#Saint Mutation

[tmnt-tychou]

Where were you when you found out there was a TMNT anime OVA made in the 90′s? For some of you, it’s right here, right now. For me, it was October in 2005 and I was at Anime Vegas. My friends and I just so happened to have a motel room right next to these adorable turtle fan girls. We had adjoining rooms, so we had a turtles party.

And they were like “Did you know there was a turtles OVA? No? Well sit down and look at this shit.” And now, my friends, I am passing it on to you. Look. At. This. Shit.

[cetaceanhandiwork]

opening a betting pool for how long it will take for someone in the church hierarchy to be officially scolded by their bosses for doing idolatry to these little scamps

[sinceileftyoublog]

Liz Lamere on Alan Vega and Her Solo Career: Whatever Happens, Happens

Liz Lamere; photo by Jasmine Hirst

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Liz Lamere's got a story to tell, and one that won't end any time soon. The former Wall Street lawyer and boxer and current singer-songwriter is also the widow and former creative partner of the late, great Alan Vega, the visual artist and vocalist of landmark proto-punk duo Suicide. Since Vega's death in 2016, Lamere has, in conjunction with Jared Artaud of post-punk act The Vacant Lots, worked to bring to light a wealth of unreleased material from Vega's vault.

After the release of 2017's It, the final album Vega recorded before he died, Lamere and Artaud discovered the material that would constitute the 2021 release Mutator. In 2022, they unearthed the songs that would be released this past May as Insurrection (In The Red). It hasn't been until now, however, where there's been a simultaneous awakening of all things Vega. In addition to Insurrection, Artaud co-curated "Cesspool Saints", an exhibition of Vega's fine art works, which opened two months ago at Laurent Godin's Gallery in Paris. Lamere, meanwhile, co-wrote Vega's biography with Laura Davis-Chanin, entitled Infamous Dreams: The Life of Alan Vega (Backbeat Books). (The foreword? By none other than Bruce Springsteen.) With a rich collection of songs waiting for ears--material that Lamere and Vega recorded and Vega meticulously documented between actually released Vega solo albums throughout the 90s and 2000s--it's become clear that Vega's backlog rivals of those like Prince and Arthur Russell, full of albums that are contextualized by what was recorded before and after them but that stand alone as cohesive statements.

Lamere; photo by Jasmine Hirst

At the same time as everything Vega-related, Lamere has finally found not just the time but the will to release her own solo records, an artistic career that Vega always encouraged but never was able to witness. Her songs are certainly different than Vega's in terms of subject matter and aesthetic, but Lamere credits Vega's approach to music-making--be spontaneous and fearless and realize that nothing is a mistake--for informing her artistic process. She started working on her debut, Keep It Alive, during COVID lockdown, and finished the album in mere weeks. Her follow-up, One Never Knows (In The Red), released last month, took a little bit longer to make, understandably when Lamere was working on Vega's biography and Insurrection all at the same time. Thankfully, Lamere was able to separate the entities, another thing she took from Vega. "It wasn't too difficult to compartmentalize because I wore so many different hats and did so many different things, like Alan," Lamere said over the phone last month. "Alan could be hyper-focused on visual art, and then hyper-focused on music and sound. They might be different sides of the same coin, but whatever he was focused on, he was so in the moment and heavily focused on that creation."

To really understand Vega's perspective on art and life, you have to go far back into the oft-ignored details that inspired Lamere to start writing his biography. Vega was, infamously, 10 years older than everyone thought; various articles incorrectly referred to 1948 as his birth year rather than 1938, confirmed when the 70th birthday release of his recordings was announced in 2008. The parents of the man born Alan Bermowitz were Jewish immigrants. His first wife, Mariette Bermowitz (née Birencwajg), is a Holocaust survivor from Belgium; they met attending Brooklyn College. Lamere credits such a close familial proximity to persecution as a reason for the trauma Vega felt, and also why he chose to not use his birth name as his stage name. But such closeness was also why Vega chose to sing about difficult topics in his music. "Alan was always hypersensitive to any type of oppression or challenging situations," Lamere said. "He had tremendous empathy. He wasn't doom and gloom but more readily shining a light." Out of college, Vega worked for the Welfare Department, eventually quitting because he felt the menial work he was tasked with doing didn't allow him to make a true difference in the lives of the poor. But the experience helped him understand how to secure funding when working with the Art Workers' Coalition, and from the New York State Council on the Arts to help found 24-hour artist-run multimedia gallery MUSEUM: A Project of Living Artists.

Alan Vega; photo by Walter Robinson

Vega possessed the ability to apply what he learned from one effort to another, and his mind was well-rounded. He actually enrolled in Brooklyn College not for art, but for astrophysics, having received a scholarship as a result of his building his own telescope(!) But one day, the head of the Art Department witnessed Vega sketching portrait drawings in the cafeteria and immediately recognized Vega's artistic brilliance and convinced him to study art. (Vega's portrait drawings appear in the video for Lamere's "King City Ghost".) Vega ended up studying with legendary artists like Kurt Seligmann and Ad Reinhardt. When substitute teaching a class for Reinhardt during his senior year, Vega assigned students a self-portrait to be turned in the next class, but instead of collecting them, he told the students to rip them up. "When he was telling me the story," said Lamere, "He said, 'You should have seen the look on these kids' faces!'" But Vega viewed art as, in the words of Lamere, "coming from a pure place of expression," not of preciousness, and one worthy of consuming your life. Vega met Martin Rev and formed Suicide in 1970, garnering notice for their wild live shows throughout the New York punk scene. After they released their self-titled debut in 1977, they toured with The Clash, an infamous time during which the crowd, unable to understand the Suicide's artistic vision, would throw switchblades at the band. "Alan was willing to be...out there front and center and put his life on the line, literally," Lamere said. "He believed so strongly that what [Suicide was] doing was breaking new ground and important in its own right."

Vega had been releasing solo albums for a decade before Lamere came in the picture; he met her while making 1990's Deuce Avenue, the record that returned to the beloved electronic minimalism of Suicide. Though the actual release of solo albums was sporadic, he and Lamere never stopped making music. "When we were in the studio together all those years, I was very much the type of person thinking about releasing albums, whereas Alan wasn't structured in that way," Lamere said. "His thought was, 'We're going into the studio to create sound, and whatever happens, happens...' Part of his process was he would just keep moving forward. Unless I said, 'Hit stop,' so we could put out an album of what we'd been working on right at [that] moment in time, he would keep evolving and moving forward on new material." Vega constantly wrote poetry in his notebooks, often using what he wrote for ad-libbed song lyrics; Lamere was actively involved in mixing their recordings. At the same time, Vega was a staunch documenter. He would burn a CD of what he and Lamere had worked on in the studio and note down changes he thought they needed to make to each song. Even the titles of the songs from Mutator and Insurrection came from his notebooks.

