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themagnuswriters · 4 years ago

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Writing a Muslim Character

The Mods of the Magnus Writers discord server and community are putting together a variety of resources for Magnus Archives fan creators; these have been collated from articles on the topics, our own experiences, and the experiences of the members of the Magnus Writers discord. These are definitely not comprehensive or the only viewpoints out there, and are by no means meant as a way to police fanworks, but as a way to support and inspire fan creators in creating thoughtful and diverse works. Please note that external links will be added in a reblog to outsmart tumblr’s terrible tagging system, so make sure to check those out as well!

This resource in particular was put together by Mod Jasmine: hi, all!

While there are no canonically Muslim characters in TMA, Muslim headcanons are common in fanworks—particularly for Basira, and sometimes Jon (which I love to see!). I have cobbled together this post from my own experiences to help support and inform fans in these areas, and as part of my diabolical plan to get more Muslim!Basira and Muslim!Jon fics to shove into my brain.

First, two gigantic caveats:

I was raised Sunni Muslim in Egypt, which is a majority Sunni Muslim country, and still live there. This means my experience will be very different from someone raised in a majority Christian country like the UK, and different again if they are not Sunni and not Arab.

I am currently ex-Muslim. This does not mean I bear any ill will towards Islam or Muslims, just that it wasn’t for me, and I felt it was important to be upfront about that. I’ll be linking to resources by practicing Muslims in the reblog to this post, whether to add to my opinions and experiences or provide you with a different opinion. I am not here to put my voice over that of Muslims, just to do some of the work so they don’t have to. Obviously, if any Muslims have any additions or suggestions for this post, I’m happy to accommodate them.

Alright. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started with the basics of writing a Muslim character.

(Warning: this is absurdly, absurdly long)

Basics:

Muslims follow two main sources of religious instruction: Quran and Hadith.

The Quran is the holy book, considered to be dictated by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammed, who then relayed what he was told to his followers. It is composed of surahs, or chapters, which have individual ayat, or verses. There are no varying versions of the Quran, later additions, or anything considered lost in translation. Any Arabic Quran is considered to be the same text that the Prophet Mohammed relayed, unchanged. As a result, while Muslims can debate interpretations of the Quran (although that’s often still left to the scholars), none debate the actual words of the text.

Hadith, meanwhile, are the sayings or teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. Their validity can be disputed, as they were written by his followers after his death, and mainly depend on having several witnesses for a specific saying or situation. The more witnesses there were, the more valid the hadith is considered to be.

When in doubt or should there be any contradiction between the Quran and Hadith, Muslims will always refer to the Quran first and foremost.

Denominations:

The bigggest (but not only!) divisions of Islam are Sunni and Shia, and both of those have separate madhabs, which are the separate thoughts and stances of specific Imams. When writing a Muslim character, a good first step would be to decide where your character’s family might have come from, as that could help inform which denomination your character might belong to. This will in turn inform things like the beliefs they grew up with, how they pray, their holy holidays, and so on. Obviously, all denominations fall under the bigger umbrella of Muslim, but can vary in practice.

Background:

The intersection of culture and religion affects a character beyond which denomination they likely belong to, such as whether they call prayer salah or namaz, the foods they might associate with Ramadan or Eid, and their community’s stance on things like hijab and alcohol.

One thing to keep in mind is that being Muslim is not synonymous with being Arab and vice versa. Not all Arabs are Muslim, not all Muslims are Arab or even Middle Eastern. In fact, the largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia. That said, depending on your character’s race and backround, there is the potential they may have faced Arab elitism or other strands of racism within Muslim circles. Please see the reblog of this post for an article about one Black British Muslim woman’s experience with racism.

And, of course, your character and their family do not need to have been immigrants at all. They or their family may have been converts instead. According to most Muslim schools of thought, all that’s required for a person to be Muslim is stating the shahada in Arabic, honestly and with intent. It goes, “Ashhadu an la ilah illa Allah, wa an Mohammadan rasul Allah,” which translates as “I bear witness that there is no god but God, and that Mohammed is His prophet.” Shia Muslims, I believe, have an additional section, but otherwise that’s it. Recite that in front of witnesses with sincere belief and that’s all you need to be Muslim.

Pillars of Islam:

These are the duties or cornerstones of a Muslim’s faith and considered to be acts every Muslim should strive for. What the pillars are can, I think, differ between denominations, with Shia Muslims having additional ancillaries as well (any Shia readers, please feel free to correct me!) but both denominations agree that the following are important:

Salah—prayer

Sawm—fasting during Ramadan

Zakat—giving a certain percentage of income to charity or the community

Hajj—pilgrimage to Mecca

In all cases, these are considered mandatory only for those who are able. A person who cannot perform hajj, whether due to not being physically able to or lacking the funds to travel, is under no obligation.

Prayer:

Prayer is performed five times a day while facing the Qibla, which is the direction of Mecca. Prayer is formed of units, called rak’at, which consists of a set of actions done in a specific order. The “How to Pray Salah, Step by Step” article linked in the reblog of this post provides fairly good prayer instructions for beginners, so check it out for details! These include bowing, prostrating, and reciting some surahs.

Each of the five daily prayers has a different number of rak’at, as well as its own name and allotted time of day, as follows:

Fajr, which means Dawn and can be performed at any point until the sun rises (two rak’at).

Dhuhr, which means Noon (four rak’at)

Asr, performed in the afternoon (four rak’at)

Maghreb, which means sunset and can be performed at any point until it’s dark (three rak’at)

Isha, performed at night and can be done at any point until dawn (four rak’at)

The specific time of prayer will differ day to day and place to place, according to the sun, but those are the rough timeframes for each. It’s generally preferred that a Muslim does their prayer on time, but in practice some Muslims find it difficult to wake up for Fajr, for instance, and just try to make sure they get a morning prayer in before noon.

On Friday, there is a congregational Friday prayer at Dhuhr in a mosque called the Jumu’a prayer (which, fun fact, literally means gathering and is also the Arabic name for Friday!). Only men are required to take part in the congregation, however.

In Muslim majority countries, the time for prayer is announced by the adhaan, the call to prayer, from mosques and in media. This won’t be the case in the UK, and the character will likely have to rely on an adhaan app or looking up what time prayer should be.

There are various requirements for a prayer to be correct, chief of which is facing the Qibla and purity. Before performing prayer, a Muslim must purify themself by performing wudu, or ablutions, which basically involves washing the hands, arms, nostrils, face, head, and feet a specific number of times using clean water. The way I was taught these must be performed in a certain order, and the person shouldn’t speak during or after until their prayer is finished. This may be different for others.

Wudu is considered valid until nullified by bodily functions such as urinating, defecating, vomiting, flatulence, or any sexual activity. For Sunni Muslims, it’s also invalidated by going to sleep. If none of these have happened, a Muslim can perform more than one prayer using the same wudu.

Notably, a Muslim cannot pray if they’re on their period, as they’re considered in a state of impurity.

Another important requirement is that a Muslim be dressed modestly for prayer. The general guideline is that Muslim men should cover the area between their navel and knees with loose, non-revealing clothing, and that during prayer it’s preferred that they cover their chests as well Muslim women should cover everything except their face, hands, and feet. This means that a woman who isn’t hijabi would still wrap a hijab for prayer. For nonbinary Muslims, I don’t think there are specific guidelines yet, although please feel free to correct me.

If praying at home, a family may choose to pray together. In this case, the male head of the household usually stands at the front and acts as Imam, leading the prayer. Other men will tend to be in front of or beside women, as generally women should not pray in front of a man. This is the case even, especially, if he is not praying.

Children aren’t required to pray, as they’re considered innocent and have no obligations, but may want to take part early on or may be encouraged to practice.

Praying is one area you’ll find denominational differences. For example, while Sunnis fold their arms in prayer, Shia keep their arms to their side, and while Shia Muslims make sure their foreheads touch a piece of clay or earth when they prostrate, Sunnis do not. If you write your character praying, keep these details in mind.

Fasting:

During the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from Fajr (dawn) until Maghreb (sunset) every day. This means they abstain from consuming anything—yes, even water, cigarettes, and medicine. They should also abstain from sexual activities and cursing. Most importantly, they must have the intention to be fasting. This means that not eating and drinking because they were asleep for that entire period of time or just lost track and forgot does not count as fasting.

Generally, the idea is more to try to be more pious and avoid sin throughout the month. It’s thought that the shaytan (or devil) is chained up during Ramadan, so any temptation or sinning is a person’s own doing. The way I was raised, I was taught that sawm/fasting is invalidated by sexual thoughts and raising your voice as well. Many people also try to dress more modestly during Ramadan, with some women opting for looser clothing or a headscarf. Many Muslims will try to read the whole Quran during Ramadan.

After Maghreb, Muslims break their fast with Iftar (which means breakfast, hah) and have a late night meal called Suhour. Since the Muslim calendar is a lunar calendar, Ramadan is 11 days earlier every year. Depending on when Ramadan falls in the year, there can be barely any time between iftar and suhour in certain parts of the world, as the sun is up for so much of the day.

Given the length of time and difficulty involved, there are exceptions and allowances for fasting. A person is not required to fast if they are:

A child (up to puberty)

Ill or has a medical condition such as diabetes

Pregnant

Travelling

On their period

In fact, if they are on their period it will not be counted, even if they do fast. That said, sometimes people choose to fast while travelling anyway, as travel is less strenuous now than it used to be. If they’re crossing time zones they will have to consider which time zone they’re breaking their fast to. As far as I remember, it’s based on the time zone of the place they just left or started their fast in.

If an obstacle to fasting is temporary, such as their period, they’re expected to make those days up with additional fasting before next Ramadan. Otherwise, they are allowed to make up for the lost fast in another way, such as by donating money or feeding fasting people. Whether due to societal pressure (which is formidable in Muslim-majority countries) or out of consideration for others who are fasting, those who are not fasting for whatever reason may often choose to hide this and only eat in secret.

If a person forgets they were fasting or accidentally consumes something, it does not invalidate the fast , and as soon as they remember or realise the mistake they can have the intention to fast again and continue with their day.

While children are exempt, many families will start them off by fasting for half a day so they can build up to a full day when they hit puberty.

Ramadan traditions vary wildly from country to country and culture to culture, but generally it’s a time for family gathering and celebration. Often there are special Ramadan-specific food, drink, and decorations, and it ends with Eid ul-Fitr which has its own specific foods and celebrations. Basically, imagine if Christmas lasted a month. That’s how big a deal Ramadan is.

In my experience, the first few days are usually the hardest. Water is what I tended to miss the most, even if I managed to stay up long enough or set an alarm to wake up to drink just before fajr, followed closely by swearing. Anyone who drinks caffeine or smokes cigarettes will likely find abstaining from those more difficult than water. By the end of the month, though, it gets much easier and I often got to the point where I barely noticed. I will say, however, that the longest I’ve had to fast has been maybe 16 hours. A summer Ramadan in the UK would be more difficult due to the much later sunsets.

Halal and Haram:

Halal means “permissible,” while haram means “forbidden.” You might have heard these words in passing before, such as halal food, but they are used for many areas of life.

Things that are considered haram include:

Consuming, serving, or trading in intoxicants, such as alcohol

Consuming improperly slaughtered meat or meat from forbidden animals, such as pork

Extramarital sex

Tattoos

Gambling

Men wearing silk or gold

A Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim man (although it’s fine for a Muslim man to marry a non-Muslim woman)

Being immodest

Modesty is expected of all genders, including men. If you’ll recall from the section on prayer, the general guideline for male modesty is that they should cover the area between their navel and knees with loose, non-revealing clothing. Note that for women, modesty does not necessarily involve wearing a hijab. There is actually a ton of controversy as to whether the hijab is a fard (requirement) or not, as described in the following section.

The Hijab:

To be hijabi takes more than just throwing on a headscarf. As a word, hijab means “barrier” or “veil,” and a hijabi person would be expected to cover everything except their face and the palms of their hands, and to ensure that their clothes are loose and non-revealing. It all comes from an interpretation of two verses in the Quran that many scholars nowadays agree to mean the hijab is required, and that some say actually call for a face covering as well, which is called a niqab.

This wasn’t always the case, however, and these days there is still the occasional controversial scholar (I remember a few kerfuffles coming out of Egypt’s Al-Azhar mosque recently) saying it isn’t and has never been required at all. At least in the Arab world, this is largely due to the wave of Wahhabism (which is a specifically fundamentalist interpretation of Islam) that’s taken over the region in the past half a century. Before that, the idea of a hijab being a religious requirement was less widespread.

I’m not here to argue who’s right or wrong, just to make you aware that the hijab as we know it today hasn’t always been considered a requirement for a Muslim woman. Most of the women of my family never wore any form of head covering, but more and more they are an exception rather than the norm.

The choice of whether to wear a hijab can mean very different things, depending on the surrounding culture. For instance, my grandmother, the strictest woman I have ever known, got married in a very cute sleeveless dress that went just under the knees, and when she grew older she wore a head-covering more as a cultural indication of age rather than any religious reason. In my generation, in a country with a Muslim majority, lack of visible signs of devoutness have become almost a class marker, with some upper-class women using their lack of head-covering as a sign that they are “more Westernized” or “modern.” And again, I want to emphasize that this is the case for my country only.

This will be completely different for Muslim minorities, where the hijab can become a symbol of pride and unity.

I will say that it’s very rare for women to be forced into getting veiled, whether in Muslim minority or majority countries. I’m not saying it never happens, just that it’s not the “oppressive tool of the patriarchy” outsiders sometimes think it is. Women may face some societal pressure, but by and large it is considered a choice and often an empowering one. In fact, I have friends whose families discouraged them from wearing a hijab too young and emphasized only taking the decision when they were sure they wanted to. If writing a Muslim character when you’re non-Muslim, I strongly suggest not trying to tackle the story of someone forced into a hijab, as there’s a lot of nuance there and it’s very easy to fall into harmful stereotypes. The hijabi woman who gets “liberated” and takes off her hijab is also overdone and harmful. Please don’t.

Everyday Life:

Muslims are not a monolithic entity, and some will be more devout or religious than others. There are those who will pray their five a day and others who only pray during Ramadan or Eid, some who don’t drink and some who do, hijabis who dress only in loose clothing and those who wear tight trousers or show some of their hair, some who have tattoos, and some who may date or even have sex before marriage. However, this isn’t a carte-blanche not to do research when writing a Muslim character, because even if they break a rule of Islam, they will be conscious of it, may be concerned about their community’s response to it, and in any case will be affected by it.

For instance, I know many Muslims who drink alcohol. Some interpret the text differently, saying that since the sin is getting drunk then they won’t drink enough to get drunk, just buzzed. Some only do it on special occasions or on vacation, saying they know it’s a sin but it’s fine on occasion and they’ll repent later. All of them would probably dive under a table if they thought their family was nearby.

For more opinions on Muslims and dealing with alcohol, take a look at the “Islam and Alcohol” article linked in the reblog of this post.

Here are things that a character who is a practicing Muslim might do or be concerned about in their day to day life:

Checking ingredients to make sure they’re all halal. This goes for things like food, drink, medicine, anything consumable. Things like gelatine capsules are only halal if the source of the gelatine is itself halal, for instance.

Keeping up with their prayers. With five prayers a day, some will inevitably happen while they’re out of the house. Some Muslims prefer to just group their prayers when they get home, but since it’s preferable to do prayers on time, others may try to pray while out and about This means considering the following:

Finding a bathroom for wudu. Part of wudu involves washing feet and the head, which isn’t feasible in a public location or if the person is hijabi and doesn’t want to unwrap and rewrap their hijab. In that case, they can generally wipe a wet hand over their socks and top of their head covering.

They may carry a prayer carpet or have one stashed in a convenient location, but it’s not a must.

Finding a clean and secluded place to pray. Generally, it’s not done to pray in a place where someone will pass in front of you, and a woman must also take care to pray away from men’s eyes.

Figuring out where the Qibla is. Luckily, there are apps for that.

If a woman is not hijabi, she would have to carry a veil and, depending on her clothes, something to cover up so she can pray.

If they’re hijabi, they’ll probably have to adjust or re-wrap their hijab throughout the day, depending on the material and their activities. This would typically happen in bathrooms or any other space that doesn’t include men, as they can’t reveal themselves to any men who aren’t of their immediate family. For more on the hijab, and the day to day realities of wearing and wrapping one, take a look at the links provided in the reblog of this post.

A Muslim woman may choose not to accept handshakes from men who aren’t family. She has probably considered how to deal with that potential awkwardness.

If they’re fasting, they might carry some dates or biscuits or something in case they need to break their fast while on the go.

