.

“Alright,” Lyall huffed as he helped Remus stumble toward the bed and splay over the mattress. That old thing was definitely too small for him these days. Funny, how times changed so rapidly. That same bed used to make Remus look like nothing more than a pile of sheets. “Brush your teeth?”

A drawn-out snore answered him.

Lyall smiled to himself in the darkness and ruffled the back of Remus’ hair. “Night, Re.”

A single socked foot twitched in response. That was good enough for him.

(Jules’ fever broke the next morning. By the end of the day, he was well enough to go with them to the airport and give Remus the fiercest goodbye hug either of them had experienced, with a pinky-promise that the Lions would win the next game he played.)

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

The Nine Houses

Worldbuilding/Lore

<< Previous: Masterpost

-

The Nine Houses refer to planets, named, presumably, in order of colonisation. I'm befuddled as to which one is which planet, if we're going on the assumption that this is the solar system. This is what I've extrapolated from reading:

First is Earth.

Second is most likely Mars - gathered from the fighting energy of its house, proximity to Earth and viability for terraforming, and also this:

"[...]Each Beast is different. I have fought numerous now, and each Beast is quite unlike any other … Number Two spewed quicksilver and remade itself into hundred-foot spikes. Number Six kept sucking us into enormous sphincters and spraying us with worms. I cannot even remember what it looked like. I remember Number Four … it was a humanoid creature with a beautiful face who held me under the water, and it spoke in a lovely voice but it only repeated, die, die—and I recall Number One as a great and incoherent machine … when I saw it I thought it had a great tail, and a thousand broken pillars on its back, but Cassiopeia saw it as a mechanical monster with swords for wings, and great horns of myelin, tessellated over with graves.” It was the Saint of Duty who said, restlessly: “Number Eight was a giant head.” “Finned like a fish,” said Augustine, lost in reverie. “Its ribs were bloody bandages, and its teeth protruded through its own skull, tangled about its face like a nest. It was red, and it had a single eye of green that moved all about the body …"

Metal-related appearance, from the planet notoriously rusty.

Actually, this passage describing the Resurrection Beasts - revenants of the planets - was the thing that got me into trying to assign planets to Houses based on, mostly, vibes.

Forth could be Venus, based on this passage alone. I could easily be wrong.

Sixth is Mercury I reckon. In the epilogue of HtN the setting is described as very hot - close to Dominicus. I reread it now and I don't think it's ever mentioned to be set on the Sixth, in fact parts of it actively contradict that assumption, but somehow I seem to have gotten that into my head anyway? But even so, Sixth is described as the one closest to Dominicus - notably this passage:

The Emperor dropped to his haunches and eased the white robe off Mercy’s dead shoulders. He shrugged his naked body into it—coyly pulling it closed—and he stretched his jaw in his mouth, and wriggled the tip of his newly grown nose. “Right,” he said, and closed his eyes briefly. Then he said, “The sun has stabilized. Hope the Sixth House didn’t get cooked in the flare.”

This to me pretty much confirmed the Sixth as Mercury.

Eighth, in the above passage about the Resurrection Beasts, is described in ways that immediately make me picture Jupiter. Red, a single eye of green moving all over the body? Ribs were bloody bandages? A "giant head" - Jupiter, in Roman mythology was the king of the gods? Am I way off the mark here?

And Ninth is Pluto, furthest from the sun, cold and desolate. And solid. (How are they pulling off living on gas giants?)

This leaves the Third, Fifth, Seventh houses to be matched with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. At a loss, still, for how gas giants are supposed to be colonised. The general infrastructure of the pre- and post-resurrection world/Empire has me asking questions like, where do they get the materials to build starships and feed their officers? Metal and plastic seem abundant. In terms of food we've mostly seen snow leeks, Canaan House and the Mithraeum, all of which are probably exceptional to what a regular House person eats. There is some talk of John's expansion and colonising efforts, so do they just go to random planets - are there aliens in this universe? (Is Alecto one?) So the Empire is expanding, mining colonised planets for ore and oil to turn into plastic - though that would indicate a lot of life on a lot of these planets, so I'm gonna guess that whatever happens to those planets isn't kind to the native flora, fauna and people.

Of course, there's always the option that this isn't meant to be the planets at all, and even if it was, it might be a lot more metaphorical. Or just actually a completely different world to ours, not the solar system at all. (Though there's many explicit and implicit pop culture references which would indicate the First to truly be Earth, so we're sticking with this theory.)

Are they actually on the planets - we haven't seen any planets other than First, and Ninth, arguably big exceptions; the Epilogue seems to be set on a moon of some kind, after a more thorough reread. The Actual Planets are dead, or rather resurrected, with their revenants on the hunt. Could be that the Houses do stand for the planets, and some people might be living on (or near) the actual planets, but a lot of people are actually living away from the solar system entirely - born into "Houses" far from the sun, into the Emperor's war machine. It's hard to tell.

Either way, I'm not gonna assign any more planets now until I know more.

>> Next: The Resurrection

[voxofthevoid]

HELLO I AM HERE TO TALK ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR THE LESBIAN JESUS GIDEON NAV THE FIRST FLOWER OF THE NINTH HOUSE

there is just so much to talk when it comes to Gideon but her relationship with Pyrrha is fascinating. because Pyrrha wanted and still wants Gideon, who has never been anyone's priority. Gideon doesn't think she is wanted but Pyrrha mourned her for all these years. do you think she as G1deon looked at Harrow and imagined that Wake's child would be close in age? and she doesn't even know that the child is sharing bodies with her necro just like her

they meet finally and Pyrrha fucks it up, because she never expected to meet Gideon, because Gideon has always been a Concept not a person so now faced with the real person she says the wrong thing. Pyrrha talks about fucking her mother but not how she mourned Gideon. and it's made worse by Gideon learning that Pyrrha knew about her because for her entire life she believed she was wanted and not abandoned like everyone told her. but Pyrrha knowing and not returning was reaffirming of that. and it's not even Pyrrha's fault! she couldn't have known, she would have trouble returning to Ninth! but Gideon is 19 and has been abused her entire life and she is upset, she just learnt her mother, who she believed loved her, only had her to kill her

and then there is Nona. Nona who is in Harrow's body but could be either of them and Pyrrha isn't trying really hard to learn. this is her chance to make up for the lost years, to raise that child and build a relationship without the burden of her being raised on the Ninth. and of course Pyrrha loves Nona for herself but it is Gideon she thinks of (could be Harrow but if another person prioritises Harrow over Gideon I will go mental) when she wonders if "she" had birthdays on the Ninth

just thinking about Pyrrha and the time she spent pretending to be G1deon, knowing that Gideon's corpse is there. the scene where she and Nona are standing next to corpse Kiriona is making me insane

Nor had Pyrrha ever looked at her the way she now looked at the dead corpse with red hair—a kind of soft, guarded want; a hunger—a living desire to take the corpse in her arms like Kevin’s wanting desire with his dolls. To own, to squeeze, to cosset and destroy.

this one paragraph makes me want to write so many fics exploring their dynamic, it's criminal how there are only 30 fics tags Gideon Nav & Pyrrha Dve. what do you mean there is sentence that goes as hard as "a hunger—a living desire to take the corpse in her arms" and people aren't writing long ass fics about it??

