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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 3 months ago

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By: Richard Dawkins

This is a slightly edited version of the essay written to accompany the transcript of the conversation between myself, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and the late, much-lamented Christopher Hitchens, recorded in Christopher's flat in Washington DC in September 2007 and published in 2019 as The Four Horsemen.

Among the many topics the ‘four horsemen’ discussed in 2007 was how religion and science compared in respect of humility and hubris. Religion, for its part, stands accused of conspicuous overconfidence and sensational lack of humility. The expanding universe, the laws of physics, the fine-tuned physical constants, the laws of chemistry, the slow grind of evolution’s mills – all were set in motion so that, in the 14-billion-year fullness of time, we should come into existence. Even the constantly reiterated insistence that we are miserable offenders, born in sin, is a kind of inverted arrogance: such vanity, to presume that our moral conduct has some sort of cosmic significance, as though the Creator of the Universe wouldn’t have better things to do than tot up our black marks and our brownie points. The universe is all concerned with me. Is that not the arrogance that passeth all understanding?

Carl Sagan, in Pale Blue Dot, makes the exculpatory point that our distant ancestors could scarcely escape such cosmic narcissism. With no roof over their heads and no artificial light, they nightly watched the stars wheeling overhead. And what was at the centre of the wheel? The exact location of the observer, of course. No wonder they thought the universe was ‘all about me’. In the other sense of ‘about’, it did indeed revolve ‘about me’. ‘I’ was the epicentre of the cosmos. But that excuse, if it is one, evaporated with Copernicus and Galileo.

Turning, then, to theologians’ overconfidence, admittedly few quite reach the heights scaled by the seventeenth-century archbishop James Ussher, who was so sure of his chronology that he gave the origin of the universe a precise date: 22 October, 4004 bc. Not 21 or 23 October but precisely on the evening of 22 October. Not September or November but definitely, with the immense authority of the Church, October. Not 4003 or 4005, not ‘somewhere around the fourth or fifth millennium bc’ but, no doubt about it, 4004 bc. Others, as I said, are not quite so precise about it, but it is characteristic of theologians that they just make stuff up. Make it up with liberal abandon and force it, with a presumed limitless authority, upon others, sometimes – at least in former times and still today in Islamic theocracies – on pain of torture and death.

Such arbitrary precision shows itself, too, in the bossy rules for living that religious leaders impose on their followers. And when it comes to control-freakery, Islam is way out ahead, in a class of its own. Here are some choice examples from the Concise Commandments of Islam handed down by Ayatollah Ozma Sayyed Mohammad Reda Musavi Golpaygani, a respected Iranian ‘scholar’. Concerning the wet-nursing of babies, alone, there are no fewer than twenty-three minutely specified rules, translated as ‘Issues’. Here’s the first of them, Issue 547. The rest are equally precise, equally bossy, and equally devoid of apparent rationale:

If a woman wet-nurses a child, in accordance to the conditions to be stated in Issue 560, the father of that child cannot marry the woman’s daughters, nor can he marry the daughters of the husband whom the milk belongs to, even his wet-nurse daughters, but it is permissible for him to marry the wet-nurse daughters of the woman . . . [and it goes on].

Here’s another example from the wet-nursing department, Issue 553:

If the wife of a man’s father wet-nurses a girl with his father’s milk, then the man cannot marry that girl.

‘Father’s milk’? What? I suppose in a culture where a woman is the property of her husband, ‘father’s milk’ is not as weird as it sounds to us.

Issue 555 is similarly puzzling, this time about ‘brother’s milk’:

A man cannot marry a girl who has been wet-nursed by his sister or his brother’s wife with his brother’s milk.

I don’t know the origin of this creepy obsession with wet-nursing, but it is not without its scriptural basis:

When the Qur’aan was first revealed, the number of breast-feedings that would make a child a relative (mahram) was ten, then this was abrogated and replaced with the number of five which is well-known.[1]

That was part of the reply from another ‘scholar’ to the following recent cri de coeur from a (pardonably) confused woman on social media:

I breastfed my brother-in-law’s son for a month, and my son was breastfed by my brother-in-law’s wife. I have a daughter and a son who are older than the child who was breastfed by my brother-in-law’s wife, and she also had two children before the child of hers whom I breastfed. I hope that you can describe the kind of breastfeeding that makes the child a mahram and the rulings that apply to the rest of the siblings? Thank you very much.

The precision of ‘five’ breast feedings is typical of this kind of religious control-freakery. It surfaced bizarrely in a 2007 fatwa issued by Dr Izzat Atiyya, a lecturer at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, who was concerned about the prohibition against male and female colleagues being alone together and came up with an ingenious solution. The female colleague should feed her male colleague ‘directly from her breast’ at least five times. This would make them ‘relatives’ and thereby enable them to be alone together at work. Note that four times would not suffice. He apparently wasn’t joking at the time, although he did retract his fatwa after the outcry it provoked. How can people bear to live their lives bound by such insanely specific yet manifestly pointless rules?

With some relief, perhaps, we turn to science. Science is often accused of arrogantly claiming to know everything, but the barb is capaciously wide of the mark. Scientists love not knowing the answer, because it gives us something to do, something to think about. We loudly assert ignorance, in a gleeful proclamation of what needs to be done.

How did life begin? I don’t know, nobody knows, we wish we did, and we eagerly exchange hypotheses, together with suggestions for how to investigate them. What caused the apocalyptic mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, a quarter of a billion years ago? We don’t know, but we have some interesting hypotheses to think about. What did the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees look like? We don’t know, but we do know a bit about it. We know the continent on which it lived (Africa, as Darwin guessed), and molecular evidence tells us roughly when (between 6 million and 8 million years ago). What is dark matter? We don’t know, and a substantial fraction of the physics community would dearly like to.

Ignorance, to a scientist, is an itch that begs to be pleasurably scratched. Ignorance, if you are a theologian, is something to be washed away by shamelessly making something up. If you are an authority figure like the Pope, you might do it by thinking privately to yourself and waiting for an answer to pop into your head – which you then proclaim as a ‘revelation’. Or you might do it by ‘interpreting’ a Bronze Age text whose author was even more ignorant than you are.