Insurrection artwork design by Michael Handis

The extent to which, upon being done with a song or an album, Vega moved on, proved to be extreme, and would have ripple effects on Lamere's solo career. The two, along with French director Marc Hurtado, would tour Europe after recording a solo album and perform the unreleased songs they'd recorded. ("The Europeans have heard a lot of this stuff before," joked Lamere about Mutator and Insurrection.) For the songs that had been released, Vega would rely on Lamere to feed him lines so that he could give the audience at least something recognizable. "I would be chanting little phrases, he would hear that, and he would riff on it, and the audience would be happy even though the lyrics [were] mostly completely different," Lamere said. "I learned to 'sing' because Alan never wanted to rehearse anything...I kind of learned a little bit how to project my voice." Meanwhile, upon hearing it for the first time, Vega didn't even remember "Nike Soldier", a track long-time engineer Perkin Barnes had digitized and Lamere chose for a split single with The Vacant Lots in 2014. Lamere's the opposite. "When we first started mixing [Insurrection], I could literally remember and envision the days in the studio I was laying down [those riffs]." But the ultimate story comes from when Springsteen, touring Devils & Dust, invited Vega to one of his shows, as he had been covering Suicide classic "Dream Baby Dream" during the encore. "[Vega] literally was sitting with Jesse [Malin], they're waiting for the show to start, and on the PA comes the song 'Dujang Prang' that he and I had done in 1995," Lamere said. "Alan turns to Jesse and says, 'This is really good, do you know who this is?' Jesse said, 'Alan, that's your song.' That's classic Alan: been there, done that, don't wanna hear it."

It was during the release of The Vacant Lots split single where Vega gave Artaud and Lamere his blessing to unearth songs from the vault. The single happened when Artaud reached out to Vega, sharing The Vacant Lots' cover of Vega's "No More Christmas Blues". The two men became fast friends, as Artaud, living in Brooklyn Heights a subway stop away from Vega and Lamere in Lower Manhattan, often visited. "Jared would come over here and sit and talk to Alan for hours about everything," Lamere said. "He had listened to every piece of music that Alan had pretty much ever done. He understood Alan's philosophy of creation and the minimalism and the existential philosophers that Alan had studied." As for Lamere, Vega knew that her approach to producing his music was intuitive. "After Alan heard 'Nike Soldier', I said, 'Alan, you have no idea how much material is in the computer in the studio of what we've done over the years,'" Lamere said. "He said, 'I know. Once I'm gone, you should feel free to put it out because I trust your judgement. You've worked with me for so long, you're my co-producer.' I could go in and make these tracks sound completely different. But I make what Alan would want. He's still so present with us because he had such a strong influence on us. It's part of our DNA. That's the reality."

Lamere; photo by Jasmine Hirst

Insurrection was recorded in the late 90s, and you can hear its influence on the material that would make up 1999's 2007. The album is a snapshot of an era for Vega, New York City, and the world at large. Dante, Vega and Lamere's child, was about to be born, so Vega's mind was occupied with the post-Gulf War, pre-9/11 state of a city and country rife with racism and capitalistic rot. (The mention of 9/11 is not teleological; Vega literally had premonitions of a terror attack in New York City.) Songs like "Sewer" and "Invasion" sport thumping, propulsive beats and clattering, machine-like percussion, the most messed-up club songs you've ever heard, Vega chanting like a street urchin. The presciently titled "Murder One" and "Genocide" are circular, droning, and forward-lurching. The instrumentation is perfect for Vega's mantras and pleas to "Make a new reality!' Lamere's One Never Knows, though a personal album whose singles' videos feature Lamere sort of half-boxing, half-dancing, a callback to her earlier career, echoes Vega's idealistic spirit. "Don't destroy the dream tonight," she sings on the dystopian "If Only", an almost 50-year-later spiritual sibling to Suicide's best known song.

One Never Knows, like Keep It Alive, was engineered by Dante at their Dujang Prang home studio, where Alan held his sculptures. Before the pandemic, Dante had been working with hip-hop artists, but as they weren't coming in during lockdown, Lamere asked him to help her with her solo debut. Dante sang in The Choir of Trinity Wall Street for 10 years and purportedly has perfect pitch, whereas Lamere is not formally trained. "He wants to help other people with their vision," Lamere said of her son. "I do say to him once in a while, because I run a lot of sounds through the keyboard, 'What key is this?'...He knows I like dissonance, so he says, 'If you like it, it works.'" Lamere's taking a key from Vega and not wanting to get technical any time soon. "I'm sure Miles Davis had his pick of brilliant musicians to work with, but Alan used to say, 'Miles Davis liked working with people who weren't necessarily formally trained.' They didn't say, 'You're not supposed to do that,' or, 'This is what you're supposed to do here, this chord progression.' No! It's none of that. There are no rules," Lamere said.

Lamere; photo by Jasmine Hirst

Lamere's planning on taking the same approach to her recording as playing live, but with a little bit of her boxing knowledge thrown in. "When I was performing with Alan, I was always playing effects machines in the background. It's a whole different animal carrying the show front and center," she said. "For me, it's like getting in the ring sparring. You have to be hyper-focused. The adrenaline kicks in. It's a great feeling...It scares the shit out of me ahead of time. In the moment, I absolutely love it. Alan was the same way. He wouldn't even be thinking about getting on stage, but as soon as he did, he kind of embraced it."

As always, her musical endeavors will constitute at least some work with the Vega vault. For one, according to Lamere, there are about 4 or 5 albums worth of material from the 8 years between the release of 2007 and Station alone, from when they were first raising Dante, as well as even more from after Station, despite Vega suffering a stroke in 2012. "I love the opportunity for people to hear what I'm doing and discover what Alan did and is continuing to do," Lamere said. "I love the fact that he's still influencing people from beyond."

One Never Knows artwork: Jasmine Hirst

[bluewithpurplepolkadots]

Honestly the writing surrounding April wasn’t great in 2012 (okay it was at times a goddamn mess and they had too much going on there, streamline things people) but I don’t trust people who really (obsessively even), seem to hate her and yet apparently love and adore that shows versions of Donatello and Casey.

Please.

