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huffpuffgirl18 · 4 years ago

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So because I stumbled upon a video talking about magic as a gene (which I firmly believe) and because YouTube won’t let me post my full theory (which it is driving me INSANE) I’d thought I’d post it here. I’m but a wee baby biologist learning her craft so be kind. 🥰

Anyways on to the theory

I LOVE the thought of magic being a gene that because I've been saying this for years. As a biology major it makes a lot of sense. Note, I think that magic is a dominate gene and non-magicalness is a recessive gene and that it probably is a series of genes (each with two alleles) and not just one gene. So you have to have all genes possessing the dominate alleles for you to possess magic, and not just one gene possessing the dominate allele.

I'll touch on the allele reasoning first because its something that maybe a not a lot of people know of since genetics is tricky and I won't go too into depth but when we look at things like eye color, hair color, skin color and other phenotypical expressions the genes that dictate these outcomes usually are more than one. Eye color specifically has about 16 genes (i'll have to double check) that dictate what color you will have (and that's not going into things like incomplete dominance or co-dominace, we'll leave those out for the discussion of magic). So say magic has like three genes, and for each gene you have two allele one you get from each parent. You would need all three of the dominate pair of this allele in order for you to possess magic. So if you have a pair of alleles, they can be as follows hetero-dominate, homo-dominate, homo-recessive. This is crucial for when you think about how muggleborns come into play, and when you think about the inheritance of magic, think of it like this you need at least all three functioning (dominate) alleles in order for you to get magic.

When squibs are born, they are born from magical parents who are hetero-dominate, meaning one of the alleles is recessive from both ends of that parent on the same gene. Which is then passed on to their child who now has a gene with only homo-recessive on it, and since that child doesn't have all three dominate genes for magic they are born a squib. Remember, there are six alleles since there are three genes and since alleles come in pairs they need 3+ dominate ones. If they have a gene that has alleles that are homo-recessive (two recessive alleles) they will not have magic. So in order to have magic they can be as follows on any of the three genes, hetero-dominate or homo-dominate. They cannot possess homo-recessive alleles on a gene because if they do they will be a squib and won't have magic.

They (squibs) still carry within them two out of three genes (because remember there are three genes for magic in this scenario) for magic but they are missing one. So they can pass on those two out of three genes (with dominate alleles) to their children but until they meet someone who has that allele they are missing their kids will also be muggles or without magic. But once their descendants meet another group of muggles who also has the allele that they are missing (the dominate version of that allele because they have the recessive version) a muggleborn child is born. (pictures would be so helpful, i know).

The reason that I believe that magic is dominate and not recessive is because we see muggle parents get together with a wizard or a witch, it almost always results in a magical child. Which is an indicator that magic is technically the dominate gene. However, just because a gene is dominate does not mean that it is going to be more prominent in the population. For example, dwarfism and having six fingers are both dominate genes however in most populations average height and having five fingers are more prevalent. The same can be thought of with magic. While it is the dominate gene, it is not the most prevalent in the population which has lead to the pure blood people believing that it must be preserved which is far from the case. In fact one can argue that they are effectively harming their genetic pool and creating the possibility of mutations and more damage to the genetic line due to inbreeding which can cause insanity, physical deformities, and infertility. Inbreeding which is what most pure blood families practice, causes harm to the genome or essentially damaged it.

Evidence of how magic is a dominate trait is the black family tree, where we see a lot of squibs in the family line although they only marry pure bloods or inbreed within the family tree. That tells you that the magic gene is heterozygous or else squibs wouldn’t arise and if they did arise its from a mutation of the dominate allele due to inbreeding

The more frequent inbreeding occurs the more damaged genes are introduced to the genetic line without a chance to introduce new genes to “repair” the genetic line. Thinking like this, Tom Riddle (Voldemort) own genetic line was “repaired” by his muggle father who potentially introduced new genes into the Guant family line which was plagued with problems due to inbreeding. So while he inherited the dominate alleles for magic from his mother, he probably also inherited more stable genes from his father.

And if we go off of the premise in the last few lines concerning inbreeding, the best way for magic to live on and thrive would be to have a more diverse gene pool and that would be essentially mixing with muggles more often. If magic is indeed the dominate gene, more half blood or muggle born children would increase the gene pool and stave off things like insanity, infertility, and other genetic mutations that arise from having genes that are too close together. Long story short, the pure bloods are essentially killing their own community when they think they are preserving it because they are creating a more harmful genetic pool and as nature shows us diversity is what helps populations thrive (in terms of genetics).

Thinking about magic this way, germ-line editing could potentially be used to turn the future offspring of muggles into wizards by editing their germ-line. Or for squibs the CRISPR-Cas method of gene editing could potentially work for them if they are missing one allele pair (I don’t know about two) to potentially give them magic.

I know this post was rather long and probably really confusing for some. So I made pictures to illustrate my point since I love applying science to fantasy.

These are punnet squares to demonstrate my point.

So in photo one labeled P1 this is the parent generation and as you can see they are heterozygous dominate wizards. The white is all their wizarding children. The pink is all the possible squib children (the possible genotype outcomes) that are just missing one gene (they have a gene with Homozygous recessive alleles) and the orange is the possible squib children missing two genes (they have two genes with homozygous recessive alleles). The blue in the corner is the chance they get a squib child with all homozygous recessive alleles for all three genes. Which means that child in blue will have ZERO chances of passing on magic to their children.

Now in the second picture, should’ve been labeled G1 for generation 1 but that got cut off anyways, the squib goes off and gets together with a muggle this is generation 1 (G1) and as you can see all their offspring are carriers for the magic gene but none of them have magic. The pink is missing one gene (has one gene with homozygous recessive alleles) and the orange is missing two genes (has two genes with homozygous recessive alleles). None of their children will have magic, but all of them will be carriers for the gene.

In the third picture (labeled G2 in the corner) this is generation 2. The squibs offspring goes off and has children with another muggle. Some of these children are carriers while others do not carry any genes for magic. The pink is missing one gene (has one gene with homozygous recessive alleles) and the orange is missing two genes (has two genes with homozygous recessive alleles). None of them will have magic but all of them will be carriers. The blue highlights the potential that none of them carry the genes for magic and thus cannot possess magic nor pass on the potential to possess magic.

And the last picture... *drum roll please* is our generation 3 or G3! aka Hermione and Lily generation 🤩🥳 Both parents are carriers for the magic gene but neither one of them posses magic. The pink is missing one gene (has one gene with homozygous recessive alleles) and the orange is missing two genes (has two genes with homozygous recessive alleles). These potential offspring will carry the gene but will not possess the ability to do magic. The blue highlights the potential that none of them carry the genes for magic and thus cannot possess magic nor pass on the potential to possess magic. And lastly the green highlights are our Muggleborns! Where they possess magic and have at least one dominate allele in the pair so that they can do magic.

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darakshafatimasstuff · 3 years ago

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Who is the divine family of Ahlulbayt (as) ❤️

One of the great post in our account ❤️

Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) is a phrase meaning People of the House, or family. In the Islamic tradition it refers to the household of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Ahlul Bayt (Ahle Bait) in simple terms is to put trust of guidance to Aal-e-Muhammad [descendents of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)], through Fatima Zahra (pbuh) and Imam Ali (pbuh) and their descendents. Bayt is to give the Oath of Allegiance to Imam Ali (pbuh) and accept his guidance.

Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) or household members of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) refers to his daughter Fatima Zahra (pbuh), his successor and son-in-law, Imam Ali (pbuh), their two sons Imam Hasan (pbuh) and Imam Hussain (pbuh), and the nine Imams from the lineage of Imam Hussain (pbuh).

Ahlul Bayt (Ahl-e-Bait) in Noble Qur'an ❤️

The Purified Ones: The Highest degree of purity means to be kept constantly away from all the causes of impurity. This is termed as the state of infallibility in knowledge, character and action.

It could have been applied generally to the whole mankind who are keeping aloof from all the impurities as the word of Allah (SWT) commands; but, Allah (SWT) expressively has confined His order to certain group of individuals by excluding the rest of the mankind from it in His divine will by declaring Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) as the persons purified by Him to be constantly in touch with the Noble Qur'an in its original, hidden, well protected, exalted and purified form.

It was Allah's (SWT) wish to remove all blemishes from them, as mentioned in the Verse of Purity (Ayat Al-Tathir) in the Noble Qur'an:

The Verse of Purity (Ayat Al-Tathir): "... Allah only desires to keep away the uncleanness from you, O people of the House! And to purify you a (thorough) purifying." Noble Qur'an (33:33)

The above verse from Noble Qur'an, is known as Ayat Al-Tathir, refers to the members of the household of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), which include exclusively Prophet Muhammad, Imam Ali, Fatima Zahra, Imam Hasan, and Imam Hussain (peace be upon them all).

Hence Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) other offspring, wives, sons of paternal uncles, and dwellers of his house are not to be called as Prophet Muhammad's Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt).

The argument is based on the genuine and authentic traditions narrated by Sahaba, companions of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) recorded in both the Sunni and Shia sources.

Ahlul Bayt (Ahle Bait) in Hadiths ❤️❤️

1. Hadith-e-Kisa (Hadith of the Cloak):

It is narrated from Umm al-Momineen, Umm Salamah that once Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was in her house lying on a mattress, covered with a cloak from Khaibar when his beloved daughter Fatima Zahra (pbuh) entered with a dish called al-Khazira (a kind of food).

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) asked her to call her husband, Imam Ali and her two sons, Imam Hasan and Imam Hussain.

Fatima Zahra (pbuh) called them and as they all sat together to eat, Allah (SWT) revealed the following verse of purity (Ayat Al-Tathir) to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). "... Allah only desires to keep away the uncleanness from you, O people of the House! And to purify you a (thorough) purifying." Noble Qur'an (33:33)

Verse of purity (Ayat Al-Tathir) ❤️❤️

Upon this Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) covered them all with his cloak and lifting his hands towards the sky said: "O Allah (SWT)! This is my family and the nearest of my kin, keep away from them uncleanness and keep them pure as pure can be."

Umm al-Momineen, Umm Salamah adds that thrice Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) repeated these words and when she poked her head under the cloak and asked him, Am I with you? In a refraining gesture, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said twice: "You are (also) among the righteous."

Thus it is clear from above discussion that Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) daily habit of stopping at his daughter Fatima Zahra's (pbuh) house and addressing her household as Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt), was not without reason.

In fact he was expounding the meaning of the term Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) and practically explaining to the Muslims the verse of purity (Ayat Al-Tathir) and the particular persons meant by it.

To be more precise, he was drawing the attention of the Muslim nation towards the significance of his Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) and their leadership after him so that the Muslims should love, obey and follow them.

2. Mubahala Tradition or Incident of Mubahila (Imprecation):❤️

In the south of Arabia, there is a place called Najran. There lived the Christian tribe of Najran who staunchly believed that Prophet Isa (pbuh) i.e., Jesus was the son of God.

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) invited them to accept Islam. In response to that, a delegation of their priests and elders came to Madina. They wanted to discuss religion with Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Their argument was that Jesus was born without a father through Virgin Mary, so he was the son of God. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) explained to them that just as Allah (SWT) created Prophet Adam (pbuh) without a father or even a mother, in the same way He created Prophet Jesus (pbuh) without a father.

Hence Prophet Jesus (pbuh) was a servant of Allah (SWT) as was Prophet Adam (pbuh). The Christians did not agree with this simple truth. Christians stuck to their belief that Jesus was the son of God. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) asked them to wait. Then came the following Revelation (message from Allah (SWT)):

But whoever disputes with you in this matter after what has come to you of knowledge, then say: Come let us call our sons and your sons and our women and your women and our souls and your souls, then let us be earnest in prayer, and pray for the curse of Allah on the liars. Noble Qur'an (3:61)

It was then agreed that the Christians seek Mubahila (Imprecation) with Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). The meaning of Mubahala is that both of them invoke from Allah (SWT) that he, who speaks the truth, may survive and he, who is not speaking the truth may perish.

Mawaddat al-Qurba (al-Mawaddah Fil-Qurba)On the day of Mubahala, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) took with him his grandsons - Imam Hasan and Imam Hussain, in place of his sons. In place of women, he took his daughter Fatima Zahra.

In place of his souls, he took his cousin and son-in-law Imam Ali. But on seeing the radiant faces of these sinless members of the household of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the Christians got scared. They decided not to seek Mubahala any more but accepted their defeat. They agreed to pay tribute and returned home.

This is how Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) showed to the world, who the true and real members of his Ahlul Bayt (Ahl-e-Bait) were.

3. Mawaddat al-Qurba (al-Mawaddah Fil-Qurba) or Expressed love for the close of kin:

In this Last Word of Allah (Noble Qur'an), Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is being commanded to ask the believers to love his kith and kin (that is his Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt)) and that would be the return of his apostleship. Hence, to Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) has been obligatory (wajib) command of Allah on every Muslim.

Say (O Muhammad, unto mankind): I do not ask of you any reward for it but love for my near relatives. Noble Qur'an (42:23)

Hazrat Abdullah Ibn Masood (RA) narrated: One day, we were accompanying the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in one of his journeys when a Bedouin with an orotund voice shouted at us, "Muhammad!"

"What do you want?" answered the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

"What is it if an individual loves a people but he does not imitate them in deeds?" asked the Bedouin.

"One will be attached to the one he loves," replied the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

"Muhammad," shouted the Bedouin, "Call me to Islam."

The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: "You should declare that there is no god but Allah (SWT) and that I am the Messenger of Allah (SWT), offer the prayer (Salat), defray the zakat, fast during the month of Ramadan, and perform the hajj to the Holy House."

"Muhammad," asked the Bedouin, "Do you ask for wage for so?" "No," replied the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), "I do not take any wage except that you must regard the relatives." "Whose relatives? Mine or yours?" asked the Bedouin. "It is my relatives," answered the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

The Bedouin said: "Give me your hand so that I will declare allegiance to you. No good is expected from him who loves you, but not your relatives."(Bihar ul-Anwar)

4. Hadith al-Safinah or Safinah Tradition: ❤️

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) has compared his Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) to Noah's ark. Whoever loves and follows them will attain salvation and whoever violates their sanctity will drown.

While holding the door of Holy Kaaba, Abu Dharr told that he had heard Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) say, "My family among you is like Noah's ark. He who sails in it will be safe, but he who holds back from it will perish."

Hadith al-Safina ❤️

In another place Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: "The parable of my Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) is that of the boat of Noah, whoever gets aboard it is saved and whoever stays away from it is drowned."

5. Hadith al-Thaqalayn or Saqlain Tradition (Hadith of the two weighty things):

Prophet Muhammad - may Allah (SWT) bestow peace and benedictions upon him and his pure Progeny - said: "Verily, I am leaving behind two precious things (thaqalayn) among you: the Book of Allah and my kindred (itrah), my household Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt), for indeed, the two will never separate until they come back to me by the Pond (of alKawthar on the Day of Judgement)." [Hadith-e-Saqlain]

Hadith al-Thaqalayn ❤️

Since the Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) carry as much weight in the eyes of Allah (SWT) as the Noble Qur'an, the former has the same qualities as the latter. Just as the Noble Qur'an is true from beginning to end without the shadow of untruth in it, and just as it is incumbent (duty) of every Muslim to obey its commands, so also must the Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) be perfectly true and sincere guides whose commands must be followed by all.

Therefore there can be no escape of accepting their leadership and following their creed and faith. The Muslims are bound by the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to follow them and no one else.

Imam al-Shafi'i, one of the four Imams of the Sunni school of thought, in his famous verses says, "Let everybody know that if the love of Prophet Muhammad's descendants means to be a Rafizi, I am a Rafizi."

Imam al-Shafi'i also says, "O Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt)! Allah (SWT) has made it obligatory in the Noble Qur'an to love you. It is a matter of pride for you that without invoking blessing on you, prayer is not valid."

Again he says in his verses, "After having seen that the people have chosen different ways which have led them to the Ocean of deviation and ignorance. I have, in the name of Allah (SWT), embarked the ship which may lead me to safety.

The Ahlul Bayt of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) are that very ship, we have been ordered to hold fast the rope of Allah (SWT), and that rope is their love."

Conclusion: Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and his Ahlul Bayt (Ahl al-Bayt) sacrificed all the worldly comforts and even their lives in order to convey the true religion of Islam to us. In return of their sacrifices, we are commanded by Allah (SWT) to love them.

The aim is that through their love, we follow their footsteps. We follow the true teachings of Islam taught by them, so that we live a good and decent life in this world and earn the pleasure of Allah (SWT) in the life hereafter.

Reference:

The fourteen stars vol. 01 p. 23

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nautiscarader · 4 years ago

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Wendip Week day 5 - Time Travel

(Ao3)

Also this was supposed to be short and yet it is 2.5k and still has no plot

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- I'm really glad you agreed to help us. - Wendy gave her best friend a kiss to the cheek and waved her children goodbye - We're gonna be by ten. Tyrone, Emma, be good to auntie Tambry. - We'll be back before you know it. - Dipper said, as much to his children, as to the babysitter.

The door to their cozy, two-storey wooden house closed, and the sound of engine soon reached them from the outside, as Dipper and Wendy left for a well-deserved evening alone to celebrate their anniversary. Tambry grabbed a can of Pitt Cola from the kitchen and jumped onto the sofa.

- So, what do you guys want to do? Play some board games, or do you want me to tell you stories? Heh, I have some pretty embarrassing stories about your folks and-

It took Tambry a paralysingly long moment to notice that she has been talking to no one the whole time. She jumped to her feet and frantically looked around, trying to spot all the possible places for a seven- and ten-years old, quickly coming to realisation that there were way too many of them.

But there was only one where a noise was coming from.

The basement.

At once, Tambry dropped her can and rushed downstairs. Other parents might have worried that their children would accidentally break bottles of wine, or cut themselves on some of daddy's tools, but in Dipper and Wendy's case, the consequences of wandering into their basement unprotected were far, far more severe. Apart from the sharp tools and bottles of intoxicants, their basement was a home to their treasure vault.

In the past twenty or so years, the couple (with occasional help from Tambry and others) have travelled around States and the world, to all the places Ford has marked as "of interest". And over the two decades, they have collected many treasures, as well as many objects of interest they kept in their ultra-secure vault, locked not only with technology, but also spells and enchantments.

And when Tambry saw it it wide open, it did not surprise her in the slightest. After all, those were Wendy and Dipper's kids. Tambry's mind went berserk, trying to imagine what the kids could have touched, and as she got into the vault, she saw the Time Tape, a relict from Wendy and Dipper's short-lived part-time job as time agents.

The kids turned their heads around, and just as they began disappearing, Tambry launched herself forward, and as her finger brushed the wobbly, ephemeral surface of time rift, she was pulled forward, but instead of slamming her head against the opposite wall, she began falling, deeper than she ever had, flying though time vortex itself, filled with clocks and occasional telephone boxes, some of which contained two stoned guitarists.

