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melishade · 2 years ago

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Attack on Prime Hizuru OVA Commentary Part 3

Main Story

Part 2

Alright, we are on Part 3 of the Hizuru OVA, basically focused more on Mikasa and Megatron bonding once more and sharing a very personal moment that drives both of their characters.

Also spoilers

So recap: Mikasa and Megatron have an extremely heavy conversation about power, birthrights and leading a normal life. And this is still affecting Megatron even after Wheeljack and Arcee have arrived. Actually, their arrival has just added to the turmoil of the situation. Mikasa notices this shift in demeanor when Megatron returns the next day. And when Megatron leaves a traditional performance and Mikasa follows, it’s tense.

She searched through the corridors and found Megatron leaving the building entirely. Mikasa followed him outside and quickly ran towards him. She grabbed his arm, causing Megatron to immediately swat her hand away.

“Megatron-,”

“I said I’m fine!” Megatron shouted as he turned to glare at her. Megatron saw the fear on Mikasa’s face and rubbed the bridge of the holoform’s nose in irritation.

“I’m just irritated with the human culture,” Megatron lied.

Megatron lies because he doesn’t want to share what he’s feeling, but he also doesn’t want Mikasa to be scared of him. He doesn’t like how it makes him feel. Mikasa does just a tad bit more prodding and-

Megatron grimaced and gritted his teeth. The Autobots, this stupid island, this running around, all of it frustrated him! This wasn't about something some pathetic human would have said, right? But without power, the island dies. Without power, the Autobots take him. Without power, he can't do...anything.

“Fine! It is!" Megatron spat out, "I can’t understand why you would sacrifice all of this power for a normal life! It’s foolish and idiotic! Power is the only thing that provides any real solution!”

“…you’ve never lived a normal life,” Mikasa concluded, “Have you?”

Mikasa could see that Megatron was taken aback by her statement. She could see the uncertainty on his face as he was trying to think it over. He looked so...distraught. Afraid even. It reminded her of the day Armin backed him in a corner during the coup. Mikasa looked back at the shrine before turning her attention to Megatron. What she was about to do was a risk…but…Megatron had already done so much. It was time she tried to return the favor. Megatron was stunned when Mikasa grabbed his hand and managed to pull him away from the temple.

Because Megatron was already stressed out by the fact that the Autobots are now on the AOT world, so he knows for a fact he's going to get executed somehow someway. He knows that he needs to find a way to at least stay long enough to make things right with Optimus and ultimately stay alive until then. He needs the power to do that. On top of the fact that Mikasa is literally saving that she would throw her title and power away for a chance at that normal life. Power is how you get what you want. At least that's how it's always worked for Megatron to get victory and stay alive. He's frustrated at everything because of that.

And Mikasa realizes that the only reason Megatron would be defending such a position about gaining power, was because he himself has never had a normal life. That had to be the only reason that he's so insistent on defending that position. And Megatron reaction to that bold assumption only confirms what she needs to know. Because she recognized that expression when Armin figured out why Megatron was staying on this world in the first place: for Optimus. So Mikasa decides to show him. Show him what a normal day would be like. In order to repay Megatron for protecting her this whole time, and to show why she wants that life so badly. She wants to get Megatron to understand why normality is important.

And Megatron...agrees to let Mikasa show him what that normal life is like, albeit reluctantly. They go to a cherry blossom garden and sit by a tree and just learn more about each other. Mikasa’s figuring out the fact that Megatron isn’t disgusted by the cherry blossoms and is even admiring it. So much so that she:

Mikasa watched Megatron stare at the flower, and she believed that she recognized an expression on his face that she might not have seen before: admiration. Mikasa grew bold and took the flower from his hand before tucking it behind his ear. Megatron looked at Mikasa with utter confusion and disbelief before touching the flower.

“What the hell, Ackerman?” Megatron managed to say.

“You can take it out if you want,” Mikasa told him.

Mikasa could see that Megatron was ready to tear it out. She expected him to, but he stopped himself. Mikasa was surprised to see that he lowered his hand, leaving the flower tucked on his ear.

“This feels ridiculous,” Megatron declared. (Tries to deny it, but simply doesn’t want to tear it out to hurt Mikasa’s feelings. Also, it’s a strangely nice gesture he doesn’t know how to respond.)

“It’s not so bad,” Mikasa proclaimed as she tucked a flower behind her own ear. (Does this in order to make Megatron feel just a little more comfortable.)

And then the fight is discussed:

“Were you going to kill me then?” Mikasa asked him.

“No,” Megatron answered, but there was some hesitation in that response, “I…got carried away.”

“Carried away?” Mikasa questioned.

“Fighting in the gladiatorial arena was one of the few instances where I felt alive,” Megatron explained, “Once of the few instances where I was able to recognize my worth. That rush of power and the thrill of fighting for my own life. It was there where I was able to decide my fate. Fighting a strong opponent amplified that.”

(This is the first time in a while that Megatron has really shared anything about his personal life. In Transformers Exodus, Megatron prided himself with being a gladiator and creating a name for himself. There’s even a quote that Megatron says about even in death, the gladiators have value. Being a gladiator was a place where Megatron proved his worth and found his calling. On top of that, violence is ingrained in Megatron’s nature. Going for the kill is always important to him.)

“I’m not that strong compared to you,” Mikasa retorted.

Megatron was quiet for a moment. “There was one other Cybertronian that was able to come close to defeating me, besides Optimus.”

Mikasa was surprised by his proclamation. “Who?”

“My most trusted lieutenant and my third in command during the war,” Megatron answered, “He was one of few words, and later made a vow of silence during the war. I met him in the arena, and it was a fight to the death. He managed to wound me pretty badly but I was the victor in the end. I chose to spare him. To see someone like him die would have been a waste. Because of that action, we became allies.”

(How Megatron and Soundwave became allies has always been speculation. I don’t think we ever got a definitive answer but this is what I thought happen. Or at least what I’d gathered what happened.)

Megatron looked at Mikasa. “I expect you not to tell anyone this, but if the prince didn’t intervene, you might’ve had a chance at defeating me.”

“R-really?” Mikasa asked in surprise.

“You’re strong, but you lack a proper technique and training,” Megatron declared, “With time, you could become a very powerful warrior.” (The fact that Megatron is telling Mikasa this at all is because Megatron does truly respect Mikasa as a warrior and as an ally. He cares. Plain and simple.)

“Th-thank you,” Mikasa stuttered in surprise as she rested her hands on her knees.

And then they go into the town to play some games. I have a scene where it cuts to Kiyomi and Taisho, but we’ll discuss Taisho a little later.

So Mikasa and Megatron are having fun and playing games together. Mikasa plays a lottery game and I really liked writing this:

“Just pull a string,” Megatron told her.

Mikasa didn’t listen as she was still trying to guess the string. Megatron rolled his eyes and reached for one of the strings himself, but Mikasa quickly swatted his hand away.

“You cannot be serious,” Megatron proclaimed.

“Sh,” Mikasa spoke as she finally picked a string.

Because Mikasa feels comfortable enough to have a normal interaction with Megatron without any consequences. Also, when they get their masks:

Megatron looked over to see Mikasa staring at him with the fox mask on. “You look ridiculous.”

“It goes well with the kimono,” Mikasa commented, her voice slightly muffled by the mask.

“Can you see through that?” Megatron asked.

“I can,” Mikasa answered, “You should put yours on. It matches your eyes.”

“I’m not going to put cheap plastic over my face,” Megatron declared.

“It doesn’t hurt to try,” Mikasa insisted.

“If I put it on, will it stop your insistence?” Megatron demanded.

Mikasa nodded her head, causing Megatron to sigh and place the mask over his face. He looked down at Mikasa, and could’ve sworn that he heard stifled laughter.

“Now we look ridiculous together,” Mikasa declared.

I just thought it was fun. But when Megatron thinks it’s better to go back to the castle, Mikasa still says no and even risks punishment for it.

“You’re not usually someone who is a troublemaker,” Megatron said, “Why bother now on an important mission?”

“I…,” Mikasa trailed off.

“’I’ what?” Megatron pressed, “Tell me or I take you back to the palace.”

“I wanted to give you a normal day,” Mikasa answered.

“A normal day,” Megatron repeated with a raised brow, “This is the middle of a festival. This is hardly a normal day.”

“Maybe,” Mikasa agreed, “But…it’s just a normal day. No military work, and no war. It’s full of fun and joy. We’re playing games and winning prizes, talking and enjoying what’s around us. It’s so simple and mundane.”

Mikasa looked up at him and smiled. “I wanted to show you exactly why I want this life so badly.”

So we to take a break from Megatron and Mikasa to talk to Taisho and Katsuko to get a better understanding of their dynamic, their characters, and what’s essentially important to them. Again, I just didn’t want to make the Hizuru complete assholes, especially since they’ve most likely had to struggle to keep their wealth. They would have to be a little more humble. I should really write a full backstory on them because I have the pieces. I just need to put pen to paper. But Taisho does sneak into the town in disguise to find Mikasa and Megatron and show them a good spot on the river to experience the lantern ceremony.

“It’s begun,” Taisho declared as he pointed to the palace. Mikasa and Megatron saw a lone lantern floating high in the air away from the palace. Mikasa stared in awe as a large wave of lit lanterns flew high into the air, while some of the water lanterns floated along the river. Taisho passed the matches to Mikasa, causing Mikasa to hesitantly take it from his hands. Mikasa lit the match before lighting her own lantern. Mikasa noticed the lantern by Megatron and offered the matches to him. The ex-con stared at the matches before sighing in irritation and taking it from her.

“Never speak of this day,” Megatron told Mikasa as he lit his lantern.

Mikasa smiled at him before releasing her lantern into the air. Taisho released his after her while Megatron stared at his. He didn’t say a word as he finally released the lantern. The people on the bridges and boats released their lanterns. Mikasa watched as lanterns filled her vision. Some of the lanterns floated directly above her head, while others glided across the water. Mikasa saw the reflection of the lanterns in the water, and it made her feel like she was floating in a sea of stars. Mikasa touched one of the water lanterns before pushing it further down the stream. Mikasa turned and rested her hands on the other side of the boat. She watched as the lanterns continued to be blown by the wind, moving further into the mainland. Taisho was surprised by Mikasa’s reaction to the lanterns. She stared at them with awe and wonder, almost laughing with joy at the sight. Her expression was like a little child. He turned his attention to Megatron, who was staring at the lanterns in the sky with a sense of...nostalgia in his eyes.

Mikasa looked up at the lanterns floating above her and reached out towards it, but it was out of her reach. Mikasa felt overwhelmed at the sight before her, but also…happy. When…when was the last time she felt like this? When was the last time she felt like a child, staring at the world with curiosity and wonder?

This is a moment where Taisho is getting a better understanding of who Mikasa and Megatron are as people through simple glimpses. I wanted to have Mikasa act like a teen for once, instead of a hardened soldier. I wanted Megatron to, for just a moment, let his guard down just a little. Also, I wanted to try and create and ethereal feeling and I hope I did. But then:

Megatron heard a soft sniffle and turned to see Mikasa crying, covering her mouth to prevent any sound from coming out. Megatron glanced back at Taisho and quickly blocked his view to Mikasa’s moment of weakness. (Megatron does this because of his respect for Mikasa as a warrior.)

“What’s wrong?” Megatron whispered to her.

“I’m trying to remember my mom,” Mikasa hiccupped, “What she would look like when seeing this, but all I can remember is her corpse. I can’t remember what my mom looked like. It’s been so long.”

Mikasa quietly whimpered while Megatron didn’t know what to do in this situation. Taisho could hear Mikasa’s soft cries, and tried to peer over.

“…do you know where her spark might have gone?” Megatron finally asked, before correcting himself, "Her soul...I mean."

“I don’t know,” Mikasa answered, “I knew the wall religion was a sham, but…if there’s no sure existence of a god or another life, does that mean that my mom is gone forever? And my father? Dr. Jaeger? Carla? Everyone I love? Does it all mean nothing in the end?”

We don’t really see Mikasa’s religious beliefs. I don't think Mikasa would have believed in anything in particular, but that she would like the idea of heaven and seeing her loved ones again. So the idea of there not being an afterlife scares her. Because it means that her most prominent memories of her loved ones are times when they were taken away from her. She doesn't want to remember something so cruel like that. It hurts too much. It causes her pain.

Meanwhile Megatron:

Megatron saw Mikasa wiping away her tears and...didn't like it. He didn't like seeing Mikasa this distressed. And her words...reminded him of that day in the mines. But what could he say? This wasn't his specialty at all: to comfort and to care. He didn't have the spark to say something and completely screw it up.

Wait...spark. Megatron slowly raised his hand to his chest, where his damaged and broken spark resided. It was due to his own hubris that his spark was damaged. He may never be reborn again, but still...Cybertronians knew where they would go once they passed. It might not be the same for humans, but even so...

Wait, what was he thinking? Talking about something as sensitive as that! The very creation and rebirth of all Cybertronians to a human! The idea was so preposterous it!...Megatron train of thought stopped when more tears spilled from Mikasa's eyes. And that guilt slowly crept back in.

It is a complete internal battle for him in this moment. Because over the past week, he's grown fonder of Mikasa. And to see her so distraught is making him feel FEELINGS! HE HATES IT! And prior to this, it's this internal battle of pride and guilt when trying to comfort Mikasa. Does he let her cry? Why should he help her? She's been kind to you this whole time. And the fact that he's debating on giving her something in relation to Cybertronian culture is baffling him because that's not something that a human should be hearing about. He shouldn't be giving that knowledge to such a weak species. But Mikasa has proven her worth and her strength in battle. She has his respect, so to see her like this and not do anything about it is an insult to a comrade in arms! So what ultimately has Megatron tell Mikasa about reincarnation?

“All I’m asking, is for you to be considerate of Mikasa’s feelings and not to be so callous to her.”

Hanji’s words. Hanji’s influence in the beginning of the week, advising Megatron to be considerate of Mikasa and her feelings, is what ultimately influences his decision to tell her about:

Megatron spared a quick glance at Taisho before turning back to Mikasa. He removed his hand from his chest and slouched forward a little, arms resting on his legs. What was he doing? “Your mother...she could’ve been reincarnated.”

Mikasa looked up at Megatron in confusion, tears still staining her cheeks. “Reincarnated?”

“On Cybertron, when one of us dies, it is said that our sparks return to where we were first created: the Well of the Allsparks,” Megatron explained, his gaze wandering to the lanterns floating in the water, “The Well resides within the core of our planet, along with our creator, Primus. The spark remerges from the Well and is reborn as another Cybertronian."

Megatron saw a water lantern knock against the boat, ultimately getting stuck and being unable to move further down the stream. "They do not remember their previous life. They do not remember their glory or their sins. They don't remember good and evil. The ledger of their previous life is wiped completely clean."

Mikasa watched as Megatron dipped the holoform fingers in the river and gently push the lantern around the boat. The lantern was free, and drifted further down the river to join the others. "And they are given a chance to start anew.”

Mikasa watched the lantern integrate with the masses before staring down at her bandaged wrist, the one that held the crest her mother gave her, and told her to treasure. “Do you think that reincarnation would be possible for humans? That my mom got a chance at a new life of peace?”