[historicalshroe]

In request of @deathzgf this is how their baby would look like

I did this thing where I combined a bunch of portraits of Robespierre and Saint-just (separately of course)

[thecatfortress]

Plague Saint

[emperorundying]

TLT Dash Simulator pt 3

🪦 crossedrhodes Follow

just found out my gf died 7 months ago and ive been being catfished by some necromancer using her beguiling corpse i hope the devils get me

💊 heptanary-secretary Follow

omg imagine the meetcute tho... op talk to the necro

🐮 hucowjimin Follow

OP has powerful necro baddies in his area and is abt to fumble due to the grief

( 577 notes )

🦴 femur-i-hardly-know-er Follow

( 18,012 notes )

🗝️ darkjackgaius Follow

my horny ass could never be a flesh magician

🗝️ darkjackgaius Follow

easy website.

( 41,902 notes )

💣 fuckable-fascists-bracket Follow

📜 sarpedonefang1rl Follow

and whos fucking surprised. of course the recency bias strikes again

⚜️ awes-ashtray

Some1 is angry their old man bias is unfuckable 💀💀💀 Argue with the wall.

#a vote for awe is a vote against coquetteposters #the fact that therez an entire fandom for the weirdo oldhead fascies is soooo craz to me ngl. #we r voting on most fuckable here. that is da blogs point. #your blorbo is geriatric his dick dont work :(

( 6,192 notes )

🐱 cohortcatgirl Follow

I’ve seen a lot of bad information circulating about what happens when the cohort converts a thalergenic planet to a thanergy planet so I wanted to clear up some misconceptions ^u^

Converting a planet does NOT make it unable to sustain life. If thanergenic planets couldn't sustain life, no1 would be able to live on the nine houses!!!

The wildlife does NOT get mutated. How would that even work? I stj people they don't hurt the wildlife, they only affect the planets! The 'varmints have best friends' campaign is honestly just in bad faith :((

Devils are NOT real and if they were you should really stop posting about their tongues [weird!] U guys really cannot tell what is and isn't fearmongering these days and itz kind of concerning ngl

Keep reading

💀 towerofficial ☑️

worth a read :)

🐱 cohortcatgirl Follow

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

#HAIII MR UNDYING :3

(9,114 notes )

⛓️ siphonslut

being held down by my bone magician's constructs is something spiritual fr. skeledoms there is a special place for you in the emperor's eyes 😩😩😩

#nsft #c4n #cav4necro #osseoromantic

( 241 notes )

👤 is-the-emperor-undying-dead-yet-deactivated-2917483

nope.

💀 towerofficial ☑️

It's in the name how are you guys not getting this by now

👤 is-the-emperor-undying-dead-yet-deactivated-2917483

💀 towerofficial ☑️

mods can we ban this guy

( 12,187 notes )

[pissvortex]

Shadow of the Erdtree spoilers

Marika’s home village of shamans was believed to be capable of divinity. The hornsent believed it was their lot in life to be branded and melded together in pots, fermenting into a saint. This didn’t work, obviously. But Marika made a pact with an outer god whose intentions she did not understand nor care to: the greater will. Ascending to divinity, she erected a golden kingdom with the germination of a gigantic, alien fauna (the erdtree). She appropriated the brand her oppressors carved into her as the symbol of her kingdom. She sent her son Messmer the Impaler to enact a crusade against the hornsent, who had against their better judgement finally created a saint. Messmer massacred the hornsent and excised the scadutree and its people, an entire portion of the continent, from Marika’s kingdom (Lands Between map and Lands Between map with the Shadow Realm map overlaid):

After enacting her perfect, holy order, Marika’s progeny become mutated by the crucible of nature she has denied with the alien Greater Will. Eventually, her children are born with horns.

The player character exists in a world stunted by the legacy of Marika’s decision. Like a smaller plant being strangled under the canopy of a larger, invasive tree, your dying world literally exists in the Shadow of the Erdtree.

[twilightkitkat]

Hear me out.

Poolverine Time Travel story where Wade goes wayyy back in time to when he was a teenager. Except the timeline is different from his because... what do you mean The Avengers have just formed and shit is being set in motion already? What do you mean villains are appearing way earlier than they used to? This timeline can't be his own what the fuck how did he get here.

So he ends up taking an almost Spiderman-like role in becoming a vigilante that sometimes accompanies the Avengers but they don't know his identity. He manages to activate his mutation before getting thrown into the Weapon X program so he has his healing factor minus the cancer. It's... a weird sensation.

It becomes even weirder when he realizes the timeline is even more shifted and he's Peter's age, who apparently isn't the Tom Holland version because he shouldn't be this old yet? He should turn 14 a while after the Avengers form? What the fuck. They become sort of friends, except for the fact that they fight because Wade's a dick and Peter's a saint. Let's just say they handle Flash very differently (which ironically ends up causing Flash to respect and even befriend Wade).

Anyway, Wade gets closer to everyone around him and becomes an unofficial Avenger but never really feels at home. How could he, when people only know one half of his identity? When he has none of the people he loves in this world?

He isn't sitting idly, though. He's preparing. And as soon as he turns 18, he leaves. He joins the Weapon X Program, with the hope of ending Stryker long before his end in the original timeline. And with the hope of meeting Logan, who he misses more than pretty much anything.

But when he meets Logan, it's like looking into a mirror. The second their eyes meet, they recognize each other. Logan remembers.

He comes back four years later with Logan at his side and the corpse of Stryker behind him. And he finds everything in disarray. Apparently, the Avengers had been looking for him to no avail and Peter had stepped up in his place as a vigilante (a little more brutal than he should've been, actually). Everyone panicked when he left and thought he died or disappeared, and mourned the loss of their dear friend and teammate.

Until he miraculously just... shows up. With a feral, growling, Logan at his side who threatens everything with his claws.

It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

I heard a raw line from Guilllermo Del Toro the other day about monsters being the perfect way to express human failure:

“…monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing.”

And i was wondering your take on this quote in relation to things like vampire and werewolf and other semi-monster subtexts. “Monstrous” humans that are ironically allowed to act more human more often than… humans. I just find the attempt to make an outlet for imperfection while still at large criticizing it fascinating.

I mean, yeah, there's a long history of interpreting monsters through queer, anti-colonial, feminist and other Outsider lenses for exactly those reasons. The monster is the Other who is vilified by the in-group, which represents all that the in-group hates. The monster must, by its nature, fail to live up to the standards and expectations of the in-group, which is why it must be destroyed. But that also means the monster is free from the standards and expectations of the in-group, including oppressive and bigoted ones.

So, as an example, if you're queer, and rhetorically treated as inhuman and monstrous and diseased anyway, or eugenically classified as a deviant mutation or sub-derivation of "real" people, there is real appeal and a real sense of resistance in claiming monsterhood, in embracing it and glorying in it.