Popes can promulgate their private opinions as ‘dogma’, but only if those opinions have the backing of a substantial number of Catholics through history: long tradition of belief in a proposition is, somewhat mysteriously to a scientific mind, regarded as evidence for the truth of that proposition. In 1950, Pope Pius XII (unkindly known as ‘Hitler’s Pope’) promulgated the dogma that Jesus’ mother Mary, on her death, was bodily – i.e. not merely spiritually – lifted up into heaven. ‘Bodily’ means that if you’d looked in her grave, you’d have found it empty. The Pope’s reasoning had absolutely nothing to do with evidence. He cited 1 Corinthians 15:54: ‘then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory’. The saying makes no mention of Mary. There is not the smallest reason to suppose the author of the epistle had Mary in mind. We see again the typical theological trick of taking a text and ‘interpreting’ it in a way that just might have some vague, symbolic, hand-waving connection with something else. Presumably, too, like so many religious beliefs, Pius XII’s dogma was at least partly based on a feeling of what would be fitting for one so holy as Mary. But the Pope’s main motivation, according to Dr Kenneth Howell, director of the John Henry Cardinal Newman Institute of Catholic Thought, University of Illinois, came from a different meaning of what was fitting. The world of 1950 was recovering from the devastation of the Second World War and desperately needed the balm of a healing message. Howell quotes the Pope’s words, then gives his own interpretation:

Pius XII clearly expresses his hope that meditation on Mary’s assumption will lead the faithful to a greater awareness of our common dignity as the human family. . . . What would impel human beings to keep their eyes fixed on their supernatural end and to desire the salvation of their fellow human beings? Mary’s assumption was a reminder of, and impetus toward, greater respect for humanity because the Assumption cannot be separated from the rest of Mary’s earthly life.

It’s fascinating to see how the theological mind works: in particular, the lack of interest in – indeed, the contempt for – factual evidence. Never mind whether there’s any evidence that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven; it would be good for people to believe she was. It isn’t that theologians deliberately tell untruths. It’s as though they just don’t care about truth; aren’t interested in truth; don’t know what truth even means; demote truth to negligible status compared with other considerations, such as symbolic or mythic significance. And yet at the same time, Catholics are compelled to believe these made-up ‘truths’ – compelled in no uncertain terms. Even before Pius XII promulgated the Assumption as a dogma, the eighteenth-century Pope Benedict XIV declared the Assumption of Mary to be ‘a probable opinion which to deny were impious and blasphemous’. If to deny a ‘probable opinion’ is ‘impious and blasphemous’, you can imagine the penalty for denying an infallible dogma! Once again, note the brazen confidence with which religious leaders assert ‘facts’ which even they admit are supported by no historical evidence at all.

The Catholic Encyclopedia is a treasury of overconfident sophistry. Purgatory is a sort of celestial waiting room in which the dead are punished for their sins (‘purged’) before eventually being admitted to heaven. The Encyclopedia’s entry on purgatory has a long section on ‘Errors’, listing the mistaken views of heretics such as the Albigenses, Waldenses, Hussites and Apostolici, unsurprisingly joined by Martin Luther and John Calvin.[2]

The biblical evidence for the existence of purgatory is, shall we say, ‘creative’, again employing the common theological trick of vague, hand-waving analogy. For example, the Encyclopedia notes that ‘God forgave the incredulity of Moses and Aaron, but as punishment kept them from the “land of promise”’. That banishment is viewed as a kind of metaphor for purgatory. More gruesomely, when David had Uriah the Hittite killed so that he could marry Uriah’s beautiful wife, the Lord forgave him – but didn’t let him off scot-free: God killed the child of the marriage (2 Samuel 12:13–14). Hard on the innocent child, you might think. But apparently a useful metaphor for the partial punishment that is purgatory, and one not overlooked by the Encyclopedia’s authors.

The section of the purgatory entry called ‘Proofs’ is interesting because it purports to use a form of logic. Here’s how the argument goes. If the dead went straight to heaven, there’d be no point in our praying for their souls. And we do pray for their souls, don’t we? Therefore it must follow that they don’t go straight to heaven. Therefore there must be purgatory. QED. Are professors of theology really paid to do this kind of thing?

Enough; let’s turn again to science. Scientists know when they don’t know the answer. But they also know when they do, and they shouldn’t be coy about proclaiming it. It’s not hubristic to state known facts when the evidence is secure. Yes, yes, philosophers of science tell us a fact is no more than a hypothesis which may one day be falsified but which has so far withstood strenuous attempts to do so. Let us by all means pay lip service to that incantation, while muttering, in homage to Galileo’s muttered eppur si muove, the sensible words of Stephen Jay Gould:

In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’ I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.[3]

Facts in this sense include the following, and not one of them owes anything whatsoever to the many millions of hours devoted to theological ratiocination. The universe began between 13 billion and 14 billion years ago. The sun, and the planets orbiting it, including ours, condensed out of a rotating disk of gas, dust and debris about 4.5 billion years ago. The map of the world changes as the tens of millions of years go by. We know the approximate shape of the continents and where they were at any named time in geological history. And we can project ahead and draw the map of the world as it will change in the future. We know how different the constellations in the sky would have appeared to our ancestors and how they will appear to our descendants.

Matter in the universe is non-randomly distributed in discrete bodies, many of them rotating, each on its own axis, and many of them in elliptical orbit around other such bodies according to mathematical laws which enable us to predict, to the exact second, when notable events such as eclipses and transits will occur. These bodies – stars, planets, planetesimals, knobbly chunks of rock, etc. – are themselves clustered in galaxies, many billions of them, separated by distances orders of magnitude larger than the (already very large) spacing of (again, many billions of) stars within galaxies.

Matter is composed of atoms, and there is a finite number of types of atoms – the hundred or so elements. We know the mass of each of these elemental atoms, and we know why any one element can have more than one isotope with slightly different mass. Chemists have a huge body of knowledge about how and why the elements combine in molecules. In living cells, molecules can be extremely large, constructed of thousands of atoms in precise, and exactly known, spatial relation to one another. The methods by which the exact structures of these macromolecules are discovered are wonderfully ingenious, involving meticulous measurements on the scattering of X-rays beamed through crystals. Among the macromolecules fathomed by this method is DNA, the universal genetic molecule. The strictly digital code by which DNA influences the shape and nature of proteins – another family of macromolecules which are the elegantly honed machine-tools of life – is exactly known in every detail. The ways in which those proteins influence the behaviour of cells in developing embryos, and hence influence the form and functioning of all living things, is work in progress: a great deal is known; much challengingly remains to be learned.

For any particular gene in any individual animal, we can write down the exact sequence of DNA code letters in the gene. This means we can count, with total precision, the number of single-letter discrepancies between two individuals. This is a serviceable measure of how long ago their common ancestor lived. This works for comparisons within a species – between you and Barack Obama, for instance. And it works for comparisons of different species – between you and an aardvark, say. Again, you can count the discrepancies exactly. There are just more discrepancies the further back in time the shared ancestor lived. Such precision lifts the spirit and justifies pride in our species, Homo sapiens. For once, and without hubris, Linnaeus’s specific name seems warranted.