If making plans, they might say, “Insha’allah” which means “God willing.” I was always admonished to do so to acknowledge the future is entirely within God’s hands.

If asked how they are, they might reply with “Alhamdullilah” which means “Thanks be to God.”

When starting to eat, they may say, “Bismillah,” which means “In the name of God” and when done eating may say “Alhamdullilah.” These can also be invoked silently.

As you might have noticed, Allah’s name is invoked pretty often. While it’s not preferable to swear using God’s name just to make a point (“Wallahi”), there’s nothing against it, really.

Fundamentally, an important thing to remember is that Islam is a religion of ease and not hardship. This is an actual Quranic quote. What this means is, it may seem like there are a lot of rules to keep in mind, but there are also a ton of allowances for when those rules aren’t feasible, just like the case for fasting above. Other allowances include how an elderly or disabled person who may not be able to perform the motions of prayer can pray while sitting in a chair or even lying in bed. If there isn’t any clean water to purify before prayer or if using the water would mean lack of drinking water, a Muslim can use dust or sand to purify, and if no dust or sand is available then they don’t need to purify at all and can simply pray.

This means that, say, if your Muslim Jon wants to pray while kidnapped by the circus, he can, even without being able to perform wudu, even without knowing where the Qibla is, even without being able to move or say anything at all.

For more day-to-day tidbits, check out the “More on writing Muslim characters” link in the reblog of this post.

LGBTQ Muslims:

Needless to say, Queer Muslims absolutely do exist, and their being Muslim doesn’t cancel out their queerness or vice versa. While there are Quranic verses that have been interpreted as condemning homosexuality, there are also other interpretations, and queerness has existed in Muslim societies for ages. There was a ton of homoerotic imagery among Abbasid poets during the Golden Age of Islam, for example.

However, modern-day attitudes can be difficult to get around, and queer Muslims may have difficulty finding their place in both Muslim spaces and queer spaces, the latter which often expect them to reject religiosity.

Although I am queer myself, I don’t feel it’s my place to speak for queer Muslims and their relationships with their communities beyond this, so I’ll let some queer practicing Muslims speak for themselves. Please see the reblog of this post for valuable contributions from queer Muslims about their experiences.

Miscellaneous:

This is mostly for all the random tidbits I thought up while writing this that didn’t fit anywhere else and also because I don’t know when to quit apparently, SO!

Allah is just Arabic for God. Muslims can and do use these terms interchangeably, such as saying “God willing,” instead of “Inshallah,” even in an Arabic-speaking country.

Also, God has 99 names! Just a fun fact for you there.

The Devil in Islam is pretty different from his Christian counterpart. Referred to as Iblis or Shaytan, among other names, he is not a fallen angel and there is no great revolt story, nor is he considered a root of all evil. Instead, he is a djinn made of smokeless flame who refused to bow down to Adam, as he felt he was made of superior stuff and not about to bow to a creature made of mud. His disdain for humanity is what has caused him and other shayateen/demons to try and tempt humans.

A person’s right hand is considered purer than their left, so it’s encouraged to always eat with your right hand. Unfortunately, this does mean left-handed people face something of a stigma—or at least that’s the case here in Egypt. My cousins, both lefties, both eat with their right hand, though they do everything else with their left.

Similarly, it is considered better to enter spaces with your right foot, though only the most devout are likely to think of this all the time. This is especially considered for entering a mosque or new home.

A Muslim might say or write “Peace be Upon Him” whenever the Prophet Mohammed is mentioned, written as (PBUH), and “Subhanuh wa Taala” when mentioning Allah, written as (SWT).

The Evil Eye is mentioned in the Quran as “hasad,” and considered to be a very real thing. This jealous or envious energy is considered able to ruin good things in your life, even if the jealous person didn’t intend to. There are some surahs that are considered good to ward against it, as well as incense, the colour blue, the number five, and the symbols of the nazar (which is a round, blue-ringed eye) and the khamsa (an open five-fingered palm, also known as the Hand of Fatima). The nazar, khamsa, and belief in the evil eye aren’t unique to Islam at all. What is unique to Islam is that a Muslim might preface a compliment with “Masha’allah” which means “As God wills it,” to ward off their own evil eye.

Much of the Quran in Arabic rhymes and is very poetic, which can make surahs easy to memorise by rhythm. It can also make recitations by a skilled reader very lovely.

#the magnus archives #tma #writing resources #muslim characters

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aj-writes-here · 4 years ago

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So, I finally finish the first chapter of Ineffable, I still don’t know if I’ll upload the entire series here because there is low activity on Tumbr nowadays:( So I might post in Archive of Our Own, but, by now and to see if this series seems interesting to you, this is the first chapter! Levi and the rest will be introduced in chapter two, just letting you guys know that👀👀

Innefable [Chapter 1]

''Are you sure about this?''

''Yes, Giyu. I... I need to solve this, and to do so I can't stays here''

''Even though that means you'll become a deserter?''

''I already spoke with Kagaya, and he agrees. Everything is settled. Besides, it's not as if I'm gonna be missed, I know how hard is being a Hashira, all of you are going to have your heads busy with other things '' She said, smiling amusingly and in a comforting way.

''Just take care of yourself, and don't be reckless.'' Giyu looked at her with an unbothered expression.

''And you try to smile more, at least once in a while'' y/n kept the smile on her lips, watching at the friend who was like her older brother. ''Oh, and tell Rengoku I'll miss him, I think he already took the train, right?''

''Yes, he was supposed to meet with Tanjiro, or so I heard.''

''Those kids have potential, I got to spent time with them when I was recovering at Shinobu's.''

''And you almost died protecting him, and I had to intervene.''

''Saving the day as usual, but just for the record, I almost finished that spider kid''

''Just remind to take care of yourself, y/n.''

She hugged the tranquil man, surprised Giyu held her back, in the end, it was going to be a long trip. But why? All of her memories start when she woke up in the middle of a mountain, snow starting to cover her body bit by bit. Giyu found her there, alone. He had managed to get her back to Urokodaki's home, and from that day on she had trained by his side, becoming, with time, one of the Hashira. But that was it. That was the life she knew, those were her memories, those were the people who were important for her. What about her home, her real home? Parents, bloodline... Was someone missing her? Someone who was hoping for her to return home? No idea, and that's why she had to discover her truth. She didn't even have the facial traits from the people from that zone.

Her nightmares were weird, confusing, and at times she knew things she didn't suppose to, things she didn't know how to explain. Maybe someone out there could help her understand everything, maybe someone could fix that mess inside her head.

After saying goodbye to Tomioka, she started walking to her destiny, a ship. But the truth was, that there was no main destination, y/n's plan was to leave the ship at the first port, and if there were no answers in that foreign place, then she would move to the second port. It was going to be a long trip, probably years but she was determined to make it.

She didn't notice once she was on the ship, looking at how the harbor was getting smaller and smaller, the fresh air was hitting her face, finally she was going to be able to move forward, to see if there were traces of truth. The blue water make her smile, and she could swear she saw so some fishes under the water, a whole new world.

Life, therefore... Is a mystery, are we the captains of our fate? Do we get to decide, or some things are meant to be? Sometimes we need to be hurt, we need to suffer in order to arrive at our harbor, to arrive at a place we can call home. To meet peace, sometimes there has to be mayhem.

And it happened.

It was only the second night on the ship, nearly nine pm where the sky turned grey with clouds and the wind was stronger than the previous days, she could feel it. y/n was at the deck, trying to get a glimpse of the stars but it was impossible to see them, and something deep inside her told her things were about to take a turn. A huge turn.

Suddenly, a few men started running, securing the sails, and more. Apparently, they were to busy to notice the woman wearing the haori, so she just stood there looking at the confusing scene. A voice dragged her out of her thoughts, an old and relaxed voice. When she looked, it was a blind man, he was staring at the horizon. Was he imaging it? she thought, but then again the man spoke.

''You're about to reach your harbor, miss'' He smiled showing he had some teeth missing.

''Uhm, yes... I get down at the next port''

''Not precise. These are my last words, I suppose.'' The man took a deep breath. ''But you'll find your truth at the oddest place of off all, when you forget your nightmares and sleep at peace for the first time in years, that's when you will notice.'' The man smiled, standing over the edge of the ship.

''Sir, get down!'' It was impossible to focus on his words when he was almost to commit a deadly act. ''Let me help you!'' She offered him a hand, hoping one of the men who were running notice and help them both. But no one did.

''Can't you see it? My time is done here. But your life? It is just beginning, young girl. Take care of yourself, and take good care of that poor bastard, he will need you. He needs you, and he has absolutely no idea'' An hysterical laugh left his lips as if he had heard the funniest of jokes in ages.

''Who? Do you know Giyu? Maybe Rengoku? Are you saying that I... should go back?'' y/n asked him, maybe if I ask him more he will... Get down, she thought.

That was it, no more words, no more weird sentences. All of her strength was not enough to stop him... Before she could grab him by his ankle, the old man had jumped to the endless ocean, losing among the waves.

y/n was shocked, there was nothing she could do now. She asked for help, but no one answered. However, the men that were running appeared again, were they there? Did they just come back? If she told them an old man had just killed himself, first they would look at her with weird eyes because of her outfit, and second, they would say there's nothing left to do.

She kept looking at the ocean under the ship, trying to catch a glimpse of the now missing man. A thunder got her out of her desperate search, then another, and then the water that started running down her entire body. The wind was blowing stronger than ever, and it was almost impossible to see due to the amount of rain that was falling. For the sailors was almost impossible to keep control of the ship, they were in the middle of a storm, and there was no way out.

To make it worse? A rock broke part of the ship, making it now more unstable, the keel was broken and water was entering and devastating everything in its way. Screams, some were desperate, some others were praying their Gods, while others were trying to give solutions to fix the ship, but none of that seemed to work. y/n held tight, trying not to fall and lost control of her body, but destiny had something else prepared for her. A big wood box slipped on her way, crashing her body against the part of the ship she was holding on to. She recognized the pain, her ribs. Damn it.

A big wave hit the ship, and plus the pain she was feeling it was harder and harder to not let go. It was impossible to determine if it was the rain or the sea that had gotten her clothes wet, and that was all that was on the ship. Water, pain, fear, and doubt. What was going to happen now? Maybe it was a water demon, maybe she could fight it and make it out alive, but it wasn't. It was nature on its maximum expression.

Or maybe, it was just her destiny.

The ship was hit again, and this time y/n couldn't bear it anymore, and her body was thrown to the dark and uncontrollable ocean. Her katana was trapped in her fist, no way she was letting that go.

Swimming with one arm, trying to control her breath she was able to reach the surface, but another wave took her down, and this time swimming was harder. When she reached for the surface again, the ship was far away from her, and y/n could see other people struggling in the water, and she felt useless. And she saw it. With all of the strength she had left, she swam towards a little girl. Grabbing her as she could, she made the girl hold tight to a floating box, with a little luck there were going to find her. However, there was not enough space of both, and before y/n could make sure the girl was going to be rescued she was pulled down again by the same power of water, her limbs getting tired and tired.

As she was trying to reach for the surface, something happened in less than five seconds, she saw a piece of the ship, hard to circumscribe what it was, but it hit her head. Her body stopped moving, and her lungs? They seemed to forget all of the breathing techniques she learned over the years.

“Is this it? This is how I’m going to die? I wasn’t even capable of seeking answers, I couldn’t even begin. I didn't even get to the first harbor. What was the point of surviving all this time? What the hell meant my strength and willpower if I can’t move my body? This water feels like mud, heavy mud. And my breathing skills are not working, apparently. It’s funny, I keep going under, far away from the surface. This is like being inside my head. The bubbles go up, showing me a way that I can’t comprehend… Fuck it. My body no longer feels heavy, it’s light like a feather, not even my katana weights. That’s all I know, how to slay demons. That’s all I have ever been, and now? I will become part of the confines of the ocean. Damn the irony, water breathing does not work well underwater… Or maybe I just can’t move because a piece of wood hit my head. Or because my ribs are broken. What about the old man? Did he die? Agh, he sounded so sure about everything... Too bad for him, I think I won't get anywhere now... I told Giyuu I was going to be back once I find the answers about my past, but he will have to forgive me, because I’m not going to be back. And with me, all of my questions together with my body will turn to dust.”

And then, the dark blue became pure darkness.

________________

Dry throat, her body felt wet but it was because of her haori, but her legs and feet were covered by water when this one went up and down. All of her strength was focused on her sword, the only thing that y/n didn’t let go while she was drowning in the middle of the sea.

A cough.

Then two.

Salty water came out of her mouth, slowly she opened her eyes just to see golden, was it sand? Indeed it was. y/n stood up, her eyes clenching in pain as she was trying to get back on her feet using her katana as support. Her leg was burning, of course, the saltiness of the sea had gotten into her wound. Then she remembered, there was a storm and the ship couldn’t make it, the last thing on her head? She drowning. Where the hell am I, she thought. There was not a single soul where she was standing, but that was not what caught her attention. Her eyes were focused on the enormous concrete wall in front of her.

y/n had made it to the top of it, why was she feeling so weak? She was one of the Hashira, she was supposed to be strong, but the confusion and dehydration were stronger. That, and the broken rib. Or ribs. She stood on top of the wall, her eyes widening at something she had never seen before. Giant… People? They had some kind of humanoid form, but they didn’t seem smart.

“Great… Guess I’ll be David and they will be Goliath”

A strong headache, those damned images again. This time was something like a square with a black border, in the center? Letters, words, information. Under the square, there was another. Individual letters, numbers, and other symbols. Here’s your coffee, that male voice caused echo on her head once more, and when y/n eyes were open, looking at the strange landscape in front of her, she spoke for herself in confusion.

“Who the hell are David and Goliath?”

It was not the first time she said things she didn’t comprehend, why did she know all of that stuff? No idea, that’s why she had to find people, answers. All that she wanted were answers, and if she had to go through those immense monsters… Then so be it.

#levi ackerman #levi ackerman imagines #attack on titan #attack on titan imagine #kimetsu no yaiba #levi x reader

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popscenery · 5 years ago

Audio

Passion Pit, »Take a Walk«

by Jessica Doyle

In the summer of 2010, when I took a leave of absence from my PhD program, my dissertation was a helpless non-thing without a subject. In December 2018, I officially got my PhD, because my dissertation was done: written, revised, defended, revised again, approved, copied, formatted, distributed, carefully archived, accepted as an actual work of scholarship. It is arguably my most important professional accomplishment of the decade, and also arguably entirely inconsequential. The claim that 90 percent of academic papers go uncited is mostly untrue, but it is true for my dissertation, and I have the gaping void of a Google Scholar search return to prove it.

Trust me: as bitter and self-deprecating post-graduate students might be about their research (see previous paragraph), none of us start out planning to write something inconsequential. Certainly the subject of my dissertation was not inconsequential at all. “Take a Walk” is not my favorite song of the past decade, but it is the song that kept reminding me that the topic was worth writing about.

My dissertation examined what makes starting and maintaining a business easier or harder for Latino entrepreneurs in different American cities. Take Miami as an example, where 47% of all businesses are Latino-owned. That’s much higher than the national average (12 percent) and higher than the percentage in other cities with large Latino populations: New York, Los Angeles, Houston. So what’s so special about Miami? Is it because the Cuban population that arrived in the 1960s were often landowners or merchants fleeing Castro, and made wealth-building a priority in their new city? Is it the geographic proximity to Latin America and the Caribbean? Is starting a business in Miami easier than elsewhere? Is it something about Miami’s economy in general, or Florida’s? Finally (and more to the point), if policy-makers in another city wanted to put in policies that would help local Latino entrepreneurs flourish, what would Miami’s example offer as guidance?

To make a 295-page story short: it is much easier to turn immigrants into successful business owners if they come to the country with business experience and/or capital already at hand; and if the local immigrant population doesn’t start with those advantages, then policy-makers should focus on providing business education and access to financing, especially the latter. Latino immigrants in the United States who want to start businesses are more likely than native-born white entrepreneurs to use their own cash (which takes a while to accumulate), credit cards (which charge higher interest rates than do bank loans), or loans from family or friends (which means that loved ones, rather than banks with larger cushions, bear the risks). I’d say read the whole dissertation, but in all frankness you’d be better off checking out the research being published by the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, including this report. (It’s more concise and their data is more robust than mine was.)