Megatron turned his gaze back to her. "I wouldn't know,...but you humans tend to surprise me.”

Mikasa gave Megatron a small, tired smile, content with the hope of that knowledge. “Thank you.”

Megatron let out a grunt in reply, turning back to the lanterns. He felt...stupid, giving up that kind of information, and part of him was certain it provided no comfort. Mikasa looked back up at the lanterns and just felt exhausted. She was running around all day. It was late, and she had spent her remaining energy in crying. She...she wanted to sleep. Maybe just for a little while, maybe in this moment it would be fine. She rested her head on Megatron’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Megatron nearly jolted at the pressure on his shoulder and looked down at Mikasa in surprise. What the hell was she doing?! Megatron raised his hand to grab her shoulder, wanting to remove her. However, he paused when he saw that peaceful and relaxed expression on her face. He reconsidered, and ultimately lowered his arm and let her stay there. He looked back up at the lanterns, and an old, long-forgotten memory played in his mind. He remembered sitting atop the Iacon Hall of Records with Orion Pax. The archivist wanted to show him his favorite spot and begged him to stay. He complied and he was amazed at the abundance of stars in the sky. It was much more prominent compared to the dark and cloudy skies in Kaon. It also showed him how vast the universe really was.

A few notes:

-The idea of Megatron talking about reincarnation around the spring festival was an analogy I didn't realize I did until I started reviewing the chapter. Because spring is a time of renewal and rebirth, and Cybertronians follow reincarnation. A chance to start a new.

-Also, Megatron pushing the lantern along, kind of like someone guiding a lost soul to the multitude of others.

-The description I have Megatron give to Mikasa is ultimately damning for him, because despite his sins, if he hadn't fucking up his spark with dark energon, he still would've had the opportunity at reincarnation.

-And after the explanation, and Mikasa's completely exhausted from crying her heart out, she at a point where maybe, just maybe, I can put my trust in Megatron for just a brief moment. If he would allow it. She hoped that their interactions were enough for Mikasa to be able to rest beside him. Instead of staying awake after that, she was putting her complete trust in Megatron to keep her safe and let her rest. And Megatron wants to react with violence, but to see her peaceful face causes him to reconsider. Because he didn't think what he said worked, and he was also feeling vulnerable in that moment and was just trying not to show it. And to see her let her guard down around him of all people! He owed her this much, and she deserved so much better.

-And for a brief moment in the quiet, Megatron is reminded of an old memory of when her first saw the stars with Orion.

And Taisho reminds everyone that, yeah he’s in the story. And the two have this conversation discussing Mikasa and the implication of putting her on the throne. But instead of Megatron speaking less about her.

“Know this,” Megatron began, “I despise humanity with every fiber of my being. Mikasa, knowing this, was willing to reach out her hand to me and show me what it was like to have a normal day, which is something I have not had for over four million years. She’s willing to understand this country and because of her roots, understands what it is like for others to suffer. But she would still help them regardless. She has good qualities of leadership.”

"But you've seen what the outside world is like," Taisho proclaimed, “You know what lies out there, waiting for those who do not fit the mold. Despite her situation and altruism, the world will not see her that way."

“Then make them,” Megatron told him, “She would not throw you or your family out, especially if you have a use. You could help her rule; create a strong alliance between Eldia and Hizuru.”

He praises her. Mikasa has Megatron’s complete respect at this point in the story. And Taisho is wiser than he seems. He’s not acting entirely out of selfishness. He’s acting because he cares about the survival of his nation, his wife, and his son.

“Even if we were to somehow establish a good relationship, and there would be some sort of compromise, what would you do about the power of the titans?” Taisho asked him, “The Colossal Titans within the wall, the new experiments being conducted within Marley, the Founding Titan itself, what do you say to that? If Eldia became a formidable power once again, they might decide to conquer the world once more. Maybe not now, but sometime in the future. Then what? Does Eldia rule for another 2,000 years, subjugating the rest of the world into suffering?”

“You’re putting this on the power of the titans,” Megatron noted, “Not the Eldian people.”

“Humans in general will always be corrupted by power, no matter how good their intentions are,” Taisho declared, “As long as the power of the titans exist, the only options would be to get rid of the power of the titans, or a mass execution of Eldians. Either way, nothing would change. Over time, the next power would take its place, and humanity would continue this cycle of war and hatred. The idea of eternal peace, like so many believe will happen if the Eldians are gone, is a peace that does not exist.”

Again, totally not foreshadowing LOL. And then Mikasa, who’s on Megatron’s back at this point accidentally says Megatron’s name as the three are making their way back to the castle, which Taisho hears. And Megatron says something simple in the moment and the quiet after Mikasa muttered a sleepy ‘thank you.’

He put Mikasa down on the bed and put the blanket over her body. He placed the mask, the cherry blossom, and the daruma doll on the table next to the bed, knowing he would have no need for them. Megatron stared at Mikasa for a brief moment before sighing.

“…you’re welcome, Mikasa,” Megatron finally spoke. He stood up and shut the door to her room before deactivating the holoform.

He says ‘your welcome’. He says a small and simple kind gesture. He even leaves a note saying ‘thank you for the normal day’. Megatron values Mikasa, and holds that simple fleeting moment close to his spark. He’ll reflect on Hizuru in later chapters.

Final scene is Mikasa saying goodbye, and apologizing for her behavior, but Megatron’s words and Mikasa’s actions are enough to have Taisho show compassion and grant Optimus an extra two weeks to contact Cybertron instead of a single week as agreed upon. The last lines are from Taisho POV.

“I have to think realistically, not ideally,” Taisho reminded, “We all want things to go a certain way, but the world is full of different people with their own beliefs. It feels like the only thing that we can do is make an uneasy compromise.”

“Maybe this time it will change,” Kenshin suggested.

“…We’ll see,” Taisho spoke, “We’ll see what happens.”

Wherever this path led to, he did hope that it led to peace during their lifetime. The profit didn’t matter too much to him. Not like it mattered to Kiyomi, but it was something that he had to rely on. In regards to Mikasa, she was a good person, and she wasn’t some sort of devil. She just wanted a normal life. He couldn’t picture Kenshin in her situation. He didn’t want to. Maybe he could help find this girl some peace.

She deserved it most of all.

A line of hope for the future, despite how cruel the world was.

(And that’s all my commentary. Sorry it’s so long, but I really wanted to get my thoughts out. I hope you enjoyed.)

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johnhardinsawyer · 9 months ago

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Above, Below, and Behind

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 10 / 24

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Matthew 16:21-26

“Above, Below, and Behind”

(Wandering Heart – Week 4)

A little over a week ago, my family and I were on vacation in Florida. And, I’m going to be honest with you: even though we were on vacation during the season of Lent – a season of self-denial and sacrifice – I ate like I was on vacation from Lent. There were trips to the local bakery, desserts at meals and in between meals, and all kinds of stuffing my face with tasty things. It sure was fun! But desserts. . . O, Lord . . . desserts have been my downfall. . . my adversaries for many years.

I used to have a joke I would tell myself – one of those jokes that people who read the Bible might tell themselves to give themselves a chuckle. Whenever I would walk through the bakery section of the grocery and I would see those plastic boxes filled with grocery store bakery cookies, I would say, “Get Thee behind me cookies!” Of course, I did not always heed my own joking advice and the cookies sometimes found their way into my grocery cart, and into my mouth. I sometimes used to say, “Get Thee behind me cookies, and do not get Thee to my behind (or to my waistline, or whatever).” But somehow, the cookies would end up there, just the same.

I could say that temptation is a funny thing. But really, temptation is so hard.

In today’s reading, we find Jesus’ friend and disciple, Peter tempted not by cookies or anything from the bakery section. Instead, Peter is “tempted” by human things which distract him from Holy things. And in the moment, it would appear that this temptation is contagious.

Those of you who were here last Sunday will remember Blair Moffett’s excellent sermon that touched on today’s text. Jesus and his disciples are in a place called Caesarea Philippi – a place at the foot of Mount Hermon that is full of flowing waters and was a cool vacation spot for those who could afford to get away during the hot summers in the land of Judah and Galilee.

There were shrines and temples there – built to any number of Greek and Roman “small-g” gods – and if you go there today, you can still see the ruins of the place and get a sense of what it must have been like. It is in this place that Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15) And a former-fisherman named Simon, says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,”

You should know that it was a big deal to say such a thing. As one author writes:

The context here is paramount. For some seven hundred years, the Jewish people had been awaiting the king that God had promised them before the fall of Israel. This ruler would come from the line of David and restore security and prosperity to the chosen people. Because of the prophetic description in the ancient texts – a “Prince of Peace” who would conquer all of God’s enemies – the Jews were expecting a strong-man, an indomitable potentate whose political power and military might could not be rivaled.[1]

What would you do if you found out that your friend and teacher was really “an indomitable potentate” capable of amassing unlimited earthly power – especially if you were living, at the time, under foreign occupation by a formidable empire. . . in this case, the Roman Empire? It might cause one’s self-image to swell or, at the very least, cause one to say, “Hmmm. . . I must be following the right person and I feel pretty good about what the future holds for me and my friends. We are clearly backing the right guy. He’s going to fix everything.

When Simon says that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, Jesus does not deny it. Instead, he says,

“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. . .” (16:16-18)

Simon is given a new name, here, that is a play on words: “You are Peter” – Petros – a “rock” in the original language.[2] But even though Jesus gives Simon this new name – Peter, the Rock – it doesn’t take long for Peter to not live up to the firmness and strength of this new name.

As we heard, earlier, after Peter’s divinely inspired proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus begins to tell his friends that he must go to Jerusalem, and be arrested and suffer, and be killed, and on the third day, be raised.[3]

In my mind, Peter doesn’t even hear this last part about “being raised on the third day.” Instead, Peter’s mind and heart are stuck on the whole Jesus must be arrested and suffer and be killed part. Peter’s response to this awful news – news that goes against the whole idea of a powerful Messiah – is an emotional gut reaction. You can sense this in how the text tells us that he pulls Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him. In the original language, there is this sense that Peter “actively, forcefully lays his hands on Jesus and grasps”[4] him by the lapels and begins to “seriously censure”[5] him – to criticize him – basically telling Jesus to shut up. Can you imagine? Peter must not have been in his right mind.

This is where Jesus switches his tone from just moments earlier: “Get behind me Satan!” he says to Peter. (16:23) “You are a stumbling block to me and I’m not going to allow you to trip me up. Your thoughts, Peter, are not of the things of God. Your thoughts are of human things. You’re thinking like a regular person thinks, Peter – acting on the very human desire to avoid suffering and sacrifice, to choose the easiest path – instead of trusting in God’s Way, following God’s path. You’re choosing the human over the Holy.”[6]

Now, before we get too far, when Jesus calls Peter “Satan,” the word is used not in the “red-suit-with-pointy-tail-and-a-trident” sense. Instead, in the original language, “Satan” means “adversary” – specifically, “the adversary of God and those who belong to God.”[7] In choosing a very human response, Peter – for just a moment – becomes Jesus’ adversary.

Have you ever done this? Granted, I’m not sure how much we might choose to do something that would tempt Jesus away from God’s Holy call and cause. But, when it comes to setting our minds not on divine things, but on human things, how often do we willingly or unwillingly become adversaries of God’s Holy purpose in the world?

It can happen in subtle ways. . . in the moment-by-moment distractions of technology and choices that we make to fulfill our own appetites and desires. It can happen in major ways. . . in how we might put our faith in candidates, and party platforms, and pundits that pleasure our perspectives, and even our own country and the empire that some would see it become. None of these things can truly save us, and yet we live as if they can – going through our lives, trusting in the human instead of the Holy. It’s so easy to fall into this trap – so tempting.

As Blair said, so eloquently last week, “Has faithful discipleship ever been more challenging?” No. . . and yes. Peter finds it pretty challenging in the moment – envisioning a powerful political Jesus, seizing control, running the Roman Empire out, establishing some Christian nation, ruling through religion. But Jesus paints a different picture – one of sacrifice and suffering – and Peter just doesn’t get it. We don’t get it, either.

In his recent book, The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory, an examination of the present-day church in America, author Tim Alberta writes of a sermon that he hears at a church in New York State called Goodwill Church. The pastor, a man named John Torres, preaches a sermon on the same text as today. Now, there are some things that Pastors John Torres and John Sawyer might not see eye-to-eye on, but his take on today’s text is rather striking:

. . . Peter was pursuing victory in the world; Jesus was promising victory over the world. . . If Peter could be singled out as “Satan” [The Adversary] for putting an earthly kingdom ahead of an eternal kingdom, Torres warned, we’re all fair game. . . this belief system is inside all of us. Indeed, the “things of man” Peter worried about twenty centuries ago are the same things that preoccupy us today: wealth, prestige, control. All of this, Torres said, competes with Jesus for our hearts. Everything to which we attach significance in this life – family, country, politics, bodily health, even the clothes we wear and the food we eat – can become a substitute religion.[8]

Worshiping at these altars here, below, takes our attention away from the things that are above. This does not mean that we should not be unconcerned with the world or not try to love God and love our neighbors in ways that seek to make things on earth as they are in heaven. What it does mean is that we seek to make things on earth as God intends – not always as we intend.

When Jesus tells Peter to “get behind” him, he is not telling Peter to go away. Instead, he is inviting Peter – his Adversary, in the moment – to follow him. “Get behind me so that you can follow me, Peter.” And, what does following Jesus look like? Well, according to today’s text, it looks like taking up a cross – our cross – and losing our lives for Jesus. As Bible scholar, Warren Carter writes,

Jesus’ scandalous call, then, to take up the cross and follow is a call to martyrdom, to die as Jesus does. Such is the risk of continuing Jesus’ countercultural work of proclaiming and demonstrating God’s empire. On another level, it is a call to a life of marginalization, to identify with the nobodies like slaves, foreigners, criminals, and those understood to be cursed by God. It is also to identify with those who resist the [earthly] empire’s control, who contest its version of reality, and who are vulnerable to its reprisals. It is to identify with a sign of the empire’s violent and humiliating attempt to dispose of all who threaten or challenge its interests. To so identify is not to endorse the symbol but to counter and reframe its violence. . . it is to identify with a sign that ironically indicates the empire’s limits. The empire does its worst in crucifying Jesus. But God raises Jesus from death to thwart the empire’s efforts and to reveal the limits of its power.[9]

In the Gospels, there will come a time when Jesus is arrested and brought before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor in charge of Jerusalem. Jesus is face-to-face with earthly power, but in the Gospel of John, Jesus tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. . . My kingdom is not from here.” (John 18:36). And if we would follow Jesus, in humility and hope, neither is ours – even though it can be so tempting for us to try to make God’s kingdom in our image instead of the other way round.

The only way for us, beloved people of God, is to get behind Jesus – to take up our cross and follow Jesus: to love as Jesus loved, to serve as Jesus served, to be vessels of healing and grace just as Jesus is, to be a voice for the voiceless, to sit with the sinners, to offer our very lives so that it may be on earth as it is in heaven.

As Blair said last week, “My human mind has not been able to grasp the full meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice and kingdom.” My own human mind has not been able to grasp this, either. But, if I cast aside the things that I do not need and focus on the one Holy thing that I do need, I pray that God will grant me glimpses of the kingdom – the true heavenly empire that Jesus has brought into the world. . . the kingdom toward which he is leading us, even now.