Hubris is unjustified pride. Pride can be justified, and science does so in spades. So does Beethoven, so do Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Christopher Wren. So do the engineers who built the giant telescopes in Hawaii and in the Canary Islands, the giant radio telescopes and very large arrays that stare sightless into the southern sky; or the Hubble orbiting telescope and the spacecraft that launched it. The engineering feats deep underground at CERN, combining monumental size with minutely accurate tolerances of measurement, literally moved me to tears when I was shown around. The engineering, the mathematics, the physics, in the Rosetta mission that successfully soft-landed a robot vehicle on the tiny target of a comet also made me proud to be human. Modified versions of the same technology may one day save our planet by enabling us to divert a dangerous comet like the one that killed the dinosaurs.

Who does not feel a swelling of human pride when they hear about the LIGO instruments which, synchronously in Louisiana and Washington State, detected gravitation waves whose amplitude would be dwarfed by a single proton? This feat of measurement, with its profound significance for cosmology, is equivalent to measuring the distance from Earth to the star Proxima Centauri to an accuracy of one human hair’s breadth.

Comparable accuracy is achieved in experimental tests of quantum theory. And here there is a revealing mismatch between our human capacity to demonstrate, with invincible conviction, the predictions of a theory experimentally and our capacity to visualize the theory itself. Our brains evolved to understand the movement of buffalo-sized objects at lion speeds in the moderately scaled spaces afforded by the African savannah. Evolution didn’t equip us to deal intuitively with what happens to objects when they move at Einsteinian speeds through Einsteinian spaces, or with the sheer weirdness of objects too small to deserve the name ‘object’ at all. Yet somehow the emergent power of our evolved brains has enabled us to develop the crystalline edifice of mathematics by which we accurately predict the behaviour of entities that lie under the radar of our intuitive comprehension. This, too, makes me proud to be human, although to my regret I am not among the mathematically gifted of my species.

Less rarefied but still proud-making is the advanced, and continually advancing, technology that surrounds us in our everyday lives. Your smartphone, your laptop computer, the satnav in your car and the satellites that feed it, your car itself, the giant airliner that can loft not just its own weight plus passengers and cargo but also the 120 tons of fuel it ekes out over a thirteen-hour journey of seven thousand miles.

Less familiar, but destined to become more so, is 3D printing. A computer ‘prints’ a solid object, say a chess bishop, by depositing a sequence of layers, a process radically and interestingly different from the biological version of ‘3D printing’ which is embryology. A 3D printer can make an exact copy of an existing object. One technique is to feed the computer a series of photographs of the object to be copied, taken from all different angles. The computer does the formidably complicated mathematics to synthesize the specification of the solid shape by integrating the angular views. There may be life forms in the universe that make their children in this body-scanning kind of way, but our own reproduction is instructively different. This, incidentally, is why almost all biology textbooks are seriously wrong when they describe DNA as a ‘blueprint’ for life. DNA may be a blueprint for protein, but it is not a blueprint for a baby. It’s more like a recipe or a computer program.

We are not arrogant, not hubristic, to celebrate the sheer bulk and detail of what we know through science. We are simply telling the honest and irrefutable truth. Also honest is the frank admission of how much we don’t yet know – how much more work remains to be done. That is the very antithesis of hubristic arrogance. Science combines a massive contribution, in volume and detail, of what we do know with humility in proclaiming what we don’t. Religion, by embarrassing contrast, has contributed literally zero to what we know, combined with huge hubristic confidence in the alleged facts it has simply made up.

But I want to suggest a further and less obvious point about the contrast of religion with atheism. I want to argue that the atheistic worldview has an unsung virtue of intellectual courage. Why is there something rather than nothing? Our physicist colleague Lawrence Krauss, in his book A Universe from Nothing,[4] controversially suggests that, for quantum-theoretic reasons, Nothing (the capital letter is deliberate) is unstable. Just as matter and antimatter annihilate each other to make Nothing, so the reverse can happen. A random quantum fluctuation causes matter and antimatter to spring spontaneously out of Nothing. Krauss’s critics largely focus on the definition of Nothing. His version may not be what everybody understands by nothing, but at least it is supremely simple – as simple it must be, if it is to satisfy us as the base of a ‘crane’ explanation (Dan Dennett’s phrase), such as cosmic inflation or evolution. It is simple compared to the world that followed from it by largely understood processes: the big bang, inflation, galaxy formation, star formation, element formation in the interior of stars, supernova explosions blasting the elements into space, condensation of element-rich dust clouds into rocky planets such as Earth, the laws of chemistry by which, on this planet at least, the first self-replicating molecule arose, then evolution by natural selection and the whole of biology which is now, at least in principle, understood.

Why did I speak of intellectual courage? Because the human mind, including my own, rebels emotionally against the idea that something as complex as life, and the rest of the expanding universe, could have ‘just happened’. It takes intellectual courage to kick yourself out of your emotional incredulity and persuade yourself that there is no other rational choice. Emotion screams: ‘No, it’s too much to believe! You are trying to tell me the entire universe, including me and the trees and the Great Barrier Reef and the Andromeda Galaxy and a tardigrade’s finger, all came about by mindless atomic collisions, no supervisor, no architect? You cannot be serious. All this complexity and glory stemmed from Nothing and a random quantum fluctuation? Give me a break.’ Reason quietly and soberly replies: ‘Yes. Most of the steps in the chain are well understood, although until recently they weren’t. In the case of the biological steps, they’ve been understood since 1859. But more important, even if we never understand all the steps, nothing can change the principle that, however improbable the entity you are trying to explain, postulating a creator god doesn’t help you, because the god would itself need exactly the same kind of explanation.’ However difficult it may be to explain the origin of simplicity, the spontaneous arising of complexity is, by definition, more improbable. And a creative intelligence capable of designing a universe would have to be supremely improbable and supremely in need of explanation in its own right. However improbable the naturalistic answer to the riddle of existence, the theistic alternative is even more so. But it needs a courageous leap of reason to accept the conclusion.

This is what I meant when I said the atheistic worldview requires intellectual courage. It requires moral courage, too. As an atheist, you abandon your imaginary friend, you forgo the comforting props of a celestial father figure to bail you out of trouble. You are going to die, and you’ll never see your dead loved ones again. There’s no holy book to tell you what to do, tell you what’s right or wrong. You are an intellectual adult. You must face up to life, to moral decisions. But there is dignity in that grown-up courage. You stand tall and face into the keen wind of reality. You have company: warm, human arms around you, and a legacy of culture which has built up not only scientific knowledge and the material comforts that applied science brings but also art, music, the rule of law, and civilized discourse on morals. Morality and standards for life can be built up by intelligent design – design by real, intelligent humans who actually exist. Atheists have the intellectual courage to accept reality for what it is: wonderfully and shockingly explicable. As an atheist, you have the moral courage to live to the full the only life you’re ever going to get: to fully inhabit reality, rejoice in it, and do your best finally to leave it better than you found it.