I need to reread Nona for their interactions when I am less busy but Gideon watching Pyrrha be kind and gentle with Nona, a parent, and being reminded once again how she was abandoned. and how she is still not anyone's first choice. the unwanted child, just like Crux said

do you think Gideon hated Nona when she watched Pyrrha be so gentle with her? no one had ever shown her this much kindness, no one held as she was dying and she wasn't chosen the way Pyrrha chose to shoot Ianthe with the bullet she was saving for John. do you think she despised that stranger in Harrow's body because she envied how loved she was while telling herself it's because Nona is squatting in Harrow's body?

I am very rarely interested in parent/child relationship but god does Gideon have fascinatingly messed up relationships with literally every parent figure in her life

thank you for allowing me to rant <3 I have so many thoughts about them

Gideon and Pyrrha should have emotionally charge pseudo incestuous sex who said that

Nodding along so hard to all of this while losing my brain cells one at a time.

It's been long enough since I read the books that I'd need a full reread to actually contribute to this conversation in any meaningful way, but Pyrrha and her relationships with both Wake and Gideon are hands down my favourite in the series—and for good fucking reason. It's delicious enough in Harrow, but Nona takes it up a notch by giving us Gideon and Pyrrha interactions that are jagged and awkward and frankly painful, despite being so brief and so few.

Never going to be over the fact that Pyrrha wanted that kid so bad, and then Gideon came into the scene in time to watch her tenderly parent whoever's walking around in her lesbian situationship's body.

Nona sees how Pyrrha looks at that corpse; she understands it. Gideon never does.

Tamsyn Muir, your mind 🙇

(I was going to say I'm also rarely interested in parent/child relationships and that we all know what happens when I start, but you beat me to it lmaooo. With how Gideon presumably resembles Wake to an extent and how her relationship with Pyrrha is already half momfucker jokes and tragic yearning, it'd be so very pseudo-incestuous and so bad for everyone involved. It would still be less fucked up than whatever the Tridentarii twins have going on.)

[saints-who-never-existed]

how about nunavut & sundogs for the terror ask game? 🐻‍❄

Yes, how about them indeed! :D

Nunavut - Have you read The Terror novel?

I've read it twice (god help me!). If it's of interest to anyone, I have been sort of live-blogging my second read-through under the tag #Rereading the Terror (although I haven't updated on the subject in a wee while).

It's...it's rough as a badger's arse, I can't lie!

There's the infamous Platypus Pond chapter. There's the rampant, disgusting, needless sexualisation of women and the exoticisation of indigenous women specifically. There are glaring historical inaccuracies (not unforgiveable in and of themselves, imho, if they serve the story but in this case, it smacks of a lack of care and research). And there's the fact that every man below an officer, regardless of his origin, speaks like a plucky wee Dickensian street-urchin.

But, with all that said, I'm more willing than most to commend the novel for the things it does do right.

The descriptions of the hardships suffered by the Expedition are incredible, for example, and incredibly harrowing too - the cold, the darkness, the tearing apart of their bodies and minds by illness and by Tuunbaq alike. And there are several spectacular scenes far wilder than we see them in the show or even too wild to be realised on screen at all. Carnivale, for instance, is even more chilling, as is the flogging of Hickey et al. There's a terrifying instance of Tuunbaq entering the ship and wreaking fiery havoc below decks, and another of the aftermath of it ambushing a party of prominent characters as they scout out a lead in the ice.

Ultimately, I would say it's worth reading, even if only to judge it for yourself and not just go by hearsay.

Sundogs - Talk about a moment in the show that interests you most.

Well, something that I've been thinking about over the last few days is Hartnell's death/Crozier's abduction and more specifically, about the effects that might've had on the other characters present to witness it.

I'm intrigued by wee Charles Best being there in the first place, for one thing. Maybe he was just the first person available when command was looking for back-up to go and scout Golding's fake lead. But it could also be that, for whatever reason, command placed a similar degree of trust in him as they did in Hartnell and that possibility is very interesting to me.

And there's also the fact that, after Dundy, Best is perhaps the most vocal opponent of Little's rescue plan in the following episode. He was the only other person to hear Crozier's 'order' but he and Little have very different responses to it and that's interesting to me also.

Like, we saw Best prominently among the Erebites singing together and mourning Sir John. It's not hard then for me to imagine him as a sensitive soul being profoundly affected by seeing another man die and at such close quarters, perhaps even enough to reconsider what he was willing to do to try and ensure his own survival?

[fuck-john-calvin]

who is John Calvin???

STUPID IDIOT MOTHERFUCKING JOHN CALVIN GOD DAMN FOOL FROZEN CHOSEN DUST EATING RAT OLD BASTARD SHITHEAD IDIOT PASTOR OF THE WHORE BIGGEST CLOWN IN THE CIRCUS LAUGHED OUT OF TOWN COWBOY MOTHERFUCKING JOHN CALVIN

STOP PINNING ME WHEN I TALK ABOUT JOHN CALVIN I HATE HIM SO MUCH WHY DOES HE HAVE SO MUCH FUCKED UP THEOLOGY WHY DID HE DECIDE TO FUCK UP THE BIBLE FANDOM JUST ADMIT YOU’RE A NARCISSIST IS HE DEAD IS HE A BASTARD MAN HAS SUCH A VISCERAL AFFECT ON ME NOT EVEN IN THE ROOM NEVER SEEN THIS MANS FACE AND I KNOW HE HAS THE WORLDS SHITTIEST BEARD GET AWAY FROM ME

if i wanted to get into heaven and god said john calvin’s waiting inside i would piss on gods feet for the sole purpose of getting sent back down

if i have to deal with john calvin writing one word in ink on page in essay not only will i close the book i will rip up the novel out of spite and have to reread the entire thing again for the experience of being able to skip all the times when he is mentioned or alive 

i dont even know why i hate him so much (this is untrue). he thinks he’s immune to going to hell ever and i am just mad because i am angy

he better have some fucked up backstory to explain this if hes just some rich shithead whos a fan of touching himself and wanted the christianity version ill go ham

BETTER have had a demon make him kill a man cuz if he didnt Im going to make him

paypal.com/IFuckingHateJohnCalvin

lessons not even about him. vaguely mentioned what is supposed to maybe be his denomination and I lost it 

where the fuck is john calvin if hes still alive im going to so deeply wish he wasnt

crusty old man

ill punch calvin and his sad frail old man twig bones will simply flake apart under my epic huge meat fist and he will disintegrate until all thats left is one final book he kept on him at all times simply titled Now You Fucked Up in hebrew

im not breathing im hyperventilating at this point

i hope theres a date given for when john died or will die so i can make it a reminder on my phone 

everyday once a year i will see it and do anything but pay respects to the man who had so much fucked up if true theology

[bakerstmel]

Fall Favorite Fic Festival, Entry 5

Remember, winter doesn't officially begin until December 21, she said pedantically.

I've delayed writing this entry because I was trying to define the reason (or reasons) why I love this fic so damn much. I read this fic at least twice a year, usually sometime in February and then again in the fall. It's a sports fic, and while I am not in general a sports person, I do love me some baseball. But the sport isn't the reason I love this fic, and I think I may have figured it out. Stick with me.

I started the link at Chapter 2, because Chapter 1 is a guide to baseball for the uninitiated. Some of it is out of date now, because MLB in its STUPIDITY has messed around with the rules this year because GOD FORBID people have to wait longer than a minute for anything to fucking happen on a sports field, and of course only HITS matter, but it is still fun to read. You don't need it to appreciate the fic, though.