Get behind Jesus, friends. Get behind Jesus and follow.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

-------

[1] Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2023) 45.

[2] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 654.

[3] Matthew 16:21 – Paraphrased, JHS.

[4] Bauer, 464 – Paraphrased, JHS.

[5] Bauer, 303.

[6] Matthew 16:23 – Paraphrased, JHS.

[7] Bauer, 744.

[8] Alberta, 46.

[9] Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2000) 344.

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selkies-world · 1 month ago

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WORLD BUILDING IT IS

OK so there's 3 planes of existence: the Celestial, the Human (Earth), and the Dream Realm.

The Celestial consists of Aeternus (AKA Ecnissia), Kosmos, "The River", and Omerta. Aeternum is what was there before Chaos, before the storm, before The River, before the Daeva. Aeternus is what held the sea within it, what heated up in order to create the storm which went on to create the Daeva triplets, what was always there and will always remain. Kosmos is the eternal storm from which the Daeva were born. It leads to & from The River, which runs through the stars and the sea, encircling the universe. It was created by Kouros' tears the first time he cried and Dosis' laughter the first time he laughed and Spen's voice the first time she screamed. Omerta is the equivalent of an Underworld, and was created by Spen when she decided she wanted a space away from her brothers, who were arguing over stars.

On Earth, people used to believe in the Gods, and built temples and shrines and statues to them, made sacrifices to them, but over time, they forgot about the Gods and now see them as a piece of history, or a folktale. There are stray dogs which run around the cities & usually find a home in or around the temples, and it's a local myth that the Gods (mostly Likow & Pneuma) use the dogs as informants and watchers, who watch over the human population & report back; some even say that the Gods still watch people through the dogs' eyes.

The city which is the main setting on Earth is split up into what are essentially districts, some of which are higher up the social ladder than others. There are travel and trade routes running between each; though it's rate for someone to truly move up the social ladder from one to another, it isn't unheard of. Each district is more or less based on a different social media or other online platform, if they were to become physical places.

I won't name them, but I'll use numbers here.

- If you live here, you're probably a mentally ill, queer, kinky monsterfucker who dresses in either a grunge style or like you're an e-boy / e-girl. There's lots of derelict buildings which are actually very occupied (sometimes over-occupied), there's fights in the street, apartment buildings are slums, but then there's also the few who are far wealthier and have penthouses packed full of drugs, while those in the slums have dream boards of idealistic places and lots of plants, and political riots are low-key normal

- If you live here, you're probably a wine aunt, you know far too much about everyone else, it's a suburb so everyone knows everyone, everyone is in everyone's business, you're tipsy by 5pm, you have a very respectable book club, and you're probably right wing, or left-wing-wanna-be-who-can't-fully-let-go-of-right-wing-prejudices

- If you live here, you have very idealistic homes & castles & mansions, your interior decorating is envied by everyone, most people have personal gardeners and landscape designers in their employ, you eat very healthy, dinner parties are super boujie, you have a home-library, and your clothes are elegant af 24/7, even when you're relaxing. But nobody really engages with each other, and it's quite lonely, when all you know is peace and quiet and silent waves to each other in the street.

- If you live here, you know DIY & you're almost guaranteed to be trained in a craft of sort. You almost definitely make the clothes worn by everyone in the other districts. It's a small area, but it's well respected and is a major trade hotspot.

- If you live here, all of your possessions are 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand, there's lots of scams which mess with the legit deals a few are trying to make, and you're willing to sell anything you own in order to pay rent, because the bills are way higher than what you actually earn in your job. Guaranteed. The street art is nice, though.

- If you live here, nobody actually trusts you, you're all drug dealers & traffickers & sex workers. It's actually quite close to 1 and 5, but nobody wants to acknowledge that. You've definitely had to do something shady to pay bills more than once. There's lots of homeless people here, the houses are run-down shells with horrific living conditions, and the general upkeep of the area is horrifically low.

- If you live here, you're almost definitely a high-end sex worker, and you either are or have a sex slave and dungeon. It's an open secret that this is the red-light area of the city. There's also quite a lot of furries.

The Dream Realm is a dimension which crosses between the Celestial and Human. It's where the Gods once held their tournaments and trials of demigods, it's where humans once wandered into by mistake and found themselves face to face with monsters of epic proportion, temptations beyond any human's ability to resist, and things which were so addictive the human world paled in comparison. It's where heroes were made, and where martyrs proved themselves, where sacrifices were taken and made, where the Gods and humans mingled and danced together once a year. But after a war which almost destroyed both the Celestial and Human worlds, the Deava and Human Leaders came to an agreement: the Dream Realm would close, and neither civilisation would have access to it, and it would remain that way for the next 4,000 years, for everyone's safety. The Daeva agreed, because to a being which understands eternity, 4,000 years is a short amount of time to take a step back and focus on other matters; in Human years, 4,000 years is an amount of time which cannot be fully comprehended, as our lifespans are so short - as such, the humans assumed that 4,000 years would be enough time for everyone to have moved on, for lessons to be learned and for history to be cemented as something to never repeat.

Things didn't go quite according to the humans' plans, though. They didn't go according to the Daevas' plans, either. Over the next 4,000 years, humanity moved on, and the facts of the Gods and knowledge of their abilities turned to stories, then to myths and legend, then to folklore. Now, humans have new Gods, made of neon and plastic and backed by blue light. As the Gods watched, they saw humans stop believing in them, and saw themselves fade until they were all but forgotten and turned into short catchphrases and jokes and things told to children to scare them into eating their vegetables or going to sleep or not staying out too late or to not tell a lie.

Now, it's been 4,000 years, and the Gods are ready to remind humans why they were once revered, feared and awed in equal measure. They're reopening the Dream Realm, and this time, the stakes are higher than they ever were before - for the Gods, and for the humans they pull into the Realm to put through trials; and the humans are about to realise how much of their own history they've forgotten.

Yes hi please can I talk about some of the OCs in one of my current WIP adult fantasy books???? TO ANYONE?!?!??!

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pyreo · 4 years ago

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Loreposting about Abaddon

Abaddon doesn’t get a lot of attention. As a deposed god he doesn’t seem relevant to the Guild Wars timeline after Nightfall. But I keep thinking about him because Abaddon is probably the most influential character Tyria ever had.

Let’s just go over where he appears in-game if you start off in GW2. Everyone knows the six human gods. They’re in statues, temples, personal shrines everywhere. The base game story makes you detour through a sunken temple dedicated to Abaddon, while the Orrian temples to the other five gods are still intact on the surface. This is not by chance. It’s also nudging you to notice that there are no Orrian temples to Kormir, because she replaced Abaddon only two centuries ago. This is reflected again later on in Siren’s Landing on the other side of Orr, where the Five, and Abaddon, each have a personal reliquary, and Abaddon’s is central, connected to all the others, and still intact.

Building on that refresher on human divinity, in Path of Fire you visit the actual place Abaddon was defeated by the other Five gods and pushed into a side dimension to keep him out of the world.

And when you visit the archives of the Durmand Priory, they have an imposing Abaddon statue towering over the stairs. Other than being reflected in three major environments, he doesn’t have a role in the plot. BUT.

As Kormir explains to you, the weakness of the human gods is that their excess of power keeps fucking up the world. The Desolation, a map that covers only a part of the sulfur desert, is completely uninhabitable because Abaddon was destroyed there. This happened because Abaddon, who was actually the most powerful of the Six and the leader of the group, wanted humans to share in the gift of magic. He was the god of knowledge, after all. This proved disastrous and the other gods reduced and compartmentalised the magic, and Abaddon went on a whole attempt to overthrow them and become one, single god of all.

The destruction of Abaddon’s temples and relics was intentional. He was wiped from memory. The pantheon was called The Five until Nightfall, wherein the existence of Abaddon was revealed as he tried to drag himself back into the mortal plane. As a god his spheres of power were water and knowledge. Erasing knowledge of him was what made him powerless. (Interestingly, the Priory’s special collections contains the Scroll of the Five True Gods, an ancient record of what the human gods knew about the Elder Dragons, but one dragon is missing - the water dragon, who like Abaddon, has a damaged and erased history. The six Elder Dragons and six human gods have many respective connections.)

When he lived, Abaddon’s followers were the Margonites, who believed him the only real god and worshipped him exclusively, unlike other humans who revere all the Six together. They were rewarded with transformation into etheral beings with an extremely long lifespan, and were imprisoned in Abaddon’s Realm, the Realm of Torment, when he was forced out of Tyria. As the god of knowledge he had a realm to himself, and when fallen, his sphere inversed. Knowledge became madness, the theme his realm embodies. Temples were sunk, records destroyed, because to remove all knowledge of the god of knowledge made him powerless.

I can’t remember where, but it’s implied that by Nightfall comes around a thousand years after his banishment, Abaddon is finally able to claw his way back into Tyria because people are starting to remember him. There’s one side quest that sticks out in my memory called The Search for Enlightenment about a scholar stealing scriptures from an Elonian library which leads to a massive raid by Margonites. The scholar was ‘babbling’ about a forgotten god. Proximity to knowledge about Abaddon seems to bestow insanity, the connection between Abaddon in his inverted realm and his hold over anyone who knows he exists. Though the Five Gods tried, they didn’t erase everything (hell, Trahearne and Sayeh al' Rajihd give you a guided tour of an Abaddon temple). Over a thousand years, relics popped up and people began to remember The Five was once The Six. As they did his influence returned until he was able to attempt to merge the Realm of Torment with Tyria and become a single, all powerful god in the absence of the others.

But wait how does that make a forgotten god the most influential character in both games?

Well.

Guild Wars lore is nothing if not completely linked together. Every single thing has cause and effect, every event is a domino. The story is consistent from Prophecies to this day. So let’s start with the first GW1 chapter, Prophecies.

It all starts at the Citadel of Flame.

It was built into the volcano Hrangmer. The charr had been displaced, pushed out of Ascalon by the successful expansion of humankind. 450 years before GW2 the Flame Legion found this volcano and, inside, Titans. You know how Mordremoth’s minions are Mordrem, Zhaitan’s minions are Risen, etc? Titans are Abaddon minions, left behind and hidden after his defeat. They change their appearance to suit their environment. In a jungle they’re vegetative, in mountains they’re made of ice, in the Realm of Torment they’re twisted constructs of flesh, in a volcano, they’re fire. The Flame Legion brings the Titans back to the charr, charr worship them, and in exchange, get immense fire powers. Flame Legion completely takes over charr society and makes it a theistic, misogynist nightmare with the Shamans at the top.

Abaddon has just restructured charr society.

Using their overpowered fire magic indirectly from a human god, charr, ironically, rally against the humans and nuke Ascalon to pieces. The few survivors escape to Kryta. Charr are now pretty much unstoppable and invade all the way to Orr. Vizier Khilbron used a powerful stolen scroll to repel the charr with magic, and it completely destroys Orr, collapsing the island into the ocean.

Abaddon has just wiped out two nations of the humans who used to worship him, with Orr as the final goal - to tear down the resplendent city of the Gods who betrayed him. This is referenced, if you know what you’re looking for, in GW2. You can scale the Vizier’s Tower, where he read the scroll that sank all of Orr, and on the wall...

A mural to the lost god, a testament to power that, a thousand years later, one who was expunged from history had a faithful likeness depicted.

Ascalon’s a burning hole and Orr is underwater. Now what? Those Ascalonian survivors in Kryta find the place is controlled by White Mantle. The White Mantle are committing mass murder via bloodstone sacrifice (bloodstones being the power curb the gods introduced after imbuing humans with magic) in order to halt the prophecy of a Chosen One opening the Door of Komalie. Vizier Khilbron turns up, shaking out some mysteriously wet boots don’t worry about that, and leads you against these genocidal cultists. Which, whoops, does lead to the Door of Komalie being opened - and it’s a doorway into Abbadon’s Realm of Torment, out of which Titans power through. This was the apocalypse planned for Kryta. Unlike the first two, this one is thwarted by the player. Kryta lives on. Vizier Khilbron is the final boss and turns out to have been a lich.

That’s 3 of the 5 human nations. What about Cantha and Elona?

GW: Factions is the Canthan chapter in which Shiro Tagachi, the emperor’s bodyguard, continually visits a fortune teller until she inflicts such paranoia on his mindset that he believes he needs to kill the emperor in self-defense. His defeat causes the Jade Wind that creates the Jade Sea. As a spirit, Shiro then engulfs Cantha in a plague that warps people into tumorous mutants. The fortune teller turns out to be an Abaddon minion whose task was the eventual destruction of Cantha. This one also is foiled by the player.

GW: Nightfall is the culmination chapter. Abaddon is now powerful enough, well known enough, to breach Tyria and try to come back. His agent is Varesh Ossa, who slowly transforms into a Margonite over the course of the game. The player confronts the breach between planes and finally enters the Realm of Torment, meeting the shades of Abaddon’s servants that came before, the lich form of Vizier Khilbron, and the spirit of Shiro Tagachi, before facing Abaddon himself.

And that’s the end of it. In Guild Wars magic cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred, so another god ascends in Abaddon’s place. They are once again The Six.

It’s Abaddon that ruined half the Elonian desert, Abaddon whose sinking of Orr gave Zhaitan the perfect mass grave to necromance, Abaddon who froze the Cantha sea into solid jade, and Abaddon whose final death and eruption of magic started waking Primordus, leading to the norn, dwarf and asuran alliance to stop it in 1078 AE-- introducing the norn and asura to the rest of Tyria, and making the dwarves extinct, cutting their entire race’s existence short. If it wasn’t for Abaddon, the charr wouldn’t have been taken over by their magic-toting shaman caste, only to come to their senses and rebel and ostracize the Flame Legion afterward. Hell, the current Flame Legion Imperators STILL style their horns in an homage to Abaddon, and probably don’t even remember why! To a human god, gone for over a thousand years, who used their race as pawns in a revenge attempt at wiping out every nation the humans had built!

And even after being thoroughly and completely destroyed, his magic STILL haunts Tyria enough for his statues to punish you for not showing the proper respect.

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #long post #LONG fucking post (apologetic)#abaddon #guild wars 1 #had to get this out me brain there we go

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wisteria-imagines · 4 years ago

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Wisteria Imagines - Kyoujuro × Reader (F)

+++Second Wind+++

Summary: During his fight with Akaza, a crow delivers a message to Kyoujuro from his beloved that gives him his second wind.

Kyoujuro was not one to feel fear, but this battle was wearing him thin. He had to stop Akaza, he had to protect his juniors from this monster. As the flame Hashira, that was his duty, to save those weaker than him, and defeat the wicked. And there was no one more wicked than the threat before him. Number three of the twelve Kizuki: Akaza.

“Kyoujuro,” The demon started, “You’ve been a worthy foe! Your skill, your technique, don’t you see how perfect a demon you could be? We could stay fighting together for eternity, can’t you imagine how perfect that would be! Forever building each other's power, till the end of time.” It almost sounded like the demon was pleading. A sick plea for the fun to never end. Kyoujuro’s face hardened.

