#but he would LOVE singing “you know how to ball i know aristotle”

[blue-vein-tavern]

rip dante quintana you would've loved so high school by taylor swift

[solarecliipse]

atsumu miya x reader ramble :)

not proof read, english is not my first language!

hear me out, pro volleyball player atsumu miya in a love scandal with world recognized singer and artist y/n l/n, you know how to ball, i know aristotle.

it’d be the greatest of all!! cause imagine the headlines going out like: y/n l/n seen leaving the condos were atsumu miya lives, and then another atsumu miya supposedly spotted at y/n l/n backstage, and finally, y/n l/n and atsumu miya caught on the beach kissing

and everyone is just freaking out like, what do you mean?? because y/n had only been in one public relationship before, with an actor that after 3 years cheated on her, so why going out with atsumu “playboy” miya??

and meanwhile y/n and atsumu be chilling, having the cheesiest most romantic love story ever, even meeting each other’s friends and learning about the other’s career.

like, imagine atsumu staying after training with you just to teach you how to do the perfect serve, and then you teaching him how to play the drums (cuz is the first instrument you ever learnt p play and he would look so HOT doing it), even recording it and later using it to add into a song like a soft launch.

and fans would be going CRAZY over it, like twitter threads called “who is playing the drums at the end of y/n’s las single: theory” some even thinking you’re dating the guy who plays drums when you do tours¿ but he comes out to say he is married, and everyone is making all kinds of assumptions before you finally go to one of the msby’s games wearing the official jacket that has miya on the back, and then miya points you before doing one of his killer serves, and everyone is like “damn.”

and then atsumu goes to one of your concerts and is seen smiling lovingly as you sing THE single you wrote for him (cuz now everyone knows it’s for him) and you even change the lyrics to somehow making it more obvious it’s about him and then winking at him, and everyone goes crazy once again.

and I just love this they’d be so cute together and atsumu would look so hot and everyone would be so envious and they’d be such a power couple and its one of those “i don’t which one i want to be cuz they’re both so hot and awesome” situations.

anyways yeah, i love atsumu miya

[cupidofcaravaggio]

louiisieis…mon cher…la swifties are calling me an undesireable white master…they do not know the love i have for blonde madmoselles…such as my own maman…why has zis taylor swifte released la deceased poets department (taylor’s version) on the day of le release of my single…she is trying to cut our invisible chord…mon cher why do you laugh…louiisieisus she sings of you know how to balle and i know the teaching of aristotle…he is the most divine philosophe…louisisisiss why do i have a mob of blanche woman outside of our home with pitchforks…mon cher they wish to burn me…perhaps claudia would be a swiftiè…

[ask-pjo-hoo-toa]

ᴀʀɪsᴛᴏᴛʟᴇ ~ ᴘ. ᴊᴀᴄᴋsᴏɴ

req. none :)

summary. just a fluffy little thing about studying and basketball. you and percy are dating and you are a child of athena! you're trying to help him study...

warnings. use of (y/n), gn!reader, short as hell

eeli0r's notes. just wanna say i dont do smut no exceptions :) also: loosely inspired by that tswizzle lyric from so high school "you know how to ball, i know aristotle"

thursday, december 3

you and percy are hunched over a book, specifically an english textbook on the poetic teachings of aristotle.

you, as a child of athena, are quick to understand the teachings, and you're helping your boyfriend, percy jackson, study them for his test the next week.

"baby, focus," you say to him.

"okaaay," percy says. "fine. but i have a basketball game next week too. and it's in the cold. december, hello?"

you smile at him. "i'll be there to see it, i promise, but you have to focus right now."

percy sighs dramatically. "(y/n), why oh why would you do this to me?"

"because i want you to pass this class, love. you know, i'm a child of athena, i'm pretty much the best person for this."

as you continue to study, pulling your boyfriend back to focus every few minutes, you finally start to get somewhere. he's doing good, answering questions correctly most of the time, and you're glad about it.

when he gets the last part of an especially difficult section correct, you say "love!!! you're so good at this!!!" and kiss him.

percy laughs. "thank youuu," he sing-songs. "aristotle's also thanking you from wherever he is for getting your helpless boyfriend to finally learn his poetic teachings, (n/n)."

you grin. "you're not helpless, m'lord. you are sooo good at this, i swear."

he pulls you into a hug and peppers your face with kisses. "you're better. i love you, (n/n)."

as you keep studying, his hand finds yours on the book and curls around it. he's warm compared to your ice-cold touch.

thursday, december 10

the day of the test. everyone's putting down answers and you're doing well, as a child of athena, so you're more worried about percy.

an hour later, the exam is finished and you hand it in. you see percy, across the room by the door, waiting for you.

