#and went with the option using the phrase 'a servant of God'

[echodoctor]

Seemed interesting and I was curious to know how much I'd picked up about it secondhand over the years, so gave it a shot. Not Jewish (but some of my family is), got 27/32.

(I went over the ones I got wrong down in the tags to avoid accidentally giving the answers to people who might want to take the quiz for themselves.)

jumblr folks should collectively make a basic jewish theology quiz that ppl outside the jewish community should have to pass before arguing with us about jewish theology. like what the fuck are these ppl doing arguing with me about the torah when they don't know about the existence of the oral torah.

[thefirstknife]

The Winnower's Tree of Death

I want to make an additional clarification about the Darkness that we've been discussing every since Presage dropped. Since we now know way more, I want to make a full clarification of what we currently know about the structure of the Darkness. Mostly clarifying this post.

So, Witch Queen treated us exceptionally well and provided us with juicy new information about the Darkness. I'm using "Darkness" right now as an umbrella term to make it easier. At the bottom, I will also put links to all relevant lore from raid armour sets and the entire lore book, none of which is yet available on Ishtar so you're welcome, I took all of these screenshots and arranged them into albums.

Long post under the cut, spoilers for the Witch Queen and raid specifically:

When the "Entity" and "Voice in the Darkness" were first mentioned, we didn't have much info about the details so I assumed it might be referring directly to the Winnower. There was an option that it's about something else (something new), but I never believed it's something above the Winnower. We now know the Entity and the Voice in the Darkness are referring to the same thing: The Witness. Savathun does say the following:

So it makes sense that we would have many other phrases for it before we got the name it uses for itself (Witness). Savathun also says:

This seems to be implying that the Witness is using Darkness as a tool and did not create the Darkness and isn't the same as the Winnower.

Raid gear lore and the lore book also imply a hierarchical structure woven into the nature of the Darkness. So, Darkness (and Light) are tools and fundamental paracausal forces in the universe.

They, and the entire universe, were created by the Winnower and the Gardener.

On the dark side of things, at the top, we have the Winnower which seems to still be operating outside of regular spacetime and is in need of servants to enact its bidding. Assumed directly beneath the Winnower is the Witness: the Winnower's metaphorical and literal eyes and hands (given the emphasis of eyes and hands in Witness' design).

The Witness also requires further servants which is detailed through the raid lore. It needs a Disciple, among which Rhulk was the first, but presumably not the only one. There were other beings that were potential disciples (Witness tried to turn Savathun into one, as well as Mara, which both of them explicitly refused). These disciples seemingly are about being representatives of their species and are allowed to remain the only ones of their species after the Witness destroys the rest, leaving the last of their kind to serve as a Disciple.

And further down the line, any disciple can enlist more help from other species that serve in the long chain of the, heh, pyramid scheme that is the Winnower and its ilk. For example, Rhulk was the one who enlisted the Worm gods who then went on to serve "the Deep" and corrupt the proto-Hive. Rhulk was known to the Worm gods and Leviathan of the Fundament as "the Subjugator." Rhulk, the Subjugator, managed to extract a rib from the Leviathan and used it as some sort of a weapon and/or trophy when he went to bargain with the Worm gods. You can see the rib in the raid:

In a really humbling turn in the story, we've discovered that the Krill of the Fundament were not the oldest known thing in the universe, nor are Books of Sorrow the oldest known record of a civilisation. Rhulk and his planet, Lubrae, precede the Krill and the Fundament. Rhulk was the one to dive into the Fundament first to discover the Worm gods. The Needle ship was Rhulk's, or at least used by him, to meet the Worms and enlist them in order to corrupt the Krill. Even the Worm gods were played in the game helmed by the Winnower and the Witness and its disciples.

Compare Rhulk arriving to the depth of the Fundament, from raid armour Titan arm lore:

And the proto-Hive siblings arriving to the depth of the Fundament, from Books of Sorrow:

Rhulk survived "by his own will." The Hive siblings survived because of Yul's "will." At this point, the Worm gods already had the powers given to them by Rhulk. The same way Hive siblings made a bargain with the Worm gods, the Worm gods made a bargain with the First Disciple, Rhulk, detailed in the Titan raid helmet lore.

This lore also tells us of the sixth Worm god: Xita, the nurturing worm, who is known to all worms as Worm mother. She was taken from the Fundament in exchange for the bargain the Worm gods made and she was put into a Pyramid ship we visit in the raid, where she was imprisoned for all eternity, made to produce worm larvae to sustain the Hive army. With the raid defeated, her life has presumably ended, putting a big question mark about the future of the Hive species. Their only chance of survival right now is to embrace the Light, as they cannot survive without worms.

What is the Black Fleet? It appears the Pyramids are many things. They serve as prisons for the Winnower's servants, places for the disciples to make their homes, factories and experimental labs, gruesome museums of conquest and destruction, weapons. An overwhelming fleet each carrying something unknown within its vast halls of impossible size and geometry.

It's possible that each Pyramid is unique to each disciple. That each Pyramid carries a remnant of some ancient species destroyed by the Winnower and the Witness, forever enslaved to do their bidding. Terrifying and humbling. We're really very small in the universe.

It seems Oryx was a candidate for a disciple before his death, and then after him Savathun for the Hive. This is troubling because as Savathun declined and got reborn in the Light, that leaves only Xivu as a candidate for the Hive disciple. The one with the most power right now.

The only other possible candidate that we may know of would probably be Calus. Oryx and Calus are the only ones that we know have spoken to the Deep/Black Edge (assuming this means the Witness directly, just like Rhulk). After speaking with the Darkness, Calus returned with a eerily similar way of thinking: destroying other species and collecting the strongest among them, the last of their kind, to serve as his Shadows. The last thing we know about him, according to his scribes, is that he "merged with Darkness" after the Glykon incident and the Mars anomaly.

To summarise:

Winnower (origin of the Darkness) > The Witness > Disciples (? unknown number) + Black Fleet > higher level client species (such as Worm gods) > lower level client species (such as the Hive) > beings and species used and manipulated for short term goals and easily discarded (for example, the way Darkness used Eramis and Clovis to an extent) (My speculation being that Winnower is not the same as the Witness, but information on that is obviously still pending)

In comparison, the final addition to my post here still stands when it comes to the Light. The Gardener is the Traveler is the Light. It has nothing besides the Lightbearers and Ghosts at its side, not anymore, unless there are more creatures like the Leviathan somewhere.

The odds are definitely not on our side, but what is on our side seems to be much more important: hope.

---------------

Links to lore that isn't on Ishtar yet:

Resonant Fury Titan set Resonant Fury Hunter set Resonant Fury Warlock set

Shattered Suns lore book: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 (This lore book can be earned in the Preservation mission: there's 5 scannable pedestals in the final room of the mission that appear after you finish it. The other 5 entries can be earned in the big room with glyph symbols using the guide in the room below that tells you what to do with which glyph. This has to be done 5 times in 5 separate missions. If you're insane you can just run it 5 times in a row by restarting from the beginning. I am insane ofc.)

[sweetchup]

Bi•valve

Noun

an aquatic mollusk that has a compressed body enclosed within a hinged shell, such as oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops.

AKA

The Most Common Seashell in the Ocean

————————

Vol. 1: Just Keep Swimming // Ch.1

Type: Poseidon x reader

Word Count: 1,800+

Masterlist

————————

“Ok… ok… is there anyway you could—… no? Wait please don’t—…” You let out a sigh as the other side of the phone line goes dead. “Another miss…”

You crumple to the floor of your bedroom in a heap. The storm was still in full swing outside even though hours had gone by and it was now dark. It seemed the storm had caused quite the ruckus in Athens—the capital where you were staying at—and most emergency services were busy.

They even ignored you at the police station you went to earlier, though it likely didn’t help your situation that you couldn’t even speak their native language of Greek…

—.—.—

“No, no. Lost. Child. Not mine.” You explained once more to the officer in front of you, the only one in this place that knew of the slightest hint of english.

The officer only shakes his head once more at you before walking away, turning his attention to the other patrons here that needed help. You wished it was just that they didn’t understand you—that they didn’t understand that you had found a lost boy struggling at sea—but it was slowly becoming clear that they just didn’t believe you.

Tan skin. Brown hair. Brown or green eyes. That was what the average greek boy here looked like. A big contrast from Triton, the pale skinned blonde haired blue eyed boy who you were currently holding in your arms. They just simply didn’t believe that he was a Greek child that had gotten washed away at sea during the storm.

It also didn’t help that no one had called in a lost child that had a similar description to Triton. And, with no other option and too much to do, the police just chose to ignore the glaring problem right in front of them.

“Miss (Y-y/n)?”

At Triton’s call, you looked down at the boy and realize that the more that you look at him, the stranger he gets. Soaked from the rain and sea, you would have expected him to be shivering like a leaf but he was as still as stone. As if he couldn’t even feel how cold his skin was right now. As if he was used to being soaked with the coldest depths of the ocean.

“Miss (Y/n)?” Triton calls again, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Ah, sorry, I spaced out. Yes?”

“I-I…” You watch patiently as the boy begins twiddling with his thumbs. As if he wanted to tell you something but was quite embarrassed to be so.

“Is something wrong, Triton?”

“N-no!” The boy shouts out, the loudest you’ve heard him speak so far, before instantly realizing his tone and caving in on himself. His shoulder and back slumping forward as if to hide himself from your sight.

“It’s alright. You can tell me, I don’t mind.” You reassure the boy. You can’t help but sincerely wonder what happened to him. What happened to the little boy, who looked no older than 10, that made him so scared and skittish? And you doubted that getting lost at sea is what caused it.

“I…”

A loud growl cuts off Triton and not the animal kind either.

“Oh… are you perhaps hungry, Triton?” You ask the boy as he bashfully ducks his head into your shoulder out of embarrassment.

“Y-yes.”

You can’t help but let out a small chuckle at Triton’s antics. Even though he was quite strange, he was still a cute child at heart.

“Well let’s go grab something to eat. It seems there’s no one to help us here anyway.”

—.—.—

As you reminisce about Triton—who you soon find out after that is a lover of raw fish, extremely strange if you had to say so for yourself—you can’t help but wonder where he went.

After you took him back to your place, a small, only two rooms, one bath apartment you rent near campus, you allowed him to take a shower and borrow some of your clothes. He should still be sitting in the living room watching some cartoons and eating after you left him to take a shower and make a couple of phone calls, all unsuccessful by the way, but it had been well over an hour. You wonder if he could have perhaps gotten bored by now.

Deciding it wouldn’t hurt to check up on the boy, you sit up from your spot on the floor and make your way out of your bedroom.

“Triton, is every—“

You stop mid sentence as you take in the scene in front of you. Water…. Water was floating. Triton was floating as well.

It was hard for your brain to rack around what you were seeing. Triton, the strange boy that you had saved from the sea, was floating in your living room on top of a bubble of water. He didn’t seem surprised in any way either as he was in the middle of playing with some tiny bubbles of water himself. Separating and un-separating them at will.

“T-Triton?” You call out again, this time catching the boy’s attention. His face turned to one of surprise and shock as he released the bubbles of water allowing it and him to crash to the floor. Even though your living room floor was now soaking wet, that was the least of your worries.

“M-Miss (Y-y/n), how long were you…?” Triton’s voice trails off as he realizes the question was not needed, you had already seen enough. He begins to pale at all the possibilities. Even though he was in fact a god and could not be hurt by human weapons, there were still many things that could happen to him. He was still a child after all, no were near his mother’s and father’s level of strength.

“Triton…” Your voice calls out again causing Triton to flinch as you draw closer to him, “Are…are you okay?”

Triton, whose gaze was locked at the floor, turned his head upwards in surprise to look at you. Your gaze was not one of disgust or anger. No. Nor was it cold, a gaze he had come to know that his father often wore, or of disappointment, a look his mother often glared at him with. No. Your gaze was kind. Sure, it looked confused but it was also filled with warmth out of concern for him.

Triton felt the hot bubbling feeling of tears in his eyes. He would normally try to hold it in, forcibly stop himself from crying as he knew if his mother found out she would surely beat him. But, he didn’t.

He let the tears spill out. Tears that felt hot against his cold marble skin. Marble skin that was an aching reminder that he was a god, a perfect being. That he shouldn’t be feebly crying in front of a human like this.

Yet, as you wrap your warm arms around his shaking form, he finds himself not minding his warm tears. Warmth reminds him of you, the only one who dared to comfort him. Not his father, nor his uncles and cousins, or the servants, and never, never, his mother.

Triton finds himself crying again. Instead of out of fear, it is out of misery this time. He wished he wasn’t a god, he wished he didn’t eventually have to go back to his terrible mother, he wished that his father would pay more attention to him and show him something… anything. He wished he could just stay like this in your arms. A stranger that was more of a mother to him in less than a few hours, than his own mother was in his hundreds of years of existence.

“It’s okay, Triton. Everything will be okay. I’m not angry.”

Triton couldn’t help but think how he never doubted you in the first place.

—.—.—

As you run your hands through the Triton's hair, who was curled up on your lap, you think about what he had told you.

“So you’re a god…The son of Poseidon and Amphitrite…”

“Yeah…” Triton whispers out, his voice slightly strained from all the crying he had done.

A god. Triton was a mighty Greek god. Even though you couldn’t wrap your head around the situation, you knew you had to. Especially after all that has happened up til now and if you were—

“Are…are you angry?”

You pause for a second, shocked slightly at what Triton had muttered out, before finally answering, “I’m not. Not at all. I just…”

You wondered how you should phrase it.

“… I don’t know how to get you home, Triton.”

The silence is overwhelming after. You didn’t know if you should have told the young boy that but it also wasn’t right to lie to him. You feel Triton shift under your arms and you loosen your grip as he slowly sits up.

“I…” Triton starts before pausing. His gaze shifts from his hands to your eyes, the first time the boy had ever locked eyes with you since you saved him. It reminded you how icy blue his eyes were, a blue that you now realize is not possible for a human to obtain. At least not naturally. A firm reminder that Triton wasn’t one, he was a god. “I… I don’t want to return home.”

“What…” You say startled, “Ok, then how about one of your uncles or—“

“No. I…I want to stay here. With you Miss (y/n).”

Stay here… with you. You didn’t know what to think. You were a struggling college student who spent hours upon hours studying every day. Could you even take care of a child, nevertheless a god? What about his mother, who Triton explained was a horrible being? Or his father, the king of the sea? Could you protect Triton from them? From a god, a being so much stronger and powerful than you?

“I…” You started before abruptly stopping. You wanted to protect Triton, help him. You had to find a way. You couldn’t abandon the child before you like this. Not after hearing his anguished cries for the last hour. As you held him, you felt as if he was made of glass. Like if you even squeezed him too tightly he would shatter into a million pieces in your arms.

“I…I can’t assure anything, I am just a human after all. But you can stay here for as long as you want Triton.”

As you watch the young boy before you smile and collapse in your arms, it was then that your mind had decided. You would protect Triton for as long as you could,

…no matter the cost.

Author Note: Oooo things are heating up. It seems Triton and Zeus have opposite plans for the reader and that could spell trouble. Hehehe. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, I am immensely thankful for all the support that got shown on my prologue chapter of this series. Please contunie to give your support and tell me your opinions about my work. It really does help as it shows what I can improve on in future chapters and works. Till next time 💕💕

Taglist: @angeli-fucking-cat @marixxhq

[hchollym]

Sansa & Bird Imagery/Symbolism

I was thinking about how many different birds appear in Sansa’s narrative, and it just felt like too many to be a coincidence, so I decided to look into their meanings a little further.

Note: I found the information about bird symbolism from this site. While there are many meanings for each bird, I am going to focus on the ones that apply to Sansa the most (in my opinion). This is just my own musings, so take all of it with a grain of salt 😊

Dove

Cersei refers to Sansa as “Little Dove.” The dove represents hope for a hurting heart and gentle compassion.

Sansa undoubtedly has a hurting heart after watching her father be executed, and yet she continues to look for hope in new friendships (with Margaery and her ladies), possible betrothals (to Willas), and even the idea of escaping.

She pictured the two of them sitting together in a garden with puppies in their laps, or listening to a singer strum upon a lute while they floated down the Mander on a pleasure barge. If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa’s dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.

The fact that many of these hopes are dashed does not make them any less important; it just represents Sansa’s loss of innocence and naivety. She doesn’t give up hope all together – because hope is a dangerous thing to lose – but she does become more realistic about it.

She also shows compassion for so many different characters, including Lancel (getting him help when he was wounded), Ser Dontos (protecting him from Joffrey), and Tyrion (she feels bad for embarrassing him when he was placing the Lannister cloak on her, so she kneels in front of him for their kiss during the wedding ceremony; she also thinks about his possible death with sadness).