In part, that's what the rallying cry "we're here, we're queer, get used to it!" meant and still means. It is a reclaiming of monsterhood as a source of strength and community and pride, rather than shame. Slurs are used to Other queer people, to set them apart from "real" people and mark them out as a monstrous deviation from the virtuous norm - slurs are used to call us monsters. And thus a lot of queer people find a lot of power and freedom in reclaiming them, in turning their Othering into a flag to rally around.

And I think that's still a big part of the appeal of the monster, honestly, that freedom from being what someone else thinks you ought to be.

If you're a monster, you don't have to have the perfect body, you don't have to suppress your lust or your love. You don't have to shave your body hair or dress correctly for your assigned gender, or have a white picket fence house with a spouse and 2.3 children. You don't have to sit primly at the dinner table, you don't have to repress your emotions, you don't have to hate the foreigner or despise the gays or fear the trans agenda. You don't have to have a small, straight nose or perfect cheekbones, you don't have to wait to fuck until you're married, or pretend you want to fuck at all. You don't have to want to get rich or be a CEO, you don't have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps or be on your grindset, or cheer when the cops clear out a homeless camp.

To be a monster is to be free from the inhumanity that is forced on us by white supremacy, by fatphobia, by heteronormativity, by imperialism, and by the interests of capital. To be a monster is to be human in all the ways that are inconvenient to oppression.

... but I went off on a tangent there a little bit - vampires and werewolves, right. I have no theoretical or academic basis for any of this, so this is entirely a personal hot take, but I think vampires are perhaps a bit more about "passing" as a fantasy. Not necessarily in a gender sense, but the ability to keep your true nature undetected by the "normal" folk, while the secret things that make you different also make you dangerous and powerful. Surviving by stealing sustenance from a world that hates you, on terms that are entirely yours to dictate. "I will survive even if it kills you," that kind of vibe.

Werewolves, on the other hand, feel more like a defiant, angry embrace of the monstrous. Transforming into something vast and powerful and furious, growing out of your skin, out of your form, out of your boundaries; howling your nature to the moon and mauling any motherfucker who has a problem with it. Giving in to all the beastly unnatural urges, and diving into the horrible monstrous wants and desires that boil inside you (which, remember, include things like Not Wanting To Fuck or Wanting To Hold A Girl's Hand In A Lesbian Sort Of Way). Less the "I outfoxed your social game and drank you dry" slick vampire power fantasy and more the "call me a slur one more time and I'm going to wear your entrails like a fucking scarf" power fantasy.

Again, that's just personal hot takes, everyone's understanding of the monstrous in relation to themselves is different. I've seen a number of genderfluid and nb people use monstrousness as a way to defy occupying a shape that can be gendered for example.

[whatever-imagines]

“Princess POV Change”

Princess through Logan’s point of view.

Tags: Logan’s basically a U-Haul lesbian and they aren’t even dating. Weird possessiveness. I dunno you let me know.

—-

Logan was a simple woman, she likes to think. She likes solitude, good booze, and pretty women. Not gorgeous, not beautiful; pretty.

She seemed to forget, as she is reminded now, that pretty women make things not so simple sometimes.

You, for example, were causing a whirlwind of emotions.

Xavier hires only super models apparently, you being no exception in Logan’s opinion. You were shorter than her impressive stature, soft in all the right places, face warm and round and you were cute, you were pretty.

And you were avoiding Logan like the plague.

It was probably because she was so rude to you on her first day at the mansion; shouldering past you with a growl of some vague threat as you stood there, just trying to hand in paperwork. The image of you, wide eyed and star stuck, mouth slightly agape, was burnt into the memory of Logan’s mind. You were so painfully pretty; Logan wished she had the forethought to flirt with you rather than try to scare you.

The second time she ran into you, you ran into her. She smelled you and your meek perfume in plenty of time to know you were heading her way; in a rush of some kind with an armful of papers and file folders and a determined look on your face (until you literally ran face first into her chest).

Logan was a sturdy woman, metal skeleton and all, years of taking hits. Your flighty frame didn’t stand a chance and you bounced off her and dropped all your papers.

And she fucked up again.

“Jesus, watch it, squirt!”

“I’m so sorry!” You say it so breathy it almost chokes Logan up. The sound of your voice sounding so vulnerable…

You scatter to collect the paper, and Logan couldn’t help but gravitate towards your hunched over figure. She could practically taste the anxiety wafting off of you. Hear your heart beat faster, smell the sweat gathering at your temple. It was almost as intoxicating and tempting as a good cigar.

“I’ve seen you around…” Logan settles on saying. “You’re Scott’s secretary.”

Logan neglects to mention how insanely jealous of the time you spend with Scott. Hell, she’s been hitting on his girl just to piss him off because of you. The scent of you and Scott mingle too casually for Logan to be comfortable.

Maybe it was mean to call you a secretary. Logan sees all the menial work you do, all the effort you put in to make up for your weak mutation.

Logan sees your eyebrow twitches. “I’m the team’s assistant. I just-“ you gesture to the papers around you. “I handle the boring stuff. Help out when I’m needed. Heal scraped knees and alike.” You state as you rise from the ground.

You’re still unsteady, and in a moment of concern breaking through the laissez-faire attitude, Logan reaches out and steadies you with a warm and heavy hand.

You stiffen instantly, and Logan almost scowls. Were you really so uncomfortable around her?

“Um, Scott really needs these, I should go or else he’ll become more annoying than normal, so-“ you gently shoulder yourself away from Logan’s hand and you scurry down the hall, leaving the fighter behind.

You didn’t see Logan scowl, or how her fingers curl into fists at the mention of Scott. Her lip twitches into a scowl involuntarily.

—-

Logan watches you more after. Your meek behavior, your steadfast loyalty to the school, and your closeness to some extremely powerful mutants intrigues her. It annoyed Logan to an extent, what a goody two shoes you were, how you seem to never be beaten down by what goes on around you.

It also drives her crazy. You were kind to everyone, polite. When Jean clearly irked you, your smile never wavered. Whenever the professor spoke over you you’d snap your mouth close and let him finish. Would you have the same kind of patience for Logan? Would that saint-like mindset extend to her? Her and all her fucked up rage issues? God, if only.

Ororo exits your room, smelling like your perfume and she’s all giddy and it makes Logan’s stomach turn something ugly. And she sees you leave from the window. When you get back to the mansion, for once, your endless gentle optimism seemed to be gone. You looked defeated, tiredly fishing a soda can from the communal fridge where Logan silently followed you.

“You look nice.” Logan says lowly, steadily.

“Oh!” You slam the fridge door shut and quickly snap to attention, turning to face Logan; surprise coloring your face so prettily, she almost missed you thanking her for the compliment.