“I would rather perish than submit to you, Akaza.” The demon’s face soured.

“Very well, but just know…” The demon sighed, “Killing you will be the hardest thing I enjoy.” Soon enough his face split into a crazed grin, before he flung himself forward towards the pillar.

He was going to die here, Kyojuro realised. He was going to die fighting this demon, hopefully, by the mercy of any gods that be, he could spare the lives of his juniors. At least then his sacrifice could be worth something. He slashed at Akaza, putting in every technique he knew, but the demon was right. His human body could only cope with so much strain.

They were neck in neck, pushing into one another waiting for the other to give, when suddenly, a loud squawk came from overhead. Both of their eyes darted to the source of the sound, it was a crow.

“Corrospondance for Rengoku Kyoujuro - SQUAWK - correspondence for Rengoku Kyoujuro!” The two warrior’s eyes fell back on one another before they pushed off of eachother, landing a great deal apart. Kyoujuro held out his arm, for the bird to land, never taking his eyes off of the demon. Akaza waited patiently before smiling at the pillar.

“Go ahead Kyoujuro. Read your little letter, since it just might be the last thing you ever read again.” He said as though he were offering a great mercy. The flame pillar huffed, he could barely see from one of his eyes at this point, but he unwrapped the letter from the crow’s foot. He unfolded it and was met with the familiar scent of his beloved’s perfume. You always sprayed your letters with it so he could always tell it was from you.

“My dearest Kyo,

I wanted to tell you this in person but I just can’t wait until you come back.

While I was visiting a shrine, I experienced one of those dizzy spells I had told you about last time. Luckily a medic was there and I found out something incredible.

Kyo, I’m pregnant! You're going to be a father! I wish I could see the look on your face, I bet you’re beside yourself right now. I know I couldn’t stop crying when I found out!

I miss you so much. So you better hurry up back to me Kyo, we still have to get married.

I love you with every inch of my heart, my flame.

Love (Y/n)”

Kyojuro gulped, his heart throbbing in his chest. He was so caught up in protecting what was in front of him, he had forgotten about you. The love of his life. The two of you had been together for a while now, you had seen him become a demon slayer, you had been there when he became the flame Hashira. He had promised to marry you once Muzan was slain, in the place where you two had met. But now, you were pregnant, with his child. He was going to have a family.

“Kyoujuro,” the pillar snapped out of his stupor. “We still have a fight to finish, it’s rude to keep me waiting.” Akaza taunted. That was right, he had a fight to finish, and a woman to go home to. Kyoujuro brought the letter to his face once more, breathing in the perfumed paper on final time before stashing it in his pocket. A smile split its way across his face.

“You’re correct!” He stood firm, the flames in his heart burning stronger than ever before. “I have received some great news, so unfortunately for you, I’m not going to die here.” He let out a deep breath, the flames erupting out of his very being, engulfing him entirely. Akaza stood wide eyed, before laughing maniacally.

“That’s the spirit, Kyoujuro. It’s a shame you won’t let me turn you, you’re magnificent.” The ground cracked as Akaza surged towards him. Kyoujuro spread his stance and breathed, before rushing towards the demon. Their collision created a shockwave that blew a crater into the ground. “Amazing!” Akaza praised. “You’re so amazing, hiding this power from me? What the hell news did you receive to give you this second wind?!” Kyoujuro had no reason to disclose anything to the demon, but he was fueled by your words, and his endless love for you.

“I’m going to be a father.” They broke off before colliding again. “I’m going to have a child, and then me and my beloved will get married!” He sliced Akaza’s limbs off as fast as they grew back. “So you see, my fiance is waiting at home for me, so I simply must kill you here and now!” Any pain was muted by the adrenaline coursing through his veins.

“Look at you, focusing on such weaknesses.”

“My love is no weakness! I truly pity you Akaza. To not know what it feels like to love, and be loved, to not know the happiness brought upon knowing there’s someone waiting at home for you. Have you truly been a demon so long you’ve forgotten what it feels like to have a heart that beats for another?!”

Akaza’s face dropped, his strength faltering for a split second, but that was long enough for Kyoujuro to get the upper hand. With one final slash of his sword, he forced the metal through Akaza’s arms and through his neck, taking his head in one swift motion.

Kyoujuro watched as the demon’s head went sailing into the air, his body still standing wavered as though about to drop. From behind him he heard Young Tanjirou’s voice call out his name, running towards him.

“Stay back Young Kamado!” he was still on guard. The body was still standing, he watched it intensely, ready to move if it striked. Kyoujuro’s stomach dropped as the severed neck started to scab over, bubbling as though trying to regenerate the head. But luckily, dawn broke. The sun’s rays spilled over the horizon, and burned the body to ashes.

Kyoujuro let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in before he crumbled to his knees, tears spilling over his eyes.

“Rengoku-san!” Tanjirou skid infront of him, falling to his knees before the pillar. Tanjirou placed his hands on Kyoujuro’s shoulders as if to steady the flame pillar. “Rengoku-san, are you okay? The demon’s dead, you saved us all! Help will be here soon!” Kyoujuro looked at the boy, he wasn’t terribly wounded. Kyoujuro was glad.

“Young Kamado...” Kyoujuro pulled out the letter from his pocket and handed it to the boy.

“I’m going to be a father!” He laughed, his voice filled to the brim with love. Tanjirou looked from the letter to Rengoku, before smiling, sympathy tears forming in his eyes also.

“Congratulations, Rengoku-san!”

#rengoku kyouguro x reader #kyoujuro x reader #kny kyojuro #rengoku kyoujurou #wisteria Imagines #drabble #one shot #kimetsu no yaiba #kimetsu no yaiba rengoku #kny #demon slayer #demon slayer rengoku

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josnhoes · 4 years ago

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There isn't enough Hades (game) x reader content and it's my hyper fixation rn so have some blurbs and ideas. I'll write more on each thing upon request.

Mentions of violence and cursing.

Zagreus x Modern Human!Reader who dies and their soul gets tangled up in time and sent back to hades in the time of his escape attempts. Reader gets stuck working in the house since technically they don't exist yet so they aren't on the list yet to be judged. Hades regrets it but its the only solution and the reader is just spouting memes and making Zagreus worse. But they take the job of low key court jester by roasting the olympian gods, "What are they gunna do kill me? One I'm dead and Two I will happily fight Zeus with a rusty spoon with special attention on removing his dick. His dick privileges are revoked!" The time they aren't being agents of chaos tired of everything they take up the role of therapist to the gods of the house. Zagreus is enchanted by the reader and finds comfort in their calm therapist moments. But he begs them not to keep insulting Zeus. Hades still wheezes at the memory of reader threatening to lop off Zeus' dick.

Thanatos x Demigod!Reader It's rare a demigod dies but it happens on occasion. They are a boastful and forget they are half mortal so he figures it's about time. But color him surprised when he finds a demigod close to death as a sacrifice to another god. Not super fleshed out idea.

Hypnos x Modern Insomniac!Reader Desperate for sleep reader takes to a pagan friend and asks how to ask a god of sleep for well sleep. One weird ritual later and they finally get some sleep, but their dreams are filled with a strange lanky floating man asking weird questions. They don't know why people jumped ship on the old religions and no you are not going to go building shrines to every greek god in the house of hades...okay maybe Nyx and Thanatos and Hypnos if just to keep peace. But seriously every dream he pops up.

Poseidon x Mutant!Reader Reader is an Xmen style mutant who's powers make them adapted to living/surviving underwater. So color him surprised when he finds a human chilling underwater who isn't a demigod of himself or any other water deity. You treat him like a friendly neighbor and he just goes with it enjoying the company. Again not as fleshed out.

Achilles x Patroclus x Healer Reader. They knew the reader before death. Ever the the over worked over worried healer who was stuck working with and on Achilles. Pat and reader tried to talk sense into Achilles. Feelings are explored as all three realize feelings for one another. Reader dies before them a casualty of following Achilles onto a battle field as per their duty. The trio are reunited by Zagreus but Reader is not the person they used to be. Forced to work as the healer of the coliseum for Theseus they have grown bitter about medicine and just want to retire please.

I'll come up with more later maybe.

#hades game #hades supergiant #hades

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the-angriestpineapple · 4 years ago

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Bountiful Harvest (Endeavor x Fem Reader)

____

Rating: Explicit

Characters: Todoroki Enji (Endeavor)

Inspiration: My piece for the Citrus Dome Discord server’s Gods AU collaboration. Enji isn’t based on a particular god, but who better to be one than him? Masterlist is here.

Prompt: Worship has always been a part of your daily routine. Each season you place the fruits of your labor at the altar. Every day you pray. It’s human nature, seeking answers from the Gods.

But you never expected one to answer…

Word Count: ~3k

Worship has always been a part of your daily routine. Each season you place the fruits of your labor at the altar. Every day you pray. It’s human nature, seeking answers from the Gods.

But you never expected one to answer…

The god your family prayed to was one that your father insisted was powerful. He was almighty, he was deadly for the enemies of his followers. You weren’t entirely sure if that was true. Your lives were… peaceful enough. Your crops were good. Your family was healthy. As a family you prayed together very consistently. However only your father made an offering every new moon, when the sun dominated the sky. He was the only one allowed in your family shrine when the offering was made so you never really know what it was, but you assumed that it was part of your crops. Outside of that you would quietly tag along, looking at the stone walls in boredom and waiting for your father’s droning prayers to cease.

Then the leader of the kingdom to the north declared war on your kingdom, and able bodied men were conscripted to the army. Your father had to go, but he made sure to tell you that as the eldest child of the family it fell on you to make the monthly sacrifice. You honestly weren’t sure if the god existed or not but you make sure to tell your father that you will do as he asks if he isn’t back in time.

The new moon rolls around before your father returns. You select some of your best crops – corn, potatoes, greens. A bit of everything you grow. You even throw in two loaves of fresh bread that you’d baked earlier that day. That had to be enough.

Your father had explained the reason why the sacrifice was made the day of the new moon. It was when the sun was at its most powerful, and your family’s patron god was a solar deity. Your father had waxed poetic about everything that this particular god did but you weren’t exactly listening. It was important to your father though, so you’d do what he asked. You enter the small, windowless building that your father built to the god. Despite the fact that there were no windows the roof was glass, with a circular hole in the center. Torches lined the walls, and you were surprised to see that they were burning. They had always been burning when you came in with your family but you assumed that your father lit them. You take the few steps to the flat, wide table that serves as the altar, taking a few moments to study it. The table was a large stone slab moreso than a table, really. A second large stone sat in the front, carved with what looks like fire, and a single word.

Endeavor.

You say it quietly to yourself, your voice echoing strangely in the small room. It gives you a strange feeling as if you’re being watched. You place the basket on the altar and dip your head respectfully before you head out, closing the door quietly behind you.

Your father doesn’t return before the next new moon. This means that you need to give the next offering. You pack up another basket of your best crops and bake some small cakes this time, bringing the offering out when the sun is highest in the sky. You let yourself into the room again and make your way to the altar. Before you can set your basket down, though, all the torches go out.

You turn and step down off the small dias that the table sits on, looking at them. You’re confused. You shut the door, there should be no air coming through here. And even if there was it hadn’t been that windy today. So what had made the torches go out…?

“Foolish mortal.” A booming voice echoes from behind you and you jump, whirling around. Standing before you is the largest man you’ve ever beheld. He has to be almost seven feet tall, shoulders almost as wide as the altar. Thick, strong arms crossed over a barrel chest. Legs roped with muscle. He’s wearing a deep red tunic that reminds you of fire. Or of blood. His eyes are the brightest blue you’ve ever seen, and his gaze makes you want to run for your life.

“Your sacrifice was paltry, laughable. Offensive. I do not take sacrifices in the form of plants and breads.” He spits the words as if you’d offered him manure instead of your best crops. “I require something with vitality. Blood. Meat.” The large god sneers down at you and you can’t help but recoil a little. That was what your father did every month? How had you not noticed him killing something to bring in here?

Then the god – Endeavor, if the word on the altar was correct – was walking toward you. He was even larger and more intimidating as he stared down at you with a scowl. His arms were now hanging at his sides, and you couldn’t help but notice that each of his hands could easily engulf your entire head. Your eyes are snapped back up to his face as he speaks again. “As I see that you’ve brought another unacceptable offering, I will provide you with two choices. Either you find me something better, or I’m removing my blessing from your family.”

Better. You curse inwardly and bite your lip. What could you offer a god?

“I’m waiting, mortal.” You look up at him while still biting your lip. “I’m… I’m not killing anything. I can’t. Is there something else you’ll accept?” Endeavor raises his brow and crosses his arms over his chest once more.

“I told you what my requirements are. Either give me what I desire or your blessings are revoked.” You go over in your head everything that your father claimed prayer to this god was responsible for. Your safety. Healthy livestock. Your family’s health. You think of your sibling, who hadn’t been feeling well recently. You think of your mother, and how weak she had been after your last sibling had been born. You think about the harsh winters that only a bountiful harvest that summer had enabled you to survive. You’re struck with a cold realization that your family could possibly perish without these boons. And it would be entirely your fault.

The words are out of your mouth without any further thought. “I wish to sacrifice myself.” You stand straighter, jaw clenched in determination and hands balled at your sides. He doesn’t respond right away, just appraises you quietly.

“Hm. It has been some time since a maiden has offered herself as the sacrifice. Very well. I accept.” With a speed you almost can’t follow he snatches your arm and drags you up to the altar. You’ve resigned yourself to this fate, sorrowful that you won’t be able to say goodbye to your family. But they’ll be safe, and that soothes the pain of the fact that a god is about to kill you. You’re all but flung over the altar, hips hitting the edge hard. You close your eyes and prepare for the crushing blow.

What you don’t expect are large hands smoothing over your side and your hips. Your heart pounds and your thoughts run wild as the soft caresses continue, unhurried and purposeful. What was he doing? Why didn’t he just get on with it and kill you? Was he trying to decide the best way to do it? Did he eat his sacrifices? A nervous laugh bubbles in your chest but doesn’t quite make it out as you think of your mother telling a much younger you to not play with your food.

The hands slide back up from your calves, over your hips, up your sides. You’re trembling, the anticipation to your own death is horrible. He gently gathers your hair to one side and grips at the back of your neck. Ah, so he would snap your neck. At least it would be over quickly. But he just squeezes and then drags his fingertips down your clothed spine. You’re a bundle of nerves and near tears, wishing he would just kill you and end this. Then the hands come to rest on your ass, heavy palms kneading the flesh, and he pushes his hips into you. Endeavor’s voice rings in your mind - it has been some time since a maiden has offered herself as the sacrifice – and you realize that he does not intend to kill you. Oh. Oh. He wants… This is much, much more preferable.

You’re no stranger to sex. You were of marrying age, and the boy that you had been interested in had talked you into lying with him before he ran off to wed the girl his parents had set up for him. You’d had no knowledge of their arrangement, and you were crushed. Luckily your parents were understanding of the fact that your heart had been shattered even if they weren’t aware of just how far things had gone with the boy. They didn’t press for you to find a husband. You were a help to your parents, they were not very keen on losing that. You had been with this boy a few times, enough times that you weren’t afraid as the god started to lift your dress.