Sansa went to Ser Lancel and knelt beside him. His wound was bleeding afresh where the queen had struck him. “Madness,” he gasped. “Gods, the Imp was right, was right...”

“Help him,” Sansa commanded two of the serving men. One just looked at her and ran, flagon and all. Other servants were leaving the hall as well, but she could not help that. Together, Sansa and the serving man got the wounded knight back on his feet.

“Take him to Maester Frenken.” Lancel was one of them, yet somehow she still could not bring herself to wish him dead.

She has every reason to not be compassionate, given her circumstances, and yet she still is.

Furthermore, when doves are chosen as a power animal (spiritual guides), they are supposed to help release you from whatever holds you back. In Sansa’s case, this could apply to her physical state of being a prisoner in King’s Landing, but it could also apply to her mental and emotional state in which her naivety, shallowness, and trust in the wrong people were holding her back from growing as a person.

Little Bird

Sandor refers to Sansa as “Little Bird.” This is a very general phrase, so it’s important to look at the entire quote:

You’re like one of those birds from the Summer Isles, aren’t you? A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite.

Since he’s referring to birds that look pretty and repeat phrases, I chose to look at the meaning of a parrot, because it was the closest option on the site.

Parrots represent voice and the power of words. Sansa frequently uses her words to protect herself and others, including Ser Dontos.

Unhappy, Joffrey shifted in his seat and flicked his fingers at Ser Dontos. "Take him away. I'll have him killed on the morrow, the fool."

"He is," Sansa said. "A fool. You're so clever, to see it. He's better fitted to be a fool than a knight, isn't he? You ought to dress him in motley and make him clown for you. He doesn't deserve the mercy of a quick death."

The king studied her a moment. "Perhaps you're not so stupid as Mother says." He raised his voice. "Did you hear my lady, Dontos? From this day on, you're my new fool. You can sleep with Moon Boy and dress in motley."

“Courtesy is a lady’s armour” and Sansa’s words are the only weapons that she can use, and she spends her time in King’s Landing mastering the skill of saying the right things to the right people in order to accomplish a goal or gain something (like safety).

Parrots also symbolize growth, and at this point in the story, Sansa has started to grow as a person: she realizes that beauty is only skin deep; she appreciates her family more; she learns that she needs to be careful of who she trusts; and she learns how to be a queen (by not following Cersei’s example).

Transition

“Little Dove” and “Little Bird” both represent how fragile and helpless Sansa was in King’s Landing as well, so it’s not surprising that as she leaves and moves forward in her journey, the “birds” that she encounters are stronger and/or more independent & free (not traditionally kept as pets). 

Mockingbird

During her time in the Vale, Sansa pretends to be the bastard daughter of Petyr, whose house symbol is a mockingbird. The mockingbird symbolizes learning from experience – which Sansa certainly has!

They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her fathers head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.

Sansa had to learn some harsh truths the hard way, and she continues to learn from experience through Petyr’s teachings.

Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow.

When you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.

In the game of thrones even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you’ve planned for them. Mark that well, Alayne. It’s a lesson that Cersei Lannister still has yet to learn. 

The mockingbird also symbolizes mimicking others. Part of Sansa’s arc is that she has learned to distinguish what she should mimic from others (how to gain support, how to manage a great house, etc.) and what she should not mimic (Cersei’s insistence on being feared rather than loved).

Interestingly enough, the mockingbird as a power animal symbolizes trying to find or speak the truth. In the Vale, Sansa is forced to hide the truth about many things, including her Aunt Lysa’s death and her false identity as Alayne. Though she plays her part well, internally, she struggles with these lies.

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard’s daughter and Lady Catelyn’s, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though.

The mockingbird is symbolic of her journey to finally saying that truth - revealing her identity - and becoming Sansa Stark once more.

Falcon

The symbol for House Arryn is the falcon. Sansa’s connected to this imagery through Robert/Robin Arryn, but also through Harry Hardyng, who is sometimes referred to as “The Young Falcon.” The falcon represents independence, leadership, victory, sitting in the seat of your power, and courage – all interesting symbols for Sansa’s future! It’s also worth noting that Sansa is symbolically changing from smaller caged birds into a fiercer bird that flies freely. 

It’s my theory that this represents her finding independence from Petyr, having the courage to return to the North, her victory in restoring the Stark family name to her home, her sitting in the “seat” of her power as the Lady of Winterfell, and her leadership in that position as she leads the people of the North into the future.

To summarize, Sansa has had a long journey of growth, and the birds in her narrative help represent that. 

[glass-rose-ramblings]

Death's Servant

“Tick, tock goes the clock. Stay here and you will surely rot,” a sing-song voice drifted out from the darkness as I walked forwards. I had no idea where the voice was coming from. I didn’t even know where I was. I stopped as a hooded figure slowly materialized in the mist, clutching a clock with skeletal white fingers.

"Who are you?" I asked it. ‘What are you’ might have been more appropriate, albeit, less polite.

"I am time with no season. I am rhyme without reason. I am Death's greatest servant. I am also his worst enemy. Because of me, Life is never jealous, but she is also filled with envy." The hooded figure laughed. Well, that definitely answered my question. I tried again.

"Where am I?"

"You are at a crossroads. Here you must choose. But, pick wisely, or you will surely lose." Ugh. Listening to this guy was starting to give me a headache. And the questions were getting me nowhere.

I still risked asking another question.

"What must I choose?"

"Go on, if you must, or stay here and rust. No returning from whence you came. Turning back is not game." More laughter. Yep. Definitely mad. Although, I wasn't sure which one of us was the crazy one.

"How can I go on?" That seemed to be my only option.

"A riddle you must solve! That is the law," ‘Death’s greatest servant’ tells me. Solving riddles. Great. Hadn't I been trying to do that already? Seriously, I hadn’t been given a straight answer once.

"What is the riddle?" I might as well have given it a go. If I didn’t at least try, I would have stayed there forever. Wherever ‘there’ was. Although, I had no idea where I would be if I ‘moved on’, and I had no idea if that was any better.

“First, What has a head, a tail, is brown, but has no legs? Second, If Mr. Smith has three daughters, and each daughter has a brother, how many children does Mr. Smith have? Third, this is a common word pirates use. Finally, what is the most powerful force a person has that no one can see? I’ll give you a hint, it’s all in their head. Now, if you put the answer to these four riddles together, you’ll get a common saying.”

Oh great. I was never very good at riddles. At least the whole thing didn't rhyme this time. Okay, one riddle at a time.

“What has a head, a tail, is brown, but has no legs?” I muttered to myself. What things have a head and tail, but no legs? A mushroom? Heads of mushrooms are a thing, right? And some are brown. But mushrooms don’t have tails. A head of lettuce? No. Anything other than food? I’d come back to that one. I’d forgotten the rest of the riddle.

“Uh, could you repeat the riddle for me?” I asked. It did. Three daughters and each one has a brother. So, that would be six, right? No, that seemed too obvious, too easy. Three daughters. One, two, three. And each has a brother. Four, five, six. No. Three daughters. Each has one brother. One bother. One? Was it really that simple. If there were four children, three girls and one brother, each sister would have one brother: the same brother. They wouldn’t each have a separate brother. Four. Okay. Okay, that wasn’t so hard.

I’d forgotten the next part of the riddle. I asked Death’s servant to repeat it again.

Common word pirates use? That was rather vague. Pirates use a lot of words. ‘Ahoy there, matey, I need ye ter swab the deck.’ … God that sounded ridiculous. Okay, one word at a time. It said a common word, meaning singular, so I could eliminate any phrases. Okay, single words. Ahoy, matey, ye, ter, yer, swab, deck, treasure, prisoner. Uh, what else? Map? Booty? Ship? Let’s just work with that. Common word pirates use. So, I could probably eliminate any words that normal people would use. Prisoner was gone. Ship was gone. Probably treasure and map, too. Still left me with a lot of words. What else? Well, ‘ahoy’ and ‘deck’ are probably used by all seafaring men. Maybe swab as well … right? So I could probably get rid of them. Probably. I could get rid of ‘ye’ as that’s an old timey word and not exclusively for a pirate. So, that left me with matey, yer, and ter. Out of those three, I figured ‘matey’ was the most likely. I’d come back to that one.

Okay, fourth and final riddle. What is the most powerful force a person has? And the hint is that it’s all in their head. All in their head means they’re just imagining it, so it’s not real. Unless, of course, I was supposed to take it in the literal sense? Which would be the brain. Neurochemicals? But I wouldn’t call a brain a ‘powerful force’. Not even enough electricity to power a lightbulb. So, figurative sense it was. Imagining things. What’s a force people imagine? Force? Determination? Love? Hate? Perseverance? No, those aren’t imagined. But I guessed they could be considered ‘inside someone’s head’. But that just didn’t sound right.

“You look like you’re struggling,” it said,’ I’ll give you a hint: you’re doing it now.”

Doing it now? What was I doing? Trying to solve a riddle? Thinking? Thinking. Thoughts. I guess you could consider thoughts a force. You certainly can’t see thoughts. And thoughts are inside your head.

Ok, what do I have? Four and thought. I went to the first riddle.

A head, a tail, is brown, but no legs. Think, think. What are brown things? Mud. Dirty water. Wood. Chocolate. Some animals. I needed to branch out. Those were all basically the same shade of dark brown. Leaves. Cookies. Some eyes. Cardboard boxes. Ugh, none of this worked! Think. Think! What, no hint this time? Think! … A penny! A penny is brown, has a head, a tail, and no legs! I got it!

Ok, ok, penny, four, and thought. And either matey, ter, and yer. A common saying. Looking for a common saying. Penny four matey thought wasn’t a saying. That didn’t even make sense. Neither did penny four ter thought. So, that left me with penny four yer thought. Hey. Penny for your thoughts? That worked. I decided to try it.

“Is it ‘penny for your thoughts’?”

"Very good,” it exclaimed,” You figured it out. Celebrate, but do not shout. Death is nearby, but he will have to wait. For I have locked the key and thrown away the gate!" It laughed again and slowly started to disappear. I continued on my journey. As I walked past where it had stood, I thought I heard the faint tick of a clock.

[irnbraw]

Is this Nippy’s Denouement..?

So Salmond will testify and speak to the written evidence he has submitted to the Committee of Inquiry.  Will his central allegations. - that she lied to Parliament as part of her attempts to cover up her conspiracy to stitch him up -  fatally wound Sturgeon’s premiership?  It should (whether Salmond is right about a conspiracy or not - see below).

Is the story suffienctly clear for the public to get it..?

Part of the problem has been the welter of sources all, seemingly, with only part of the story. And when is has been the subject of any effort to make it into whole cloth it’s often done by a questionably biased player. (AND Lord knows no comprehensive or comprehensible truth can possibly emerge out of the Fabiani Fiasco committee)! However the issue that has now clearly been established is that we have a tainted judicial system in Scotland. Some might baulk as such an assertion, and not long ago one might have hesitated to make such a broad accusation.  But If even a workable percentage of Salmond’s accusations are true - taken together with the unfathomably malicious prosecution of the Rangers’s administrators - Scotland’s prosecution, police, civil service and even judiciary are all tainted. Whole Cloth (SNP-Tartan)

On that ‘whole cloth’ mentioned, this blog has republished two sources of such accounts that both seek to establish a complete picture of the Salmond-stitch-up. Both are separatist sources and so (as the koran might say) are usually worth only 1/3 the consideration of a rational observer. Still, the accounts hold together remarkably well - and appear to be corroborating of each other. So, it simply may in fact be that the utterly venal and untrammeled sharp edge of Sturgeon’s ire is merely much, much worse that we ever assumed. 

The plot goes awry.  So, Sturgeon sought to kill off any resurgent Salmond ambitions by miring him in scandal and tarring him as a sex pest.  Things got out of hand and, through her failures to conspire properly, Salmond ends up being prosecuted (not just Civil Service censured).  But that prosecution failed - as it was bound to as it was based upon ‘false accusations’.  Central to the conspiracy storyline is the allegation that the witnesses who came forward to accuse Salmond at the beginning are all linked to Sturgeon. That fact is well known inside SNatsi circles and it is merely the traditional confidentiality of accusers’ identities that prevents this from being obvious to all. Further, there was an active scouring through the separatist ranks to find women who would be prepared to make an accusation. Pressed into service here were civil servants and the Scottish police. Again if even partially true this is horrific. This blog did not follow the details of the Salmond trial itself but understands, from various accounts, that the Crown’s case was so full of holes that it was, in parts, laughable. For example, circulating in SNatsi quarters, is the assertion that the central accuser, the one upon whose testimony on the charge of attempted rape rested, was not even in the same city as a Salmond at the time alleged. Whatever the ins and outs, as we now all know, the trial was a complete flop as a prosecutorial matter. That says something, nae, it says a lot.

Sturgeon - Conspirator or Defender of Women?

So this still was only about Salmond, right?  But now the questions are swirling round Sturgeon... The credibility issue at the core of Sturgeon’s ‘defense’ that she had no role in the investigation or anything else is key. She has known Salmond for longer (subject to check) than her own husband. Yet news was brought to her - IN HER OWN HOME - that this man - her constant friend, colleague and mentor of decades - might have been groping women for years (including time while she served as his Deputy in government and party) and that numerous of these women are about to seek redress against him. And this, all this, she quite simply forgot …!  Hands up who believes that... So if she was lying about what she knew and when - it can only be to cover up.  To cover what though? Option (1) Salmond’s guilt? (given their mutual open hostility its now clear she was not trying to cover FOR him!) Or Option (2) her role in the fatally flawed process civil service led process to hang him out to dry (via a Code of Conduct - coincidentally written after the initial ‘forgotten’ meeting) that failed to get him but which then rolled into a police inquiry, a civil case that was lost and ultimately a prosecution, that also failed.  Conspiracy not sounding so fanciful now, is it?

Or, to bend over backwards and give her every benefit of the doubt, is she just an innocent abroad, trying to do right by wronged women? Hardly. In fact her cynical use of ’these poor women’ is all the more reprehensible for its deviousness. It is meant to appeal to the uninformed and solicit the concern of any reasonable person who can all-to-readily-believe Salmond might just be a monster. The first problem for her is that in such a central thesis exposes her.  It reveals that she comes from the cave of such monsters. She ‘grew up with’ Salmond, learned politics from him, apes him to this day in her style of government.  If he really was a monster all along - what does that say about the monster’s mentee, devotee and deputy...?

She knew literally NOTHING of this or even of any such allegations..? Thats - in a literal and metaphorical sense, incredible. Especially as we know a) she lies habitually, b) other internal matters of disgrace carried on for years without the public knowing (such as the Derek Mackay drunkenness) and c) on this specific subject - there is evidence of past allegations that went nowhere but were known inside the SNP (the Edinburgh Airport police reports). 

But let us assume for a second she is not tainted by the training he gave her, the lives they ‘shared’ over the years and that she has done nothing but act to see ‘justice’ for wronged female accusers.  Even in those circumstances how, in God’s name, could she come out of this unscathed (even if all her words were to be believed). The idea that she knew nothing but that when she DID learn of multiple allegations she did her job so poorly that these women were betrayed again is fanciful but damning anyway..!

‘It Wiznae Me’

Her excuses to avoid any culpability (on either the conspiracy charge or the implied cover up for Salmond) rely on two items - this entire matter is so arcane as to defy easy communication or sound bite allegation (save for “misleading parliament” and - ‘so what’ say most of the cult). Second, there is no clear single ’smoking gun’ so she can weasel her words, parse phrases and rely on leaving things to be lost in a miasma of red herrings (not to mix too many fish names...). Her strategy? Delay and obfuscate to delay further.  If this can all be played and played until the elections she will have won and we may never know any of the truth. How many Scots will, however, remain convinced that the First Minister is personally capable of orchestrating a major criminal conspiracy, a perversion of the course of justice and getting away? Thereby she is holing the Scottish judicial system below the waterline...  This is among the most corrosive of outcomes.

This damns both the SNatsis AND the current Devolution Dispensation For unionists these matters have multiple implications. Not only should it wound Sturgeon and her allies, it should also undermine their ability to appoint placemen/women throughout the Scottish state. (It may, unfortunately, also elevate Salmond but that factor can be blunted). 

The biggest consequence of this should be that the United Kingdom government is required to step in.  Westminster must appoint the appropriate figures to investigate all potential corruptions that have occurred. (The groundwork for this is already laid as the Scottish Parliament has only this month debated the need for the Rangers’s administrators malicious prosecution to be addressed by a non-Scots judge).  This need for ‘federal intervention’ reinforces the decidedly parochial nature of all of this corruption and undermines the various claims of the SNazis In the most effective way imaginable.  Crown Office, Civil Service processes, the McParliament, its committees and toothless performance, Ministerial Codes, the Police - ALL MUST BE REVIEWED. 