"hi love," you greet him. "how'd you do?"

he leans forward and kisses you. "pretty good, i think. thanks to you of course."

"babe, you're the one who retained the information," you say, taking his hand and walking out the classroom.

"right, right, i forgot." he gives you a cheeky grin. "my basketball game is in an hour. i need to go prep. see you there, love!"

you walk to the dorms of your college and kiss goodbye as he disappears into his dorm to get ready.

one hour later, you make your way to the ball court and sit down next to a few other people, an old woman and what looks to be her wife, a little boy sitting next to his mom and dad, and who you were hoping to see---percy on the court, his mom and paul sitting in the level above you, and estelle tugging on your sleeve.

"(y/n)!" estelle says brightly, slightly mispronouncing her name because of her age. "hi!!"

"hi, stelly," you say, ruffling her hair.

as the game starts, your eyes stay on percy, and you and estelle whoop the loudest when he makes a shot. every time, he looks at you and estelle and smiles, because he knows it's you and his sister.

the clock ticks, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15...

...14, 13, 12, 11, 10...

...and it's a tie, with five seconds left, percy has the ball and...

the buzzer goes off a fraction of a second after he makes the winning shot.

"WHOOOOOOOO!" you shout at the top of your lungs. "WHOOP PERCY!!!!"

your boyfriend doesn't bother talking to his friends afterward, just runs up to you and hugs you tight.

"that was amazing!" you say as he lets you go. "that was literally amazing!"

he flips his jet-black hair. "of course it was, (n/n), i was playing."

"you are the best player on the team. alright, alright, love, let your sister hug you."

estelle hugs percy and says, "so good! so good!"

percy laughs. "thank you, stelly and (n/n). i guess i'm actually decent at basketball."

"come on, babe, we need to go get ice cream for a reward. you too, stelly, and sally, and paul." you nod to the individuals as you refer to them.

monday, december 14

as the teacher's passing out tests, you can't help but feel incredibly nervous even though you're sure you did well.

A+ 'good job'

you knew it. but how did percy do?

he looks at you from across the room (you sit in the middle-front, he sits in the back) with shining eyes. 'A+,' he mouths.

you do a fist pump to him before your teacher clears his throat. "(y/n)? percy?"

"ah, uhm, sorry," you both say in unison, before dissolving in giggles because, let's be honest, who wouldn't?

[paucubarsisimp]

Heyy I was wondering if you could do a Phil Foden x singer!reader where she writes cute love songs abt him. She supports him at his matches. He cheers her on at her shows and they're just so in lovee<33

Some songs I had in mind (u don't have to use these)

-So High School-Taylor Swift

· "You know how to ball I know Aristotle."

-The Alchemy-Taylor Swift(after they won the treble)

· "Shirts off and your friends lift you up over their heads, beers sticking to the floor cheers chanted 'cause they said there was no chance, tryna be the greatest in the league, where's the trophy he just comes running over to me."

-Unconditionally-Katy Perry

· "I'll take your bad days with your good, walk through the storm I would, I'd do it all because I love you I love you, unconditional unconditionally, I will love you unconditionally, there is no fear now let go and just be free cause I will love you unconditionally."

Lots of love

-W-

Biggest Fans

phil foden x fem!reader

in which you’re each other’s biggest fans

(in this reader and phil only have one son, ronnie)

warnings: cussing

yourusername 

yourusername thank you paris next up: manchester

liked by yourbestfriend, philfoden, erlinghaaland and 3.6 million others…

user OMD I CAN’T WAIT!!

philfoden proud of you baby ❤️

user amazing performance, i met her after with phil and ronnie and they are the sweetest people ever!

user she’s such a gorgeous and sweet person! phil and ronnie must be so lucky!

jackgrealish is this why phil has been staring at his phone for the past 10 minutes?

↪️yourusername 😭

user phil is one lucky man…

yourbestfriend mother has blessed us all 🙏 

↪️user she gets it!!

you were on your way to one of phil’s matches. you had just came back from the producers after listening to your new song. 