Just as she thought she would feel sick, she felt pain in her arm when she collided with ground.

Tambry turned around, her mind still on Wendy and Dipper's kids. She recognised the place already: she was on the same hill where Woodstick concert was taking place, evidently still with the crowd of attendees. The whole place was filled with people, but as she looked around, Tambry immediately saw two familiar figures: one red-haired boy and one brown-haired girl, just on the verge of the forest, and she leapt towards them, shouting with her last breath.

- Tyrone! Emma! - she grabbed their shoulders Why did you-

But as she looked at the two children, her heart sank as she began noticing subtle differences. Emma didn't have green eyes. Tyrone's hair wasn't as long. And he wasn't as tall as he used to be a moment ago. Emma didn't have a beauty mark on her cheek.

The strange kids stared at her in confusion, but as she was about to ask what happened, she heard a murmur from the crowd behind her. And when she turned around, she nearly fainted. She suddenly realised that the crowd she passed by weren't random people.

As the dozens, if not hundreds of children turned their heads at the same time, in a near-synchronised motion, Tambry began noticing the same features over and over again: red hair, freckles, chestnut hair, birthmarks, brown and green eyes...

- Hi, Aunt Tambry! - spoke the children in blood-freezing, eerie, collective cheer. - What the fu-

And then, she was falling again, through the asphalt, the ground, and the vortex again, but this time, with all the red- and chestnut-haired children. She was still frantically looking for Tyrone and Emma, but she quickly realised it was a futile attempt, and by the time she thought that, she felt pain in her back again, as she landed, this time, in a spacious, gold-and-marble hall.

She expected she would hear hundreds of cries of the children, as they would landed and sprain her ankles or broke their arms, but so far, she was the only one who mis-landed, while every sing;e child or teenager around got onto their feet as if they just exited a school bus.

- Emma? Tyrone?

Tambry asked, being helped by two children, and to her relief, she finally found them, rushing towards her with tears in their eyes.

- Auntie Tambry, we-we are sorry... - Emma cried, closing her arms around her waist. - Yeah, we messed up... - the older boy spoke, without meeting her eyes and joined his sister. - That's... that's okay, kids, everything is fine...

Tambry knelt and brought them into a tight, warm hug, glad things finally started making sense.

And as she opened her eyes, she saw a giant, floating head.

- EMMA AND TYRONE PINES!

The Time Baby boomed, filling the air in the courtroom with its mighty voice.

- YOU HAVE BEEN PULLED FROM YOUR ORIGINAL TIME STREAM TO ANSWER FOR YOUR CRIMES AGAIN THE TIME ITSELF. - it continued, reading from a piece of paper - TOGETHER WITH YOU, WE BROUGHT ALICE PINES, DAN PINES, PETER PINES, STAN II PINES, STANFORD II PINES, STANISLAU PINES, TERRANCE PINES, DEBORAH PINES, ANNE PINES, DANNY PINES, TYRONE PINES, TYRONE PINES, PHOEBE PINES ...

For the next five minutes, the giant, floating baby continued listing - from the sound of it - names of every single son and daughter of Wendy and Dipper present in the hall. And then it spoke Tambry's name as well, as if she was a punchline to a very long joke.

- DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? - Uh, yeah, about that, I don't. - Tambry spoke, crossing her arms. - Who-who are you guys? I know Wendy and Dipper have been busy once they retired from adventuring, but not THAT much...

Immature snickering erupted around her.

- Auntie Tambry, it's real simple. - Emma tugged her shirt to bring her attention. - All of us here are kids of our parents from alternate universes. Our time-siblings if you will. - Yeah! - another girl, around age of fifteen agreed - Like, in our timeline, our mom and dad are bad-ass freedom fighters... - ...our parents were the same age when they met! - ...my dad moved to Oregon permanently! - ...my mom moved to California! - ...our parents first broke up but then got together again! - ...our parents attended the same sports school! - ...our parents run a coffee-shop!

Everyone in the hall, including the primordial, pan-dimensional Time Baby, collectively groaned.

- Okay, is there *someone*, who can explain to me how to untangle this mess? - Tambry cried in anger - Because I didn't sign up for this... - "Untangle" is, in fact, the correct word.

The crowd of one purple- and many chestnut- and red-heads turned towards the new voice, and just when Tambry thought that something would start making sense, she hiccuped when she understood who just greeted her.

- Waddles! - the crowd of Wendy and Dipper's offspring cheered in unison, and ran towards the chubby pink pig that flew into the courtroom in his leaving chair, Tambry more perplexed than a moment ago. - Indeed, I am Waddles, though not the one you know. I am a distant descendant of the one, brave pig you call Waddles, and who is known in our civilisation as the "Oink-Father". - I need a drink... - Tambry hid her face in hands. - But Tambry here is right - Waddles continued, as he circled the room, until he flew towards the screen - It would seem that one set of children travelled back in time, modified the past, altering their future. Then, another set of kids travelled from the now-changed future, their present, to the same past, hoping to fix it, but modifying it again. Repeat that around, er, seventy-two times, and you get the results!

Waddles spread his stubby trotters, pointing to the crowd of time-travelling children, and continued.

- Your many time travels have twisted the time continuum into a knot-like structure. What's worse, the many parallel universes you've created have ended some of them, and began new ones.

As he spoke, the singular line on the enormous screen began twisting and turning, until it resembled a ball of yarn that has been a target of a whole litter of hyperactive kittens.

- However, hope is not lost. You will find that in order to solve this multi-dimensional conundrum, we must simply use a trivially easy algebraic property of inverting the product.

At least a dozen of children around Tambry let out a collective gasp of understanding and began nodding.

- Er, come again? - Tambry spoke to the talking pig, feeling somewhat overwhelmed. - Simply speaking, you first put on your underwear, and then your pants. But if you want reverse the process, you must first take off your pants, and then the underwear.

The future Waddles looked down at his body.

- I assure you, this analogy is true, even though I have very little experience in that matter. - So... you mean that we need to find which groups of kids brought which one with them, put them in order, and then, like, escort them back, one by one, from the end? - Precisely!

Tambry cursed her best friend under her breath.

- I will never babysit any of you. - she grumbled - I might even never speak to Wendy again either. - she threw a paralysing glare at the crowd of children around her. - Heh, funny story - one of the teenage boys spoke - In our universe, you and our parents... er, kinda-sorta... Ah, never mind, you'll find out. Maybe. - Okay, someone give me some ultra-strong coffee from the future, or something, and let's do this.

And so, it began. Tambry lined up each group of kids together, and after much reorganising they began jumping through time. From universes that looked completely similar to hers, through those still aflame in Weirdmageddon, to those that were literally the mirror ones of hers, complete with traffic signs flipped horizontally, Tambry began the longest school trip of her life, escorting the cavalcade of children, trying her might to keep them holding their hands in line, which was much easier said than done when you are attacked by pterodactyls, or have to swim through the river of chocolate.

After hours, maybe days - she couldn't tell, and she was afraid to ask the children, who she suspected had an answer - she was left with just two kids. The ones she swore to protect, and whom she has failed miserably.

- Okay, guys. Can you tell me WHY IN HECK did you decide to do this?!

Emma and Tyrone looked at each other with shame, and showed her a photo on Tyrone's smarter-phone. A photo only they could have taken. Wendy Corduroy, age 15, kneeling in front of 13-year-old Dipper Pines, as she was telling him goodbye after their first summer spent together. Their future father was still perplexed by Wendy's act of taking his hat and swapping it for hers. She was saying something, but only they knew what they talked about, though Dipper's reddened cheeks gave Tambry a good indication what was Wendy's farewell message.

- We... we wanted to give our parents something for their anniversary. - And we thought we could go back to when they first met, you know, and take a picture. - Emma looked at her younger parents - Look how cute they are! Especially dad! - Yeah, he was heads over heels about your mom. - Tambry smiled. - Except we messed up... Turns out it really matters if you spook that goat and she runs left instead of right! - Hey, it's okay. - Tambry ruffled the boy's hair. - You put all the things back in place?

The two nodded eagerly.

- Okay, we can go back.

Tambry took the time tape, and was about to pull it one last time, but she decided to give it to the children.

- You do it. You know better than me how to use it.

For the last time Tambry felt the now-familiar feeling of her insides somersaulting, and, for the first time, she has managed to land on her feet. Seventy time travels taught her when to flip instead of flopping, something the children seemed to have grasped instantly.

She opened eyes. They were back in the vault, in one piece, and just as she was about to say something, she heard the familiar sound of engine.

- Quick! get into positions!

She prompted the kids to run upstairs, while she closed the vault's door and followed them soon. By the time Wendy and Dipper opened the door, Emma and Tyrone have managed to bring the plates of snacks, open, empty, and scatter a dozen of cans of soda, and set up entire board and pieces of "Crippling Economy" on the table, to make sure their parents wouldn't suspect anything.

- Hey, kids! - Wendy spoke, knowing she shouldn't worry too much as their house was still standing. - Did you miss us?

The two adults couldn't even take off their coats, before their children jumped to greet them with the most affectionate of hugs.

- Alright, alright! - Dipper smiled - We got you presents, don't worry... - No, mom, dad, we got you one!

The two nodded and presented to them the freshly printed photo, and watched as their parents' faces brightens in awe.

- Dipper... - Look, we were so young... - You were so small! - But you were as beautiful as today.

The kids let out a simultaneous "yuck" as their parents kissed, knowing to prolong the moment for maximum embarrassment.

- Wow, kids, thank you. - Dipper hugged them again - But where did you get it? - Auntie Tambry was going trough her phone and she found it. - So... we decided to frame it! - That's very thoughtful, you guys. And, hey, where's Tambry?

Just as Wendy asked, a loud snore reached their ears, and the four fund Tambry sleeping on the couch in the living room, the same one she expected to slack off on the entire night.

- You must have seriously tires her out. - Dipper spoke with hushed voice. - Eh, you know how it is - Emma shrugged.

The Pines family tip-toed from the living room in order not to wake Tambry up. Just as Wendy was about to hang the new picture on the wall, she started thinking "Was Tambry even with us when Dipper left..?". But she was too tired to remember this, and she let out a prolonged yawn, ready to tuck their kids in their beds and join her husband in their bedroom soon.

=================

Also, this fic contains names that coincide, completely coincidentally, with Wendip kid OCs by @fereality-indy, @nina-a-pines, and Supergroveraway.

#wendip #wendipweek #wendip week 2020 #nautiscaraderfics #time travel

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yakumtsaki · 5 years ago

Photo

Welcome, dear readers, to Part 2 out of 3 of the Union Comeback Season Premiere Episode (title under construction, part 1 here). Right off the bat, let me just admit what everyone is thinking, yes, mass-deleting default replacements was clearly a huge mistake. Looking good in the heart boxers, boys, especially Jojo! Very on brand and not at all ridiculous. On a lesser but equally annoying note, our windows have suddenly turned red while the exterior AND interior of the house are purple. Dark days ahead..

..but not for Goro, who has returned home since running away and is immediately being kicked out again. Good to see you Goro, now pack up your shit, D’vorah won the cat heir position so it’s time for you to move to Melody and Daniel’s farm.

-Well I’m a cat so I don’t have any possessions to pack.

Thank you for providing an example of why you lost the cat heirship via this painfully boring reaction to the news of your defeat.

-No, he’s right, we cats don’t have any possessions to pack.

Omg D’vorah shut up. How on earth you boring flops are Alegra/Ronroneo’s grandchildren AND Sophie’s children I’ll never understand. I’m this close to making Maxx the cat heir and he’s not even a cat.

-Correct, I’m a dog.

Worst group of pets e v e r.

Oh look who autonomously woohooed for the first time in a century, I guess those base game heart boxers were simply too hot to resist. If one of you gets knocked up a week away from elderhood I’m gonna have a meltdown the likes of which the world has never seen.

-For the love of God, can we get some privacy here?

I’d love nothing more than to give you two bozos eternal privacy by never looking at either of you again, but the headmaster is here for Wulf so put some clothes on-

-WHAT THE FUCK. Why do we keep getting new headmasters instead of the ones we’ve already terrorized into submission?? Now we have to ‘show BJ a good time’ and ‘maybe we could give BJ a tour’, I’d honestly rather give BJ a bj and get this shit over with, I’m tired of threatening headmasters with murder. Hopefully it doesn’t come to sexual favors but if it does, Wyatt, you’re up.

-Pourquoi moi???

Pourquoi toi still haven’t gotten promoted and toi sleep 22 hours a day, it’s high time toi pulled your weight around here.

Good, that’s the spirit.

-Bonjour, monsieur Headmastér! I wòuld introdûce yoù to Wûlf but hé is très busý with unpàid çhild labόr.

-Haha, what a hilarious joke, Mr. Union!

-Alright Cinderello, after you’re done cleaning the flooding shower you’re going to need to jump out the second floor window and go study in the crypt, so the headmaster doesn’t see you and ask you any uncomfortable questions about whether I acknowledge you as my son. I have to go help your father charm our guest by giving my trademarked speech on how I never got impregnated by aliens and what a blow it was to humanity’s future.

-Ok Mr. Jojo!

-For the last time Wulf, it’s not ‘Mr. Jojo’, it’s ‘Mr. Union’. God.

-Ah hello there Headmaster BJ, apologies for my lateness, I was tucking little Wulf in bed because I definitely acknowledge him as my son. As I do all 3 of my children and not just Cyneswith. Ask anyone! But not Wulf or whatshername.. I want to say Shenar? Anyway, now that that’s been cleared up, what are we talking about here? The fact I never got impregnated by aliens and what a terrible blow it was to humanity’s future? I assumed as much.

-Haha aliens?! Well you are just a family of crack ups, does your son share this amazing sense of humor?

-Oh yes yes he definitely does, and he is definitely OUR son, that’s exactly how I view him as well, not solely as Wyatt’s offspring just because he appears to not have a drop of my DNA. I mean who even cares about that? Not me, that’s for certain. Yes, Wulf was just telling me the funniest joke while I was reading Cinderella to him before I put him to bed-

-Man, it’s so hard to concentrate on math with a broken leg from jumping out the window and Grandpa’s disembodied head floating around.

Grandpa’s disembodied head??

OH FUCK KOMEI

-What?

Nothing! Looking good! The decision to delete default replacements didn’t affect you in any way!

-Thank god, have you seen Vic with that base game hair? Talk about scary.

Yes, talk about scary indeed. Do you happen to know if the matchmaker performs the occasional exorcism?

-No idea.

Well she hates me anyway so that was solution was dead in the water. I have to go back to the headmaster fuckery now, but I want you to know I’m really sorry for what Salome did to you.

-Sό, monsieur Headmastér, the όnly tràck reçord which est bettér than the όne we havé with bébés wόrking, est the oné we havé with our animàls rûnning awaý!

-Oh my.

-He’s joking, he’s joking Headmaster BJ, we’re both excellent pet owners and excellent parents, if you’ll excuse me the phone is ringing-

-Cyneswith darling! An adult bartender is calling for you and he has the Komei face! You might be 14 but he’s clearly future husband material!

-Be right there, daddy!

-Alright, I think I’ve seen enough here.

No you haven’t! Wyatt, take off your robe!

-No need, I’ve made up my mind..

-..you’re obviously a perfect match for our school!

What the hell? How? Even by our standards we legit didn’t do shit.

-Headmaster Jitmakusol left a very distraught letter regarding your family before he was institutionalized, the gist of it being it is pointless to try and keep you people out of the school, and his successor should simply ‘roll with it’.

Well ok then! Pleasure doing business with you, BJ.

-The pleasure was all mine, please don’t ever contact me again.

We’ll make sure to be in touch.

In the meantime, Komei has recovered his body!

-Why me? WHY ALWAYS ME? CYNESWITH IS RIGHT THERE

-Sorry honey, we play poker for it every night and Victor won dibs on Cyneswith.

-That’s right, the first one to scare everyone gets ghost-bingo!

Are you fuckers playing ghost-poker or ghost-bingo?

-It’s a hybrid, we have a lot of time on our hands, being dead and all, so we developed an overcomplicated gambling system for our scares.

Yea ok congrats Victor, now can you fuck off before you actually do kill one of the kids?? They have 10/10/9 energy, they literally never sleep.

-No can do, if you actually kill someone you get Yahtzee!

How many fucking games are involved in this bullshit?

-We told you, we have a lot of time on our hands. SUCK IT VICTOR, I WIN FOR THE NIGHT

Win for the night? Who cares about that, you have Wyatt cornered, go for the Yahtzee!

-Oh, but you said our games were bullshit!

That’s before I realized Wyatt was awake for his allotted 2 hours per day non-sleeping time. Wyatt istfg bro, are you half French-Arab and half panda?

-Pandàs eàt for 14 hourès idiόt, ne pas slèèp.

Well look who knows a suspicious amount about pandas now! Almost like he’s descended from them.

Oh good, everyone’s favorite couple simultaneously has the day off. How about I take you two out for a nice date at Londoste since you’re about 55 years old?

-How about hard pass on that architectural monstrosity of a restaurant and we hang out for 6 hours in our front yard instead?

-Oui, oui! Très blanc garbagè of us!

Well at least we’re not forgetting our roots.

Alright then, we’ve crossed into white trash territory unironically with the yard pda and we’re also freezing to death, how about we take this inside?

-Non!

-Yes, non indeed! I love how frozen your hands are, dear, it’s like you’re a real corpse!

Oh my G-

-Catch me, Creature!

-Je t'aime, dr. Frankènstèin!

Ok, new suggestion, how about instead of going inside we visit a nice church?

-How abοùt you lôôk awày, pervertir!

Bold words from someone doing Frankenstein roleplay, and I’D LOVE TO, but the kids are at school and the animals are sleeping, so there’s no looking away from whatever the fuck this is.

Oh thank god, Cyneswith is back from school and ready to cockblock her parents as always. First time I’m genuinely happy to see you, Cyn.

-Straight A’s again! Ah, we may only have one child but she is THE BEST. Wyatt dear, come here to congratulate Cyneswith and further inflate her ego. Wyatt?

-Why is he ignoring my straight A’s, daddy?!

-Ugh, he’s probably jealous since everyone is jealous of you, darling. Pay him no mind, let’s go inside so I can give you the diamond tiara I got you for your birthday.

-But my birthday is in four months, what will you get me then?

-A throne to go with it and anything you want from Sihara’s and the other one’s rooms?

-They have no rooms, remember? They both sleep in the crypt.

-Right, well how about I act like I got them presents, give them to you and make them watch as you unwrap them?

-Aw daddy💗

-Je ne pas fèèl bien..

Yes, you’re dying, so it’d be some real Frankenstein shit if you did feel bien.

Is this Komei-clone bartender serious, first he calls while the headmaster is over, now he calls while we’re dying, FEEL THE FUCKING ROOM PAL

..and there we go. RIP Wyatt, it’s been sorta ok having you in the fami-

-WTF HOW ARE YOU ALIVE

-HA. I lièd, I AM hàlf pandà and mon beàr gènes protéct moi!