Turns out - as far as the SNP are concerned - they are too stupid. They are too wee and they are making us to poor.

We must now be looking for the strategic advantage that turns all of this SNP train wreck into a mortal wound for the separatist cause and the current home-rule dispensation. “Reform” must be our response. All this now demands that Scotland be reformed - the devolution set-up included..!

The SNatsis may just have busily woven the rope to hang themselves.

[kaialone]

Spirit Tracks Translation Comparison: Final Battle and Ending

This will be a comparison of the original Japanese version and the US English localized version.

Specifically, this will cover the final battle and the ending cutscene of the game.

You can also watch these scenes for yourself in English and Japanese. If you want, you can check out the EU English version, too.

For the comparison, the usual points apply:

Bolded is the original Japanese text, for the reference.

Bolded and italicized is my translation.

Italicized is the official NOA translation.

A (number) indicates that I have a specific comment to make on that part in the translation notes.

As you read this, please keep in mind that with translations like these, it’s important not to focus on the exact literal wordings, since there is no single “correct answer” when it comes to translations.

Rather than that, consider the actual information that is being conveyed, in which way, and why.

--

Characters in this part who had their names changed between versions:

Mallador = Malladus, Dego = Byrne, Sharin = Anjean

--

Start of the Battle:

Zelda:

リンク！ わたしは この身体に 聖なる力を 満たします

Link! I will saturate my body with sacred energy.

Link! I'm going to concentrate on channeling my power.

Zelda:

その間 マラドーから わたしを 守ってください！

Please protect me from Mallador while I do so!

While I do that, please protect me from Malladus!

-

Zelda:

リンク！ 守ってくれて ありがとう！ もう 大丈夫よ！

Link! Thank you for protecting me! I'm ready now!

Thank you for protecting me! I'm ready now, Link!

Zelda:

この聖なる力と 大地の笛の力を合わせて マラドーを！

Let's combine my sacred power with that of the Flute of the Land, and use them on Mallador!

Let's combine my sacred power with the power of the Spirit Flute!

I think we can use them to weaken Malladus!

-

Zelda:

さあ リンク！ はじめます！ わたしの歌声に ついてきください！

Alright, Link! We will begin! Please follow alongside my voice!

This is it. Just follow along with me, Link!

-

After the Duet:

Zelda:

リンクは マラドーを引きつけてください

Link, would you please divert Mallador's attention.

You distract Malladus, Link.

Zelda:

わたしは その隙に この光の弓矢で マラドーの背中の紋章を狙います

I will use that opportunity to shoot the crest on Mallador's back with the Bow of Light!

When I see an opportunity, I'll shoot him in the back with the Bow of Light.

Zelda:

さあ リンク！ これが 最後の戦いです！

Come, Link! This will be the final battle!

This is the last battle, so let's make it count!

-

During the Final Attack:

Zelda:

いま行きますよ！ 持ちこたえてください！

I will be right there! Please, hold on!

I'll be right there. Hold on!

-

Zelda, if you do badly:

リンク！ このままでは 負けてしまいます！

Link! At this rate, we will lose!

We won't make it if we continue like this!

-

Zelda:

リンク！ もう少しです！

Link! Just a bit more!

It's almost over now, Link!

-

Zelda:

もう一押しです！

Just one more push!

Just one last push!

-

After the Battle:

Zelda:

…全て終わったのですね…

...So it is all over now...

So it's all over now.

Zelda:

…でも…

...But...

But...

Anjean:

間に合わなんだか…

I didn’t make it in time, huh...?

We were too late.

Zelda:

…シャリン様…

...Lady Sharin...

Oh, Anjean...

Zelda:

…ごめんなさい わたしを かばってディーゴさんが…

...I am so sorry. Mr. Dego protected me, and then he...

I'm so sorry. Byrne was trying to protect me...

Anjean:

そうか… しかし あの子も 後悔は しておらんじゃろうて

I see... However, I'm sure that child had no regrets, either.  (1)

Yes, but there should be no regrets.

He wouldn't have had it any other way.

Anjean:

それに我らは 神に つかわされし種族…

Besides, we are a godsent race...

Besides, our kind are the servants of the spirits.

Anjean:

そう簡単に消えて なくなりはせんよ

We don't disappear that easily, you know.

We don't disappear that easily.

Zelda:

…シャリン様 それは…？

...Lady Sharin, what is that...?

What do you mean?

Anjean:

ディーゴの魂じゃ… もっとも もう今までの記憶はないが…

いつか…何百年か後に 新たな命として また…

It's Dego's soul... He may not have his previous memories anymore, but...

One day... maybe in hundreds of years, he will be reborn as a new life...  (2)

The spirit is persistent, my dear.

Byrne may not have any memory of these events,

but years from now, he'll return in a new form.

Anjean:

ゼルダ そして リンクよ…

ワシらは神に この地に つかわされた…それは

結界を守るためだけではなく 人の営みを見守るためでもあった

Zelda. And you too, Link...

We were sent to this land by God... The reason for that

was not just to protect the barrier. It was also to watch over the actions of people.  (3)

You see, as Lokomos...

We weren't only meant to protect the Spirit Tracks.

We were also meant to watch over mankind.

Anjean:

しかし もうその必要などない…

However, there is no longer any need for that...

But our protection is no longer needed.

Anjean:

お前たちは神の守りなぞなくとも 立派にやってゆける…

You will do just fine, even without such divine protection...

Even without the spirits' guidance, you will do well.

Anjean:

ワシは この子と共に 天上に帰るとするよ…

I will return to the heavens, together with this child...

So I think I will return to the heavens...

In the company of my old friend Byrne.

Zelda:

シャリン様!

Lady Sharin!

Anjean, wait!

Anjean:

ゼルダよ この地を頼む

Zelda, take care of this land.

Please watch over this land, my dear.

Anjean:

リンク ゼルダを 助けてやっておくれ…

Link, please help her...

And, Link...

You must help her.

Anjean:

さらばじゃ… 二人とも ありがとう

Farewell... Thank you both.

Good-bye... And thank you. Thank you both.

Translation Notes:

In this scene Anjean refers to Byrne with terms like あの子/ano ko, which does literally mean “that child”, like I adapted it. But this is a common phrase you’d typically use to refer to children, among other things, so you often adapt them with simple third-person pronouns. Still, I decided to keep it literal here, to highlight how it’s different from how she referred to him before.

In Japanese, this line doesn’t literally contain a verb that means “reborn”, but it’s strongly implied from the context, so I adapted it the way I did for easier reading.

The word I translated as “people” is 人/hito in Japanese, which in this context does mean something along the lines of “mankind”, like the English version used. The only reason I went for “people” is because technically, not all people in this land are human, so I wasn’t sure if “mankind” could be applied to them.

--

Comparisons & Thoughts:

I thought it only made sense to include the dialogue regarding the duet of Zelda and Link in this part, even if it’s brief.

I also added the dialogue during the final attack on Malladus, although there aren’t any notable changes there. Those lines of text can just be a bit hard to find, since they don’t always appear, depending on how well the player does during the QTE.

Aside from those, the final cutscene of this game is short, and I have already gone over some of my thoughts that are relevant to it, but there are still several points I want to address here.

-

When Zelda tells Link to use the combined power of herself and the flute on Malladus, the English version adds her saying: “I think we can use them to weaken Malladus!“

This was probably done to make it more clear why they are doing this. Though, it technically doesn’t seem to weaken him directly, it just reveals that spot for attacking him.

-

Almost like a reversal of the last point, the English version is less specific than the Japanese one when Zelda talks about shooting Malladus in the back, since it leaves out the part about specifically aiming for the “crest” on it.

In this case, this might have just been to save on some space?

-

When Anjean arrives, I adapted her line as “I didn’t make it in time, huh…?“, while the English version went for “We were too late“ instead.

This is a case where the intended meaning can be a bit unclear without additional context.

In the original Japanese line, no subject is defined, so both “I” and “We” are possible options here.

But given the context, I think the idea of “I didn’t make it in time” makes more sense than “We didn’t make it in time”.

Anjean arrives all by herself, after the battle is already over, so I’m fairly sure her line is supposed to be her talking about how she herself didn’t make it in time to help out during battle.

So, I went with “I didn’t make it in time, huh…?“

By comparison, I’m not sure what the English version’s “We were too late“ would be referring to exactly.

Applying it to herself and Byrne doesn’t really work, since nothing Byrne did would have been more effective if he showed up slightly sooner, and Anjean wasn’t with him to begin with.

And applying it to all the good guys collectively wouldn’t work either, because they ultimately did stop Malladus, even if they lost Byrne in the process.

So, I really don’t know what the English version was trying to say here, and I’m guessing this might be another oddity due to lack of context for the translators?

But I can’t be certain.

-

I brought it up in the translation notes already, but in the Japanese version of the final cutscene, there is a notable difference in how Anjean refers to Byrne, compared to the rest of the game.

She uses あの子/ano ko and この子/kono ko, which you’d generally use when referring to children, so it comes across as more gentle and caring than she had previously been.

During the earlier cutscene in which Anjean tells Zelda and Link about the Bow of Light, she instead used こやつ/koyatsu when referring to Byrne, which can come across as much more dismissive and hostile, likely reflecting her disappointment in him.

In turn, Anjean changing the way she refers to Byrne in this cutscene right here shows how her attitude towards him has changed, too.

It seems evident that her thoughts about him have softened at this point, maybe she’s even forgiven him, and so her softer tone reflects that.

The English version seems to lack a true equivalent to this change in tone, though it’s not something you can adapt literally in the first place.

I’m guessing her calling Byrne ”my old friend” is supposed to get a similar idea across, and it’s a nice touch. It doesn’t have quite the same vibe, but it works well enough as a means to show Anjean's kinder attitude towards Byrne here.

Maybe as an addition to that, I think what could have worked would be to rephrase her line “He wouldn’t have had it any other way” to something more like: “Knowing that boy, he wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

I don’t know how well that would’ve fit with the text limitations, but maybe it would have been possible to find some phrasing that would reflect the Japanese version’s tone even more?

Something that gets across Anjean talking about Byrne like a young child, in a caring way.

-

Next is a rather minor thing, but I find it interesting.

In the Japanese version Anjean points out again how the Lokomo were sent by this land’s god, but the English version instead has her mention how they are “servants of the spirits.”

I think this was most likely a small translation error, since there are verbs relating to serving someone and being sent by someone that can sound pretty much identical, being 使う/tsukau and 遣う/tsukau respectively.

Doesn’t help that both of these have been used when referring to the Lokomo before, too.

I’m fairly certain “sent” is the correct meaning in this line, since the wording used is 神につかわされし/kami ni tsukawasareshi, which I’ve only ever seen used when referring to things or people considered godsent.

In any case, the Lokomo being godsent and being divine servants are both true, so the only real difference between versions here is which of these qualities Anjean points out as being a factor regarding them not disappearing easily.

-

There are multiple things I want to say about the following exchange between Zelda and Anjean, so have another look at it.

Zelda:

…Lady Sharin, what is that…?

What do you mean?

Anjean:

It’s Dego’s soul… He may not have his previous memories anymore, but…

One day… maybe in hundreds of years, he will be reborn as a new life…

The spirit is persistent, my dear.

Byrne may not have any memory of these events,

but years from now, he’ll return in a new form.

Years ago, I assumed that the English version not directly stating something like “this is Byrne’s soul” was a slight bit of censorship.

But now I think there was probably a different reason for it?

The way Zeda’s line was adapted as “What do you mean?” in English makes me believe that this is another result from lack of context.

If the English translators didn’t get to see the actual footage of this cutscene, they wouldn’t know that Anjean was literally showing Byrne’s soul to the children during that moment.

And without knowing that context, their exchange was probably interpreted as something along the lines of:

Z: “What do you mean by that?”

A: “I’m talking about Byrne’s soul.”

At least, that’s a feeling I’m getting? As always, I can’t say for certain.

If this was the case though, I would assume that rephrasing Anjean’s line as “The spirit is persistent” was probably meant to have her be more specific about what they thought she meant.

Moving on to the rest of this dialogue section, the Japanese version has Anjean estimate that Byrne might return in “in hundreds of years” or so, whereas in the English version she only says “years from now”, which is a bit more vague.

I’m guessing this could have been done to lessen the sadness here, since the English version leaves more room for the possibility that Zelda and Link could meet a reborn Byrne during their own lifetimes?

But it could’ve just as easily been to save a little bit of space.

The Japanese version also specifically uses the phrasing of “new life”, while the English version uses “new form”.

Not sure why they would change this, so it could have been something unintentional that just happened to end up like this during the writing process.

Since this is a Zelda game, I find it hard to imagine they would have wanted to avoid an implied mention of reincarnation. But then again, who can say?

Now, looking at the differences with this exchange as a whole, there is one more thing I want to mention.

In the English version, there is this more unambiguous implication that only souls like those of Lokomo are able to persist and be reborn eventually?

In the Japanese version, that is a possible interpretation one could draw from this text, but it’s not clear. Going by the Japanese text alone, one could also assume that when Anjean said that Lokomo don’t disappear easily, she was simply referring to the fact that Byrne’s soul is actually still with them at this moment, rather than being obliterated or lost in some other form.

Again, it’s not entirely clear from her phrasing, but it would be strange for Anjean to suggest that only Lokomo are ever reincarnated, since the huge number of recurring characters in the Zelda franchise implies reincarnation is possible for just about anyone.

This would also line up with the most basic idea of reincarnation that most people in Japan would be familiar with.

-

Overall, it’s a bit unfortunate that the localization of the final cutscene starts out in a slightly clunky manner, seemingly misunderstanding some of the context.

It’s less than ideal to have the final cutscene of your game begin with lines of dialogue that don’t fully make sense when you try to think about them more.

Thankfully, it does come through in the end, with its crucial aspects being adapted quite well, especially the actual ending.

Anjean’s final words to Zelda and Link act as a conclusion to one of the game’s most prominent themes, it begins with the story of how the land was entrusted to the people, and it ends with the people having proven that they are capable of carrying that responsibility.

Naturally, this was an important part to keep in the localization, too. And so, going just by the final cutscene itself, it holds up pretty well in English, because it kept that aspect intact.

But, the scene still ends up suffering a bit from the same continuity problems that have been frequent in these last few parts.

In this case, it’s the fact that the English version started to gloss over the theme of humans outgrowing divine protection towards the end.

Specifically because of little alterations in earlier scenes, like Anjean saying “May the spirits be with you”, and more importantly, Byrne saying “Your body has the sacred power of the spirits!”

I already talked about those moments in their respective parts, but it’s worth mentioning again, because they do kind of hurt the ending of this cutscene right here. Especially since the English version started being more loose like that right towards the end, where it actually becomes relevant. It’s kinda bad timing in that sense.

With the English version, players who have been invested in the story and thus try to pay close attention to the dialogue could potentially be confused by Anjean saying that the people don’t need the spirits’ protection anymore.

After all, as far as they know, the game had just earlier established that the spirits gave Zelda power, and that they’re currently watching and protecting her and Link.

It’s not something that would be a huge deal to most players, of course. But it’s still something that can make people more likely to dismiss Spirit Tracks as inconsistently written, with some careless plot holes.

With all that said, that’s still not a problem with this particular scene itself, it’s a problem with how past details affect it.

And I know I’ve been going over something like this in almost all of the latter parts, but that’s kind of the point.

I said it a few times during the earlier parts - there are many changes in the English localization that appear small and irrelevant on their own, but they do add up when you look at the bigger picture.

So of course these points come up more during the last hours of the game, where their effects get the most noticeable.

Still, in the end I am just glad that the final lines of this game did get adapted well in English, because in the moment, they are still powerful on their own.

I’d say the emotional impact of the ending still manages to come across well enough as is, and that’s something I can appreciate.

With that, this concludes the look at these final scenes, and since they’re the final ones, this concludes the final part as well.

Feel free to check out the previous parts if you haven’t already, and thank you very much for reading!

--

< Previous Part | Start |

--

[todefine-istolimit]

It Don’t Run in Our Blood- Chapter 3

Au: royalty

Rating: Mature

Ships: royality, dukexiety, loceit

Warnings: major character death (but not really), sympathetic dark sides

Summary: Roman is a prince in love with Patton, a commoner. Remus is a knight who has fallen in love with his trusted servant Virgil. Logan is the royal adviser who’s Love was lost at sea (But he’s not really dead.  think princess bride here). Now the trouble is navigating laws, love, and social conventions, all while carrying around shiny swords! ((Title from Royals by Lorde))

If you prefer to read it on ao3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21602698/chapters/51510424

Word count: 1.3k

A/N: welp here we go with chapter three, a little Remus perspective and pining~ (sorry I took forever to post again, this has actually been sitting in my docs for weeks and I just haven’t had time to edit it until today)

Remus stood by the door to the armoury watching for a moment as Virgil polished his armour. Virgil was like muscular, this had escaped Remus until yesterday when he joked about Virgil staring at him naked. Then Remus had realized he wished it was true, he wished Virgil would look at him like that. 