“ronnie! baby let’s go please!” you called for your son who had insisted on getting dressed by himself. he waddled down the stairs with his man city jersey with daddy on the back as well as his matching shorts. today was the match against manchester united.

“mama! look i dress myself!” he spoke as you picked him up and rested him on your hip.

“yeah? it looks amazing love.” you cooed as you kissed his head. 

you grabbed your bag and placed ronnie in the car seat before sitting down yourself. 

“what’d you wanna listen to love?” you asked turning to your son.

“you mama!” 

you laughed before playing your most recent album that was released shortly after phil won the treble. 

Shirts off, and your friends lift you up over their heads Beer sticking to the floor Cheers chanted, cause they said There was no chance, trying to be The greatest in the league Where's the trophy? He just comes running over to me

flashbacks came to you as you listened to the song.

the moment the whistle blew, it sent you and your families into a sense of euphoria. you let out happy tears as you watched your boyfriend celebrate with his team mates.

shaking your head and snapping out of your thoughts, you looked at he rearview mirror to see ronnie dancing and singing to the next song which was invisible string.

when you had finally arrived at the stadium, you took ronnie and headed towards your seats. pressing a kiss to sasha’s cheek you sat down and looked around for phil. your eyes met and he sent you an air kiss before waving at ronnie. you sent one back and phil went inside the tunnel.

“how are you feeling, love?” sasha asked since you had just gotten your period earlier that day and almost cancelled coming to the match.

“better. i took a pill before coming so hopefully ill be fine for now.”

the match started and by halftime, manchester city was winning 1-0 with Haaland scoring a penalty.

once the whistle blew for the second half, everybody was on the edge of their seats to see if manchester was truly blue or red. Haaland had managed to score a header making the score 2-0.

Rodri shot towards the goal, hoping for the impact of the ball against the net but onana saved it. Haaland shot a rebound and phil kicked it in.

you stood up, cheering and clapping as phil ran to the corner and slid on his knees before pointing towards you and forming a heart with his fingers.

when the final whistle blew, the sea of blue went wild contrasting the sulking reds. manchester was truly blue and the team had just proven that.

you said your goodbyes to sasha and you and ronnie made your way to the car, where you would meet phil.

“mama, where is daddy?” ronnie asked as you strapped him in.

“daddy will come any minute now love.” you told him, cupping his cheeks and kissing his forehead.

“can we listen to lover?” he giggled kicking his feet.

you laughed before playing it and the two of you started singing at the top of your lungs.

“oh my! we have two singers now??” phil gasped as he got in the car.

“daddy!” ronnie squealed.

“hey buddy! did you like the match?” phil asked, strapping his seatbelt on.

“yes! did you see uncle erling’s goal with his head?!” he grinned.

phil’s face dropped before meeting your eyes and lighting up again.

“hey baby, did you see my goal?” he lowered his voice, placing a hand to your cheek. you nuzzled into it and mumbled a soft yeah. he brought his face closer and gave you a soft kiss.

“im so fucking proud of you.” you mumbled against his lips when you pulled apart.

“lets go home now, big day tomorrow!” phil grinned excitedly.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

the crowd was going wild as you stood in position to do your last song of the night.

I feel so high school every time I look at you I wanna find you in a crowd just to hide from you

And in a blink of a crinkling eye I'm sinking, our fingers entwined Cheeks pink in the twinkling lights Tell me 'bout the first time you saw me I'll drink what you think, and I'm high From smoking your jokes all damn night The brink of a wrinkle in time Bittersweet sixteen suddenly

I'm watching American Pie with you on a Saturday night Your friends are around, so be quiet I'm trying to stifle my sighs 'Cause I feel so high school every time I look at you But look at you Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah

you made eye contact with phil from the vip area and made a little heart with your fingers as you continued singing.

Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me? (Kill me) It's just a game, but really (really) I'm bettin' on all three for us two (all three) Get my car door, isn't that sweet? (That sweet) Then pull me to the backseat (backseat) No one's ever had me (had me), not like you

Truth, dare, spin bottles You know how to ball, I know Aristotle Brand new, full-throttle Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto It's true, swear, scouts honour You knew what you wanted and boy, you got her Brand new, full-throttle You already know, babe

the night ended as you went back into the dressing room. a knock sounded and you immediately rushed to the door to see your boyfriend with a bouquet of your favorite flowers.

“oh my gosh, thank you baby! these are gorgeous.” you grinned as you took the flowers before melting into his arms.