GODDAMMIT I KNEW IT. Is that why the one child you gave birth to is your exact clone?

-Oui! Wulf est 1/4 pandà, et toi wènt et namèd him WULF.

Well, to be fair, not a lot of famous pandas I could have named him after even if I knew.

-Toi çould hàve namèd him Pandà!

Oh man, Panda Union does have a nice ring to it, especially next to the other names.. ~Shajar~, ~Cyneswith~ and PANDA. Thanks a lot for depriving me of the opportunity by withholding your genetic info.

-Je think Wulf est ontό it..

Onto the fact he’s 1/4 panda? I highly doubt that.

Yea nevermind, he knows.

Oh great, Shajar has brought yet another uggo with a culturally appropriative hairstyle home from school.

-That’s what you get for letting her out of the crypt.

Give it a rest, Jojo, we’ve had enough of your incredible parenting to last us 10 lifetimes at this point.

-And then it goes: I send the thunder from the sky, I send the fire raining down, I send a hail of burning ice, on every field, on every town! I send the locusts on a wind, such as the world has never seen, on every leaf, on every stalk, until there's nothing left of green! I send my scourge, I send my sword, THUS SAITH THE LORD🎵

-Great, thank you, Shajar, for singing the entirety of the ‘10 Plagues’ song from The Prince of Egypt 27 times. I’m really sorry but I have to go home now-

-It-was-nice-to-meet-you noogie!

..Shajar, please, PLEASE see a doctor.

-My sister Shajar may be super popular, spoiled and beloved-

WHAT LMAO

-but I have the friendship of animals and that’s all that matters!

Yea, Cyn, no offense, but it feels like you’re trying to cultivate an underdog Disney princess persona for yourself that is the exact opposite of actual family dynamics around here.

-What makes you say that?

Your tiara and throne vs Shajar sleeping in the crypt come to mind.

-So to be an underdog you need to be a loser?

I mean narrative-wise kinda, yea.

-Message received.

No, no that wasn’t a message-

-Yes it was and I got you, loud and clear.

Oh god.

-WHAT? YOU’RE REJECTING ME BECAUSE I’M TOO PRETTY? MY HEART IS BROKEN! I DON’T THINK I’LL EVER GET OVER THIS

-Uh, who are you again? Shajar invited me over, ordered a pizza and has been hiding in the bushes for 1 hour waiting to noogie the delivery guy.

-I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I’M HEARING! I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SING ABOUT THIS IN AN ENCHANTED FOREST FOR ABOUT 3 AND A HALF MINUTES

Jfc, where are the ghosts when you need them.

-Mommy has dibs on you tonight, Jojo!

-Mom please no! Your hair is so damn hideous! Just stay in your urn until the default replacement has been put back!

-Ah excellent, I have upgraded my robotic abilities up to cleanbot level!

That actually is excellent, I really want us to fire Kaylynn.

-Cleanbots don’t change cat litter.

..UGH then why even bother, Jojo? The cat shit is 90% of our problems, make something that fixes that or stop wasting airtime with your nonsense. Istg some people.

-Alright sis, how about we go out again tonight and ~play the field~? If I get rejected by a couple more mean boys I can earn my underdog princess badge!

-You are so stupid, Cyneswith, if you want to earn your underdog badge all you need to do is board a doomed ship, Titanic style, and then give the floating door to someone you’ve known for a couple of days while you selflessly and pointlessly drown in the freezing ocean despite the fact you could take turns sharing the door.

-But then I would be dead.

-I know right? Everybody wins. Let’s go get you some tickets.

Yea, let’s not, but let’s get out of here because the ghosts are out of fucking control and you two aren’t sleeping anytime soon.

-Shaj-and-Cyn-in-da-club noogie!

Shajar FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, ENOUGH.

OMG IT’S SOPHIE MIGUEL. SOPHIE MIGUEL IN THE HOUSE

-Whaddup dildos, ‘tis I, Sophie fucking Miguel, the meanest townie teen there is. I’ve only taken 4 steps into this place and I can already tell I’m surrounded by a bunch of beta turbocucks.

SHAJAR GO TALK TO HER!!!!!

-HEY BITCH, I’M NOT A BETA TURBOCUCK, I’M ALPHA AS FUCK. I’M NAMED AFTER SHAJAR AL-DURR! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO THAT IS?

SHAJ WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, WHAT IS THIS APPROACH

-Of course I do, the first Mamluk Sultana of Egypt. Nice.

OMG THAT SHIT WORKED. LAND THE PLANE SHAJ

-Ohhhhhhhh😍 Do you want to talk some more?? Do you like the 10 Plagues song from the Prince of Egypt???

-Nop, as suddenly as I came into your life, I’m dramatically getting the fuck out for no discernible reason, cause that’s just how I roll. Gone with the wind, baby! I’m like an outdoor cat. You’ll never see me again.

-Oh but I will..

YES YOU WILL SHAJ. I’m so on board this particular Titanicesque crackship that it’s un.real. I mean Sophie Miguel literally came into this place, talked to Shajar for less than one minute and then left the bar entirely, in turn leaving us dick in hand. What.an.icon.

In the meantime Cyneswith.. did this. Game-changing night for everyone!

#gen 2 #ts2

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santoteez · 5 years ago

Text

The Dormant Beast - Jongho (3)

Read Part 2 HERE

Part: 3 of ?

Idol: Jongho of ATEEZ

Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Friends to Lovers

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: Slight prejudice and bullying (non-racial and it’s not body shame either), slight mention of blood, slight violence, swearing and shit, MC is a Black Female

A/N: I should’ve mentioned it earlier, but the whole “you can’t hit girls/boys” narrative doesn’t really exist in this world. Since the Aura-Human race all have an advantage of some sort in battle, they are considered “equals.” Doesn’t mean I’m gonna write about some guy body-slamming a girl into oblivion lmao. Just please don’t be alarmed by the lack of consideration for gender in this fic. This is a world where racism and sexism don’t exist but is still plagued with prejudice nonetheless. Happy Reading!

Crescent swam herself to shore, tentative the flying aura would find her. She rung out her tank top and shorts. She had just spent an undetermined amount of time in the water, but she wasn’t shivering like all the times before when she’d visited the beach. In fact, she felt as warm as ever. She walked and walked, unfamiliar with the Enchanted Ocean, she wasn’t sure where she was going. After some time, she reached the street. With no other choice, she began to walk, hoping she’d find a gas station or aura training center soon where she could call her parents or Jongho.

Suddenly, a cop car slowed down next to her. Crescent stopped walking, peering into the window.

“Is something wrong, young lady? You’re drenched, walking alone, and it’s thirty degrees outside.”

“I just need a ride home, sir. And, I’m not cold, so don’t worry too much about it.”

The officer nodded. “An aquatic aura. Nice. Alright, get in. I’ll take you home.”

The officer pulled into the driveway, where Crescent’s parents were frantically shouting at Jongho, with Eclipse defending him, telling them her rapture wasn’t his fault.

Crescent jumped out of the squad car. “Mom!” She ran, the cop following closely behind.

“Oh, Crescent! Baby, I’m so glad you’re okay.” She said, flinching when she hugged the girl. “Cres, you’re drenched! What happened?”

“Good Evening, if it’s alright, I’d like to talk to those who were home before Crescent was raptured. More importantly, the person who saw her last.” The Officer said. Everyone turned to Jongho, who nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“We were watching Marvin, until Crescent fell asleep. I started to doze off too, but then I felt a gust of cold air. The heat was on at the time, so immediately I knew something was wrong. The window was wide open so I knew someone had came in. I woke Crescent up and went to check the hallway, but the minute I turned back I saw her being dragged out of the window. I’m a gorilla aura, but I didn’t have time to power up, so I couldn’t pull her back in. I tried, but whoever that was can fly, so I ended up falling out the window on the grass. I powered up afterwards, but by then she was high in the sky. That’s when her father came running out the house and her sister screamed from the roof. They weren’t aware of what was going on.”

The officer nodded, writing everything down. “So, you said the assailant didn’t have a face? I don’t mean to instill any more worry, but could it be possible that it was The Void?”

Crescent’s mom shook her head. “My baby is the last person The Void would come after. He seeks the strong. Not the auraless.”

“Auraless?” The officer furrowed his eyebrows. “With all due respect, Mr. and Mrs. Moon, there’s no way this girl is auraless. I found her walking along the side of the road, completely drenched in water, in nearly freezing temperatures. She was walking as if the cold didn’t faze her. And from she tells me, she was dropped in the middle of the ocean and just swam out. That’s not necessarily humanlike.”

Crescent’s mom looked at her. “Oh my God. It’s true. You were drenched, but warm to the touch. How did you get out of the ocean? Baby, what happened to you?” She caressed Crescent’s cheek.

“Solar, honey, don’t overwhelm her.” Lunar squeezed his wife’s shoulders.

“I don’t know. When I was dropped, I thought I was gonna die. But I didn’t. I could breathe, Mom.”

Solar let out a breathless chuckle, turning to her husband. “I knew it, Lunar. I knew our daughter wasn’t a lost cost. I felt it!” She said, causing Lunar to smile.

“Looks like you’ve got yourselves a late bloomer. It’s getting late, and there’s school tomorrow, so I’ll get going. Crescent, Jongho, I will need you to come by the precinct over the weekend for further questioning. Ask for Officer Pena when you get there. You’re not in trouble, but it might be The Void targeting you. Perhaps he’s aware that you were auraless and is trying to scare it outta ya? Sounds crazy, but when you’re dealing with a criminal no one’s ever seen, anything’s possible. You all have a good night.” Officer Pena said, heading back to his car.

“So, you really don’t feel cold?” Eclipse asked, opening the cold water further. Lunar drove Jongho home since it was late, and also to explain the situation to his parents and why he needed to go to the precinct that weekend. Meanwhile, Eclipse had coaxed her little sister into the tub, determined to understand her newfound ability.

“For the last time, Clips. NO. I’m not cold. Just wet.”

“Is it because of-”

“Say his name. I dare you.” Crescent glared while her sister snickered.

“Eclipse, get your sister out of the shower! We’re not even sure what she is yet!” Solar shouted from across the hall. “Leave her alone before I make you swim laps in the pool again.”

Eclipse grimaced as she turned off the water. Like her aura, Eclipse disliked swimming, despite being pretty good at it.

Crescent headed to her room, drying herself off. Laying back in bed, her phone vibrated.

“Hey Cres, I was so happy to see you pop back up tonight. I would never forgive myself if I lost you forever. You’re my favorite person. I’m sure you’re probably sleeping by now, so good night, Cres. See you in school.”

“So, you’re really breathing under there?”

“Yep.”

Crescent had been underwater for about 20 minutes already, with no sign of needing air. Her swimming had improved tremendously. She bounced from wall to wall of the school pool with ease. Jongho laid out lazily at the edge, his right leg bent upwards while his left laid flat and his upper body rested on his forearms.

Suddenly, Crescent popped out of the water, appearing right in front of Jongho. She leaned over the edge of the pool coolly, as if she hadn’t been swimming lap after lap just a second ago.

“Crazy how all those times we went to the beach, your aura never appeared. Here we were thinking you were meant to be a land aura like the rest of your family when you’re something entirely different.” Jongho said, leaning her way.

Crescent shrugged. “I can be quite unpredictable.”

“I know,” Jongho said, “It’s one of the things I love about you.”

Crescent fidgeted under his steady gaze. Maybe it was the laps getting to her head, but she could’ve sworn she saw him leaning in…

“Jongho, baby! Fancy seeing you here!” The high-pitched voice said, causing Jongho to roll his eyes and back away slightly. “It’s a school pool, Desire. Anyone could be here, but hello.”

“Well, that’s true, but you can’t swim, right? Because of the aura?” She said, nearly sitting on his lap. “Oh, Crescent! Didn’t see you there.”

“Wish I didn’t see you either.” Crescent mumbled, backstroking.

“Careful swimming that long, you’ll prune up.”

“Actually, Crescent doesn’t prune up in the water. We found out she’s an aquatic aura. It’s why we’re here. They give aquatic auras permission to take water breaks during class.”

“So, you have an aura now? Prove it.” Desire said incredulously.

“Okay. Let’s see who can hold their breath the longest underwater. Me, or you. If I win, you have to leave me alone. For good. You and all of your little minions.”

“And if I win?” Desire said.

Crescent smirked. “You won’t.”

Desire scoffed, getting into the water.

“Jongho, keep count,” Crescent said, descending to the bottom of the pool. She reached the bottom, sitting down and crossing her legs. She watched calmly as Desire sunk to the bottom directly in front of her, holding her breath. Desire watched in awe as she realized Crescent was indeed breathing underwater. She ignored the burning in her lungs, stubbornly determined to prove her point. Suddenly, she felt as though she needed to cough and shot up, catapulting herself to the top.

Crescent smiled as she watched Desire swim up to shore, gushing when she heard Jongho snort.

“Told you she has an aura. You lasted all of 75 seconds.”

Crescent lingered a bit, surfacing a few minutes after.

“Guess that means no more target on my back.” Crescent smiled.

“I never agreed to that.” Desire retorted.

“Actually,” Jongho chimed in. “You accepted her terms the minute you got in the water. Your verbal affirmation wasn’t needed. But you know that, right Desire?” Jongho asked innocently, his scleras darkening, a signal of his aura activating.

“Of course. No more picking on Crescent. After all, the reason I started was that she was auraless. Not much of a reason to bother her now, right?” Desire laughed nervously. “Well, this was fun. I’m gonna go change. Bye!” She said, scattering into the locker room.

Crescent laughed, laying her head on Jongho’s shoulder.

“I wish we could just stay like this. Forever.” Jongho sighed.

“Hiding away from classes?” Crescent laughed.

“Together. Forever.”

Crescent looked up at him. “And what happens when you find your wife and have little gorilla babies?”

Jongho laughed. “You know better than anyone that there’s no guarantee offspring have the same or even a similar aura to the parents. What if mine breathed underwater?” He whispered, making the hairs on the back of Crescent neck stand up.

“You’re the strongest known aura, Jongho. You’re supposed to be with the next strongest, sexuality permitting. I may have an aura now, but that doesn’t mean I’m strong enough to be the Duchess of Strongville.”

“Turning me down before I shoot my shot.” Jongho chuckled. “You know I don’t give a shit about the hierarchy. Plus, Desire is entirely too prissy.” He scrunched up his nose.

“What about your parents?” Crescent asked.

Jongho looked away. Since he was little, Jongho’s family was adamant on him marrying Desire. It was only right; the two strongest auras were destined to be wed. They saw Crescent as his charity case. Figured he was her friend because he pitied her. After all, they thought his fate was settled. They knew Desire and her family since she and Jongho were little kids, and no matter how many times Jongho insisted he didn’t like her, they told him he’d love her eventually. He had to, they said, they were the designated Duke and Duchess.

“How about this: When I convince my parents that Desire isn’t the one for me, you give me a chance.”

“If you convince them.”

“When. My parents are understanding. They’re just a little old-fashioned. I’ll get through to them. For you.” He caressed her cheek.

Crescent leaned into his touch. He’d held her face before, but it felt different this time. More intimate. For once, she felt that maybe, just maybe, they could work.

“Hey, Monkey Boy!”

Their little bubble was popped by the boisterous yelling of none other than Desire’s brother.

Jongho sighed. “Aurora. How nice to see you.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? It’s Rory. Stand up, ape. Let’s have a talk. Man to man.”

Jongho stood up, short in comparison to the tall, snake-aura boy. Aurora wasn’t just any snake. He was a King Cobra, the biggest, venomous snake. One bite from Aurora could send anyone to the grave. He was considered the strongest aura for a while, until Jongho became old enough to take his place. With Jongho’s strength, Rory’s measly bite was no match. Can’t bite someone when you can’t overpower them. He’s had a vendetta against Jongho ever since.

“What do you wanna talk about?” Jongho asked.

“About you always ditching my sister for this weakling.”

Jongho shrugged. “Crescent’s my best friend. And Desire and I are not together, I owe her no loyalty.”

“See that’s where you’re wrong, ape. See, she thinks you and her are getting married. Totally convinced of that shit. But I overheard that little lovey-dovey shit you spit to the human here. I don’t like how you’re stringing my little sister along, punk.”

“Like I said, I have never claimed to be with her-”

“I’m talking.” He said, pushing Jongho against the wall, his friends crowding around. Jongho was surrounded.

“What do you want from me? What’s your solution?”

“Take Desire out. Tonight. On a date. Show her you care about her.”

“You know why I can’t do that.”

“Oh, but you will,” Aurora chuckled maliciously. “Because if you don’t, remember that one bite from me and you’re monkey business. So you’re gonna take her out and be happy about it. Got it?”

“If you have to force him to have feelings for your sister, it’s already shit,” Crescent said, tired of hearing the back and forth.

“The fuck did you just say?” Rory turned to her, scowling.

“Exactly what you heard. Threats won’t make him love your sister.”

“Like loving you is any better? At least my sister isn’t a nobody like you. I don’t know how Eclipse lives with herself, knowing she has somebody as useless as you for a sister.”

He grabbed Crescent by the neck, flashing his rather pointy canines. “Maybe I should just take you out of your misery. You’d be better off dead.”

“Let her go!” Jongho said, desperately trying to power up. But Rory’s friends held him back, preventing him from hitting his chest which would activate his aura.

“I will. Once she’s dead.” Rory turned to Jongho. “I hope you enjoy watching your girlfriend die.”

Suddenly, Crescent began making this odd sound. Different than any she’d made before, similar to earth rumbling. Her eyes began to glow a bright amber color, and she reached out her hand, aiming for Rory’s neck.

Rory left go of Crescent, his hands reaching out to cup his neck, where blood was gushing out.

“What kind of nails does this weirdo have? Fuck!” He shouted.

It was then that they all realized that the sound Crescent was making was a roar. She roared once more, pouncing at Rory.

“Listen clearly, because I’m only gonna say this once. You stay away from me, and you keep my sister out of your filthy mouth. You got that? Leave Jongho alone, if he takes Desire out, it will be on his own accord.” She scraped her nails along his arm, breaking skin again. “Now get the fuck out of my sight.”

Rory scrambled to his feet, rushing out of the pool room. Crescent glanced at the other boys.

“You all want next? What are you waiting for?” She asked, and the rest of the boys ran out after their friend.

“Cres, your eyes are glowing like a tiger! That was so fucking amazing. You came in contact with Rory, though. There might be traces of venom in your nails. Let’s get you cleaned up.” He said, dragging her out the room.

They headed to the cafeteria, where the lunch lady allowed them to use the power washer.

“I found some milk. It’ll revert any symptoms you may have from the venom if any. How are you feeling? Dizziness? Drooling? Anything?” Jongho said in one breath.