Last night he had been hit with dreams that the situation had been the other way around and Remus had been the one staring.

Remus had a crush and he was dying because Virgil could have literally anyone he could possibly want and there was no way in hell his first choice was gonna be Remus after how much they argued and bicker. Especially since Remus was a prince and Virgil had always expressed disdain for the rich of the kingdom.

He cleared his throat and Virgil whipped around. 

He visably relaxed when he saw it was Remus. Remus shook off the feelings that evoked and spoke, “Virgil, my brother has invited me on a trip to the summer mansion in the woods to ‘hunt’ and hide from the government. So, I will be leaving immediately to go disembowel animals with Logan to cover for my brother spending time with his boyfriend. If you would please saddle my horse then you can have a few days off to yourself to get boyfriend or kill a man your choice." 

Remus hoped Virgil chose the second option, why did he keep bringing up Virgil getting a boyfriend? That was the last thing he wanted. The words just kept falling out of his mouth without meaning for them too. He hated the idea of Virgil being with someone else, but that was stupid because he wasn’t with Virgil. 

He hoped that Virgil didn’t like his brother.

"You’re going out into the forest with just his majesty for back up? Please, as if. I’m coming with you,” Virgil rolled his eyes as if this was a given.

Remus would love for Virgil to come along but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to stop himself from flirting with him if they were out in the woods without as many prying eyes.

“It’s not just with my brother, Logan will be there as well, and Patton.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, “Yeah and Logan is the only one out of the four of you who keeps a level head in a crisis, I’m coming.”

Virgil could have phrased that last part many different ways that might have helped Remus’ mind not snicker a little at it.

Remus shook his head managing to restrain himself from just saying what was in his head for once, "Then I’ll just end up protecting you from being killed by assassins who would take your head for a trophy, so stay. You’ll just be a distraction,” Remus said being entirely truthful because even now Virgil was quite distracting.

“Oh please assassins aren’t even the concern. In those wood the thing to worry about is rock slides and you know it. And anyway, distracting from what? Making awkward conversation with Logan and trying to kill enough animals to make it seem like you guys were actually hunting? I’m the best hunter out of us anyway. ” 

Virgil was right. Logan was the best swordsman out of them, Remus was the best at general combat, but Virgil was the only hunter worth his salt among them. 

Remus was running out of good reasons for Virgil to stay.

Virgil shrugged, “But fine, I have a few days off. I might just so happen to wander into the forest following the same path that you guys did.” He smirked, knowing he won.

Remus sighed and ran a hand through his hair, so he really didn’t have a choice in it anyway,  “Fine just come then! What do I care? Get ready to go.”

Virgil grinned and Remus was almost certain he was going to have a heart attack if Virgil didn’t stop being this way immiediatly. Remus didn’t know what “this way” was, but he knew Virgil needed to stop being it or Remus would die from the strain of not saying anything.

The two of them made their way to the stable and Virgil started pulling out all the horse tack

Then Remus realized something, “Well if your coming you should go pick up Patton, it’s less suspicions for you to just be picking up your friend for a trip into the woods." 

"Good point, here, you get the horses strapped up, ” Virgil ordered and dumped the saddle into Remus’ arms. Remus immediately lost his grip on it and it fell to the ground, but Virgil was already walking away. Remus was almost certain that was on purpose.

Remus knew that if it was anyone else doing that he would have fired them several times over, but this guy… it was like Remus was a puppet and anywhere Virgil tugged he just jerked in that direction. That should be scary, but Virgil had more than earned his trust.

He decided that if Virgil would be with them that weekend then he would tell Virgil how he felt. He hated having secrets and this one had been weighing on him for like almost a whole day now.

~some time later~

They were riding through the woods all five of them and Remus was chattering endlessly.

“-And of course those are just the natural disasters! But what we really should thinking about is the bandits who would just love to kidnap Patton and Virgil and hold them for ransom!”

“Okay I get Patton by why me?” Virgil asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Because they would ransom you I already said that, ” Remus rolled his eyes 

“Well obviously he’s saying he would pay large sums of money for your safety. Which would indicate that he values your continued existence,” Logan said dryly, Remus had made the mistake of telling Logan about his crush.

“Yeah something like that,” Remus looked down at the past below him and his horse, hoping that nobody saw the blush building on his cheeks.

“Mr. Logan your embarrassing them!” Patton whispered.

“'Mr. Logan’?” Logan murmured in confusion.

Virgil cleared his throat, “Well if I had any I, I would pay large sums of it for you too." 

Remus’ breath caught in his throat and he made a sound akin to a rabbit being struck by an arrow.

Roman grown loudly from the leading horse, "I cannot believe that after all this time the best you can offer each other is 'I wouldn’t let you get murdered by kidnappers’. Is that really the highest compliment you can offer each other?”

Virgil laughed, “Oh yeah your majesty let me just start being like you when Patton and constantly dote on how beautiful my prince is. Erm well that is- it- well not my prince of course! That wasn’t what I meant and… uh sorry.”

Remus didn’t mind being Virgil's… wait no focus diffuse the tension!

“Aww Virgil do you think I’m beautiful?” Remus laughed. Virgil was beautiful in the way the ocean was during a storm. Throwing boats against the rocks, shattering them. You were a little afraid of what would happen if you went too close. You might lose yourself. 

And die a horrific painful death but that part didn’t apply here.

“So what was that you were saying about wild animals?” Virgil said changing the subject not at all smoothly.l

“Yes!” He said looking around frantically for something to talk about, “yes there’s wild animals all over these woods. Rabbits, squirrels that the chew your toes off of your feet and rip out your hair!”

“Remus they’re squirrels not exactly monsters,” Virgil laughed

Remus stopped short,  “What did you just call me?”

Virgil stopped too and looked at Remus with wide eyes realizing what he said, “I’m sorry! I meant your highness, sire! I didn’t mean to call you by your name, of course…” He exhaled heavily, “God I’m just going to go ride at the back of the group.”

And Virgil fell back as the rest of them continue riding leaving Logan riding in between himself and Remus.

It was a long ride after that.

tag list: @i-have-n0-idea-what-im-d0ing @melodiread @itismakyo @dabookwormcat @lo-ceit @gayformlessblob @ollyollyoxinfree

[caraidean]

Plotted AU Starter for @jasperlion || Sequel to this

At least they'd gotten her a change of clothes. Admittedly it wasn't the dresses she was used to, but...it wasn't awful, she would concede that. She didn't feel like a piece of meat being put on sale anymore at least. 

But ye gods, would it kill them to trim down on the furs a little? She'd abandoned the shawl part halfway through the first day and just put up with the glares she'd received from those who thought she was being dismissive. She wasn't trying to be insulting, she was damn well overheating. 

"..."

But handing over some new clothes, taking care of the servants sent with her, and giving them actual sleeping quarters - she'd been afraid it would be some cramped room for all of them, but no, to her surprise, individual rooms - wouldn't quite get Clair to cooperate with the Rigelians so far. More than absolutely necessary, anyway. For the time being she was satisfied just living out the house arrest that she was essentially in while waiting for the Prince to return, occasionally having to fight down the urge to try and escape. 

She might make it. Truly, she might. But not if she wanted to take everyone else with her as well. So she ended up staying, and hoping that her brother or the rest of Zofia wouldn't do anything reckless to try and save her. 

When she went down for breakfast that morning she should have been more surprised to see Albein waiting for her at the table than she was. But a week's worth of waiting was enough to make her jaded enough to expect that each day aws just some new kind of torture until he'd had his fun and decided to put her out of her misery. 

Then again, there was another seat left at the table. She gathered teal skirts in her hand, still not used to the sheer bulkiness of it all (or the corset - seriously, and they called Zofian fashion depraved? At least she could breathe when showing off that much skin) as she sat down across from him as elegantly as she could muster. 

"So." She said as casually as she could while she reached for fruit, cold eyes staring into his defiantly. "Is this my last meal before an execution, then? Or has the Emperor oh so graciously decided to allow me to live?"

She made a slight face as she considered the even worse third option. "Just tell me we aren't actually expected to be wed after all. I really would rather be...what was that turn of phrase you used when we met? Ah, yes. Strung up by my innards. Delightful."

[sunmaylight]

Fate x Bleach: What if Ichigo became a SERVANT?

Random idea of having Ichigo from Bleach as different Servants from the Fate-Series.

Don’t know that much of either fandom, just going off of what I researched so far with my own creative twist and indulgences.

WARNING: Long post with loads of information in it. Have fun reading. ;)

((Compute got reset, so somethings might sound strange, PM me and I’ll fix it as soon as I can))

Backstory

When Kurosaki Ichigo dies, he leaves behind a legend of what he has done in his life. That legend was created at first as a joke from his friends and shinigami, but it spiraled out of control after someone decided to publish a bibliography of his life (the Bleach manga). Somehow, a hard-copy has ended up in the world-of-the-living and found it’s way to a magus’ hand. Said magus thought the book was a relic of an ancient hero and decides to use it as a catalyst for the next Holy Grail War.  

Or, the other option is that Ichigo’s deeds to the Soul Society is more well-known than possible that he became a legend in his own rights. Time in the Soul Society is different than the human world. So when Ichigo’s soul goes to Soul Society, it could have gone to the beginning of it, or just a short while after he has died. None the less, he has gained a reputation from the world of the dead, and by extension the world of the living because shinigami loves to gossip or by other means (see bibliography). Thus, a copy of his soul is sent to the Throne of Heroes.

(The third option is either Zelretch or the Soul King did some meddling, or a combo of both fourth is Alya)

Unfortunately (or fortunately), when people learn about what happened to Ichigo, there is nothing that can be done to stop it. Ichigo is a permanent fixture in the Throne of Heroes.

Summoning

There are a few ways to summon Ichigo as a servant/ally to battle. 

1) Using the Substitute-Shinigami Badge as a catalyst. This will work, but the Ichigo that will appear is as random as using a piece of the Round Table as a catalyst. You don’t know at which point of Ichigo’s life will appear as a servant. It can be one who has first gotten the badge to the one who fought during the Winter War. But it will never be a form that is after the Winter War.

2) The bibliography book (Bleach manga). So, this one is more accurate on what form of Ichigo that will be summoned. As the Badge will bring pre-Fullbringer Ichigo, the book will summon post-Fullbringer Ichigo or any form after that.

3) A container of Strawberries with a shield. This is more of a joke because of the double meaning of Ichigo’s name. You can only use both as one catalyst, since using one or the other will either make another random servant appear or nothing will come. The Ichigo that appears will only come as a Saber or a Shielder, both of those will have weaker stats than Ichigo normally would just because out of spite of your summoning.

4) The other one is using a Hollow mask shard, a piece of a Zanpakuto, or a Quincy weapon. As Ichigo is the perfect combination of the three races at birth, using all of them will be perfectly fine as a means of summoning him. Using all three for one catalyst will bring out Ichigo as a Ruler, but using only one of the three above will appear as Berserker, Alter Ego, Saber, or Archer.

5) The last one is having a tuft of fox fur, or anything relating to the God Inari, with the Substitue-Shinigami Badge or the bibliography book. With the rising popularity of the Kitsune!Ichigo (joke) when he was alive, there was a brief period in time where Ichigo was treated as a God with similar or less standing as God Inari. Thus, Caster is born as Ichigo with Kitsune traits mixed in with his own.

Classes

As hinted before in ‘Summoning’, there are multiple forms in which Ichigo can be summoned as. The ones that can be summoned in the Grail War are going to be mentioned first, then the ones that would appear in Grand Order. In every Grail War, only one Ichigo can be summoned if he is dead. IF Ichigo is alive during a Grail War, then he is transformed as a pesudo-servant.

Whatever ‘Ichigo’ is summoned, they will have the trait of ‘Strawberry Protector’. Also, any master that summons him is under his influence, there is no going back from this besides ultimate betrayal. When you are in this influence he considers you as ‘someone to protect’, thus he goes all out in battle just for you to be safe. Otherwise, if he has no one but himself, he only fights at 75%.

Grail War

1) Saber (pre-Fullbringer): Saber is like the ‘Lily’ of the other form of Saber. This Saber is more head-strong and rushes into battle without a plan more ofter than not. As long as he can ‘protect’ his master, he will fight anyone in his path unless if they explicitly say they want to be an ally with his master. Think of how Ichigo is during all of the fights and battles leading up to the final fight against Aizen before Ichigo loses his shinigami powers and that is the personality and strength of him. His stats are a combination of his human ones and his Shinigami’s because of how hard it is to balance out his powers.

Strength: B+                  Magical Energy: C-

Endurance:B-                Luck: C

Agility: B                        Noble Phantasm: B

Skills: 

Riding-C                        Magical Resistance-D+

Madness Enhancement-D-

Intuition-C+                    Shunpo-A+

Bankai-A+

Noble Phantasm (Quick): Getsuga Tenshou - Saber’s signature move that is black and crimson outlined crescent moon arc of reiatsu that is released from his blade.

“Bankai! Zangetsu!

To defend means that to cut down my enemies.

Getsuga Tenshou!”

1.5) Saber (post-Fullbringer): The true form of Saber; the one who has grown through countless of battles into the war-hardened person today. This Saber has gone through countless of battles against Aizen, his army, and then some that makes him into the person he is now. Because of his unique birth, this person has gotten to experience all three parts of his heritage as well as the unique ones that are developed through special circumstances.  However, he has yet to unlock his true powers that is hinted in the Quincy War (True!Bankai).

-If Humans, Shinigami, and Hollows are the primary colors, and Quincies, Vizords, and Fullbringers are the secondary colors. Then Saber is the rainbow, the one who can and has experienced all in one body.

Strength: A                     Magical Energy: C

Endurance: A-                  Luck: C+

Agility: A                           Noble Phantasm: A+++

Skills:

Riding-C+ .                      Magical Resistance: C+

Unity in One-A+

Tactics-B-                         Pioneer of the Spirits-EX                 

The Power To Protect-EX

Noble Phantasm (Buster): Getsuga Juujishou -Getsuga Tenshou that is released through two blades. A Noble Phantasm that lets Saber briefly jumps to his form during the Quincy War to unleash his true Shikai’s ability.

“Let it be known that I will not back down if my friends are in danger. 

Zangetsu! 

To call upon the ‘me’ of the future to lend me strength!

Gestsuga...Juujishou!!!”

2) Berserker: ((Forgot the Description earlier)) If Ichigo has gotten consumed by his Hollow after receiving his Shinigami powers. Another possibility if Ichigo dies in Hueco Mundo while the rescue for Orihime went wrong (terribly so). During his fight with Ulquiorra Cifer, Ichigo was fatally wounded in his full Hollow form which gave the perfect opportunity for his inner Hollow to devour most of him. Orihime was able to heal him, but the damage to the soul was irreversible, leaving him more Hollow than Human. Being stuck in Vasto Lorde permanently allows Berserker great power, but less control of his own sanity at times. Though he stays true to his namesake to prevent him from becoming an insane beast. Berserker is able to comprehend speech, but he is only able to perform a similar speech pattern as to another Berserker of short words and phrases to convey what he means. However, most of the time will find him saying the word ‘protect’. When he does, it is advised to calm him down or find something for him to decimate; or he will go on a mad frenzy that is nearly impossible to stop until it’s over.

Strength: A+                        Magical Energy: C

Endurance: B+                    Luck: C+

Agility: A-                             Noble Phantasm: B+

Skills:

Madness Enhancement-EX

Hollow’s Hunger-B-              Mana Burst (Flame)-A-

Madness of the Spirits-B      

Noble Phantasm (Buster): Cero - Berserker charges at his opponent with devastating speed and power that is reserved to his class in a mad combo before firing a massive Cero that obliterates everything in its path.

“I will...

I will PROTECT you!

RAAAAAGHHH!”

3) Archer: A possible life that Ichigo could have been if he was raised as a Quincy instead of being thrusted into the world of Shinigami. Archer is more ruthless than his Saber counter-parts because of Quincy ideology, but the weaker class (even with class advantage). Not much is known about Archer’s backstory because of the lack of known Quincies are outclassed by Hollows and Shinigami. So instead, Archer is modeled after a well-known Quincy(Ishida Uryuu) in the bibliography book and combined with Ichigo’s personality and open-mind.