The Wolverine side of Logan can smell another person on you, cigarette smoke and red wine on your clothes. “Any particular reason for the get up?” It’s a trap, and Logan only feels slightly bad for putting you on the spot. Just slightly, because right now she needed to confirm some suspicions and get some answers. And Logan typically gets what she wants.

You swallow, nervous. “I had a date.” You state firmly yet casually, like you were reiterating the sky was blue.

A low deep hum emits from Logan’s throat, too low for you to probably hear. “Oh? Have fun with him.” The bite in her voice was withheld so firmly there was hardly any, she sounded almost civil. Hopefully.

Your chin juts out, defiant, annoyed. “She was quite boring, actually.”

There was fuzz in Logan’s head after that. Relief of sorts filled her. Still jealous, but relived. You liked woman; she could work with that. Hopefully you liked women like her.

“… don’t like the studious type?” She says after there was a pause for her to respond.

You seem to ponder for a moment before answering. “I like reliable but not dull, if that makes sense.”

It does. Someone to excite you everyday you come home. Logan can do that. Probably. If she doesn’t scare you off, that is.

Words tumble out before the fighter could even process what she wants to convey. “You don’t look at me a lot.” Her sentence was quick and only added tension to the air. “Everyone stares… except you.” Her hand was on your shoulder again, and Logan has to restrain herself from squeezing to get her point across. You don’t look like you could handle a squeeze.

“… it’s rude to stare.” You say after a moment.

You’re… funny. Logan couldn’t help but snort a laugh. “Smart-ass.” She hisses with laughter, before leaving. Logan needs to come up with a plan, now that you gotten her interest so viscerally.

—-

The party exchange shifted something in Logan, now you had a kinship. You both were experiments at some point. When Logan gets her flashes from before 15 years ago, all she feels is fear and pain and weakness. You were already so frail compared to her, how could you have survived anything even similar to what Logan had gone through?

It made Logan want to protect you, especially after your rant. You want a peaceful life, so did Logan. Jean once said you flirt with danger and married safely, Logan could be safe. She could keep you safe, if she tried hard enough.

She keeps you close now. Logan hangs about you to keep a watch on you. Logan curbs Scott’s ego when needed and watches out for you, always quick to greet you with a careful fondness so you feel not threatened by her. She’s putting in the work.

So imagine Logan’s surprise when she hears Ororor whispering to Jean about you trying to date again.

Logan couldn’t have that.

When she sees you next, you’re rushing somewhere again, but Logan stops you. She stops you dead in your tracks, making you look up to her.

She love that you’re shorter than her.

“Let me buy you a drink.”

Logan’s seldom been a nervous person. Worst thing you can do is reject her and she’ll just pine over you for moons to come.

You look flabbergasted. It’s cute. “I’m sorry?”

“Let. Me. Buy. You. A. Drink.” She enunciates, leaving no room for misinterpretation.

You breathe in shock, but not displeasure. “Why?”

Bold as always, Logan lets a rough hand come up and grazes your face.

“I like your face.” She explains, smiling wolfishly. “Let me buy you a drink.”

Your eyes are glossy looking up, face still written with surprise, but when you speak you say, “Okay,” in such a cute shy way, Logan almost kisses you then and there.

She leans closer, relieved, “Thanks, princess.”

[zedecksiew]

Monument vs Shrine

In "Replica, Aura, and Late Nationalist Imaginings", the political scientist Benedict Anderson (most famous for his Southeast Asia scholarship and that definitive critique of nationalism, Imagined Communities) muses on the Lincoln memorial:

Within a temple explicitly mimicking "the religious edifices of a safely pagan Greece";

Mazda Corp floodlights designed "to ward off unnatural, indifferent sunlight";

The abstract enshrinements of "Lincoln's memory" in the "hearts of the people", while neither Lincoln's actual remains or any rites for people to perform are present;

The sense that ultimately the most reverential thing to do there is to take photographs.

+

The Lincoln Memorial; the Jefferson memorial next to it; both figures repeated again on Mt Rushmore; both figures repeated ad nauseum on dollar bills.

These monuments are designed to proliferate. Not only must they create a sober, stately experience for the visitor---but they must also do so consistently, because they are built for visitors: the mass audience of the national population.

Otherwise they must be physically replicable: a memorial to a particular national hero, erected in every city.

The very format of monument-building get copied:

Post-colonial countries, in need of new myths, choose to manufacture national cenotaphs of their own, in imitation of Western models.

Malaysia has Putrajaya, a federal capital sprung ex nihilo from palm-oil agricultural land, its buildings all arches and onion domes and imitation arc de triomphes in inhuman scale, its avenues broad and utterly unwalkable in the tropical heat.

+

At such monuments the citizen is cast as tourist.

Of this state-sanctioned object of devotion you are encouraged to take photographs, sell merchandise---ie: continue the process of replication. With every copy nationalism is reified.

God forbid you tweak the official monument with your own meanings, though! While writing this post, I found the following story, from December 2023:

"Lincoln Memorial temporarily closed after being vandalized with 'Free Gaza' graffiti"

+

Anderson's essay cites instances where the personal and irreproducible sneak back into, or leak out from, or vandalise, national monuments:

"Early in the 1910s,"---in Manila's Cementerio del Norte, a municipal cemetery planned by an American urban designer---"a small pantheon was constructed for the interment of Filipino national heroes."

This monument was to emulate the Pantheon in Paris, where "great Frenchmen" of the national canon are memorialised.

But the Filipino version failed.

"Today, hardly anyone in the Philippines is aware of this dilapidated pantheon's existence ... What has happened is that the Filipino Voltaire and Rousseau have managed to escape, summoning devoted, often familial bodysnatchers, to convey them to home-town shrines."

+

Not that the municipal cemetery itself is deserted. Custodians and their families live in the very mausoleums they care for.

Further, Anderson describes All Saints' Eve in the Cementerio del Norte, when thousands pour into its precincts.

But these multitudes adjourn to their own myriad family graves and small ancestral shrines: spending the day with immediate loved ones, "drinking, praying, gambling, making offerings ..."

Most of the Philippines' presidents have mausoleums in Norte, "but no one pays attention to them ... and only their separate descendants come to attend them."

"There is something exhilarating here that one rarely sees in national celebrations, maybe because the structure of the ceremonial is not serial, but entirely cellular."

+

Hometowns re-exerting themselves within the nation; ordinary people scrawling meaning onto the edifices of the uppercase-P People. A multitude of the singular, instead of a single mass.

Despite nationalism's efforts to centralise and clone a national identity, still we mutate, still we bootleg, still we graffiti, becoming once again ourselves.