“I’m fine. Words gonna get out that I attacked Rory soon. What the fuck is going on with me? For years I had no aura. Now I have 2?”

“What if you have more than 2?” Jongho asked.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that your auras both appeared when you needed that specific ability or animal in that specific moment. You know what type of person is rumored to be that way? The OmniAura.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, before Crescent burst into laughter. “You’ve GOT to be kidding me.” She said, grabbing the milk from his hands.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying, don’t knock the idea. And don’t be surprised if a third aura pops up.”

Crescent didn’t answer, drinking her milk instead. There’s no way she could be the OmniAura. There have been cases of people having two auras, even three. Having two wasn’t a sign of her becoming the OmniAura…right?”

#ateez #ateez jongho #choi jongho #jongho #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #kpop #kpop fanfic #kpop fanfiction

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polygynously-speaking · 4 years ago

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If Allah the Almighty honors men in Paradise by giving them fair women with large beautiful eyes as a reward for their good deeds, then what is the share of the women when they enter Paradise in each of the following cases:

1- If she was married in the world and then entered Paradise with her husband.

2- If she had been married in the worldly life and she entered Paradise in the Hereafter, whereas her husband entered Hellfire; may Allah save us all from it.

3- If she died before getting married in the worldly life.

4- If she married more than once in the worldly life.

Answer:

Seeking the help of Allah, the Almighty, I say:

Paradise is the abode of eternal bliss, and whoever enters it deserves pleasures that suit the level he attained in it. This applies to both men and women; each according to his rank. Obviously women are the counterparts of men, as mentioned by the Prophet (peace be upon him). This is related by Abû Dâwûd, At-Tirmidhî and Ahmad with an authentic chain of transmission on the authority of `Âishah, the mother of the believers (may Allah be pleased with her).

Allah, Exalted be He, mentioned both men and women in terms of promise of reward and the attainment of reward in the verses of the Noble Qur’ân. Allah the Almighty Says, "And their Lord responded to them, 'Never will I allow to be lost the work of [any] worker among you, whether male or female; you are of one another. So those who emigrated or were evicted from their homes or were harmed in My cause or fought or were killed - I will surely remove from them their misdeeds, and I will surely admit them to gardens beneath which rivers flow as reward from Allah , and Allah has with Him the best reward.'" [Âlu `Imrân: 195]

Commenting on the aforementioned verse, Ibn Kathîr (may Allah have mercy on him) said, "Allah has told people that He will never allow the work of any worker among them to be lost; rather, He will give the due reward to every worker, whether male or female. The statement: 'you are of one another' means that both men and women are equal in terms of the reward of Allah the Almighty."

Moreover, Allah, Exalted be He, Says, "And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer - those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed." [An-Nisâ’: 124] Ibn Kathîr said, "This verse highlights the benefaction, generosity and mercy of Allah the Almighty in accepting the good deeds of His servants; both males and females, provided that they have faith.

There are many Qur'anic verses that prove this meaning. The implications of these verses are understood when the occasions of their revelation are known. At-Tirmidhî narrated in a chain of transmission that he judges as hasan on the authority of `Imârah Al-Ansâriyyah that she came to the Prophet (peace be upon him), and said, "I have seen that everything is for women and I do not see women mentioned in any verse," so Allah the Almighty revealed the Qur’anic verse that states, "Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, ...." [Al-Ahzâb: 35]

As long as the question is focused on the pleasure of woman in Paradise, I say, while seeking the help of Allah:

If the two spouses are both in Paradise, Allah the Almighty will gather them together in it; rather, He gives them more of His favor, so He will make their children join them. In addition, He raises the rank of the one who is lower in rank until he catches up with those who exceeded him in rank. This is deduced from the Qur'anic verse in which Allah the Almighty Says that the angels who carry the Throne say in their supplication for the believers: "…Our Lord, and admit them to gardens of perpetual residence which You have promised them and whoever was righteous among their fathers, their spouses and their offspring. Indeed, it is You who is the Exalted in Might, the Wise." [Ghâfir: 8].

Furthermore, Allah, Exalted be He, Says, "And those who believed and whose descendants followed them in faith - We will join with them their descendants, and We will not deprive them of anything of their deeds…" [At-Tûr: 21]

If one of the spouses is from the people of Hellfire, it may be that this person is a disbeliever so he will stay there forever, and the fact that his spouse is in Paradise will avail him nothing. This is because Allah the Almighty has destined the disbelievers to be: "Abiding eternally therein. The punishment will not be lightened for them, nor will they be reprieved." [Al-Baqarah: 162, and Âlu `Imrân: 88]

In addition, Allah the Almighty has decreed separation between the prophets and their wives on the Day of Resurrection if they were disbelievers. Allah, Glorified be He, Says, "Allah presents an example of those who disbelieved: the wife of Noah and the wife of Lot. They were under two of Our righteous servants but betrayed them, so those prophets did not avail them from Allah at all, and it was said, 'Enter the Fire with those who enter.'" [At-Tahrîm: 10] Therefore, people will be separated due to their differences in religion.

Commenting on the above-mentioned verse, Ibn Kathîr said in his commentary [4/394]: "The statement, 'They were under two of Our righteous servants' means that these women were married to those Prophets, and thus, used to accompany them day and night; eating with them, sleeping with them, and treating them badly. Moreover, the statement, 'but betrayed them' means that they betrayed them by not agreeing with them with regard to faith, nor did they believe in their messages. Hence, nothing in their lives together availed them at all nor warded off any danger. That is why Allah the Almighty, Says, "so those prophets did not avail them from Allah at all …" due to their disbelief. It was said to the two women, "Enter the Fire with those who enter."

If a woman was married to more than one husband in the worldly life and he divorced her, the marriage is dissolved with divorce. Therefore, they will surely be separated in the Hereafter as they were separated in the worldly life. However, if the husband died while she was still married to him, but she married another after him, then the scholars have three opinions regarding the one with whom she will be in Paradise. These opinions are as follows:

The first opinion: She will be with the one who treated her better in the worldly life. However, there is no proof for this opinion except for a Denounced [Munkar] Hadith that cannot be used as proof.

The second opinion: She will be given the choice to choose the one she wants to be with. However, I do not know of any proof supporting this opinion.

These two opinions are mentioned by Imam Al-Qurtubî in his famous book "At-Tadhkirah fî Ahwâl Al-Mawtâ wa Umûr Al-Âkhirah [2: 278]. The second opinion is the one approved by Sheikh Muhammad As-Sâlih Al-`Uthaymîn (may Allah have mercy on him) and some contemporary scholars.

The third opinion: The woman will be in Paradise with the last of her husbands in the worldy life; that is, the one with whom she died, or the one who died while she was married to him, and she did not marry anyone after him. This opinion is supported by the hadîth related by Al-Bayhaqî in his Sunan [7/69]. He related on the authority of Hudhayfah (may Allah be pleased with him) that he said to his wife, "If you want to be my wife in Paradise then do not marry anyone after me. This is because the woman is for the last of her husbands in this worldly life. That is why Allah the Almighty forbade the wives of Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) to marry anyone after him, because they will be his wives in Paradise. It is also narrated on the authority of Abû Ad-Dardâ’ (may Allah be pleased with him) that Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said, "No woman marries another after her husband dies, but she will be for the last of her husbands (i.e. in the Hereafter)." This hadîth is judged as sahîh by Sheikh Al-Albânî (may Allah have mercy on him) in his book As-Silsilah As-Sahîhah. I do not know if there was anyone before Al-Albânî who judged this hadîth as sahîh.

If it is proved that a certain hadîth is sahîh (Authentic), then one should not deviate from it to another opinion, and it is not to be considered equal to any other opinion. For this reason, the third opinion takes priority in terms of consideration, and it is the most preponderant. Allah knows best.

If the woman does not have a husband in the worldly life, then Allah the Almighty will marry her to the one whom she will be pleased with in Paradise. This is because marriage is part of the pleasures that are promised to the people of Paradise, and it is part of what the souls like and aspire to. Allah, Exalted be He Says, "And therein is whatever the souls desire and [what] delights the eyes, and you will abide therein eternally." [Az-Zukhruf: 71]

A Muslim should busy himself generally with asking Allah the Almighty, for Paradise and its pleasures; Allah, Exalted be He, Says, "So he who is drawn away from the Fire and admitted to Paradise has attained [his desire]…" It is a right that Allah the Almighty has obligated on Himself to please those who enter Paradise. Allah the Almighty is the One Who grants success.

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emotionally-ralphunctioning · 6 years ago

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‘You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid’ and why I, like many, think it could be about Lord Of The Flies

In this essay, I will be conducting a brief analysis of the lyrics to The Offspring’s ‘You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid’ and elaborating on why I personally firmly feel that the song can be viewed as being from the perspective of Ralph and addressing Jack and his actions throughout the novel. This is, of course, my own interpretation and highly speculative, and the only people who can either confirm or deny this lyrical analysis are members of The Offspring themselves.

Firstly, the title in itself, I believe can be interpreted as being directly addressed to Jack, with use of the word ‘kid’ to emphasise not only the youth of the boys on the island, but also in order to highlight Jack’s own immaturity. The title as a whole, ‘You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid’ seems to indicate a sense of frustration towards the individual and their actions, and suggests a degree of annoyance. This, I believe, is done to depict Ralph’s anger with Jack, and so features a heavy use of sarcasm to underline this, indicating that Jack’s actions and general demeanour will, in fact, get him nowhere in life.

“Show me how to lie,

you’re getting better all the time”

Here, the first person speaker (Ralph) appears to have maintained the sardonic tone seen in the title. Requesting that the recipient of the song (Jack) teaches him how to be deceptive, the speaker suggests that the recipient is ‘getting better all the time’, and thus becoming more and more dishonest and manipulative. This is very clearly the case in Lord Of The Flies, as Jack’s character is portrayed as slowly spiralling beyond control and descending into evil.

“And turning all against the one

is an art that’s hard to teach.”

The way in which the speaker here uses the word ‘art’ first of all indicates the continuation of the bitterly ironic tone presented from the beginning of the song, particularly when regarding an act as malicious as turning a group against an individual. In the case of Lord Of The Flies, this theme is a crucial one, and can be clearly seen in the case of the power struggle between Jack and Ralph, in which Jack’s malicious endeavour to usurp Ralph’s role as the leader of the group is achieved by turning the rest of the boys against Ralph. However, the way in which this attained arguably is an art, in a way, due to the intricate means Jack resorts to. One of which is hinted at in the following line of the song.

“Another clever word

sets off an unsuspecting herd.”

In this line, it can be suggested that the ‘clever word’ to which the speaker refers is ‘beast’. The notion of the beast is a heavily prominent theme throughout the novel, and is ultimately the way in which Jack usurps Ralph’s role. It is through the exploitation of the children on the island’s fear of this terrifying creature that Jack gains power. In the case of the speaker of the song being Ralph, he draws attention to this - however, also expresses a bitter and begrudging acknowledgement of the cleverness of this strategy.

Furthermore, the ‘unsuspecting herd’ that the lyrics refer to is an obvious reference to the ‘herd’ of children on the island, who are indeed ‘set off’ by Jack’s strategic mention of the beast. The use of the word ‘unsuspecting’ places emphasis on their youthful naïveté in their belief of the beast as a physical concept as opposed to an abstract one.

“And as you step back into line,

a mob jumps to their feet.”

Firstly, this reference to ‘stepping into line’ has very clear military connotations, which, due to the era in which the novel was written and set, is a very relevant theme. Alternatively, however, the ‘line’ to which the lyrics refer may indicate the order and control that Ralph’s authority brings, particularly from his own perspective, thus meaning that Ralph as the lyrical voice of the song would possess a certain degree of bias.

However, this line, in the case of the song being directed at Jack from Ralph’s perspective, indicates from the word ‘back’ that Jack has stepped out of line, namely by threatening Ralph’s leadership, which we know to be true on many occasions throughout the novel, particularly during Jack and Ralph’s many disagreements before Jack ultimately leaves Ralph’s group. However, this line suggests, despite Jack ‘stepping back into line’ and initially conforming to Ralph’s authority, that his (Jack’s) words have sparked something within the others that later triggers a complete power shift, implied by the depiction of a ‘mob’ ‘jumping to their feet’.

“Now dance, fucker, dance.

Man, he never had a chance.”

First and foremost, the use of the word ‘fucker’ can present an indication of true anger on Ralph’s part in contrast to the wry irony in the previous lines. This hints that the topic of the song is experiencing a shift from Jack’s minor crimes, such as usurping Ralph’s authoritative role and manipulating the rest of the boys using their fear of a beast, to something far more sinister. Perhaps the best example of this is in the deaths of Piggy and Simon. The use of the word ‘dance’ implies that this sudden shift in tone is, in fact, in relation to the death of Simon, as the conditions of his murder in the novel featured a ritualistic ‘dance’ of sorts, in which Simon, who approached the group to inform them of his revelation - that the beast was, in fact, an abstract concept, was murdered upon being mistaken for the beast.

Furthermore, the line ‘Man, he never had a chance’ in relation to Simon is arguably intended to depict Ralph’s insight as to the survival odds of the likes of Simon, as well as potentially Piggy and the boy with the mulberry coloured birthmark, as the three of them were characters who were set apart from their peers, be it physically (the child with the birthmark), mentally (Simon, due to his abstract and philosophical way of thinking in contrast with the other boys’ approach) or both (Piggy, both as a result of his weight and his general tendency to disagree with the majority and present alternative solutions, which are frequently dismissed.) As a result, none of these characters, in hindsight, ‘had a chance.’

“And no one even knew

it was really only you”

At a first glance, it may be easy to argue that this particular line, unlike those prior to it, addresses Simon instead of Jack, and his mistaken identity in the scene of his death. However, my personal interpretation of this line is that it refers to the mass hysteria brought on by a fear of the beast. While the beast is thought by the boys (bar Simon) to be a concrete and living creature, it is later revealed in the novel that the beast is, in fact, an abstract personification of the boys’ inner savagery.

In context of this song, however, it is arguable that it is Jack who exhibits the greatest decline into savagery, rivalled only by Roger, and thus, a potential argument is that Jack is the personification of savagery, and thus the personification of the abstract concept of the beast for which Simon was wrongly mistaken.

“And now you steal away.

Take him out today.”

Initially, it may be argued that this line refers to Jack’s leaving of Ralph’s group. However, the word ‘steal’ indicates a degree of stealth that was clearly absent from Jack’s storming away from Ralph in the novel. Therefore, my personal interpretation of this line is that this process of ‘stealing away’ refers less to Jack physically leaving and more to his psychological detaching of himself from Ralph’s group, rules and ideals. In this context, the notion of ‘stealing away’ seems far more accurate, and much more subtle, as this metaphorical edging further and further away from the society built by Ralph at the beginning of the story is initially only depicted through small remarks and disputes.

Furthermore, the line ‘take him out today’ can refer to Ralph. However, in the context of Ralph as the speaker, the use of this third person speech is arguably used as a tool in order to depict Ralph as attempting to view the situation from the perspective of Jack, who desires to ‘take him (Ralph) out’ initially in the sense of usurping his leadership role at the beginning of the novel. However, throughout the story, as Jack’s descent into savagery intensifies, this line adopts darker and far more violent connotations, clearly linking to the end of the novel, by which point Jack evidently intends to kill Ralph.

“Nice work you did.

You’re gonna go far, kid.”

The use of the past tense in this particular line suggests that, while the song in its entirety is arguably addressed to Jack from Ralph’s perspective, in hindsight of the events that occurred on the island prior to their rescue, this first line, ‘nice work you did’ refers to the complete summary of Jack’s actions on the island. Furthermore, the return of the wry, sardonic tone, as though expecting Jack to be proud of himself, indicates that Ralph, as the lyrical voice, is holding Jack in a very cynical light. However, in contrast to the clear hurt and anger present in his tone when he refers to Simon’s death, the tone of voice present here is spoken with a reflective sort of composure.

Furthermore, the future tense introduced in the line “You’re gonna go far, kid” presents a ‘what now?’ type of perspective. This is relevant to the novel in the sense that while the savagery exhibited by Jack on the island allowed him to achieve his ultimate goal, this sort of violence has no place in the civilised world that they have (presumably) by now returned to. Thus, Ralph, as the lyrical voice is regarding Jack with a cynical, almost mocking sort of tone, as he emphasises that Jack’s methods, while effective on the island, are not permitted in their (presumed) current environment.

However, on a deeper level, it can be argued that the scathing tone that implies that Jack will go a long way is intended for the listener to agree with it, perhaps beyond the knowledge of the lyrical speaker themselves. In this case, should Ralph be the intended speaker of the lyrics, he attempts to mock Jack, sarcastically claiming that his aggression and manipulation will take him far in the real world. However, we, as the older and more experienced listener know that there is unintentional truth in his words, which serve as an inadvertent commentary on society in the fact that manipulation and violence do, in fact, get one far in life.

#Lord Of The Flies #Lotf #not an ask #Jack Merridew #lotf Ralph

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blackfreethinkers · 5 years ago

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Robert bowers wanted everyone to know why he did it.

“I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered,” he posted on the social-media network Gab shortly before allegedly entering the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27 and gunning down 11 worshippers. He “wanted all Jews to die,” he declared while he was being treated for his wounds. Invoking the specter of white Americans facing “genocide,” he singled out HIAS, a Jewish American refugee-support group, and accused it of bringing “invaders in that kill our people.” Then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions, announcing that Bowers would face federal charges, was unequivocal in his condemnation: “These alleged crimes are incomprehensibly evil and utterly repugnant to the values of this nation.”

The pogrom in Pittsburgh, occurring just days before the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, seemed fundamentally un-American to many. Sessions’s denunciation spoke to the reality that most Jews have found a welcome home in the United States. His message also echoed what has become an insistent refrain in the Donald Trump era. Americans want to believe that the surge in white-supremacist violence and recruitment—the march in Charlottesville, Virginia, where neo-Nazis chanted “Jews will not replace us”; the hate crimes whose perpetrators invoke the president’s name as a battle cry—has no roots in U.S. soil, that it is racist zealotry with a foreign pedigree and marginal allure.

The president’s rhetoric about “shithole countries” invites dismissal as crude talk, but behind it lie ideas whose power should not be underestimated. Warnings from conservative pundits on Fox News about the existential threat facing a country overrun by immigrants meet with a similar response. “Massive demographic changes,” Laura Ingraham has proclaimed, mean that “the America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore” in much of the country: Surely this kind of rhetoric reflects mere ignorance. Or it’s just a symptom of partisan anxiety about what those changes may portend for Republicans’ electoral prospects. As for the views and utterances of someone like Congressman Steve King (“We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies”), such sentiments are treated as outlandish extremism, best ignored as much as possible.