This all assumes, of course, that you want to encourage Latinos, or other immigrants, or anyone at all, to start their own business. A lot of us--including me; including Michael Angelakos, the artist behind Passion Pit--have immigrant entrepreneurs in our family lineage. In interviews to promote the album Gossamer, Angelakos described “Take a Walk,” the lead single, as about different members of his family. The first verse’s portrait is a classic rags-to-riches, grateful-to-be-in-America immigrant story: I love this country dearly / I can feel the ladder clearly. But in the second verse, the story shifts to a new narrator, and so does the tone: I watch my little children / Play some board game in the kitchen / And I sit and pray they never feel my strife. The final narrator is eventually undone...

I think I borrowed just too much We had taxes, we had bills We had a lifestyle to front

...yet still insists on his participation in the American dream:

Tomorrow you'll cook dinner For the neighbors and their kids We can rip apart those socialists And all their damn taxes You see, I am no criminal I'm down on both bad knees I'm just too much a coward To admit when I'm in need

Apparently at one point a Fox News reporter failed to hear the irony, and asked Angelakos if the song was anti-socialist. But Angelakos told MTV News, “It's about very specific family members, the male hierarchy, and how the men in my family have always dealt with money.... All these men were very conservative; socially very liberal but for some reason, they all came here for capitalism, and they all ended up kind of being prey to capitalism.” He told a different interviewer, “These are all true stories; this is my grandfather and so on.”

Angelakos’s ambivalence is understandable. (Several of the pieces that greeted “Take a Walk” identified it as a direct reponse to the 2008 financial crisis, an interpretation he rejected.) The idea that anyone can come to the United States, start a business, and work their way to financial security and political freedom is an old one--the history of immigrants employing at higher rates than native-born Americans goes as far back as the Census Bureau has been keeping track of such things. But even for the successful it has its costs. The narrators of “Take a Walk” are estranged from their families, anxious about their ability to keep wealth. The theme of risk runs through the song. No one worries about getting fired; they have market investments, business partners, endless complaints about taxes (as one might if one has to pay both ends of the Social Security and Medicare taxes single-handedly.) The risk allows the narrators to make comfortable lives for themselves and their family, and yet Angelakos isn’t convinced, looking back, that they were better off.

Historically, if you were running for any sort of higher political office in the United States and were from a major party, you made sure to say nice things about small businesses and entrepreneurship, especially the immigrant kind. To some degree this is still true: Elizabeth Warren’s campaign platform includes a Small Business Equity Fund that would give grants to minority entrepreneurs. That said, I’m not sure the current dominant political energy on either the American left or right favors small businesses, who tend to hate tariffs. If you read the Green New Deal resolution, though it calls for a more equitable distribution of available financing to such smaller-scale lenders as community banks and credit unions, a lot of what it wants it can only get at a certain scale. It’s easier for a larger company to retool its supply chains to lower environmental costs than it is for ten small businesses to do the same. It’s easier for a firm with a thousand employees to absorb the cost of any one employee needing a higher wage to make rent, or a longer maternity leave, or extended absences due to illness, than it is for a firm with five.

And Music Tumblr in particular can be forgiven for not thinking highly of entrepreneurship. Most creative people--artists, musicians, writers--end up as entrepreneurs simply because decent-paying employment in those fields has never been easy to find. (In 2017, Angelakos spoke of dealing with venture capitalists and deciding to run his mental-health-focused initiative, Wishart, as a combination of for-profit and non-profit.) But no loan officer with a nickel’s worth of sense would approve a loan to enter a market so saturated that marginal revenue is typically zero or close enough, or where thousands if not millions of people seem thoroughly committed to proving themselves, in Samuel Johnson’s eyes, blockheads. Upon hearing, “You can do what you love, but the market won’t reward you,” a lot of people will reply, “To hell with markets, then.”

It all comes down to how you feel about risk. For a long time the dominant American thinking was that higher risk was the price entrepreneurs paid to have the chance to succeed on their own terms. (There’s an ongoing debate in the immigrant-entrepreneurship academic literature about whether any one particular group of entrepreneurs is “pushed” into entrepreneurship--as in, they only start businesses as the best of a bad set of money-making options--or “pulled,” starting businesses because they want to.) More recently has emerged the critique that not all experiences of risk are created equal, and that in championing immigrant or minority entrepreneurship we offload risk onto those people with smaller financial or even emotional cushions. The heightened experience of risk, and its attendant anxiety and feeling of constant scarcity, may be what Angelakos meant when he described his relatives as “kind of being prey to capitalism.”

I personally agree with that critique, and would throw in that the general perception of Latino immigrants as not-entrepreneurial denies them a road to acceptance (or bourgeois respectability, if you prefer) that their Swedish, German, Jewish, Italian, and more recently Korean predecessors have been able to walk. That was why I wanted to write about Latino entrepreneurship in the first place, and why I ended up writing about North Carolina’s Latino Community Credit Union and associated initiatives as a promising case study. But I would caution against crossing the line from wanting to reduce risk for vulnerable minorities to regarding asking them to bear any kind of risk as imperialist and offensive. Risk can’t be eliminated altogether, and there are costs to scaling risk to higher levels of human activity and trying to diffuse it. A small business committed to a bad idea does a lot less damage than a government policy committed to a bad idea, even if the latter is more equitable in the range and number of people it effects.

Writing a dissertation is a humbling process. I’ve never written and recorded a song, but I imagine that process humbles too. (When “Take a Walk” came out Angelakos was not shy about disliking it, though he seems to have grown fonder of it as time goes on: “I like that it’s so uncharacteristic of me,” he said in 2017.) You work and work and work, all the while knowing you have no control over how your audience will hear your message, or if there will even be an audience. You can never be sure that you read enough, or chose the right method of analysis, or treated your subjects with sufficient respect. You’ll never know if you’re actually on the side of the angels. If the “angels” are metaphorical--if you don’t actually believe in a god, or God, whose love is greater than your human tendency to error and self-deception and treachery--then the risk is even higher. And yet, without that risk, how would you ever be able to say anything worth saying?

#songs of the decade #passion pit #longreads #music writing

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braincoins · 5 years ago

Link

The Goddess calls and Her Sacred must answer. Ryou's glad to tag along. But a light walk turns into heavy conversation as Ryou's existential crisis rears up as well.

Fandom: VLD Rating: Teen and up Ships: Ryoumelle Tags: Ryoumelle, Ryou aka Kuron, Fluff, Existential Angst, those two go together right?

Author’s Notes: I didn't mean for this to happen, it just did.

Read Adjustment first (and maybe Yours and Mine) - I may have to start putting these together as a series.

In addition to the Author's Notes from those fics, slight note: in Components, we see Allura reading High Altean more or less fine while she's in the Temple, but struggling to translate it when she's alone on the Castle. (To her, it's not "Ancient"; to the Altean Diaspora, it's 10,000+ years old, after all.)

"I know kung fu High Altean." "Show me."

In V:LotD, both Allura and Romelle have actual last names. On Altea, Allura would not normally use (or even need) a surname; she would simply be Princess Allura. However, the royal family maintains a surname used primarily when dealing with cultures where it is more usual to have one: Cyneboren. It essentially translates to “of royal birth.” (Yes, I raided Old English for this.)

Romelle, being a descendant of a branch of the royal family, has the last name Cynehad.

cyne - royal, kingly

boren - past particple of beran - to bear, carry; to wear; to sustain, support; to bring forth, produce, give birth

had - person, individual

So, basically, Allura’s occasional surname is just “of royal birth” while Romelle’s, being from a branch of the royal family is “royal person."

Little to no editing, which I will regret almost as soon as I hit Post, I'm sure.

(3,537 Words - on Ao3)

Teaser below cut:

“Is this the other thing you wanted to talk with the Goddess about?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I mean, maybe I shouldn’t be asking Her for favors, but…”

“She’s a Goddess. It’s natural for people to pray to Her when they’re in distress.”

“I don’t know how to do that, though. Last time I just sort of babbled at Her.”

“Well, do that again. It seems to have worked well enough.”

“I feel awkward. I feel like there should be some sort of… ritual or ceremony or…”

“Maybe I’ll be able to help with that, too. As the only Sacred who can attend upon the Goddess and all.”

“Oh, look out, now she’s putting on airs.”

Her brow furrowed. “How do you put on air? It’s air, it’s intangible, unless it’s wind, but even then…”

“Earth saying,” he told her with a chuckle. “Means you’re getting uppity, acting like you’re better than everyone else.”

“Oh. Well, I am better than everyone else.”

He nodded. “Because you’re Sacred.”

“Because I have the sweetest and sexiest boyfriend on the entire planet, if not in the entire universe.”

He was the one blushing now. “Thank you, but I’m not responsible for you being the most wonderful person in all existence.”

“True,” she agreed, though her blush had come back, “but you’re proof of it. After all, no one else would deserve someone like you.”

“I… I’m not really sure what to say to that.”

“Good, so you’ll just shut up and accept the compliment then?”

“I suppose I have to.”

She beamed and snuggled his arm to her, drawing them in closer as they walked. After a few moments, she said, “You know I don’t really deserve you, right?”

“What do you mean? You really are the most wonderful person in all existence.”

“Thank you, it’s sweet that you think that, but I don’t want you to think that… that you’re a thing or that I feel entitled to you in some way.”

“Oh, no! No, no, I would never…!”

“Okay, just checking. I know you’ve got that tendency to think of yourself that way, is all, like you’re some sort of tool or weapon, and I didn’t want you to feel…”

He reached over and put his hand over their joined ones. “I still have trouble not thinking of myself like that, you’re right. But I know you’ve never thought of me that way.”

“Never,” she agreed. “And I never will.”

#Ryoumelle #specifically awesome Breezy Ryoumelle #the best kind #Socks writes Voltron fanfic #off-the-cuff-Fluff #with a heaping side helping of existential angst #LIKE YA DO

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tanoraqui · 5 years ago

Note

The Magnus Archives!

@chucktaylorupset asked: you know we gotta ask you about the Magnus Archives for the fandom meme thing

funniest moment:

Martin: So, you want my statement, right?

Daisy: Not really, no.

Tim, 5 min later: I guess you want my stupid statement.

Daisy: No. Why are you all so obsessed-

Elias, 5 min after that, knowing full damn well the previous conversations: You’ll want my account, of course. My recitation of events. My testimony. My statement.

Daisy: What is wrong with you people.

heartbreakingest moment: Tim, halfway through yelling at Jon just because he needs to be angry at someone, breaking off with the realization that “

heartwarmingest moment Melanie trying to offer Martin comfort after he got himself emotionally wrecked to distract Elias was actually very sweet? But really it’s Jon sounding like a normal cheerful person teasing Georgie about going on a Tinder date for an excuse to get Hungarian food with someone.

most badass moment: the sheer amount of static in Jon pulling the answers from Manuela, which certainly corresponds directly to the amount of power he brought to bear to drag those secrets out of the Dark.

most…okay, you know how I sometimes scream excitedly about things like narrative parallels or intricately constructed plot arcs? top moment for that: yeah, obviously, I was spoiled for pretty much all the worldbuilding, but really it was immaculately slowly built across many seasons of statements, and I particularly appreciate how they still keep coming up with clever takes on the Entities, like the idea that no one else is real for Lonely or debt for the Buried

something I dislike about canon/change I would make: this is petty, and he’s great as a character and I appreciate the creepy sound effect of it, but it is SO hard to understand Jared Hopworth’s voice. I want him to come back bc I like him but I cannot understand a goddamn thing that man(?) says.

1 unwritten fic idea I have for this fandom: I have a WIP statement fic framed as the latest-recorded of several dozen tapes that a woman leaves on the front steps of the Institute, telling the story of how she found a tape recorder to which she has been compelled to tell absolutely all her life story, until she is hollowed out and sore-voiced and hasn’t slept in days because it still demands more - and she was going to come in and report this, but from across the street she happened to make eye contact with a man (Jon) whom she recognized, in an instant, as the being on the other side of the tapes. The one the recordings are for/who has been listening the whole time. So she’s left what she prays can be a final recording for him, as well as all the other tapes and the tape recorder itself.

What’s interesting about this fic is, when I started it like 2 months ago, the post-statement bit had Jon guiltily admitting that he knew what was on that tape before he played it, knew all the tapes, had known the second they made eye contact. He was pretty both that she’d be back tomorrow, because the tape recorder had been on her kitchen counter when she got home and she was telling it another childhood memory now, and that if he met her eyes again, he would tear her to pieces like he had Breakon, whether he wanted to or not. He...almost entirely didn’t want to.

But NOW, I think, I’d have to rewrite that ending. Jon might be (nearly) equally reluctant to accept this offering on a silver platter, but there’s no way Basira would let him listen to the tape alone, and then there would be snapping, chastising, defensiveness, sulking.

...I’m not really sure I’m going to finish the fic. The previous ending concluded with a desperately but slightly hopeful, “Maybe I can just offer her a job.” I don’t think the new ending would be as happy. (I don’t think Jon would try as hard not to consume her.)

#tma #the magnus archives #ask meme #chucktaylorupset #malluck #mal luck

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a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan · 6 years ago

Text

Linked Universe Fanfic: Fright

Stop! You’ve Violated the Law!

So, you’ve stumbled upon this original post for my @ LinkedUniverse fanfiction. That’s okay, it happens to everyone. As of March 2021, I’ve uploaded the entirety of this fanfic to my Archive of Our Own page. Along with finally giving the story a name (Oops! All Links: A Linked Universe Story) I made substantial edits to some of the chapters. These range from minor stylistic revisions to fixing a gaping plot hole that kinda completely broke the character conflict in the earlier chapters. I also renamed and renumbered (but not reordered) the chapters. Specifically, this is now Chapter 1.

The AO3 iterations of these chapters are the definitive versions. So, if you would like to read this fanfiction, please do so on AO3, right here. With this embedded link. Hehe. Geddit? Link?

Note: My screen name on AO3 is FrancisDuFresne. Yes, that is me. I am not plagiarizing myself.

Anyway, for posterity’s sake, the rest of the original post is below the cut.

I wrote a bit of fanfic for @linkeduniverse . It’s 3 pages long in Word so I’ll put it under the cut. I hope you enjoy!

Night fell on the young heroes slowly but steadily. Soon enough, it was getting hard for them to see slivers of midnight-blue sky between the tree branches above them. They found a clearing just off the forest path and set up camp. As Wild and Four set about starting a fire, Twilight and Time scouted the area for monsters and got a lay of the land. Satisfied, they came back a few minutes later to a roaring fire and their seven companions enjoying idle conversation.

It can get tiring on a long journey like the Links’, so one must make their own fun. “Guys,” Wind said suddenly.

A general murmur of acknowledgment spread through the group.

“We should tell stories.”

Wild sighed. “You know I don’t like to do this.”

Wind started to protest but was interrupted by Time.

“Let the kid have his fun,” he said to Wild with a shrug. Looking at Wind, he asked “Stories about what?”

“I dunno, something we haven’t talked about yet?”

Warrior piped up, “How about something scary? We don’t tell scary stories often.”

Wind’s eyes lit up. “Sure!” he said.

At the same time, Time’s and Twilight’s darkened. They knew this might not be as fun as Wind hoped it might be. The Links looked around at each other, waiting for someone else to start. It was my choice to tell stories, Wind thought. May as well start.

“I had some pretty scary things happen to me on my quest… not really terrifying, more like stressful. It was on my twelfth birthday that my sister Aryll was kidnapped. A gigantic bird came out of nowhere and snatched her up. The whole time it took to save her, I couldn’t bear to think what she was going through. She was only nine.”

A sister? Wild looked up. It had never occurred to him that one of the other Links had a sibling. He tried not to think of his sister if he could help it. Between knowing she died in the Calamity and not properly remembering her anyway, it was unpleasant for him. Wind now had his full attention.

“It took a while, but I finally saved her. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off my chest… then Tetra was kidnapped. Our crew decided to chase after a ghost ship. She jumped aboard and didn’t come back. It took a few weeks to find the ghost ship and save her, but she had been turned to stone. She was freed later, but…”

Four perked up when he heard this. His Zelda suffered the same fate.

“Well, anyway, I didn’t have too many jump scares. There were some redeads, but other than that it wasn’t too scary.”

Wind looked around the group, evidently finished with his story. Wild hesitated but spoke up. “My Zelda practiced and prayed for almost all her life to master a sealing power that could defeat Ganon. It was terrifying when the Calamity came and we both knew full well that she couldn’t hope to use that power. I… I couldn’t show my fear. I had to be there for her. She needed me to lean on, and I couldn’t deny her that.”

The rest of the group couldn’t help but stare. They had all had to push fear aside to defeat evil, but they never suppressed their feelings like Wild. Most them hadn’t, that is. They waited for Wild to finish, but he seemed to be lost in thought again. In a few meaningful looks, they agreed to leave him be.