Your experience was limited, so you almost jumped out of your skin when you felt a long stripe of a tongue licking up your slit. Your knees buckle. His tongue is so hot, and now that his hands are on your bare skin you’re acutely aware of just how much heat is radiating from him. You’ve never been in the presence of a god, let alone this close to one. Did they all feel like this? Or was it just this one in particular? This line of thought is interrupted as he licks another hard stripe up your sex, pulling a shaky moan from you. You’d never had a mouth there before. It was amazing how good it felt.

He didn’t speak as he lavished his tongue over your core. He only gives a rumbling noise of approval as your body responds to his attention and he laps up the slick he’s getting out of you. You’re confused about what is happening since the boy you’d been with previously had only kissed you, and thrust up between your legs a few times. But who are you to question a god? Especially one that is gripping your upper thigh this hard and whose tongue is starting to curl inside you like that.

Your legs are spreading wider to accommodate his bulk without really thinking about it, needing more of whatever he’s doing to you. Your eyes are fluttering closed, breath coming out in pants, risen up on the tips of your toes. You can’t believe how amazing it feels. But then thick fingers are sliding along your slit as well. One of them slips easily inside. You’re surprised at how one finger rivals the boy you’d been with, and how easily it slid in. How wet you were. Except Endeavor’s finger is crooking inside of you and hitting spots that you didn’t know existed. You gasp when he hits a certain spot, your legs shaking. He chuckles at your response and resumes running his tongue along the outside of your sex.

Neither of you speak as he works you over. The only sound in the small temple are the noises he’s drawing from you with his meticulous movements. You’re still pretty quiet, even as he’s making your eyes roll back in your head. You feel like you need to be. The temple is far enough from the house, but your siblings like to play in the field that cuts through between the temple and the house. You didn’t want them to come check on you and find you like this.

You can’t help the yelp when his finger slides out and two slide back in though. It doesn’t hurt, but you weren’t expecting it. You feel so full. It’s a new feeling, and it’s so perfect. His fingers alternate between curling up and pressing into the spot that makes you gasp and scissoring. Your hips are rocking back into his hand. Your own hands grasping at the edge of the altar. His fingers are working you expertly and his tongue is still dragging along your skin and dipping down to suck gently at your clit. It feels like there’s a wire in your belly and it’s being pulled tighter and tighter. It’s divine. You need more.

Just as you think this, he obliges. A third finger slips easily inside of you. This time when he presses up against that spot again you cry out, feeling something in you snap, and clench around the intrusion. He gently flexes his finger over the spot as you ride out whatever this was. You’d never had an orgasm before. Just as the heat in your belly starts to die down he easily slides in a fourth finger. He is not done with you yet. You can’t believe how far you’re stretched with no pain. But Endeavor is sliding out of you, making you whimper from the sudden emptiness. His large hands slide around to your front, one resting on your stomach and one sliding up to grasp your jaw. His hand is so big that some fingers are also pressing into your throat. You feel him lift you from the altar – from the floor entirely – and brings you to rest on him. Your back is pressed to his hard chest, and your slit is resting on his large shaft. Before you can feel any panic over how big he is everywhere, he tilts your head back and catches your lips with his own.

Your mind flatlines. You’re kissing a god. He has you fully off the floor, barely able to brush your toes if you point them. You can’t help the soft moan that is lost in his mouth. His hips start to move, rocking back and forth. Sliding along your slit, collecting your slick on his shaft. You’re starting to lose the need to stay quiet. The way he’s holding you up, the way his tongue tastes like you, it all feels so forbidden. It sends a spike of heat to your core. Before you even realize you’re doing it, your hips are rocking with his own. At least as well as they can when he has you pinned to his chest like this.

You’re losing yourself in his kiss. One of your arms comes up to cup the back of his neck, wanting to pull him closer. Needing more of this heat that he radiates. He growls as your hips slide over his length more desperately, finally tearing his mouth from yours and dropping you to bend you back over the altar. You hear the sound of him spitting on his own cock, then the press of his blunt head lining up with your entrance. He pushes in the first inch, puts his hands on your hips as an anchor, then rocks in and out a few times until he’s seated perfectly inside of you.

“E-Endeavor-” you gasp out once he fills you completely. You’ve never felt so full. He doesn’t move at first. There’s a fleeting thought about how considerate he is to allow you to adjust to his size, but your need for him to move makes you start to push your hips back into him. He lets out another growl and his grip on your hips gets harder. He drags out, then slams back in.

He starts to fuck you in earnest against the altar, and you’re once again scrambling to hold onto the edge. All thoughts of staying quiet are completely gone from your head. You’re moaning loudly with each thrust, especially as he starts grunting with the effort of fucking you senseless. It’s nice to know that you can affect a god like that. Endeavor curses and pulls you back flush against him before pinning you to his chest with one hand again. His free hand grips the back of your thigh and pulls your leg up. He lets go of your midsection and has your other thigh held up as well. Your back is pressed hard against his chest, legs splayed out. You’re not entirely sure how he pulls the move off, but he’s a god so you don’t question it. You can’t even if you want to because he’s drilling to you again in earnest.

You manage to get your hands around the back of Endeavor’s neck to keep yourself from bouncing on his cock too hard and enable you to press your hips back down against him. He turns to tuck his face into your neck, nipping at the skin there. You can feel that wire tightening in your belly again, but it’s all over when he mouths at your earlobe. “Cum again. Cum all over my cock,” he rumbles into your ear. The command sends you over the edge, and you’re clamping down on him hard. He growls as he slams into you once last time, leaving blooming bruises where his fingers dig into your thighs, as he fills you up.

He doesn’t pull out of you at first. He’s breathing hard, and you’re collapsed against his chest and breathing hard as well. After a few moments he carefully lifts you off of him and sits you on his altar before standing back. His tunic is covering him once more, and you’re struggling to focus on him. His sharp blue eyes are staring at you, mouth still turned into a frown. He looks so nonplussed, like he didn’t just fuck you stupid. He looks so mean.

“This sacrifice was acceptable. I expect the same at the next new moon.” Then he was gone.

You stay there for a few moments, unsure if your legs will support your weight. Finally you slide from the altar. There’s a stream behind the temple that you can clean up at. Then you can head back to the house. You’re already looking forward to the next new moon. The only thing you’re concerned about now is how to explain to your father that Endeavor no longer wants his sacrifices.

#enji #todoroki enji #endeavor #my hero academia #endeavor x reader #endeavor imagines #todoroki enji imagines #bnha imagines #bnha collab #citrus dome collab #citrus dome #bnha smut

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plunnies-n-shit · 4 years ago

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(Upwards to the Moon)

(Grimmjow builds his shrine just a few days after becoming the Chief of the Caravan.)

(He'll never be able to explain why he did it. He doesn't even really believe in the Old Gods that some of the caravaneers worship, or the Spirits that some others revere. But he has this whole big cart all to himself now, and it seems like a big, lonely waste of space, and when he finds that when he can't sleep and the shattered moon is at the height of its arc across the sky he needs something to do with his hands)

(So he builds. He borrows ideas from his fellow members of the caravan, at first, but as time goes on he adds more and more of a. Personal touch, he supposes. Teeth and furs from hunts, otherwise useless but painstakingly spun and woven. He's always had a fondness for Tiger's Eye, and now his collection of crystals hang from the shrine, the unpolished stones glittering in the moonlight after the last candle has been put out.)

(He never prays, never leaves offerings, but. He talks to it, sometimes. Asks for direction, when he's seized by indecision and the sudden, crippling weight of the hopes riding on his back. Whenever his guidance leads his people upon a watering hole, or a good spot of foraging, or a hunt gone well, or even, once or twice, another caravan, Grimmjow fondly brushes his fingers over the rough-woven cloth and tinkling charms in thanks.)

(He doesn't actually expect to draw a spirit or god to his doorstep.)

(The orange-haired stranger is clearly a spirit of some kind-- the staff and strange clothes would give it away if the ethereal air to him, or the glow of source-less, light-less fire around his fingers, didnt. The moon is at the height of its new arc, casting the barest pall of light over the dunes, over the curve of the stranger's lips as he smiles.)

("I thought I felt someone calling," the stranger says, but his eyes are on the sky. "I'm sorry it took me so long to answer. It's. Been a while.")

(Grimmjow's never believed in the spirits or gods, but he's been taught that respect is far more important than belief. So even though the spirit is blocking the way in to his own house, Grimmjow sits on the benches left beside the dying embers of the dinner fire and turns his eyes, too, upwards to the moon and its gaping wound.)

("What are you a spirit of, then?" Grimmjow asks, because Nel talks about these things all the time, and she says it's never rude to ask the nature of who you're talking to, so long as you understand that they're not always going to tell the truth, and the spirit laughs.)

("Oh, a half a dozen or so things, a long time ago. Duty. Honor." His eyes turn downward, straight to the ground, and Grimmjow never imagined that a spirit could look so. Human. So sad. "Sacrifice.")

("But I'm of nothing, nowadays," the spirit says with a sudden, jagged-edged cheer. "And I've nothing to offer you but a bit of company.")

(And Grimmjow thinks of his big, lonely cart, and of long, sleepless nights with nothing and no one to talk to but the moon and his empty shrine and the weight of hope on his shoulders. And he says, "I think I'd appreciate that.")

(And above them, the moon looks a little more whole)

#q's plunnies #Upwards to the Moon #bleach #grimmichi #grimmjow jaegerjaquez #ichigo kurosaki #desert society ichigo #fantasy au

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straydawg-writing · 4 years ago

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𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖌𝖊𝖙-𝖒𝖊-𝖓𝖔𝖙

ᴅᴀᴢᴀɪ ᴏꜱᴀᴍᴜ.

• bungo stray dogs series

chapter 2: 𝖈𝖔𝖗𝖎𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗 — 𝖍𝖎𝖉𝖉𝖊𝖓 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖙𝖍

✥ ⊱ ────── ♔ ────── ⊰ ✥

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊

┊ ┊ ┊ ✫ ˚✩

┊ ┊ ✫

┊ ┊

┊ ⊹ ☪︎⋆

✯ ⋆

˚✩

"SORRY TO BREAK IT TO YOU princess, but calling yourself a vegan because you don't believe in hurting animals and then killing 240 men is just stupid," chuuya scowled down at kita's tofu burrito, utterly repulsed by its contents.

"wrong! take any cow that you want and it'll still be a thousand times better than any person I've killed. the human race is corrupted beyond saving, chuu." she said, booping the tip of his nose.

in an attempt to vanquish the pink tint threatening to color his cheeks, he scoffed.

"you're psychotic."

chuuya liked to pretend he was some kind of macho man, the type who worships meat and builds a shrine for his rib-eye steaks adorned with a single leaf on top, but he never failed to come to their lunch meet-ups with a fully decked out salad. out of thoughtfulness for kita, she'd never know.

kita's gaze drifted from her tofu burrito to a boy strolling past their table. bandages wrapped all the way up his arms like vines, and shaggy brown hair fell over his eyes. a coat he didn't wear properly was draped over his shoulders, catching in the wind as he walked. she didn't recognize him.

"don't tell me that annoying prick caught your eye," chuuya grumbled, following her gaze.

"you know him? why haven't i ever seen him before?"

"that idiot follows the boss around like a lost puppy dog. it's pitiful," he spat out, casting glares at the mystery man. "you're better off staying away from him."

kita wasn't sure why the red-head seemed to hate him so much, the boy surely didn't hold himself in a way that suggested he blindly followed another's lead. he gave off a certain aura when he walked, like he was... untamed. maybe even a little dangerous. she couldn't help casting curious glances at the bandaged boy until he turned around, dark brown eyes meeting with her own.

"oh frick," she said through her teeth, sending him a small smile instead of looking away. she wouldn't be found acting all shy and embarrassed now that he had caught her in the act of staring. "he saw me. no way, is he smirking right now?"

chuuya was too busy sending venemous daggers at the teasing boy to hear her, when kita realized he hadn't directed the smirk at her at all. his attention was fully centered on taunting chuuya, and chuuya alone. they seemed to have some kind of rivalry she hadn't been let in on, and now she just felt like a third wheel.

"i don't even want to know."

grabbing kita by the arm, chuuya pulled her away from the table and in the opposite direction from the man, who was now innocently waving goodbye. she was forced to abandon her tofu burrito.

"trust me, i wish i didn't know that suicidal maniac either. unless you enjoy being around an idiot all day," he muttered, strands of red hair trailing behind him as he fast-walked away from the boy.

"but i hang around you, don't i?" kita joked, pulling chuuya back to slow him down and face her.

"stupid.. if you ever try comparing my idiocy with that brat again, I'll make you regret the day you ever did it." he cracked an almost invisible smile as he hit her upside the head, though not hard at all. he would never be the one to hurt her.

starlight cast a shimmering glow on the lush garden, creating a dream-like atmosphere. kita treasured her time here, as it became a reverie from the harsh realities and pressuring stress that the mafia demands. the floral garden has become the place she spends most of her time at, second only to working in the field.

white gravel crunched lightly under her shoes as she walked down the path, lit up by the scattering fireflies. the delightful little things loved kissing the rich blossoming flowers as they flew by, making sure not one of the flowerets missed their light.

white and orange koi fish danced by her feet as she reached the pond. they sent small bubbles up to the surface to greet her, in hopes she had breadcrumbs to spare. what kita did not expect to see was a man sitting on the other side of the ledge, one that had been overwhelmed by the wild vines some years ago. he was captured by the black velvet sky, unbothered to glance her way.

"hello," kita said, in an attempt to break the silence. he didn't so much as look at her, only humming lightly in response. she took that as an invitation to step closer and discover who it was that had snuck into her garden, only realized by the delicate white bandages wrapping his arms.

"oh, you're the one chuuya hates!" she blurted, recognition flashing across her face.

"and you're the girl who couldn't look away, aren't you~?" he teased, finally facing her. the light of the moon illuminated his features, and now she could, at last, get a good look at him. despite his playful tone, it was impossible to get a read on his emotions. he looked at kita with half-lidded eyes, like he was too lazy to find any importance in his being alive there.

"yeah, that's me," she responded, unphased.

it's true that she couldn't tear her gaze away from him before. he had caught her curiosity like a hook, and now she was set on discovering just who the boy was. kita had a talent for sensing another's loneliness. it took one to know one, and right now, that's the only thing she knew about him. even now, she couldn't look away from his enchanting, outcasted eyes.

he looked slightly taken aback by her straightforward answer –especially when she had lifted herself up to sit next to him– but he quickly regained his composure.

"chuuya kind of hates everybody. so aside from being one of the dozens of people he's banned me from... who are you?"

a comfortable silence fell between the two as she waited for his response, the only noise being a low breeze that softly flowed through the leaves of the weeping willow tree watching over the garden.

"what meaning is there in who i am?" the boy asked, letting out a breath he seemed to have been holding in, stretching his arms out in front of him in a manner that was a little too casual for the question he had just posed.

"everything has meaning. even the flowers in this garden have meaning."

he sent her a raised eyebrow, kita taking it as a challenge.

"what, you don't believe me? i'll prove it to you," she said.

pointing to a single white flower growing in the midst of a rose bush, she continued, "that small flower over there means, 'devotion and courage.' it dedicates its entire life to represent its meaning. don't you see?"