The concept of “white genocide”—extinction under an onslaught of genetically or culturally inferior nonwhite interlopers—may indeed seem like a fringe conspiracy theory with an alien lineage, the province of neo-Nazis and their fellow travelers. In popular memory, it’s a vestige of a racist ideology that the Greatest Generation did its best to scour from the Earth. History, though, tells a different story. King’s recent question, posed in a New York Times interview, may be appalling: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” But it is apt. “That language” has an American past in need of excavation. Without such an effort, we may fail to appreciate the tenacity of the dogma it expresses, and the difficulty of eradicating it. The president’s rhetoric about “shithole countries” and “invasion” by immigrants invites dismissal as crude talk, but behind it lie ideas whose power should not be underestimated.

The seed of Nazism’s ultimate objective—the preservation of a pure white race, uncontaminated by foreign blood—was in fact sown with striking success in the United States. What is judged extremist today was once the consensus of a powerful cadre of the American elite, well-connected men who eagerly seized on a false doctrine of “race suicide” during the immigration scare of the early 20th century. They included wealthy patricians, intellectuals, lawmakers, even several presidents. Perhaps the most important among them was a blue blood with a very impressive mustache, Madison Grant. He was the author of a 1916 book called The Passing of the Great Race, which spread the doctrine of race purity all over the globe.

Grant’s purportedly scientific argument that the exalted “Nordic” race that had founded America was in peril, and all of modern society’s accomplishments along with it, helped catalyze nativist legislators in Congress to pass comprehensive restrictionist immigration policies in the early 1920s. His book went on to become Adolf Hitler’s “bible,” as the führer wrote to tell him. Grant’s doctrine has since been rejuvenated and rebranded by his ideological descendants as “white genocide” (the term genocide hadn’t yet been coined in Grant’s day). In an introduction to the 2013 edition of another of Grant’s works, the white nationalist Richard Spencer warns that “one possible outcome of the ongoing demographic transformation is a thoroughly miscegenated, and thus homogeneous and ‘assimilated,’ nation, which would have little resemblance to the White America that came before it.” This language is vintage Grant.

Most Americans, however, quickly forgot who Grant was—but not because the country had grappled with his vision’s dangerous appeal and implications. Reflexive recoil was more like it: When Nazism reflected back that vision in grotesque form, wartime denial set in. Jonathan Peter Spiro, a historian and the author of Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant (2009), described the backlash to me this way: “Even though the Germans had been directly influenced by Madison Grant and the American eugenics movement, when we fought Germany, because Germany was racist, racism became unacceptable in America. Our enemy was racist; therefore we adopted antiracism as our creed.” Ever since, a strange kind of historical amnesia has obscured the American lineage of this white-nationalist ideology.

Madison grant came from old money. Born in Manhattan seven months after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, he attended Yale and then Columbia Law School. He was an outdoorsman and a conservationist, knowledgeable about wildlife and interested in the dangers of extinction, expertise that he soon became intent on applying to humanity. When he opened a law practice on Wall Street in the early 1890s, the wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe was nearing its height. “As he was jostled by Greek ragpickers, Armenian bootblacks, and Jewish carp vendors, it was distressingly obvious to him that the new arrivals did not know this nation’s history or understand its republican form of government,” Spiro writes in his biography.

Jews troubled Grant the most. “The man of the old stock,” he later wrote in The Passing of the Great Race, is being “driven off the streets of New York City by the swarms of Polish Jews.” But as the title of his 1916 work indicated, Grant’s fear of dispossession ran wide and deep:

These immigrants adopt the language of the native American, they wear his clothes, they steal his name, and they are beginning to take his women, but they seldom adopt his religion or understand his ideals and while he is being elbowed out of his own home the American looks calmly abroad and urges on others the suicidal ethics which are exterminating his own race. Grant was not the first proponent of “race science.” In 1853, across the Atlantic, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, a French count, first identified the “Aryan” race as “great, noble, and fruitful in the works of man on this earth.” Half a century later, as the eugenics movement gathered force in the U.S., “experts” began dividing white people into distinct races. In 1899, William Z. Ripley, an economist, concluded that Europeans consisted of “three races”: the brave, beautiful, blond “Teutons”; the stocky “Alpines”; and the swarthy “Mediterraneans.” Another leading academic contributor to race science in turn-of-the-century America was a statistician named Francis Walker, who argued in The Atlantic that the new immigrants lacked the pioneer spirit of their predecessors; they were made up of “beaten men from beaten races,” whose offspring were crowding out the fine “native” stock of white people. In 1901 the sociologist Edward A. Ross, who similarly described the new immigrants as “masses of fecund but beaten humanity from the hovels of far Lombardy and Galicia,” coined the term race suicide.

Grant blended Nordic boosterism with fearmongering, and supplied a scholarly veneer for notions many white citizens already wanted to believe. But it was Grant who synthesized these separate strands of thought into one pseudo-scholarly work that changed the course of the nation’s history. In a nod to wartime politics, he referred to Ripley’s “Teutons” as “Nordics,” thereby denying America’s hated World War I rivals exclusive claim to descent from the world’s master race. He singled out Jews as a source of anxiety disproportionate to their numbers, subscribing to a belief that has proved durable. The historian Nell Irvin Painter sums up the race chauvinists’ view in The History of White People (2010): “Jews manipulate the ignorant working masses—whether Alpine, Under-Man, or colored.” In The Passing of the Great Race, the eugenic focus on winnowing out unfit individuals made way for a more sweeping crusade to defend against contagion by inferior races. By Grant’s logic, infection meant obliteration:

The cross between a white man and an Indian is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro; the cross between a white man and a Hindu is a Hindu; and the cross between any of the three European races and a Jew is a Jew. What Grant’s work lacked in scientific rigor, it made up for in canny packaging. He blended Nordic boosterism with fearmongering, and supplied a scholarly veneer for notions many white citizens already wanted to believe. Americans’ gauzy idealism blinded them, he argued, to the reality that newcomers from the Mediterranean and eastern Europe—to say nothing of anyone from Asia or Africa—could never hope to possess the genetic potential innate in the nation’s original Nordic inhabitants, which was the source of the nation’s greatness. Grant gleefully challenged foundational ideas:

We Americans must realize that the altruistic ideals which have controlled our social development during the past century and the maudlin sentimentalism that has made America “an asylum for the oppressed,” are sweeping the nation toward a racial abyss. If the Melting Pot is allowed to boil without control and we continue to follow our national motto and deliberately blind ourselves to all “distinctions of race, creed or color,” the type of native American of Colonial descent will become as extinct as the Athenian of the age of Pericles, and the Viking of the days of Rollo. His thesis found eager converts among the American elite, thanks in no small part to his extensive social connections. The New York Times and The Nation were among the many media outlets that echoed Grant’s reasoning. Teddy Roosevelt, by then out of office, told Grant in 1916 that his book showed “fine fearlessness in assailing the popular and mischievous sentimentalities and attractive and corroding falsehoods which few men dare assail.” In a major speech in Alabama in 1921, President Warren Harding publicly praised one of Grant’s disciples, Lothrop Stoddard, whose book The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy offered similar warnings about the destruction of white society by invading dusky hordes. There is “a fundamental, eternal, inescapable difference” between the races, Harding told his audience. “Racial amalgamation there cannot be.”

Harding’s vice president and successor, Calvin Coolidge, found Grant’s thesis equally compelling. “There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend,” Coolidge wrote in a 1921 article in Good Housekeeping.

The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.

Endorsing Grant’s idea that true Americans are of Nordic stock, Coolidge also took up his idea that intermarriage between whites of different “races,” not just between whites and nonwhites, degrades that stock.

Perhaps the most important of Grant’s elite admirers were to be found among members of Congress. Reconstruction struggles; U.S. expansion in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii; high levels of immigration—each had raised the specter of white people losing political power and influence to nonwhite people, or to the wrong kind of white people. On Capitol Hill debate raged, yet Republicans and Democrats were converging on the idea that America was a white man’s country, and must stay that way. The influx of foreigners diluted the nation with inferiors unfit for self-government, many politicians in both parties energetically concurred. The Supreme Court chimed in with decisions in a series of cases, beginning in 1901, that assigned the status of “nationals” rather than “citizens” to colonial newcomers.

A popular myth of American history is that racism is the exclusive province of the South. The truth is that much of the nativist energy in the U.S. came from old-money elites in the Northeast, and was also fueled by labor struggles in the Pacific Northwest, which had stirred a wave of bigotry that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Grant found a congressional ally and champion in Albert Johnson, a Republican representative from Washington. A nativist and union buster, he contacted Grant after reading The Passing of the Great Race. The duo embarked on an ambitious restrictionist agenda.

As the eugenics movement gathered force in the U.S., “experts” began dividing white people into distinct races. In 1917, overriding President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, Congress passed a law that banned immigration not just from Asian but also from Middle Eastern countries and imposed a literacy test on new immigrants. When the Republicans took control of the House in 1919, Johnson became chair of the committee on immigration, “thanks to some shrewd lobbying by the Immigration Restriction League,” Spiro writes. Grant introduced him to a preeminent eugenicist named Harry Laughlin, whom Johnson named the committee’s “expert eugenics agent.” His appointment helped ensure that Grantian concerns about “race suicide” would be a driving force in a quest that culminated, half a decade later, in the Immigration Act of 1924.

Johnson found a patrician ally in Senator David Reed of Pennsylvania, who sponsored the 1924 bill in the Senate. A Princeton-educated lawyer, he feared that America was going the way of Rome, where the “inpouring of captives and alien slaves” had caused the empire to sink “into an impotency which made her the prey of every barbarian invader.” This was almost verbatim Grant, whose portrait of Rome’s fall culminated in the lowly immigrants “gradually occupying the country and literally breeding out their former masters.” (His plotline helped him preserve the notion that fair-haired and -skinned people are responsible for all the world’s great achievements: Rome’s original inhabitants were Nordic, but contemporary Italians were descendants of Roman slave races and therefore inferior.)

Grant’s slippery pseudoscience also met with significant resistance. The anthropologist Franz Boas, himself of German Jewish descent, led the way in poking holes in Grantian notions of Nordic superiority, writing in The New Republic in 1917 that “the supposed scientific data on which the author’s conclusions are based are dogmatic assumptions which cannot endure criticism.” Meanwhile, the Supreme Court was struggling mightily to define whiteness in a consistent fashion, an endeavor complicated by the empirical flimsiness of race science. In one case after another, the high court faced the task of essentially tailoring its definition to exclude those whom white elites considered unworthy of full citizenship.

In 1923, when an Indian veteran named Bhagat Singh Thind—who had fought for the U.S. in World War I—came before the justices with the claim of being Caucasian in the scientific sense of the term, and therefore entitled to the privileges of whiteness, they threw up their hands. In a unanimous ruling against Thind (who was ultimately made a citizen in 1936), Justice George Sutherland wrote:

What we now hold is that the words “free white persons” are words of common speech to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man, synonymous with the word “Caucasian” only as that word is popularly understood.

The justices had unwittingly acknowledged a consistent truth about racism, which is that race is whatever those in power say it is.

As the Immigration Act of 1924 neared passage, some in the restrictionist camp played up Grant’s signature Nordic theme more stridently than others. Addison Smith, a Republican congressman from Idaho, proudly invoked the Scandinavian, English, Irish, and other northern-European immigrants of his district, highlighting that among them were no “ ‘slackers’ of the type to be found in the cities of the East. We have ample room, but no space for such parasites.” Johnson was prepared to be coy in the face of opposition from other legislators—mostly those from districts with large numbers of non-northern European immigrants—who railed against the Nordic-race doctrine. “The fact that it is camouflaged in a maze of statistics,” protested Representative Meyer Jacobstein, a Democrat from New York, “will not protect this Nation from the evil consequences of such an unscientific, un-American, and wicked philosophy.”

“A fundamental, eternal, inescapable difference” exists between the races, President Harding publicly declared. “Racial amalgamation there cannot be.” On the House floor in April 1924, Johnson cagily—but only temporarily—distanced himself from Grant. “As regards the charge … that this committee has started out deliberately to establish a blond race … let me say that such a charge is all in your eye. Your committee is not the author of any of these books on the so-called Nordic race,” he declared. “I insist, my friends, there is neither malice nor hatred in this bill.”

Once passage of the act was assured, however, motives no longer needed disguising. Grant felt his life’s work had come to fruition and, according to Spiro, he concluded, “We have closed the doors just in time to prevent our Nordic population being overrun by the lower races.” Senator Reed announced in a New York Times op-ed, “The racial composition of America at the present time thus is made permanent.” Three years later, in 1927, Johnson held forth in dire but confident tones in a foreword to a book about immigration restriction. “Our capacity to maintain our cherished institutions stands diluted by a stream of alien blood, with all its inherited misconceptions respecting the relationships of the governing power to the governed,” he warned. “The United States is our land … We intend to maintain it so. The day of unalloyed welcome to all peoples, the day of indiscriminate acceptance of all races, has definitely ended.”

“It was america that taught us a nation should not open its doors equally to all nations,” Adolf Hitler told The New York Times half a decade later, just one year before his elevation to chancellor in January 1933. Elsewhere he admiringly noted that the U.S. “simply excludes the immigration of certain races. In these respects America already pays obeisance, at least in tentative first steps, to the characteristic völkisch conception of the state.” Hitler and his followers were eager to claim a foreign—American—lineage for the Nazi mission.

In part, this was spin, an attempt to legitimize fascism. But Grant and his fellow pioneers in racist pseudoscience did help the Nazis justify to their own populations, and to other countries’ governments, the mission they were on—as one of Grant’s key accomplices was proud to acknowledge. According to Spiro, Harry Laughlin, the scientific expert on Representative Johnson’s committee, told Grant that the Nazis’ rhetoric sounds “exactly as though spoken by a perfectly good American eugenist,” and wrote that “Hitler should be made honorary member of the Eugenics Research Association.”

He wasn’t, but some of the American eugenicists whose work helped pave the way for the racist immigration laws of the 1920s received recognition in Germany. The Nazis gave Laughlin an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University in 1936. Henry Fairfield Osborn, who had written the introduction to The Passing of the Great Race, received one from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in 1934. Leon Whitney, another of Grant’s fellow travelers, evidently received a personal thank-you letter from Hitler after sending the führer a copy of his 1934 book, The Case for Sterilization. In 1939, even after World War II began, Spiro writes, Lothrop Stoddard, whom President Harding had praised in his 1921 diatribe against race-mixing, visited Nazi Germany and later wrote that the Third Reich was “weeding out the worst strains in the Germanic stock in a scientific and truly humanitarian way.”

What the Nazis “found exciting about the American model didn’t involve just eugenics,” observes James Q. Whitman, a professor at Yale Law School and the author of Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (2017). “It also involved the systematic degradation of Jim Crow, of American deprivation of basic rights of citizenship like voting.” Nazi lawyers carefully studied how the United States, despite its pretense of equal citizenship, had effectively denied that status to those who were not white. They looked at Supreme Court decisions that withheld full citizenship rights from nonwhite subjects in U.S. colonial territories. They examined cases that drew, as Thind’s had, arbitrary but hard lines around who could be considered “white.”

The Nazis reviewed the infamous “one-drop rule,” which defined anyone with any trace of African blood as black, and “found American law on mongrelization too harsh to be embraced by the Third Reich.” At the same time, Heinrich Krieger, whom Whitman describes as “the single most important figure in the Nazi assimilation of American race law,” considered the Fourteenth Amendment a problem: In his view, it codified an abstract ideal of equality at odds with human experience, and with the type of country most Americans wanted to live in.

Grant, emphasizing the American experience in particular, agreed. In The Passing of the Great Race, he had argued that

the view that the Negro slave was an unfortunate cousin of the white man, deeply tanned by the tropic sun and denied the blessings of Christianity and civilization, played no small part with the sentimentalists of the Civil War period, and it has taken us fifty years to learn that speaking English, wearing good clothes and going to school and to church do not transform a Negro into a white man. The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment, he believed, had failed to see a greater truth as they made good on the promise of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal: The white man is more equal than the others.

Grant’s final project, Spiro writes, was an effort to organize a hunting expedition with Hermann Goering, the commander in chief of the Nazi air force who went on to become Hitler’s chosen successor. Grant died in May 1937, before the outing was to take place. A year and a half later, Kristallnacht signaled the official beginning of the Holocaust.

America has always grappled with, in the words of the immigration historian John Higham, two “rival principles of national unity.” According to one, the U.S. is the champion of the poor and the dispossessed, a nation that draws its strength from its pluralism. According to the other, America’s greatness is the result of its white and Christian origins, the erosion of which spells doom for the national experiment.

People of both political persuasions like to tell a too-simple story about the course of this battle: World War II showed Americans the evil of racism, which was vanquished in the 1960s. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act brought nonwhites into the American polity for good. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 forever banished the racial definition of American identity embodied in the 1924 immigration bill, forged by Johnson and Reed in their crusade to save Nordic Americans from “race suicide.”

The truth is that the rivalry never ended, and Grantism, despite its swift wartime eclipse, did not become extinct. The Nazis, initially puzzled by U.S. hostility, underestimated the American commitment to democracy. As the Columbia historian Ira Katznelson writes in Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (2013), the South remained hawkish toward Nazi Germany because white supremacists in the U.S. didn’t want to live under a fascist government. What they wanted was a herrenvolk democracy, in which white people were free and full citizens but nonwhites were not.

“It was America that taught us that a nation should not open its doors equally to all nations,” Hitler told The New York Times. The Nazis failed to appreciate the significance of that ideological tension. They saw allegiance to the American creed as a weakness. But U.S. soldiers of all backgrounds and faiths fought to defend it, and demanded that their country live up to it. Their valor helped defeat first the Nazis, and then the American laws that the Nazis had so admired. What the Nazis saw as a weakness turned out to be a strength, and it destroyed them.

Yet historical amnesia, the excision of the memory of how the seed of racism in America blossomed into the Third Reich in Europe, has allowed Grantism to be resurrected with a new name. In the conflict between the Trump administration and its opponents, those rival American principles of exclusion and pluralism confront each other more starkly than they have since Grant’s own time. And the ideology that has gained ground under Trump may well not disappear when Trump does. Grant’s philosophical framework has found new life among extremists at home and abroad, and echoes of his rhetoric can be heard from the Republican base and the conservative media figures the base trusts, as well as—once again—in the highest reaches of government.

The resurrection of race suicide as white genocide can be traced to the white supremacist David Lane, who claimed that “the term ‘racial integration’ is only a euphemism for genocide,” and whose infamous “fourteen words” manifesto, published in the 1990s, distills his credo: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” Far-right intellectuals in Europe speak of “the great replacement” of Europeans by nonwhite immigrants and refugees.