Whilst I was processing this fic, I spent some time thinking about sports fics in general, and that led me to reread a couple of other favorites. One was A Study in Winning, by Jupiter_Ash. I really like that fic as well, even though I know next to nothing about tennis. I like the drama of the story, I like Sherlock faking his nationality just because, and I enjoy John being a petty little bitch to Moriarty there at the end. I feel like there for a while everyone had read or was reading that fic. Another one I went back to was Of Ice and Men, by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John, which is an OT3 set during the Winter Olympics. That one has John in the Paralympics, which gives the relationships an entirely new dimension. There are other good sports fics - throw your favorite in the comments, if you like. I'm mostly limiting my scope in these musings to Sherlock, as I've said before, but I'll read anything if it's good. Links to these two fics are below.

One of the ways in which sports fics have an advantage is that they have a built in structure. There's a match, or a tournament, or a season, and the relationship drama plays out against that backdrop. Writing classes always talk about the "ticking clock" approach to narrative tension, and almost every sport has some type of literal ticking clock. The Bang and the Clatter plays out over a full baseball season, including Spring Training and the postseason. That's basically a year minus the main American holidays, and EarlGreyTea does a really good job of letting the story play out at an appropriate pace. That's very impressive considering that she was posting this as a WIP over the course of an actual season.

(I need to take a minute to talk about my issues with EGT, and by "issues" I mean "soul churning jealousy." EGT is ridiculously prolific. If you go back into the fandom annals and look at the timing of some of her biggest fics, she was posting what became major reference points for the fandom in tandem, writing multiple fics at the same damn time, while, you know, teaching law or moving cross country. She is the best example I know of the importance of writing regularly. Of course, she's incredibly gifted, highly skilled at plotting, characterization, pacing, and just words. She has a fabulous imagination. Her dialogue rings true, and it's fun. But she can turn really good stuff out relatively quickly because she's limber AF. She writes. Anyone who comes to Word Sprints on Sundays or just hangs with me writing knows I'm not fast. I'm lucky to break 100 words in 15 minutes. Part of that is that I edit as I go, but it's also that I don't write as often as I would like to, so it takes me some time to warm up. I would like to be more like EGT, which probably sounds kind of creepy. I hope she doesn't see this. Anyway, she's written many of my top 20, and she actually finishes her stuff. So, yeah. Issues.)

So here is where I ended up: this is a good AU that takes advantage of the time crunch of the sport in which it is set, but that is not why I read it 2+ times per year. I read it because this is one of my favorite John and Sherlock relationships ever. It feels so in character for the way we see them in the show (at least through S2; this was written in 2013). We see them meet, we feel their attraction, we feel Sherlock's very authentic confusion. We feel their fear at being caught out, at first by each other and then by the world. They earn their angst. The way to my heart is good characterization, and this has that. Alongside the battery, the OCs (especially Sherlock and John's families) are complex and have issues of their own. Moriarty doesn't show up until the All Star Workout, which is halfway through the season for those of you who don't know, but it works because by that point, John and Sherlock have things to lose. Lestrade is the best effing choice for a beleaguered, exasperated baseball manager there ever was. Mycroft saves the day AND fucks it up, which I wish we'd seen more of in those days.

Also, John and Sherlock never get too far away from each other, and when they're separated, it's usually for narrative reasons. I like that in a fic, I've come to realize. I like to watch the characters' interplay. It's hard for Sherlock to keep secrets from John when they work together, commute together, and live together, and John is no fool. Their office isn't 221b Baker Street, it's a stadium in Austin, TX, where shit plays out in front of 30k people. John loves baseball. Sherlock loves John. They fight, they fall in love, they eat Chinese food, and they play baseball. And best of all, they are themselves together.

If you read the parts that EGT wrote after the big story, there's a mention of Sherlock pulling together a pick up game in London made of American ex-pats for John's sake, and I'll tell you what. That really pulls this fic together for me. This Sherlock would do that for this John, and we end up a little on the outside looking in, and it's just charming as fuck.

In conclusion, read this even if you don't know baseball, if you want great characterization, a chance to be reminded of how beautiful John and Sherlock were together back in the golden age. Pay attention to the ticking clocks in your favorite fics; intentional or not, there's almost always some time pressure ginning up the conflict. If you're a writer, the best way to get better is to write more. Feels like bullshit, but it's true. And finally, fuck MLB forever for going the completely wrong way on the DH. Pitchers in both leagues should have to/get to hit, and more to the point, DHs should have to fucking do something when their teams are out in the field. I will die on this mound.

(Also, if I'm being honest, Bull Durham is probably my favorite movie, so maybe I'm more of a baseball fan than I'm letting on. I do generally love baseball in popular media. But I still think it's the characterization.)

[marnz]

2023 book post

I read 63 books this year (i do count short stories & novellas) and there were epic highs (everyone read the school for good mothers) and epic lows (y'all read this shit? for real?).

here are my top ten, in no particular order, followed by thoughts on the rest. it's so long lol okay let's get into it

top ten.

the school for good mothers by jessamine chan - a perfect commentary on the prison industrial complex and how poor, single, and mothers of color are treated set in a chilling near future. loved it. i read this book in june and think about it daily.

edinburgh by alexander chee - this book is a modern classic for good reason. gay tragedy lovers this book is for YOU. the prose is so beautiful, so dream like, that i couldn't stop reading. i read this book in one sitting, very nearly a year ago, and i was completely devastated by it.

in the woods by tana french - love this for: unreliable narrator who sucks but is compelling; prose about the woods and the 1980s mystery; cassie; a police procedure that starts off by being like 'crucially you must understand that the police lie.' i have a weakness for atmospheric books and this has that in spades.

homegoing by yaa gyasi - this book is SO good and the prose and character voices are excellent. it's extremely epic but somehow only 300 pages?!? each character only gets 1 chapter but gyasi does SO much with each chapter 😭 i read this in one day because i could not stop reading. i also read gyasi's other book, transcendent kingdom, which was also very good.

some desperate glory by emily tesh - this book is a mindfuck and is one of the few times i've seen [spoiler] done well. there are a lot of things this book talks about--imperialism; artificial intelligence; fascism; white supremacy and how it intersects with gender; queerness; eugenics. i posted about it early when i had only read like 49% and i was soooo wrong to do so. read this and just trust me.

x by davey davis - okay are you ready for this? X is queer/trans bdsm neo noir mystery set in a dystopian near future. it is dark, it is consuming, it is surprising, it is a book i turn over obsessively whenever i can't sleep. i need to reread and i only read it a few months ago.

baru cormorant series/the masquerade by seth dickinson - this is 3 books but let's count it as one book. much has been said about baru as a cringefail autistic marxist lesbian icon (affectionate) but what i really appreciate about these books, other than how fucking gay they are, is the specificity of the world building. i have a theory that modern readers are in search of detail (and cruelly denied by much of publishing rn). seth dickinson loves details. seth dickinson is going to take semi familiar narratives and tell them in a brand new way using details; math; hyper specific words. god i love it

poverty by america by matthew desmond - relatively short book, read it in a day. i also read desmond's first book, evicted, and it is also SO good but what's sexy about this book is that modern american society and esp. politicians frequently likes to be like 'oh no, poverty is so tragic but it can't be solved' and desmond is like 'watch me.' for people who enjoy reading andrea long chu take downs reviews and want concrete solutions for how to build a better world.

station eleven by emily st. john mandel - many people told me this was the best book they've ever read and i was like 'whatever. i'll get to it when i get to it.' DO NOT BE ME!! read this!! i wouldn't say this is a happy book but it was a beautiful book. i loved it. i cried for about 90 minutes afterwards. for art lovers, weird theatre kids, people unafraid of plague books, non linear timeline lovers, people who have been divorced.

