#and they shouldn't have ever made it. it's the reason and the original sin

[edennill]

I love how as a fandom we've collectively decided that Just A Man ia a perfect song for the Fëanorians because to be honest when does the reason become the blame, is just such a succinct way to summarise the whole issue with the Oath imo.

[nekronyancer]

Finally cracked and made a ghoul OC

Say hi to Uni~

A little bit about him:

"Ministry ghoul" as a concept here means that he doesn't belong to any of the Papas, he was summoned directly by someone working at the ministry.

That someone, his original "master" made a special pact with him that made it so Uni didn't disappear when that person died. He can only be desummoned if the contract paper is destroyed completely.

So this all makes him a perfect fit to work in the archives alongside the siblings of sin, since he's been around for a really long time and has been there for most major historical events of the ministry.

Some people gave him the mocking nickname "Uno" for his missing horn, they're quite bitter about the Clergy giving a lowly ghoul a higher position such as this(despite the fact the only reason they ever put him in there is his age)

He has seen a lot of things and has dirt on everyone including the Clergy, so they are actively trying to decommission him and find the contract paper with little success as of now.

He's not -by any means- rude, if you come up to him he'd try and have a friendly conversation with you, however he wouldn't seek out connections with others on his own terms after watching people disappear from his life one too many times(humans and ghouls alike). That doesn't mean one shouldn't approach him of course.

Uni still plays music as a hobby sometimes, despite not being a band ghoul but really, how could one resist at least trying after hearing all the amazing tunes the band ghouls make, right?

That would be it for now, if you're interested in him by chance, feel free to ask 👀

[fullstcp]

"Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent" by Lewis Capaldi Sentence Starters

FORGET ME

"Guess you're still holding on."

"You told your friends you want me dead."

"I'll take all the vitriol, but not the thought of you moving on."

"I'm not ready to find out you know how to forget me."

"I hate to know I made you cry."

"My heart is still your place, babe."

WISH YOU THE BEST

"I miss knowing what you're thinking and hearing how your day has been."

"Maybe it's supposed to be this way."

"When I said we could be friends, guess I lied."

"I wish that you never left."

"I only wish you the best."

"Without you, everything's wrong."

"You were everything I need all along."

"You seem happier than ever now."

"It seems I was the problem somehow."

"Maybe I only brought you down."

"I want you happy whether or not it's with me."

POINTLESS

"I love it when your mind wanders."

"I know when you're lost."

"You know when I feel alone."

"Everything is pointless without you."

"I hope that you'll love me forever."

"You take away my pain."

"You are the start of everything."

"I'll be there 'til the end."

"Your love is the reason I'm here."

"I'll wait for you."

HEAVENLY KIND OF STATE OF MIND

"When I'm with you, it's like nothing else."

"I could run and tell the Devil to go fuck himself."

"I ain't afraid to die if it means I'm by your side."

"It would be such a heavenly way to say goodbye."

"From now, until the afterlife we could be intertwined."

"You were heaven-sent to save me from above."

"You're the only one who doesn't hate me, that's enough."

"I need someone to save me from original sin."

"You call me like a chorus only angels can sing."

"Now I think about you all of the time."

"You bring me peace that I'd never find."

"To tell the truth, I think you saved my life."

"Giving my heart over to you would be no sacrifice."

"I feel the rapture when I'm looking at you."

HAVEN'T YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE BEFORE?

"You're way too hard on yourself."

"Will you hold me like you want me?"

"Haven't you ever been in love before?"

"It's more like a knife to me than a high to me."

"My heart can't fall apart anymore."

"If you knew what I knew, you'd be terrified."

"If we don't work it out, that's something I could accept."

"I feel you're ruling out a love that ain't happened yet."

"I just can't live with regret."

"There's nothing I want more than all that you got."

LOVE THE HELL OUT OF YOU

"I know how it feels like the world's gonna end."

"I'll get you through, if it's the last thing I do."

"I'm gonna love the hell out of you."

"I'll bring you heaven if that's what you need."

"You've always loved the hell out of me."

"You better know that I'll bring you home."

BURNING

"Maybe I'm a fool for falling in love with you."

"Can't set fire to my soul just to keep you from burning alone."

"The longer you convince me to stay, our salvation's slipping further away."

"Forget everything we've come to expect."

"I don't wanna pretend this will all be alright in the end."

"I wish I could stay."

"I wish I could lie."

"I can't be the one."

"I can't take the fall."

ANY KIND OF LIFE

"Knew from the moment that we met I'd take you home."

"Have all of your feelings disappeared?"

"I'm in no kind of frame of mind to let you go."

"Hope, have you some that I can borrow?"

"The weight of all the world's a heavy load."

"I just don't know if I can face another day alone."

"I can't believe in any kind of life without you here."

"I just don't want any kind of life without you."

"Are there any words that I could say?"

"If we can save the good we gave, we shouldn't wait."

THE PRETENDER

"I will be your shoulder to cry on."

"I will play the part if you say so."

"I'll be anybody but me."

"To tell you the truth, I'm a mess."

"I spend almost all of my time feeling like I'm falling even further behind."

"I know I'm so good at seeming like I'm not on the edge of a knife."

"Tell me who you want me to be."

"I'm the fraud in the room."

"I'll be my best impression of what you expect from me."

LEAVE ME SLOWLY

"I know we're broken but don't wanna believe it."

"If you're gonna leave me, just leave me slowly."

"Stay for a while."

"You saw me different then."

"Just one more mile before we say goodbye."

HOW THIS ENDS

"Who are we fooling?"

"I guess that you gave up."

"I'm fucking useless and full of excuses."

"I guess that you cut free from all that we are and will never be."

"This is where we ended up."

"You ain't gonna like how this ends."

HOW I'M FEELING NOW

"Will you forgive me if I'm coming off a little obtuse?"

"It's been a minute since I have had to tell the truth."

"Suppose I thought that, by this moment, I'd have it figured out."

"I tend to spend my days consumed by seeds of doubt."

"It won't be long 'til it's gone."

"Here's to my beautiful life that seems to leave me so unsatisfied."

"I'm always trapped inside my fuckin' head."

"Thought I'd be happier somehow."

"My best days are the ones that lie ahead."

"I'm always looking back on things I wish I'd never said."

"I won't lie, I'm a mess."

STRANGERS

"They were playing "Wonderwall"."

"I overheard you say you hate this song."

"My dear, you're not the only one."

"You're something I can't live without."

"Every time I close my eyes, I miss you."

"I waited all my life just to fall for someone like you."

"In the blink of an eye, it all fell through."

"I can't even lie, I'm not doing well."

"I'm standing still here while you're moving on."

"It's strange 'cause you and I are strangers all over again."

"It's funny how you love someone and, when it's over, said and done it's almost like you never even knew 'em."

"I'll be waiting all my life for someone like you."

A CURE FOR MINDS UNWELL

"I struggle sleeping 'cause the house feels haunted."

"I'm terrified that all my youth is fading."

"Is there a cure for minds unwell?"

"My head's a living hell."

"How am I supposed to see an end to my all-consuming, constant fear and dread?"

"I can't even seem to make it out of bed."

SOMEONE I COULD DIE FOR

"I know a kiss can be hard to measure."

"This don't taste nothing like forever."

"I could pretend but I know it won't help."

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't dying for someone to die for."

"I'm so damn sick of the one-night thing."

"I want the kind made for movie scripts."

"Tell me, does that shit even exist?"

THE ANCIENT ART OF ALWAYS FUCKING UP

"Are you running scared 'cause you know that I'm beyond repair?"

"I'm a master of the ancient art of always fucking up."

"May I have your attention please?"

"I'm plagued by design."

"I've burned all my blessings more than half the time."

"I'm desperate to change."

"Let me know if you'll stay."

OLD NAVY BLUE

"It's sad but sometimes it's true that your friends become the people you knew."

"No matter though, how good things go, they've always got to end."

"You're not here to stay, so, just be here today."

"After all this time, you're still a friend of mine."