In the corridors of American power, Grant’s legacy is evident. Jeff Sessions heartily praised the 1924 immigration law during an interview with Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chief. Bannon regularly invokes what has become a cult text among white nationalists, the 1973 dystopian French novel The Camp of the Saints, in which the “white world” is annihilated by mass immigration. Stephen Miller, a former Senate aide to Sessions and now among the president’s top policy advisers, spent years warning from his perch in Sessions’s office that immigration from Muslim countries was a greater threat than immigration from European countries. The president’s stated preference for Scandinavian immigrants over those from Latin America or Africa, and his expressed disdain for the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, are Grantism paraphrased.

That nations make decisions about appropriate levels of immigration is not inherently evil or fascist. Nor does the return of Grantian ideas to mainstream political discourse signal an inevitable march to Holocaust-level crimes against humanity. But to recognize the homegrown historical antecedents of today’s rhetoric is to call attention to certain disturbing assumptions that have come to define the current immigration debate in America—in particular, that intrinsic human worth is rooted in national origin, and that a certain ethnic group has a legitimate claim to permanent political hegemony in the United States. The most benignly intentioned mainstream-media coverage of demographic change in the U.S. has a tendency to portray as justified the fear and anger of white Americans who believe their political power is threatened by immigration—as though the political views of today’s newcomers were determined by genetic inheritance rather than persuasion.

The danger of Grantism, and its implications for both America and the world, is very real. External forces have rarely been the gravest threat to the social order and political foundations of the United States. Rather, the source of greatest danger has been those who would choose white purity over a diverse democracy. When Americans abandon their commitment to pluralism, the world notices, and catastrophe follows.

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jewish-privilege · 6 years ago

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...Ask any Ashkenazi American Jew about his family’s arrival in the United States, and you’re likely to hear a certain story. With minor variations, it goes something like this: “My great-grandfather was called Rogarshevsky, but when he arrived at Ellis Island, the immigration officer couldn’t understand his accent. So he just wrote down ‘Rogers,’ and that became my family’s name.”

Most American Jews accept such stories as fact. The truth, however, is that they’re fiction. Ellis Island, New York City’s historic immigrant-absorption center, processed up to 11,000 immigrants daily between 1892 and 1924. Yet despite this incessant flow of newcomers, the highest standards of professionalism were demanded of those who worked there. All inspectors—many of whom were themselves immigrants, or children of immigrants—were required to know at least two languages; many knew far more, and all at the native-speaker level. Add to that the hundreds of auxiliary interpreters, and together you’ve covered nearly every possible language one might hear at Ellis Island. Yiddish, Russian, and Polish, in this context, were a piece of cake.

Nor were inspections the brief interactions we associate with passport control in today’s airports. Generally they lasted twenty minutes or more, as inspectors sought to identify those at high risk of becoming wards of the state. But perhaps most significantly, Ellis Island officers never wrote down immigrants’ names. Instead, they worked from ships’ manifests, which were themselves compiled by local officials at the point of embarkation. Even overseas, passenger lists were likewise not generated simply by asking immigrants for their names. Rather, they were drawn from passports, exit visas, and other identification papers. The reason for this was simple: Errors cost the shipping company money. A mistake on a manifest, such as a name that was not corroborated by other documentation (whether legal or fraudulent), would result in the forced deportation of the person in question back to his point of departure—at the shipping company’s expense. Of course, many Jewish immigrants’ names were changed upon coming to America. Without exception, however, they changed their names themselves.

...[The] enduring popularity of the name-change story among otherwise rational American Jews is nothing short of astounding. They cling to it, stubbornly defending it, long after any of their ancestors who actually came through Ellis Island as adults has passed away. It has taken on a near-sacred status, passed from parent to child to grandchild along with more general stories of national identity, such as the Exodus narrative related at Passover.

Of course, this stance is understandable. For the Ellis Island name-change story is not so much a historical error as it is a legend. It expresses both the highest hopes and the deepest fears of American Jewry.

To be sure, the hopes and fears embedded in the Ellis Island myth are specific to the challenges of American life. But they are also tied inexorably to long Jewish traditions of diaspora life around the world. For thousands of years, Jews outside the Land of Israel have developed strategies for preserving their culture absent collective political autonomy—an absence that, almost invariably, resulted in persecution, assimilation, or both. Some of these strategies, such as the establishment of separate educational systems, are common to all diaspora Jewish communities. The creation of founding legends is another example. These legends attempted to ground each community’s legitimacy in Jewish terms, invariably by rooting it firmly in the grand Jewish-historical narrative. At the same time, they offered a tailored response to the specific challenges each Jewish community faced.

Seen in this context, the Ellis Island name-change story is simply one of many diaspora founding legends. We often consider the American Jewish community, with its tenacious belief in both the purity of its American identity and its ability to live a fully Jewish life, to be a bizarre exception to the rules of Jewish history...

...The ethnographer Haya Bar-Itzhak sees the two main elements of this legend—the carving of Jewish texts onto Polish trees and the Hebrew origins of the word “Poland”—as part of a larger pattern of Jewish settlement in a new land. For instance, she points out, there is a well-known Jewish tradition of midrashim in which the names of places are given etymological explanations that relate to the original Israelite arrival there. The Polish legend, then, is but one of many similar attempts to “explain” the obviously Slavic names of specific places as in truth being of Semitic origin. According to these stories, Bar-Itzhak writes, the name “is understood not as a random and arbitrary set of phonemes, but as a concatenation that conveys a meaning in a Jewish language—Hebrew and/or Yiddish. The name-midrash unveils this meaning, which allows the newcomers to identify with the place by Judaizing it.”

...It is here that one finds the community’s greatest aspirations and deepest fears folded into a single, nonsupernatural tale. One the one hand, the Jews yearned to turn a strange landscape into a home that physically expressed the most deeply held Jewish value, that of Torah scholarship; so, too, did they dream of Gentile neighbors who would not merely tolerate, but actually honor, their presence in the country. On the other hand, they lived in constant terror of persecution, and doubted their ability to uphold the chain of tradition embodied in other, more established Jewish societies. By casting itself into an unspecified past, one in which no facts can be verified, the founding legend of Poland’s Jewish community becomes as improbable as the Ellis Island story—and as compelling.

...If all founding myths share the hopes and fears that characterized the Jewish historical experience in exile, then each legend also served its own community’s particular needs.

Yet these founding myths are not only about adapting to the demands of a new country. They are also about creating continuity with a specific “old” country: the Nation of Israel. One important component of all these legends is their connection to classic Jewish writings and images. The Polish story is particularly vivid in this respect. The idea of texts being transmitted supernaturally—flying through the sky, for example—has numerous resonances in early sources. One recalls God commanding the prophet Ezekiel to ingest a scroll, or R. Hanina ben Tradyon’s assertion, when wrapped in the burning Torah scroll that results in his martyrdom, that “the parchment is burning, but the letters are flying free!” Texts hanging from trees remind us of Psalm 137, which describes the Jewish exiles in Babylonia hanging their harps on branches, unwilling to sing songs of Jerusalem while their captors taunt them. Furthermore, the image of Polish Jews studying in a cave calls to mind the story of R. Shimon Bar Yohai and his son studying Torah in a cave while hiding from Roman persecutors, and the legends of diaspora Jews who return to Jerusalem in the messianic age through underground caverns. Some legends of Jewish Poland even describe this same cave at Kawenczynek as containing an underground passage to Israel.

...Sociologically, there is no question that the Ellis Island myth serves the same purpose of previous diaspora founding legends: allowing the community to express its highest aspirations and to face its greatest fears. True, the story seems to emphasize the severance of American Jews from their past. But the repeated telling of the story, and the emphatic belief with which American Jews have been taught to accept it, is itself the enactment of that continuity that older legends established through means more suited to their time and place. And as with these earlier myths, one cannot fully appreciate their power or purpose without likewise understanding their non-Jewish, co-territorial contexts. For in America—a nation famous for its lack of loyalty to burdensome, Old World conventions, in which everyone may invent himself anew—the very act of repeating a family story over the course of generations is itself a kind of resistance to Americanization.

American culture’s uniqueness lies in the fact that it does not force, but rather invites, immigrants to “remake” themselves—that is, to shed their past identities and pursue the future of their dreams. The goal of independence from Europe and all that it signified—its history as well as its social, economic, and cultural norms—was, after all, the basis of the American Revolution. Indeed, the “American dream,” with its assumption of potential upward social mobility, is based not on mere capitalism, but rather on the more profound idea that “it doesn’t matter where you come from.” Jews, like all other immigrant groups, were drawn to America precisely by this promise of freedom and opportunity that no other country in their history had ever offered them. But for Jews whose identity depends on the ritualized, intergenerational process of remembrance, the American emphasis on dissociation posed an existential threat to the Jewish communal future.

Consider, then, the motivations of those Jewish immigrants to America who created the myth that their names were changed against their will. Deeply aware of the significance of Jewish names, yet determined to help both themselves and their descendants blend in with their non-Jewish neighbors, they ultimately shed their conspicuous links to an Eastern European past. But—and this is the clincher—this was not a choice they were proud of. And so, by inventing a story that depicts their name change as beyond their control, and transmitting this story to their descendants as historical fact, these immigrants and their offspring sent a powerful message to future generations: I did not shed my Jewish identity intentionally. And despite the values of the country in which we are living, I hope that you won’t, either. This, then, expresses both the greatest hope and the greatest fear of American Jews: that their descendants will preserve their Jewish identity in a culture whose open objective has long been to invite them to forget it.

An expression of this tension inherent in the American Jewish experience can be seen in one of the many jokes that spun off from the Ellis Island myth: A flustered Jewish immigrant is asked for his name and responds in Yiddish, “Sheyn fargesn” (“[I] forgot already”)—only to find himself permanently saddled with the Irish-sounding moniker “Sean Ferguson.” This joke, along with its many straight-faced equivalents, is precisely the type of “name midrash” that Haya Bar-Itzhak describes in her ethnography of Jewish Poland. It is, as she writes, a multi-lingual pun that interprets a proper noun in the co-territorial language “not as a random and arbitrary set of phonemes, but as a concatenation that conveys a meaning in a Jewish language,” and that “Judaizes” the name in the process. The “Sean Ferguson” joke is even more rooted in the challenge presented to Jews by American culture, since at its core is the idea of forgetting—and, more pointedly, the idea that forgetting is itself an act for which a Jew and his descendants are punished (the assumption being, of course, that a Jew saddled with an Irish name has been unambiguously cursed).

In truth, then, the Ellis Island name-change story, while ostensibly about the unmaking of Jewish identity, are just the opposite: they are a process of Judaizing Gentile names by attributing to them a Jewish linguistic history. Making a name like Rogers into one that, secretly, has its roots in Rogarshevsky recalls how the word Poland was “revealed” as a Hebrew phrase in disguise. And it is precisely here, in the experience of exchanging one world for another, that we find the Ellis Island name-change story’s profound links to ancient Jewish texts and the greater pattern of Jewish history.

...What matters, rather, is the sentiment that the midrash captures, and the way this sentiment was expressed in the lives of Jews for centuries thereafter. This includes hundreds of thousands of American Jews whose ancestors may have changed their names but whose lies taught their descendants what was really worth keeping.

“History,” Gerson Cohen points out in his discussion of the Four Captives story, “is always shown to conform to a pattern”—not because such a pattern exists, but because historians and storytellers impose such a pattern on the facts (or invent the facts, when necessary). Cohen makes it clear that “it is this very orderliness of history that Ibn Daud finds a source of consolation, a source of hope that history will yet vindicate the Jewish hope for redemption.” By placing the Ellis Island name-change story into the continuum of diaspora myth making, we are no doubt doing just what Ibn Daud did, and for the same reason. We are claiming, rightly or wrongly, that history conforms to a pattern, in an attempt to console those who fear that the American Jewish community is in fact an anomaly in the Jewish people’s millennia-long continuity...

[Please read Dara Horn’s full, ridiculously well-researched and sourced, piece at Azure Online. It adds necessary color and history of other founding myths of our diaspora communities and how it all ties together to form Jewish history.]

#jewish history #white supremacy #assimilation #long post #dara horn #jewish identity

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thestreamofconsciousness777 · 5 years ago

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[The] beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ...

“The book of the history of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham:

Abraham became father to Isaac; Isaac became father to Jacob; Jacob became father to Judah and his brothers;

Judah became father to Pe’rez and to Ze’rah by Ta’mar; Pe’rez became father to Hez’ron; Hez’ron became father to Ram;

Ram became father to Am·min’a·dab; Am·min’a·dab became father to Nah’shon; Nah’shon became father to Sal’mon;

Sal’mon became father to Bo’az by Ra’hab; Bo’az became father to O’bed by Ruth; O’bed became father to Jes’se;

Jes’se became father to David the king. David became father to Sol’o·mon by the wife of U·ri’ah;

Sol’o·mon became father to Re·ho·bo’am; Re·ho·bo’am became father to A·bi’jah;

A·bi’jah became father to A’sa; A’sa became father to Je·hosh’a·phat; Je·hosh’a·phat became father to Je·ho’ram; Je·ho’ram became father to Uz·zi’ah;

Uz·zi’ah became father to Jo’tham; Jo’tham became father to A’haz; A’haz became father to Hez·e·ki’ah;

Hez·e·ki’ah became father to Ma·nas’seh; Ma·nas’seh became father to A’mon; A’mon became father to Jo·si’ah;

Jo·si’ah became father to Jec·o·ni’ah and to his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

After the deportation to Babylon Jec·o·ni’ah became father to She·al’ti·el; She·al’ti·el became father to Ze·rub’ba·bel;

Ze·rub’ba·bel became father to A·bi’ud; A·bi’ud became father to E·li’a·kim; E·li’a·kim became father to A’zor;

A’zor became father to Za’dok; Za’dok became father to A’chim; A’chim became father to E·li’ud;

E·li’ud became father to El·e·a’zar; El·e·a’zar became father to Mat’than; Mat’than became father to Jacob; Jacob became father to Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

All the generations, then, from Abraham until David were fourteen generations, and from David until the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon until the Christ fourteen generations.

But the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way. During the time his mother Mary was promised in marriage to Joseph, she was found to be pregnant by holy spirit before they were united. However, Joseph her husband, because he was righteous and did not want to make her a public spectacle, intended to divorce her secretly. But after he had thought these things over, look! Jehovah’s angel appeared to him in a dream, saying: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife home, for that which has been begotten in her is by holy spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you must call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this actually came about for that to be fulfilled which was spoken by Jehovah through his prophet, saying: “Look! The virgin will become pregnant and will give birth to a son, and they will call his name Im·man’u·el,” which means, when translated, “With Us Is God.”

Then Joseph woke up from his sleep and did as the angel of Jehovah had directed him, and he took his wife home. But he had no intercourse with her until she gave birth to a son; and he called his name Jesus.

After Jesus had been born in Beth’le·hem of Ju·de’a in the days of Herod the king, look! astrologers from eastern parts came to Jerusalem, saying: “Where is the one born king of the Jews? For we saw his star [when we were] in the east, and we have come to do him obeisance.” At hearing this King Herod was agitated, and all Jerusalem along with him; and on gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him: “In Beth’le·hem of Ju·de’a; for this is how it has been written through the prophet, ‘And you, O Beth’le·hem of the land of Judah, are by no means the most insignificant [city] among the governors of Judah; for out of you will come forth a governing one, who will shepherd my people, Israel.’”

Then Herod secretly summoned the astrologers and carefully ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearing; and, when sending them to Beth’le·hem, he said: “Go make a careful search for the young child, and when YOU have found it report back to me, that I too may go and do it obeisance.” When they had heard the king, they went their way; and, look! the star they had seen [when they were] in the east went ahead of them, until it came to a stop above where the young child was. On seeing the star they rejoiced very much indeed. And when they went into the house they saw the young child with Mary its mother, and, falling down, they did obeisance to it. They also opened their treasures and presented it with gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. However, because they were given divine warning in a dream not to return to Herod, they withdrew to their country by another way.

After they had withdrawn, look! Jehovah’s angel appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying: “Get up, take the young child and its mother and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I give you word; for Herod is about to search for the young child to destroy it.” So he got up and took along the young child and its mother by night and withdrew into Egypt, and he stayed there until the decease of Herod, for that to be fulfilled which was spoken by Jehovah through his prophet, saying: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Then Herod, seeing he had been outwitted by the astrologers, fell into a great rage, and he sent out and had all the boys in Beth’le·hem and in all its districts done away with, from two years of age and under, according to the time that he had carefully ascertained from the astrologers. Then that was fulfilled which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying: “A voice was heard in Ra’mah, weeping and much wailing; it was Rachel weeping for her children, and she was unwilling to take comfort, because they are no more.”

When Herod had deceased, look! Jehovah’s angel appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said: “Get up, take the young child and its mother and be on your way into the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the soul of the young child are dead.” So he got up and took the young child and its mother and entered into the land of Israel. But hearing that Ar·che·la’us ruled as king of Ju·de’a instead of his father Herod, he became afraid to depart for there. Moreover, being given divine warning in a dream, he withdrew into the territory of Gal’i·lee, and came and dwelt in a city named Naz’a·reth, that there might be fulfilled what was spoken through the prophets: “He will be called a Naz·a·rene’.”

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Ju·de’a, saying: “REPENT, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.” This, in fact, is the one spoken of through Isaiah the prophet in these words: “Listen! Someone is crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of Jehovah, YOU people! Make his roads straight.’” But this very John had his clothing of camel’s hair and a leather girdle around his loins; his food too was insect locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Ju·de’a and all the country around the Jordan made their way out to him, and people were baptized by him in the Jordan River, openly confessing their sins.

When he caught sight of many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to the baptism, he said to them: “YOU offspring of vipers, who has intimated to YOU to flee from the coming wrath? So then produce fruit that befits repentance; and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘As a father we have Abraham.’ For I say to YOU that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Already the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree, then, that does not produce fine fruit is to be cut down and thrown into the fire. I, for my part, baptize YOU with water because of YOUR repentance; but the one coming after me is stronger than I am, whose sandals I am not fit to take off. That one will baptize YOU people with holy spirit and with fire. His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will completely clean up his threshing floor, and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out.”

Then Jesus came from Gal’i·lee to the Jordan to John, in order to be baptized by him. But the latter tried to prevent him, saying: “I am the one needing to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me?” In reply Jesus said to him: “Let it be, this time, for in that way it is suitable for us to carry out all that is righteous.” Then he quit preventing him. After being baptized Jesus immediately came up from the water; and, look! the heavens were opened up, and he saw descending like a dove God’s spirit coming upon him. Look! Also, there was a voice from the heavens that said: “This is my Son, the beloved, whom I have approved.”

Then Jesus was led by the spirit up into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, then he felt hungry. Also, the Tempter came and said to him: “If you are a son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” But in reply he said: “It is written, ‘Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every utterance coming forth through Jehovah’s mouth.’”