piranesi by susanna clarke - okay i read this on my flight to frankfurt earlier this year and it totally bowled me over with how lovely it was and how emotional i got. just a beautiful, delicate, haunting, eerie book. for fans of mysteries, people who love oceans, gothic houses, people who earnestly believed magic was real as kids and hope it's real today, people who love academic drama they aren't involved in.

okay damn honorable mentions: in the dream house by carmen maria machado (SO good, maybe deserves my rec more than piranesi), normal people by sally rooney (mainly because it did make me insane), under the banner of heaven by jon krakauer (thorough, horrifying), honey & spice by bolu babalola (SO fun), sula by toni morrison (stunning!!), severance by ling ma (millennial alienation during a plague, amirite?), trust exercise by susan choi (who knows what really happened? you'll understand).

okay now the worst books i read this year, aka books i did not vibe with:

broken harbor & the trespasser by tana french; did not enjoy broken harbor due to the themes and did not enjoy the trespasser due to how cringefail the ending was. you can't depict ongoing harassment a woman of color is experiencing in her workplace, make her decide to leave after two years of this harassment, and then back track it in the last chapter? please. this is a problem tana french runs into a lot, but that is a different post

the witch elm by tana french; parts of this book were absolutely delicious. but a lot of it felt very tedious and in need of a stern editor. so many books these days need more thorough editing and the result is that a potentially amazing book is just like, okay. i understand the power fantasy that this book is designed to be, but i'm not the right audience for it (disabled). also, generally i need a character to root for.

amateur by thomas page mcbee; SO sorry thomas. i didn't vibe with this book mainly because i don't think i'm the target audience for it. i'm not cis and i'm not straight?? i also am not interested in narratives about trans men wanting to prove their masculinity by taking up a violent sport. i think this tension is addressed in the book but it wasn't addressed to my satisfaction. violence is often all the world gives to men as a source of power and thus serves as a solace for everything patriarchy takes from them, so i suppose i understand wanting to be able to get a piece of that...logically that makes sense. but also. why.

the late americans by brandon taylor; the thing is, i fucking love real life by brandon taylor and i enjoy brandon's criticism and read his substack (although i disagree with almost every aesthetic opinion he has). so possibly my expectations were too high, but i read this and i guess i was just...wanted to know what the point is. gay people suffering in the midwest? as a genre, it slaps. as a book, i feel frustrated. it felt loose, pointless, in great need of editing. brandon talks about this book by talking about the importance of moral fiction, and this book lacks moral urgency for many of its stories. i've read a lot of moral fiction and this isn't it? anyway I read this in July and looking back all I remember is Seamus' journey and the way brandon dragged workshopping.

the angel of the crows by katherine addison; look. if you're going to write sherlock wingfic, put it on ao3. if you're going to file off the serial numbers, please work harder so i can't tell what it originally was. and absolutely nix the author's note saying it was sherlock fanfic, because that makes me very unhappy! personally!

99% mine by sally thorne; classic second book syndrome. except the third one is also not very good. too bad!

touched out by amanda montei; okay obligatory disclaimer that i'm not a mother or parent but rather an adult who loves my friends' kids! this book really frustrated me and i think i would have enjoyed it considerably more if it was all cultural criticism instead of a memoir (other than the dworkin parts????). a memoir is an art form, a set narrative, but criticizing it feels weird because i am criticizing the author's life decisions as presented to me, in a flattened context, in a controlled narrative. if the memoir parts were instead part of a fictional book i would not hold back lol. this book is marketed as the most important work of feminist scholarship in the last 30 years and...it ain't. i also felt the focus was incredibly narrow. while montei does attempt to cite a broad range of theorists i just kept finding myself wondering, what about people from other cultures? what about disabled mothers? what about queer mothers or parents? what about this? WHERE'S YOUR RESEARCH? WHERE ARE YOUR INTERVIEWS? there is a specific kind of feminism where white women act like their specific experience is the pinnacle of all suffering and tbh it isn't. this book reminded me of that very strongly. like, if you're telling me you won't have an epidural because it was invented by a man then you are not a useful person to engage with, thanks.

books that would have been amazing if not for that one part

he who drowned the world by shelley parker chan - man i have mixed thoughts on this book. look away my beloved swbts mutuals. okay the epic highs (ouyang & zhu!! ma!!) were set off by baoxiang lmao. i'm mainly interested in queer masculinity and femininity and a femme straight guy is like. well, good for him, but i don't really care? bring me back to my loveds zhu and ouyang. but my main gripe...tbh i think baoxiang is a hugely unreliable narrator that protests about a lot of things too much. being straight for one thing; not having a thing for esen is another. AND MORE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE WITH THIS? like i honestly wish the implied incest thing, which was brought up at least twice, was more present. taking a step back, if you're like well i'm straight and i don't have a thing for my dead brother i helped kill but i absolutely will be seducing the spitting image of him while i fuck my way to the top of the throne? that should make me insane. possibly it would have in a book that didn't already have ouyang. who can tell. so i wish SPC had leaned into that a lot more, i wish baoxiang hadn't felt like such a plot instrument, i wish there was more Ma, i wish spoilery completely unbelievable storyline was better, etc.

in memorial by alice winn - damn, this book. it was so good but it fell apart at the end. i respect winn's decision to not have it be perfectly easy after living through the untold horrors of the trenches of wwi but the idea of two brits running away to brazil to live out a life of colonial bliss because being gay wasn't explicitly illegal in brazil at a time is like. what? i guess. anyway, it was good, i just have some notes.

romantic comedy by curtis sittenfeld - here's the thing, i love curtis sittenfeld and i knew going in that this is a book by the author that wrote rodham but man, this is a book by the author that wrote rodham. this is the most Online book i've ever read (derogatory) and it's very specific in its liberal i'm an Online author on twitter type of deal. the point of the book is that Not Tina Fey falls for Male Taylor Swift on Not Saturday Night Live and it was good, it was fun, i wasn't expecting [spoiler] ummm but it worked. i had a good time.

this is very long, sorry.

[tehstripe]

anyways im at the end of the trolls finally. big takeaways:

the relationships between the female characters are truly so fun and interesting and its really part of what got me initially hooked. vriska and terezi is SO good and messy. vriska and aradia too. and vriska and kanaya. okay these are all vriska relationships but still. girls!! complicated and messy girls!! you love to see it

that said the vriska and tavros stuff, though always pretty uncomfortable, REALLY stood out as being uncomfortable on this reread. keep these two away from each other. (sadly i know they are not kept away from each other.)

though on a similar note, they really did feel like 13 year olds when trying to handle issues. terezi telling aradia shed take care of things dont WORRY about it, really reeks of teens thinking that they can Handle The Drama Like Adults. now granted most teens do not have the ability to murder each other with psychic powers but still.

honestly. honestly? i thought equius was hilarious on this reread. ive never thought much of him before but i actually found myself enjoying his little intro section. i dont think im about to become an equius stan or claim he has UNTOLD DEPTHS but he is very funny.

i forgot how much of the troll stuff actually ISNT covered in this section. vriska and aradia's god tier scenes havent been shown/haven't happened yet, and the ancestors are hardly even mentioned. probably for the best, since theres definitely the sense that this section could have EASILY spiraled out of control and been even longer.

forgot how blatant the karezi stuff was. they sent hearts to each other and had an unseen MOMENT??? damn!

similarly karkat being a source of talking out romantic issues with everyone is pretty funny. granted i dont keep up a ton with karkat fandom but i feel like i dont see that character trait utilized as often as it should be.

next page is john and karkat's first conversation. saving that for another day because i know thats going to be a fun place to start.

so happy to get back to the kids though. i missed them. ):

[spacedhead]

homestuck reread #14 act 6 p5

we are about to enter some crazy territory. hopefully no one runs out of lives.... lest there be a.... game over.

damn roxy even talks like me. so goated. anyway things are about to get alot worse

god i fucking love this panel hes so real i am just like him in every way except for the ways i am like john and roxy

hehehehehe this makes me giggle

me stealing all of the mannerisms of my boy best friend LOLLLL he actually does need help though. you cant lose your cool like this lil bro.