[1] https://islamqa.info/en/27280 [2] http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=9745 [3] ‘Evolution as fact and theory’. [4] For which I wrote an afterword.

#Richard Dawkins #atheism #moral courage #intellectual courage #intellectual honesty #science #religion is a mental illness

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thrill-zilla-0v0 · 4 months ago

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As a Jewish hellsing fan I get it

You don't have to like the millennium characters or even want to be around people that like them, you have every right to be uncomfortable around millennium fans

BUT

If you're entire post is like 20% hellsing and 80% getting mad about millennium and the people who like millennium you are like 10× more annoying than the people who say some shit like "Rip buys cat lady merch"

This can go for any of the adamant org hater but I see it most with mill (omg no way I'm shocked)

Like I'm tired of seeing org discourse I want dumb shitpost>:(

#hellsing #hellsing manga #hellsing ultimate #like please i beg of you #can we just make fun of this dumb show again?#and not be mad at each other #we should focus our anger #on hirano #his ass needs to finish the dawn #with our combined forces we can force him to finish it #and be united once more

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reddawnmultimuse · 1 year ago

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. closed starter for @bladedhunter || Uchiha Sasuke

It was dawn and Deidara was walking to the Tsuchikage's Mansion on orders from the Fourth Tsuchikage a.k.a Kurotsuchi, his favourite cousin--for an urgent and important mission.

Sure, an urgent and important mission. Likely a mission no one else wanted like saving a cat out of a tree or walking an old woman home; the missions Deidara had to do because he was trusted to do nothing else despite being a member of the Explosive Corps and "rehabilitated". No, even that got him no respect, be it from his own family or other shinobi. No, no one respected him and never would nor trusted him despite it being over a decade since his "employment" in the Akatsuki.

So, he wasn't expecting much as he entered the Tsuchikage's office. Akatsuchi was there, since he was advisor to the Tsuchikage, and glared at Deidara before whispering something to Kurotsuchi before leaving, purposely bumping into Deidara on his way out. Deidara said nothing nor reacted as he calmly walked over to his cousin's desk. Kurotsuchi supplied him a friendly smile but it fell when not only did the blonde man not acknowledge it but upon looking him over. He looked...not good. He never did this days. But, she said nothing because she knew Deidara knew that so she'd be preaching to the choir.

"Hello, Deidara-nii."

"What's the mission, hn?" Deidara huffed at her, having no patience for pleasantries nor small talk, especially not with her.

Understanding this, Kurotsuchi decided to just get into it. "I have an upmost urgent mission for you. Iwa is under threat--not just Iwa but all nations. We got intelligence from Konoha that there is a new terrorist organization threatening the era of peace. Not just that, but they've adopted the Akatsuki name and may have infiltrated Ame since there's been no government there since the Fourth War."

Deidara snorted crudely and spat. "So?"

Kurotsuchi frowned, a little irked by her cousin's rudeness but did her best to have patience with him--someone has too. "So, there's a possibility they had access to all the Akatsuki's secrets since the old organization's defeat. It could cause a Fifth War."

"Fun. Maybe I'll join them, hn."

Kurotsuchi sighed. "I--we--need you to go in and investigate but also eliminate this new 'Akatsuki'. We believe in good faith that the organization is in its infancy and only has a few members. However, they're S-rank criminals just like the Akatsuki before it," She could already anticipate Deidara rejecting the mission and leaving so she had prepared a back-up plan. "If you go on this mission and are successful, I'll decrease your restitution." As she thought, Deidara perked up at this news.

She knew their grandfather had crippled him with restitution to pay for his destruction of Iwa when he first left the village and to all the victims from the explosions; a quittance he'd never be able to pay back in his natural life. Hell, he could live for a millennium and still be paying. Whilst she couldn't cancel it outright due to their grandfather now being an Elder and would likely veto her decision, she could decrease the payment, if just a little bit.

Despite the tantalizing offer, Deidara milled over it from a moment before deciding to accept it. Afterall, maybe he'd finally be able to save up enough money to eat more than twice a week--or a male uniform. "Fine. I'll go to Ame and off these Akatsuki wannabe's, hn." He begrudgingly said.

"Good. You both are to leave immediately,"

Deidara piqued an eyebrow with a frown. "Both?"

Kurotsuchi gifted him a sheepish smile and gestured at someone in the background. When he turned to look, he expected her to be pointing to Akatsuchi, which wasn't ideal. However, who he saw was much, much worse as his blood instantly ran ice cold.

"No!"

#. gunpowder & gelatine--deidara #. bladedhunter uchiha sasuke #. closed starter

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spyroskaprinis · 2 years ago

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“Millennium Mills Workshop” _ 03.02.2023 _ SK

“The Millennium Mills is a derelict turn of the 20th century flour mill in West Silvertown on the south side of the Royal Victoria Dock, between the Thames Barrier and the ExCeL London exhibition centre alongside the newly built Britannia village, in Newham, London, England. The Mills are currently undergoing a major renovation as part of a £3.5billion redevelopment of Silvertown.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Mills

https://www.avialogs.com/aircraft-v/vought/item/56318-vought-xf5u-1-illustrated-assembly-breakdown

#Millennium Mills #Workshop #Silvertown #London #Royal Victoria Dock #Gae Aulenti #UK #Architecture #Anatopism #Collage #Building Machines #Δομικές Μηχανές #Ανατοπισμός #Αρχιτεκτονική Σύνθεση #Κολλάζ #Σπύρος Καπρίνης #Spyros Kaprinis #2023

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see-arcane · 1 year ago

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Of Debt and Death

And a dream that flows between them like a river.

Ao3 link here

“Centuries. Centuries he has been doing this.”

Jonathan looks up. He doesn’t remember how he got here. A moment ago he was sinking. Or was it floating? Either way, he drowned. Smothered. There is a certainty now as there was before that the Count is near. The closeness of him in Piccadilly had struck a deep and profound cord in him even in the crowd. Now that cord is an entire hellish violin playing until it screeches.

Here! He is here! Up, go, hurry!

But there was only the drowning. The sweet-bitter crush of a blanket around a strengthless babe who kicks and struggles to no avail.

Then, suddenly, here. The boat.

The ferryman has his back to him, hood drawn up against a frigid mist. Black shores hint at themselves through the fog.