[yoinkschief]

You have no idea how long this has needed to be done, he's been brewing in my head with no ability to do anything about it

Anyway time to explain some shit

The boy on the left is regular Tom and the one on the right is him halfway transformed Teefers too big for him mouth and I'm just now realizing I forgot to draw Tom's snake bites and other earrings fuck me oml Oh and he gets fuzzier cause in order to transform to and fro his demon form his body speeds up the growth process to help with the pain (something that developed, it was not instantaneously there and it's not perfect, the process is still INCREDIBLY painful he does not enjoy it)

Anyway, I wanted to say that usually a demon's horns (in my headcanon anyway) usually represent age, but there are certain sins that don't follow this rule such as Wrath and Lust, instead their horns represent power and status more than anything (the larger the horns, the more powerful you're considered and better treated you are in society) but even then not every demon will have horns, like Envy or Sloth

To explain my demon hierarchy and world building would take several posts and multiple AO3 books for everyone to properly understand it the way I see it but just know that there are 7 sins, the seven deadly sins, that each demon falls under (more or less, anyway), there are the original sins, the children they created asexually like starfish do and then their children mingling together and creating different races of demons and complex hybrids,,, pretty much every demon you see will be a mutt save for very high class demons (such as the OG sins and the demons that have the most "pure" blood of their predecessors)

Tom's demon, is really fucking weird in that regard because yes, his Demon is a full Rage Demon or in other words, a perfect demon of Wrath but it's like... Artificially made. And no one knows how

wink

But yeah it's super freaky and he's like one of the few things that could give demons themselves the sense of uncanny valley

Very hard to close mouth You know how snakes can open their jaws super wide to eat prey?... Yeah

Tom is based off of two things, besides demons n dragons ofc: Snakes and Spiders. I fucking hate spiders you have no idea how much looking this shit up sucked

Anyway his venom is stored in his teeth like how spiders are, but he's got a very snake-ish mouth. And can open his jaw super fucking wide like a snake or certain species of spiders can. To the best is a very simplified side profile example of that,,,, maybe I should make some body horror art of him with his fully extended jaw like some freak ass spider. That'd give me nightmares. Which I guess is the point.

I put too much time and effort into that mouth, please appreciate it

Also yeah closing his jaw is super hard cause of his lil snake-ish spider-ish teeth that protrude out of his mouth

Demons of Wrath tend to have bigger builds

BIG BOYYYY I LOVE HIM

This mother fucker is genuinely the reason it took me so long to create this damn sheet,, I could never figure how I wanted him to look, but in the end I stuck to something close to canon with my own stylized shit. Like his horns and jutting out teeth

Diving a bit deeper into my demon world building lore that's been brewing in my head for nearly a decade now (yikes that hurts to think about) demons have different builds, Pride and Lust tend to be very similar to society's standards of beauty (ever changing as humans adapt, so do demons... hmmm) versus Gluttony and Wrath tending to be more nightmarish and your run of the mil cryptid you'd see in the woods when you were fucking around where you shouldn't be

Symbol of Wrath

Every House or Sin has their own symbol, usually reserved for the original sins, but Tom is a special case because,,, reasons I'm not disclosing at the moment cause I think it's silly and shit or whatever I dunno I guess I'm embarrassed to explain it? For some reason? Anyway back to this

Nothing more to explain about it really, just that Tom has this marking on his monster form's chest and that's the black mark on the previous picture,,, except it's not actually fully black like that, it was just too tiny to get the details right so I decided to do the next best thing lol

It's a lion with horns that can be interpreted as Scorpion Tails, because the sin of Wrath is usually associated with Lions, Bears, Dragons and I think Scorpions fit, too, makes me think of the scorpion and the frog

Anyway that's my rant about headcanons I put too much thought, time and effort into that three people will read lol

[voidsentprinces]

Poison frog toxic red flag murder dragon, I never play or write about?

Hey. Hey hey tell me about them. Theyre cute as fuck I wanna know more about em.

DO NOT CUTE THE POISON FROG TOXIC RED FLAG MURDER DRAGON!

Ladies, Gentlemen, and the Eldritch Beings Beyond the Mortal Comprehension of Mankind:

Meet Envy, full title: Invidia Leviathan Tepes, Prince of Envy (for redundancy)

Amongst all the Gods, Demons, and Villains I have ever created, he is the A B S O L U T E W O R S T. I am not even going to list it. Think of something bad. He's done it. He is against the Geneva Accords. Everything from minor infractions like shop lifting to being one of the reasons THERE ARE NO LONGER ANY GODS BEYOND DEATH NOW (in writing lore that is).

He is the only Voidsent Prince who is actually the Original Sin incarnate. He is selfish to extreme, is murder happy, will use, abuse, and toss away anyone and anything he wants. Literally believes the world revolves around him and anything to the contrary needs to be IMPALED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!

You were born.

Congrats.

You were born to worship and serve him. If you are not doing any of those two things. You deserve to die or be tortured for doing either of those two things too little, too much, or even perfectly fine but he's bored of you now, DIE NOW AND SAVE HIM THE INCONVIENCE OF KILLING YOU, THANKS!

He enters the story coiled around the heart of a Goddess who consuming her divinity himself. While driving her completely mad with jealousy which leads to the First Twilight of the Gods. Because the First God got bored one day, I shit you not. Due to taking the divinity of a deity for himself. He grows from a small snake into The Leviathan. His second act after being torn out of said Goddess's chest by her sister is to bite the hand of the Goddess of Light and tumble down from the heavens onto the mortal plane. Where he spends the rest of his time strangling the world with the length of his body and killing anything that thinks to sail on his seas. When he is eventually drop kicked into Hell. He is then forced by Death to go from a primordeal draconic being who is the length of the seven seas and two oceans to a humanoid you see before you. Leaving his tail behind to envy what he once was. Despite the downsizing, aforementioned, its done nothing to curb his ego and he has decided being punished like this is NOW EVERYONES PROBLEM!

Actively hates living things and use to cause earthquakes and tsunamis on a whim to wipe out anyone who settled too close to the oceans he thought he fucking owned.

Does he take a moment to reflect that maybe doing any of this will make people hate him in the short term and try and hunt him down in the long term? HAHAHA!

NO!

Aforementioned, ya not serving his whims or if you bore him, he do not give a fuck about repercussions. He's the edgy dude who never grew out of the edge phase is just 2 cool for school. If that guy got his hands on the strength and power to force people under his heel. Actively is immortally youthful, strong enough to fight off entire armies, the ability to generate water and cause earthquakes at a whim. Gilgamesh before he met Enkidu, but if meeting Enkidu made him even worse and he learned nothing of humility and shrugged off Enkidu's death.

I don't write him cause he is just...a walking trigger warning and that makes me uncomfortable. I would change him, but like...the cast NEEDS like that one (1) absolute bastard character. Irredeemable, unbashedly terrible on every level, is the reason people probably started to write down war crimes and formed rules around: Maybe we shouldn't do these bad things during combat actually...lets set up rules.

Not that he'd follow them. You kidding? Telling HIM what to do? The gall!

Anyway, here have his theme while you're here:

[isayoldbean]

my other alt! when they announced the new data center i was debating whether or not i should be a character there, and then they announced one of the servers would be called maduin and my ff6 obsessed self couldn't just Not have a character there. and then one of my friends came to me and asked if i'd be interested in going in half with them on getting an fc house on the new server for workshop sub tax evasion purposes and i was like oh hell yeah. so for those two reasons i had to come up with another idea for an alt

remembering that i had originally planned on making an au ra before being foiled by only having access to base arr races, i decided to try my hand at making the au ra i most likely Would have made if i had been allowed to make one from the beginning. it turned out to be hard because i was trying to make a character for a game i know almost everything about with the idea that it was supposed to be a character made when i knew nothing about it. after a while, this is who i wound up with!

this is the first picture i ever took of her, in all her dripless sprout glory

anyway, this is hikari! she was originally supposed to have a different surname but i created her literally as soon as the new servers went live on reset day and i was too tired to remember what it was so now she's hikari mistdweller. it is what it is

i'm still working on her overall backstory because i learn more about her the longer i play but she's still in arr, but more or less her deal is that she was raised in a small village near the ruby sea. her parents were really shitty and emotionally abusive and she was basically their unfavorite child. then one day in her early teens, her sister died in an accident, and her family blamed her for it and got her kicked out of the village.

she kind of wandered for a while just doing her best to survive, clawing her own existence out of the dirt as best she could. eventually she heard tales of adventurers earning fortunes and glory in eorzea, and decided that she was going to go become really successful and cool and famous and make everyone in her town regret kicking her out.