Strength: B++                          Magical Energy: B-

Endurance: C++                      Luck: C-

Agility: B+                                Noble Phantasm: A-

Skills:

Independent Action-B+           Magical Resistance-C+                

Quincy’s Legacy-B+                Mana Burst (Splash)-A-

 Mind’s Eye (True)-B                        

Noble Phantasm (Arts): Kirchenlied: Sankt Zwinger - “A powerful Quincy spell that creates an area of Reishi shaped with countless Quincy crosses protruding from the ground (From the Bleach Wiki)”. Archer manipulates this further by fortifying it with his high levels of reiatsu. He then turns the crosses into ‘arrows’ that fire beams of light to his opponents. Almost impossible to dodge unless if you have extremely high speed or endurance on you (rank A or above).

“Come Light of the Lord. Help me against those that mean harm to me and those in my protection.

Kirchenlied:... 

Sankt...

ZWINGER!”

Grand Order

1) Classes mentioned above

2) Alter-Ego (Bleach Brave Soul Ichigo 2nd Anniversary Character): This is only possible when Ichigo is merged with his full Hollowfication to create a being that is similar to Ruler, with the will to protect those close to him, but different because he follows his own rules. Even if his friends fight him, as long as he can protect them in the end, that is all that counts.

Strength: EX                               Magical Energy: C++

Endurance: A                              Luck: C+

Agility: A++                                  Noble Phantasm: A++

Skills:

Magical Resistance-B+                Independent Action-B-

Unity in One-A

Hollow’s Hunger: EX                    Protection from the End of the Worlds-A

The Power To Protect-EX

Noble Phantasm (Arts): The Power to Protect All - Unlike the skill ‘The Power to Protect’, this is Alter-Ego’s special move that became an evolved move of that skill. He unleashes a Getsuga Tenshou from above ground to everyone in the surrounding area.This is the move he used against a certain enemy (Aizen) to severely weaken him and bring victory to the war at the cost.

“Come see, all of my power. 

By it shall be unleashed

Getsuga Tenshou!”

2.5) Alter-Ego (Hollow Ichigo/Shiro): No one knows how Alter-Ego gained his own body since he is originally a part of Ichigo. He represents all of the darkness in Ichigo in the form of an Arrancar looking Hollow, yet different. If Ichigo sacrifices all to protect others, Alter-Ego will do everything in his power to protect only Ichigo (or the master who summoned him) for he is the ‘horse’ to his ‘king’ and won’t let anyone else control him.

Strength: A++                             Magical Energy: B-

Endurance: A+                            Luck: C

Agility: A+ .                                  Noble Phantasm: A++

Skills:

Magical Resistance-B+                Independent Action-EX

Hollow’s Hunger: EX                    Protection from the End of the Worlds-A+

The Power To Protect-EX (Skill is like that because Alter-Ego only protects Ichigo and whoever their current Master is)

Noble Phantasm (Quick): The Power to Protect One - With this power, Alter-Ego unleashes a Grand Cero as well as some well aimed strikes with his sword

“With this power. I shall beat you to a plup. 

Getsuga Tenshou.

How do you think of me now?”

3) Caster (Ichigo summoned with Inari): A ‘what if Ichigo became a special attacker instead of a physical fighter’. No, this is Inari who is able to be summoned in special Grail Wars like this one. Instead it is a combination of the two. This is Ichigo, who has been blessed to become a Kitsune after his fight with Aizen in the Winter War (or even before that) by Inari. Inari became intrigued with this person and decides to follow this hybrid around with useful tips. After the final battle, Inari saw how depressed Ichigo became and turned him into his Kitsune disciple/underling in hope of cheering him up. Instead it backfires with Ichigo becoming a possible vessel of Inari if the god ever wishes, which the god doesn’t. Even death won’t separate Inari from this new kit, luckily with Ichigo becoming a Heroic Spirit, that will not be a problem. ((Kitsugeddon was fun to read))

Strength: B                                   Magical Energy: A-

Endurance: B+                             Luck: A-

Agility: B+                                     Noble Phantasm: A

(Note: The left side of stats are from Ichigo, Magical stats are from Inari, NP and Luck are a combo between the two)

Skills:

Divinity-A                                      Magical Resistance- A

Territory Creation- B                    

Shape shift-C                                 Kitsune’s Fire-B

God’s Protection-A+

Noble Phantasm (Arts): Bountiful Strike for Good Harvest - Ichigo and Inari do a tag team attack with Ichigo leading with his sword, then Inari shots Fox Fire and Ichigo supports.. Then Inari gives a blessing for a successful battle that raises moral and vitality of allies.

“Come Kit, let’s start. You first.

Huh? Don’t I have a say in this?

Nope, you are my disciple. So you should know that everything taught to you has a reason.

Ugh, you are a difficult as Geta-Boshi at times. Fine. Let’s do this then.

Glad you agree with me.

Bountiful Strike for Good Harvest!

You happy now?

Of course, Kit.”

4) Ruler (Ichigo summoned in his Mugetsu Form): Ichigo that had died a strange death that let him keep most of his memories and has been trained as a Royal Guard and a Zero Division member. It is unknown when Ruler died in comparison to the bibliography because even he doesn’t really remember when he died. After his death, Ruler has been taken to the Soul King’s Palace then appointed as a Royal Guard immediately after. Through the accelerated pace in his learning, Ruler learned about his own being and heritage early on. This in turn allowed him to accept everything about him early on and permanently change him to Mugetsu. When the Soul King found out, he then appoints Ruler as a special member in his court that allows Ruler to judge the realms where souls live with unclouded eyes. Ruler’s own death happened as he killed the Quincy King before he could kill the Soul King by using himself as the shield and sword to kill the major threat.

-(Trivia #1): Let it be noted that Ruler’s mannerisms is different to the older Shinigami compared to the rest, if ever encountered that is. It’s almost like he dislikes the older shinigami for not acting in a more dignified matter to protect spirits.

-(Trivia #2) The man is tired of the fighting for the balance, he has seen all of what life could bring and there are a few things that can make him show emotion. Ruler continues to fight for those close to him like all other ‘Ichigo’s. As a Ruler, he doesn’t have a wish for the Grail. But if he was given a chance, he would probably wish for peace in the soul realm so that he won’t fight anymore and his precious people are safe.

Strength: A++                               Magical Energy: C+

Endurance: EX                              Luck: C+

Agility: EX                                      Noble Phantasm: EX

Skills:

Unity in One: EX                            Magical Resistance-B-

Revelation-A .                                The Power To Protect-EX

Soul King’s Blessing-EX

Noble Phantasm (Buster): Final Getsuga Tenshou - The last Getsuga Tenshou that can be learned. A move used to defeat a mad man (Aizen) from a different reality. This move is known as the Trump card and Last Resort. If trained improperly, then the user will experience a serious backlash with possible death. Ruler knows how to properly use this and will only get exhausted for a while after using this.

“My being will be used to protect, to maintain the balance. To safeguard my friends.

FINAL...

GETSUGA...

TEN-SHOU!”

5) Foreigner: Not much is known about Foreigner from the bibliography or the Throne of Heroes at the moment. The reason for this is because Foreigner’s true powers have yet to be discovered as some parts of the bibliography is being recovered after an ‘unfortunate accident’. All that is known at the moment is that this Ichigo is said to match wannabe gods and transcendences with unparalleled power. This is the person that could beat Ywatch if his Quincy powers weren’t taken away in the beginning of that battle.

Unique Skills

Shunpo: After learning the secret Shinigami speed technique from the proclaimed ‘Flash Goddess’ Yourichi, Ichigo can do fast burst of speed that will raise his Agility up a rank. The only fall back to this is that it uses a part of his mana and his master’s mana to do, so he tries to save this for battles or in times of need.

Bankai: The ability to transform into a greater form. All Shinigami posses a Bankai form after learning of their own Zanpakuto. Ichigo’s own Bankai ability lets him have enhanced strength and endurance during the fight as well as letting him release his Noble Phantasm to its a greater potential. This works similar to Independent Action and Imperial Privilege, but the down side is that his Master will be stun for a while after Ichigo activates Bankai because of the strain. Leaving them vulnerable to enemy attacks if they aren’t protected.

    -The strain can be eliminated if the Master has strong magical energy, or if Ichigo is summoned as the Other Saber form, Ruler or Alter-Ego.

Unity in One: An ability that symbolize people who come from mixed races and have a perfect balance of abilities and knowledge from all they are affiliated with. As rare as the birth of a new star in a universe, those that are fortunate enough to have this skill will have momentous advantage when they need and create new abilities that are unique to those that are like their own mix-race species. A drawback to this is that it takes x1.25 as much mana to use one of the unique abilities because of the unknown output of how much an ability like that would be from a native race like that. (Though this drawback can be temporarily disabled if the person has the means to do so.)

     -For Ichigo, this means that his Shinigami, Hollow, and Quincy powers are in perfect harmony with each other. Instead of destroying him, they further enhance his own body and spirit to be a super human. Enhancing his stats in battle farther, giving him the chance to make a new move by combining skills from two or all three of the races that are part of him. (i.e: A cero that is weaved together with a high level kido that will not take from Ichigo’s or his master’s magical reserves, but from the surrounding magic in the area.)

The Power to Protect: Ichigo’s unique skill that works like Bankai, but removes the drawbacks Bankai would normally have. Also gives the user the ability to survive a fatal blow.

Pioneer of the Spirits: A skill that is similar to ‘Pioneer of Stars’, but for spirits. These are spirits that have changed Soul Society into progression for better or worse. The main candidates that would apply to this besides Ichigo would be the Soul King, Aizen, Kisuke, among others “that became a turning point in human (spirits) history”.

Hollow’s Hunger: Hollows are beings of instinct who lives in the lands of ‘Survival of the Fittest’. Ichigo’s own Hollow is a reflection of himself, all of his unacknowledged traits that he hates. To not be forgotten, the Hollow continuously challenges Ichigo to strengthen him so that he can triumph over death before defeating his enemies. This gives Berserker the ability to heal some damage taken to him and to survive a fatal-blow by coming back at the enemy with more vigor

    - Because he is still alive and does not know how his instincts works, it is lower than other Hollow’s of his status, but isn’t lower than a Vasto Lorde. 

Quincy’s Legacy: As one of the last members of the race known as Quinces, any and all knowledge of their culture has been passed down from generation to generation. This knowledge gives Quincies a tactical mind that is unparalleled to any human today. The Quincy that has learned of their culture turns it into a weapon to assist them in combat, making them a wise strategist that grows with experience in battle.  

Protection from the End of the Worlds: A skill that represents that this person has the most chance of survival from the World’s End because they are given protection from it. Inoue Orihime blessed Ichigo with this skill upon her death once upon a time. She put her very being into this as a means to ‘reject’ the very idea that Ichigo should die in the time where the war raged on for too long. Because Inoue Orihime put her very self into casting this last move, Ichigo can access his Noble Phantasm faster and is considered invincible for a short amount of time. ((This skill by any way, shape, or form is suppose to represent any ships. It is just a what if world’s skill that Orihime can do for anyone of her friends))

Kitsune’s Fire: Inari’s special skill. This allows one to make illusions around themselves and create a mythical fire that can burn at will. (Side effects may include a skulk/earth of foxes, the ability to understand foxes, a sudden group of followers devoted to worship you, or a never ending flame that can’t go out unless if caster allows it)

God’s Protection: A skill that works like Imperial Privilege and Independent Action. This skill allows Ichigo to wander off on his own and not get damaged as easily, increases his vitality, and prevents him from most ailments against him. This skill is mainly created because of Inari’s jealousy of Archer (Orion and Artemis)’s unique combo. A jealous fox is a cunning fox after all. (-Honestly, why isn’t this just Independent Action instead?-)

Soul King’s Blessing: An enchantment that the Soul King places on a select few in his royal court. Those that are blessed notice that they stronger, more resistant to ailments, and their own weapon(s) and moves have a coating of reiatsu that is a mix of their own and presumably the Soul King’s. This blessing can be activated willingly.

Well that is that, might do more head canons in the future because I love how the Fate Grand/Order community is full of shenanigans when you aren’t saving the world.

[maxwellparice]

And let's face it.

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[jessiewre]

Day 30

Mon 3rd Feb

I went to the restaurant in the morning while Phil tried to snooze a bit more and after a few coffees, the guy from the hotel came over to tell me that the manager of Soft Power had arrived to meet me. Took me a little by surprise but its amazing how much effort the people make here to reach out to us. Like at the football coaching the day before, they are so friendly and welcoming to us. Agre, the manager of SP, told me about the charity and that 20 years previously, it had been set up by one English girl called Hannah who had been travelling in Uganda and felt that she needed to do something about all the poverty and children in need everywhere (honestly, they are everywhere). She started off trying to make small changes, then cut a long story short, it became an organisation on a small scale to help bring education and other services to the communities - and now its grown into something much bigger.

They have pre-schools, funding & suppport for disabled children who are shunned by society and often their own families, education for adults, they build schools, decorate existing ones, renovate them - I’ll share a link to their website but the list goes on. Reminds me of that phrase, something like ‘If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sharing a bed with a mosquito’. One person can positively change 1000’s of lives.

I can’t imagine Hannah thought she’’d end up creating such a large successful organisation that has helped so many.

Agre said we would be welcome to visit the next day to volunteer in their pre-school and so we arranged for us to meet there the next morning.

We then had a bit of a lazy day, as we’d planned.

Lunch was at the Black Lantern (vege curry for me & Moroccan wrap for Phil). I went a bit crazy on the chilli sauce and the rice got a bit lively, but was nice. Sat by the pool for a bit and watched monkeys grooming each other bein’ dead cute. After delaying it for aaaaaages (we stayed in Jinja for 6 nights instead of 3...) we finally decided to bite the bullet and move onto Nairobi the next day, despite our apprehension about going there (we heard it’s nickname was ‘Nairobbery’).

Phil decided he’d go for a run and like a good lad, he’d combine it with going to get our coach tickets from Jinja. Well this was an absolute RESULT for me cos I could not be arsed to do it so shout out to Phil for cracking on with that one and being my loyal servant once again.

We settled our bill but turned out that we didn’t have enough for the final night - so they said we could move to a dorm for half the price. It was nice of them to offer this considering it was already 5pm - but considering they weren’t going to be able to sell our private tent and moving us would mean extra sheets for them - I personally think they should have just give us the private tent at the dorm price - but WHATEVER, we ended up with a private room anyway as was just the two of us in the dorm. So jokes on them really.

Obviously Jimi joined Phil on his run as they are true Jinja running pals now, and they went via Jimi’s house to get something so Phil met Jimi’s pigs & ones called Jessica apparently! Couldn’t work out if that was a wind up or not...I sat in the restaurant overlooking the Nile, listening to a proper annoying English guy talk about himself super loudly, saying he’s been to over 100 countries and Wales and Scotland don’t even count in his list blah blah blaaaaaaaaaahhh.

We went BACK to the NRE place next foor for dinner AGAIN (ya know, masala fries place) and it was burger night (CALM DOWN JIMI) so Jimi got a Kula Shaker burger but put WAY too much chilli sauce on. He was struggling big time and trying to wipe his tongue with napkins to get the chilli off which was jokes. I had a healthy Greek salad...with normal chips (eww they had run out of masala fries ffs) and Phil had a VEGE BURGER MMMM ORIGINAL.

Going on a run seems to make Phil believe that he must drink 20 beers afterwards, so the Nile Specials were flowing. On the walk back at 11pm, we got chatting to a shopkeeper of a little shack. He was friendly and chatty, and he told us about the cultural differences, like with food and drink, you don’t ask if someone would like any - You just give it to them, so they don’t have to admit that they want it. It now made sense when we offered to buy people a drink they would be weird about it!

We chatted to him for over an hour in the end and he did seem like a nice guy, but its tricky when someone has ingrained sexist views and doesn’t seem to realise the problem.

I’m cutting a long story short - but he said that men are the King of the family and they should be because they provide and produce everything. I mentioned that they do not produce the children and he said yes but women are ‘a box’ (Yes he said women are a BOX. At this point I began to laugh as I was about to BOX him in the face, but then I realised I was only a box and had no arms). So yeah, apparently women’s job is to push out the child but the husband is always the head of the house.

Yawn.

He was saying that men have to provide everything that the woman and children need and that the kitchen is the woman’s place. I understand the theory of this and sometimes this is literally just a fact, sometimes men go to work and earn the money, and then women do all the cooking. But he was saying it like it was a fact of life, there was no other option, and this was how it had to be. So I asked him about all the women I see everywhere in Uganda who are now working, and therefore are providing money for the family ie. doing mens work, does this mean the men are also doing ‘women’s work’ to balance it out, like cooking and housework. But he basically said No.