And---particular to post-colonial societies---in doing so we casually continue the work of liberation, sneaking the idea of freedom away from our own architects and elites and prime ministers, who would seek to seize its meaning for their own purposes.

The churches or mosques or temples to demos that the federal government builds are ours to transform. To take from. To ignore.

"No need. We've got our own shrines at home."

+

National heroes become local saints and slip out of national control.

Does the Filipino government really control the various Rizalista sects? Karpal Singh is now a datuk kong, without his political dynasty's consent.

Across Melaka and Negeri Sembilan there once existed shrines dedicated to Hang Tuah, Malay folk hero, now a powerful figurehead of Malay-Muslim ethno-nationalism.

One such shrine existed at Tanjung Tuan:

With a plain altar---more a porch, really---of poured cement, for folk to leave food offerings;

Sunlight mottled from the surrounding forest, and fluorescent lights from a nearby gazebo;

A large rock, with an indent on its crown, said to be Hang Tuah's actual footprint;

The idea that this was a sacred space, where you could come to ask the spirits of the place for love or children.

The shrine that existed was sited in a forest reserve. It was swept clean of leaves by locals; its adherents belonged to all faiths and ethnicities; following the transactional logic of folk religion, those who had received its blessing would've paid for its maintenance.

+

"Existed".

Because the Religious Department of the State of Melaka destroyed the Hang Tuah shrine sometime in 2022, for the crime of idolatry.

A double heresy. An affront to both orthodox Sunni Islam---

But also to the Malaysian state, that sanctions Sunni Islam as its official religion; whose nationalism requires its mythic hero to have only the attributes and magics the state ulama and historians say he must have---and no others.

Local shrines are destroyed, because the nation-state intuits them to be threats to its exclusive franchise.

+

Image sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_five-dollar_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putrajaya https://www.facebook.com/PilipinasRetrostalgia https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/984521.shtml https://www.facebook.com/PerakPress https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malays_(ethnic_group)

[voldkat]

RAIN WORLD : ROLESWAP !!

i wanted to explore an au where pebbles is swapped with sig , instead of the usual pebbles-moon swap :3 i hope you enjoy this au i accidentally created because i listened to laplace's angel for too long and was plagued by visions during the tender hours of 10 to 11 pm

the main focus of this au !! yeay !! sig accidentally kills suns out of desperation to reach A Goal ( i don't know what it is yet ) and pebbles attempts to save them by sending a care package . sig is much younger here and his personality reflects that , being bitter and stubborn and a sarcastic little shit , though he ends up calming down and resembling his canon self a little more as his can slowly rots . he was built as a sort of backup iterator in case suns' cooling systems were to fail entirely . pebbles is calmer and more level-headed , showing the same warmth and kindness he did during his canon rivulet campaign state , but ends up snapping from stress anyways and isolating himself permanently .

moon becomes an outsider to the local group , yet retains a close friendship with pebbles and being a mentor figure to sig . she sends sig illegal information during his time of need and quickly regrets it . suns becomes the group senior , built in a naturally cold environment to combat their subpar cooling tech . sig's excessive heat output threw the nearby climate into chaos and caused suns to collapse from overheating .

this one's a bit of a weird one !! hunter is now the cancerous growth slowly killing sig from the inside , his very own version of rot . it looks the same as pebbles' rot in canon , but with pinkish accents instead of dark blue accents . pebbles' rot is now a carnivorous slugcat messenger named the outlaw (?) , created by pebbles to send aid to suns . their creation process was rushed which led to them developing a terrible illness , locking them into an unfortunate demise .

spearmaster is now a random wild slugcat , weirdly mutated by natural means somehow . they stumble into sig's decaying can and retrieve his last rarefaction cell to give to suns , later becoming suns' companion . rivulet is now a genetically engineered messenger made by moon to be swift and nimble , their gills and swimming expertise letting them traverse moon's watery surroundings with great ease . they were used once to deliver the illegal information to sig , and once again to send an apology to him , which he angrily denied .

the green pup ( yet to be named ) gets separated from their family because of a scavenger-related incident . the blue pup , now named the scholar , bravely sets off in search of them . the two are related to artificer as colonymates . survivor and monk both perish from a terrible storm , getting carried away by the rain and doomed to drown . the two are related to gourmand directly .

artificer is now the leader of the slugtree colony , depicted in legends as a fierce brave warrior capable of taking on any challenge . their journey involves searching for a pair of lost pups , dodging hits from suspicious scavengers along the way . gourmand is now the unfortunate parent of survivor and monk , losing two of their pups to the unforgiving rain . they run down the path of greed and bind themselves to gluttony , endlessly searching for power so they can never lose anything again .

AUGHHHH !!!!!

i haven't thought of what to do with saint , sliver , wind , or innocence yet !!! i might swap wind and innocence if i don't see any better options . and if i feel silly enough i might swap saint with sliver

idk if i wanna add nightcat and enot into this au , but if i do they'll probably get swapped with each other too unless i run into any cooler alternatives

gourmand's story is a little bit scuffed BHJDSHF i'm sticking with them getting locked at karma 4 like arti's canon karma lock but i don't have much that builds off of it right now . oopsie

their ages / spots in the timeline have been swapped around too ! pebbles and moon are now both gen 2 , while suns and sig are gens 1 and 3 respectively . the slugcats follow the timeline of whoever they're swapped with ( rivulet is the first campaign , gourmand goes right after , then the outlaw (?) , etc )

i WILL be tweaking the designs for these guys ( especially the iterators since i have specific generation-based design conventions for them and All Of Them would be breaking those conventions if i let them keep their usual designs ) but i am Not That Good at spontaneous character design so i will be doing that !! later !!!

if you guys wanna send asks about this au or talk to me about it then go ahead bc it's been rotating in my head like crazy pleasepleaselpaseplepalseplaseple /silly

[despazito]

The Nenetskaya Laika or Nenets herding laika is a landrace reindeer herder from northern Russia kept by several indigenous peoples. In the 1890s the Norwegian Fram expedition to the antarctic purchased 33 nenets dogs for their journey, and the white surviving dogs became the foundation stock for the modern Samoyed breed.

Many dog breeds have a breed mythos that is varying degrees of truths and some almost completely fictitious to explain where the breed came from, what it does, and why they look the way they do. I think it flatters some people’s egos to imagine they own a piece of history. For instance I think the Shih Tzu or Pekingese becomes more appealing once you explain that they were bred by imperial royalty. Particularly egregious examples are the myths like bloodhounds and bassets having long dragging ears to "pick up" a scent, or that excessive 20th century wrinkling on the bulldog was somehow useful in bull baiting.