as she got closer to eorzea she started hearing tales of raubahn aldynn's unlikely rise to syndicate member and flame general and decided to make for ul'dah to attempt to follow in his footsteps. and that is where the beginning of arr picks up, more or less

she's kind of uptight and serious and emotionally repressed but she is learning how to human better, slowly but surely. she is a perfectionist and a workaholic. she likes to bite people. she's a little feral. she can't cook and is perfectly happy eating tree bark if she can't scrounge up anything else. she was voted most likely to say 'what do you mean you're being murdered. they can't do that. that's illegal' in a crisis. she likes gemstones and mining and smithing her own weapons and armor. she thinks of herself as a weapon first and a person never. she's so determined to prove to everyone, herself most of all, that she's deserving of love and attention and respect, that she will give and give and give of herself until she is completely empty and then do it some more. she's a self loathing closeted gay but not in a homophobic way which shouldn't even be possible, and yet. she's a poor little meow meow. and she may or may not have autism.

even though she's still in arr i know two things without a doubt about what lies in store for her in future expacs:

in stormblood she returns to the ruby sea, eager to return to her hometown to show everybody that she's hot shit now and don't they feel bad for kicking her out... only to find that at some point between when she was exiled and when she returned, the garleans completely razed the town to the ground. there's nobody left. she will never have her catharsis

her skin/scale color combination kind of reminds me of wedgewood jasperware china, so in shb her sin eater form would be some sort of porcelain construct looking creature with kintsugi ribboned through damaged areas

anyway this is my sadgirl lesbian lizard that i like to put in the torture nexus i hope you enjoy her

[sloanexlawson]

S L O A N E L A W S O N

in character

Name: Sloane Lawson

Faceclaim: Chloe Bennett

Gender & Pronouns: Cisfemale & She/her

Age: 32

Birthday: January 5th, 1992

Occupation: Associate @ Finishing Touches & tattoo artist @ sinful ink

Neighborhood: South Hills / recently moved to masonboro

Sexuality: bisexual

Does your character have a secret? She attempted to poison her ex husband after he cut her off and instead accidentally almost killed one of her kids instead.

biography

tw: death, drugs, foster care

foster care wasn't exactly something she thought would ever happen to her but then again, what kid expects to end up in the system? sloane was the only child of bianca and dino stanley, two people who got married when they shouldn't have. two people who had kids when they should have. and finally, two people that thought that drugs were more important than the kid that they were supposed to take care of. sloane basically raised herself until she was seven and that's the age she found both of her parents overdosed in their living room after getting off of the school bus. panicked, she called the cops and she was sure that was the beginning to the end.

she went through a couple of foster homes before she ultimately landed herself at the lawson's, which followed with her being adopted. sloane had never felt more loved than she did there and if she were being honest, she wished that the lawson's were her real parents, the ones that had her all along but regardless of what she hoped for, she still knew that everything happened for a reason, even if it were fucked up.

sloane, once lanky and awkward, grew into her body as a teenager and she was pretty popular with the boys. none of that really mattered to her. she was more focused on her art than anything else. that was, until she met tanner, her high school sweet heart and soon to be husband. art, while it was still important, was put to the back burner and she turned down an art scholarship to marry tanner and follow him off to his own college of choice.

his family was already pretty loaded and so they were taken care of regardless of what the two decided to do, even after they had their two sons. when she had her boys, they were the only things that mattered to her. really, her family was the only thing that mattered. she really believed that she had it all and that she would always live that perfect life but once tanner passed the bar and joined his uncle's firm in seattle, he became more interested in his assistant than he did sloane, which ultimately resulted in him cutting sloane off and their boys too. his life with them wasn't something he wanted anymore.

heartbroken and furious, she attempted to poison him. sloane made a pie with a little something in it in attempt to fake a peace offering but before she could get it delivered, one of her son's ate a piece and it resulted in them in the emergency room. that was certainly something she didn't have the money for but her kids were her world.

since her original plan didn't work, that being landing his life insurance before the divorce was finalized, she packed them all up and moved back to wilmington, and right back into her adoptive parents home. she was lucky kian handed her a job and to make a little extra, she started working at the adult store. eventually, she landed them an apartment in south hills.

she picked up art once again and decided to focus on the important things in life. now, her family is first and anything else is second.

[beigepillow]

Thank you for your previous reply. Use machine translation. I also think Doumeki has a lot of respect and appreciation for what Sakura has given him.But it is worth mentioning,Yakuza is not a way of life that gives Doumeki Real Peace of mind. Yashiro's abandonment of Doumeki was cruel,But in a way he does know how much Doumeki has to endure to stay in Yakuza.

In fact, Doumeki can be very decisive in combat,also can be cold to the enemy.But every time this happened four years ago, Yashiro seemed worried, not happy.

Others may think Doumeki is perfect for the yakuza.All the yakuza will find Doumeki useful, but Yashiro can't just keep Doumeki around because he's“Useful.” Doumeki can actually protect some people in Yakuza, get some recognition,But that is not enough to make him truly“Loyal” to an organisation. And by that I mean inner loyalty.Doumeki, of course, is devoted to Sakura at work and takes care of Sakura's interests and feelings. This is his gratitude.

His reason for staying in the sinful world was his connection to Yashiro, even though he could no longer develop a romantic relationship with him.The reason for this loyalty is not just love. In fact, Doumeki of Ch. 51 accepts Yashiro's anger, even though he doesn't think Yashiro loves him.I think Doumeki felt that Yashiro was angry because he was disappointed.Doumeki knows Yashiro doesn't have a tattoo,He also knew that Yashiro wanted him to leave yakuza. Yashiro did not say love directly, because Y himself did not understand love well enough.But he has said many times that Doumeki should leave the yakuza. Yashiro took it upon himself to decide that Doumeki should leave yakuza,But that's one of the reasons Doumeki fell in love with him.That is why Doumeki is spiritually loyal to Yashiro. I agree with you that Doumeki didn't know that Yashiro loved him,He suffered because he saw Yashiro's self-destruction, but I don't think he ever doubted Yashiro's inner beauty.Doumeki also suffered because Yashiro made that beauty full of pain. So Doumeki kissed him, even though he thought Yashiro was disappointed in him. In volume 8 of Saezuru,an extra story,About Doumeki dreaming that he's getting very small.What he thinks is, big or small, I can't live without you. Doumeki's loyalty is very implicit and absolute. Just like Yashiro kept his love. They value each other so much, they both think they shouldn't touch each other.Even if they want to touch each other -- Doumeki can't stop kissing Yashiro, who can't stop going crazy for Doumeki. I agree with you that they need to confess their feelings, but in the author's past style, I think it would be a more Japanese, more implicit confession. In fact, the author seldom uses explicit“love” to express love directly.Even the original Japanese text of Doumeki's confession is not “love”.You know he's already the most honest one. Of course I want them to say love, but maybe one morning after they get together.

Thank you for reaching back out to me! While I do mention Doumeki’s loyalty to the sakura group, I want to make it clear that I do think Doumeki’s devotion is to Yashiro. Where I think Doumeki’s conflict will come in is potentially leaving a place where he feels comfortable in and made a life for himself without Yashiro to being vulnerable and at risk of devastating heartbreak with Yashiro. It would be similar to the decisions that Yashiro faced in the first arc. I also agree that it is unlikely we will see them explicitly say the words “I love you” but I do hope to see them both express some vulnerability. I am not 100% what that would look like though.

[sins-of-the-sea]

((The Sins would turn to sea foam at permadeath? Is that a nod to Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid?))

//WHOOPS, I had to change my answer when I was corrected about the nature of sea foam: Sea foam is organic, and thus, is not eligible for what the Master's thralls can become! This means sea snow, crumbling bleach coral, pearls, and other elements of the ocean with organic origins. As much as I'd argue to keep in sea foam because of how melancholy the scenario would be, there is a big reason why we're not keeping it--and, actually, just sticking to salt in general.

For one, keeping the change to something inorganic removes all and any traces of who or what the Thralls are in the eyes of God or the Universe, be it the Abrahamic God, or the Eastern faiths, etc. There is no reincarnation. There is no 'one of the universe'. There is no Heaven, no Sheol, no Seven or Nine Hells, no Diyu, no Niraka, no Brahman. The soul is bound to the Master, no ifs, ands, or buts. The fate of the thralls is an affront even when it comes to animism--the spirits of the sea are bound to a devil who shouldn't have them to begin with. But because of the deal made, and with no body to return to, the Master will flaunt the full severance of human souls from the human world like a middle finger and a flex.

Secondly--and this is a further elaboration of the previous point--salt has its origins from the earth. Be it volcanic activity or good ol' weathering from the coastlines, the ocean and the earth share dominion of salt in a cycle that is natural to the world. The Master turning his thralls into salt is a way of saying "I take what is mine, fuck you". The Master turning thralls into salt is the biggest demonstration of the adage "The sea takes what it claims". It is the ultimate finality of man, born of earth, from the uncaring and ever crushing oceans who dare to grace the waves.