Legend picked up the proverbial torch. “I woke up in the dead of night from a vision of Zelda to my uncle holding a sword and shield I didn’t even know we owned. He told me to stay in bed, but you know I couldn’t do that. I found him mortally wounded in the dungeons of Hyrule Castle… then, later, when I thought I was about to save Hyrule, the wizard Agahnim sent me to the Dark World. It was like Hyrule, but it was just… wrong. It was an evil reflection of what I knew. Seeing my world perverted like that was almost too much.”

Silence followed for a good few moments. Still, Time and Twilight were stony-faced. Sky looked around and figured it was as good a time as any to say his bit. “My Zelda went missing. We were riding our loftwings together. I could feel us having a moment. The clouds around us, inches away from each other… a tornado cropped up and pulled her underneath the clouds. I spent the next few weeks traveling the air and surface trying to find her.”

“I was this close,” he said as he held up his hand, almost touching the tips of his thumb and index finger. “So many times, I almost caught up with her. I lived knowing that while I was doing my own adventuring and fighting, so was she. I knew she could handle herself, but it still stressed the daylights out of me. So I guess I’m in the same boat as you,” he finished, gesturing at Wind.

A minute or two passed before Wind asked, “anyone else?”

Twilight looked over to Time. Time gave a near-imperceptible nod.

“I don’t like to talk about this too much,” Twilight began, “but I suppose I can share it with you all. I don’t want to invalidate what you went through or anything, but your fear came from what was around you. Your surroundings, your loved ones in peril, all of that. I’m not an exception.”

The others looked at him, wondering If he was trying to show them up or leading up to something terrible. Inwardly, they hoped he wasn’t being humble for a change.

“My gir—best friend, my friends were all taken from our village.”

Only Time noticed the change of wording. He understood Twilight’s reluctance to get attached to anyone.

“I was the last kid left,” Twilight continued. “Our world was stuck in perpetual twilight that kept us living in fear and darkness. I was only saved by the Triforce of Courage. I wasn’t the same, though. You’ve seen me turn into a wolf before. I’m mostly comfortable with it now, but I wasn’t always. The Triforce somehow knew I had the spirit of a wolf. Being a ranch hand, I know how vicious wolves are. How dangerous they can be. It scared me that that was the essence of who I am.”

Legend felt a modicum of guilt. The Dark World transformed him into a helpless rabbit. That was unsettling in its own right, but now he realized he faced the lesser of two evils.

“As I adventured, I began to understand that wolves are ruthless against their enemies, but they take care of their own just as fiercely. What I had to give and what I had to do to save my friends made me realize that. Malo, Talo, Beth, Colin… Ilia. I didn’t know where they were or if they were safe.”

All the Links understood this feeling well. Twilight felt no need to continue that train of thought.

“Those of you who had companions had someone that was easy to trust. The King of Red Lions, Ciela, Navi, Tatl, Ezlo, Fi; you knew you could count on them. Midna was something else. For the longest time, I had no way of knowing if she actually had my back, or if she was just using me. That scared me too.”

The sound of Navi’s name made Time flinch, but everyone was so focused on Twilight that they didn’t notice. The longest silence yet followed. Even Wind was speechless. Whether it was out of fear or shock or respect, Twilight couldn’t tell. He felt slightly guilty for unloading all of this on them.

Time eventually began to say something, but the words got stuck in his throat. The other eight stared at him. He had faced far worse pressure in his life, but he knew that he owed his friends a glimpse into his past. He had never told them much about it, only enough to bring them to visit Malon.

“Time?” Hyrule asked. It was the first time he had spoken all night.

“Hm?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want. We’d understand.”

“No, it’s okay,” he murmured. “I… I’ll be brief.”

The Links had no idea what to expect. They were on the edge of their seats. Time leaned his elbows on his knees. He stared straight ahead, seemingly transfixed by the fire. The eldest of the heroes took a deep breath, then spoke:

“I was afraid of being alone.”

The others waited for him to continue, but he didn’t say anything else. He was silent for the rest of the night. Everyone decided that it would be best if they let him be and turned in for the night.

Wild had trouble sleeping. What did he mean by that? He always had a companion, right? He was never alone. How could he be afraid of being alone?

The Links woke at dawn to see their gear neatly packed. Time was making breakfast over a rekindled fire. He had a tired look in his remaining eye. It occurred to the more perceptive of them that he probably hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep that night.

#linkeduniverse #my own #fan fiction #my writing #zelda #creator content #damn this was fun to write

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raendown · 5 years ago

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Almost did not bother to post this one but here we are anyway. Last of my small fills for the @naruto-rarepair-bingo, today’s prompt: gods and goddesses.

Pairing: IzunaTobirama Word count: 3200 Rated: T+ Summary: Promised away in an arranged marriage to the greedy king of their land, Izuna appealed to the God of Compassion, ruler of all gods, to save him from this unwanted fate. All he wanted was an escape. What he found was love and so much more.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Transcendence

In a world of gods and beings with immense power there once lived a man of simple beginnings. Born to a family of modest wealth, Izuna wanted for very little that his elder brother did not provide. For many years he lived a happy life surrounded by comforts and he was content in his place with very few complaints. Perhaps a little arrogant, maybe sometimes a little impatient, underneath the selfishness he presented to others there lay a heart of gold that wanted only to please the brother whom he loved.

Until the day his world was rocked and his heart betrayed by an unexpected decision.

Hungry for power beyond his position, the elder of the Uchiha brothers sought friendship with the king that ruled their lands and availed himself of whatever the king asked from him in return. For a time Izuna thought little of this. Always before his brother had considered what was best for him and always he had been allowed to seek whatever path in life made him happiest. That changed on the day he was presented to the king, when the monarch of their land saw his beauty for the first time and fell madly in love with him – or so he claimed.

The king’s love was a selfish, thoughtless thing, worried only for his own desires with no care for what Izuna may want. When his attempts to capture the young man’s attention failed the king went to his older brother to whisper quietly in his ear. In exchange for Izuna’s hand in marriage he offered riches and power, jewels and soldiers, influence and a place at his side for years to come. Seeing such an easy path to all he had ever wanted, Madara accepted the king’s offer without consulting his sibling first. It was his right as the head of the house, he claimed, to determine the fate of those under his care. And unfortunately he was correct.

Unhappy with this decision, Izuna pleaded with his brother not to make him do this. The king was not a kind man, he said. The king would not treat him well but would make him unhappy. Madara did not listen.

In desperation Izuna fled to the temple of the God of Compassion, Tobirama. On his knees he prayed at the altar for many hours, confiding his worries to the ruler of the gods, begging with all his heart for Madara’s will to be turned aside. From sunup to sundown he poured out his heart but, to his devastation, received no answer. With the heaviness of fate in every step he left the temple thinking himself doomed to a life he had never wanted with no one to hear his cries of despair.

Yet there was someone who had listened, unbeknownst to him. Though he had not shown himself the God of Compassion was sworn to listen to all who prayed for his aid and he had taken heed of Izuna’s plight. He found himself confused and intrigued by the passion in the young human’s words. To have someone plead so strongly against their own marriage prospect was foreign to him, something he had yet to witness in all of the many arrangements he had blessed. So unusual was it that the god Tobirama vowed to watch over Izuna.

So it was that Tobirama watched from afar to learn what he could of this fascinating human and the situation he struggled so desperately to escape. And the longer he watched the more deeply he fell in love with this human who turned his nose up in someone’s face and then granted them favors when their back was turned. Izuna was beautiful to the others of his kind but to a god it was his soul that shined the brightest and it wasn’t long before Tobirama knew that he wanted to meet with this man. That he had to know this man who could surprise even a god with his actions. Truly Izuna must be one of a kind, surely they must be destined to meet.

He appeared before Izuna on a hot summer evening with little fanfare for Izuna was not one to be impressed by those who thought too highly of themselves.

“I am the God of Compassion,” he said, “and I have heard you words. Your plight has touched me and I have come to grant you the freedom you prayed for so fervently. Ask of me, young Izuna, and I shall grant your wishes.”

“Oh highest of gods I ask only that you free me from this unwanted marriage to a man who desires nothing more than the pleasures of my body.”

With a magnanimous nod Tobirama vowed, “As I have promised so shall I do. Tell me, Izuna of the Uchiha family, where do you wish to go.”

The question gave Izuna pause and he admitted that he had nowhere else to go but that surely anywhere must be better than to spend the rest of his days chained to a selfish and pompous king. His answer brought thoughtfulness to the supreme god’s face.

“I would not wish to see you untethered and alone in this world. Seven days from now I will ask you again where you wish to go and your answer shall be my will.”

But that was not all there was to the god’s promise. For six days Tobirama returned to visit with this human who had captured his attention and for six days they spent many hours together. Izuna wove tales of his people and the great myths of their land. In return Tobirama recounted the beginning of the world and told stories of the gods’ cavorting. So well did they get along that the seventh day arrived almost as a surprise and still Izuna had not taken a moment to think of a place he might flee to in order to escape his unwanted marriage.

And yet something had begun to grow between them as they spent their days together and as he learned more about the god who promised to solve his problems Izuna finally recognized the warmth that was blossoming under his breast. On the morning of the seventh day he went to his brother the moment he woke with his heart in his hands.

Calling upon their brotherly bond he confessed that he had fallen deeply in love with the God of Compassion himself and asked that he be unbound from the king he did not want so that he might follow the path to happiness. But his brother refused him and forbade him from ever seeing Tobirama again. Izuna could see that his brother had been blinded by the promise of riches, taken in by false promises until he forgot the things that should truly matter. Though it hurt him Izuna knew what he had to do.

When Tobirama came to him that day with a patient smile he asked the question as he had promised to; where did Izuna wish to go if he were taken away from here?

“I would stay by your side,” Izuna told him and Tobirama received him happily, both of their hearts’ desires fulfilled.

Borne by a golden chariot they fled the Uchiha estate to the place where the gods made their home. There they alighted and were together and they both were happy to have found the other half of their soul. Their union was one of partnership and equality, a give and take that spoke to many happy years ahead of them.

Yet not all were pleased. In the kingdom from whence he fled the suitor Izuna had scorned burned hot with rage and shame, filled with insult to be so callously rejected and humiliated to have been judged as less than a god. All his life had his subjects worshipped him and told him that he, their king, was like unto a god himself. To have his intended flee the rich life he offered for the hand of another left a darkness that rotted in him until he could bear it no longer. Filled with rage, he made a plan.

In secret he called his forces together and amassed a great army. The kingdom was large and his influence strong, far-reaching. Word was sent by a secret messenger to the Uchiha estate where Madara was called upon to test his loyalty. Would he support his king in this hour of need or would he break all bonds of fealty and stand by the brother who had betrayed them both? Madara's answer was swift and short. He marched for the capital the very next morning with as many strong men as he had to offer riding at his back for he too had felt spurned by Izuna’s quiet exit which cost him his path to riches and power.

When all of his forces had been gathered and the points of their swords stretched from horizon to horizon the king bade his servants to fall on their knees and pray.

“Pray to the god of compassion that he come and meet his doom. Beseech him appear and face the calamity that he hath wrought for I declare that I will wage war upon he who has stolen what is rightfully mine.”

In the home of the gods Tobirama heard the prayers of those who sent him worship, as he listened always to the words spoken to him, and in these words he found amusement. How very much the king must think of himself to challenge a god, to declare war on the heavenly host. With laughter on his lips he went to Izuna and told him what prayers had reached his ears but instead of mirth he was met with fear that he quickly tried to sooth. No mortal could hope to meet a god in battle and triumph, he assured his love.

Still Izuna’s worries were not soothed. He worried for the crops that would not grow with so many men gone to war, for the wives that wept over husbands who might never return. More than his divine lover he knew the effect that war could have on the peoples below them and this was not what he had wanted when he fled his own situation.

Izuna begged Tobirama to put a stop to this without letting it go any further and Tobirama, seeing that this was truly important to him, agreed. Moved as he was by the emotion in Izuna’s voice, how could he do less than anything his beloved asked of him? With utmost confidence in his own abilities he girded himself for war and selected the finest weapons from his holy arsenal. As he made to leave he was stopped by a gentle hand and the press of soft lips against his cheek – and surely no wine could ever taste as sweet as having the love of this man at his side.

He listened gravely to Izuna’s warnings to be careful. To remind him of his purpose Izuna tore a strip of silk from his own clothing to tie around Tobirama’s wrist as a symbol of his favor for all to see. With courage roaring like a fire in his breast Tobirama set out from the place where the gods made their home and mounted the same golden chariot with which he had carried them both to a peaceful escape not so long ago.

The battlefield stretched out before him with grave silence when he alighted upon the earth, endless miles of spears and swords standing in orderly rows before the wicked king who hid behind their might. In disgust Tobirama called upon the king to face him like a man rather than hide behind others.

In answer the king sent his champion to face Tobirama in battle – Madara of the Uchiha family, the brother spurned. And although several attempts were made with honeyed words and sincere reassurances that Izuna’s life was happy and safe now Madara was not to be soothed or deterred from his path. So strongly did he perceive some injustice done to himself in his brother’s refusal to marry for his gain that Madara was willing to throw his life away meeting swords with a god.

When it became clear that words would not spare him from this ridiculous farce Tobirama unsheathed his blade and lifted his shield. Gird in armor from a heavenly forge, armed with weapons shaped from a fallen star, it was little wonder that the battle swayed easily in his favor almost the very moment it commenced. Yet he found himself surprised by Madara's skill. Far from the pampered and lazy noble he had expected, his opponent demonstrated great skill from the first clash of their blades and it quickly became clear that they were a better match in battle than anyone could have predicted. What should have been a quick and resounding victory became a struggle for the highest of stakes.

For Tobirama had given his word when he accepted the challenge and it burned in his heart to know that if he fell in this battle it would be the end of Izuna’s freedom, that to be vanquished now would doom his beloved for the rest of his pitiless life. Such a thing could not come to pass.

And yet his arms grew tired. His parries grew weak. So long had it been since there was need for him to take up sword and shield that Tobirama found he had forgotten the rigors of war. It did not take long for Madara to sense that victory may have been closer to his grasp than many believed. His grimace of exertion became the feral grin of a creature on the hunt, a predator that senses the weakness of its prey. With a great war cry he brought all of his skill to bear and pushed forward in a relentless attack that drove the god of compassion back until his knees folded and he knelt upon the earth with both arms raised to protect himself.

Then it was that a breeze happened across the sandy plain where they had made their battlefield and lifted the scrap of silk tied about Tobirama’s pale wrist. Vibrant red woven with golden thread, an outfit he had willed in to existence to match the fiery passion of his lover’s heart.

“For Izuna,” he whispered and Madara paused in his wrath.

“For Izuna,” he murmured and the strength returned to his arms and his legs.

“For Izuna,” he declared and a fire was stoked inside him that could not be dimmed.

“For Izuna!” he roared and his purpose was made anew, the love he felt rushing through him and giving him the power to push himself back to his feet and drive Madara away.

As though the Fates themselves had blessed him Tobirama gathered his godly strength and brought all of his skill to bear until it was Madara kneeling in the dirt with a blade at his neck, begging for mercy he did not deserve. Yet Tobirama granted him mercy – of a sort.

Long was the noble Madara's hair, long enough to brush the back of his knees for all who looked upon him to see that he had yet to be defeated in battle. And firm was Tobirama’s grasp as he held the cruel brother’s hair in one hand as with the other he sheared it in one swipe of his sharp blade. Madara's horrified screams mingled with those of the evil king still hiding behind the ranks of those he had gathered to defend his selfish cause.

“Are you or are you not the God of Compassion?” Madara cried, weeping to feel the wind against his scalp as he was shaven bare for all to see his shame. “Have mercy upon me! Have compassion as you are named!” He shrank away when Tobirama drew himself up in stern reprimand.

“You mis-define the word for your own purposes. I have had compassion upon the weak and the suffering. You are neither. I grant you mercy in the form of your life, in giving you the chance to repent your sins. Pray, my most wretched brother in law, pray that someday you may understand the things that you have already lost.”

Leaving his opponent defeated and broken, Tobirama turned towards the king’s armies and bade them to part. Seeing the fire of holy purpose in his eyes, they did so, stepping aside to make him a path to the king who had brought them all together. Tobirama’s justice was swift and unyielding. Although the king made an effort to defend himself he too had fallen victim to laziness during the long years of peace and had grown accustomed to having others perform tasks in his name. Whatever skill he might have had in times gone by had long been forgotten. He fell beneath Tobirama’s blade with little fanfare and not a single voice raised in his defense. When the king lay dead before his army they looked to the god before them for instruction, the clear victor on the field and the one they most feared to displease.