"i don't see it."

"then i'll show you," she grabbed his hand, and pointed it in the direction of the flower.

"in its own way, the edelweiss is making a courageous sacrifice by growing in that bush of thorny roses. it's devoting itself to protect the small white bud next to it, and without it, the flower bud would be left vulnerable to die. i'd call that meaningful."

"you see the purplish ones over there? they mean truth. but the orange ones next to it mean deception."

the boy was listening now, letting her have complete rule over his hands. she used his fingertips as pointers to identify all sorts of flowers and the meaningful relevance behind each one. truthfully, the night air had made them cold, but the warmth of her delicate hands on top of his brought both of their inner temperatures to a comforting match.

"and what about those?" he questioned, moving to point both of their hands at a cluster of blue flowers.

"these ones are saying, 'true love memories. do not forget me.'" kita smiled, reaching over and picking one by its stem.

"ow! ow ow ow ow," she whined, holding out her finger. "i forgot they had thorns."

"let me see." he held her bleeding fingertip to where it was visible in the moonlight. without any warning he pressed his lips to her wound, nearly kissing the redness away. when she sat there frozen, he dropped her hand with a satisfied smirk, lips now tinted scarlet.

"what the- you couldn't have just spared a bandaid?! it's still bleeding," kita yelped in a delayed reaction, pulling away to cradle her small injury.

"should i do it again?" he asked, tilting his head and holding a finger to his chin.

"no! i don't even know your name."

"aww, well in that case~ you can call me dazai! and your name?"

"kita. just kita."

dazai. she finally had a name to remember him by. she was glad, dazai seemed to be in a better mood from when they had first met thirty minutes ago. shaking her head, she looked back up at the night sky and let her ebony hair fall loosely behind her.

it seems she'll be sharing her garden with another from now on.

｡✣✤✥━━━━━━━━━━━━✥✤✣｡

❝𝚁𝙴𝙰𝚂𝙾𝙽 𝙻𝙸𝚅𝙸𝙽𝙶❞

1:05 ──♡────── 2:53

|◁ II ▷|

— ʜᴏᴡ ᴄᴀɴ ɪ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ᴛᴏ ꜰɪɴᴅ ᴀ ᴡᴀʏ

ᴀ ꜱɪɴɢʟᴇ ʀᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴛᴀʏ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ

ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱʜɪɴɪɴɢ ʟɪɢʜᴛ ᴏꜰ ʏᴇꜱᴛᴇʀᴅᴀʏ

ɪꜱ ᴀ ʟɪᴠɪɴɢ ʟɪᴇ ᴏɴ ʙᴏʀʀᴏᴡᴇᴅ ᴛɪᴍᴇ?

｡✣✤✥━━━━━━━━━━━━✥✤✣｡

author's notes: i have some big plans for this story! hope you guys enjoy!! if you have any specific requests for the story lmk and i'll add em!

#mafia!dazai x reader #mafia!dazai #bungo stray dogs fanfiction #bungo stray dogs #dazai x reader #dazai osamu x reader #dazai x oc #dazai osamu x oc #bsd fanfic #portmafia #mafia!dazai fanfiction

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the-fae-folk · 4 years ago

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After eating they were led to a room with stone pools filled with steaming water warmed from some natural spring. The pools were decorated with tiles that formed images of trees and flowers and wandering deer. Noticing Sam’s slightly red face, Ardri smiled and turned away to give him privacy. Humans were very odd with their concepts of modesty. Once the dust had been washed away they found that new clothing had been set out for them and that their other clothing had been taken away, possibly to be washed. Or burned, Ardri thought to himself. He hoped the Autumn Court wouldn’t go that far, the human clothing had been comfortable. But some Faeries simply refused to have anything to do with any humans or their things. Instead Ardri donned the loose fitting grey trousers and the slate blue tunic that was incredibly soft. At his waist he was given a leather belt with a brass buckle that was ornately designed to be in the shape of an inward spiral. They had also left him a cloak of some black material. When he lifted it he gasped softly. It was woven entirely of shadows, a rare gift. It would allow him to walk in darkness and shade where the eyes of most could not catch sight of him if he didn’t wish them to. He would assume it was a gift and not a trade, because he had nothing such as this to offer in exchange, though he would have to find some token to give to their host in thanks. Vaguely he wondered if the fae of the Autumn Court had seen the cloak he’d worn before and decided that he must be given one to replace its loss. When Sam coughed slightly to indicate that he was finished dressing, Ardri turned around. Sam was wearing a tunic as well. Soft reds and golds were mixed in with various shades of brown and the occasional hint of green as patterns followed the hem and sleeves of the tunic. The belt round his waist boasted of a brass oak leaf, and his trousers were a soft earthy brown. He looked, good. Handsome even. Like a prince of the Folk. A smile on his lips and his hands spread out in a “what do you think?” gesture. Ardri turned towards the door to hide the blush that had begun creeping up his cheeks while admiring Sam. “You look well. We should hurry. The Lord of Autumn is waiting and we do not wish to be rude.” Sam fell into step beside him, and it astounded Ardri how easily he seemed to adapt to Faerie. How comfortably he seemed to fit in to Ardri’s life, as if they had always traveled this way. “Why does everyone do that?” Sam asked curiously. “Call them by the titles. Don’t they have names?” Ardri shook his head. “The rulers of the four seasons don’t have names. Nobody can remember why, but my mothers always thought it must be because of how powerful they are. As for everyone else, names are dangerous to give out. Not as dangerous for us, but still important. I give my name freely, but that’s because I was given gifts of magic by a creature in a well to ensure it can’t be used against me. I didn’t give your name to Nod or our host because then they would have power over you, it’s best if you think of a suitable name to go by while you’re among other Folk here. Some, like Nod, are under the protection of powerful people and don’t mind if we know their names. It’s... a very complicated part of our culture.” Their host promised to have places for them to sleep upon their return, and Ardri thought again about what token he might give to this Elf. Nod had come again to lead them on. Past the city to where the forest closed in on the high ornately carved stone walls decorated with their repeated image of seven entwined blossoms, for the Empire that had fallen. Sam stopped short once, his mouth agape at the sight of the enormous turtle which bore the city of the Autumn Court on its back. But he ducked his head in embarrassment and hurried after when Nod made a noise of impatience. Ardri gave him a smile, and thought to himself that they ought to wander and see the sights once the others had joined them, so that the humans could safely see some of Faerie’s loveliest sights. It wasn’t to the turtle which Nod was leading them, but down a path, and not a great road either. A half overgrown and forgotten pathway that had once wound about the woods was where he took them. The Empire had been known for its roadways, connecting all of its great cities and richest towns. But this trail must have been older, long forgotten once easier ways were made. Ducking beneath a branch that hung out over the path, Ardri spotted a low stone building hidden between the trees. Another shrine. It was overgrown and had probably been abandoned by whatever Fae had once made it, or claimed it as their own. But there was someone there. Someone kneeling upon their right knee at the little shrine. As Ardri held the branch aside for Sam, he got a better glimpse of the human, for it was a human. A middle aged man wearing a black cassock and a little white cotton band that showed at the front but was mainly tucked beneath his collar. The shrine itself had been filled with candles, all flickering softly in the growing twilight. And the man appeared to be speaking softly to himself as he fingered a kind of chain with little knots and wooden beads. A brief snatch of what he was murmuring made its way to them as they were approaching. “Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy, Hail our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To you we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to you we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.” Was it a cry for help? Who was he asking? This man wasn’t dressed at all like any of the humans Ardri had met in his brief time to the human world, and he certainly didn’t seem to be suffering in any way that they could see. And where was the queen he was speaking to? Ardri looked to Sam, hoping for some kind of clue as to what to do. Sam was looking surprised. “That’s a priest,” he whispered to Ardri, clearly not wanting to interrupt. The priest’s voice lowered, obviously having noted their presence, and Ardri could no longer hear his words. A priest, that made sense. This must be a prayer of some kind or a ritual for this man’s deity. He had called the Queen an advocate as well as holy, so some figure who petitioned their deity? From the stories he’d always heard, humans had all manner of strange customs concerning their gods, rites and rituals, prayers and sacrifices. Some even tried to worship the Folk, though that never lasted. After a moment the man appeared to have finished praying because he stood up and turned to face them. It was then that Ardri saw the item he held very gently in his other hand. It was the Crown of Autumn. Silver entwined with hawthorn twigs, leaves of aspen and blackthorn, and rubies as deep and red as blood. “They told me you would be coming,” said the man with a calm smile. “I’m glad you arrived safely.”

#fae #faerie #ardri #sam #shrine #crown of autumn #the lord of autumn #priest #rosary #prayer #the deep woods #empire of the seven blossoms

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dianasson · 5 years ago

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The Uses of Blood

by Zeph Craven @dianaandpansson

A dear friend of mine, Marz (@HillbillyOracle on Tumblr) asked me about how blood has been used traditionally in witchcraft and magic and I decided to go all out with my response! Naturally, the traditions I’ll talk about here are from around Europe and European-derived cultures in the Americas, as these are the areas with which I have the most experience and feel qualified to speak about. Even this is limited by what has been written in English or Italian, which means I’m missing a lot of material! Of course, some of the following will be gory, bloody, or violent so please read with discretion (and TW: blood, animal abuse, violence). Many traditional uses of blood are inherently related to animal sacrifice or drawing blood from animals – I am not suggesting or condoning violence towards animals or people, only presenting the history and traditions as they have survived and as I best understand them.

The manners in which blood has been used in religion and mythology, or for magic and power, are both varied and continuous throughout European cultures. Some of these traditions have carried on, even if secluded to remote regions of Europe’s mountains, while others have truly fallen into obscurity. Witches, magicians, folklorists, classicists, and anyone who has seen a violent movie about cults will be familiar with a few topics covered here – if not in detail, then at least in dramatic atmosphere.

Sacrificial Blood The most common and widespread use of blood is as an offering to a spirit or deity. A simple and broad-sweeping discussion is best applied here; but I promise to not speak so generally in the following sections. Sacrificial blood is most often spilled from the neck of an animal – which is usually raised, treated, or traded in a sacred or special way. The animal might also be adorned with special ritual garbs, garlands, or ointments for the slaughter. While it is common in domestic and in secretive ceremony to offer up your own animal, in public or temple ritual the process of bringing the animal to the spirits and collecting its blood is almost always officiated by a priest or high-level initiate of some kind. This is a difficult and powerful act that must be overseen by someone trained in sacrifice, which is definitely practical to an extent – you have to know how to cut a throat – but I think the status of the officiant is mostly indicative of the intimacy and sanctity of such an offering. The moment of death is often celebrated by onlookers or participants, or else mourned as if their beloved were being slain. The blood may be spilled onto or into an altar or sacrificial pyre, or let flow into the water or soil at a sacred site such as a bog, hill, or field of repute. Frequently, the blood is collected instead. In many traditions, the blood of a sacrificed animal is sacred in itself – and the sacred is useful.

Sacrificial blood, being inherently hallowed, is an ancient and widespread tool for blessing. In fact, the English word “blessing” likely traces back to the word bledsian or ‘blood-sain’ (i.e. to hallow with blood). The blood gathered from a living sacrifice might be poured or sprinkled onto statues, walls, animals, or people. The sprinkling might be executed with a branch, rod, or sprig of a sacred herb. In chapter four of The Eyrbyggja Saga, the description of the temple notes that the bowl and rod used for sprinkling blood were kept on the altar-like stall in the center of all the god representations. Clearly, these tools were integral to the regular ceremonies of the temple.

Blood from a sacrificed animal is also a powerful, though complex, agent of purification. In ancient Greece, it was used to purify a shrine or temple 1 - frequently pig’s blood was applied as in Apollo’s case, while doves were common for Aphrodite, who abhorred swine. Purification with sacrificial blood would be accompanied by many rituals: supplications, prayers, offerings, and a disposal of the polluted remnants or lumata. It is important to note that not all blood was considered holy or ‘pure.’ In fact, the prime example of this kind of purification in Greece was almost a balancing of bloods: the sacrificial blood washed away the miasma or “pollution” of immoral bloodshed, such as murder. A murderer might suck out the blood of their victim and spit it forth repetitively to expiate the corruption of their crime. It wasn’t the physical blood of violence that needed cleansing, so much as the foul vengeful spirit of the person and the event, what we might now call ghosts and trauma. The animal’s lifeblood was sprinkled on the hands of the murderer where impure blood had shed, and then washed away. Some length of time (inconsistent through history and region) had to pass between the crime and the cleansing, and during that time the killer was somehow excluded from society. Though it is not difficult to make sense of this paradox, cleaning blood with blood was criticized even in the times of its practice. 2 In the previous example, the mechanics are only paradoxical if read hyper-literally. It is not as though any two insignificant bloods cancel each other out by contact; instead, it is something holy and potent that overpowers something wicked and polluted. Just as household cleaning agents must be engineered to bind to the dirt or oil they cleanse, there may also be some link between sacred blood attaching to dirty blood: the ‘like-affects-like’ principle making sacrifice a potent solution for this particular kind of miasma. There were epithets of deities that presided specifically over this ritual of purification and reintegration, called catharsis or κόθᾰρσῐς (kótharsis). According to Oxford Reference:

“The god who presided over purification from blood‐guilt was Zeus Katharsios, ‘Of purification’; this role derived from his general concern for the reintegration into society of displaced persons (cp. Zeus ‘Of suppliants’ and ‘Of strangers’). Apollo too could be seen as a ‘purifier of men's houses’ because his oracle at Delphi regularly gave advice on such matters.”

Violent bloodshed, childbirth, death, and corpses could all pollute a person or place with miasma, and sacrificial blood was only one tool of many for cleaning it away. Interestingly, the violent bloodshed of battle was less important and could simply be washed off. 3 With no greater significance is the trauma and poison of war-blood treated now. Later, on the outskirts of Greek cult-influences, menstrual blood was considered a pollutant that must be purified before entering temples – along with many other bodily fluids such as semen – yet menstrual fluids were rarely written of at all. 4 Some ‘scientific’ texts from this period suggest that menstruation is a form of purification itself, which could indicate why some might have considered the expulsed fluids impure. There are ancient Roman writers that speak of menstrual blood as a destructive force, in many ways that actually sound quite useful. However these are not the documentations of practices – rather products of solitary musings on agricultural metaphysics. These writers weren’t documenting, they were thinking ‘out-loud.’ Yet, it is not a far stretch to suppose that menstrual blood may have been considered a form of miasma in later Mediterranean sacred structures, especially looking at the modern practices of purification by sacrificial blood in some mountain communities of Georgia (Pshavi, Xevsuri, and Svaneti), which have strict taboos around menstruation in ritual structure, village composition, and social functions such as hunting. 5 These areas of Georgia were not once so distant from the cultures of the Greek empire, Colchis being a notable region of these mountains where the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece took place. In this story, Colchis is the kingdom of the infamous sorcerer Aeëtes and his daughter Medea, the witch, for whom Circe herself performed a purification of miasma by pig’s blood with prayers to Zeus of Suppliants. 6 The Kartvelian societies, in modern-day Georgia, were conquered in succession by Persia, Greece, and Rome. Where these rituals have survived (though some have supposed they were reinvented) in Georgia, the ganatvla sacrifice is carried out by a priest in a space kept pure and guarded with taboo, in the presence of St. George, his female partner, and/or other “children of God” (xvtisšvilni). Healing and benediction are prayed for as the bovid’s life spills over the supplicant’s arms, and this good blood is thought to drive out bad blood and impurities. One of the primary impurities is menstrual blood, and menstruating people are made to leave the general border of the village and pass their cycle in designated huts on the outskirts of the community.