Ok cool, sounds fair mate.

I told him about women earning more than their partners in the UK sometimes (cough cough #iamlegend) and that if the couple has respect for each other and they share, then it is no problem. To his credit, he didn’t disagree with this and said that Respect was the most important thing in a relationship.

He also said though, that if a woman in Uganda gets too much money and opportunity and experiences, then she’ll leave her man for a richer one cos her eyes will wander.

Why do some men still think that women’s lives are just there to fit around them and their egos? If someone doesn’t want their partner to do well in their career cos it makes them feel bad about themselves, then they have serious issues that they need to deal with. Women around the world seem to be having to do a bit of everything to get by - create LIFE (that whole casual giving birth thing), feeding their babies with their own bodies, deal with all the household chores, AND earn money.

And what is with the pressure that the world is putting on men all the time?? In Uganda and SO many other places, men are under ridiculous amounts pressure - from society and therefore themselves too - to provide all the money, pay a huge dowry to get married, be super strong in every way etc etc.

Yeah, so the world has a long way to go before we are anywhere near equality...and like the guy said, it all starts with respect eh...

(I must add that I am not the best example of a the suffering women I’m speaking about, and neither is Phil one of these men expecting that his box’s life has to fit around his. But I’m speaking about the women and men who are not as privileged as us)

Moving on - I quietly mentioned to Phil that I wanted to head back soon - the street was getting very quiet, and plus we needed to be on time for volunteering the next morning - but Phil was too deep into his beer journey and wouldn’t take the hint. So I said quite loudly that I was going to head back. So naturally he said ‘Ok one more beer for the road!’

By the way, the ‘road’ was approximately a 1 minute walk.

I knew he wouldn’t finish the beer (10 years in you learn these things) and I also knew that our monies were low, but trying to suggest maybe he did not need that beer did not go down very well (maybe something else I should have learnt in the last decade).

When back at the dorm, I took this nearly full beer and hid it outside for jokes, then told Phil to hurry up to go brush our teeth. He took aaaages as was obviously looking for his beer (god I’m funny), but when he came out, he found it on the side and pretended he knew it was there. I asked him why he’d taken so long, and he was like ‘Uh well I was looking for you actually’. LOL.

We quietly got ready for bed as there were dorms either side of our room with an open ceiling, but we shouldn’t have bothered as an hour later people appeared in the other rooms and were chatting SO loud that they woke us up. OMG I realised one of them was the annoying English guy from earlier and the other was a loud American. Who by the way had also been to over 100 countries wow how about nobody cares love.

Phil tried sshh-ing them but it didn’t work so eventually Phil shouted SHUUTT UPP!

And they totally did. Maybe drunk Phil does have his uses.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Y2K, Head lice, Britney Spears, Alcoholic’s Anonymous and other things that happened to me..

It was around this time that I got head-lice for the first time. Which was a pain in neck, as I am sure anyone who has been unfortunate enough to be blessed with the little fellows can tell you. I begged my father not to make me have to cut my hair off and it was a tough sell. I had to keep washing my hair with this weird shampoo. And I guess we got rid of it for a year, but then it came back. And I ended up giving it to Sarah. I think eventually they left. I've been checked several times, and there is no itching at all. If they for some crazy reason stuck around, all of them would be long dead for the amount of times I bleached my hair when I was fifteen. I had so much bleach going onto my head, it's a wonder I am alive to tell about it.

It was a huge relief to have Sarah-Mae as a friend. I felt enclosed and safe from complete ostracization. I finally had a place in the female social order now and cursed Catherine was out of my hair – burned in my stead, but with that sureness was the unspoken understanding that I was to be the welcome mat and the whipping boy. It would be a far cry to call me a peer. The benefit that I gave to the group was to make the other girls feel better about themselves. Whenever anyone felt like it at the lunch table, they could explain to me how and why I was ugly or annoying. I was not to think of myself as an equal by any means to Samantha or Sarah-Mae. Privately, Sarah-Mae's really cherished my friendship. We talked a lot and were very close. She really liked me. But in public, when we weren't drawing or watching reruns of Full House, she felt compelled to shame me in public, make sure I knew that I was ugly and stupid and make sure the popular girls knew that too.  And Samantha absolutely saw no use for me in the girl group whatsoever. She openly said she could not stand me when people asked her why she kept me around. So long were the days when we were sweet little kindergarten girls sharing cookies and pretending to be penguins. I was a pain in her backside.

I withstood many years of this. It wasn't good for my self esteem to be the at the bottom of the stack. It hurt my self esteem in ways that took years to get over. I spent countless nights hating everything about me and wishing I were dead feeling ugly and worthless, and having a puffy face from secretly crying in the bathroom stalls. But I eventually learned the power that can be held by being at the bottom. And mark my words, there is a power in being the servant, the slave, the black sheep, the loser, the mousy forgettable beta. You see a side to your superiors that they themselves don't have the angle to really grasp as the egotistically assume they are impervious. You secretly get stronger than them, but you don't let them know that at first. And if you are strong and lucky, and fight past the despair, you learn who you really are, and you learn to be your own best friend, and if you are cunning when you do strike back strategically, it brings down the entire established order. And this all comes from learning how to be humble and seemingly docile.

That of course had not dawned on me at eleven or twelve though. It would take many more years of repeated ridicule at school, neglect and abuse from my parents before they finally broke me and I learned how to manipulate and command my situation. You have to hit that place where nothing could be any worse. And if it doesn't destroy or break you, it bends you and you become a weapon. Not that I have never been a victim. It still happens. I am still learning. I have been taken advantage of, a lot – and I have let it happen more than once, though I try to learn from my situations and I try to reflect on my experiences with a degree of reflection and acceptance and even appreciation. There have been many situations where I had no good options too, where my position gave me no benefits. I think there is a strength and weakness at every level one finds oneself in, but there are times when you are in a pit surrounded by bows and arrows, and there is no flying out of these situations. Also, I do realize that there are people in this world that are far more cut throat than me. There are lengths to getting one's way in the world that I either am too weak and comfortable to resort to, or too idealistic and humanitarian minded to really venture into. Some tunnels are too dark even for the likes of me.

My father found me crying one day, and surprisingly he did not respond with frustration or fury. I don't understand why, but he seemed shocked and horrified that I was so upset. When he asked me what was wrong, I told him that there was no point to being alive. Why this shocked him I have no idea, since he brought me to tears often enough to not be surprised by how I wore my misery. So he took me to the doctor. This doctor was a real creep. He assessed that I had depression – which he was right about. But he did so because he said I was too fat for my age, which he told me, and I didn't do anything nice with my hair. He asked what my grades were. And then he prescribed pills to me. I could just tell that he was a conceded prick. My dad then told me that he didn't think I was depressed and we never refilled the prescription.

Maria had her baby. She named her Jasmine. Jasmine had these light blue little eyes, and this golden hair. Going to my mother's place became extremely pleasant to me because I loved being around Jasmine all the time. In my mind, for all the times Maria had put me through hell, I considered Jasmine partially my own baby. I spent all my spare time playing with Jasmine. We grew very close. I shared all my food. I became her favorite person over the course of two years. She was a weird baby. Her first word was not mama, or baba. Her first word was MINE, and she seemed to enjoy watching movies more than she really liked people, though she was very attached to her mother and to me. She would sometimes stare at the wall for an hour straight at seemingly nothing. Word here and there was that she had mild autism perhaps, but nobody ever really took her to the doctors. Since Maria was working at KFC, she wanted Jasmine to be awake when she got off at 2:00am. I became Jasmine's babysitter, and it was my job to keep her awake till then. Because of this, Jasmine's internal clock is set for her to stay up very late at night to this day.

Roxanne was pregnant with her second baby, who ended up being her oldest son Alex. She had Alex, Issac, and Hailey with her first serious boyfriend Jody the boring lazy dunce. Throughout the next five years, she was either pregnant or on drugs. By the time she was eighteen, she had four kids.

My father got a DUI. He had been drinking excessively – I am guessing probably because of the stress of splitting his 4O1K money in half with my mom as part of the settlement of divorce. And it just upset him that he was getting a divorce. She took the 40,000 all at once and spent every dime on stupid stuff. God, I wish I had that money now. I have watched so many people waste tens of thousands of dollars on nothing. If I had that money, I would go to the doctors, I would go back to school. I would make decisions that would permanently improve my life and the lives of those around me. I would spend the money in a way that would hopefully ripple into the future and make the lives of people in the future better.

He managed to avoid losing his license. If he had lost his license, he would have lost his job. And in that case, he was afraid to the point of death that it would force me, Allison and David to live with my mother full time. Which would not have been good for our well being – but I think a part of his fear of that was also him having to concede to my mother in some way. He talked the judge into letting him keep his license, but he still had to pay the fine, and we had to start going to AA after school every other day. He would pack us all into the car and we would drive the forty miles into Lewiston where we would stay in a nursery like daycare area for three hours while my father went into his meetings. Because my dad yaks and yaks, I ended up learning everything about AA. I learned all the steps, and he told me about everyone's  lives that they opened up about as they went around the meeting.

I have nothing against AA. Normally, a lot of people who go simply go back to drinking once their probation is up or they have fulfilled their requirements, but if it helps one person permanently quit drinking, if it gives one little child a better life because their parents have cleaned up their act, than I really do support it. With that said, while I think some of the elements of AA are actually really healthy and reflective things people should do, the whole concept of a 'higher power' has never worked for me in the least. I don't see the rhyme or reason in embracing powerlessness and giving yourself up to that higher power. The whole program is very seeped in Christian rhetoric and I am not fully buying it. There are phrases that I actually agree with, and I can see the principle and reason for the steps that need to be taken, but I can read between the lines of AA's twelve steps to know it's kind of a self-deception game that hopefully sticks. I will never criticize it though to people who it is working for. If believing in that stuff really is making their lives better, I absolutely in no way want to tear them apart for it. If I ever had a drinking problem, I most likely would not be able to incorporate those steps into my life. And actually, there are other methods that people use to overcome addiction, that I feel don't get taken into consideration often enough.

The daycare system brought me into a group of other kids, some of them being my age. Some of them a little younger. All of our parents got busted. I don't remember all of them, only there were about ten of us, and a little baby. And somehow I became the leader of these kids over the course of the next year. Whenever I become the leader of a group of people, it has to be some kind of fluke. I am no leader. But when I am put in a leadership position, I always end up feeling this creeping feeling entering my ego immediately. It comes so intrinsically with power that there is nothing I can do to balance myself out that won't also make my followers dissipate with uncertainty. Suddenly everyone thinks I am funny and right after years of literally no recognition at all. I try to control it, but I instantly become corrupted by power. I have to find ways to balance myself out. I have gotten a little better, but I still don't entirely trust myself.

There was this boy named Michael who I almost had a crush on. I didn't, but I almost did. It was like a precrush. He had a little brother named Sky. I don't remember much about them other than their father robbed someone's house eventually and got arrested. Then they weren't there anymore. Which was a bummer. Michael and I were the group leaders.

We had two alternating babysitters, Veronica and Jennifer. They were both seniors in high school. Back in these days, high school senior girls were these elusive unicorn like beings full of wisdom, they always smelled good and had figured out what to do with their hair (though year book pictures time and time again demonstrate that this is indeed not the case). They were always catty in a mysterious way. A strange mixture of kind hearted and pretentious. It was hard to imagine that me, or any other girl my age would ever grow up to be one of these mystical creatures.

At first we all liked Veronica. She was far more chipper and made a better first impression. She was really into cheerleading. She liked to tell me all about her boyfriends. She openly talked in detail about her dumb teenager sex life. She was VERY confident her and Brad, Tyler, or whoever her quarterback boyfriend was were going to get married and move to Malibu. She always chewed gum. She told me that if I ever wanted a boyfriend, all I had to do was flip my hair a lot in class. She was really into Christina Aguilera. She didn't care what we did very much. She sometimes would spend her time on the phone if she could get away with it.

Then there was Jennifer. She was kind of boyish. She had short  blonde hair and glasses. The side of her face had a scar that she got from falling into a fire when she was a child. And she took her job a little more seriously. She didn't have a boyfriend. She mostly was concerned with getting into college. She let us know that she was not that popular in school. She didn't let me do whatever I wanted either. And she seemed to be more controlling over what we said and did. I didn't like her much at first. But over time, I grew to like her a lot more. She started talking to me and much like Veronica she gave me her own life advice. She told me about how she had been raped by a neighbor when she was a little girl, and she really wanted us to respect ourselves and not date dumb teenage boys who would take advantage of us. She was a very real person, and I grew to like her a lot better than Veronica.

Eventually Veronica tried to get me to talk shit about Jennifer. She started talking about how Jennifer was super ugly and no boys dated her. She made fun of the scar on the side of her face. I refused to participate, and decided then and there to become an informant to Jennifer. I assume things must have happened between them in the hallways of the giant people school because Jennifer said she was going to confront Veronica, who Jennifer informed me was not a nice person. There was a lot of tension after that, and Veronica started skipping her sessions. Eventually kids fell away, and after a year of this, I think they reduced the amount of times per week my father was required to go to these sessions. I missed Jennifer, who I am hoping went on and had a good life. Michael's father ended up going to jail, and so him and Sky left. I was happy to not have to eat those cold make-your-own-pizza lunchables, which, though the idea is intriguing, is actually awful in every sense of the word.

My fathers wanted to get in shape to kind of reestablish himself after the divorce, so he joined a gym. I used to go into the kids room, which was nothing more than a small closet-like room with a terribly small television always playing Dragon Ball Z (which ironically, I had no appreciation for till I was in my twenties). The whole room was covered in toys, and it was very difficult to get through the mess. In just about every gym, there is always a man who is screaming his head off like he is dying, trying to squeeze one more lift out of himself. I always found this extremely alarming. I would sit in there and watch over Allison and David to make sure they were not fighting. Which they seemed to do more and more of as they got older.

There was also a lady-friend that my father had made. To this day I could not decipher if they were dating or not. Asking him now, I am sure my father would have no clear answer either and honestly, I don't know if he actually knows. Her name was Denise. She was a waitress at Shari's. She was kind of a tough lady. She had raised 5 boys, one of them being the son of one of her cousins. They were all very wild, and she raised them all by herself. She was always pretty nice to me, and we would go over to see her at least once a week. Though I never saw my father and her kiss at all. I could not decipher the established relationship. They didn't sleep together or kiss, but if either one of them began to see someone else then they probably would have been angry.

Jimmy was the oldest – he eventually went crazy and became homeless, then Marques who was very popular among girls, he was one of those people who looks like they are wearing mascara and eyeliner but are not, Anthony who had a lot of friends who came and ate everything in the cupboard and generally no one in the family liked him but I never knew why, and finally Clayton, who was a truly monstrous little boy with missing teeth. It was very difficult to be around Clayton. He took things out of your hands, screamed, broke things. He was a little tyrant. I had to be in the same room with him a lot. It's also worthy of note that Denise had two iguanas that she was obsessed with. She called them her lovers. Her regard for them made them like her children, though it is questionable if they regarded her quite as favorably. My dad and Denise were in a relationship-not-relationship for almost two years. My father would often times complain to me about people, and as history repeated itself, I eventually complained openly about Clayton in front of Denise, basically repeating what my father had said and how he ruined one 4th of July at the beach in the car, with Denise in it. And it really upset her. She could not talk the rest of the way home. I was completely block-headed and had no idea I had said anything remotely offensive. She was furious, and my dad tried to say something to her, but she shushed him up. And this kind of ended their whatever-it-was. We visited a few more times, but eventually she told my father to buzz off.

The other friend my dad made that didn't make any real sense was a woman named Judy Burns. She was a married office lady at the factory my father worked at. She was extremely wealthy and lived in a part of town I had never known existed. She was a woman still dealing with a seriously traumatic event that happened just a few short years previous to my father and her's decision to hang out. Her twelve year old son had died of an asthma attack and she had not realized he was dying while he was in another room. So she came in and found her son dead and she carried enormous guilt with her. And this horrible situation had made her entire life fall apart even though it did not seem like it. She was extremely chipper and friendly. But she began eating to cope with the death of her son. She became obsessed with candy. I had never in my entire life seen so much candy. She had in her kitchen, hundreds of bags of candy. When she laughed, she had this twinkle in her eyes of pure sadness.

My dad went to Judy I think talking about the divorce. He could not stop talking about the divorce if someone had a gun to his head. She probably enjoyed the attention she got from my dad. After her son had died, her husband had completely disattached from her. He would walk around the outside part of the house completely drunk and not answer anything she said. He seemed kind of crazy with grief as well. He never smiled or laughed or looked anyone in the eyes at all. She responded to her sons death by almost pretending nothing was wrong, and he did the very opposite.