The Samoyed story is mostly true, the Nenets and Samoyed people do rely on these dogs for herding and companionship, but if you're imagining the large plush white dogs you see in the suburbs you're being a bit misled. This disconnect wouldn't matter if it weren't for the breeders espousing the breed myth as sacred text to justify purity above all else for breed preservation. But the dogs they are preserving are so often completely different from the dogs written about in the origin stories! It's the Nenets people of the 21st century who are more closely preserving the true spirit and image of the historic Samoyed dog.

So many breeds in their current state were invented by the kennel clubs then retroactively labeled as unchanged for hundreds of years. The Saint Bernard as we know it now is another good example of a kennel club fabrication.

After a century of pedigree breeding with a small founder population the Samoyed has an inbreeding coefficient nearing 30% (Dreger et al 2016) despite the UK KC listing 8.5% (because they measure COI by reading registered pedigree ancestry instead of genetic testing). 12% of tested dogs were heterozygous for the mutation linked to enamel hypoplasia. They're still pretty healthy dogs, but again it could be better.

Similar dogs from the same family and region get repeatedly subdivided up into separate, smaller groups who are then banned from mixing outside their small gene pool. Compound it with bottlenecks, overrepresented sires, and the sterilization of most offspring, and you're left with a gradual loss of diversity and an accumulation of deleterious mutations. This is why even purebred dogs who don't have exaggerated physical deformities still have higher rates of many hereditary disorders.

Selective breeding can be very useful and you can selectively breed for healthier dogs, but the overwhelming majority of dog breeders put more weight on either breeding for looks or obeying artificial parameters set on gene pools than breeding for welfare and long-term breed health.

  -The Invention of the Modern Dog: Breed and Blood in Victorian Britain

[lucettapanchetta]

Scavengers are like people, full of diversity! Allow me to show you the biological differences between all six of them!

Outskirts / Pipeyard / Farm Arrays Scavengers:

The most common scavenger archetype.

Fur ranges from pale tones to various browns.

Eyes are typically dark and subdued.

Primarily diurnal.

Omnivorous with relatively small mouths.

Lankier and less fluffy compared to other scavenger types.

Sky Islands / Industrial Complex / Chimney Canopy Scavengers:

The second most common archetype.

Possess canine-like lower faces, with coarse ridges on their tusks.

Primarily carnivorous.

Eye colors tend to be dark or desaturated.

Garbage Wastes / Waterfront Facility Scavengers:

A highly nomadic and adaptable group, incorporating other archetypes.

Due to low genetic diversity, they have interbred extensively.

Insectivorous, with mouth mutations suited to their diet.

Possess sensory lip whiskers to detect prey and navigate their environment.

Some dye their fur using weaker pigments, possibly mimicking their acropolitan relatives.

Fur is often mangy or unkempt.

Extremely thin and agile in build.

Acropolis / Undergrowth / Looks to the Moon Scavengers:

Hand-signing evolved substantially due to advancements in scavenger hierarchies.

Most commonly seen with non-functioning tails.

Known for being more "advanced" than most scavengers.

Wiped out after a certain event but repopulated during the Saint Campaign.

Dye their fur and faces with vivid, hyper-pigmented colors.

Features are more pronounced, such as antlers, eyes, and fur texture.

Longer fingers adapted for vertical climbing.

The most diverse group of scavengers.

Shaded Citadel / Dormant Construct Scavengers:

Do not do hand-signing like other scavengers do, comfortably relying on patterned stomps and scratches to create a "language".

Characterized by large, hyperpigmented eyes that tend to glow in darkness.

Small antlers and a slim, hunched figure, enabling them to squeeze into tight spaces.

Many have sensory whiskers, with some becoming blind through evolutionary adaptation.

Their fur is chaotic and untamed.

Somewhat stationary, territorial and known to make noises.

A distinct lack of lower jaw shape often causes frequent drooling.

The literal embodiment of a scavenger, feeding on whatever remains they find.

Drainage System / Sunken Pier Scavengers:

An "aquatic" archetype, though they are not proficient swimmers.

Amphibious hands designed for catching prey in water.

Their fur is dense and semi-waterproof.

Streamlined, smaller antlers suited for their environment.

Eyes tend to be smaller, with a range of colors.

Greenish fur, caused by algae buildup, provides a symbiotic advantage.

Typically, stockier and more robust than other scavengers.

[nevadancitizen]

-> O LORD, O LORD (WATCH OVER ME)

synopsis: joshua graham talks an awful lot about god and his blessings, and it leaves you curious as to what prayer is actually like.

word count: 1.8k

characters: joshua graham, courier six! reader

trigger warnings: mormonism, discussions of god + jesus christ

notes: this can be read as platonic or romantic, wasn't sure what direction i wanted this to go in :P also it was really hard to find information on mormonism without touching any mormon-affiliated sites but i rekindled my love for wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit!! everyone say thank you wikipedia <3333

The Lords of post-apocalyptic America are usually the ones with the most money, the most influence, the most soldiers on the ground. There is no bearded man in the sky, no Adam and no Eve, no christenings and no afterlife. When you die, you die, and there’s nothing beyond that. Nothing. Nothing remains. Someone might remember you for a little while after, but not for long. 

And yet, somewhere in the cracks and caves of the canyon of Zion, there is still worship. There is still prayer and reverence and love for God and Jesus Christ and all his children. 

But this is the first time you’ve heard of this mysterious “Jesus Christ” character and the weird way Joshua Graham talks when speaking of him.

He’s usually straightforward and blunt with his (and the Dead Horses’) needs and words, but when the topic of God comes around, he speaks in an almost poetic way – flowery, ornate. You usually only hear that type of talk from someone that’s day-tripping on Mentats, trying to sound smarter than they actually are.

But Joshua is smart. He’s a translator, with knowledge of language pouring over the cusp of his lips. His people are entranced by the inner workings of a professionally-crafted firearm, and he’s no different. He’s the prodigal son of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. He’s basically a goddamn genius – in multiple fields, no less. 

It’s only reasonable that you’d want to pick his brain as you sit, cross-legged, on the ground of Angel Cave, loading bullets into magazines. Joshua sits a few feet away, meticulously checking the numerous .45 pistols that lay across the table over and over again.

You clear your throat and the sound echoes a little in the small cave. “Graham?”

He glances at you, then returns his gaze to the guns in front of him. “Yes?”

“Is it – uh, this God thing…” You scratch the side of your nose. “You… I don’t really understand it. I mean, following a few laws and receiving eternal salvation and all that sounds good, but I just… don’t get it.”

“I understand,” Joshua says. He flips the empty pistol in his hand so that he’s looking down the barrel and pulls the trigger. A dull click. “Most survivors think that there is nothing more to this world: just a well-trodden trail that they’re supposed to walk, from the house of Birth to the house of Death.”