In Xevsureti, the purification of religious spaces with sacrificial blood is so vital that they have creatively managed to introduce blood on structures restricted to humans. There are certain buildings so pure that even the highest priests cannot go near them, yet they soak snowballs in blood from the sacrifice and launch them at the walls from afar in blessing. 7 However, impure blood, such as the blood of a cat, might be spilled to sever the link between community and divinity, as seen in the ballads of the Zurab Cycle.

Well into the 20th century, rural Ireland would have been familiar with the bleeding of geese, cockerels and hens, pigs, or goats (though geese were most popular) on the eve of Martinmas (Nov. 11th). The animal would be offered to St. Martin and its blood spilled and sprinkled around the household, with some variation county to county. It was almost always spilled at the doorstep or on the doorposts, but often sprinkled in the corners of the house or kitchen as well, and this pattern was mimicked in the stables. Crosses were sometimes made with the blood on the floor and on the foreheads of the family members. Once, it would have been common in some counties to soak up the blood with cotton. This object was then hung up in the rafters, or else pressed against the body to relieve pains. The whole ritual kept out sickness and danger for the year. The reasoning behind the sacrifice, as well as the choice in animal, shifted frequently – usually having some connection to how the saint was killed, or else being a specific sickly animal promised earlier to St. Martin in exchange for its continued health until Martin’s Eve. Though blood-pudding was a relatively common dish, there were frequently taboos about using this sacrificed blood for consumption. Many good examples of this celebration can be found in the Duchas National Folklore Archive. Dr. Billy Mag Fhloinn has argued that this Martinmas blood-sacrifice is a remnant of older Samhain traditions – as the shift to Gregorian calendar would put November 11th (modern) around October 30th in the Julian calendar. I hesitate to indulge this theory, as I do not see all pivotal rituals, games, and social functions transferring dates to match the contemporary calendric year except this singular rite, but Mag Fhloinn himself is hesitant and cautious enough. I think it highly plausible that this is a purely Irish-Catholic ceremony, incorporating rituals that inherently reveal the functions of the natural world according to older Irish world-views: in other words, that blood sacrifice as a means of purification and protection was not in contradiction with the sanctity of God and the Church. It just worked, so it kept on.

This is actually amazing, considering the contradiction of blood as a purifying agent (mentioned previously) was such a severe point for philosophers and theologians over a thousand years prior, though that ilk is by definition less concerned with what is practical. Blood sacrifice is inherently dramatic. Like orgies, infanticide, and cannibalism, Greeks and Romans eventually used the image of blood sacrifice as a polemic tool for propaganda against Pagans, Jewish communities, and more distant cultures. Most especially utilized was the image of far-off ‘barbarians’ sacrificing humans, a point that some Roman historians used to criticize their own history [read: chart their sophistication.] By the 3rd Century CE – things are getting a little Christian now – even animal blood sacrifice was brought into suspicion in the high seats of Roman imperial religion, scholarship, and governance. Pythagoreans and Platonists moved away from the older practical applications of purification as a directly effective ritual, bringing catharsis to a metaphysical, philosophical, and eventually psychological light. 8

Initiation by Blood Unspecific to tradition, there are some initiatory rituals that call on blood (be it from sacrificed animals, the initiate, or even divine blood) to be reborn. A striking example of this is the taurobolium: an initiation of priests into the cult of the goddess Cybele, who came from Asia Minor where she was worshiped for millennia under unknown names. Her oldest appearance is from around 6,000 BC in Phrygia, though the detailed descriptions of this ritual come from later Roman writers after her cult had travelled to that peninsula, where she was called Ma’tris Magnae (Great Mother) or Ma’tris Deum (Mother of Gods). 9 In English, she is often referred to as Magna Mater but I’ve always found that bothersome; I think if you’re going to use a Latinate name then use the real Latin name! If that’s too hard, just translate it and call her Great Mother. Her cult was perhaps most infamous for its priesthood of male eunuchs and its castrated-animal sacrifices – very threatening concepts to the imperial patriarchy.

The initiate would stand in a pit that had been covered by planks of wood, in which holes had been made, and a sacrificial bull would be lowered onto the planks. As the initiate covered his ribbon-crowned head with his toga, the bull was killed and its blood released by spear thrusts and tugs that widened the wounds. The initiate would emerge from the pit, unrecognizably drenched in hot, smelly blood. According to Prudentius, the blood was even expected to be let into the mouth, which strikes me as indicative that you are not only purging outside influences with the holiness of the sacrifice but also inner impurities and insufficiencies, making your whole self ready for service to the Great Goddess. Some accounts say a goat or ram might be killed in conjunction with the bull as a sacrifice to Ma’tris Magnae’s lover, Attis. Both animals would be castrated. 10

One brief example from the Greek Magical Papyri (Papyri Gracae Magicae, or PGM) describes a ritual of initiation into the mysteries of magic by drinking the blood of a white cockerel (or rooster) before jumping into the Nile. 11 Submersion into natural, especially sacred, bodies of water is common in initiation rituals throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, but this is a pretty unique application of cockerel blood. White and black cockerels are common fauna in Euro-centric magical recipes along with cats, goats and rams, owls, lapwings, and doves or pigeons. A white cockerel has the properties of a high masculine divinity, of an upper-worldly or celestial persuasion, and might therefore be used in magic for success, love, conquering, protection, or appealing to that same divinity. In this initiation ceremony, we might understand the consumption of its blood as integrating these properties to the self, alongside a purification and rebirth in the sacred river.

Jumping forward about 1,200 years, we see a very different use of blood in a very different kind of initiation. Isobel Gowdie gave a confession in 1662 to crimes of witchcraft near Auldearn, Scotland. She gave many vivid accounts of her illicit outings with the Devil, the fairies, and her coven. The following scene describes the renunciation of her baptism and the ritual of being re-baptized by the Devil:

“Margaret Brodie, in Aulderne, held me up to the Divell, until he re-baptised me, and marked me in the shoulder, and with his mouth sucked out my blood at that place, and spouted it in his hand, and sprinkling it upon my head and face, he said, ‘I baptize ye, Janet, to my self, in my own name!’”

Janet is the new name bestowed upon Isobel by the Devil here, her un-Christian name you could say. Her own blood is applied, in place of the baptismal water or oil. It is noteworthy that the blood is sucked into the Devil’s mouth before being used to anoint her, perhaps cycling it through his divinity and imbuing it with ‘unholiness.’ This initiation might be seen as necessary for a witch to work with the Devil. Since the Catholic ritual of baptism is a cleansing of sins and an exorcism of the Devil in its own right, it might prevent such ungodly powers working within a person. In this light, the consumption and sprinkling of Isobel’s blood may function as a re-administration of sin into her soul, thus severing her connection with God.

Another 277 years later, and an ocean away, we find a new kind of blood in the initiation of witches and magicians. There is blood to be found in folk stories of witches sacrificing animals (black cats and black cockerels) to the Devil for initiation and ensuing magic throughout the Appalachian and Ozark Mountains, yet the most fascinating example is neither a direct sacrifice nor an ingredient. A story from Wise County, Virginia recounts how a young man gained his powers. After eight mornings of rigorous ritual process:

“On the ninth morning, he took his gun and the silver bullet with him. He shot the bullet toward the sun as it came up over the ridge. They had told him that if the sun looked as if it were dripping blood as it came up, then he would be a witch.”

The ninth morning didn’t present him with all the required signs of confirmation, and it took him two full years to complete his initiation as a ‘conjure man.’ Shooting the sun follows many clearly chthonic and sacrilegious rituals, which might indicate that this is a metaphor of wounding God and denouncing him. The dripping blood is confirmation of the initiate’s power to stand against the Christian God, who was once frequently associated with solar imagery. This is truly speculative, yet if the symbolism holds in context, this would be an example of divine blood within initiatory divination. 12

Bloody Witchcraft Now that we’ve dipped our toes into early modern witchcraft, let’s go in deeper. When the image of the early modern witch is merged with the image of blood, one might first jump to the scenes of paranoia previously listed: orgies, infanticide, and cannibalism. Thanks to twelfth century theologians and sixteenth century Protestants, we can now add dramatic demonic sacrifice to that list. Despite the excitable and repetitive fanfare of the Witch Craze, there are many intriguing elements of blood-work in witchcraft to be examined besides the initiations discussed previously.

In late 1500s England, it was common knowledge that familiar spirits (i.e. beings provided to a witch or magician by the Devil, God, its previous owner, or the monarchy of Fairy to help with magic and mischief) might be fed with blood from the witch’s body. While milk, bread, or butter was the most common offering, blood remained a more fanatical portrayal for the popular culture of the courts and taverns. It was common knowledge that a witch might feed their familiar spirit with blood let from the mark left on them by the Devil, perhaps at initiation. 13

In continental Europe, examples abound of witches that feed on blood from quite ancient to very modern folklore. The definition of “witch” is blurred in this context: they might be incorporeal beings that can afflict, abduct, and loot not unlike the fairies, sucking the blood from men and babes in the night. 14 The witch may instead be your very tangible neighbor: unlikeable and affronting, who frequents Sabbats and wets their gullet with blood while feasting on infant corpses before dancing erotically for the Adversary. There is an association with witches and the creature strix (screecher), as blood-sucking entities 15 that find victims in the night. Through evolution or syncretism the strix became strigoi, and was related with vampyr, and vrykolakas: creatures of a sorcerous nature that thrive on human blood and remains. Incorporeal, animal, or humanoid witches might feed on blood for power and longevity. The latter might use it to attain those non-human shapes. Witches in the Balkans were said to use children’s blood as an ingredient in their transformative ointments and unguents 16 – though infant fat was far more common elsewhere on the continent, I doubt much effort would have been made to wash clean their diabolical cooking lard so we can bet on some blood in there too. In Scandinavian witch trials, there is an example of the blood and pelt of a cat being adorned to take on its very form. 17 For witches, blood is sustenance and life or it is a gory detail in scenes of taboo ceremony. If the story of any particular witch’s ritual incorporates elements of more Abrahamic magic, then its use of blood will align better with those covered in the grimoire section below. As Matteo Duni discusses throughout his book Under the Devil’s Spell, the intersection of witches and literate magicians in early modern Europe was broader than many suppose, and these folks talked and traded secrets quite a lot.

Blood as Medicine Blood has medicinal functions as well as diabolical. In older Euro-centric medical thought, our blood might carry forces within it that induce illness. The spiritual and the scientific were not so juxtaposed once, and it may have been a build-up of that hot, red humor or a malefic presence in the blood that caused a fever, high blood pressure, apoplexy, and/or headaches. The persistent cure was letting that excessive/bad blood out of the body: i.e. bloodletting.

Some cures prescribe blood as a magico-medical ingredient. In County Kerry, Ireland a swelling or injury in the leg could be cured by taking the blood from a cat’s ear and drawing a ring with it around the affected area. There was also a belief in some areas of the country that the blood of people in certain families could cure specific diseases, for example folks with the last name of Cahill could make symbols with the blood of their little finger and speak a prayer to cure someone of “wild-fire” disease. The blood of a black cat could cure the same affliction. In the Pennsylvania-Dutch magico-medical text Long Lost Friend, we find a cure for epilepsy in drinking the blood of a dove.

Blood in Divination A common form of divination in North and Central America is divination by egg, or oomancy. The egg is passed ritualistically over the patient’s body before being cracked into water. The signs that the floating whites and yolk make can be read to tell fortunes or diagnose problems. Any spots or streaks of blood in the mixture are considered an incredibly bad omen.

The shades of the dead around the ancient Mediterranean would feast on spilled blood, and the blood of all-black animals was an efficacious offering to them. In the Odyssey, most-likely written down in the 8th century BC, Circe gives Odysseus advice for consulting with the dead: in a particular cave, a trench was to be dug (a proper altar for underworldly spirits) into which libations of milk, honey, sweet wine, water and barley grain were made. Finally, sheep were led to the edge of the pit where Odysseus cut their throats and let the dark blood spill in, all the while making prayers to dwellers in the house of Hades. He stands with his sword between the pit of blood and the shades when they come, postponing their desire to feast on it and tantalizing them until he receives his intended counsel. Over 2,000 years later, this ritual of consorting with the dead has survived in the grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet, though understandably changed and with a subtly different interpretation on the means of summoning:

“Now these souls…are easily allured by the [body-] like vapours, liquors and savours. From hence it is that the souls of the dead are not called forth, without blood, or the putting of some part of the forsaken body & we perfume with fresh blood in the calling forth of Shadows, with the bones of the dead, and flesh, with Eggs, Milk, honey, Oil and the like which attribute a fit means for the souls to assume their bodies.” 18

Around the 1st century BC, Varro also mentions the pouring of blood into a divination bowl to draw the spirits of the deceased – who see much more than we – to the diviner. 19 Blood in Magic In magic, the main uses of blood draw on its continued association with its original host. An animal’s blood may be included in a spell because of that animal’s magical properties and associations. A person’s blood contains their essence and maintains a link with the target or the spell-caster respectively, which is manipulated through ritual. The connection with the source of blood, or perhaps the implied sacrifice, also gives power to writing magical words and symbols.

Personal effects are bodily fluids or trimmings that are included in spells to increase the power of the ritual. For example, a figure of a person made in wax or clay would have some power over the target just by being shaped and named for them. However, the inclusion of blood, hair, or nail clippings dramatically increases the efficacy of the magic. Even personal items, such as bits of clothing, are useful, though much more so if they’ve soaked up some of the target’s sweat. The blood of the spell-caster might be administered to their victim, disguised in food or drink, as a consistent method of forcing love and seduction. Sometimes the type of blood fed to a victim is unspecific: sometimes it is menstrual, and other times it is even an animal’s. Usually, the latter would be a dove or pigeon, which are associated with Venus.

Blood could also be used in undoing magic and breaking spells. In Hungary, 1730, a Mrs. Mihály Jóna presented a cure for the evil eye to her patient: the mother was to procure three drops of blood from the little finger of the person who “saw” her daughter (gave her the evil eye) and to drip it into her daughter’s eyes. This would relieve her of the illness that the evil eye caused. 20 In early modern England there was a rather specific belief that a witch sighting their own blood would have all their spells broken. This obviously led to some relatively violent attacks on suspected witches. Perhaps a callback to the previously discussed purification by sacrificial blood, a Devon cunning-woman named Agnes Hill performed this ritual to cure a woman of sickness by witchcraft:

“Hill then said we must kill the cock, and desired her mother to cut its throat, which she did with a razor. The cock was held over the new earthen pan, holding the fasting water [her mother’s urine] and the blood, which was mingled together, and then put over the fire to boil. Hill then cut open the cock, and took out its heart, and told her mother to stick seven new pins into it, likewise seven new needles, and nine blackthorn prickles. The ash wood was put on the fire under the pan, the heart was hung up to roast before the fire, and it was afterwards thrown into the fire, pins, needles, and all.” 21

Here the cockerel’s older associations with the sun, success, and conquering might be invoked to drive away the malefic influences of the witch. Perhaps the celestial masculine divinities of which it was once symbolic were even replaced by or subtly aligned with the Christian god of Agnes’ time in 19th century Devonshire.

