#The Pillar

[dat-is-i]

what if the pillar from balatro was just a silly guy

[poppystheories]

Do y'all see this painting????

This single goddamn painting pretty much tells us the whole story of everything.

We see a jester, led along by a chain around his wrist, trudging along the great spiral of life, carrying with him an enormous coffin and cross.

Yeah, that's Allen, creating his path as he walks, carrying the dead Mana and Nea with him, following the chain leading to something he can't see.

And of course, that's also the Millennium Earl.

[macmanx]

Ultraman Arc vs. The Pillar

[jurakan]

The Friday Pillar Post highlights how today is the 100-year anniversary of the Carnegie Riots, when thousands from the KKK tried to terrorize the Irish Catholics of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and the Irish population beat the ever-loving snot out of the klansmen.

We should talk about this more.

[wearethekat]

January Book Reviews: The Pillar by Kim Fielding

I'm not sure where I found this book, but my best guess would be the goodreads recommendations again. In The Pillar, healer Faris saves a slave from the eponymous pillar where he has been whipped and left to die. Ex soldier Boro begins to recover and grow close to Faris--but when his old master discovers he's alive, will their idyll be shattered?

This is a compact novella, so the queer romance is relatively uncoenjoyed. by drama, aside from Faris' troubled background as a thief who was left to die on the same pillar himself. The author has also made an interesting and novel choice to set it in the 14th century Balkans under Ottoman rule, which is a setting I don't believe I've seen before. It's well-executed and we get a fun cameo into the Ottoman justice system. Both Faris and Boro are older (in their thirties), and tentative to form a connection after their respective traumatized pasts, and their romance is appealingly bittersweet.

A well-executed romance in a novel historical setting. Recommended for historical queer romance enjoyers.

[wild-karrde]

The Blitz Series

blitz (noun): a sudden, energetic, and concerted effort, typically on a specific task.

Mechanic Bolts (f!Reader) navigates her relationship with a commando she hates and her friends of the 28th Combat Wing.

Rating: E, 18+ ABSOLUTELY NO MINORS ALLOWED

Warnings: language, fingering, PiV sex, voyeurism, oral sex, cum eating, multiple partners (no cl*necest), anal sex, dom/sub dynamics, rough sex, impact play, rough sex, sex toy use, orgasm denial, spitting, double penetration... (this series is essentially just pure filth)

Pairings: Gregor x f!Reader, OC Crater x f!Reader, OC Chuckles x f!Reader

Part 1: The Antagonist

Part 2: The Pillar

Part 3: The Jester

Part 4: The Blitz

[unluckyepiphany]

back from my vacation in The Pillar^ :) :) XD time to start silly posting again :3

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1809 – Opening of Nelson’s Pillar in the middle of O’Connell Street (formerly Sackville Street) in Dublin.

It was built in 1808–1809, and was among the first and grandest monuments erected in memory of Nelson in the ‘THEN’ United Kingdom. It surprisingly survived until March 1966, when it was destroyed by a bomb planted by Irish republicans. Today the Spire of Dublin stands on its former ground. It was opened to the public on Trafalgar Day, 21 October 1809, the fourth anniversary of the battle. It…

[telperinquaar]

Angel Type: Pillar

There are angels among us.

Here is one, rising above the flatlands with its comrades. It is a Pillar, and it works tirelessly alongside others like it to support its Messenger kin. It is an ungainly creature, tall and skeletal, and each of its three wings is the length of its body. Like the others, it is tethered in place by the Custodians, a specialized branch of the Messenger priests. Unlike its Guardian cousins, the Pillar is blind. Were the Custodians not there to guide it, it would destroy its surroundings, its followers, and its own kind if left to roam free. Even the simple act of swiveling their great heads together, driven as one by a Holy force they cannot see, would be enough to cause devastation.

The Custodians speak to the townsfolk on behalf of the Angels: Do not be afraid. They are strange, unlike us, but they are gentle and kind; they only wish to help. The townsfolk nod and accept this, and begin to worship the Pillars as well.

The townsfolk look upon the Guardians and their servants and say: The Angels chose our land because it is safe. Our angels speak softly, and do not stare angrily with a single Eye. We are not driven to deafness and blindness and madness by their Holiness. The townsfolk look upon the Messengers and their priests and say: Our Angels are gentle, and their Voice is quiet. Our Angels do not speak with a constant droning sound, and will not kill you with a touch. They proudly proclaim: When our Angels die, their bodies become a haven for the children of our town.

And the Angels rise above the plains and the mist, and beat their wings against the sun, and whisper in their True Voices. The townsfolk speak of headaches and of sleeplessness. They do not realize that the Angels brought these things. They say: Our angels are safe. They would not harm us.

They do not know that last year, a Custodian was thrown from atop an injured Pillar while he was attending to its damaged wing. They did not stand there, helpless, knowing that all they could do was watch him fall. They did not see the Pillar who, stupid with fear and pain, smote a Custodian who had tended to it for over a decade. They did not see her arm, flesh seared away by its untempered Glory. The Custodians quietly mourn their siblings and return to their duties the next day.