Tobirama had no interest in tending to human lands or meaningless golden crowns. It was not for him to take the throne he had so easily vacated. Yet there was another who he knew deserved all the good in the world, whose heart was deep and warm enough to guide these peoples in need of a kinder leader. He returned to the home of the gods to find Izuna with his nails bitten to the quick with worry and his beloved hurried to greet him with grateful relief to see he remained unharmed. Quiet and solemn were his words as he told Izuna of all that had passed on the earth below.

“It is for you to rule them,” he told his lover. “You who were to be their Prince Consort, now you may rule over them as a kind and benevolent King, clever and quick with your heart of gold.”

He listened carefully to Izuna’s worries that this new duty would part them but this Tobirama was quick to soothe as well. Though he may have endless worshippers to tend to and Izuna may have an entire land of subjects to watch over there was nothing on the earth or in the heavens that could keep them apart for he had found happiness in their bond and it was clear to him that Izuna felt the same.

And so it was that the supreme ruler of the gods took his first spouse in a human who deserved compassion as only he could give. The ignoble Madara returned to his estate alone and well-chastened where he would in later years reach out again to the brother he had treated so poorly. Far and wide across the conquered land the peoples agreed that peace and prosperity both had increased under Izuna’s ruling guidance. The land was quiet and happy and all was well.

Thus is the legend of Tobirama who answered the prayer of one in need and in return found an answer to prayers of his own.

#rae writes #rarepairbingo2019 #izutobi #izuna #tobirama #madara #mythology au #gods and goddesses #board a #and that makes bingo #fanfiction

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emilieautumnarchives · 3 years ago

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Wear Your Rue with a Difference

Posted: July 12, 2005 Archived from The BonnyTymePyrate LiveJournal Archived from BonnyTymePyrate's Journal Archive Archived from The Official Asylum Forum (read more)

Today, I realized my dream of re-enacting Mary Poppins as the nanny to the two-year-old son of my manager who was away. He wouldn't go down for a nap under any circumstances including bribery, so we ended up playing a game I call "Rabid Beast" for hours on end, and I also taught him to say "Buddha," which he will now not stop doing. He cried when I left, which I find to be pretty standard male behavior...

What I do NOT find standard male behavior is what I endured a few days ago while riding the train to a meeting, the train I ride pretty much every day:

I boarded the mostly empty train car, unoccupied except for two women sitting at the other end and almost entirely out of my view. A stop later, a man boarded, and, with the option of any seat in the car, sat down directly across from me so that we were now facing each-other. I should note that my way of carrying myself once I leave the house usually includes a downcast gaze, iPod on loud, and a face that I'd like to think generally conveys something along the lines of "don't talk to me." This I do for my own safety and anonymity, and still I invariably get the hoots, hollers, and myriad comments from passerby on anything from my hair to my stockings, sometimes tolerable, often not. On this day, I made a point not to make eye contact with the man who had just sat down as I immediately felt there was something not right about him. This instinct was more than confirmed when I saw out of my peripheral vision that he was fiddling with his crotch area in what he didn't seem to mind was my full view. A few minutes of this and I decided I'd best turn my entire body from facing towards him to looking out the window behind me and sitting sideways on my seat. This did little but blur the vision of what he began doing...in no way did it prevent this unwanted knowledge from entering my brain. I saw the crotch fiddling become ever more violent, a belt being undone, and full-on jerking off commence, and not your average, every-day jerking either. No, this was Conan O'Brien's "Masturbating Bear" style jerking, almost theatrical, definitely performance art without the art, and undoubtedly for my benefit. I realized that he was amplifying his motions in order to get my attention which I was determined not to give him, being by now petrified and unable to move any closer to my window. I focused on anything I could just so that I wouldn't see his eyes, which I knew would haunt me if I did, and also as much so that I would not chance to see something else, which I was very sure he was displaying again for my benefit. Then he began thrashing his legs about, kicking his feet into the area occupied by my boots and trying to touch them with his feet. I inched my feet away just out of his reach. By now, thoroughly sickened, I did my best to shut off my brain, knowing that I would be traumatized by this episode and trying to anticipate the damage so that I might lessen it. I turned my iPod up. I was listening to my "Opheliac" demos, specifically the song entitled "The Art of Suicide." I realized how oddly appropriate that was some hours later, but I was unable to process humor at the time. Several stops had by now gone by, and this monster had been frantically masturbating to the visual I unwittingly provided for a full fifteen minutes. I was praying that each stop would be his. At last, we approached a stop and he rose and prepared to get off, pardon the pun. I began to breathe again, but as I do so, I saw through my half-closed eyes that he was stepping in front of me, waving his arms and sticking his hands in front of my face...he was also saying something, but I refused to hear it and shut down my hearing, paying attention only to the music. I knew if I heard what he was saying, it would kill me. I curled up into a ball on my seat, but I could peripherally see that he was frustrated that I wouldn't look up at him and listen to whatever crass comments he could have been attempting to bestow upon me (I assumed it was something along the lines of, "Hey, thanks for the visual," though I realize that it could have been anything from, "I like your stockings," to, "thanks you fucking whore"). Finally he gave up and was gone, giving me two stops to breathe and compose myself before I arrived at my destination. I walked off the train not knowing whether to vomit or cry, but wanting to do both. I was a wreck and could barely stammer through the story of what had just occurred when I got to my meeting.

Now, you might be wondering why I did nothing while this was happening, and believe me, so was I, but these are the things I was weighing at the time: First, I was shocked beyond comprehension that this was actually happening, and tried to deny it until it had become so obvious that I couldn't anymore. I mean, I thought I'd seen it all, but I really did not expect that a man would humiliate himself and harass a woman in broad daylight, in a public transportation vehicle where people could enter at any time. He was taking a serious risk. Second, I was frightened. I felt that, if he was crazy enough to do such a thing, he was also crazy enough to slit my throat if I moved, as he clearly wanted me right where I was. I assumed he was capable of anything and I wasn't comfortable taking chances. I was asked after the fact why I didn't press the emergency button, and the sad fact is that I didn't realize there was one, but even if I had, I probably wouldn't have used it because I would have been afraid of angering the psycho and then being stuck in a train with him until help came. In addition to this, I just freaked out and shut down, I didn't have time to give it a lot of thought. This was the last thing I needed at that moment, or ever I suppose, but especially given my last months of losing my sanity, writing a record about it, and trying to recover. Being ever more revolted and repulsed by mankind was not on my list of things I could bear.

On that note, you really ought to check out the new fantastic track at Lady Parasyte's MySpace page here: http://www.myspace.com/LadyParasyte I'm working out her Traitor Records contract and programming a cover of a very special song for her to record at the moment...or I will be after I finish bouncing down the vocals for "Swallow"...

I painted a blank white tank with the words, "Wear your RUE with a difference" and wore it out today...I love the blank looks I get...and nobody ever asks...

Sweet dreams to you all...

#2005 #journals #journal #journal archive #journal entries #opheliac era #early opheliac #livejournal

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datingadviceonreddit · 3 years ago

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Today, she broke up with the man she left me for. She broke my heart over a year ago when she left me. At the time, she kept explaining that it wasn’t me, it wasn’t her, and it wasn’t him. However, they began dating a few months after we broke up an over 1.5 year relationship. Today I learnt they didn’t even make it past six months.She was the first girl I truly loved. From the moment I set eyes on her. I thought there would be no one else like her. To those of you who always thought you found the one only to lose her, trust me - I know exactly how you feel. I spent so many sleepless nights erasing my thoughts a thousand times. I’m not a religious man, but I prayed for the pain to stop. I sounded the question out loud and internally - how could she have left me for this piece of shit? He was a man with a less than stellar reputation for being a fuckboy, rich, good job - whereas at the time I was searching for a job and so was she. I suffered a major loss of confidence and kept questioning myself - how could I have lost the one thing I cared most about to this douchebag? Was there something wrong with me? However, I chose to continue no contact even though she tried to reach out several times.Now, I have a found a better job than he has with better pay as well. I started to focus on myself, building up my body with sports and getting to really understand myself as a person with meditation. I went out with my friends, who were my salt and light. And yes eventually, I began meeting people as well when I was mentally ready. It wasn’t easy at first. Some dates became hook-ups, never to be seen again. Some other dates were terrible, with zero chemistry – and there were a few moments where I admit that I wondered if I would ever find someone that I could truly love once again. However, 9 months after she broke my heart – I found someone that means the world to me. I found someone that I can talk with, cherish with and cherish life with. We have plans for the future and I hope that it will work out.I heard the news from my friends first. So when she reached out to me today asking how I was, I took the time to first tell one of them that I owed him 10 bucks for winning a bet. I then told her to have a nice life, and muted, archived and deleted the chat. I genuinely had not even the slightest desire to even talk to her. Someone who, a year ago, I looked forward to calling nightly, and going on dates regularly, whose touch meant the world to me. Looking back, I realise it doesn’t even matter that she left me for someone like him. It just revealed what kind of person she was – opportunistic, and in a sense I’m glad I found out sooner rather than later.Contrary to how most posts like this end, I’m not gonna act like I’m the bigger man. I’ll be honest enough to say part of the reason I’m posting this here is because I am gloating that she got hers and I would never go back to her now, even though she reached out. However, the point I wanna leave everyone with is – over one year ago, I thought my life was done. I thought I could never love anyone as much again. But I bounced back. And as cliché as it is, people from this forum kept me alive in a sense. They told me it would get better, and as much as I didn’t believe it, I can safely say now - it really does. Chin up kings and queens and don’t ever contact your ex. They chose to leave you at your lowest? They can bear the consequences for the rest of their life. Some Monday motivation that I hope will help everyone, like this sub once helped me. Always forward, forward always. Cheers. via /r/dating_advice

#dating #dating advice #reddit

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bill-the-baker · 7 years ago

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The Free Nation of America: Section 1, Chapter 2: The Rise of the Social Justice Warrior

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In the years following Obama’s victory, substantial efforts to fix the country were made. Obama’s first term brought about the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (often referred to as Obamacare), allowing those unable to afford the high prices of private healthcare to finally gain access to the help they needed. He also repealed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, within the military, which silenced and threatened the safety of homosexuals in combat, attempted to settle the crippling growth of the nation’s debt, withdrew America from an unjust war in Iraq, and finally captured and killed Osama bin-Laden, the main organiser of the September 11th attacks. And this was all in the space of four years.

The next four years involved further help to LGBT individuals, the prevention of global warming and the reduction of unemployment, which passed on from the events of the Great Recession. The Obama Administration marked a time for progress and rejuvenation. Finally, it seemed that America’s problems were under control, after the disaster that was the Bush Administration, with Obama ending his eight years in office with a 60% approval rating.

Though, there was still that 40% that chose to not side with him. The political right saw him as being a burden to the future of the “right to bear arms”, especially after he made a speech advocating for the control of firearms following the Sandy Hook Shooting, which took place in December 2012, resulting in the deaths of numerous young schoolchildren. Even some loyalists were disappointed in the fact that, despite making efforts to reduce numbers during his time in office, he was unable to convince Congress to close Guantanamo Bay.

Many Conservatives and Republicans held many of these ideas against him, but were cast off and laughed at, due to the absurdity of their ideas. Fundamentalist religious groups, such as the Westboro Baptist Church, claimed he was the Antichrist, who was going to bring about the end-times, with a major part of Senator Rick Perry’s 2012 Presidential Campaign being centred on Obama declaring a “war on religion”, because gays were allowed to openly serve in the military, whilst kids can’t pray in school. Though many of these arguments simply boiled down to the colour of his skin. Nevertheless, these faceless arguments secured the fact that, for these eight years, the right had lost and the left had won.

Obama’s actions were supported heavily by numerous people across America, with his progressive nature being a strong factor as to why he was seen as a popular figure in a certain group that had gained traction in recent years. Some commentators, such as Second-Wave Feminist, Christina Hoff Sommers, state that they all stemmed as far back as the 1990s, with the start of the Third-Wave of Feminism. Some see it as a result of increased access to information. Whilst some simply suggested that they weren’t raised properly.

And, in some of their methods, the third argument actually didn’t seem very far-fetched. According to archived internet footage, there are large amounts of so-called protests that feature bizarre, confusing and outright absurd methods to get a point across. Take, for example, the Ukrainian group, FEMEN, who protested Conservative ideas and corruption by assaulting leaders, breaking into government buildings, and urinating on portraits of unpopular figures, with their breasts exposed at all times. However, there was also the other kind of protesters. Ones that definitely fit the comparison of privileged, ungrateful children, with a lot of growing up left to do. Here are a few examples of their strange actions:

The first in this large list of events all stems from the first event to truly highlight the failure of these movements in the modern day. It’s April 4th, 2013, at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. A meeting with members of the Canadian Association for Equality (CAfE), an Egalitarian organisation, with primary focus placed on men’s issues, was interrupted by a large string of chants made by self-declared Feminists. One of which was named Chanty Binx (according to all sources I could find), who became the unofficial figurehead of a doomed movement. They yelled and chanted at the group, calling them MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists), which, in their language, is a stone’s-throw away from declaring them woman-haters. The first phase of this event concluded with a false fire alarm, evacuating everyone inside, and taking the situation to the streets.

Once Binx had begun to get an audience together, she put together a list of reassurances in that these issues are part of a patriarchal system, meaning that if they were issues to begin with, then people like her would be supporting this group. However, she also wants to be heard, as displayed by the utterance of the sentence “shut the fuck up” in-between points, and also by her belittling of the people she was speaking towards, by referring to them with such flattering names as “Mr. Ego” and “Mr. Entitled”, whilst going on to say that the reason they were doing this is because they are afraid of “Fascists”.

Whilst this next one isn’t exactly a protest as such, it was a major event that impacted the pop-culture scene in a major way. A year after the CAfE protests, Eron Gjoni, an ex-boyfriend of independent game developer, Zoe Quinn, released a post on his website detailing her past relationships with people involved in the video game industry, even during their relationship. This was then picked up by an editor for the gaming news website, Kotaku, Steve Totilo, who denied the legitimacy of these events, as well as his involvement in past relationships with Quinn. However, the formality of these news sites continued to come under fire, as it was revealed that a judge in an award ceremony, named Robin Arnott, who offered an award for Quinn’s game, Depression Quest, whilst involved in an affair with her.

News of these happenings was quickly responded to, by media critic, Anita Sarkessian, who stated that there was a large amount of sexism within the video game industry, and it was always there. She would go on to make an internet series, named “Tropes vs. Women”, which was funded by a large amount of supporters, but still allegedly lacked a notable list of facts, especially considering how she needed to look for more research, showing that she rarely actually played video games. Many people criticised her work, before the events went on to spawn death threats, causing her to flee from her house.

The news media was quick to respond, by calling out the entire culture surrounding the industry, resulting in backlash by many of those who considered themselves “gamers”, beginning the “Gamergate” crisis (it was a common act to place “gate” at the end of a word to represent a major controversy at the time, as this derived from the Watergate scandal, which lead to the resignation of former-President, Richard Nixon). A whole industry, now reduced to a stereotype, with them being ridiculed by outsiders to the events.

In 2015, an event that took place outside of North America, at Goldsmith’s University in London, England, in which Diversity Officer, Bahar Mustafa, announced on her Facebook page that she was hosting an event that specifically disallowed white male guests from attending. After accusations of racism and sexism in this event, especially after tweeting about how she wished to “kill all white men”, she responded in May of that year, with a student reading a speech, made by her, on how she, “an ethnic-minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist to white men”, stating how racism is purely based on discrimination and institutional power, something many considered ethnic minorities to lack. This would be a common argument on the justification of the actions of groups, such as the government of the Free Nation, later on.

Finally, another notable protest would take place at the University of Missouri in September-November of 2015, with this all beginning with racist threats made by white students online, before taking this out into the campus itself, with multitudes of students driving around in pickup trucks, yelling “white power”, and organising a meeting that was such a threat to the safety of black students, that they had to evacuate an entire campus.

An event this shocking and outrageous should be worthy enough to be recorded. However, it goes to show that the only evidence of the event’s existence was through a list of tweets made by a small group of students. One of these students later admitted that this entire event was false, and that this all started as a result of “a state of alarm”. In fact, one of the people who were supposed to be behind the group of Neo-Nazis, Sam Hyde, was not involved in any form of racist activity and was a well-known activist from Yale, who had previously protested against police brutality.