The weightiest source of blood-use in magic comes from the grimoires of continental Europe, Iceland, and England. Sometimes, the application of specific animals’ blood seems to break from the overall patterns, and the text itself can seem to be sewn together from opposite ends of missing sentences. The way these tomes were passed on was often by hand-copying each word, and the transference of some very ancient rituals over the span of many hundreds of years has surely let some material and context fall into the cracks of history. Due to the overwhelming and obscure specificities of the material, these examples will be found predominantly in the post-script notes.

Properties of animals in folk magic and grimoire traditions directly correlate to the applications of their blood. To quote Agrippa, in a hyper-literal example, “It is also believed that the blood of a bear, if it be sucked out of her wound, doth increase strength of body, because that animal is the strongest creature.” 22 Every animal has some magical properties, but these associations definitely change over time and by location. There are very common animals, and persistent patterns, that allow parallels and conclusions to be drawn. In continental European and American folk magic for example a cat might represent a woman and a dog might stand for a man. Bits of those animals are used to affect their respective genders and provide a symbolic link to the magical targets. In the Balkans, blood of a dog and cat were sprinkled on the path between wandering husband and his paramour to cause dislike between them, which could be read differently as the essence of two animals that like to fight being used to cause discord. The color of the animals would have likely been relevant, but this is not included in the account. 23 In the continental and English grimoires there is usually an implied proper procedure for procuring blood from an animal – not just where to cut, but when, and accompanied by which exorcisms, etc. That blood was used in the consecration of sorcerous ritual tools; as an ingredient in or as itself a magical ink; combined into a perfume with herbs and other fleshy or mineral bits; mixed into oil to make a lamp; or anointed as a refreshing face-mask!

If the blood must come from the magician, it is almost always drawn from the little finger, or else it does not specify. The magician’s own blood is used for writing sacred words and incantations, mostly in love spells and cures – though in at least one instance for the conjuration of spirits with a more arcane intention. In Long Lost Friend there is a different sort of love administered, with the magician feeding a dog their blood to create an instant bond between the two.

However, Icelandic magic uses the magician’s blood drawn from specific and varied areas of the body such as certain toes or fingers, or the thigh. Blood would be traced into carved symbols and words on wood, bone, skin, or stone. One example is how the witch Þuríðr uses magic to defeat a great Icelandic hero, rubbing her blood into runes on a beached log while speaking a charm, and walking around it counter-clockwise. 24

Bloodstains Blood leaves a mark: that has always been said. Places of great bloodshed are sacred to the spirits of Mars in grimoire magic. They are also very feasible settings for raising the dead. However, the most famous and infamous bloodstains are a break from the previous sections; 25 they are not made from animals or mortals. When the blood of gods is spilled, there is a creation to it and a power to it. Jesus, Chronos, and Prometheus all had blood spill from them in torture or death. Whatever this blood touched was changed; adding colors to animals, plants, and minerals, or else creating powerful new flora that have great use to any magician. The spilling of the blood of Jesus is a pervasive and consistent image in magical charms and prayers of all sorts. It is his blood that is consumed in the wine of every communion ritual. In the Prose Edda, the gods of the Æsir and Vanir formed a peace treaty, and from the spittle of their treaty they created a man of pure wisdom named Kvasir, who entertains them and travels the world answering many riddles and questions. The dwarves, Fjalar and Galarr, who value little above what they can create and forge, pulled Kvasir aside, slitting his throat and draining his blood into vats of honey for making mead. This mead carried his wisdom, scholarliness, and poesy forever through his blood. It was once said that whoever had a genius for poetry had drunk from this mead. In 20th century Irish manuscripts from the Duchas archive, there are many entries about bloodstains from violent deaths where the ugliness of the crime was so wicked the blood refuses to be cleaned. There are also many stains on stones and churches from martyred priests that likewise never fade, in which we see a touch of the divine. The blood of the otherworld neighbors, the fairies, has also stained many a stone throughout Ireland’s counties, said to be the sign of a battle between the Good Neighbors. Whether it’s godhood, otherworldliness, or extreme violence, some blood doesn’t wash away – my sympathies to Lady Macbeth.

The way we look at blood in ritual has undergone many cycles of change and of repetition, traces of which can be seen in our current cultures. From practical applications, and cosmological ramifications, to a prop on a stage of fear, there are examples from literal thousands of years ago through to this past Sunday. Sacrifices and stains surround us, and we walk around with this potent fluid sloshing through our bodies, invisibly waiting to be tapped and put to use in casting enchantments or feeding our secret spirits. I hope this has been illuminating to you, in some degree, and I beg forgiveness for any major oversights or misinterpretations in this text. Be nice to your pets please. See post-script for endnotes, and for examples of blood in grimoire texts.

Examples from the Grimoires:

In no particular order, here are examples of blood in grimoire texts. Where unspecified, assume the blood is applied as ink. Enjoy.

From the Greater Key of Solomon: Book II – Many sorcerous tools are dipped in various bloods as part of their preparation. A ceremonial white-handled dagger is sanctified in blood of a gosling bird and the juice of a pimpernel and engraved before being wrapped in white silk. The famous black-handled knife used to strike fear in the heart of spirits should be dipped in blood of a black cat with juice of hemlock and engraved before being wrapped in black silk. The ritual sickle is dipped in blood of magpie and juice of mercury-herb. This text also has a procedure on the proper purifications, rituals, and prayers needed to take blood from a bat and other animals for use in magic. There are instructions for general animal sacrifice and it does specify that the animals should be virgins (yes in the sexual sense), and it includes words that should be said later when spilling the blood in Chapter XXII. Book I – The blood of a black hen is used on hare skin to prevent a hunter from his bounty. Blood and fat of a dead man are used in an oil lamp to reveal hidden treasure. For spells of trickery and deceit the ‘pen of art’ should be dipped in the blood of a bat previously procured in the correct manner for use. Pentacles – Blood of a screech owl in conjunction with a swallow pen is to be used for the Second Pentacle of Jupiter, and the blood of a bat in the Seventh Pentacle of Mars.

From the Black Pullet: The magician’s wand is stained with lamb’s blood in its creation and sanctification.

From Agrippa: Perfumes – Blood of a white cockerel for Sun perfume, goose blood for Moon, bat for Saturn, stork or swallow for Jupiter, blood of a man and of a black cat for Mars, pigeon (or dove) for Venus (boar’s blood in Arthur Gauntlet), and magpie for Mercury.

From the Sword of Moses: No.55 Uses your own blood as ink on an egg for a love spell and No.64 Uses your own blood as ink on both your doors for the same. How embarrassing!

From the 6th and 7th Books of Moses: Writing magical circles with the blood of young white doves for the inquisition and enslaving of spirits, and the blood of butterflies for writing the seals of the Seven Great Princes who are nature and treasure spirits.

8th Book of Moses: Baboons blood is used in a spell to send dreams to your target.

From the Lemegeton I: Goetia: Writing another seal for binding spirits with the blood of a black cockerel that has never mated with a hen.

From the Grimoirum Verum: Your own blood from your little (Mercurial) finger for writing the conjurations of spirits, the use of white pigeon (dove) blood to inscribe names of the Hebrew God on a mirror for divination, and To Make a Girl Dance in the Nude, which involves the blood of a bat on a blessed stone over which mass has been said. It is a very unpleasant spell: “She will undress and be completely naked, and will dance increasingly until death, if one does not remove the character; with grimaces and contortions which will cause more pity than desire.” Quite disturbing!

From Grimoire of Honorius: While creating a sacred lambskin to avoid perversion and corruption from the demons the magician will engage upon, the lamb is sacrificed, but the magician must make an effort not to spill the blood of the sacrificial lamb onto the earth. Perhaps this is an avoidance of old-pagan blood-sacrificial dirtiness, or avoidance of telluric impurity?

From SLOANE MS 3824 (called the Book of Treasure Spirits by Rankine): The invocation symbol for the spirit Mamon is drawn in lapwing or black cat blood, and in discovering a treasure trove the blood of a black cockerel is used variously as ink.

From the Book of Gold: Psalm 43 can be written in bird’s blood to destroy an enemy, Psalm 59 in billy goat’s blood for releasing the bonds of your own actions, Psalm 60 in white cockerel blood to bring back your wife, Psalm 90 in dove blood to protect and embolden fearful children, and Psalm 103 is written in bat or black hen blood for a love spell. Psalm 136 should be drawn in menstrual blood to stop blood – the phrasing in the text implies this may be a charm to staunch menstrual bleeding specifically.

From the Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet: Bat blood to make spent money return; dove blood in a protection spell; blood from the finger of the magician in a cure for the falling sickness; ant eggs and blood of a white hen anointed on face let you see wonders; blood of a lapwing, white owl, raven, mole, hen etc. (super-bloody-murder-bath) for finding and conversing with familiar spirits; bat’s blood onto an apple before it falls, given to eat as a love spell; cockerel and sparrow blood written on a candle to summon a woman to it; white pigeon blood on green silk to attain the love of all people; bleed a bat with glass or flint and write “J” and touch to target who shall follow you, this can be tested first on a dog; and the blood of a turtledove written as a charm on virgin parchment and sewn into a pouch to be worn for success in playing dice.

Book of Oberon: This is really drawn from many older texts, but just to give this book some light – the blood of a lapwing may be suffumigated with lignum aloes to produce visions of spirits. For shooting competitions there is a ritual that includes dipping the arrows in the blood of your left finger.

From Papyri Graecae Magicae: # IV 1928-2005 – Serpent blood ink for binding a restless dead spirit with Helios for love magic, the following entry uses blood of an ass, eel, and falcon similarly. #IV 2145-2240 – Uses the blood of someone who died violently mixed with myrrh resin on bay leaf for an oracular divination.

From the Galdrabók: No. 34 Is a love spell placing worm or serpent blood where the target will walk over it along with other charms. No.45 Requires blood drawn from the big toe and right hand of the magician, which should be smeared on the yarrow herb as well as the required staves, in a spell to uncover a thief. No. 46 Is the famous fart rune, for which blood should be drawn from the thigh. 47 Also requires blood from the big toe to create the Helm of Hiding.

From Kreddur: No.15 Discover a thief using blood from under the left-hand middle finger to draw the appropriate staves.

Endnotes: 1 Parker, Robert. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford, Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 27-30. 2 Ibid, p. 372. 3 Ibid, p. 114 4 Ibid, p. 101. 5 Tuite, Kevin. “Highland Georgian Paganism – Archaism or Innovation?” Annual for the Society of the Study of the Caucuses, Université de Montréal, 1996, pp. 284. Parker, Robert. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford, Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 370 6 Tuite, Kevin. “Highland Georgian Paganism – Archaism or Innovation?” Annual for the Society of the Study of the Caucuses, Université de Montréal, 1996, p.6 7 Fraser, Kyle. “Roman Antiquity: the Imperial Period.” Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West, edited by David J. Collins, S.J., Cambridge University Press, p.133. 8 The distinction between Pythagorean pagans and sorcerous polytheists is mentioned by Porphyry, in an analysis of blood/flesh sacrifice vs. ascetic and moral acts of devotion. 9 Turcan, Robert. The Cults of the Roman Empire. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996, p.28. 10 Ibid, p. 52. 11 The Greek Magical Papyri: In Translation. Edited by Hans Dieter Betz. University of Chicago Press, 1986, PGM IV. 26-51, pp. 37-38. 12 Combs, Josiah Henry. “Sympathetic Magic in the Kentucky Mountains: Some Curious Folk-Survivals.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 27, no. 105, 1914, p. 329. 13 Wilby, Emma. Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. Chicago, Sussex Academic Press, 2013, pp. 82 & 109. Along with milk and bread by around In 1566, Joan Prentice let her familiar, Bid, suck blood from her cheek before bed. In 1582, Margery Sammon’s mother told her that the familiar the latter passed on must be given milk, if not they would suck her blood instead. 14 Scottish and Manx fairies, if not appeased by offerings of fresh water and bread, might drink your blood instead. 15 Perhaps screech owls or bats. 16 Vukanović, T.P. “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I: Characteristics of Witches. Folklore, Vol.100, 1989, p. 12. 17 Willumsen, Liv Helene. “Children Accused of Witchcraft in 17th-Century Finnmark.” Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 38, 2013, p. 27. 18 The Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet, edited by David Rankine. Avalonia, 2011, p. 208. 19 Gordon, Richard. “Good to Think: Wolves and Wolf-Men in the Graeco-Roman World.” Werewolf Histories, edited by Willem de Blécourt, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, p. 45. 20 Kristóf, Ildikó Sz. “The Social Background of Witchcraft Accusations in Early Modern Debrecen and Bihar County.” Witchcraft and Demonology in Hungary and Transylvania, edited by Transylvania Gábor Klaniczay and Éva Pócs, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, p. 35. 21 Davies, Owen and Easton, Timothy. “Cunning Folk and the Production of Magical Artefacts.” Physical Evidence for Ritual Acts, Sorcery and Witchcraft in Christian Britain, edited by Ronald Hutton, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, p. 214. 22 Agrippa, Henry Cornelius. Three Books of Occult Philosophy or Magic, edited by Willis F. Whitehead, Hahn & Whitehead, 1898, p. 73. 23 Vukanović, T.P. “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I: Characteristics of Witches. Folklore, Vol.100, 1989, p. 15. 24 Mitchell, Stephen A. Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, p. 94. 25 Perhaps excepting the Appalachian witch’s ritual evidence discussed in the Initiation section. Image Credits (in order): Blood in water. source unknown (anyone know it?), accessed via google images Feb. 3rd 2020. Blood saining, from Beowulf and Grendell (2005), dir. Sturla Gunnarsson. accessed via Facebook, Feb. 1st 2020. Bainbridge, Alexander, 2015. Mindia toasts the memory of Iakshar after the sheep sacrifice, Beer and blood sacrifices: meet the Caucus pagans who worship ancient deities, Indipendent.co UK, accessed Feb. 1st 2020. Bleeding for St. Martin, posted in 2005 on Sligo Heritage, original source unknown, accessed Feb. 1st 2020. Taurobolium, or Consecration of the Priests of Cybele under Antoninus Pius (Detail).Engraving by Bernhard Rode (undated, ca. 1780). Accessed via Wikipedia Feb 3rd. 2020. Witches being baptized by the Devil, or Tiercement le confirme en cette opinion luy grauant de ses ongles le front pour d'illec tollir le Chresme & signe baptismal. (Fig. 5.). Woodcut. Accessed via Project Gutenberg Feb. 3rd 2020. Blood in wine glass, source unknown (again, anyone?), accessed via google images Feb. 1st 2020. Blood on hand, source unknown (again?), accessed via Giphy Feb. 3rd 2020. Crown of thorns, (possibly) @Doug21, 2007, on Flickr, accessed via Flickr Feb. 3rd 2020.

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