Of course, we have the religious element regarding Lot's Wife looking back to the destruction of Sodom. We don't know if there are salt-related folklore around the world other than how pure it is and that it can thwart off evil. Given how the Master is a salty bastard, we can safely say using salt to drive him off (or holy water, for that mater) is pointless.

Worth noting: if a thrall's hair turns white, they are in danger of permadeath, as the Master would begin not caring to maintain his hold of that thrall's immortality. Guy's hair having a white streak is a warning to the Seven that the Master will not forget, nor forgive, any further transgressions against him. He can take away the Seven at any time. It's only through his "grace" and "mercy" they are allowed to walk on Earth still.

[necromancy-enthusiast]

in what ways is the 3ds better friend

Oh boy anon, I am so happy you asked, because the 3ds rivals the playstation 2 as my favorite video games console, so buckle in, because I have Many Thoughts about this. The switch, as I’m sure you know, has been an incredible success. Nintendo learned from the mistakes they made with the wii u, and they’ve been raking the money in ever since. But like I said before, which I imagine is what prompted you to ask this question in the first place, is that once you get past the novelty of the switch, it feels underwhelming. I primarily play it in handheld mode so my opinion is colored by that, but the thing is, it's supposed to be both a home console and a handheld console, and theoretically it's supposed to perform at least to generally equal standards. But it doesn't.

The original switch's battery life is garbage, and there's a huge downgrade in graphic fidelity between TVs and the switch's native screen. I'm by no means one of those people who thinks anything that isn't absolutely cutting edge is A Sin Against Viddy Gaems, and yeah I also get there's bound to be some downgrade, but I think that games shouldn't play like powerpoint presentation slides in handheld mode, I think that's a reasonable thing to ask. From what I've gathered this has been improved in the switch lite and oled versions, so I'll give them that, but the thing is that these deficits suggest that the ‘handheld’ mode was more of a sloppy after-thought than anything, sorta like an ‘just shove it on there we’ll deal with the problems later once everyone’s already bought one so it’ll incentivize them to buy the new upgraded version’ thing.

As long as we’re talking about hardware issues though, one thing I think is totally inexcusable is the problem with the switch joycon drift. That wasn't an honest mistake, Nintendo knew about this problem long before the switch came out. Originally they wouldn't even repair joycons out of warranty, but people made enough of a fuss about it that they started to. Apparently, with the switch oled they’ve ‘improved’ the joycons.

Note the term ‘improved’. Not ‘fixed’. ‘Improved’. Meaning that even 6 years after it launched, people are buying brand new switches and getting joycon drift. That’s total bullshit. I’ve heard people try to excuse these issues by saying ‘it’s wear and tear, of course it’s going to degrade after a lot of use’, which is also utter bullshit. How do I know that?

The oldest Nintendo console I have is an N64 that I basically inherited from my older siblings (lol I’m kinda the collection keeper nowadays). Now the N64 is uh… It has a weird controller that has awkward movement controls. But it still works just like it always did despite being over 20 years old. My ps2 is also over 20 years old and trust me, it has seen A LOT of use, but the original controller it came with and the extra I got a few years later also work just as good as new. So why does Nintendo suddenly get to pull the ‘wear and tear’ excuse when they’ve proven they and other video game companies can make durable controllers in the past?

I can’t really think of another video game console that has so consistently had such long reaching hardware problems, and not just little problems, problems that make some games basically unplayable (lol just try playing the game Card Shark on the switch with a drifting joycon, it’s not very fun), but Nintendo gets away with it because they’re Nintendo, and because the switch was their comeback. People love underdog stories, so that plus Nintendo’s brand loyalty (that Sony and Microsoft would probably put out a hit on someone to achieve for themselves, if it were only so simple) has made people feel lenient towards them…

But that good will and grace that Nintendo garners from many of its fans is wearing thin, which I think is fantastic because at the end of the day, Nintendo is another company that wants to make as much money as possible, and it should be held to much, much harsher standards! Especially since it’s a multi-million dollar company! But that’s another topic.

Another thing that has really started bugging me after I started messing around on my n3ds again is that the sheer amount of customizability in the 3ds absolutely puts the switch to shame. The switch has virtually nothing. You can mostly just change between the UI being black or white. But the 3ds has themes and folders you can organize your games in (or you can just have them all show on the main screen so you don't forget you have them, like I do with the switch -_-). They also have badges! Admittedly you get them through the badge arcade game, which is a 'free to start' game that tries to get you to pay real money, but you can easily get a lot of good stuff for free anyway.

I wouldn’t say this next part is bad, but it does indicate a change in Nintendo’s strategy and how that was likely influenced by their financial situation. The switch has a lot of ports. A lot of them. Like I said, this isn’t bad in and of itself, those games become easier for people to access in an easy, legitimate manner. But why would they suddenly change this? Traditionally Nintendo has been very picky about what it chooses to port, but nowadays the switch eshop is absolutely flooded with games of varying quality. It’s nowhere as near as bad as steam’s ‘quality control’ issues, but like I said, it just points to Nintendo’s underlying problems.

I’m not saying the 3ds didn’t have problems. Apparently when it first launched some people got headaches when they played with the 3d effect on, but given how a handheld console projecting 3d graphics like that was a brand new thing and how they actually seriously improved that (and how it’s totally optional anyway, it’s not necessary to the experience like oh I don’t know, the damn controllers of a home console), I think it’s more reasonable, and its launch titles were underwhelming (except Samurai Warriors Chronicles, God I love me a good Samurai Warriors, but admittedly it ran kinda eeehhh on the original 3ds, but the n3ds is much smoother).

Still, the 3ds is indicative of a time when Nintendo was flush with money and success from the wii/ds era in the 00s. The switch is indicative of when they were hemorrhaging money due to the wii u's failure and the 3ds' rocky start in the early-mid 10s. Marketing the switch as an all-in-one console was pretty smart, because I'm 99% sure they made that choice so they wouldn't have to split resources and money on developing two separate systems like they were generally expected to, since at this point Nintendo has practically cornered the market on traditional handheld game consoles. But it's clear the handheld part was tacked on and not given much thought, and that the whole process was rushed and occurred in a time of financial desperation.

[fondwand]

it's really annoying that people keep being like 'waaa the greens aren't sympathetic enough!' as if traditional gender essentialism, straight up sexism, obsession with power, righteous religious morality, selfishness and Conservative ideals should be made sympathetic. I love him but watching alt shift x and he off the cuff suggests that rhaenyras affair with harwin us the original sin of the conflict, and that it's rhaenyras fault that this all happened because she should have slept with someone who looked more like laenor and had kids with them. so first of all, suggesting that the problem with rhaenyras children is that their bastardry is too obvious and not the fact that they're bastards is so politics of him and it really gets to the root of alicent et als hypocrisy. is the problem here a problem of morality or of audaciousness? if it's a problem of morality, well I hate to break it to you but what rhaenyra did is only immoral by the standards of her fucked society, everyone involved was consenting and happy with the sitch, and is certainly not straight up inherently evil. we aren't actually Catholic here guys.

secondly! rhaenyra's kids father is not the reason, or original sin of the conflict and if it is then the greens are just straight up evil because rhaenyra has the backing of the King, has not been officially accused of any crime, and doesn't under westerosi political law lose her right to the throne because of it. if rhaes first three kids being bastards is the only problem with her ascent to the throne, then guess what, she has two legitimate children with daemon and through her line, which is the official line stated by the king and therefore the true line, if rhae was disinherited because of her adultery the next heir to the throne would be aegon the younger. so the greens are still wrong and their position is all obfuscation and arm flapping to hide the fact that alicent and otto and their hangers on just want power. they don't think that aegon the elder is the rightful heir, they just want to maintain power through him and that's the entire fucking reason the greens are the bad guys. and they ARE the bad guys. that doesn't mean they can't be sympathetic, but it does mean they are wrong. remember, otto was manipulating alicent to wrongfully sieze the thrown before rhaenyra had even had children. the conflict isn't about rhaenyras kids and if rhaenyra had only legitimate, blonde haired valyrian looking children the conflict would still have happened.

the greens are the bad guys. the conflict is about sexism. that's it. it's just about sexism. the whole conflict and story of the dance is about sexism, based loosely on a historical event that was about sexism. (matilda vs stephen). sexism is bad. sexism is the villain. the greens are defenders and upholders of sexism. the greens are bad.