“He has done this for almost half a millennium. Did you ever suspect as much in the castle, even with his dust-choked riches? An old monster, surely, but not ancient. Surely he couldn’t be. The people knew him. The people feared him. The people knew then all that the professor had to scrape from a library. You would not have lasted were it not for them and their holy icons, their gifts and knowledge. They know what it is to slay his kind.”

Still though he is, something thrashes violently in Jonathan’s heart. Wanting, needing, fighting to move. To be aware.

The Count is here.

Somewhere close. Near enough to touch. Jonathan eyes the mist warily.

“Do you truly think none have tried what you and your little pack mean to attempt in so many hundreds of years of horror under his reign? None at all? In times of war, in hours of bereft madness, they tried. Lances before the stake, sword before the saw. They tried. The most he lost were new conscripts and his temper. Ash to flesh, mist to teeth. He came back. Through steel and Cross and fire, he has always come back. And taught grave lessons to his enemies each time. He means to teach you all the same. Only he will not waste you on mere slaughter.”

Figures move on the black shore now. Watching them pass. Hazy as they are, Jonathan knows them all. Children. A mother. Sailors. Lucy’s wedding band glints as she waves.

“He will not let you go, Jonathan Harker. If he must lose any of the other jackals in potentia, you will still go on to suffer him. Through her. Through the cudgel he means to make of her and your heart. You have cost him too much to go free and he will have you bowed and bloodied at his feet. You may yet let him for her sake. Once he lures you back. All of you, so sure, so prepared, will lope after him to the genius loci, his realm of power. The land that worked against you from every angle, every muscle of Nature and Supernature. And there you will all do worse than die.”

Let me go. Please, something is wrong, I know it, I know the Count is close, he has done something, he is doing something, I need to go—

“Oh, yes. He has, he is, he shall do worse. God has not seen fit to stop him in four hundred years. He left humanity a few holy tin shields and wished you all luck. And when the Devil’s best student marks a soul to be his in eternity, he shrugs and lets the game go on with a lenience to make Mephistopheles seem a prude. Both will burn you, burn her, as they have burned untold victims in the past. Which is all to say that you will do as all the men and women of history have done when pitted against him.”

The mist thins. What had been a sparse milling of figures now revealed itself as a legion. Dead faces staring out at the river in an endless menagerie of souls reduced to cattle.

“You will lose. Because you are only what all his enemies have been before, what he sold his own soul to conquer unfettered. Mortal meat waiting for the butcher. If you want to win, to save her as more than a lifeless corpse or a mobile one, you must be something other than that same heroic chattel.”

I am no Faust.

“Nor could you be if I desired someone worth making the offer. I may not have time to rest on my laurels, but I have counted him as a nuisance not worth bothering with so long as he kept to his mountains. There are so few of his kind that make true trouble. But now he means to play a global tyrant. England is only the first step. Its colonies will follow. Its neighbors after them. The world is a throat and he is the tick who wishes to drink it dry. If God and the Devil consider Earth forfeit to laissez-faire, it falls to us and our like to do the work of seeing him pay a toll long overdue. So, to you I make my offer. To make you something else. To make yours what is mine. To end what should have ended on a battleground lifetimes ago.”

Jonathan rights himself on the boat. The river is leading into a cave vaster and more lightless than the void between stars. He tries not to stare at it, to focus on the back of the ferryman’s hood.

I will make no promise I do not understand the facets of. I will not be trapped again by details never given to me.

“As is wise. But desperation ever makes decisions on our behalf, Jonathan Harker. Your choice will be no airy whim. It will simply be the only choice to make. I do apologize for that. Gods and devils are not alone in rigging their games. Know this, at least. There shall be no need for a contract. No signatures in blood or fealties sworn. Such pageantry is not for us. No more than it was the day Peter Hawkins signed you on. The offer and its vocation will simply be ready and waiting for you. Make the decision. It will be done.”

Jonathan’s hand lands on the ferryman’s shoulder.

The Ferryman turns.

His eyes are burning hollows. His eyes are all that is left that could be called a face.

“Wake. She is calling to you.”

And he is in the bed with Mina.

And he is in a nightmare.

And he does not wake from it as she tells them all of the Count’s visit, her blood and the Vampire’s staining his breast.

And his body sits and breathes and listens.

And as his mind swims back to a boat on the River, a sickle grows where his soul should be.

#I am not now or ever done chewing on Jonathan Harker like a ragdoll #sorry buddy #jonathan harker #dracula #re: dracula #dracula daily #my writing

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lsbubastudio2 · 2 years ago

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“Rethinking The Royal Docks _ Phase III: Plasticity”, Millennium Mills, London, UK _ Student: Swathee Atputhasigamany / BA3 _ 12.05.2023

The theme of Transpositional Plasticity has two basic aspects: the notion of transposition has to do with the ability of analysis existing precedents and sites and developing operational methods of architectonic synthesis for other contexts and modalities. The notion of plasticity has to do with the capacity to receive form (e.g., clay) and the capacity to give form (e.g., plastic arts). Talking about the transpositional plasticity of a site thus amounts to thinking of the city as something modifiable, ‘formable’, and formative at the same time, while considering previous contextual conditions and historical typologies that might influence and instigate new architectonic possibilities. BAS2 will aim to focus on a radical critique of the typical approach to form, that is completely divorced from a morphological and Cartesian design approach. This studio will explore the concepts of transposition and plasticity, their malleable and modifiable properties, and apply them to the aptitude of the given sites to respond, remodel, reorganize, and continually change for better ability to adapt to new situations. The proposition is an investigation to the possibility of a new urban morphology that is responsive to the complex network of systems within the growing contemporary urban landscape. Mapping, drawing, and model making (utilizing graphic, physical, digital, analogue, and time-based registers) will be used as methods of investigation and design speculation.

Module 302 _ “Rethinking The Royal Docks _ Phase III: Plasticity” _ BAS2 _ Transpositional Plasticity _ 2022-2023.

#Rethinking The Royal Docks #Plasticity #Millennium Mills #London #UK #Swathee Atputhasigamany #BA3 #BAS2 #LSBU #Architecture #2023

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molkolsdal · 8 months ago

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NURISTAN: SHEDDING LIGHT ON AN INACCESSIBLE CRAFT

HIDDEN IN THE EASTERN MOUNTAINS OF AFGHANISTAN, NURISTANI WOODCARVERS HAVE PERFECTED THEIR CRAFT OVER THE PAST THOUSAND YEARS, ADORNING HOUSES AND MOSQUES WITH CAREFULLY CARVED PATTERNS WHICH MEANINGS HAVE NOW MOSTLY BEEN LOST

Embedded in Afghanistan’s eastern mountains, the region of Kafiristan (“Land of the Infidels”) was long an isolated society. Cut off from the world courtesy of their deep mountain gorges and fierce warriors, their local religion was supplanted by Islam at the end of the 19th century ( renamed ‘Nuristan’, or “Land of Light”), over a millennium after the neighbouring regions. Their unique style of woodcarving, a centuries-old, integral component of their culture, is in dire need of safeguarding lest it be lost forever.