NOOO KARKAT . you will be missed :(

he is so cude man :ppppp :D

haha redglare. also this glitch shit is crazy and sort of hard to understand. i guess it is because caliborn put his powder in the homestuck cartridge... but is that really why? or is it a metaphor......

bossy much? true dirk you are being really controlling dude. maybe take it down a notch lil bro

these interactions with arquiusprite are so funny

Neigh, braj

most sane dave rant of all time. i love this man so much he is my son. that guy whos like this is delicious im about to kill my son but instead he says im about to be my son

HE SAVED THE MAYOR. my heart dropped. if he dies i kill myself NO CAP

this idiot bozo doesnt know what time travel is. im saying this out loud as i type it out

brain ghost dirk phenomenon sighting

the image "why were you on mad at me island"

do not mess with her fort. LEST THERE BE THE CONSEQUENCES .

lil seb returns!!! hes so real. also he got rusted because he somehow survived for sooooooooooo long after the earth was abandoned by all

wait he is just like me. oh HELL no. this BOZO is still at it.... this is up for consideration .

theres angels. sollux said a LONG TIME AGO that angels are linked with death and are used by paradox space to usher in "the end." what could this mean for their chances of success. surely nothing

ACTUAL VILLAIN OF THE STORY SHE IS ABOUT TO SCREW EVERYTHING UP

i used to say this shit all the time real ones know about me

goot bye dabe </3

WHORE YOU

this picture of dirk is cool . im glad things will go well for him.

i love his freudian slips so much hes so funny to me i need to be like him i need to be like him what no im normal im so normal

i love arcs

me using my baller ass powers on my enemies ( they stand no chance against me )

me in real life ( i never have any idea what is going on whatsoever) he is very small in multiple of these panels and that alone is making me like him more. that is all

seriously how small is this guy!!!!!!!

...............okay......... sam and i watched game over.... everyone died........ except for john and roxy and terezi temporarily... THINGS WENT TO SHIT. FAWK.......... but it will be better soon... you first must descend in order to ascend as the great nannasprite once said ...... i closed my eyes when dave died so it didnt happen

[cookie-de-baunilha]

My BOTB rereading actually got me curious about the John/Percy interactions in Bees, so I searched for Percy's name in the e-book and read their scenes.

First of all, I second everything @britishguyslover and @andrasta14 said in this post.

What a waste of potential.

Secondly, I'll read the whole book at some point, but after reading these (very few, might I add) scenes I have some considerations (and questions too, if anyone would be so kind as to answer them):

Their scenes were really weird

Don’t know if I feel like this because I haven’t read the whole book and I might be missing important details. So please, correct me if I’m wrong, but apart from the boat scenes, the rest felt like it went nowhere…?

In the first one, Percy says he is about to betray France. Asks John for a favor to help him with that.

I have to say it makes 0 sense for Percy to do this at this point, since he knows John is pissed at him. Why would Percy think John would help him?

But pushing that aside, nothing comes out of it. We never get to hear what exact favor Percy was hoping to get from John because John doesn’t even want to talk to him.

In their second scene, Percy asks for help so that he can talk to Fergus again. He blackmails John out of nowhere??? Again, it makes no sense for him to do this. Wasn’t he trying to turn his coat? Why would he piss off John even more? Also, what was he hoping to get from it exactly? How does Fergus fit into this mess? Is Richardson behind this? We don’t know because John leaves before the conversation goes somewhere.

And again, it leads to nothing apparently. Or does it? I haven’t read the whole book but Percy’s name doesn’t appear that much and I couldn’t find other scenes with him using the search tool.

Percy's nom de guerre

This is me being picky af, but back in Echo, John remembered the name Beauchamp from his years in the English Black Chamber. He knew Beauchamp was a spy from the French Black Chamber. So I was under the impression "Beauchamp" was the name Percy used in his official spy errands — which doesn't make sense, honestly. But in Bees Percy brings up John's alias (Buttercup... cute lol) and we find out Percy's was Monsieur Citròn. Which makes a lot more sense but... how did John know Beauchamp was a French spy then?

Because you see, Percy found out Buttercup was John after 6 months. But John seemed surprised to know Percy was Monsieur Citròn. And yet, he knew the name Beauchamp. So he never made the connection between those two? Tsk tsk John, you weren't doing your best job. Point still stands tho: how did he know Beauchamp was a spy? "One of the most active members" of the French spy network. Was Percy running his errands with both names? Using your real (married) name doesn't seem smart.

Honestly, it felt kinda off to be presented with this information at this point in the story. Shouldn't it have been brought up in their very first conversation back in Echo? 1) John could've not recognized the name Beauchamp; 2) then, Percy could've called him Buttercup and John would've realized Percy was Monsieur Citròn.

It was also a weird scene because John seemed more surprised at the fact that Percy was a French spy who already knew John had been his opposite… but hadn’t John deduced this already in Echo when he remembered the name Beauchamp?

I swear to God this woman forgets the things she writes.

Why the fuck did Richardson even allow Percy ashore?

It doesn't make any sense to me. He had Percy's written confession, but he still needed him for a personal testimony, I suppose? Why would he risk that? Because Percy could've just run away at any time. "Oh but Richardson knew he wouldn't leave John" then he must have known that Percy cared for/loved John enough to also pose a threat to his plan, since he could've found a way to contact William at any point. In fact, that's exactly what he did before dying. So congratulations, Richardson, you are really dumb.

I mean, did Richardson (like John) also underestimate Percy's courage and thought he wouldn’t go after William? Still not very convincing to me. Because if he considered him to be that much of a coward, he would also consider the possibility of Percy escaping.

And he would have good reason to do that. After all, with that written confession, couldn’t Percy be accused of sodomy too?

Percy's death scene was horrifying and weird and i’m very confused

Amaranthus knew the brandy was poisoned? I didn’t read the whole book so this poisoned brandy stuff is confusing to me. It wasn’t clear to me if the bottle on the floor was the same brandy Amaranthus was offering Percy moments before. Because when William tried to grab it she said “not that one”, so she knew (or thought) that was the poisoned one. Was that the same brandy she gave Percy then? lol

Buuut

Diana did imply that this brandy wasn’t actually the poisoned brandy in a post in the litforum… so how was Percy poisoned? It must have been before he got to John’s house, since it’s stated several times during his conversation with William that Percy did not look well.

I also read the scene with Percy, Fergus and Roger… The lawyer was Richardson?

This Fergus-Beauchamp plot is getting ridiculous atp. How many scenes like this didn’t we have already? Percy goes after John, Claire, Fergus, whatever, tells them Fergus is St. Germain’s child and nothing comes out of it. It’s like a dog running round in circles. For God’s sake, it’s been 3 books with this nonsense. One or two scenes like that would do, why have so many if the plot doesn’t go anywhere?