rhaenys should have been queen over viserys, but sexism of the Lords of westeros prevailed. despite the fact that woman do inherit titles over their male relatives if they're next in line within the great and lesser houses. that is an injustice, and shouldn't have happened

viserys chose rhaenyra as his successor, and never ever wavered on that decision, especially never in any official capacity or away from the private sector. it doesn't matter what alicent suggested viserys said on his death bed, it wasn't in official capacity and so it isn't legal. rhaenyra is the next in line to the throne and absolutely should succeed her father, regardless of the status of her children. that is, unless you allow sexism to prevail and the point of the story is that you shouldn't.

no, the story isn't about rhaenyra being the best Queen ever and therefore inherently worthy of the throne. but it is about the fact that the only reason rhaenyra isn't crowned is becuase of sexism. becuase rhaenyra is a woman. rhaenyra should absolutely have been queen, without contention. if rhaenyra said it to be so while monarch, Jace should have been king after her. if youre bothered by jace's bastard status or think that should preclude him, maybe look at history and remember that Elizabeth the first was legally considered illegitimate her entire reign. and also, legitimacy is a made up thing and shouldn't effect people's lives, just like sexism shouldn't.

if you have a problem with the greens being portrayed as they are, then you have a problem with the greens. as you should. because they're being portrayed exactly as grrm wrote the conflict, and actually with a lot more sympathy then they originally had.

the basic facts and the entire moral point of the story, especially with how it pertains to asoiaf, is that the greens lust for power and sexism stole rhaenyras crown and caused a pointless war where both sides suffered immense losses and smallfolk and dragons alike were destroyed out of greed and folly. it isn't, oh yeah you're right women shouldn't be allowed to rule because they'll just fuck the wrong people and men will be uncomfortable with it, damn, these quasi catholics have some good points about oppression and lack of personal freedom of expression. the story is about how women within westeros have their entire lives ruined and defined by sexism, alicent included even though she's a propagator of it, and how that's wrong. it's not actually about sides, guys. it's just about sexism.

get a grip. you can like alicent as a character and still admit that she's on the wrong side. I do it all the time.

[alastanor]

So I have rewatched the pilot episode of Hazbin Hotel more times than I care to admit. And every time I watch it there is a line Alastor says that really sticks out to me. Like a window into an aspect of who he is.

This scene is one of the very first we get of Alastor following his warning. To which, I think, makes it both important and actually quite telling. For multiple reasons.

For starters, Alastor was honest with Charlie and Vaggie from the moment he walked in the door. This goes against any concept we have, knowing his origins as a serial killer. Serial killers, as we all know, lure in victims and evade suspicion through dishonesty (not to mention serial killers have a tendency to kill to get some sort of sexual gratification, where Alastor is Asexual so the pieces don't line up there). But Alastor is honest about his desire to watch demons fail at trying to better themselves. He is honest about the reason why he believes Charlie's dream will fail, which by itself gives us a hint into who he may very well be.

That hint is that Alastor actually has a very strong sense of justice. So much so that he feels those in hell deserve to be in hell. Not just so much that they can't be redeemed, but that they shouldn't. For this reason, he wants to see them punished- to see them "trip and fall into the fiery pit of failure."

His sense of justice may have well been warped in the same way a yandere's concept of a loving relationship is warped. And that is something else I will get to in a moment.

If Alastor truly does kill out of some concept or personal sense of justice, the story Vaggie tells of Alastor toppling powerful overlords who had been dominant for centuries makes sense. We know, from what we have seen in the pilot, the Addict MV, and some comics that the Overlords are some of the most malicious demons in hell. If Alastor cleaned house, it is very possible that the overlords he killed were far more malicious than the ones that are left.

But back on track, Alastor doesn't come off as some creepy serial killer to me. Yes, he may have been one in life but that doesn't necessarily mean he was psychotic as he is sometimes portrayed. And my reason for that is, ironically, this:

Alastor straight up says, basically, "yeah, I can kill you, but I'm not going to." And this isn't the only instance of this we have.

The butcher, who we know was initially harassing a demon in his shop (as Alastor saw), reaches for his cleaver to attack Alastor. Whether out of fear or maybe he gets his meat from every animal-esque demon that passes through. Who knows. But Alastor saw the butcher as a potential threat and gave a similar warning to the one he gave Vaggie.

Which, for anyone who has seen my posts before, this was the butcher's strike two. His first was getting caught harassing his customer, to which Alastor civilly intervened. Only to demonstrate his ability during strike two. His strike three was when he was caught trying to hurt and possibly kill the lamb patron.

Which brings me to what may have caused this skewed sense of justice in Alastor.

In the image above, look at Alastor's face. He hears the scuffle inside, and freezes. The expression on his face is one of clear shock. It is a common theory in the fandom that this was significant for Alastor. Perhaps because he witnessed his mother, who he loved so very much, get abused. Unknown by whom, assumed to be his father, but either way this could very well be another clue.

What I personally theorize is that Alastor did witness his mother getting abused in some manner or another. Perhaps more than one. Which wasn't that uncommon in his time period, as divorce still carried a heavy stigma in society throughout the early 1900s. You were looked down upon for divorcing your spouse for any reason, with the exception of adultery, bigamy, and impotence. So his mother likely stayed in the abusive marriage because she had to, and Alastor was powerless to do anything about it until he was a grown man. But witnessing that injustice night after night likely brought about what inevitably made him a serial killer.

But who were his typical targets? I believe, not unlike how he was in life, anyone he came across that "deserved" punishment met their end by his hands. Alastor played the role of judge, jury, and executioner. This, of course, was a sin for which he was punished.

Not to misdirect, but I remember reading somewhere that in life he hunted deer. If this is true, I thought that was rather ingenious. Invite a shit person along on a hunting trip, and they have an "accident" while hunting. Never to return again. And even if he somehow got linked to a discovered body in the woods, assuming one was ever found, he can easily say it was accidental death or flat out deny it, and they couldn't exactly disprove anything he said. Especially when you consider how bad investigative technology was back then.

There definitely seems to be a method to his madness. Mind, he did try to kill Sir Pentious at the end of the pilot, and definitely seemed pleased with himself... but to be fair he was more of a threat with his machine pointed at Alastor than a butcher reaching for a cleaver or a moth demon girl with a spear. Not to mention Sir Pentious doesn't seem to care who he hurts. Even if he is an absolute dork while doing it.

But to conclude, I definitely think Alastor is a much deeper character than people think. All the characters are very deep, we have gotten a look into some of the depth to Angeldust. And I think that alone should herald some interesting depth to all of the main Hazbin Hotel cast.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

[themadauthorshatter]

This is EVERYTHING WRONG WITH/GREAT ABOUT RED SCHOOL BY SOMAN CHAINANI AND VICTORIA AVEYARD PART 2!!!!!!

If you haven't read part 1, the link is here:

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR RED SCHOOL PART 2!!!! We're hopping right into part 2 of the comic, so LET'S GO!!!

Picking up where we left off⚡

Exposition about the storian towards people who don't have magic⚡

Tedros and Cal look like they're standing the same way and it looks confusing. If this was a movie, Tedros is standing with his right side facing the camera. Either his foot his elevated or his foot is turned towards the camera. Either way, this stance is extra and is too dramatic for thiis situation.🖤

Uhm... If Tedros, Agatha, and Sophie mogrify into any animal at all, shouldn't they be able to turn into animals like phoenixes or dragons and CARRY Cal, Mare, and Maven? That way the Red Queen crew can safely get to the tower safely and they have more numbers.🖤

😑. Either the silvers are broadcasting this ball back to Norta for all to see or this blimp showed up out of nowhere. I want to say the former, but I did not see a camera crew and twenty Evergirls and Everboys crowding around the camera and waving because they want to be famous in the ballroom.🖤

The argument between Mare and Agatha is a great way to build tension. No one's really gpimg to be paying attention because they're going to try and form a plan so everyone gets from point A to point B. Plus, you try talking or expressing your ideas when two people are arguing. My mom and my aunt are damn near impossible to talk over or calm in a fight⚡

Is that RED blood coming off Evangeline's lip? Did she bite someone or did someone forget she's a slperson with SILVER BLOOD?⚡/🖤

Self sacrifice. Seriously, this part hurt more than it should have, and I read this AFTER reading War Storm while we could go to school.⚡

I don't know whether or not Cal and Tedros would have survived this fall, but the fog takes them over so they could be fine. I say I don't know because the fall isn't TOO far down, but in another panel, the blimp is TOO high to survive, but that can be perspective. Either way, these two SOMEHOW survive this fall🖤