In its efforts to preserve Afghanistan’s intangible cultural heritage, Turquoise Mountain is being supported by the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund to document and support Afghan crafts such as Nuristani woodcarving. In accordance with the guidelines set out by UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, there is a pressing need to carry out background research on the craft prior to the more detailed inventory, systematically exploring Nuristan’s woodcarving history, symbolism and social meaning in collaboration with the National Archives of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University, and other cultural institutions.

Woodcarving played an integral role in the delineation of Nuristan’s strictly hierarchical, class-based society. The producers of the craft came from the ‘Bari’, a class of people not regarded as members of society. As well as being woodworkers, the ‘Bari’ were more generally labourers, involved in building bridges and water mills, or acting as stone carvers and potters. Deemed to be impure and racially separate from the rest of society, the ‘Bari’ were, prior to the region’s Islamization, treated as slaves. As a result there is no genealogical record of the exceptionally skilled woodcarvers who transmitted the knowledge from master (ustad) to student (shagerd), generation after generation.

In the past Nuristani woodcarving held significant symbolic meaning and essentially acted as a tool of social signaling to identify acts of greatness, specifically hunting and feast-giving. The ‘Atrozhen’, or class of freemen, who made up about 90% of society, were allowed to decorate - or, rather, have the lower class ‘Bari’ decorate - their houses with the symbols. However, within the ‘Atrozhen’ the privilege was tightly controlled. A community council of Big Men effectively held the exclusive privilege of controlling social movement. The social positions and titles that people were given were obtained only upon this council’s approval.

#Nuristan #Afghanistan #craft #wood carving #history #culture #bari #caste #class #atrozhen

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melancholicbutterflies · 1 year ago

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Hellmouth | Chapter 1

Summary: After nearly a millennium of being away, Angel lands on Earth, finding herself in 1960s Memphis, Tennessee.

Tags/Warnings: vampire!Elvis, angel!reader, dark!Elvis, controlling!Elvis, religious overtones, mystery/horror elements.

Author's Note: At long last! First chapter of approx. 4 chapters planned.

Word Count: 4,043

The angels were talking loudly today. Normally you’d let this pass, focusing on your tasks. You had quite a few humans under your wing, so-to-speak, and because of your stellar performance you’d only acquired more in recent decades. One such human was Daphne Willows, and she wasn’t audible in the same way she had been previously to you. Something must have happened, and so you did something out of the ordinary. Once securing approval through the proper channels, you traveled down to earth, taking on a human appearance.

It had been so long since you were in the human world that your sense of fashion and behaviors had required a good deal of tweaking. Spying on a few humans out and about, you watched them for some time to understand their mannerisms and clothing choices. Your eyebrows rose in mild surprise; certainly, the dress code had changed quite a bit. In place of the more lengthy skirts females wore, you now found knee-high, tight fits and blouses and dresses that dipped low. Even stockings, which as you understood it were for coverage, had become sheer and more for a statement than practicality. Makeup, used to make one’s face prettier (for the male gender, of all things), too, had advanced, becoming a spectacle on a woman’s face with highly pronounced eyes and eyebrow arches. The hairstyle of today was the oddest; many women had taken to wearing their hair straight, but with a beehive sort of look, piling hair at the crown of their head and descending in a curl toward the end. All this had taken milliseconds for you to fashion upon your being, yet you pitied the humans who were forced to contend with it daily.

Daphne lived in a town called Memphis, in the US state of Tennessee. Your knowledge of human affairs was limited, and over time had whittled down to near nothingness; there was nothing required in your job title to understand their customs beyond the need to do your job, and so it was easily forgotten in the millenia or so you’d left the earth yourself. This suited the higher powers, as they emphasized a need to maintain distance between humans and angels. You didn’t understand why, at first, but at one point in time you had a fellow angel you might have called something akin to a friend in the human world lose their angelic powers (including a stripping of their wings, which was not unlike losing one’s identity, and nevertheless extremely painful) due to an inappropriate dalliance with a non-angel being. They were, incidentally, human; you couldn’t imagine how much worse the consequences would have been if it had been an unholy being. At the very least, one would be cut off from heaven entirely.

Memphis was hot. It appeared to have bustling tourism, with people milling about on nearly every corner. You suspected this had something to do with the number of buildings with music notes on them; on one you read ‘Sun Studios’, with many tourists crowding around the perimeter taking pictures and loitering with their eyes peeled inside the dark interior, as if they might spot something of interest.

Humans were funny.

Suddenly your stomach gurgled, and you stopped in the street, much to a driver’s discontent. You watched him drive around you, yelling blasphemous words, before hitting the gas. Humans really could be so short-tempered. Then you remembered that, as a human, you were now susceptible to all the many states and ailments of their kind. One such one, you distantly recalled, was hunger. Grimacing, you continued to pace the downtown until you found an establishment that would serve the energy resource. Unfortunately, upon entering a diner, your simple-minded drive made it difficult to locate something with which to fill your stomach. The waitress, a haggard woman with stains on her pinstripe apron, arrived with a pot of black-looking sludge which she used to fill your cup, and pulled out a pad of paper and writing utensil.

“What can I get you?” She asked.

“What do you recommend on the menu?”

Her eyes never left her pad of paper. “Steak and fries. What will you have?”

You glanced back down, looking at the poorly made depiction. “Yes, I’ll have that.”

“Will that be all?”

“Yes,” you said again. You looked out the window, thinking again how peculiar it was that you couldn’t sense your charge’s exact location. Fortunately, you recalled where she lived, and would go at once. As soon as you received your order, you ate quickly, only narrowly avoiding spilling on your dress. As you rose you noticed an older man’s gaze on you, mid-bite on his hamburger, looking shocked. Perhaps you’d eaten too quickly, or inappropriately in some way. Nevermind, you had no time for the minutia of their manners. However, the woman came to you now looking angry.

“I didn’t just catch you tryin’ to just dine and dash, now did I?”

Your head tilted in confusion. “Dine and… dash?”

“Yes, leave without paying the bill. Are you simple? Not from here?” Her outburst drew the attention of restaurant-goers. If you were human, or here on Earth for a longer duration of time to adapt, you might have felt something like shame or embarrassment. Instead, you very matter-of-factly replied: “how much does it cost?”