I’m mad

[llovelyclouds]

notes on cristabel oct

here's all the relevant info on cristabel i took note of during my tlt reread, in one place!

you can find the rest of the posts in this project here!

CRISTABEL OCT

titles:

Mercymorn’s cavalier, first gen, founded the eighth (with Mercy)

name meaning: in latin the meaning of the name Cristabel is: beautiful christian/follower of christ

notes from harrow the ninth:

The reason Mercy is the Saint of Joy (htn. pg. 177)

Mercy won't talk about her to Harrow, even though John thinks she would, and that her name would upset Augustine (htn. pg. 177)

Augustine doesn't mind talking about her though, and says: "A total delight. Effervescent. Kind to animals and children. A master of the sword. Did not have the intellect you'd ordinarily find in a sandwich or an orange, and was a sickening twerp into the bargain. The Eighth House will never see her like again." (htn. pg. 177)

“‘You know what I feel… you know I don't think she was the best influence on Alfred… you know I think they brought out the worst in each other, and I don’t think you disagree.’ God said, ‘They were very similar people.’ ‘No,’ said Augustine. ‘They weren’t, John. She was a fanatic and an idiot- yes, she was, Mercy- and he… was a man who regretted he wasn't. It took surprisingly little to lead my brother astray.’” - Augustine and John, discussing whatever happened between Cristabel and Alfred (double suicide, maybe?) (htn. pg. 274)

Augustine hated her for sure, but he’s ok with pretending he didn’t for dios apate reasons (htn. pg. 279)

"Cristabel always said I was tidy." - Mercymorn (htn. pg. 410)

"you picked the wrong man to enter a suicide pact with. I hate 'em. Cristabel might have undone all my good work with Alfred, but here comes the reckoning." - Augustine (htn. pg. 487)

notes from nona the ninth:

"The only other people I put through that damn trial were Mercy and Cris, because only Cris didn't mind being trepanned on the regular."- Pyrrha, about her and G1deon's trial at Canaan house (ntn. pg. 84)

Was Mercy's nun best friend pre-resurrection (ntn. pg. 128)

"I was worried I was going to get the Antichrist bit from her too, but she was just like: stop doing this! Read your Bible! This was Christ's whole problem! I was like, What are you talking about, Jesus cured the lepers and everyone was all, Hooray, thanks man. M-'s nun was all, Are you kidding, Christ never said no and never asked anyone to pay and got everyone to pay way too much attention and brought the heat down on everybody, Christ didn't keep to office hours, she said. Don't do that." (ntn. pg. 190)

“Me in my bedroom with a nun and a migraine, her thinking that if she pushed me enough we’d instantiate the Trinity and we’d all be saved.” (ntn. pg. 399)

“Eventually it was the nun who changed things. She knocked on my door and said very nicely, John, how are you doing? And I said, Not great, honestly. She said, John, how close are you to finding the soul? And I said, I can’t, Sister, It’s too big. I don’t understand why it’s so huge. I can’t find the soul inside the body, I don’t know where to look. I don’t know what I’m doing. She prayed over me, and then she went away for the longest five minutes of my life. [...] Then the nun came back and knocked on my door and said, John, I think I have it. I know you’re very scared right now, but I’m going to help you. Please let me in. He said: I let her in. She’d brought P-’s gun. [...] She just smiled at me. She said, John, don’t misunderstand. I want to help you. I truly believe that in our most terrible hours we don’t instinctively reach out to God; we push ourselves away from Him. Don’t feel bad for not rising heroically to the occasion right now, Fear doesn’t help us achieve a state of grace; it deafens the heart. John, I truly believe you can save everyone. So concentrate, please. She said, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for our sinners, now and at the hour of our death. And she shot herself.” (ntn. Pg. 404)

[thejesusmaninred]

"The Purgos." From Mark 12: 24-27.

Jesus continues to explain the literary tradition of the Torah. His hypothesis about it completely contradicts the bullshittery of Saul of Tarsus who discusses nonsense about "Baptism into His death" a statement according to Jesus which just does not washeth the hog.

24 Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? 

25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 

26 Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’[d]? 

27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”

Life and death according to the Torah are states of evolution of the intellect. A savage man who cannot deal with life because he has chosen to be a dipshit or had no choice, according to Moses was a regrettable situation. Only one who is educated past the point of enlightenment is considered eligible for the term "living." About this Jesus has already spoken extensively.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 24: Jesus replied, are you not in error?

A reply is 565, הו‎ה‎, "a passion for the present tense." Christians talk about anything but the present tense. They are deluded and diseased and they need to reread the Gospel Torah.

The Number is 6923, ו‎טבג, "You will like it."

v. 25: ‎‎When the dead rise.

When is 953, טהג‎ ‎, tahag, which means to wander about in search of...something. The dead do not rise. The Number is 7361, א‎זגו‎ ‎, ezgo, "antagonize free will using the synagogue instead."

v. 26: Now about the dead rising... The Number is 8332, ח‎ג‎גב‎‎, hagav, "respond by turning your back."

=

Live in peace as and among the nations.

v. 27: He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!” The Number is 3363, גגוג‎ ‎‎‎, a gagel, "a tower of gathering= a legal code."

"A tower (מגדל, migdal, or מגדול, migdol) is essentially is a very high house (בית, bayit), but where a house commonly describes the central building of one family's total economic sphere, a tower describes the central building of the greater society of houses: the "house" that consists of many "houses" (John 14:2).

A society's "tower" is its total accumulated wealth in both material sense and in a science and technological sense; its total library of wisdom and skills, its centralization and infrastructure. Quite literally, a society's tower is that what ties society together. The Greek word for tower as used in the New Testament is πυργος (purgos), literally meaning fire-place or light-house; a structure specifically designed to burn a beacon fire in and to guide people toward it. When the menfolk of Penuel refused to help out Gideon, he threatened to tear down their tower, because of which their society would bankrupt and disintegrate (Judges 8:9, 8:17).

These structures would in time evolve into temples for tribal totems, central banks in which societies stored their collective surplus and ultimately centralized government. In the bronze age, communities all over the world appear to have answered the call of nature to flaunt their collective powers and their communal capacities in elaborate monuments that have no further purpose (hence the talaiot of Minorca and Majorca, the torri of Corsica, the sesi of Pantelleria and even the brochs of Scotland — see our article on Temples, ships and treasure troves).

Other Biblical towers are: tower of Eder (Genesis 35:21), the tower of Shechem (Judges 9:46), the tower of Jezreel (2 Kings 9:17), the tower of Meah (Nehemiah 3:1), the tower of Hananel (Nehemiah 3:1), the tower of Tannurim (Nehemiah 3:11), the tower of David (Song of Solomon 4:4), the tower of Lebanon (Song of Solomon 7:4), and many more unnamed ones, such as the towers of Tyre (Ezekiel 26:4).

Over time, the study and subsequent understanding of nature accumulates into a tower too, and since the Creator's "invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made" (Romans 1:20), king David confidently asserted: "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe" (Psalm 18:10). Likewise, Jesus compared following him to the building of a tower (Luke 14:28) and Paul wrote, "in him are all the treasure of knowledge and wisdom" (Colossians 2:3). Note that the profession of the Nazarene was not carpentry but τεκτων, tekton, meaning builder or assembler.

Building towers is perfectly natural. The difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is that the latter have inbuilt nucleic "towers" and the former don't. The difference between a loose federation of tribes and a unified, centralized empire is that the latter has the inbuilt tower of its legal code."