The scene of Mare revealing her blood to Agatha and Agatha's response is... underwhelming. Really, the main plot of Red Queen is that Mare needs to hide in plain sight or she, her family, and anyone else suspicious will die. The only discrimination or segregation Agatha has to deal with is bring an outcast, or a witch as everyone likes to call her, and being picked on for "being in the wrong school," which is not the case. Don't get me wrong, bullying and being ostracized are not okay, all the same that is not the same as being pushed down by a higher class or forced to work or go fight a war that shouldn't be your problem in the first place.🖤

Even the STYMPHS are taken over? IS THERE NO MERCY FOR ANYONE!?⚡

That'll teach you to be careful with your words⚡

Sophie: Best driver ever. 10/10⚡

Super hero pose⚡ +2 for the SGE trio and Red Queen trio going toe to toe with the SGE trio.⚡⚡

Going back to the points of the who our baddy is, once you really break it down, it's not that hard to figure out. Some characters disappear and then reappear somewhere else, either as fodder, background characters, or zombies. We saw Elara once when she was normal, and then she disappeared. Here she is now in the School Master's tower with the storian.🖤

I will admit that it was a great idea to have Elara be our villain. She was one of the main villains in Mare's story and only wanted the throne, even when she was a king's wife and close enough to the crown in order to manipulate the person WEARING the crown.⚡

The emotion in Maven when he sees his mother IS the reason for the fog is just sad. Anyone who's read the Red Queen series will know how Elara treated Maven and what kind of scars she left on him, taking out what wasn't "perfect" in her eyes and replacing those pieces with whatever helped him to surpass Cal. Their relationship was extremely problematic, to say the least, but there is some serious sorrow on his face at the thought of hurting or potentially killing her. There's pain and maybe some hate in abuse, but there is still love for the abuser FROM THE ABUSEE. My sister's boyfriend came from an abusive relationship with his mother and he still talks to her because he loves her.⚡

Okay. Evil Dovey is kind of scary.⚡

Credit where credit's due. Dovey does not stay down, even after that hit from Agatha⚡

Self sacrifice ⚡

Elara's fast for a possessed woman⚡

Oooh, the whispers controlling Agatha. Tragedy points because Mare can't just HURT Agatha⚡

OKAY. Maybe it's because her whispers aren't as strong because she's not herself. Maybe it's Agatha's will power, but her self esteem and self worth are questionable. All the same, it was TOO damn easy fpr Mare to pull Agatha out of those whispers!!🖤

ALSO, why is there always a stomp on the fingers or hand when a character's hanging or on the ground? This is a legit question, why is that a trope in everything I see!? Is it like salt on the wound? Insult to injury!? Idk, someone PLEASE tell me because I'm confused and it's driving me barking mad!!!!🖤

I will admit I did not see Mare grabbing the storian and saving herself. Clever, Mare. Clever⚡

Hugging⚡

The red spirit/fog that leaves Elara is so telling. Thw School Master WE'VE been seeing is not the same School Master as the SGE series. Way to make this seriously deviate from the original books⚡

Well. Earned. Comeuppance. I will never forget Chapter 21 of Red Queen or the chapters prior.⚡

I am so glad to see everyone go back to normal. Really, just helps me breathe now.⚡

Not joking: this was me during this scene with Elara facing the king and School Master⚡/🖤:

>LAUGHTER<😂 I'm so sorry!!! I keep hearing Edna from The Incredibles saying, "EXPLAIN YOURSELF!" and Elara responds in Vincent Price's voice from narrating Tim Burton's Vincent, "I'm being possessed." ⚡

Also, Tibe, KEEP THOSE MANACLES ON HER. DO NOT LET HER TAKE THEM OFF. YOU WILL LIVE LONGER IF YOU DO.⚡/🖤

Okay. So we saw RAFAL in spirit and the School Master we've been following is his brother Rhian. This is technically a timeline where either Evil has a winning streak or bith sides are equal. ... 😑I want a series of THAT now. Same characters, same events, but both schools now more competitive than ever to see who gets to next win in their fairytale.🖤

I'm on the fence now with the resolution of this situation. True Elara is getting off with nothing but a scolding and a slap on the wrist(especially for what she does in the Red Queen series), but at the same time, SHE WAS POSSESSED BY AN EVIL SPIRIT. She probably didn't have a lot of control over her actions. There's a debate that's going to happen now, and I don't know if I can participate because I'm on the fence. ... I hate fence sitting😑 ⚡/🖤

Love. Granted it's probably going to toxic and they're going to fight a lot, but who knows? Maven can teach Sophie how to be Good AND Evil, and Sophie can TRY to help Maven. ⚡

I know it's technically an AU, but I'm still mad good boy Maven is not with Mare.🖤

If Tedros was a little bit older, his and Cal's ship name would be/is either Gold Blood or Fire and Gold. ⚡

Again, IF TEDROS WAS OLDER🖤

This isn't tied up with a neat and tidy bow. There's a chance Rafal can come back. The world and school are still in danger. THE LAST PAGE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A "THE END." JUST "THE EN." 🖤

... Oh, well. I still had fun reading this. Thank you so much to Soman Chainani and Victoria Aveyard for doing this for your fans!!!😃😁😃😁😃😁😃😁😃😁⚡⚡⚡💛💛💛❤💛❤💛❤💛❤💛

MAN, I had fun with this!! A little on the nose, but hey, this is a tumblr post, not a video.

I really hope you guys liked this, I had a great time writing it!! I know some of the sins are harsh, but I still really like this comic and what it had to offer.

It came out while I was in a really bad place, both physically and mentally, and it was one of the things that got me through it. Sorry if that sounds bad, I promise there's more I value and look forward to in life than some books😅

Thank you again for reading, wtay safe durimg this time, AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!

[joiedecombat]

At the beginning of The Mysteries of Pemberley by Amy D'Orazio, Elizabeth promises Jane on her sister's deathbed that she'll take care of Jane's baby son like he's her own. Four years after the deaths of Jane and Bingley, Darcy - a man none of them have ever met - shows up in Hertfordshire intending to take the boy with him to live in Derbyshire. The Bennets can't circumvent the terms of Bingley's will which named Darcy as little Charles' guardian and he refuses to be dissuaded, so to keep her promise Elizabeth forces him to bring her along as, effectively, Charles' governess.

I really don't care for childrearing plots so I was leery going into this one, and my experiences with the mess of other subpar AUs I'd been reading had me squinting critically at several elements of the initial setup, such as how Jane and Bingley could have been married without any of the Bennets even hearing of Darcy and why it took Darcy four years to get around to assuming guardianship of Bingley's son.

If I'd paid a little more attention to the promotional blurb I'd have realized a lot sooner what was going on, though, because The Mysteries of Pemberley isn't a Regency romance, it's a Gothic.

And hot damn does D'Orazio go all in with it. It's set in late 1816, the "year without a summer." Pemberley, described in such glowing and idyllic terms in Austen's novel, becomes instead a Gothic manor - bleak, lonely, and blanketed in an oppressive sense of tragedy and buried secrets. The cast has been decimated by the outbreak of fever that killed Jane and Bingley. Darcy is at his most Byronic, laboring under a crushing weight of grief and guilt. There are strange, unexplained happenings: a rider at night, a madman who wanders the woods around Lambton.

In the first half of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth thinks Darcy is arrogant, unfeeling, and contemptuous of those beneath him. In this book, she has reason to think he might be a murderer.

It's a heavy read and probably not for anyone who doesn't want to see beloved characters from the original suffer too much. If you're into angst, though (I know I am!) you shouldn't miss it. It had only one sour note for me in the latter part of the novel, involving Mr Bennet and Charlotte being done kind of dirty characterization-wise in a way that I really could have done without.

But I'm willing to overlook that one misstep when the rest of the book is so gripping. The writer wields dramatic irony adeptly to craft the book's mysteries; any reader familiar with the original will figure out the truth behind a certain young lady's journal well before Elizabeth does, and it only adds sharpness to the question of just what happened to leave Darcy, his family, and Pemberley in the state they're in now.

He did not look at her, fastening his gaze on the carpet beneath them. "You asked me once whether I had ever made someone a promise that was so important I should rather die than fail. I believe I told you I had."

Elizabeth nodded. "As have I."

"I wonder at times whether it is an offence to those I have injured to be happy." He paused and then said hurriedly, "It does tempt me--although I am perhaps a more sober-tempered person than some, I have never been a soul to delight in misery--but it seems cruel to indulge myself."

Although it should have been obvious to her before, comprehension at last dawned on her. Mr Darcy suffered a weight of guilt for sins that were yet unknown to Elizabeth. Having lost so much of her own family, it was not a surprise. She understood very well what it was to lie awake wondering why it was not she who had died, how it was that she had been spared and for what purpose.