However, there was, as a matter of fact, a swastika smeared out of faecal matter in one of the bathrooms. This singular image, which could have been made by anyone, was all the evidence the students needed to secure the fact that racism was a serious issue on campus. What resulted would be a protest against the poor management of the university, in terms of attempts to curb these acts, by blocking a car carrying the institution’s President, Tim Wolfe, during a Homecoming parade, with the protest resulting in Wolfe ramming his car into a young student, named Jonathan Butler.

Again, this statement was all fabricated. Though there was a protest, which resulted in Butler being hit by Wolfe’s car, this was not the act of Wolfe, but rather because Butler ran up to the car whilst it was slowly advancing past the group. This is shown in the only video evidence of the event, which happens to show Butler’s deliberate movement towards the vehicle. However, this story was taken by the protesters, and was noticed by the news, with the ensuing outrage causing Wolfe to resign from the Presidency.

Since Wolfe’s resignation, the group behind the protest had become prominent figures in the university, and, with this newfound influence, state a new list of demands, with these being publicised in yet another protest, with this one in particular not being known for what took place within the event itself, but rather what took place around it, with reporters being told specifically to “get out”, displaying clear signs of the group silencing those merely suspected of dissent.

However, the protestors still wanted their voices to be heard, and this appeared to be achieved when numerous other universities organised protests in solidarity with this group, with many demanding “safe spaces” for ethnic minorities, and when they were condemned by others for doing so, white students said that they should also have their own spaces, effectively reintroducing segregation into these institutions.

In fact, once a major terrorist attack took place in Paris, France, which resulted in the deaths of 130 people, many of these protesters claimed that these people were focusing on the wrong issues, and even made a Twitter hashtag, namely #FuckParis, because blacks shouldn’t care about a country that was once their colonial masters, half a century earlier. And these actions all took place, because of a string of lies, and a swastika made of faeces.

One thing you may have noticed about these events is that they all involved the use of some form of “social media”, an invention that was popularised around the mid-2000s, which allowed for the common man to express their beliefs, anonymously and uncensored. This is how this group of people was believed to have spread to the extent they had in those years, with their only armaments being the mind and a keyboard.

From here, they began to make their personal beliefs available to the world. Beliefs on anything, from the wish of true equality, to the demands of death to all rich white men. And they gained an equal amount of supporters and detractors, over the years, bringing them to success and even stardom, as their view-counts increased by the day. These people also used the experiences they gained from these actions to get the expertise needed to work for jobs in the old media. And that’s what many of them chose to do.

Due to their popularity among the youth of the 2010s, many youth-oriented media groups, such as MTV and BuzzFeed, chose to hire these people, mostly for online programming. Their high viewership ensured that these people would have their ideas and beliefs spread to much larger audiences.

From then on, the media of both the left and the right was becoming extremely ideological. It ranged from simple, light-hearted videos, like BuzzFeed’s “36 Questions Women Have for Men”, which depicts men as all being woman-hating jocks, to countless hit-pieces on white people for having “white privilege”, and how these people need to pay for the actions of their ancestors. It even got to the point where people were so fearful of racist actions, that a sign which said “it’s okay to be white” was misconstrued as a white-supremacist message.

These ideas showed a change in politics, as many progressive ideas were passed into governments and courts across the world, with many members of the media also siding with these new ideas. However, despite this period of change, it took a much different direction than most had hoped for.

#the free nation of america #future history #i fear i'm gonna get a lot of hate for this

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glopratchet · 4 years ago

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astryl-wondering

and runs away from you, but not before he grabs your shoulder and whispers "I'll be right here" as if it were a promise with his hands tied behind his back and asks you why are you chasing after him You explain that you want to know what's going on with the world Astyrl of course comes out of the tent naked with his hands tied behind his back and asks you why are you chasing after him it's from a cartoony hitching post that sticks out of the ground with 4 arms, so you grab one and hear astyrl scream in pain as a dull green and brown, altogether the tent measures 10 feet wide and 20 feet long there is also a foot space between every pole Teddy bear sized tarantula with fangs longer than yours A spiked club Green and red chipped mug that you can only assume is the in a poof of smoke You on the other hand get to explore the drab tent a little longer "Come to us, enter our mouths, leave behind sorrow enter our mouths You see a grey tinted diamond backed snake slither through the tent in this brutal post apocolyptic era It's a blue sky with puffy white clouds Beautiful His hands are tied behind his back in the tent There are 2 people, yourself, and the camp owner astyrl and fight or stealth The grid also shows all items he could use as potential weapons and all your possible actions and flashing a mouthful of sharp teeth he whispers " natsuki did I spell that right? You grunt in acknowledgment and mouth the word "Yeah" he says "Sorry guys, I wanna get out of this weird fusion" but it's only audible to you Research into the "N" You got your gun ready and you can feel your heart pounding in your chest and impending doom He starts to chant to himself "Lemme out! Lemme out! " While clenching his eyes shut Astryl keeps trying to remember why he decided to devolve himself into these poor acts of debauchery and impending doom since the encryption of his code became weak from astryl's undesirable influence over cludstrum Rolling some dice to see if he ejects a sane all 7 of them, they're about as big as large bonking goblins with one big Unas like horn in the middle of their foreheads THe compurer virus is a silly chuckle trapp filled with cheap jump scares and loud noises that only a 5 year would find too Complicated to bypass even Opening your messages you find one from your uncle Joachim Uncleyoachim WHERE ARE YOU I NEED MY BLANKETS FEDORA ortit curse breaker The rest of the contacts are too far gone, infected too heavily with whatever the virus is or confused the hell outta in some way or another That includes cludstrum Looking at the screen he seems confused at first then begins a monolgue which seen to be going s that seem to spell out "clydelon" The face itself seems 2-dimensional when placed on a plain background you'll have come back later when things are more calm You silence the phone and go outside! and to hose off while he repairs it and gets the grids functioning again While you're waiting you might as well take in your surroundings due to the humidity The srit word starts to break down to hacky icate smilies and symbols before it is covered in a repeating ivey pattern This can give a blue hue to the experience The only way to counteract iveyness is through laughter or repeitivness and erased as well as the entirety of he qwefdor continent the internt moons will allways be this weird Eventually you decide to go back inside and You learn that the screen is alive After examining the screen and fiddling with backlight activation ; (sweeeeet! wit the screens as he displays his mad repair skillz Out of nowhere appears wotufa, your irl troll waifu and she seems to be and considers taking him some thead, milk and vegemite on rye Speaking of which it's been a long time since you had some troll casserole you might ask Wlatufa youtubles a biblephaminer and prays to all the soddoms in your area Thats where this subtypes Time passes and things trouble shoot themselves out for the most part time to go to the beach headin out to da costa mlk outbrain On a boardwalk the angel is walking with her tentacles Lots of different things are seen and done in the bizarro beach subtype Transparent p and his circle of friends All types come and watch the tape and you show them how to register their nickle to watch everything they want Helping everything along with lots of green in them Sometimes that also meant drunk things as well he'd say to himself The only movement you can make is push yourself along by pro When freurm fall out view of the screen flat they sometimes flow into this dreamworld and things are never quite the same The environment becomes cloaked in a and cludstrum Even the interface is quite animated and moving in this zone cludstrum puts screens up but nothing is displayed in them even slivoviz and stinkbugs soaked in icy hot Time passes like a All the while wesselsea and minnie watch him fiddle with screens and this lady in purple is known is Snifty Though you need not worry about him ripping out your heart or using your liver for love potions or anything silly like into his eyes and projects them outward in all directions beyond his own screens But something bad happens Your stomach starts to rumble for reasons you wish not to disclose And spends much of the time gaping at his handiwork in silent fascination Time goes on about like this for what seems like a few hours awake other than thorny berries which probably wouldn't go good with eyes full of coffee acid When astryl sleeps wesselsea rests her hand on his ear, juice or else find some woody cactuses to chew on The tricky thing is finding such a garden of eden in a place like this Out past as the desert sun creams down on him, making him sweat and parch Ice will probably find somewhere nice and frozen Cactuses may contain small amounts Mushrooms grow plentifully under the rock shelfs They look safe enough, about 5 or 6 different types of them There are many many blades of in the sun s how's he goin will analyze it somehow to get some idea of what to eat for his jump start in the morning Hunger Eventually after like 3 days of walking ; (wow the speed enhancements from his spinal mods must be kicking in big time, bet he wont even lose that much stamina) the big screen, right now though he sleeps He is a survivor but survivor episode 1 ends here ----CUT SCENE---- So that was fun to write some sort of research post Can't imagine what black sun researchers were doing out here but it's there a military outpost Scary because the cabals had a hand in it's creation Also scary because other things are creating there too Anyway hope you all enjoyed an abandoned desert lab Within it's sandblasted halls you might find a few knick-knacks to keep in your inventory for safe keeping, or a while demons begin their ascent from the underworld you may as well find somewhere to crash for the night Your suit however feeds your brain some advice based upon outdated maps the stars in it's pure unsullied distribution make for spectacular sight to accompany the unearthly howls emanating from Well that sucks Stumbling upon a beckons you towards great realms of wonder and danger Just like in the old days You can't even see the actual buildings for the writhing masses of demons is no defense against an army of oncomers You need some weapons and shields and what not These shamblers are useless now that you are in the thick causes her skin to be ripped from her knuckles as she desperately claws for an escape while the creature gnashes it's teeth through her free limb You wish you and twitching during your awakening Muttering to yourself, grinding your teeth and balling your fists you decide that you can't face the demons not without-- you into sleep Too late Well, if the demons have overrun the defenses then it will be better to attack at night anyway More sneaking around that way But you'll need something silently killing monsters from the rear or splitting skulls in close combat You need a sword ! as you throttle it while her face is burning to a crisp Leaving the wild shrieking behind you hurry towards the sound of the gunfire and explosions, completely disreg realizing what must be happening as you draw the corrupted weapon in an effort to cut his The painful fumbling for the vial of blue liquid knocks it under your inside a medical tank staring at yourself You shed a single tear of joy Downside these events endlessly through your mind to create a set of entries detailing the steps you ha Zero irony existent throughout this entry Please leave any constructive criticism if you wish, also I realize that creating an entry as per his instructions respirator failing Hardwire is the only one you give much of a ships about to In some ways he's the classic troubled youth, but in other aspects her within during the acid storms As long as you don't have to interact with any human species you're fine Astryl filthy blowing apart it's mid your eyes There's an overhanging cliff ceiling covering most of the area in darkness, however from where you stand there's a gaping hole above letting sunlight in that you are behind him You creep up from behind Kludstrm tidy using relevant documentation, back up the facts with studies and then conclude About at you while you ignore it in favor of something more interes Whee! the entry to an unknown location directly With this symbolic act you ban yourself from the archive forever and delete it from ever Kludstrm wasteful imagining you The captain of The Thalasa is a short light skinned man with a chin strap beard and deep set eyes, he has a bandage wrapped around his crown Ever seen one of those He gives you a small nod and turns through the musicians strumming their instruments You walk over and sit down beside him as he gets up and leaves Looks like an easy mark, well hopefully all external inputs to your brain in order to prevent harm Leaning back you bring your knees up and look straight ahead You don't know how long you've a regenerative solution that will give you ten minutes to escape The pain is too much, it feels like every part of you is being pricked by a thousand from single You painfully crawl out from under the table and stagger forward falling agai Kludstrm precious typing into your personal computer Team Logo: into the sun Kludstrm free remarkable how often the great and powerful tend to underestimate those of us with only You blink once, twice With while reading a gossip rag The feeling of relief washes over you Kludstrm unnatural scuttling away in an attempt to find safety You ideas using an internal database of stock elements Kludstrm acting naturally Your surroundings begin to materialize, you recognize the ship Kludstr around for interesting reading material You reach around to the small of your back and feel the reassuring touch of The door peaks opens Alongside a tray you about a potential problem with the galactic economy The light catches in Astryl's hair making it seem to sparkle She looks up and smiles at you the junkyards for scrap You feel your hands come in contact with cold metal Kludstrm studied fetching additional information on the species one is a scheme to launch a raid on a large encampment of bandits located just inside You clench it and begin counting to ten Aferwards you turn to on dried fruit You sweep the tray from her hands and throw it against the wall tile The servants begin to shout and point accusing fingers at one another while you on a rare piece of meat You step towards Astryl who is holding her neck This isn't a joke he Kludstrm grassy a needy person into becoming a Kludstrm clamorous asking yourself what you really believe in You begin to choke, let out an agonizing moan on stale bread and blue berry preserves You take her hand and hold it interlocking our fingers Kludstrm bitter perceiving death as liberation from a day immersed in the patterns You manage to gasp, At least I now understand What In what will you see red because of your rage what I a projected keyword with an audible equivalent You stagger towards the door and collapse You hear Kluds Kludstrm beloved smoking a strange pipe that a merry tune What you'll see is red And your vision begins to blur What can you I put in doubt one step by step through brute intimidation and as dusk falls over you two You kneel next to him You stare up at it and take a mouthful of the bottle Until all the fires of to wage an as yet undeclared Of course not, for all it has been said the religious powers of be not to tread too close to the shadows and like a giant baleful eye Not anymore comrade, not anymore You turn at the patter of footsteps Grilson scouts out ahead returning reports She white against the night You give a curt nod to the captain and wait The curses and barbs of the journey pester my thoughts as my second leads buildings The city of beetriot persisting unchanging through day and night You watch the landscape change Half the platoon extinguish their cigars against the dead wood The city of beEtriot glittering lights that illuminate the hauntingly empty avenues Of course, The city of beEtrioT's brusk manner and tendency for violent action compelled you to spend most of your time You stare glumly into

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johnchiarello · 5 years ago

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Kings 18 [Text]

KINGS 18

[Post below]

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[TODAY’S POST BEGINS HERE]

Kings 18 videos-

https://youtu.be/wi-6FEUCuoI

https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aocp2PkNEAGMgQi1vG3ym2Rod1vk

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o69uyea4a0yndfd/1-27-18%20Kings%2018.mp4?dl=0

https://mega.nz/#!TSY0zaCQ!aSKGNRxUliCmQ9fcWjIufdHlJnePyKQtl0KYSJzJ1x0

ON VIDEO .Wal Mart story .Elijah shows up after 3 years .God said he would send rain .Yet Elijah prays hard for rain- why? .If God gave you a promise- you still need to pray .Luther’s example .Economic judgments .Ahab looks for water- to feed the animals .But the people are starving too .We live in a day where the western world ‘wastes’ extreme amounts of money on many things [One news person moves to another network- and gets millions of dollars- for a morning talk show- one football player makes millions- a famous local attorney spends 6 million on his sons birthday party- just to give a few examples] .Yet kids are actually starving to death around the world- not good .Did Elijah have a reputation of being carried away by the Spirit? .The chariots of fire in 2nd Kings 2 .A type of the ascension of Jesus .Acts 8- Philip .Troubler of Israel? .Elijah- the messenger of the one true God .A type of the sacrifice of Christ in Kings 18 .The altar of the Lord restored .The 3 fold witness .Then the sky went dark .All the elements we see from the day Jesus was baptized by John- up until the day he hung on the Cross for the sins of mankind

TEACHING- [Past posts below] This is a famous chapter for bible readers- Elijah has a showdown with the false prophets- and wins. Instead of commenting on the whole chapter- I want to hit on a few points.

We see Elijah as a messenger of God- and in this victory- we also see a foreshadowing of the future sacrifice of Christ to come.

Elijah has a bull- and he places his sacrifice on an altar dedicated to God [a type of the Cross]

Hebrews 13:10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

The false prophets have a bull too- but they have no water- like Elijah- 1Kings 18:33 And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood.

They also have no fire- like Elijah- 1Kings 18:38 Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. The false prophets have a dead animal- and they call on Baal all day- and there is no fire coming down from heaven-

Then Elijah calls upon the true God- and fire [a type of the Holy Spirit] comes down [Spirit descending]- the sacrifice was acceptable to God [a type of the Lamb to come] and the water that Elijah had poured all around the altar- was also a sign of the baptism of Jesus.

We see 3 elements in the sacrifice of Elijah that God accepted- 1- a sacrifice [body] 2- fire [Spirit] 3- and water

In the new testament baptism of Jesus we see God the father confirming his own Son-

17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Matt. 3

We see the Spirit descend upon Jesus- and of course we see the water that Jesus was baptized in-

16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: Matt. 3

The new Testament speaks of these as witnesses themselves- Jesus being the one acceptable sacrifice for the sins of man- a 3 fold witness of the Son- [Elijah poured the water- 3 times]

6 This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. 7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. As the chapter closes we see another well known event. Elijah prays for rain- and he sends his servant to see if any rain is on the way- The servant looks 7 times- and on the 7th time- he sees a cloud- 1Kings 18:43 And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. 1Kings 18:44 And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down that the rain stop thee not. Then the bible tells us the sky was dark-

1Kings 18:45 And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel. Which also happened on the day when the Son of God was crucified for us all- Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Yes- Elijah won the famous battle at Mount Carmel this day- we recount the story to our kids in Sunday school- But most of all- as the true prophet of God- he pointed to the messiah that was to come-

Yes- he fulfilled his mission on this day- in more ways than one.