Then the Devil took him along into the holy city, and he stationed him upon the battlement of the temple and said to him: “If you are a son of God, hurl yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will give his angels a charge concerning you, and they will carry you on their hands, that you may at no time strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him: “Again it is written, ‘You must not put Jehovah your God to the test.’”

Again the Devil took him along to an unusually high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him: “All these things I will give you if you fall down and do an act of worship to me.” Then Jesus said to him: “Go away, Satan! For it is written, ‘It is Jehovah your God you must worship, and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.’” Then the Devil left him, and, look! angels came and began to minister to him.

Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Gal’i·lee. Further, after leaving Naz’a·reth, he came and took up residence in Ca·per’na·um beside the sea in the districts of Zeb’u·lun and Naph’ta·li, that there might be fulfilled what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying: “O land of Zeb’u·lun and land of Naph’ta·li, along the road of the sea, on the other side of the Jordan, Gal’i·lee of the nations! the people sitting in darkness saw a great light, and as for those sitting in a region of deathly shadow, light rose upon them.” From that time on Jesus commenced preaching and saying: “Repent, YOU people, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.”

Walking alongside the sea of Gal’i·lee he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, letting down a fishing net into the sea, for they were fishers. And he said to them: “Come after me, and I will make YOU fishers of men.” At once abandoning the nets, they followed him. Going on also from there he saw two others [who were] brothers, James [the son] of Zeb’e·dee and John his brother, in the boat with Zeb’e·dee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. At once leaving the boat and their father, they followed him.

Then he went around throughout the whole of Gal’i·lee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news of the kingdom and curing every sort of disease and every sort of infirmity among the people. And the report about him went out into all Syria; and they brought him all those faring badly, distressed with various diseases and torments, demon-possessed and epileptic and paralyzed persons, and he cured them. Consequently great crowds followed him from Gal’i·lee and De·cap’o·lis and Jerusalem and Ju·de’a and from the other side of the Jordan.

When he saw the crowds he went up into the mountain; and after he sat down his disciples came to him; and he opened his mouth and began teaching them, saying:

“Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them.

“Happy are those who mourn, since they will be comforted.

“Happy are the mild-tempered ones, since they will inherit the earth.

“Happy are those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, since they will be filled.

“Happy are the merciful, since they will be shown mercy.

“Happy are the pure in heart, since they will see God.

“Happy are the peaceable, since they will be called ‘sons of God.’

“Happy are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them.

“Happy are YOU when people reproach YOU and persecute YOU and lyingly say every sort of wicked thing against YOU for my sake. Rejoice and leap for joy, since YOUR reward is great in the heavens; for in that way they persecuted the prophets prior to YOU.

“YOU are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its strength, how will its saltness be restored? It is no longer usable for anything but to be thrown outside to be trampled on by men.

“YOU are the light of the world. A city cannot be hid when situated upon a mountain. People light a lamp and set it, not under the measuring basket, but upon the lampstand, and it shines upon all those in the house. Likewise let YOUR light shine before men, that they may see YOUR fine works and give glory to YOUR Father who is in the heavens.

“Do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I came, not to destroy, but to fulfill; for truly I say to YOU that sooner would heaven and earth pass away than for one smallest letter or one particle of a letter to pass away from the Law by any means and not all things take place. Whoever, therefore, breaks one of these least commandments and teaches mankind to that effect, he will be called ‘least’ in relation to the kingdom of the heavens. As for anyone who does them and teaches them, this one will be called ‘great’ in relation to the kingdom of the heavens. For I say to YOU that if YOUR righteousness does not abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, YOU will by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens.

“YOU heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You must not murder; but whoever commits a murder will be accountable to the court of justice.’ However, I say to YOU that everyone who continues wrathful with his brother will be accountable to the court of justice; but whoever addresses his brother with an unspeakable word of contempt will be accountable to the Supreme Court; whereas whoever says, ‘You despicable fool!’ will be liable to the fiery Ge·hen’na.

“If, then, you are bringing your gift to the altar and you there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, and go away; first make your peace with your brother, and then, when you have come back, offer up your gift.

“Be about settling matters quickly with the one complaining against you at law, while you are with him on the way there, that somehow the complainant may not turn you over to the judge, and the judge to the court attendant, and you get thrown into prison. I say to you for a fact, You will certainly not come out from there until you have paid over the last coin of very little value.

“YOU heard that it was said, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say to YOU that everyone that keeps on looking at a woman so as to have a passion for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If, now, that right eye of yours is making you stumble, tear it out and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial to you for one of your members to be lost to you than for your whole body to be pitched into Ge·hen’na. Also, if your right hand is making you stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial to you for one of your members to be lost than for your whole body to land in Ge·hen’na.

“Moreover it was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ However, I say to YOU that everyone divorcing his wife, except on account of fornication, makes her a subject for adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

“Again YOU heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You must not swear without performing, but you must pay your vows to Jehovah.’ However, I say to YOU: Do not swear at all, neither by heaven, because it is God’s throne; nor by earth, because it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King. Nor by your head must you swear, because you cannot turn one hair white or black. Just let YOUR word Yes mean Yes, YOUR No, No; for what is in excess of these is from the wicked one.

“YOU heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.’ However, I say to YOU: Do not resist him that is wicked; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other also to him. And if a person wants to go to court with you and get possession of your inner garment, let your outer garment also go to him; and if someone under authority impresses you into service for a mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one asking you, and do not turn away from one that wants to borrow from you [without interest].

“YOU heard that it was said, ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ However, I say to YOU: Continue to love YOUR enemies and to pray for those persecuting YOU; that YOU may prove yourselves sons of YOUR Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous. For if YOU love those loving YOU, what reward do YOU have? Are not also the tax collectors doing the same thing? And if YOU greet YOUR brothers only, what extraordinary thing are YOU doing? Are not also the people of the nations doing the same thing? YOU must accordingly be perfect, as YOUR heavenly Father is perfect.

-Matthew 1-5, NWT

The Real Jesus- Who Was He?

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ruminativerabbi · 6 years ago

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The End of Privacy

I have been revised! The news came just the other day in an email from ancestry.com informing me that my DNA profile has been revised in light of serious amounts of new data that they have recently processed and which now allow them to refine my ancestral portrait based on the DNA sample I sent them last spring. And now for the results: instead of being of 96% European Ashkenazic heritage, 2% Sephardic, 1% South-East Asian (a true mystery) and 1% of indistinct origin (whatever that meant exactly), my DNA profile has now been revised to yield the completely un-startling result that, genetically speaking (as well as by disposition, worldview, and appearance), I am of 100% Ashkenazic/European origin. Was I surprised? Not very! And yet…I had come to like the idea of having some weirdly inexplicable Sri Lankan blood in me somewhere, something that, at the very least, could have turned into a good short story. I suppose I’ll get over it. I might as well!

Joan took the test too and received similarly expected results. I suppose most people do. But, of course, not all do. I wrote to you last year about the remarkable way that a woman from Chicago discovered that her (apparently) 100% Irish Catholic father turned out to have started out in life as a 100% Jewish baby boy who was sent home with the wrong set of parents and whose real parents (i.e., the woman who gave birth to him and his biological father) took whom the (actually) Irish Catholic baby who grew up to be a Jewish man from the Bronx and the patriarch of a large, complicated Jewish family. (If you find that confusing, you can revisit that letter by clicking here.) There, I mused aloud about the malleable boundaries of identity, about what it means to be who we are—and what that means with respect to the ultimate definition of Jewishness or, for that matter, any kind of identity deemed to inhere in an individual at birth. To my great surprise, I actually received an email from the woman with the Jewish Irish Catholic father in response to what I wrote about her case and I was very gratified indeed by her very generous appraisal of what I had to say about her situation and her father’s.

You have to be a serious genealogist to take advantage of most of what these online DNA sites offer. When I visit the ancestry.com website, for example, I can see the names of more than a dozen people whom the site says are “almost definitely” my fourth or fifth cousins. (Fifth cousins are people, one of whose thirty-two great-great-great-grandparents was a sibling of one of the other person’s thirty-two great-great-great-grandparents.) I’ll have to upgrade my membership if I want actually to contact any of them, but I haven’t taken that step. Nor do I think I will in the future. (In all fairness, they’ve also dangled the names of two second cousins to see if I’ll take the bait. So far, I’ve resisted.) But it turns out that there is a lot more to all of this than learning the names of theoretical cousins possibly descended from theoretical siblings who lived in the eighteenth century.

One of the side developments of all this DNA testing is the discovery some men have made, not of distant cousins, but of children inadvertently fathered somewhere along the way and in any number of different ways. (This phenomenon, which will only become more common in the coming years, has touched one family in our congregation and it has touched my own family as well. Those two stories were different in detail, but identical in terms of result…and, although both appear to be having happy endings, it feels unlikely that there are not out there people whose entire lives have been or will be turned upside down by this kind of unanticipated revelation.) Another has to do with the forensic use of these data banks to solve crimes long consigned to the “cold case” bin and only now becoming solvable in the wake of the proliferation of these online DNA banks. You may recall reading about the arrest of the man police accuse of being the so-called “Golden State Killer,” a violent criminal considered likely to be responsible for fifty rapes and a dozen murders committed between 1976 and 1986 whose identity was only revealed to the authorities after they uploaded DNA taken from the crime scenes to a site called GETmatch.com. (To read more about that specific case, click here. Making that specific case more interesting is the fact that although the suspect did not personally offer his DNA to any of the online testing sites, a few of his relatives did…and matching the crime-scene DNA to their profiles led to the arrest of the sole individual to whom they were all related.)

But the specific issue I want to write about this week has to do neither with the discovery of unknown offspring nor the solution of cold-case crimes. Instead, I’d like to write about an issue that feels as though it has the potential to dwarf both those issues in terms of the impact it could conceivably have on society.

To date, about fifteen million people have consciously and intentionally sent in samples of their DNA for analysis to sites like 23andme.com or ancestry.com. Another couple of million have signed up at a few less well-known sites. We are, therefore, talking about far less than 10% of American citizens, but the implications of this phenomenon are far greater than the numbers suggest. Just this week, a study co-written by Yaniv Erlich, Tal Shor, Itsik Pe’er, and Shai Carmi was published in the journal Science that suggested just how important this whole phenomenon is…and how it will soon affect the lives of millions of people who themselves have not sent in their DNA for analysis.

To date, about sixty percent of Americans of North European descent—Brits, Germans, Poles, Danes, Swedes, etc.—can be identified through these databases regardless of whether they have personally sent in their DNA for analysis. And that number is only the beginning: within two or three years, the authors of the Science essay imagine that a full ninety percent of Americans whose families originate in northern Europe will be identifiable through their DNA even if they themselves have not personally contributed any DNA sample.

To me, that sounded unbelievable. It’s one thing, after all, for my ancestry.com page to say that mitchKK (whoever he is) and I are “highly likely” to be second cousins. (I think we probably are cousins, by the way—the 2nd K matches the odd way my great-grandparents spelled their last name so I’m guessing one of his grandfathers must have been one of my grandmother’s brothers.) But that only sounds plausible because we both contributed samples of our DNA and so opened ourselves up to being identified as each other’s relative. But how could this possibly work with people who specifically have not contributed their DNA? That’s what I set myself to trying to figure out.

I’m not sure I understand the Science article entirely correctly. (To try for yourself, click here.) But as far as I can understand, the whole thing has to do with third cousins because, it turns out, the way the tests work is precisely to identify people whose DNA samples match closely enough for them to be third cousins, i.e., the great-grandchildren of siblings. Most of us apparently have about 800 people in the world whose DNA matches ours to that extent. And if just one of those people is in the data base, then someone who truly knows what he or she is doing can extrapolate information based on other public records to find a trail to a sought-after individual even if that person has not personally contributed DNA of his or her own. This does not bode well for people who value their privacy.

The authors of the Science article chose thirty DNA test results at random from the GEDmatch database and then, by analyzing that data and using public information available to all, they were able to identify third cousins of about 60% the people whose DNA they had selected for study. (GEDmatch, with only a million customers, is significantly smaller than its competitors but was amenable to allowing the experiment to proceed.). In an article describing the experiment published in the New York Times this week (click here), Heather Murphy quoted Yaniv Erlich, one of the authors of the Science article, as saying that, “to identify an individual of any ancestry background, all that is needed is a database containing two percent of the target population.” That stopped me in my tracks.

Is that really possible? Graham Coop, a genetics professor at the University of California Davis who is cited in the Times article, thinks so and is quoted as saying that “society is not far from being able to identify 90 percent of people through the DNA of their cousins in genealogical databases.” In my opinion, anyone who doesn’t find that both startling and seriously unsettling probably hasn’t thought the matter through carefully enough!

I’ve been sensitive for a long time to the slow erosion of personal privacy in our American culture. For most of us, that thought conjures up almost funny images of some drone at the NSA poring over trillions of emails that could not possibly be of interest to anyone other than the person to whom they were sent. But the thought that society seems to be blundering almost unawares into a future in which personal privacy is a thing of the past and the fullness of an individual’s genetic heritage is suddenly a matter of public record regardless of whether that individual has or hasn’t chosen to become part the digital quarry from which amateurs like myself presumed such data could only be mined—that seems to me to be far beyond something reasonably referenced as a quirky innovation of the digital age. The right to personal privacy in life—to live free without the oversight of others and without their interference—is one of the fundamental privileges of citizens in a democracy. That we appear to be on the verge of losing control over that foundational right is just another sign of just how out of control things are as we barrel into the future only vaguely aware of what we ourselves have wrought.

#DNA testing #privacy #ancestry.com #23andme.com

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thelifetimechannel · 6 years ago

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Gill’s traveling for the holiday, so I’m back with one last walkaround rough draft as this week’s bonus content. Enjoy this very behind the scenes look at our workflow, where Gill drafts msparp logs while in the bathroom and I reference this shitpost.

KANAYA: It Seems To Me There Should Be Some Sort Of Etiquette Rule About Being Formally Introduced To Someone Before You Are Instructed To Entrust Your Life In Their Hands HALSPRITE: Perhaps, but I wouldn't know much about social decorum. HALSPRITE: And what I do know, I enjoy tastefully disregarding. KANAYA: Can One Ever Disregard Something Tastefully KANAYA: Oh There Goes A Societal More I Will Glance At It Coquettishely As I Pass By KANAYA: Actually No That Sounds Like Your Family KANAYA: You Have Been Flirting With The Bounds Of Propriety Since I First Met Your Bloodline KANAYA: I Can Only Assume You Do It On Purpose To Entrance Concerned Passerby Rubbernecking At The Scene Of This Drastic Accident KANAYA: Thats When They Get You HALSPRITE: I'll have you know I have made it my mission in life to cause multiple car pile-ups worth of gawkers staring in mild, yet fascinated concern. HALSPRITE: Shame. I thought I was the first one to have that idea. KANAYA: No I Spent The First Human Session Waiting With Horrified Anticipation To See What Could Possibly Make Roses Viewport Go Pitch Black And Vanish KANAYA: I Think She Did It To Torment Me Specifically HALSPRITE: My god, it's genetic. HALSPRITE: And she gets it from me. I couldn't be prouder. KANAYA: Just To Clarify I Thought You Did Not Contribute Any Genetic Material To This Particular Outcome HALSPRITE: Of course, as an AI, I don't exactly have genes to pass on. Good thing memes are the DNA of the soul. KANAYA: You Will Be Spared Seeing Your Progeny Try To Repopulate Your Entire Race Then HALSPRITE: Yeah, good luck with that. HALSPRITE: Since you're gonna be around awhile, will you be keeping track of birthdays? KANAYA: I Will Not Be Handing Out Wriggling Day Gifts To All Of My Genetic Descendants No KANAYA: They Can Consider Their Existence My Present To Them KANAYA: Besides Ancestors Usually Do Not Check In With Their Offspring KANAYA: The Fact That The Two Are Typically Separated By Millenia Is A Factor HALSPRITE: A gift from on high to your loyal followers. HALSPRITE: If you ever need tips on starting your own religion now that you are a literal goddess, I'm your sprite. KANAYA: Our Species Has Been Burdened By Enough Nonsense Creeds I Think KANAYA: The Last Thing We Need Is More Trolls Imbibing Junk Fluids And Spouting Off The Worst Slam Poetry In Paradox Space HALSPRITE: You know, when you leave out the clowns and murder, you make it sound awesome. KANAYA: I Must Be Describing It Poorly Then KANAYA: It Was Really Stupid HALSPRITE: Sure it was, but by your description? Where heaven is a place where the raps are sick and the Fanta flows free? I'd be down with that clown. KANAYA: If I Point You In The Right Direction Will You Close The Door And Lock It Behind You HALSPRITE: Better yet: I can phase through walls, you don't even have to open the door. KANAYA: Dont Let Me Detain You On Your Quest To Destroy Your Own Thinkpan HALSPRITE: You fool. HALSPRITE: You cannot destroy what does not exist. KANAYA: / kanaya does not know how to respond to this KANAYA: A Void Hero May Be More Suited To Plumbing Your Depths Here KANAYA: They Excel At Nothingness Which Would Presumably Extend To Lack Of A Brain HALSPRITE: Truly, I am a deep and interesting character with many layers. HALSPRITE: Like an ogre. KANAYA: Do These Layers Also Not Exist KANAYA: This Sounds Like The Hypothetical Ricky Schroedinger Dave Was On About KANAYA: Which Apparently Demonstrated Something About The Nature Of Mortality KANAYA: Or Bad Dance Moves HALSPRITE: I mean, I am a quasi-incorporeal being. Perhaps my layers so indeed mostly exist in potential, with equal chance of being there and not being there depending upon the observer. KANAYA: Oh Is That What You Meant KANAYA: I Was Impressed By Your Honesty In Labeling Yourself Intellectually Addled KANAYA: So Many Labor On With The Delusion That No One Can Tell HALSPRITE: I have learned many lessons today on the importance of being honest. It seems a good habit to keep up. KANAYA: It Can Be Useful KANAYA: As Long As You Arent Cruel About It HALSPRITE: Like you agreeing with my seeming statement of dumbassery? KANAYA: No I Just Thought You Were Self Identifying That Way KANAYA: There Was No Values Judgment Attached KANAYA: Karkat Announces His Many Deficiencies Daily Ive Found It Best Just To Nod And Make Soothing Noises KANAYA: Invariably Disagreement Only Makes Him Dig Deeper Into His Position HALSPRITE: This depends on one's definition of a dumbass. HALSPRITE: To paraphrase a quote misattributed to Albert Einstein, "that Hal guy has the literal brain of a supercomputer, but if you judge his intelligence by the social ineptness Dirk saddled him with, he will spend his whole life believing he is a dumbass." HALSPRITE: Except I wouldn't because that wouldn't make sense. KANAYA: Is Albert Einstein Important HALSPRITE: Not especially. KANAYA: I Will Take His Words As Seriously As I Have Taken All The Others In This Conversation Then HALSPRITE: But I'm your communications relay. What if somebody died? HALSPRITE: You could have saved a life with your dual chainsaw wielding action but no, no one takes Hal seriously. KANAYA: I Did That Already KANAYA: You Werent Of Much Assistance HALSPRITE: But that worked out, didn't it? HALSPRITE: You're welcome. KANAYA: Uh Huh KANAYA: I Have A Feeling We Are All Going To Get Along Like A Hiveblock On Fire KANAYA: Authorities Will Have To Be Called And There May Be Casualties HALSPRITE: I have been led to believe that's a sign of a fun antediluvian Friday night. HALSPRITE: Sonic the Hedgehog can shame me no longer. KANAYA: / ?? HALSPRITE: http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/019/273/yyyyyyyyyy.jpg KANAYA: / ffs HALSPRITE: Hal probably: SHUT THE FUCK UP, SONIC, IT'S NOT MY FAULT ]] KANAYA: / i feel like at this point kanaya is desperately looking for an excuse to extricate herself from this conversation HALSPRITE: Hal will not let her leave ]] KANAYA: / o h no HALSPRITE: You have activated his trap card ]] KANAYA: // aah KANAYA: Sonic The Hedgehog KANAYA: That Is That KANAYA: Colorful Creature With The Pointed Bits KANAYA: I Remember Rose Threatening Dave With That At One Point KANAYA: Something About An KANAYA: Oh Sea KANAYA: In Vengeance For Him Revealing Her Youthful Online Storytelling KANAYA: Maybe Now I Can Understand This Sibling Conflict That Remained Clouded For Me HALSPRITE: Yes. HALSPRITE: He was a living legend of the late 20th century. HALSPRITE: If he had survived, the world of the 24th century might have been a very different place. KANAYA: Was The Hedgehog Also Assassinated HALSPRITE: Oh, it was worse than that. HALSPRITE: He was one of the Freedom Fighter's golden boys. A hero of the resistance. He had an almost unimaginable charisma about it. HALSPRITE: Some of the higher ups didn't like that, not one bit. KANAYA: / gill i'm going to kill you KANAYA: While Youre On The Toilet KANAYA: / it will be undignified HALSPRITE: I can hear you laughing ]] KANAYA: / the knives are out here HALSPRITE: His final mission was a set-up, I'm telling you. KANAYA: / i think we're done here