“It’s 4 bucks fifty, with tip. You got that on you?” She eyed you skeptically, seeing no pockets on your dress.

The amount materialized on the table, beside your cleaned plate.

“There you are.” You turned back toward the door.

The waitress’ eyes bulged. “But-but, that wasn’t there when-”

Hearing the bell on top of the door chime behind you, you took some steps away from the diner to an alleyway to transport yourself to the house from memory. In doing so, you’d missed the man on the floor sitting in his own filth, an unmarked jug pressed to his lip as he cried, “What the - damn, I gotta get me off the bottle-!”

430 Bismark Road was in a cul-de-sac set off from the main road with nice manicured lawns and friendly folks sitting on their porches. It was the sort of neighborhood you’d come to learn was ‘darling’ in human terms. A far cry from the downtrodden home Daphne had grown up in, she bought the house together with her husband, Daniel, who worked as an investment banker. You weren’t quite sure what that meant, but it allowed them to live the lifestyle they enjoyed, and to which Daphne seemed all too willing to adopt. And you could sense for the first time in her life she was happy, well on her way to having the two point five kids she always dreamed of, having already attained the rich husband, house in the suburbs, and white picket fence. It was a regular old apple pie life, so you’d heard, and you couldn’t imagine what could have taken her away from it.

Ringing the doorbell, you waited until Daniel answered the door. Although it was only early afternoon, his car was parked in the driveway. He wasn’t keeping normal working hours. Strange. You rang again, this time a few more times, finally hearing steps thudding down the stairs, dull and heavy. When he opened the front door, you understood why. Dark circles lined his eyes, his hair was unkempt, and his eyes bloodshot, squinting at the sunlight that filtered through the doorway.

“Who are you? Are you here about Daphne?” He barked.

“I am, as a matter of fact. May I come in?”

Blinking several times, he seemed to come into himself. “Sure, yes, of course! I’ve been waiting so long to hear any news – but you…” he took a second look at you, from head to toe. “You dont look like the police...”

“Police?”

“Yes,” he frowned at you now. “My wife’s been missing for a few days now. Isn’t that what you’re here about?”

“Well yes, but I want to hear from you.” You immediately were regretting your outfit; perhaps he would have taken you more seriously had you presented in uniform. Regardless, you will retrieve the information you need from him. Using your angelic powers on a human was illegal, but under such circumstances, the case could be made.

He looked unsettled, and you put him into a trance-like state that would force him to be more welcoming to your line of questioning.

“When was the last time you saw Daphne?” You inquired.

“Last Sunday. We had a roast and went to bed shortly after. I went to work Monday morning and came back to find the house empty.”

“Is there any possibility she could be staying with someone? A sister? A friend?”

“No. I called her sister Monday evening and she hadn’t heard from her. Her friends hadn’t heard anything, either.”

The possibility that one of them knew but hadn’t told him didn’t escape your notice, although you couldn’t think of a reason why. Either way, you’d be sure to check with them.

“Anything odd about the way she has behaved lately? Something that seemed amiss? Could be anything.” You implored him to consider the words.

Pausing, he answered, “yes, she had been acting differently the past few weeks. I never could pinpoint why, but I suppose I was too caught up in work to take time to figure it out.”

“Differently in what ways?”

“She wasn’t going to service anymore. She always used to be a devout christian, at least since I met her. We would attend church every Sunday, and if not, then Saturday evenings. It was how we met, at church. A friend of a friend introduced us.”

You recalled this, and the news left a feeling you could only describe as unsettling. “That is indeed concerning.” You murmured. “Was there something she was doing instead? Surely this you would have noticed?”

“So she said, she was volunteering at a soup kitchen. I don’t even know how she found it, but it was something she seemed terribly passionate about, and seeing as it was serving the greater good, as Christ would, I didn’t have a problem with it.”

“Hmm.” You highlighted the mental note you made to talk to others in her life, her friends in particular. “What do the police think happened to Daphne?”

“They visited the house and took some fingerprints and photos. Nothing out of the ordinary, they claimed. They also said since nothing was taken, it wasn't likely anything to do with a burglary. Their working theory is that she ran off and just didn’t have the heart to tell me.”

“Do you believe that’s true?”

“No!” His forced calm demeanor morphed into anger. “Of course not. I’m her husband. I did right by her. I don’t know why she’d ever get an idea like that–”

“Was there any reason she could have been unhappy?” You interrupted his tirade.

He faltered. “I… I don’t know.”

“Think carefully, Daniel.”

His head fell. “I gave her everything she ever wanted, with the exception of children, which we were well on our way to having. There was no reason Daphne would have left of her own free will, I can tell you that.”

He was convinced of his own words, and his mind felt rigid now to you. He wouldn’t be of any further help.

“Thank you, Daniel. Be well.” You waited until you were several steps from the house to relinquish your hold on him.

You were certain now more than ever that there was something very wrong with Daphne.

Night had come to Memphis, and you were feeling sluggish from your travels and interrogation. Using your powers was more draining in the human plane, and this had exponentially zapped you of your energy. Recalling humans laid their heads to sleep in hotels, you found one such one of low-profile. This took you back to the downtown area, which had emptied of the larger crowds of earlier. More of a motel, which as you understood was of less quality, you walked to the front desk, where a man stood behind looking skittish.

“Booking a room?” He said, taking his eyes off the small television in the corner.

His eyes had barely landed on you before you understood what he was.

“Angel?!” He hissed at you, eyes glowing dark as midnight as he immediately assumed an aggressive stance.

“Incubus,” you mirrored, narrowing your eyes in disgust. He was one of the unholy, and one of the most abominable creatures that there was. They existed off of the misery and taint leftovers that other unholies like vampire and werewolf kind alike had discarded. They were the bottom-feeders of their class.

“Well I’ll be. A goddamn angel in Memphis of all places. Guess you got bored and decided to slum it down here with us heathens,” he grinned meanly, showing his rotten incisors. To humans he would appear irresistibly handsome, but to your keen eye, and that of other supernaturals, this was a mere illusion for the dirt and rot that his true form possessed. His looks weren’t the worst part – to you he stunk of sin, and that was only displayed in the form he took. “I’ve got business, which incidentally, is none of yours. Now give me a key,” you reached over the counter.

He nearly seized your arm before remembering himself with a humorless laugh. The unholy burnt at the touch of an angelic, some even said to burst into flames; the reverse was not said to be true, although it would surely be unpleasant as well as lower your status in heaven.

“Ah, I suppose you can seize it as you wish.”