He must have told her that I had no mother figure in my life. And she saw this as an opportunity to perhaps do something good for a kid who was close to the age her deceased son. So my father came into my bedroom one day and told me that I was going with this lady on a shopping expedition to get fashionable school clothes and such. My dad has always apologetic and forewarning about people's weight. He warned me cautiously that she was 'VERY HEAVY'. I have absolutely no idea why he does this. Was she going to sit on me? Why would he even mention this to me at all? He ended up giving me a bigger stigma by reacting and assuming so much about overweight women. And he never apologized for men's weight. Only women's.

Judy took me to a bunch of super rich girl stores. She got me the classic late nineties dragonfly necklace. She decided that I needed to be up to date with 'cool' new music, so she bought me a bunch of Back Street Boys albums,  NSYNC, and Britney Spear's album that had Hit Me Baby One More Time on it. It was a bit confusing getting all this stuff. I didn't know how to feel about it. I wasn't into that kind of music at all. She also bought me a bunch of preteen magazines. I knew that all the girls in my class thought these guys were hot, but to me their hair was absurd, and I couldn't get into their silly soulless faces. I remember other than the dragonfly necklace, I didn't really like this stuff all that much. But my dad was insistent I be grateful. I really liked patchy homemade hippie clothes that my mother was capable of sewing but wouldn't. I wanted to dress like a more tomboy hip Raggedy Anne.

She also got me a bunch of beanie babies. Word was, that they were going to stop making these things once the year 2000 rolled around. So she bought me a whole bunch of beanie babies, since that was what 'the kids' were into these days, and presumably these stuffed animals would be worth so much some day that my grandchildren would have their tuition paid for. I thought these stuffies were boring, but I accepted them as graciously as I possibly could. Word was also, that Y2K was going to wipe out everyone's computers and as my friends at school informed me, all electronic devices would end. I could not wait for New Years to arrive to see if it actually happened.

I spent two weekends with Judy before either she made my father feel weird, or I once again messed things up by saying something questionable or judgmental, it's never been made clear to me why the visits stopped. The second weekend, she took me camping. She had this camper that had a running toilet, air conditioning, a heater, and a television, nothing about it was dirty or gritty in the least. The camper had bedrooms. We camped at a really crowded campground. This was so foreign to me I simply could not understand it. This was not the kind of camping I was used to at all. We didn't even need a fire. We stayed on night out in the woods, but her husband got drunk and began doing something strange outside at night, I am not sure what. I just heard her crying and them fighting outside. So in the morning she said we would hang out at her place.

Her home was opulent. I had no idea what two people could do with a ten bedroom home. They had these two yappy dogs and one of them tried his very best to impregnate my leg. It was somewhat awkward. I felt strange, like I was using her somehow. There was a very strange pressure about the whole situation. If her husband was mad about her doing this for me or her involvement with my father, I didn't hear any direct fighting from it. They offered me too many options of everything. It was difficult to know how to respond to all of this. If I took too much of something I felt I would be rude, and if I refused it then I would also be rude. Judy seemed to stare at me expectantly, waiting for me to do something, i didn’t know what. Judy wanted me to go swimming in the new bathing suit she bought me, so I went into her pool and chubby little me was swimming around. She insisted that I ask her husband to set up the water slide. I didn't want to go on the water slide, but she made me feel bad if I didn't. So eventually, I decided the right thing to do was to ask him to set it up for me.

He seemed annoyed and resentful towards this. Like I was some kind of rich impudent girl asking a slave for something absurd. The whole thing was awkward. He would not speak to me when I asked other questions and he seemed to slam things about getting this water slide – that I didn't even want to use, set up. On looking back, I imagine that perhaps it was hard to set up the pool. It was likely something they had put together for their son. There was probably memories associated with the water slide that were incredibly painful. In any case, nothing could have made it worse. Once he had the thing set up, I realized that if I were to go on it, then when I hit the water I would be submerged. I was fearful of getting water in my nose. So, after setting it up for the last half hour, he sat and watched me expectantly. I swam around and waited for him to go. Eventually he gruffly asked me ARE YOU GOING TO USE THE SLIDE OR WHAT?!. And I told him no. I didn't think I would. He was so pissed off. I quickly got out of the pool and went inside, with that dumb dog chasing after my leg.

So it was officially the day of Y2K. I was at my mother's. I remember sitting up that night, determined to stay up all night long to watch the end of the modern world crumble into chaos. I watched an interview on television with George W. Bush. I was informed that he was the next president of the United States. I didn't understand what they were saying. He seemed rather boring to me. Allison was four and a half by that time and she very much aware that everyone was going to be staying up. She wanted to stay up as well. My mother said no, but Allison was relentless. I watched my mother give Allison half an adults sleeping pill in a piece of food. She also put a little bit of NyQuil in Allison's kidcup. As she did so, she said 'Watch this'. Allison walked around for another five or ten minutes, but she started to falter and look super drowsy. She then passed out on the floor from exhaustion.

I was very into black tea at the time. I made a lot of tea that night. As it has turned out the world did not end at all. However, I ended up having the flu that night and I throwing up several times. The beginning of a good new millennium.

In case you want to read the first parts of my personal tale here are the links to the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth parts.

Also, i usually post these things twice. There seems to be people who like what i write for some reason randomly - sometimes not, but not everyone is on tumblr at the same time.

PART 5

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160817595789/my-life-story-continued

PART 4

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160729982054/being-10-in-1999

PART 3

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160399693214/about-me-the-third-part-i-did-it-after-all

PART 2

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160333575899/life-story-part-2

PART 1

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160186590059/about-me-life-story-part-1

[afterourhearts]

is this too good to be true

Ever since the epic breakup of my sophomore year, where my fairy tale dream-ladened romantic little heart was crushed to pieces by the reality of a parting I thought would never happen, I’ve sort of been in this love limbo. I’ve jumped from guy to guy, carefully guarding my heart, making sure to analyze the crap out of them before committing to anything, making sure I was the one who cared less and would therefore hurt less if things went awry, making sure attachment did not occur, making sure I was going to find a husband but never become idiotically obsessed again - this was a time intensive and exhaustive process, and one that made me absolutely miserable. I worried constantly about the different options I had for suitors and I worried constantly about the state of my shaken heart and whether it even held any capacity for love again. Anytime I saw potential in someone or they saw potential in me, eventually it would fizzle out because I’d weigh the pros and cons obsessively in my head and then back out because I wasn’t “feeling” it even when the pros outweighed the cons tremendously. I began to become terrified that I would never “feel” again.  I didn’t crave the infatuation that dictated my previous relationship...I think that I craved a real, true, love that would resemble Christ’s love for us and would make me feel peace, happiness, encouragement, and inspiration. But I’d never felt that before (in a guy) and started to worry that this craving would never be satisfied and that this sort of feeling was too good to be true. I resented this craving and wished so desperately that I could put my idealistic dreams to rest once and for all and just learn to love someone and be happy with whatever I could get. I’d talk to my mom about potential suitors and as she caught a glimpse of the anxieties in my heart, I could sense her own worries layered on top of mine and it became so heavy. She told me that I was too picky and needed to get real. I believed her almost enough to settle with the older med student guy who I knew would make a decent living and had a kind heart but whom I felt absolutely no spark with. Mom was happy with him for obvious reasons. I could learn to be happy too, right?

My last semester in Richmond began, and I was pulled away from that potential “settling” by distance. Funny enough, in my mind, I was planning on talking to this guy throughout this semester and decided that if I ended up in Ohio for med school and he also in Ohio for residency, then I would go ahead and date/marry him. It scares the crap out of me to even type this confession out but oh my goodness, friends, I WAS ABOUT TO DO JUST THAT. I’d reached a point in my life where I was utterly convinced that the “love” I craved was the stuff of some Christian fairytale and that I needed to get back down to earth and get real and face reality and be a real adult and that real adults settled for the most financially secure and intellectually responsible decisions (and husbands). A relationship where two people loved God and each other? One where connection was not just emotional and physical but spiritual as well? LOL. Who was I kidding to think I could find that or that I deserved that? Which is why I had decided to settle. Because maybe love can grow out of settling too, and maybe God was trying to teach me a lesson about love that required me to settle. It made me so sad to think this was God’s plan for me in my life, especially because God knows more than anyone how all I’ve ever wanted were kids to adore and a husband I love with passion and genuine laughter in the home. BUT if God wanted me to learn what sacrificial and servant-like love is through settling with someone then I guess I had to just accept that. I didn’t want to, but I thought I had to. 

And then, suddenly, out of no freaking anywhere, a love that was the opposite of settling found me. And I really mean it in the truest sense of the phrase when I say “love found me” because I had stopped looking. I had resigned to a life of settling because I thought that was God’s ultimate life lesson for me. I had accepted a dreary fate. But ... suddenly, unexpectedly, and almost unbelievably ... love found me. 

Let me tell you guys about this guy and how we met. His initials are D.O.R. Last semester, he joined the same small group I was in. We were too shy to exchange any words at small group, but saw each other at a party thrown by a mutual friend named Kevin. At that party we finally started talking to each other and became facebook friends later that night. DOR messaged me on fb the next day and we started chatting and hit it off really well. Unfortunately, winter break occurred and my mind became super distracted. DOR and I’s messages had grown longer and longer and reached a point where I knew we had to DTR soon. We planned a hangout, after which DOR wanted to know if it was a “date”, and distracted/scared little me idiotically decided not to reply to his message because I was scared about the DTR talk. I was scared that it would become real and then messy and then mess up my relationship with him at church, a place where I still was adjusting to and didn’t have that many friends yet. So I ignored that message like the horrible person I was, waited until winter break ended, and then started messaging him again once this semester began, except this time I only sent short/casual messages instead of the super long ones we used to send. DOR, bless his dear soul, has the patience of Jesus himself haha, and still responded to me despite being obviously hurt by how I ignored his question. Except things had changed. DOR was more reserved in communication, probably taking a cue from my own style of communication towards him. To add to that mess, DOR thought I was dating Kevin (the mutual friend whose party brought me and DOR together in the first place) and being the respectable man he is, decided it was not okay to get too close to me if I was truly dating another brother in our church and kept his distance in our subsequent conversations. We sort of mutually decided to just be “friends” even without having that “what are we” talk. In my mind I was going to graduate so why the heck would I start something new and in his mind I was a taken girl so why would he try to mess anything up. We kept talking, albeit friendly and never crossing any boundaries, but feelings continued to grow despite the fact we were trying to push romantic feelings away in order to salvage our friendship. As weeks passed, I began to realize that I could not push away my feelings forever. As I realized the truth of my own feelings, I inevitably started wondering where he stood. Was I as special to him as he had become to me? Did he care about me in the same way that I was starting to care about him? (keep in mind that I didn’t know about his feelings at this point) I started to overanalyze all his words and actions towards me. Because he was trying to push me away from a romantic standpoint (since he thought I was dating Kevin), he said and did certain things that led me to believe I was developing a one-sided feeling. Not knowing the struggles in his own mind about what I meant to him, I assumed the worst, and decided it was time to put the brakes on us real fast before I got way too attached. In what was the most awful week of this semester, I told him I could no longer talk to him outside of church because of personal problems and my own well-being. I think I spewed some crap about how “I need to be around people who really care about me since there are only a few weeks of college left” in the hopes that he would jump in with, “Amy! I am one of those people! Can’t you see? Stay around me!” but instead he jumped in with something about respecting my desires and sent me off with a song dedication (he dedicated One Direction’s What Makes You Beautiful haha). I listened to that song, touched and distraught, but with determination to keep my word and not speak to him again. However, St. Patrick’s Day rolled around after a week of not communicating and he suddenly sent me a message, which made my day because I missed him yet made me sad because I wasn’t supposed to reply. Confused, I asked him why we were talking again when we had said our mutual goodbyes and reiterated my need for our distance. That is when he finally decided we needed to clarify our relationship in person. I agreed. And, on that in person meeting during burger week, as we munched on our $3 burgers and a free Bavarian pretzel, the truth finally came out. He admitted to having liked me but then attempting not to because of a mistaken assumption that I was dating Kevin, and I admitted to having liked him but scared of realizing my own feelings because of my impending departure from Richmond compounded with my fear of commitment and my resignation towards “love is settling with that med student back in Columbus.” We spent like 7 hours in that restaurant but it was the most necessary discussion we’d ever had. As the truth tumbled out of both of our hearts and mouths, what I remember most from that night was him grabbing my hand at the end and telling me how much he liked me and wanted us to pray about the future of us, and all I could think about was “omg he is TOUCHING me” and “omg we’ve mutually confessed what do we now” and “omg...Dear GOD what is happening?” And then, one week later, on March 25, we decided to go for it. 

I thought this was crazy, and maybe I still think it’s crazy, but DOR is different from ALL the guys I’ve ever met. DOR is kind, not just to the ones he likes but to strangers, and not just to societal saints but also to so called sinners. DOR is humble and compassionate, will talk to anyone, is friends with the homeless guys near his apartment complex, buys meals for anyone who asks, and gives all he can even when he does not have enough for himself. DOR is crazy about God, with a faith that can move mountains and a voice never afraid to declare God’s work to anyone who might listen. DOR is playful, always sending funny cat videos to brighten his friends’ days and ready to go on adventures in RVA. DOR is steadfast, committed to his Christ-shaped morals even when close friends have joined gangs and become drug dealers and tempted him to stray off the path he was on, because he knows that at the end of the day he answers to God alone. DOR is forgiving, loving people even when they have hurt him deeply and never holding on to hatred for even the most hateful of people. DOR is encouraging, sending me straight to God’s words when I discuss stresses and calling for us to pray more and praise more. The crazy thing is, I could go on and on about DOR, but even cutting the list off here is enough to see the pattern. DOR is the love I once dreamed about but no longer believed existed. God placed DOR in my life in my truly darkest (emotional) hour, when all hope had been lost and resignation prepared. 

It has been three weeks since we started officially dating, and I have never been happier. DOR has shown me love in a way that I have never, ever experienced. Whereas my old relationship and the only model I have for comparison featured more intense feelings and highs, it also produced a lot of ugly desires and habits, pulled me farther from God, and made me a more selfish and hateful person overall who indulged excessively in that relationship and neglected all my others including family, ultimately contributing to the breakdown of my own morals and identity (yeah, it was as bad as it sounds hence the horrible aftermath). With DOR though, I feel myself loving others more as we learn how to better love each other and God. I feel us loving together and dreaming together and as DOR loves to say, “complementing each other’s weaknesses.” I feel us trying to better each other in a godly way through loving encouragement. I see him love me through a servant attitude and, in response, am encouraged to love him through a servant heart as well. On Easter, we held hands tightly as we watched cute babies be baptized at our church and I actually saw in him a man of God I would be proud to spend the rest of my life with. And that’s freaking crazy. Just a few months ago I was ready to sell my soul to settling and now, here I am, over the moon happy with someone who lights a fire in a heart that was all but extinguished. Is this too good to be true? Is there such thing as too good to be true? 

DOR is...man, idk, but, the closest thing to the real freaking deal. It scares me to say this because the last time I believed this I made such a huge mistake. But this time is different and I just KNOW it. Because I don’t have that feeling of guilt attached to this relationship like I did with that one. I don’t have that feeling of “this feels good but I know it’s bad”. I feel like “this feels good and I know it’s good.”, you know? And this time, I feel like we are walking in the light rather than creeping in the shadows. We don’t need to hide our relationship from anyone because that guilt is not there because the wrong is not there. DOR excitedly introduces me as his gf to every friend he has, and if we were in Columbus I would do the very same. This time, instead of feeling ashamed for my achievements, DOR makes me feel appreciated about the areas I’ve done well in. My ex would tear me down in order to make himself feel superior to me, but DOR builds me up because he wants me to feel loved by him and by God. This time, we also have our eyes on the future instead of solely basking in the present like immature lovebirds. Instead of putting off schoolwork and life responsibilities to gaze ridiculously in each other’s eyes all day, we are instead motivated to study harder so we can prepare for the kind of future we want to spend together (don’t get me wrong though, we still spend a significant amount of time gazing into each others eyes lololol but both recognize this is a honeymoon phase and that we cannot afford to jeopardize our other responsibilities in the midst of this phase.) Most importantly, this time, God is at the forefront and we encourage each other to prioritize Him, recognizing that God has brought us together for what we hope is a greater purpose and we are both super excited to see what that might be. It’s just incredible, because it’s not just about us or about two people staring at each other, but it’s about two people staring in the same direction and looking towards something greater than ourselves. All I’m left to wonder now is...God, is this too good to be true? Because I didn’t settle and I’m in love and I’m genuinely happy and I’m loved more than I deserve and you answered my biggest prayer and I don’t know how to process it yet. But I’m thankful beyond what mere words would be able to express. And God? I know you know it more than anyone. Thank you for the blessing that is David - the blessing that found me when I had just about given up and saved me from a fate I would have never truly accepted. 