In true form for the genre, this one comes with some content warnings: character deaths, descriptions of domestic abuse, and a non-explicit sexual assault.

[dailyaudiobible]

09/16/2020 DAB Transcript

Isaiah 22:1-24:23, Galatians 2:17-3:9, Psalms 60:1-12, Proverbs 23:15-16

Today is the 16th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it's great to be here with you today as we cross the center of the week together, hump day, and…and move to the back half, but we’re in the middle of the week. And…well…I guess we’re not quite in the middle of the book of Isaiah yet but we’re well on our way. We’re reading from the English standard version this week. Isaiah chapters 22, 23, and 24 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in Galatians today, again we’re exploring some of the foundational understandings theologically of our faith itself and again we encountered one of the most famous passages in the Scriptures “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.” And we should probably understand the context that was said in because…because it's foundational to the Christian faith. And the reason that he said it, the context of it is why Paul was so controversial in his time. And admittedly, some of these concepts, they…they might sound somewhat familiar because it wasn't too long ago that we read the letter to the Romans. And, so, a lot of this is laid out in Romans and we’re revisiting it here in another letter. This is the gospel that Paul moved around the Roman Empire preaching. So, fundamentally the problem and I say that loosely…I say that in the context of what we’re talking about. The problem was the Mosaic law, really a battle for its validity because Paul is coming against the Mosaic law, setting it aside as he believed had been revealed by Jesus. And I should probably clarify that. Not so much setting it aside, like it's existence but setting aside its relationship to people, people who believe in Jesus. Paul's argument was that that law was a vehicle to expose failure, to show sin. You break the law, you transgress against the law, you become aware that you have failed. And nobody, no matter how they tried, could ever succeed. They could never stop transgressing the law. So, no one would ever find their way into a righteous life before God. So, for Paul, the only way to escape it, as he explained in other letters, is to die to it, right? If your dead, then no human law that applies to alive human beings applies to you anymore. Your dead. And you remember the example that he used about marriage. Like if a person…if a woman is married and her husband dies then she's not bound to that covenant anymore, she's free because her husband has passed away. He's gone now. So, for Paul, you die to the law so that you can then live for God. You release everything that you were without Christ and you surrender to His authority in your life, you believe upon Him and are resurrected into a new life that has died to those rules and regulations. Admittedly, that is a bit of a reach. Like that is a bit of a problem for a person hearing it who had been raised in this culture because the law, the Torah…I mean...you are essentially…you are essentially kind of saying like “I'm dying to the Scripture. Like I’m dying to this law that we know of as revealed by God. I'm dying to that so that I can live for God.” You can kind of see the disconnect here. And, so, some would claim…well…they did…they essentially pledged allegiance to kill Paul. Like he's an apostate, this is a heretic. This is a person who has been trained religiously and has walked away from their faith. Like they need to die. Like they want him gone. I mean they thought he’s like reinterpreting the Scripture to the point that he’s amending a brand-new religion. So, we would all have to admit, that…I mean…that would be difficult…that would be a difficult path to follow if someone comes along and says, “new revelation from God has been given on the earth for Earth's people and here's what it is and here's how it sets aside what had previously been engaged. Here is the way forward. Here's what God is doing now.” But then we'd also have to admit that that is effectively what the Savior did, the work of Christ as we believe it. As disciples of Christ it was a game changer, like a complete revolution upon the earth in the way that we understand and relate to God and how we relate to one another and where this is all going. But we would still have a pretty hard time setting aside the Bible to get there. And yet, as Paul claimed and as the New Testament claims, I mean Jesus was fundamentally executed because they considered Him to be a lawbreaker and a blasphemer, one who was making claims that only God could make, one who was revealing the way forward. Like, we believe in Jesus and so we understand that like He is reinterpreting the law because the plot of the story had been lost, the spirit of the law had been lost. And, so, there's only the letter of the law, there's the rules. And the rules aren’t animated by the Spirit anymore. And, so, they don't have the weightiness, it’s just about obeying rules. This is kind of what Paul’s arguing but as we enter into and engage with this we can see like, this is difficult, this is a difficult leap. And, so, for Paul he has to go back to the origination of the Hebrew story to prove his point. And his point was, “yeah, Moses gave us the law. God revealed through Moses, but that story had been going on for centuries before Moses was ever born and it started with Abraham and there was no Torah for Abraham to obey. There was no Torah for him to read. There was no Bible as we know it at all. So, God revealed himself to Abraham and the story began and then it continued on all the way until the time of Christ and all kinds of things had developed around it, a whole system of life had developed around it. And then Jesus comes and reinterprets things, unites things and says, “this is the way to go forward.” But in order to follow Christ then, you have to die to some of the previous things and acknowledge that God is doing something new in the world.” So, you see the hurdles. And yet for Paul, the Holy Spirit was working among people, like…like there was evidence of this spiritual renewal, this…this spiritual revolution that was happening. There was evidence for this. People were following Jesus because of the movements of the Holy Spirit, this evidence that is happening. And the Holy Spirit was working among anybody who believed. It wasn't just Hebrews. Like everybody that the Holy Spirit came upon, everyone who believed was experiencing this. And, so, Paul at some point had to look Torah and look at what he actually was experiencing and we see the Paul chose his experience over the letter of some law, some rules that he had already done everything he could possibly do to live into only to realize it was a dead-end, like he couldn't get there, he wasn’t going to be made righteous before God. And, so, I quote Paul from our reading today, “let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain if indeed it was in vain? Does He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith - just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness? So, for Paul, having re-received these revelations from Jesus, and this is what he's teaching, and this is what he’s experiencing, and like there's no way he's gonna turn back from what he’s experiencing no matter who calls him crazy. And like we said yesterday, he held true to this all the way to his own death. Like he was executed for believing this. So, for Paul he had already died. Like he had already died to who he was and the fact that he still walked upon the earth was a grace of God living within him to continue the mission forward. And, so, we get to enter into this and wrestle with this and sort of see now why this is so difficult, like why what we take for granted and what we understand theologically as it was being formed was such a difficulty for people in Paul's time.

Prayer:

Father we thank You for that. We thank You for the opportunity to look at it with eyes wide open, understanding that what Paul said is true - it's…it's nonsense or its heresy depending on how You're looking at or it is the absolute truth that is borne witness in our own hearts by the power of Your Holy Spirit. And, so, we thank You for this. We thank You that we have these examples that what we are experiencing in our hearts is real. And we may not be able to prove that we’re not crazy, but we’re not. We have died to who we were. We have been raised up unified in union with You, Your spirit within us, Your divine nature is something that we get to participate and partake of, and live into. And that is good news. That is the Good News. And, so, come Holy Spirit and help us to press in and live it out and be a light in the darkness, we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button which is the little red button at the top in the app, you can't miss it or there are numbers that you can dial depending on where you are in the world. In the Americas 877-942-4253. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078. And if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to call.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello this is Catherine calling from Maryland. I just wanted to call after listening to the September 10th episode today and I was struck by what Brian said at the very end, that this is a community that loves to pray for one another. This isn’t just a community that prays for one another, this is a community that loves to pray for one another. Maybe you’ve said that before Brian but it…that just struck me today that that was…really that is what is really special about this community, creating the beloved community that Jesus directed us to do by loving and caring for one another, helping each other bear burdens and rejoicing together. And I just thank you for this amazing community to hear God’s word every day but also to practice where you’re supposed to be. And then the first caller, you didn’t leave your name, but you sort of hit on all of these things too. What a way to start today and what a privilege and blessing it is to be a part of this community and to not only hear the word of God but to pray for one another and to be connected to one another across the continents and oceans and miles. So many of you, right, keeping prayer as does everyone else. And, of course, pray alongside each and every one of you. So, God bless you. May God bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you today and every day. Amen.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Rebecca Joy from Illinois calling from a wonderful rainy September afternoon. Oh my gosh…and from my walk if you can hear the cars going by. I love these kinds of afternoons. I’m such a rain person. But anyway, I wanted to call in for a few prayer requests. So, I’m back in school. I am…I’m going to a university in Chicago; however, we are all online so it’s a weird weird time and I am an animation major and it’s weird do you do art at home. So, please pray for just the people at the University, for people at college, for people at school who are just doing stuff at home. It’s very hard to do it home. And please pray for the community of people that I am around. I love these people. I love art majors. There’s so…there so crazy and I love them. But please pray that I can be a good witness to them because I know a lot of them are not Christian, they don’t know Jesus and I want to love them and encourage them and…ah...I want to show in Jesus. So, please pray that I can do that. Also please pray for my two friends, they are struggling so much with their mental illnesses and I can just…I can feel it in the way they can talk and it’s so oppressive. So, please pray for healing for them. I love them so much. I just I…I know what they feel, and I don’t want to see them suffer. And also, please pray for me. Please pray for, you know, just a continuation of looking to God, trusting Him. Just pray that I can stand firm. O my gosh it’s so hard to stand firm sometimes you guys. But pray for that. Pray for just, help me to love, I guess. I really need that sometimes. But yeah, thanks guys.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family I’m Regina from California I am a new listener to the Daily Audio Bible. This is my first time calling in and I’ve been listening since the beginning of the year and I’ve really enjoyed this. It is bringing me…brought me peace of mind and wisdom through Jesus. Anyway, I’m calling in because I’m in a tough spot. I recently graduated college and, thank God I found a job and the opportunity to move in with my family…with my friend’s mom and her and I moved here out of my home with my parents yesterday and was so excited. I start my job tomorrow. Unfortunately, today, the day after I moved in, my friend’s mom decided that she no longer wants a renter in her house. So, I am in a very rough situation and to where…find out where I’m going to live, if I’m supposed to keep this job because I need to find a place to live in this area if I’m going to keep it. So, I am asking for prayer for peace in what I’m going through, discernment to figure out what to do, and just help me have grace on her mom because I…I don’t feel it right now. I don’t understand why or what just happened. I’ve been lost…so please send out prayer. I don’t even know if this is a sign that I’m not supposed to keep his job or not but please pray for me. Thank you, Daily Audio Bible.