The objective of the Torah and the Gospel is not a magic sorcery spell designed to help people feel better about all the evil, insincere, thoughtless, and ridiculous things they do and give them hope they will escape from this world unscathed. That is so stupid it does not deserve further insult.

Jesus also said a literal interpretation of the laws instituted by Moses fo the sake of ordering and protecting society from savages and psychopaths was also not the entire truth hidden in the verses, numbers and letters God gave him and he to the Israelites.

Under no circumstances did Jesus say the Book of Moses could be dispensed with, nor could its keepers, the Jewish people. Quite a lot of text is dedicated to the preservation of the Jews in the New Testament in fact.

Further, we are not "baptized into death" we do not rise from the dead, we do not deserve forgiveness when we are unforgiveable. The literary interpretation of the Torah and its Gospel counterpart offer complete freedom from these delusions and much more. Take some time to become familiar with your real life today.

You have allowed filthy, indecent, ignorant pusbags to steal all passion away from life on earth, caused it to drain away. We need to find a way to bring it back.

[boythirteen]

I love your video about la Marqueta. I saw Mundi playing in the mud pond on Facebook.

I finally reread the sermon and needed to make lots of edits so that is what I’ve been doing for this night. 

Hello everyone. Thank you, Rev. Pat, for inviting me to preach today. Today is Ascension Sunday. It marks the day that Jesus ascended into heaven after 40 days of having existed as a resurrected physical presence on the earth. This is something amazing to think about whether or not we view it in a literal way. The sermon, though, is about a prayer Jesus made before the crucifixion, or part of this prayer from John: 

John 17:1-11  After Jesus had spoken to the disciples, he looked up to heaven and said, “O God, the hour has come; glorify your Child so that the Child may glorify you, since you have given your Child authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given your Child. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, O God, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy God, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” 

After Jesus had spoken to the disciples, is how the reading begins, which makes it feel important to know what it was Jesus said to them. He said that he was the vine and the disciples were the branches. He told them to love each other as he had loved them. He said that the world would hate them. He said that he was leaving them but the Advocate, or Holy Spirit, would be with them then, and would prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment.   

I need a place to start.

The reading is about glory, for one thing. I think we need to know more about what glory means.

I also want to define, at least for myself, what or who God is, generally speaking. Or I need to find a solid way to think about and talk about an INCLUSIVE God, a God that this reading and every gospel reading just must be pointing to, the God who is Love who has no partiality, or who is infinitely partial to everyone. 

Because I have an initial reaction to the reading I need to express. Sometimes in reading gospel verses, I need to overlay the readings with a kind of filter or decoder that is the God is Love decoder that will help me to decipher the parts that don’t feel inclusive, or that seem to be about select people belonging to God and others not. This is the part of Christianity that I don’t believe is really part of it but that gets used in such damaging, exclusionary ways. Which don’t feel possible if God is Love, if love bears all things and includes everyone. I need to unlock an understanding of this specific reading that is certain to love everyone. I feel ultra-reactive to anything on the surface of the reading that points to exclusivity, or to a singular right way to relate to God that is reserved for select people having a particular belief in a very specific iteration of God, an only true God as revealed by Jesus, with Christianity being the only true religion. I recently read an article about Christianity having a branding problem for the reason of Christofacists claiming ownership of it and meaning for their controlling version to blanket the earth. In the world of today that already feels overrun with zealots weaponizing the Bible in every way possible—using it to grant themselves special, strangling authority over societal structures, and to demonize human diversity and claim God’s special approval of their bigotry by virtue of being the very loudest claimants of right “belief”—I wince at any suggestion of a singular path to God that gatekeepers can blockade. I also wonder about the promise of eternal life being the ultimate reason for having a faith practice, or that this promise would be our motivation to endure our troubled lives. I need to believe that faith practices are for living. I want us to practice living more fully and lovingly, not just sit tight and profess belief so we’ll get to heaven. I want us to be as alive as we possibly can, and as far from anything that even barely hints at restricting human diversity and abundant life. 

My personal faith practice is something informed by MCCNY, by things I’ve learned from sermons here and from our different ministries of caring for each other. If my faith life is a garden, the initial seeds for it were ones I acquired here like little gifts handed out at the door, like the little red Lunar New Year envelopes. My garden has grown over years, some parts more cultivated and tended to and other parts gone wild altogether. The cultivated parts have become organized around a concept of existence being like an organic machine that is meant to produce Love. God is Love is what I’ve learned at MCC. Love is something that exists between two or more entities—where two or three are gathered God is there, or Love is there like the Peter, Paul, and Mary song. Or where one is gathered with God, which makes two, Love is there. The guidance Jesus gives as to our best relationships with God and with each other is simply how the organic love-producing machine works best, the instructions of how to make it work most optimally to produce the most Love, or the most evident presence of God in the world. (A definition I found of the term “glory,” by the way, is a manifestation of God’s presence as perceived by humans.) It isn’t that we’ll be punished with damnation for not following the manifesting instructions, or, conversely, rewarded with heaven for following them more perfectly. The instructions aren’t rigid edicts we must conform to. I think of Jesus saying that the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. Laws are made for people, not people for laws. The laws are amendable things meant to move us toward loving relationship with each other and God. We follow laws that do this, the ones that are just. The unjust laws that divide us are those we civilly disobey and fight to change. And in the same way, faith practices are made for people, not people for faith practices. The point is to prioritize love, to practice loving each other here and now, to get better and better at loving so that we might collectively have the fullest experience of Love in our lives, which is how we manifest the most God in the world. This process of manifesting love is what binds us to God and makes us eternal as God is eternal. Or this is basically what I believe, but with some wild or unruly or maybe contrary sections, as I mentioned.

The contrary parts can feel problematic at times—I can’t always tell if they’re like an unfettered version of faith or are simply willful. Such as a contrary part that has led me to question the notion of obedience as a required posture in relationship to God. Mostly because of the hierarchy it sets up, and because of the way patriarchal society has used this hierarchical structure as its model and justification for oppression. If God demands obedience for participation in God’s commonwealth, then those who claim God’s special favor—the extremist gun worshipers who want to ban books and drag shows and gayness and health care for trans youth and trans people outright—can also demand obedience for participation in their exclusionary societal structure. They can use their definition of God—the authoritarian, heavy-handed, controlling Father God—as a blueprint for how society should function, with themselves as the dominant figures on top and everyone else submitting to them. They can colonize the whole world with their one and only “right” religion.  Because this, they will insist, is by God’s own top-down design.

Do others of you see the concept of obedience as problematic? I’m asking because I think I have an assumption that all of us are on the same page of belief, that we’re hearing things preached here and seeing how the ministries work and feeling the same resonance from all of it. Are we? What I’m suspecting is that what has seemed expansive to me in my belief system has also possibly closed me to different options of belief that I’ve thought of as restrictive, maybe some that others here hold as foundational. I’m not talking about my issue with obedience in particular. I really don’t believe in obedience. The God of my understanding doesn’t ask for it. What I understand is that God wants us to love each other and to love God. Not because we’ve been told to and threatened with hell if we don’t, or seduced with a promise of heaven if we do. We practice love because we just really want to. And because practicing love makes the organic love machine of earthly existence run better.