[christianmenatwork]

Make it Happen and Make a Mess-Selah 25-CMAW095

S=Something on my Heart

Start by commenting on comments 2 weeks ago about Q and Nesare Gesara.  Will say a few comments about Q Anon tonight and will say something about Nesara Gesara at a later date). I don't want to spend much time on either topic because I feel they are outside of the purpose of this podcast and you don't tune in to hear about these topics, but since I brought it up, let me finish my thought.  For those of you not familar with Q....There's a movement that's very excited about Q and I feel that this movement is misguided and should avoided by Christians.  Based on what I've learned about it, I believe that Satan is using Q to pretend to be the light overcoming darkness when in actually Q may make spiritual comments but it's more rooted in New Age philosophy than Christianity and I think it's from the Devil.  This conclusion I've come to further strengthens my ongoing journey toward focusing more on God and His Word and less on politics.  The problems of this world will not be solved by either political party.  Q is not our savior.  Trump is not our savior.  Only Jesus Christ is our Savior and there's a big risk by focusing too much on politics that we make idols out of our government and our government leaders.  Am I saying don't be aware of what's going on in the world? No.  I'm saying don't be obsessed as I have in the past and don't put your trust in men, trust in Jesus.  - Make It Happen and Make a Mess-I’ve tried to control circumstances , not by physical might or financial influence which is what I often think of when I think of as control, but by my words both verbally and written through emails. True personally and professionally. It hit me in a conversation with my wife where I was clearly trying to avoid responsibility for something that happened in my past that had significant negative long lasting consequences and she helped me see through the lies the devil had been feeding me so I could see how I had gone off half-cocked many times in the past at key times and situations and tried to change people’s minds toward what I thought was right and toward an action or way of thinking I thought others should have and the results were all bad, not just bad but in a long lasting way, seemingly unrestorable way.  As I thought through this later and prayed about it, I realized I had make this mistake in so many critical areas of my life and the results were all bad.  Relationships, sex, finances, trying to find someone to mentor, doing ministry, trying to change the minds of friends and family members around spiritual and political ideas, aspects of how I've gone about this podcast, even going back to how I went about choosing my college degree and career.  I've heard the phrase that we should pray like it's all up to God, and work and act like it's all up to us.  I don't like that saying.  I think that it weakens the power of prayer and the trust we have in God and tends to make prayer a check the box activity but what we're really putting our trust in is ourselves.  There's another old saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" which sometimes is followed by "The road to heaven is paved with good works".  The second part of that is not accurate beacuse we are saved by grace and not by works, but I don't like the first part of that phrase either.  It implies that we should act on doing something worthwhile and not just intend to do it.  I think there's some truth in that, we shouldn't put off actions that God wants us to do, we shouldn't procastinate and by lazy.  But I'm thinking of that phrase in a different light.  The road to Hell, or you might say the road to death and misery, can be paved with wrong actions that had what we thought were good intentions.  Pastor Adam Cook at my church had a great sermon today about the Power of Saying No. Here are a few bullet points from his sermon.  Behind every wise "No" there is a much better "Yes". I bet your biggest regret is from a time when you said "yes" when you should've said "no". As your heart becomes devoted to God and His Truth, you will begin to know what to say "yes" to and what to say "no" to. If you want to have a life full of Godly reward instead of regret, you must develop a heart of integrity that only comes by knowing and living in God's truth. Three areas where you must repeatedly say "No" are 1. Sexual Misconduct 2. Relational overload 3. Causes outside your calling.  Now this last section about the 3 areas gets a little off track from the point I'm trying to make in this Selah episode, though I'm making a note to dig into these 3 topics in more depth in future Selah episodes because they are issues all men deal with.  What I DO want to draw from Pastor Adam's message is this idea that our focus should be on devoting ourselves to God and His truth, to read the Bible and pray regularly, and by doing so, over time, we will develop a heart of integrity that will allow us to know what to say "yes" to and what to say "no" to.  Back to what I started talking. 

Prov 3:5-6 NKJV sayd "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall [b]direct your paths."

Most of us are familiar with those verses.  Lately I've been trying to read the context around famous verses like this one, and I like verse that immediately follows this, it says "7 Do not be wise in your own eyes;

Fear the Lord and depart from evil."

Proverbs 17:28 NKJV "Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; When he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive."

  Next time you catch yourself saying or thinking “Something’s got to be done about this “-red flag, press the pause button, and pray.  Think about these questions often used by journalists when telling a story, sometimes referred to as the 5 W's and an H: who, what, when, where, and why and how.  I think all of these are relavant except maybe "where". : 1. What is it you think needs to be changed?  Does it really need to be changed? If so, Why? Also, what is the consequence you think will come from the action you're considering taking?  What unintended consequence might come instead?  Who should do that thing? Don’t assume it’s you.  How should it be done?  With an impersonal email to a group of people or should it be a 1:1 conversation in person or by phone?  And finally "when"?  Is this really urgent, or might it be better to wait, to allow you time to pray and hear from God and perhaps later think differently and perhaps be less emotionally driven. 

Think about people you know personally that you truly respect, did they do some amazing or shocking thing in a moment of time or did they live out a virtuous, humble, modest, loving life consistently

A couple final thoughts on this. First, if you've already messed up, repent.  Say you're sorry to the person or person you affected if appropriate, and say sorry to God, and mean it.  You may have heard that repent has more to do with going another direction than it does with saying you're sorry.  As my Pastor said this morning, you'll have plenty of opportunities to be tempted in the future, opportunities to get it right, so focus on those not on the past.

My final thought is that there are some inherently impersonal communication tools that are commonly used that have unique hazards associated with them, most notably email, texting, and use of social media.  Starting with this episode, in the H or Handy Tips section I'm going to begin sharing lessons I've learned about properly using email in the workplace that I think you'll really find helpful

E = Example of faith at work

He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens; he brought him from tending ewes to be shepherd over his people Jacob— over Israel, his inheritance. He shepherded them with a pure heart and guided them with his skillful hands.-Psalm 78:70-72-CSB

L=Logos- Work verse

Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil? When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field? His God instructs him and teaches him the right way. Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin; caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cumin with a stick. Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever. The wheels of a threshing cart may be rolled over it, but one does not use horses to grind grain. All this also comes from the Lord Almighty, whose plan is wonderful, whose wisdom is magnificent. - Isaiah 28:23-29 - NIV -I came across this long passage this morning which I believe is saying that God does not leave us guessing as to how to go about our daily tasks and we should seek his will in everything and not do things by our own power and understanding 

A= announcements

thinking about retreat next year at our ranch, Spring - sleep under the stars, still have comforts, email with interests Promo for Metal Talk “"The Classic Christian Rock podcast by WildMan & Steve encompasses all a Christian Music fan would want in a podcast. They interview Christian Rock artists twice a month- those from the past and the musicians who are rocking for Christ today. On the same podcast is a weekly radio show called Metal Talk where you will here great talk about politics, current events and faith- all while listening to great Metal music. Subscribe to their podcast today where ever you get your podcasts, find out more at WildManandsteve.com"”

H = Handy tip to help to live out Gods assignment for your work

First in a series about using email wisely. Today's tip is to use the "do not reply" option when accepting an email invite.  If you use Microsoft Outlook at your work, which most of us do, did you know that when you receive an email invite to a meeting, and in the email it seemingly gives you just 3 options 1. Accept 2. Reject 3. Tentative.  There are actually more options.  If you select the drop down arrow on the right side of the "Accept" button (I believe true for the other 2 buttons as well), you can choose the "do not reply" option, which means that the person who sent you an invite will have it noted in their calendar meeting that you accepted the meeting, and if they select the tracking option for that meetint they'll see that you accepted, but they will NOT receive an email stating that you accepted the meeting.  Just like most of us complain about paying too many taxes, most of us would also agree we get too many emails.  This is one small way you reduce the number of unecessary emails in someone else's inbox. 

Check out this episode!

[kartiavelino]

Meet the woman that a closeted Freddie Mercury fell in love with

Freddie Mercury was one in all the greatest musicians in the world in the 1970s and ’80s, however one individual may nonetheless boss him round: Mary Austin, his one-time fiancée. “He would chuck a tube of toothpaste that was half-used into the waste bin and he or she would go into the bin and get it again and roll the toothpaste again up . . . and [say], ‘You end the tube. You’ll be able to’t be wasteful like this, Freddie,’ ” recalled author Lesley-Ann Jones, who toured with the band in the 1980s and wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody: the Definitive Biography.” “He would say: ‘However I’m the richest man in the world!’ And [Austin] would say, ‘I don’t care. You don’t throw away cash.’ She was fairly bossy. He wouldn’t take that from anybody else.” Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, was well-known for hits like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “One other One Bites the Mud” and “Loopy Little Factor Referred to as Love.” However many followers by no means knew he had a long-term girlfriend, not to mention one he known as his spouse. Particularly given that the singer, who died of issues associated to HIV in 1991, was posthumously revealed to have had a bevy of male lovers. When the trailer for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a film about Mercury’s life that hits theaters Nov. 2 Friday, began circulating, critics attacked the movie for ��straight-washing” Mercury by prominently that includes his relationship with Austin. Bryan Fuller, the creator of TV reveals together with “Hannibal” and “American Gods,” tweeted: “Anybody else mildly irritated . . . that the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ trailer options homosexual/bi famous person Freddie Mercury flirting with and twirling with a woman however no indication of his love of males?” Austin was extra than simply a fling or a beard for Mercury, nonetheless. “All my lovers requested me why they couldn’t change Mary, however it’s merely unimaginable,” Mercury mentioned in a 1985 interview. “The one buddy I’ve obtained is Mary, and I don’t need anyone else. To me, she was my common-law spouse. To me, it was a marriage. We consider in one another, that’s sufficient for me.” After his loss of life, Mercury bequeathed Austin the bulk of his $100 million fortune, in addition to Backyard Lodge, a 28-room mansion in the tony Kensington space of London — regardless of the truth that the two now not lived collectively and Mercury by then had a long-term boyfriend, Jim Hutton. “Freddie idolized her, actually. He was dedicated to her,” mentioned Jones of Austin, now 67. The 2 ended their relationship in 1976 after Mercury, who was publicly closeted, confessed he was bisexual. “I keep in mind saying to him, ‘No, Freddie, I don’t suppose you might be bisexual. I believe you might be homosexual,’ ” Austin instructed the Day by day Mail in a uncommon ­interview in 2013. However the two by no means actually parted methods. After splitting, Mercury purchased Austin an house and put her on the payroll. “She taken care of him, mothered him,” Jones added. “It was to Mary that he at all times returned: his ‘Previous Trustworthy,’ as he known as her. She even wrote that phrase on the card that accompanied her wreath at his funeral.” Mercury and Austin met in 1969 after Brian Could — who would turn into the lead guitarist in Queen when the band shaped the subsequent yr — launched them. Like Mercury, she grew up working class. Her mother and father have been deaf, and her father labored as a trimmer for a wallpaper firm and her mom as a home servant. When she obtained collectively with Mercury, Austin was 19 years outdated and dealing at Biba, a hip West London boutique. Mercury, then 24, had simply completed artwork school and was launching his music profession (Queen shaped in 1970). The 2 fell in love and shortly moved in collectively. To some Mercury insiders, the pairing by no means actually made sense — and never essentially as a result of Austin was a woman. “She was the reverse of Freddie,” mentioned Jones. “She by no means actually mentioned very a lot.” Mercury was a larger-than-life persona who liked flamboyance. However Austin appealed to his secret homebody facet. “Mick Rock, the photographer, used to go round and have tea with them and he mentioned it could all be terribly candy. The tablecloth would come out [along with] bone china cups and little teacups and good little plates of biscuits, and also you’d all sit there with your little fingers form of raised, ingesting tea correctly,” mentioned Jones. “They have been [like] this outdated married couple,” she continued, “and they’d spend a lot of time in mattress, however [Mercury] would pull the piano to the bedside to put in writing songs.” Mercury proposed to Austin with a jade ring in 1973. However by the subsequent yr, she had surmised that the singer, by then a world star, was dishonest on her with males. Jones says she was shocked Austin didn’t instantly reduce ties with Mercury. “I at all times thought, how bizarre is that?” mentioned the author. “Go have a life. Don’t keep glued to the hip to this one who . . . isn’t going to have the ability to give you a typical ­relationship. “After they separated, she even prompt to Freddie that they’ve a youngster collectively,” Jones added. “Freddie instructed her that he would relatively have one other cat.” Austin did finally have two kids, Jamie and Richard, with painter Piers Cameron. She later married and divorced businessman Nick Holford. As soon as he was single, Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara, stayed closeted for worry of ostracizing his conservative mother and father. Bomi and Jer Bulsara, each of Parsi descent, practiced the Zoroastrian faith, which views homosexuality as demon ­worship. “At one stage on the street, he and his entourage would keep in one lodge and the remainder of the band and the crew and their entourage would keep in one other lodge and this was all to facilitate Freddie’s covert nightlife,” mentioned Jones. Extra publicly, he dated Austrian actress Barbara Valentin in the ’80s and the two shared an house in Munich, Germany. Nonetheless, Austin stayed shut. “She form of grew to become a right-hand man,” Jones mentioned. “[Mercury] purchased a lot of antiques and went to a lot of artwork galleries and auctions. She would comply with him round to those locations with a notepad and he would make a bid on one thing or different, and her job was to jot it down and hold observe of all the pieces. “Her complete existence trusted Freddie. She had a dwelling due to him — he purchased it. She had an revenue due to him,” Jones added. Freddie Mercury and Mary AustinGetty Pictures Based on musician Peter Straker, who was one in all Mercury’s closest mates, “It’s a kind of issues that I believe is inexplicable, when folks know one another very nicely and are such good mates and have been lovers earlier than. She was at all times there for him and he for her.” Amongst Mercury’s final needs was the ­request that Austin scatter his ashes — and by no means reveal the location. He additionally left her a massive portion of his $100 million property, plus the ­London mansion. “He mentioned he needed this home to remain alive and that meant it needed to be with kids,” mentioned director Rudi Dolezal, who labored with Queen on practically 30 music movies and produced the 2000 documentary “Freddie Mercury: The Untold Story.” “At the time there was no method two homosexual males may undertake kids in London,” mentioned Dolezal, noting Austin’s two sons. “Freddie instructed me that’s why he gave Mary the home.” Austin has mentioned the cash and duty have been overwhelming, nonetheless. “I discovered myself considering, ‘Oh Freddie, you’ve left me an excessive amount of and an excessive amount of to deal with as nicely.’ I felt I couldn’t stay as much as it,” she instructed the Day by day Mail. A part of it, she claimed, was fueled by Mercury insiders — together with his bandmates — who felt ignored. “I hit jealousy head on — like a Japanese bullet practice. Very painful,” Austin has mentioned. “I don’t suppose the remaining members of Queen have ever reconciled themselves to it.” However it additionally appears that Austin alienated herself. Based on Jones, regardless of the truth that Mercury’s will stipulated members of his family — together with his boyfriend Hutton — may keep at Backyard Lodge till their inheritances kicked in, Austin ousted them instantly. As for Queen followers, at first, Austin used to greet the mourners who got here to the dwelling on the anniversary of Mercury’s loss of life. “She would stand and lightweight a candle or learn a prayer and greet followers,” mentioned Jones, who was amongst guests. “However then that stopped. She nailed a thick plastic round the wall [around the property] . . . so folks couldn’t pin their tributes.” Based on Jones, Austin now lives in a smaller dwelling round the nook from Backyard Lodge. She is reportedly a recluse, though Straker mentioned he had dinner at a London restaurant with her final yr. “I misplaced my household, actually, when Freddie died,” Austin instructed the Day by day Mail. “He was all the pieces to me, other than my sons. He was like nobody I had met earlier than.” And whereas Austin, little doubt, relied on her unconventional relationship with Mercury for survival, it was a mutually helpful setup. Based on Jones, Austin represented Mercury’s alternate actuality — “Had he been in a position to lay apart all the different issues that have been drawing him in, all the different temptations. Married her and settled down, had kids. “She was that distinguished image of what his life may have been like and he was unhappy about that.” Share this: https://nypost.com/2018/10/28/meet-the-woman-that-a-closeted-freddie-mercury-fell-in-love-with/ The post Meet the woman that a closeted Freddie Mercury fell in love with appeared first on My style by Kartia. https://www.kartiavelino.com/2018/10/meet-the-woman-that-a-closeted-freddie-mercury-fell-in-love-with.html