Good morning this is Duncan the Piano Man from Fredericksburg Texas. Almighty God I just heard the request for prayer from the lady from…from the Niger...Niger region there and just here about the floods and not only the floods but the persecution that’s happening in Nigeria especially. Father I know our nation has promised to…to…to help persecuted Christians, at least they did in the beginning. Lord, we can’t go back on those promises. I’m just asking Father and I know there are a lot of others asking with me that you would please supply the needs of all those Father who are in the flooded area. I think also a people Father who are being hounded for their faith, not just in Nigeria but all over the world and even here in this country. Then I think of the fires that are burning out of control in California and Oregon and Washington and I have friends and family members who have been threatened by those fires. I ask you Lord to please have mercy and send rain. And then Lord we’re still in the grips of this albatross, this accursed 19 pandemoniac. I’m asking you God to strengthen us to get through it but also asking that you lift this awful curse in the name of Jesus Christ and in the power of His shed blood. Our Lord Jesus we give this week to you, although people will be listening to it days later. Thank you for hearing our prayer Jesus. We come boldly in Your name asking and also believing Father that you may have something better for us that we don’t even know. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

This is Kathy from Kentucky to let you know we need prayer in the 12 step groups. Some of the churches…well the church we’ve been meeting at has asked us not to come back because of COVID and we didn’t do anything wrong, but we had to find a new meeting place. So, far we’ve been meeting on zoom and people are hungry for the in-person meeting. So, we are trying to start the in-person meetings again. These are very important for alcoholics. The zoom meetings are not just quiet enough for some folks. I’m gonna keep the zoom meeting going at my house and because I’m in a high-risk age group and then we’ll try to have a hybrid meeting. But the 12 step groups all over the world are struggling. Zoom is okay but is not the same as hugging a person and that’s what we need, we need that human touch. So, pray for us. A lot of relapses, overdoses, and suicides going on right now. And, so, we all need __ and pray for me as I live alone and I’m trying to hold our group together until things get better. And I am an introvert. It’s easier for me living alone but I’m also scared. Thank you. Kathy from Kentucky.

Hi family this is Dawn Rising from Michigan and I like prayed for my nephew. I feel like he’s under spiritual attack where he’s hearing demonic voices and suggestions in his head and I just ask that you pray for his deliverance. I know my sister is also leading a life of sin currently. She knows her actions are wrong, but she just is in an earthly position where she likes it. So, I feel like our families under attack. So, please pray for my nephew Vinny that he will be delivered from this and will come out strong Christian man. Thank you everybody. Bye.

Hello everybody it’s a Sunday afternoon and the sun is shining, and you notice anything different? Can you hear it? Honk your horn Peter. __. I’m out, I’m in the car. Hey! We’re going…what are we going to find Peter? Oh gosh __ cat litter. Yeah, you see I’ve got a little new hobby. I’ve been starting to collect Cacti and I’ve been reading about it and apparently cat litter is good to mix with the compost. And, so __. So, we’re going to go and find some cat litter. It has to be the clay type I believe. So, I thank God. It’s taken me til 2 o’clock in the afternoon to get showered and get up but I’m so grateful. You know, we don’t look at how long these things take us do we? And we don’t look at what we can’t do and just thankful, that even though I’m gonna jump into a wheelchair when I get out of the car, that I’m out. You know, there’s so much blessing if we can stop and look up and instead of looking down. I thank God for His life in me and then you. And Father God I ask that you would bless all my dear friends, my family, here on DAB. I thank you that Your love father, Your arms are big enough and long enough to scoop us all together and told us. And You must be smiling Father. You must be smiling as You’re looking at us as we are enjoying Brian and the Daily Audio Bible and your presence. Oh, my goodness. The time ticking away. Say bye-bye Peter. Bye-bye Peter. Bye-bye everybody. Bye.

[goddamnit-minyard]

Guys.

I really don't think i'll ever be able to Stress Enough how much people should read the In the Company of Shadows series, specially the AFTG fans.

Why? Well, if you really miss the glorious but painful days of reading the AFTG series and going through the journey of Andrew and Neil learning to live their lives and realizing that there's more to it than just surviving; if you miss the brilliant, raw, and unique build-up that those boys had, both in their own lives and in their capacity to care and just love someone else and believe in them; and overall the jaw-dropping emotional rollercoaster that those books were, well, let me tell you,

In the Company of Shadows is all that, but in steroids.

Honestly, there's nothing that will ever compare to what i felt while reading AFTG. And honestly? There shouldn't be. The capability of a book to depict its own originality is a priority to me. But at the same time that reading ICOS is a whole new experience that fills me with whole new questions and answers that blend into actual, invaluable, new life experience, it is also extremely familiar to me.

Just the way Sin has been treated his whole life. How he's judged as nothing more than a weapon with its own twisted, psychotic mind instead of a trigger, just because he always could and chose to use his skills against unstoppable evil. How even though he had millions of reasons to do so, the fact that everyone looked at him like they would spit on him and sentence him to death because there was nothing worth understanding in him, nothing worth saving, made him actually believe he was the Monster, the psychopath, the crazy kid who left his therapist in a vegetative state (it was because she drugged him and sexually harrassed him while asking, during his alleged therapy session, disgusting questions about what his mum used to do to him when he was even younger that then, but who cares?) that everyone sentenced him to be. How he suffers from insomnia from fear of his own twisted and terrifying nightmares, which are actually just memories, and fears even more the thought of his only loved one ever trying to wake him up because when people wake him up, bad things happen. Or just snapping one day and hurting him because that's what monsters do.

How said loved one, Boyd, the thin, delicate-looking, blonde and long haired boy, was the first person to not flinch the slightest at the knowledge of it all. How Boyd and only Boyd stood fearless in front of Sin's worst bursts of violence because he knew Sin would never hurt him, rightfully so, as he was the only one who dared to see below the surface, actually believing there was gold behind it instead of corrossive madness.

How these books' substance, the way they make you question the line between moral and immoral, how they make you believe in people and make you care so incredibly much about the wellbeing of those misunderstood around the world, and hope that they find their own Boyd if that's what it takes for them to realize how much they actually deserve it.

How they make you appreciate the word Junkie in a way no one would ever understand because in these books, Boyd was called Junkie because he found something worth living for so much that he couldn't get away from it: the feeling of control over something, of responsibility, of having the power to decide whether it all went to shit or succeeded because of him; because that's a thing to get high on for someone who used to do little more than surviving the day like Boyd did.

How all of this resonates with the most amazing series i've ever read (and i know it does for you too) while being completely different at the same time, is what blows my mind. And i can fucking swear to you: it will blow your mind too. It will bring back all those feelings you had for All For The Game in the craziest, most emotionally impactful way possible.

And if you haven't read the AFTG series, well, it will blow your mind anyway.

Oh and please tell me if you will check out these books because of me cause that would make my whole week thanks