They speak the townsfolk: Our angels are kind; they only wish to help. The townsfolk speak to others: Our angels are safe; they would not hurt us.

And the Angels rise above the mists and the plains, and whisper in their True Voices, and beat their wings against the sun.

[kedreeva]

Following the author of The Last Unicorn on Facebook is the only thing that makes being on that site worthwhile.

(source)

[tonreihe]

How wonderful!

[poppystheories]

And there it is, the pentagram. With what looks like Baphomet.

This is a reoccurring symbol throughout DGM, explicitly said to be the symbol of the Akuma and Millenium Earl. The star on the Akuma can be assumed to be merely a simplified version of it.

But funnily enough, the character we'll see with the full symbol going forward the most is Allen. Same with those six-point stars.

This full page has haunted me for years. I'll do a separate post about the pentacle and Baphomet and the Earl, so lets focus on breaking down the rest of the symbols here.

On this chapter cover, the chapter in which Allen confronts the Earl, Allen's wearing the goat pentagram, but he's also wearing a crown (referencing Crown Clown? Or, interestingly enough, the Earl also has a little crown symbol on his suit in this chapter). In one hand, he holds a skull with a rose in its mouth (death, the Akuma, love), and the other the cross (the Pillar). All of this clearly alludes to Allen belonging to both sides of this Holy War, but also the two halves one whole theme going on with both the Earl and the Heart/Pillar. And you know, Allen being both those too. (He is not necessarily the Heart, but he is certainly as essential component to its so called "revival", which might be why he's propping the cross up...)

It could also be about where he currently sits in regards to his duty as an exorcist: he's not doing this to be holy, or for God, despite keeping the cross upright with his Innocence. He is looking solely at the skull, at the dead, the souls of the Akuma he desperately wants to save.

All while wearing the symbol of God's enemy and the tormentor of those same souls. Because he carries both Nea and Mana, the two halves of the Earl, with him. The same symbol is also taking the form of a mask, like the mask of Mana.

There's lots of ways we can interpret this image, and this is not the only time we'll bring it up on this blog. Mostly, its a massive flashing sign of: Allen is the Millenium Earl! In chapter 3. Ha.

But, I do gotta wonder...

What the heck is the deal with the butterfly? In an illustration big on symmetry and balance, where everything has a double or counterpart, why is there just one butterfly?

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Pillars of Creation

[jurakan]

This week, the international legal team for Jimmy Lai — the jailed newspaper publisher, pro-democracy campaigner, and devout Catholic — filed an urgent appeal with the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture.  For those who need a refresher on the man and what he has been through, he was one of seven pro-democracy advocates arrested, convicted, and then cleared of organizing a demonstration following the 2019 bid by the Hong Kong government to pass legislation that would have allowed political detainees to be deported to mainland China to face trial. When his conviction was voided last year, he stayed in jail though.  Now he’s on trial for alleged national security crimes — “conspiracy to produce seditious publications and to collude with foreign powers.” Basically, he’s accused of publishing a newspaper which rightly called out the crackdown on basic civil liberties in Hong Kong for what it is — “the death knell” of the rule of law. Lai has been in jail since December of 2020, and the 76-year old is losing weight and visibly deteriorating.  For all of that time he has been in solitary confinement, often in his cell for 23 hours and 10 minutes a day.  He does not see the sun on a regular basis. He is diabetic, but denied access to specialist medical care. The place where he is being held has a long and established track record of subjecting prisoners in solitary confinement to bright 24-hour lighting, and extreme temperatures. If he is convicted following his current trial (just the most recent of several vexatious prosecutions against him over recent years) he faces life in prison. Lai’s UK based lawyers argue his conditions amount to torture, and they seem to me to have a self-evident case.  I would add to the list that the reason he has an international legal team at all is because the Hong Kong government has blocked him from appointing his own preferred (and very qualified) lawyer to act in his defense there. I would further add that he has repeatedly cited his Catholic faith as the force sustaining him during his imprisonment — which he has called the “pinnacle of his life” — and has been living his solitary confinement as a kind of monasticism.  Yet, I’ve been told by people close to his situation, as part of his jailing, while he has been allowed to receive occasional visits from priests, they have been banned from bringing him Communion — an act of pure vindictiveness by his jailers. Indeed, from what I have been told, he has been held without access to the sacrament at least since his most recent trial began last December. So, in Jimmy Lai, we have a journalist who has been jailed for advocating for democratic freedoms (enshrined in Hong Kong’s own law), denied legal due process, access to needed medical care, and even to the sacraments of his Catholic faith. His is, at this point, a one-man human rights abuse bingo card.  We will, of course, continue to report on his trial as it progresses, though I’m under no illusions that international pressure or appeals to the UN are likely to secure his release, or even his transition to a more humane regime of imprisonment, any time soon.  But it is important that his witness is marked, his suffering recorded, and his name remembered. Both for his own sake, and for the sake of all those being slowly ground under the wheel in Hong Kong, we cannot forget Jimmy Lai.

-Ed Condon, The Pillar, "Goldenmouth, remember his name, and no winning"