He flips the pistol so that he’s holding the grip and slides the magazine back in. “Those looking for faith had simply been trying to find offshoots in this path, other houses to occupy. That is, if they ever actually felt the calling of God, even if it was the voice of a false one. They say that there are only two houses, and only dirt connecting them. But this is untrue.”

You continue thumbing bullets into the magazine. “How do you know? I mean, I don’t want to be disrespectful, but…”

“It’s nothing I haven’t heard before,” Joshua reassures. “I’ve met a menagerie of people, seen grotesque creatures that were birthed from mutations and chems instead of God’s perfect hands. I appreciate that you’re approaching this with an air of curiosity rather than judgement.”

Joshua sets the pistol on the side of the table of the pistols he’s already checked. He turns in his chair so that he’s facing you and sets his elbows on his knees. The pale blue of his eyes are stark against the burn scars of his skin as he looks down at you. “What would you like to know?”

Clips of his voice flash through your mind – “You’re a good neighbor to us,” “Good news is our most valuable commodity,” “The fire that had kept me alive was love. Their love. God’s love.” – but it settles on one: “It never stops burning. My skin. Every day, I have to unwind the bandages and replace them with fresh ones. Exposing my body to the air is like living through it again. But it's better to be clean than comfortable.”

“Well…” You shift under Joshua’s piercing gaze. “You’ve stayed loyal to God, right? All your life. You worshipped and prayed and… yeah.”

Your eyes flicker up to meet Joshua’s. The bandages that cover him in his entirety give nothing away. “So why did he let you be burned like that? If he’s, y’know, all-loving, all-forgiving, shouldn’t he have guided you away from Caesar? Or, let… let you die?”

Joshua stares at you, then blinks once, twice. It’s like he wants to be sure of his words before he actually speaks. “There are some things that you don’t want to do and you pledge to yourself that you won’t do. You forbid yourself, and then, suddenly…”

His eyebrows furrow. “They happen all by themselves. You don’t even have time to think about them: they just happen and that’s it. Then you’re left just watching yourself with surprise – disgust – and convincing yourself that it wasn’t your fault, it just happened all by itself.” 

Joshua’s hands come together and the bandages make an abrasive sound as he folds his hands, his elbows still on his knees. “But things don’t happen by themselves. The Legion didn’t build itself – I had a hand in it. And so this is my punishment. My atonement for not noticing how things were changing day-to-day. Not noticing how translating became giving orders, how giving orders became leading in battle, how leading in battle became training, punishing, terrorizing.

“I am a wicked man, with a wicked soul. I can only pray to God that this is enough for everything I’ve done.”

Your eyes return to the half-loaded magazine in your hand, and the bullet in the other. You roll the bullet in your fingers as you think. It’s… weird, to you, Joshua’s relationship with God. He doesn’t sound all that loving and forgiving. So why worship him? Why make and keep covenants with him? It sounds contradictory and hypocritical.

“Okay.” You look up at Joshua again as you thumb the bullet into the magazine. “Then… praying. What’s praying? I mean, I’ve seen you doing the…” You set the magazine in your lap and bring your hands together, palm-to-palm. “Before eating. I know that’s part of prayer, ‘cause you told me. But can you, like, hear him? Or is it like talking to a wall?”

“I cannot hear him, no,” Joshua says. “But I know he is listening, and I offer every prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, who is a medium through which man can converse with God. I feel him touch my heart, and guide my mind with his blessings and counsel.”

“Blessings and counsel sound nice,” you say. “But what do they look like? Like, how do they manifest?”

Joshua tilts his head slightly, the bandages on his neck making a soft sound. “Rain in a time of drought. Dryness in a time of flooding. A bullet that makes contact in just the right place. A bullet that just barely misses. God’s blessings are diverse and many.”

“Sounds like I could use some of those blessings.” You laugh under your breath as you go back to loading the magazine. A few seconds pass as you fill it, then move on to filling the next. An idea pops into your head as your hands continue their repetitive actions. 

Why shouldn’t you be able to get a blessing? From what you understand, it only takes a few words and an invocation of a holy name. It should be easy to get one – right? Or maybe not. Either way, you’d need it, especially with the way Joshua described the examples of blessings. Divine intervention sounds like it could literally be a lifesaver.

“What if, uh…” You scratch your cheek. “What if I want one of these blessings?”

Joshua narrows his eyes, the reddish burns of his skin cutting into the blue of his irises. “Do you… wish to pray? Do you want me to pray over you?”

“Yeah, I guess,” you say. You glance up at Joshua, then look down at the magazine. Your hands fumble a bit, then correct themselves. “I don’t… really know how to, though.”

“I will lead you in prayer, if that’s what you truly want,” Joshua says.

All it takes from you is a single nod.

He gets up out of his chair and kneels before you, resting on the heels of his boots. You look up at him, and he’s looking down at you. You could swear he’s looking at you with some kind of hope in his eyes, but it’s hard to tell in the low light of the torches that illuminate the cave.

“Come on. Up on your knees.” Joshua takes the magazine from your hands and sets it aside.

You sit up on your knees, resting on your heels, mimicking Joshua. You clear your throat nervously. “I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay.” Joshua takes your hands in his, cradling your fingers with his and resting his thumbs on your knuckles. The bandages on his fingers are abrasive, but in a comforting type of way. “As I said, I’ll lead. Now bow your head and close your eyes.”

You do as he says, and his rumbling voice starts the prayer. 

“Dear God, I thank you for this day, and I thank you for your allowance for life to continue prospering in this wasteland. Now, allow me to direct your attention to one of your creations: the one I’m praying with right now.

“Allow me to pray over this courier. I pray that no matter where they go, no matter how far off the trail of fate they fall, you will watch over them. Even if they fall to temptation – any temptation – that you will still protect them with all that you can, for I know you are merciful, and I know you are loving. 

“In this world filled with defilement and savagery and violence and barbarity, the only comfort I can turn to is you. Allow me this comfort. Allow me to know that this courier, no matter what they do, no matter what sin they fall to or transgression they commit, is safe. In Jesus Christ’s name, amen.”

Joshua lets go of your fingers and brings his hands away from yours. 

You open your eyes and look up at him. You glance around the cave – nothing’s different. Everything seems to be exactly the same.

“Is that it?” You ask, then register how disrespectful that sounds. “I mean – I just didn’t think it would be that easy.”

“Yes, the prayer is over.” Joshua stands, then holds out his hand to help you up. You take it.

“Now, please, make yourself sparse.” He glances at you, then his eyes flicker over to the table stacked with .45 pistols. “I have some of my own praying to do.”