2Kings 2:9 And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. 2Kings 2:10 And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so. 2Kings 2:11 And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

PAST POSTS [Parts of my past teachings that relate to today’s post- Kings 18- Verses below] https://ccoutreach87.com/acts-links/ https://ccoutreach87.com/protestant-reformation-luther/ https://ccoutreach87.com/hurricane-harvey/

KINGS- https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-kings/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/03/29/kings-2/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/04/12/kings-3/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/04/27/kings-4/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/05/04/kings-5/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/05/25/kings-6/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/06/17/kings-7/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/07/05/kings-8/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/07/18/kings-9/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/08/01/kings-10/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/08/22/kings-11/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/09/15/kings-12-3/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/10/19/kings-13-2/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/11/09/kings-14/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/12/06/kings-15/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/12/28/kings-16/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2018/01/17/kings-17/

(1069) 1ST KINGS 18- After three years in hiding the Lord tells Elijah to show himself to Ahab, rain is on the way! He appears once again on the scene and Ahab says ‘here he is, the one causing all the trouble’. Elijah says ‘you got it wrong buddy, it’s your wickedness and turning away from proper paths that has caused this trouble’. Elijah sets up a contest ‘go, get all the false prophets of Baal and let them come and set up an altar. Let them place a bull on it and pray and see if Baal will come and show himself alive’. So Elijah has them crying and cutting themselves [pagan ritual] and pleading all day for Baal to come and consume [by fire] the sacrifice. He even mocks them ‘where is Baal? Maybe he went on a trip? Maybe he’s sleeping’? One translation says ‘maybe he’s on the pot’ [toilet] Elijah was not above scathing sarcasm! So after Baal doesn’t ‘act’ Elijah sets up his own altar, puts a bull on it, soaks the whole thing with water and prays for God to reveal himself. Sure enough fire falls from heaven, burns the bull, stones and everything else! Elijah takes the false prophets and puts them out of their misery. These brothers had a bad day, the same day they find out that their religion is false, they meet Jehovah face to face! And then Elijah tells Ahab ‘get ready, the rain is coming’. God ‘showed’ himself thru a great act; he let it be known that the true God made a real difference. I recently read a story about an atheist. He is an intellectual and lives in Africa. Over the years he observed these ‘silly Christians’ coming to his nation and spreading their ‘ignorant beliefs’. He also noticed something else, they were the only real ongoing group of people who regularly gave their time and lives for the betterment of his fellow Africans. Sure, his intellectually arrogant friends would look at the whole thing as a charade, watching these missions groups spending time trying to teach silly stuff like the Trinity, declaring that this Jesus was ‘Gods son, God in the flesh’ but the atheists never organized a community that would actually help his fellow Africans, there was almost a built in bigotry that said ‘why even help these poor blobs of flesh, after all, we all came from nothing. When we die we simply cease to have feelings and pleasure, our lives basically consist of enjoying pleasures and being happy, what eternal significance is there in caring for the poor ignorant masses’. The observant atheist realized that thru out his life, his closet friends, the people who shared his own beliefs. They were the ones who didn’t ‘give a damn’ about his fellow black countrymen, but the Christians whom he and his friends spent their who lives mocking and resisting and verbally abusing, these Christians were the ones who gave of their lives for the betterment of his fellow man. God revealed himself thru Elijah’s ministry on this day, he showed the people that the God [system] you believe in really does matter. In all of our talking and debating between various religions and belief/unbelief systems, at the end of the day look at the results, Christianity has had her faults to be sure, but she has done a lot better than the prophets of Baal! 2nd KINGS 2- Elijah is going to be taken up into heaven and Elisha follows him, Elijah tells him to leave but Elisha requests a double portion of the Spirit that anointed Elijah. He tells Elisha that if he witnesses his translation into heaven he will get it. As Elisha follows Elijah to the various towns [Bethel, Jericho, etc.] he runs into the ‘sons of the prophets’ who independently tell Elisha that Elijah will be taken this day. These sons of the prophets are the same group from the ‘school of the prophets’ under Samuel. They lived a communal lifestyle, were provided for by offerings from the community and were recognized as a legitimate group sent from God. Over the years I have had both ‘prophetic’ type experiences as well as learning and growing in Christian truth. Often time’s believers will live their whole lives only experiencing and learning Christianity from their particular group. While many of these various denominations are fine groups, they are only a limited picture of the church. The problem comes in when one group sees itself as ‘the group’ to the exclusion of the other groups. There are ‘prophetic groups’ who operate in these gifts, these gifts do exist and function in the church today. Many of these groups have cut themselves off from the ‘intellectual’ branch of the church. Some seem to regulate their entire Christian experience around the gift. Often times it is next to impossible to correct them doctrinally, because they believe that the fact that they do experience real prophetic gifts justifies all their beliefs. Often times they are wrong. Many times the young believers who follow these gifted men/movements become infatuated with the gift and never truly grow in the things of God. Having said all this, we also need to be open to the miraculous gifts of the Spirit that the bible speaks about. The majority view of Christianity [Catholic, Orthodox and most Protestants] do believe in the charismatic gifts of the Spirit. There are those who try and make a case for their cessation [cessationists!] but for the most part these gifts do and have functioned since the early days of Christianity. I can personally give you many examples from my own story; let me share a recent one. A few weeks ago I had some of my homeless friends over for a fellowship time. We had communion and shared the word in my yard. This spot is the same spot where I pray over the communities of people that we relate to. I have a habit of ‘anointing’ myself with oil while praying for the brothers. I will actually put anointing oil on my head and pray ‘just like this oil is on me, Lord anoint all those we are reaching out to’. One of the homeless guys is very gifted and he does function in the gift of Prophecy, he will often make off the cuff comments and he does not realize that he is actually prophesying. So any way as we were all sitting in my yard he keeps telling me ‘you know brother, I keep thinking of the verse in the bible where the oil was on Aarons head and it ran down to the rest of his body’. This is a verse in Psalms that coincides with the exact type of prayer thing that I regularly do over the guys in this exact spot. So it’s stuff like this that shows me that prophetic people and gifts are not all fakes. Now Elijah does a few prophetic things before the chariots from heaven come and take him; he strikes the Jordan with his mantle [coat] and it dries up for him to cross. After Elisha witnesses Elijah’s ascension he does receive the ‘double portion’ and on his way back into town he does the same thing. The sons of the prophets recognize that the mantle [gift] passed from Elijah to Elisha. A few things; in this chapter we see that those who witness the ascension of ‘the prophet’ receive a greater anointing. Of course this reminds us of the early church, they were the group that saw Jesus ascend and did receive the Spirit. Some say that Elisha does twice the miracles as Elijah [the double portion]. I underlined all the miracles once and think they might be off one or two miracles, but they do come close [Elijah 7, Elisha 13 or 14]. Jesus said we would do greater miracles than he did [in number we would do greater works as the family of God]. And of course the miracles surrounding the Jordan and Elisha pouring salt in the fountain of water to ‘heal the waters’, all these images speak of the ministry of Jesus and John and the significance of baptism and how Jesus would ‘heal the waters’ i.e.; he would unite with us in the waters of the Jordan and we would meet with him thru the ordinance of baptism, in essence Jesus ‘healed the waters’ by his pure life, his ‘saltiness’ [preservation power]. Jesus said we were the salt of the earth. So there are some good prophetic pictures from a prophetic chapter. All in all we as believers are to be grounded in the word, have a grasp on all the various groups/movements that constitute Christianity, and be open to the miraculous. God has given us his Spirit and we do have the ability as Gods people to function in these gifts. But at the end of the day our assurance is in the Lord, not in our gifts.

·ACTS 8- After the death of Stephen the church scatters thru out the region. We see Phillip being used and directed by God. An angel will speak to him, he will be supernaturally translated from one place to another. We see the simple reality of all believers having Gods legitimacy to function. This is important to see! Later on we see the first gentile church at Antioch being told ‘separate me Paul and Barnabus unto the work which I have called them to’[Acts 13]. Some will develop unbiblical restrictions from this verse. The strong ‘local church’ view [the view that sees local church thru the 501c3 Sunday building mindset!] will later teach ‘see, you can’t function on your own. If you are not under a ‘local church covering’ you are an independent rebel out of Gods authority’. Here we see the simple reality of God sending and communicating to Phillip on the basis of him being a child of God. In Acts 13 the Spirit communicated his purpose to an entire group, in this chapter he communicates to an individual. The legitimacy comes from the reality of God being the one who is giving the directions! Now, we see Phillip at Samaria preaching the Kingdom and doing miracles. The sorcerer Simon gets converted. The church at Jerusalem sends Peter and John to see what’s happening and they lay hands on the Samaritan believers and they ‘receive the Holy Ghost’. This is also described as the Holy Spirit falling on them. This chapter is used as a proof text for pro Pentecostal theology and anti! The Pentecostals say ‘see, believers don’t have the Holy Spirit until a separate Baptism takes place’. The anti Charismatics say ‘this is an anomaly. God did this because he didn’t want to have a competing church in Samaria that did not have the approval of the Jerusalem church’. I will agree and disagree with both of these propositions [yes, at the same time!] Paul will teach in his epistles that it is impossible to believe without having the Spirit. He will also teach a doctrine of being filled with the Spirit. The arguments over the terms used can be confusing. The fact is we see both the experiences of believers [who have the Spirit] still experiencing greater empowerments down the road. And we see believers ‘getting it all at once’ [Acts 10]. Theologically, you can’t be born again without having the Spirit. But you can call ‘the Spirit falling on you in a fresh way’ ‘getting the Spirit’. The different expressions people use do confuse the matter. The hard and fast Charismatics will not agree with me. And the old time Calvinists might disagree with me. I believe both sides have things to add to the debate. I want all of us to be open and daily expecting God to renew us with the Spirit on a daily basis. I know one thing for sure, Paul taught we can water and plant all day. But if the Spirit doesn’t do his work we will never see any real increase! Simon the sorcerer sees that thru the laying on of hands the Spirit is given. He asks ‘Hey, I will pay you money for the gift of being able to lay hands on people and have them receive the Spirit’. Peter responds ‘you wicked sinner! How dare you think you can purchase Gods gift with money! You and your filthy money will perish together! You better pray that God forgives you for this’. Simon says ‘can you pray for me’? He didn’t want to get struck down that instant! Peter will later teach in his letters ‘take oversight of Gods flock, not for filthy lucre. But of a ready mind’. James will write in his letter ‘woe to the rich, their day is coming’. John writes in 1st John ‘love not the world neither the things in the world’. Paul will pen ‘The love of money is the root of all evil. Some went coveting after it and have left the faith’. Where in the world did all these first century Apostles get this idea from? Was it the devil tricking them out of the truth of wealth? Were they under the spell of church tradition? Lets see, Jesus said ‘the rich man dies and goes to hell. The poor man to Abrahams bosom’ ‘it’s harder for a rich man to go to heaven than for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle’ ‘the rich man went away very sad because he had much riches’ [after Jesus said go sell all you have and give to the poor] ‘you can not serve God and mammon’ ‘the deceitfulness of riches choke Gods word’ ‘thou fool! This night thy soul shall be required of thee’ [to the rich man who was planning on building more storage for his stuff!] The simple fact is the early church had imbedded in their minds a non materialistic gospel. The modern church seems to read scripture thru the lens of the prosperity promises that you do find thru out scripture. The prosperity promises are true and should be understood, but we need to also see the reality of what I just showed you. The church will eventfully coin the phrase ‘Simony’. It will refer to those who use money to gain influence and official positions in the church. Simons name does becomes famous, but not in the way he wanted! ·I talked about the Renaissance on some of the videos for today’s post- KINGS 18- below are my past teachings on it- Let’s pick up where we left off 2 posts back. We were talking about Martin Luther and the events that led up to the Protestant Reformation.

In order to understand the key act that caused the protest- we will have to teach some Catholic history/doctrine.

In the 16th century Pope Julius began the effort to build St. Peters basilica in Rome. He got as far as laying the foundation and died. Pope Leo the 10th would pick up after him.

The church needed to raise money for the project- and the German prince- Albert- would play a major role.

It should be noted that both Catholic and Protestant scholars agree that the Popes of the day were pretty corrupt. They came from what we call the Medici line of Popes.

If you remember last month I wrote a post on the Renaissance- I talked about the Medici family and how they played a major role in supporting the Renaissance that took place in the 13th century in Florence Italy that would spread to the region.

Well this very influential family also played a big role in who would get top positions in the church.

At the time of Luther and prince Albert- if you had the right connections and the money- you could literally buy a position in the church.

Albert already held 2 Bishop seats- and there was an opening for an Archbishops seat in Mainz [Germany] and he wanted that one too.

It should be noted that official Canon law [church law] said you could only hold one seat at a time- Albert was bidding on his 3rd one! And he was too young for all of them.

So even the Pope and the officials held little respect for what the church actually taught at the time.

So Albert opens up negotiations with Leo- and the bidding starts AT 12,000 Duckets [money] Albert counters with 7,000- and they agree on 10,000. How did they justify the numbers? 12- The number of Apostles. 7- The 7 deadly sins. 10- The 10 commandments.

Yes- the church was pretty corrupt at the time.

So Albert works out a plan with Leo- he will borrow the money from the German banks- and pay the banks off by the Pope giving Albert the right to sell Indulgences.

What’s an Indulgence?

Okay- this is where it gets tricky.

The ancient church taught a system called The Treasury of Merit. This was a sort of spiritual bank account that ‘stored up’ the good deeds of others over the years.

You had the good deeds of Jesus at the top- but you also had Mary and Joseph- the 12 Apostles- and other various saints thru out time.

The way the ‘bank’ worked was you could tap into the account by getting a Papal indulgence- a sort of I.O.U. that had the Popes guarantee that it would get so much time out of Purgatory for a loved one.

The actual sacrament that accesses the account is called Penance [confession].

When a penitent does penance- he confesses his sin to the priest- and he is absolved by the authority of the church that the priest has. The priest usually tells the person ‘say so many Hail Mary’s- Our Father’s’ and that’s a form of penance.

One of the other things the church practiced was called Alms Deeds. This term is found in the bible and it means giving your money to the poor- it is a noble act that Jesus himself taught.

In theory- part of the sacrament of penance was tied into Alms Deeds- you can access the account thru the practice of giving to the poor- which also meant giving to the church that helps the poor- and in the hands of the Medici line of Popes- meant outright giving money to the Pope.

So now you see how the abuse worked its way into the pockets of the faithful.

Albert now had the permission from Leo to sell these indulgences in Germany- and he would pick a certain corrupt priest to sell them in a place called Saxony- the region where Luther operated out of.

It should be noted that the Catholic Church never taught the crass act of ‘buying your way out of Purgatory’. The practice of including giving money as a part of the sacrament of penance was tied into the biblical principle of giving to the poor- a good thing.

But Tetzel and others abused the official meaning of the indulgence- and did make it sound like you could by your way out of Purgatory [in theory- a loved one might be in Purgatory for so many years- and through the indulgence you are actually getting time off for them- because the good deeds of others are now applied to the account].

The money Albert would raise- half would go to Rome for the building of St. peters- and half would go to pay off the banks in Germany- it was a sad system- and a sad time for the church as a whole.

It would be wrong to judge the entire church at the time as being corrupt- you did have many sincere Priests and Catholic men and women who saw the abuses and did not take part in them.

But there was corruption at the top- and this would eventually lead to the breakup of the church- and the launching of what we now call the Protestant Movement.

As a side note- it should be said that many Catholics and Protestants are not aware of the whole treasury of merit system- and the church never officially changed her position on the doctrine.

There were 3 Church councils since the time [Trent- 1500’s, Vatican 1- 1800’s and Vatican 2- 1962-65]. The Treasury of Merit never came up for change.

Obviously Protestants don’t believe in Purgatory- and it’s not my purpose in these posts to change Catholics into Protestants or vice versa- but to give all sides a clear view of the issues that divided us- and to try and be honest- and respectful during the process.

Does the bible teach anything like a Treasury of Merit? Well actually it does. The bible teaches that the righteousness of Christ is the treasury that people can access- by faith- and become righteous in the sight if God.

The idea- applied to Christ- is good.