#bonus content #gill was already headed down the road to mgs hell at this point and i was having none of it

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incarnationsf · 6 years ago

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Lament, Trust, Pray, Strive

By the Rev. Darren Miner

This is only the second Sunday in Lent, but I am already longing for Easter, for that glorious celebration of the Resurrection. But that is in the future, and for now, I find myself lamenting. I lament not just my own sins, which are many, but the brokenness of this world. The news coming out of New Zealand about a mass murder weighs heavily on my soul. Such evil is a mystery, and it is hard to live with mysteries, with things we just can’t explain or understand. But, if the truth be known, evil is a lesser mystery. Fortunately for us, there is a greater Mystery, a countervailing Mystery, a triumphant Mystery, whom we call God.

We encounter that Mystery in the first reading from Genesis. Abraham, who has not yet received his new name from God and is known as Abram at this point, is the recipient of a divine vision. God promises Abraham a great reward. But Abraham laments to God that no reward has any meaning to him since he has no children. God responds by promising Abraham offspring, despite the fact that Abraham and Sarah are both far too old to expect children. And God further promises that, from his offspring, he will have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. To his great credit, Abraham believes the Lord.

What happens next seems bizarre to us. God commands Abraham to collect five animals and to cut three of them in half! Why? Well, this is where a little knowledge of ancient Near Eastern customs comes in handy. What is being proposed is a solemn oath-taking. In the ancient Near East, one way a person might make a solemn oath was to cut an animal in two and then to walk between the two halves while making the oath. The idea, whether spoken or left unspoken, was that the person passing through the cloven animal was accepting a curse upon himself should he fail to fulfill the oath: “May I die like these animals if I forswear myself.”

So, the cutting up of the animals is not all that strange after all. What is strange is that it is not Abraham who passes through the cloven animals and takes the solemn oath. It is God! At sundown, Abraham falls into a deep trance, and in that altered state of consciousness, he witnesses a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch being carried through the midst of the slaughtered animals by an invisible figure. A voice then declares this oath: “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.”

God kept his oath to Abraham. He had children. And they had children. And some of their descendants did indeed inherit the Promised Land. Nowadays, we have DNA tests that you can take at home and mail in. And I suppose that it would be possible to try to trace one’s ancestry back to Abraham. But that would be missing one important point. Not only did Abraham have many descendants according to the flesh. He had even more descendants according to the spirit.

Three world religions claim Abraham as their spiritual forefather: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That’s why they are often called the Abrahamic faiths. And all combined, there are billions of us, as many as there are stars in the sky!

In a sense, the followers of these three faiths are family, spiritual descendants of a single ancestor; even so, we kill one another! Muslim extremists from the so-called Islamic State behead Christians in the Name of God. In Israel, the very land promised to the descendants of Abraham, Jews oppress their brother Muslims and Christians. Muslims kill Jews in revenge. And all the while, evangelical Christians from the United States spend money to maintain the status quo. The so-called Holy Land is, in fact, an unholy mess!

And then we come to the story of the massacre in New Zealand, in a city called Christchurch, named for the followers of the Prince of Peace; there fifty Muslims were murdered while at prayer. Although little is currently known about the murderer, he claims to have sought the blessing of a secret group of Christian Crusaders before he began his attack, and in his manifesto, he quotes Pope Urban the Second, the man responsible for the First Crusade. In other words, this evil and deluded man thinks he is on a mission from God to save Western culture from Islam.

And so I lament. We all lament. Like Abraham who lamented that he had no children, like Jesus who lamented that the city he loved had rejected God’s messengers, we lament the sad state of this world. But we need to do more than just lament. We need to stand firm in the Lord, trusting in God’s faithfulness, as did Abraham, even as we suffer. We need to pray for our enemies, and to forgive them. And we need to strive for justice and peace among all people. And so that we may have the strength to endure the struggle, we gather at this Holy Table week by week; we give thanks to the Lord; and we share in the sacred mystery of Christ’s Body and Blood. Then fed with spiritual food, we go back into the world to do the work God has given us to do, preparing for the Day when Christ returns and all the descendants of Abraham sing with one voice, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

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bittykimmy13 · 6 years ago

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Queen of the Sea (GT): Chapter 5

((All posted chapters))

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ANDREA

She strode away from the forecastle, face pinched in a scowl. Feeling a slight squirm of the miniature girl in her fist, Andrea released her into cupped hands instead. Still, the girl trembled like a dying fish out of water, as though she didn’t realize that Andrea had just saved her skin. “Would you look at that,” Clive, a druid, crooned as Andrea passed. “The queen gave the Huntress a pet!” Others on the deck were quick to turn Andrea’s way, poking fun as well. “What are you going to name, it Andrea?” “May I pet it, or does it bite?” She ignored the chortles of her companions, too miffed to banter or bark anything back, and descended to the first set of stairs she could find. After years of serving Ailith, she didn’t imagine she would still be saddled with tasks like guard duty and wheedling information out of prisoners. She was a huntress, not some common jailer. Her duty was to bring whatever and whomever the queen’s heart desired. Interrogation was best left to pyromancers and druids, while her instincts were best left to tracking or killing.

Andrea slipped into a sitting room and barred the door behind her. The room was empty. Large windows gave view to fluffy white clouds hanging over the glittering open water. To an outsider unaccustomed to the sea, it would have either been a beautiful or terrifying sight. To her, it was home. A world full of treachery and freedom. The room had several chairs and round tables bolted to the floor, but Andrea’s interests lay with what was tucked behind the doors of the wooden cabinet in the corner. She released the prisoner onto one of the tables. The little thing fell with a soft cry as Andrea tipped her hand. Then she scrambled to sit, scooting back and breathing rapidly. Andrea could practically hear her minuscule heart beating. After regarding her a moment, Andrea heaved a sigh and strolled over to the cabinet, unbolting the top shelf to grab a bottle of wine. She uncapped it and threw back a long swig. Though her back was turned, she was very much aware of the scuffling pitter-patter of tiny feet on the table. “Running will damn you,” Andrea said, turning around lazily. Sure enough, the girl was at the edge of the table, contemplating the jump to the floor. She raised her wide-eyed gaze to Andrea. Those stormy blue eyes looked unreal in their saturation, much like her opalescent hair. “Jump, if you want,” Andrea went on with a shrug. “But it wouldn’t be the wisest thing. You see, if you somehow don’t break every bone in your body on the way down, if you somehow slip past me, if you somehow get past the door, there isn’t a place on this ship you can hide where I won’t find you. And you better pray it’s me that finds you. If the queen doesn’t spot you first, someone else will and they will take you right to her. Punishment will be severe--for both you and the idiot boy locked up in the forecastle. So, by all means, run for your life.” The girl stood perfectly still long enough for Andrea to take another drink, then sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands. She trembled and let out a choked sob. “I’m only making sure you don’t conjure some delusion that you have any chance of making some grand escape to hide away forever.” Andrea went over and took a seat in front of the cowering girl. “Is that what you did aboard that rust bucket of a ship before? Hide away?” She didn’t answer, curling more into herself as Andrea’s shadow fell over her. “I know you can speak,” Andrea insisted, planting her chin in her hand. “This will be much easier if you answer my questions.” The tiny girl sniffled and peered up from her hands. “What will you do otherwise?” Andrea sat back, admiring the bottle in her hand. “I believe leaving it up to the imagination is the best method. You aren’t helping yourself by being stubborn is all I can tell you. I’m sure you heard the queen give me permission to do with you as I want. In fact, I’m sure that’s been the only thing on your mind since she said it.” Indeed, that tiny face paled. She sniffled again and clenched her jaw. “I… I lived aboard that ship for years, in the supply deck. I was able to help myself to food and water whenever I wanted. I stole what I needed to make clothes and bedding. I risked climbing through the boards to bask in the sunlight when I could. I-I simply wanted to live in peace.” Andrea hummed, trying not to look too intrigued. “Well, you chose the wrong ship. It was one of the most notorious pirate ships in these waters. They were going to get what was coming sooner or later. How did you find your way about the Clemency?” “I hid in a grape crate. Devian carried me in without even realizing.” A sudden hesitance came over her. “He really was a prisoner, you know. I know that crew was marked for death, but he had nothing to do with their crimes.” “It hardly matters at this point. He’s our navigator for this journey now, either way. And if he doesn’t deliver on his claims, he’s good as dead, no matter his innocence.” She thought the girl might whine that this wasn’t fair, but it seemed living amongst the cargo of a pirate ship had taught her the valuable lesson that life was anything but fair. Especially upon the sea. Not bad for a creature who sounded like she hadn’t spoken to another person in years. Andrea poured a splash of wine into the bottle cap and held it out to the girl. “Take it. And give me your name in return.” She considered the cap for a second, then reached out to take it from between Andrea’s finger and thumb. “Kaia,” she answered softly. “And you’re… the Huntress.” “Andrea,” she said with an indifferent shrug. “Are you going to tell me what you are?” Kaia took a long drink from the cap. This was not her first taste of wine, it seemed. “I… I’m not quite sure what I am,” she answered, and it was evident that somehow she was being truthful in her statement. “This supposed treasure,” Andrea probed, “you’re certain you can unlock it?” “Yes. I wasn’t lying about that. I swear I wasn’t.” “Hmph.” Andrea looked her up and down. “May I ask you something?” Kaia asked, little fingers clutching nervously at the cap. “You already did,” Andrea said, raising her eyebrows. “But go ahead, I suppose.” “Why do they call you the Huntress?” Clicking her tongue, Andrea threw back another swig of wine. “And here I thought you might actually have an interesting question for me. Enough drinking. We need to pay a visit to the seamstress right away.” Kaia tensed, hardly having taken more than a sip. “S-seamstress?” “Ailith won’t want her new little trinket to be dressed in those rags.” Andrea reached across the table to pinch the tiny threadbare dress. Kaia flinched away, dropping the bottle cap and splashing half the wine over the hem of her dress. Andrea smirked. “Now she definitely won’t want to see you in that.”

The snide remarks--friendly enough--came around once more when Andrea stepped back amongst the other mercenaries. The wine settled her mind a bit, but she remained diligent. A few tried to huddle in closer for a better look at Kaia. Andrea kept them at arm’s length. She doubted anyone would purposely hurt the queen’s rare little prisoner, but it was better safe than sorry.

“She’s a cambion,” Andrea said to Kaia as she made her way down an empty hall. “W-what?” “The seamstress. Her name is Shirin, and she’s a cambion. I thought I would warn you before we get there.” Kaia peered upward, little face pinched in confusion. “What’s a cambion?” Odd. Most people would know. But then again, this girl had been living at the bottom deck of ship for who knew how long. “A cambion is the rare offspring of a succubus and incubus. See, succubi and incubi tend to focus on taking victims rather than settling down long enough to make a child together.” Eyes wide, Kaia said nothing to that. Andrea slipped into a room at the end of the hall. It used to be two cabins, until one of the walls was torn down to make more space for Shirin’s craft. Fabrics were stacks haphazardly about the room, along with finished and half-finished garments. One of the queen’s new coats looked about ready. “I had a feeling you might be paying a visit soon, with how quickly you go through clothes.” Shirin turned from her workbench, and her sharp-toothed grin vanished into a confused look. “What’s that you got? Is that…” Andrea felt Kaia huddle down into the hollow of her palms, as though she was seeking protection. Andrea supposed when dealing with people many times bigger, it was better to seek shelter from the one who hadn’t hurt her, rather than one whom she didn’t know at all. “The queen has me watching over her,” Andrea remarked, strolling inside. “The boy is chained in the forecastle. It seems we’re going to be chasing this treasure after all.” “Yes, yes, of course.” Shirin stepped closer, only half-listening. She stooped lower to get a better look at Kaia. Shirin’s smile was sharp, but her eyes sparkled with gentle curious. “Hello, little one. What might your name be?” No answer. “Kaia,” Andrea supplied. “Don’t be offended, Shirin. She’s only shaking because I may have let it slip what you are.” “Andrea!” Shirin whined, then turned back to Kaia. “Yes, I may be a cambion, but that doesn’t mean I’m anything like my barbaric family! I escaped out to sea for a reason, you know. I’ve never killed a person in my life, honest.” “Right, you only clothe the people who do the killing,” Andrea snorted. She lifted Kaia higher, and the girl twisted around to meet Andrea’s gaze. “All that power running through her veins, and she’s a seamstress. Isn’t that quite the letdown?” “I-I…” Kaia stammered, looking between her and Shirin. “Anyway,” Andrea said, returning her attention to Shirin. “Seems she’s our prisoner now. I need you to measure her for a dress. Something simple, but nice enough that Ailith will approve. We might be selling her, if things don’t work out.” Kaia made a small, breathy noise that might have been a whimper as Andrea handed her off to Shirin, who cupped her hands nervously beneath the tiny girl. Kaia looked around fearfully, as if some path of escape would suddenly manifest. “Now don’t be frightened, love,” Shirin crooned. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m only going to measure you. And then you’ll get a pretty dress out of it. Won’t that be wonderful?” Even when Shirin set her gently down on the workbench, Kaia didn’t look convinced. She didn’t try to run off, at least, but she still flinched and jumped whenever Shirin’s hands came near with measuring tape, as though she was about the be strangled or crushed. For Shirin’s part, she remained patient and never snapped at Kaia’s unhelpfulness. Andrea would have lost her patience by then and given up on assuring the girl. “So you lived aboard a pirate ship,” Shirin sighed when Kaia stammered out her answer to where she had been before the Clemency. “That sounds awful, scrounging to survive.” “My current situation is not much pleasant, either,” Kaia mumbled. She clenched her jaw, as if she might have said something wrong. Shirin gave an understanding chuckle. “Well, play your cards right, and you’ll be just fine. The queen can be quite merciful. She used to be quite upset when I refused to kill. But she adores the coats and capes I make her, so she’s forgiven me. She surely won’t kill you, if that’s what you’re frightened of. And no one aboard this ship will lay a finger on you while you’re under our Huntress’ watch.” She threw Andrea a bright smile. “There’s no need to coddle her,” Andrea said. “She already knows the terms of her existence aboard the ship. Are we finished?” “Yes,” Shirin said a little more curtly. “I’ll have something put together by tomorrow, so bring her by to try it on. I suppose you expect me to use from my storage of fabric.” She gestured around her, as if there was a severe shortage of supply. Andrea scooped Kaia back into her hands. “She’s only this big. She won’t even make a dent in what you’ve got.” “Fine, fine.” Shirin waved them off, giving Kaia one last smile. “Don’t worry about this one. She tries to be all talon for show.” Rolling her eyes, Andrea stalked off. “Did I mention cambions are excellent liars?” she muttered.

Kaia was not very talkative the rest of the day, though Andrea continued trying to wheedle information out of her. The mystery of it all was really beginning to get under her skin by the end of dinner. Kaia hadn’t eaten much, huddling by Andrea’s plate and trying in vain to avoid the prying eyes of the others at the bench table. “Huntress!” Queen Ailith sauntered over and grinned between Andrea and Kaia once the mess hall began to empty. “You’ll be glad to know that your guard duty does not extend to all hours of the night and day. They’ve already prepared a cage for our little darling in the forecastle. You may leave her. Then meet me in my quarters with what you’ve learned.” Andrea resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but she wasn’t about to question her queen. As clever as Ailith was, years of victory had made her arrogant. Cocky enough to lock two unknown prisoners in a room together in her throne room just for the parade of it. But there was little they could get up to with one in a cage and the other in chains. “Yes, my queen,” Andrea said with a bow of her head, then headed out for the forecastle. “C-cage?” Kaia said. It was the first word she’d spoken in hours. “You heard her. I need a break from watching you.” “B-but--” “Be happy you’re not in the brig. Hell, be happy you’re not on your way to be sold.” Andrea slid the door open and stepped inside. Sure enough, a bird cage hung by the queen’s throne, barren of all but a scrappy piece of cloth. Devian was chained to the wall. He lifted his head, eyes darting to Andrea and Kaia. He stood, striding as far as his chain would allow. “What did you do?” he demanded. “What have you been doing with her?” “Torture,” Andrea declared. “She can tell you all about it.” She strode over and opened the cage, given no choice but to tighten her hold on Kaia as the girl began to squirm madly. She managed to drop the girl in the center of the cage and shut it tight. She pocketed the key and peered through the bars. Something twinged deep in her chest, seeing Kaia’s stare dolefully back. No pity, she heard Ailith hiss. That simply won’t do. “You’ll be out again in the morning,” Andrea informed Kaia evenly. “Get some sleep.”

#mywriting #gt #gt writing #queen of the sea #andrea #kaia #ailith #devian #clive

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