But other than this point about obedience, I think I’m finding places in me that have shut themselves off to spiritual growth as some paradoxical result of a zeal to be more perfectly supportive of diversity and inclusion. Like wanting to be so very careful that my religious practice doesn’t exclude other beliefs or non-beliefs, I disallow myself to fully believe. Or being so worried that positive life outcomes—healings or new opportunities or other life changes considered “blessings” or answers to prayer—would be linked to some notion of special favor from God, with hardship and struggle viewed as resulting from God’s disfavor—that I think I shouldn’t believe in God’s healing hand at all.

I’ve come to this place before. It’s a conflict in me. I want and need and do believe that EVERYONE is a beloved child of God. No one is excluded. God loves all of us just as we are. No extra goodness or fervency of belief on anyone’s part will make them more beloved than anyone else. We’re all absolutely loved no matter what we do, no matter what we may think of each other, no matter what we believe or not believe. The work of the organic love machine is to move us closer and closer to knowing this about ourselves and each other, to hold ourselves and each other in the highest esteem as the very most beloved creations of God without any resentments about anyone holding a higher place than anyone else. Everyone in the highest place. Everyone at the right hand. No ranking system. No Hierarchy. No Patriarchy. I do believe in this as the goal of Love.

I have a thought of God’s giant eye floating in space looking out lovingly over all of God’s creation, over the sphere of the earth. From this God’s eye view, all the people of the earth and all the ways that everyone behaves and believes and hopes and fears and loves are like patterns of motion and color that God sees moving in a dance of life that humans are doing with each other. And animals, too, and all living things doing the dance of life together. Everyone is part of it and God loves all of it as a whole—God’s creation. Whatever singular good or bad things we do on the surface just don’t have much contrast from this view. It all kind of looks like everyone is trying. What shows is how deeply we’re  trying—the almost inexpressible inner parts of us that are always struggling to make their way to the surface but aren’t always visible, except to God. God sees our inner lights, the glowing patterns of how we so want to love each other in our inmost selves, even if we fall terribly short on the outside.

I like this idea of God’s view and will think about it more, but what I need to remember is that God can also zoom in on us and see us individually. This is one of the places where I’m liable to close myself off from belief. I want to believe so hard in God as a force of Love that loves all of us as a whole without ranking us or giving marks for goodness or badness that I find myself resisting belief in the same Force of Love that can attend to us individually just as we are down to each and every beloved atom.

It’s taken me more than half the sermon to realize that the gospel reading from John is mostly about this individual love. A major lesson from this reading, for me, is a realization that I can want special love from God that is just for me as a unique person. That this is a worthiness I have. And that this special, individual love is also given to everyone else. It’s something like understanding that if rights are especially granted to oppressed groups, it doesn’t take away or diminish any of the given rights already enjoyed by everyone else. If a single person needs and receives special, attentive love, it doesn’t dilute the abundance of love that is for all. In fact it enlarges the communal pool of love to add an instance of individual love. And just right now, Jesus is praying for God’s individual love to focus on his friends. Jesus says: I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. Which isn’t to say that he’s excluding the wider world but is using this particular part of a longer prayer to focus on his friends, the ones who’ve had such trouble understanding his parables and teachings and have even worn out Jesus’s patience but still he so loves them, those who have followed and stumbled along who will be most deeply affected by his physical absence. Jesus even props them up in his prayer as having been so keenly receptive and certain and understanding of all the words Jesus spoke to them, the words God gave Jesus to speak, when we know that sometimes they were incredibly frustrating to Jesus and not keen listeners at all, but Jesus is wanting to show them in the God’s eye view. He’s worried about them because of the hostility of the world that will be aimed at them, not the hostility the Christofacists claim to be the target of—what they call cancel culture and say is meant to silence their expression of “belief,” which is an oppressive belief they are wielding in state houses across the country like an ax that chops off rights from marginalized groups. The hostility Jesus foresees is an opposite kind that such exclusionary practices foment against the work of inclusion and celebration of human diversity, the very work that Jesus’s ministry has exemplified. Jesus is praying for protection for his disciple friends who will be continuing his work of loving inclusion, of aligning with the marginalized and upending hierarchical structures so that the last will be first. 

This is the work that MCC New York also commits to doing. Jesus will pray for God’s special love to fall on us as a family of faith, too. In subsequent verses Jesus will expand his prayer to include all believers, all people engaged in the work of Love, of manifesting God’s presence on the earth. Which is the meaning of “glorification” I told you I found.

Glorification is a responsive human recognition of God’s presence among us. It isn’t about a hierarchical structure of God on top and everyone else below. It’s God with us. Jesus’s prayer repeatedly emphasizes the knowing of Jesus as being central to our recognition of God. This knowing of Jesus as sent from God, as the human manifestation of God’s presence, is an up-ending of top-down hierarchy. Jesus is God at the human level, not a lofty unreachable level but our own earthly level of loving interaction. We experience God through the human love we have for each other, which is the love Jesus models for us. It isn’t about prostration before a frightening, demanding, controlling God above. God is among us. God is in Jesus and God is in us. Jesus is the example of who we are. Knowing God through Jesus is knowing God through ourselves and each other. The bowing we do is to each other: Namaste: the divinity in me recognizes the divinity in you. 

Jesus says that the knowing of God is what eternal life is. Jesus says: And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I just need to put the God is Love filter on this phrase the only true God that jumps out to me as being exclusionary, but really it isn’t. My decoding will be that the only true God is the God of Love, who all manner of faith traditions, including ours, can hold as true. What’s more essential, I think, and what I’m almost able to understand, is that the eternal life Jesus defines is simply a continuation or deepening of the engagement with God, with Love, that we are developing in our earthly lives as we practice loving each other. Eternal life is a progression, not a prize.

Maybe what happens when we practice love in our earthly lives is that the transition to eternal life doesn’t feel as jarring or frightening but is more like a very natural next step. I once saw a documentary about George Harrison of the Beatles that I can’t remember exactly, but in my vague memory was a part in the documentary about George Harrison having had a loving spiritual practice intended to bring him closer in touch with a divine power. And this practice was for the express purpose of increasing the divine contact so that he might enter into eternal communion with the divine with at least a partial awareness of what was happening. That he might, in life, have already traveled a little distance along the eternal path and so better know the way. I’m taking great liberties with this memory and using my own words to communicate a concept that stuck with me, however differently it surely was expressed in the documentary. But it was something like what I’m saying. Something about an intentional human practice of love as communion with the divine, and this being a smooth segue into eternal life. Jesus prays that the disciples may be one, as Jesus and God are one. Being one with God and each other is the eternal goal. 

Something I want to say to end this sermon is about church and being one with each other and with God. And still being in the world as Jesus says of the disciples in his prayer. We need this prayer of Jesus for us individually and as a community. We’re still in the world. We have threats against us as LGBTQ+ people. We’re finding that our way of being the church isn’t the same after COVID. I keep thinking of something the congregation traditionally reads aloud together at the Holy Saturday Lighting of the New Fire service. I’ve confessed to not being an in-person congregant these days but I did attend the Holy Saturday service and read aloud this statement called the Covenant of Metropolitan Community Church of New York. I don’t know when it was written. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. I won’t read the whole thing to you here but do recommend you read it in full some day. I find it especially beautiful and meaningful as a whole. But the part I want to share is this:

We pledge ourselves to creating new structures and ways of being the church, which will break through all forms of alienation.

We pledge ourselves to the vision of inclusive community in which our individual gifts will find expression.

We pray for the radical openness necessary to hear one another’s needs, share one another’s brokenness, and support one another’s dreams.

So I hope we can all be praying about these things however we do, and sharing visions for our future. 

Amen