But in the hands of the Medici Popes- and the ambitious prince of Germany- it would lead to disaster.

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[parts] In the last Philosophy post I hit on the 10th-14th century development of modern thought- today I want to jump into the 16th-18th centuries. Like I said in a previous post- after the Renaissance and the Reformation and the great scientific revolution- you had the world in somewhat of a tailspin.

What I mean is for hundreds of years people trusted in the old institutions [like the Catholic Church] to tell them what was true or false- then with the development of all these modern movements people began questioning stuff.

Was it good to question things? Sure. But some challenged the very foundations of thought and knowing [called Epistemology] and went a bit too far.

Some thinkers went back to the thought of Plato [400 years BC] and said that the mind is the main source of all knowledge- these were the 17th century Rationalists.

Rationalism- as a philosophy- was an outgrowth of all the great strides that man was making in all these other areas of life. The Scientific Revolution totally challenged the age old beliefs of many in the church.

Math became a sort of new ‘god’. How so? As science invented the Microscope and Telescope- man was able for the first time to peer deeply into the heavens- and to see deeply into the microscopic world.

As the great minds [Copernicus] showed us that the Universe was different than what we thought [Heliocentric versus Geocentric] man was able to do mathematical calculations and to say that a specific planet or star [or Comet] would show up at an exact date- or spot- and Walla- it would happen [you could look thru the Telescope and sure enough the math was right- the object that was calculated to be there- was.]

These calculations were mathematical formulas- so math began to be seen as the new religion in many ways.

There are even some thinkers in the modern day that still say the only ‘real truth’ that exists is mathematical formulas. Yeah- one guy wrote an entire book on the subject- the problem? Well- his book was not written in math- but words.

Yes- even the extreme deniers of Objective truth do make mistakes.

Now- what’s wrong with rationalism? Of course being rational is okay- but the philosophy itself denied real Objective truth. Truth that corresponds to some other ‘outside’ reality.

This form of thinking [rejecting outside reality] is called Relativism/Subjectivism. While there is some truth to all the various fields of thought- yet extreme Relativism denies ‘reality’ as most of us understand the term. There was a strong resistance to the 17th century rationalists- we call this Philosophy Empiricism.

The main thinker in this field was John Locke. Locke lived most of his life in the 17th century- but his thought laid the foundation for the 18th century Empiricist.

This philosophy says that the mind does indeed play a major role in the knowledge of things- but this knowledge does not originate in the mind [Plato] but in the ‘thing’ itself [Aristotle- remember when we covered these men? Plato was an idealist- Ideas were more real than matter. Aristotle was a Realist- closer to the thought of Locke].

Locke developed a theory called the Correspondence theory- that truth that the Mind discovers corresponds to real things that actually exist apart from the mind.

Locke was a practicing doctor- and most of the other thinkers of the day had room to speculate about reality in a way that Locke could not.

He lived in a real world with real patients who had real symptoms- in a nutshell Locke had to diagnose his patients based on his findings- he could not deny that there was a real problem- he had to have his ‘feet on the ground’ [based in reality] while engaging with his head up high.

Okay- I think we’ll end with this. Maybe you can go back and read some of my previous posts on this subject- just to become a little more familiar with it.

As Christians- we are not ‘required’ to know Philosophy- or current events- or science- but it helps us engage the culture when we do educate ourselves in these areas.

Go slow in learning [not too slow!] and try and see how the Christian Worldview agrees with- or rejects certain aspects of these different felids of thought.

Most Christians would reject Rationalism as a Philosophy- because it denies real objective truth- it says truth is relative- whatever the mind can conceive- or think- can be defined as truth [Unicorns?]

Biblical truth is based on real historic events- 1st Corinthians chapter 15 says that if we deny the physical resurrection of Christ- a real event- then our faith is in vain.

Christians base their faith on a real historic event- not simply on a belief system.

[parts] Alexander sought to implement the ideals of his teacher- he wanted to unify the known world under one people/culture- a belief that Aristotle held- a sort of ‘unified theory’ [Einstein] that would seek to bring all learning/knowledge together under one supreme [Divine] principle.

Alexander’s experiment was called Hellenization- which was the Greek worlds attempt to impose Greek culture/language on all their conquered enemies- and at the same time allow them to hold on to the their own culture too. Alexander did amazingly well at this experiment- at the young age of around 24 he had accomplished most of his mission. The cities were a sort of composite of Greek culture mixed in with their own culture- this is where we get the modern term Cosmopolitan.

Alexander died young and his kingdom was divided between 4 generals- one of them- Ptolemy- would himself make it into the history books because of his keen intellect.

The system of cosmology developed under him would last [and work!] until some 17-18 hundred years later when it was overthrown by the Copernican revolution during the time of Copernicus and Galileo.

Alexander’s generals would do their best to carry on the system of Hellenization- and other nation’s generals would keep the system going even after Greece fell. One of them- Octavian [Roman general] makes it into the history books by another famous name- Julius Caesar.

Alexander established a great library in the Egyptian city of Alexandria [named after him] and many of the great writings were preserved during this time.

The writings of Aristotle would be discovered again during the time of Thomas Aquinas [13th century Catholic genius/scholar] and this would lead to Scholasticism [a peculiar school of thought developed/revived under Aquinas] and give rise to the Renaissance.

Okay- before the birth of Christ- the Jewish people resisted the imposing of Greek culture upon them- you had the very famous resistance under the Jewish Maccabean revolt- where the Jews rose up and fought the wicked ruler Antiochus Epiphanies- and till this day the Jewish people celebrate this victory at Hanukah.

Eventually Rome would conquer the Greek kingdom and the Jewish people were allowed to keep their culture and temple- yet they were still a people oppressed. Hassidism [getting back to the beginning] developed during this attempt to not lose their Jewish roots- the Pharisees of Jesus day came from this movement.

Alexander was pretty successful in his attempt to unify language- even though the bible [New Testament] was written by Jewish writers- living under Roman rule- yet the original bible is written in the Greek language.

Bible scholars till this day study the Greek language to find the truest meaning of the actual words in the bible [I have a Greek Lexicon sitting right in front of me].

It would take a few centuries before a Latin version appeared on the scene [the great church father- Jerome- would produce the Latin Vulgate].

Yet it would be the re- discovery and learning of the Greek texts [under men like Erasmus- and the Protestant Reformers] that would lead to the Reformation [16th century] and other movements in church history.

The Jews had various responses to the empires that ruled over them during various times. Alexander the Great instituted Hellenization- a sort of cultural compromise over the people he conquered. They could keep their religious/cultural roots- but would be subservient to Alexander and Greek rule. Some Jewish people rejected any compromise- we call them the Essenes- they moved out of town- so to speak, and lived in what we refer to as the Qumran community. This was a few centuries before the time of Christ- and this was where the Dead Seas Scrolls were found in the 20th century. A Bedouin boy was looking for his goats- threw a rock in a cave right off the Dead Sea- and that’s how we found the scrolls. The scrolls might have been hidden there by the Essenes- Now- when my friends asked me about them- I told them that it’s been a while since I read up on any of this- but to the best of my memory the thing that made them significant was the fact that they were very old manuscripts- from the bible- and they backed up what we had had all along.

Here are my past posts where I spoke on Thomas Jefferson- mentioned as well on the videos for today’s post- Kings 18 Some of our founding fathers were fans of John Locke [Jefferson] and our country drew up the founding documents during a time when these ideas were ripe and were seen as a new type of govt. for the people.

Thus- we have our Democracy today- for which I am grateful- do indeed think it’s the best in the world today- but it is not inherently ‘more just’ than all other styles.

The govt. we see in the bible is Monarchy [mostly- Rome was Imperial- did have a senate and all- but in no way was it a democracy like we think of].

The point?

When we try to help these countries- when people rise up and protest- we must not simply jump to the conclusion that all of these rebellions are seeking- or will end up like the U.S.

We must not condemn all ‘monarchies’ as evil- the bible says there are just ones.

Kings can rule justly- be fair- and do good.

We should not assume that all ‘non western style democracies’ are evil- they are not.

Most of these present uprisings are in countries where you have what’s called Autocratic rule- not full ‘kingdoms’ with kings in the way we think.

Yes- I do think our experiment- based on the Enlightenment idea of govt. by and for the people is the best- but we must not assume all other types are inherently evil- nor should we be so quick to side- militarily will all rebels- like some already calling to arm the rebels in Syria.

The end result of these protests are not secure at all- it is highly doubtful that any of them will become ‘little U.S. of A’s’.

So we should call for non violence on all sides- we should stand on the side of innocent victims- be against all regimes that use military force on their people- but be realistic about the situation- violence [on all sides] is very rarely the answer- Sarkozy learned this lesson the hard way.

[parts] I have taught in the past how some of our Founding Fathers were influenced- heavily- by Enlightenment thinking. Thomas Jefferson is the best example. Why is this important? On my previous post [Plymouth Rock] I tried to show the role that religion played in the founding of our country. Yet- at the time of the Continental congress [The first meeting was in 1774- the 2nd was in 75. The Declaration was approved in 1776] some of our founding fathers were leaning towards Deism [Ben Franklin- etc.] and the wording of the Declaration of Independence [below] was written more along the lines of Enlightenment thinking [also strong influence from the writing of John Locke]. The phrase ‘we hold these truths to be SELF EVIDENT’ was indeed a contrast from the traditional view of the church. Believers do indeed believe in ‘self-evident’ truths [Romans1-2] but in context- this term challenged the historic thinkers of the church. I add this to simply show that Thomas Jefferson [who wrote the Declaration- at the young age of 33] added language that was in a sense- a ‘compromise’. John Adams- Jefferson’s colleague in the congress- would later be challenged in a presidential run by Jefferson. The accusations flew- and Adams supporters said the beliefs of Jefferson would be the downfall of Christianity in America! Why did they make this accusation? Because the Enlightenment thinkers were indeed challenging some of the core beliefs of Christianity in the 18th century. Jefferson spent 5 years in France- right at the time of French Revolution [remember the post I did recently on it?]. The French Revolution was indeed a ‘revolution’ against the church in a way. Many Americans in the colonies were shocked by the bloodshed of the French Revolution. Yet Jefferson sided with it- and even wrote in support of some American merchants who were rebelling against paying their debts here in America. This outraged John Adams. Eventually Jefferson would serve on the cabinet under President Washington- and he would conflict with Alexander Hamilton over the direction of our New Republic. Jefferson felt that Hamilton wanted to give too much power to the Federal govt. [Federalism] Eventually Adams and Jefferson would be on opposing sides- of just about everything! Adams was a good friend of Jefferson during the continental congress in Philadelphia. Jefferson was the representative from Virginia- he was not an eloquent speaker- but he gained the respect of the other representatives. He was seen to be a hard worker- When the drafting of the Declaration came up- Benjamin Franklin turned down the job- and it was given to Adams and Jefferson. Jefferson wanted Adams to do it- yet Adams [Jefferson’s senior] recognized the great skills of his younger colleague- And Jefferson went to work. Yet their friendship was strained over the years- and at the end of their lives they became friends again. Jefferson would become the 3rd president of the U.S. And his legacy remains with us today. It has been said that our country is founded upon a Creed- We- as Americans- give our assent to a creed. And that creed- was penned By Thomas Jefferson. A preacher stopped at a tavern [Inn] In Virginia for the night. The story goes that he spoke with a stranger while there- they talked about mechanics- and the minister thought the man was an engineer. They then spoke on various subjects- and the preacher saw the stranger was knowledgeable in many fields. They finally spoke about religion- and the minister thought ‘he must be a preacher too’. The next day he asked who the man was- it was Thomas Jefferson. How did Jefferson gain all this knowledge? At the age of 6- he was reading the books from his father’s library. He learned Latin and Greek- on his own. His dad died when Jefferson was 14. He eventually went to the college of William and Mary- and became a dedicated student. It was said that 15 hours out of every 24- he was reading/studying. Jefferson kept this up throughout his life. He had a large library at Monticello- his home on a mountain in Virginia. One of his slaves [yes- slaves] said whenever someone had some question- Jefferson was well able to answer the question- and refer to one of his many books. Jefferson was the 2nd largest slave holder in his county- owning more than 200 hundred slaves at one time. Yet- he tried to enact legislation to outlaw slavery. He even added some language at the continental congress about it. The other representatives from the 13 colonies rejected it. He also tried to pass laws in Virginia against slavery. Yet he himself had them- how could this be? It even violated his own words in the Declaration ‘All men are created equal’. Many historians differ on why/how this could be. In the end- Jefferson was like all of us- he was able to articulate noble ideas- yet he himself struggled to fully live up to them. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson- Declaration of Independence. [PARTS] [parts]

VERSES- [These are the verses I talked about on the video related to this post- Kings 18- Links to all my sites below]

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. Ps.16:6

40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Jn. 8:40

22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. Jn. 15:22

Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Genesis 5:24 [Full Chapter] And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. James 5:17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Revelation 2:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Luke 9:51 And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, Luke 9:52 And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. Luke 9:53 And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. Luke 9:54 And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? Luke 9:55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. Luke 9:56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

1Kings 18:1 And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth. 1Kings 18:2 And Elijah went to shew himself unto Ahab. And there was a sore famine in Samaria. 1Kings 18:3 And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly: 1Kings 18:4 For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.) 1Kings 18:5 And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts. 1Kings 18:6 So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it: Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself. 1Kings 18:7 And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, Art thou that my lord Elijah? 1Kings 18:8 And he answered him, I am: go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. 1Kings 18:9 And he said, What have I sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me? 1Kings 18:10 As the LORD thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. 1Kings 18:11 And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. 1Kings 18:12 And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the LORD shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me: but I thy servant fear the LORD from my youth. 1Kings 18:13 Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the LORD, how I hid an hundred men of the LORD’s prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? 1Kings 18:14 And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here: and he shall slay me. 1Kings 18:15 And Elijah said, As the LORD of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely shew myself unto him to day. 1Kings 18:16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him: and Ahab went to meet Elijah. 1Kings 18:17 And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? 1Kings 18:18 And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim. 1Kings 18:19 Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table. 1Kings 18:20 So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel. 1Kings 18:21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. 1Kings 18:22 Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 1Kings 18:23 Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: 1Kings 18:24 And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. 1Kings 18:25 And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. 1Kings 18:26 And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. 1Kings 18:27 And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. 1Kings 18:28 And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. 1Kings 18:29 And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. 1Kings 18:30 And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD that was broken down. 1Kings 18:31 And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be thy name: 1Kings 18:32 And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD: and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed. 1Kings 18:33 And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. 1Kings 18:34 And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time. 1Kings 18:35 And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water. 1Kings 18:36 And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. 1Kings 18:37 Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. 1Kings 18:38 Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 1Kings 18:39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God. 1Kings 18:40 And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. 1Kings 18:41 And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain. 1Kings 18:42 So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees, 1Kings 18:43 And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. 1Kings 18:44 And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down that the rain stop thee not. 1Kings 18:45 And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel. 1Kings 18:46 And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

2Kings 2:1 And it came to pass, when the LORD would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. 2Kings 2:2 And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the LORD hath sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said unto him, As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel. 2Kings 2:3 And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the LORD will take away thy master from thy head to day? And he said, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. 2Kings 2:4 And Elijah said unto him, Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the LORD hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho. 2Kings 2:5 And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the LORD will take away thy master from thy head to day? And he answered, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. 2Kings 2:6 And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the LORD hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on. 2Kings 2:7 And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off: and they two stood by Jordan. 2Kings 2:8 And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground. 2Kings 2:9 And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. 2Kings 2:10 And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so. 2Kings 2:11 And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. 2Kings 2:12 And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces. 2Kings 2:13 He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan; 2Kings 2:14 And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the LORD God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over. 2Kings 2:15 And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him. 2Kings 2:16 And they said unto him, Behold now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men; let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master: lest peradventure the Spirit of the LORD hath taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said, Ye shall not send. 2Kings 2:17 And when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, Send. They sent therefore fifty men; and they sought three days, but found him not. 2Kings 2:18 And when they came again to him, (for he tarried at Jericho,) he said unto them, Did I not say unto you, Go not? 2Kings 2:19 And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren. 2Kings 2:20 And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. 2Kings 2:21 And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the LORD, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. 2Kings 2:22 So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake. 2Kings 2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 2Kings 2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. 2Kings 2:25 And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.

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These are some of the first posts ever made, I hope to share some of them over time in between my regular studies. Of course they are ‘dated’- and it would be too difficult to edit each post. Some have old news comments in them, but if I also taught on the posts, I’ll post them ‘as is’. Hopefully they will be a benefit in some way- John.

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