His eyes followed you up the stairs, licking his lips quick as a gecko as they narrowed into tiny flints. “I’d wish you sweet dreams, but I don’t think they will be.” He smirked.

He wasn’t wrong. Your night brought you a fitful sleep. Nearly drained of your powers for the day, you weren’t able to utilize as many protective measures as you might have otherwise, using what little you had left on the forcefields of your room that protected you from physical harm. The incubus’ face appeared in horrible visions, only disappearing at your wake. These were interspersed with dreams of your charge, Daphne, who flit from scene to scene like an actress appearing in film, never appearing clearly. In fact, even her surroundings were blurred, which was highly unusual. Your mind's eye had sought her presence in a dream-like state once before, and it was never like this. The only thing that became clear was the presence that surrounded her. It was dark, like ink flames that followed her wherever she went. Towards the end you might have caught something red pooling… blood? You couldn’t be sure. A terrifying smile that shook you to your core revealed itself to you, forcing you from your last attempt at rest. It was unfamiliar, yet so horrifying it could only belong to that of an unholy creature. Something told you that it was not that of the incubus’. Could it have been Daphne’s captor? This would mean you were most assuredly up against an unholy. Alas, you needed more information.

Being in the human realm in long periods made your angelic powers less accessible to you. It was dangerous, but you felt you had no choice but to move onward. The sooner you found Daphne, assured her health and safety, the sooner you could return home to heaven. This was what you told yourself as you sought a different source of sustenance in the early morning hours. Now remembering to pay, your breakfast went seamlessly, and you felt recharged enough to tackle the day. Daphne had three close friends varying in intimacy, and one sibling, her sister Sarah, who she’d reacquainted with later in her married life. Her friends were located only twenty minutes or so from her neighborhood, while Sarah was located approximately three-hours northeast in Nashville. You vowed to preserve your powers today, and would forego teleportation in favor of driving. If you made good time, you could return to Memphis by sundown and resume your search.

You quickly learned that Daphne’s friends were in the dark about her extracurriculars, all except for one that was.

Mary Jane. She was a forthright woman, which you could respect. She brewed you some coffee and revealed Daphne had talked about meeting someone at the soup kitchen.

“What kind of someone?” You’d asked.

“A man. I don’t know his name,” she shrugged, “she’d never said, but he was a real charmer apparently.”

Your eyebrows rose. “You don’t think Daphne had an affair, do you?”

Mary Jane looked thoughtful. “I don’t think so. If she did, I don’t think she could have fibbed so easily. She’s a terrible liar,” she gave a sardonic laugh, “but she was definitely taken with the man. I think it made her feel awful about it. She didn't talk about him after that, so I assumed it fizzled out. But then she got really distant, not wanting to get together as much. She said it was something at home, not related. Now that she’s missing. . .”

“What?”

“Well, I wonder if it’s about this mystery fella after all,” she looked perturbed. “Sorry, I can’t help more than that.” Probing her mind, you could tell Mary Jane was telling the truth.

Sarah wasn’t much more helpful. Her sister had only recently reconnected, and much of her time was spent wrangling four young children; there wasn’t a lot of common ground. Still, Sarah was appropriately concerned about her sister’s wearabouts. When asked about any new person in Daphne’s life, Sarah seemed completely in the dark. “I can’t say. I wish I could be more helpful.”

Night had descended by the time you returned to Memphis. The ‘Night Crawler’ was a night club just on the outskirts of the city limits, with the backdrop of corn fields all around; in darkness it was nearly pitch-black, save for the odd flickering lamp light that was only ever enough to illuminate a single parking place. An imposing figure stood guard outside the door of the nondescript building, arms crossed. He appeared to be checking for identification, which you would be lacking. Fortunately you had a trick up your sleeve.

“ID?” He asked boredly, eying you up and down. When you attempted to use a simple spell you felt a brick wall not unlike the building’s surface.

Cursing at you, he warned, “Whatever you’re trying to do, Angel, it won’t work.”

It became immediately clear you had run into another supernatural. But of what kind, was the question. You felt aggravation prick at you: what were the chances you’d run into so many non-humans in one place? Either there was more going on than met the eye in this city, or you were naive to the number of supernaturals that had immigrated to the human realm. The incubus hadn’t been entirely wrong in that angels were unaware of the goings on outside of heavenly affairs. Perhaps to your detriment, you were soon learning.

“What are you?” You demanded, feeling a sense of foreboding. “I can’t read you.”

The guard laughed, large chest bouncing with the effort. “It is amusing to see you out of your depth, Angel. I’m one of you. Well,” he considered, “technically, half of you.”

“A nephilim?” You gasped. “But I had heard you were extinct? Run out after the third war, the rest captured and killed.”

“Indeed,” he growled, “I don't need a history lesson on your kin’s ways. Abomination, right? Anything that’s not pure angel is.” He laughed humorlessly.

You remained silent.

It was a belief held by the most conservative of your kind that angel hybrids were to be rooted out with the same level of vengeance as an unholy, because they committed the most heinous of betrayals by diluting the heavenly essence. Both the parties that were found guilty of committing the act, and their offspring as a consequence. You yourself were neutral, but that didn’t seem like the right approach in this circumstance. “It’s unnecessary, and I don’t condone it.”

“But you wouldn’t stop it if you saw it happening either, would you?” He sneered.

Two men, or what appeared to be at first glance, broke into fight in the parking lot, their faces transforming into something monstrous. “Hey, break it up you dogs!” The guard bellowed, eventually pushing himself off the wall to intervene physically. Even half-angel, his strength was a force to be reckoned with, and was more than enough to subdue two fully-grown werewolves without further bloodshed. He looked back at you, gesturing toward the door. “Go on ahead, I won’t stop you. But if you cause any problems, you’ll regret it.”

With a solemn nod of understanding, you went inside, swallowed by the darkness within.

Third Person Point of View

Elvis sensed you the moment you entered the building. Powerful that he was, it was not out of the ordinary that he was acutely aware of others, particularly females, who were his preference of the human sexes. What was highly unusual was the preternatural need he had for you without ever having laid eyes on you. When he found your figure, standing out-of-place in the crowded dance floor while humans and supernaturals alike writhed up against one another and occasionally against your body, clueless thing that you were, he was mesmerized. He’d have thought it an act of God if he weren’t so far removed from heaven. Indeed, his dead heart raced in his chest, long deceased veins thrumming with pleasure as he drank in your view from afar. If you’d only look up, you might have seen him staring greedily, but alas, a woman on a mission, your focus appeared to be elsewhere.

No trouble at all, Elvis thought to himself, reclining back on the long couch surrounded by his scantily clad thralls. He was patient when he had to be. And for you, he had nothing but time.

To be continued . . .

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