“you are so fucking gorgeous and amazing you know that?” he whispered in your ear.

“yeah, you tell me every day.”

[khaleesiofalicante]

Mavid head-cannons (I’m back on my bullshit)

- Max wears braids most of the time (like Lewis Hamilton) and wears it in a bun bc if they were down all time, David would constantly be admiring him and won’t get any work done. Also David would jump him if he changed his hairstyle he loves the braids too much. (Tugs on them during um private time yk)

- made Jackson/mina their kid’s godparents (in forgive me father)

- David makes scrap books of the kids childhoods and first achievements

- Max has a good singing voice and sings for David to calm him down

- Max knows how to ball and David knows Aristotle (David thinks of max and relates to the lyrics when listening to Taylor swift)

- David finds it extremely hot that max is good at math

- max read fanfic of them in IALS and RWRB and David wrote some (secretly ofc-except Jace knew about max heheh)

I am obsessed with these 😭😭😭

David definitely loves Max's braids hehe. He also loves Max's natural hair (when it's unbraided). We'll actually get into this in LDV yay!

Mina and Jackson are their godparents in FMF! I can see Anjali/Rafael being Arthur's godparents in LDV.

David making scrapbooks makes me so emo. Also is the kind of parent who saves a lock of their baby's hair 🥹

Max does sing to David. David finds it very romantic lol. Have you heard Lewis sing btw? It's amazing!!

I didn't get the Aristotle one 🤔

We'll also get into mavid reading mavid fanfics in LDV 👀

[under-the-lake]

I Suspect Nargles Are Behind It: Luna and Reality - short mind ramblings

I thought that some lighter writing than my usual stuff could be nice during these troubled captivity times. So I wondered and then set my mind on writing about a character, and chose Luna. Why Luna? I just love her. She’s clever but not vain, she’s a proper oddball to whom I can identify, she loves animals and understands the weird. She lives in a strange world of her own, oddly connected with reality, and has values I can share. On a more literature-related point of view, she’s a secondary character but without her the story couldn’t have unfolded as it did. In a very short piece (to my standards at least) I decided to explore Luna’s take on the reality norms the world has built.

Short ID

Name: Luna Lovegood (originally she was called Lily Moon, because it gave Rowling the idea of a dreamy girl - Original Writings for PM, The Original Forty)

Born: 13th February (J.K. Rowling, Twitter, 17th July 2015) and we can suppose it’s 1981 because Luna went to Hogwarts one year after Harry (born on 31st July 1980).

Post-Hogwarts Occupation: Wizarding naturalist (as Rowling called her originally)

Particularities: odd beliefs, and she was able to see Thestrals very soon after her mother’s accidental death, when Luna was nine. Unusually perceptive and creative. Bloody bright.

School: Hogwarts, Ravenclaw

Marital Status: Married to Rolf Scamander (Newt’s grandson)

Children: 2 sons, Lorcan and Lysander

Other Family: Dad Xenophilius Lovegood (Editor of the Quibbler), mum Pandora Lovegood (dead)

Odd Species: Blibbering Humdinger, Nargles, Wrackspurts, Crumple-Horned Snorkack. According to Rowling (Bloomsbury Chat, 30.7.2007), Luna went on discovering and naming many new species, but had to eventually give up on the Snorkack being a real creature.

First Impressions - Hogwarts: from Loony to Luna

She had straggly, waist-length dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. [...]The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside down.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Ten, Luna Lovegood

That’s how we are introduced to Luna (in the book). Well… dunno what you think, but she is introduced as a weirdo all right. She’s reading a magazine, The Quibbler, upside down, and that she seems to find that perfectly normal (we do learn some pages later that it’s a thing about reading runes but even if there wasn’t any rational explanation I wouldn’t put it past Luna to read something upside down). You cannot deny that Luna is intriguing. There are many reactions one can have on meeting her for the first time, but there will be reactions, either because she’s so far from what the reader holds dear as values, or because she’s so close. One cannot be indifferent to Luna.

Besides, there’s that strange thing that she can see Thestrals, and thinks they are nothing but normal creatures. Who doesn’t remember the ‘You’re just sane as I am’ line? And who wouldn’t doubt their sanity at such a statement? I’m glad they kept the line in the film.

So from the very beginning of our acquaintance with Luna, we know that she’s different, but not yet why, that she is blunt without being rude, that she knows who she is, and that she has some sort of interest in the natural world. We can also imagine from her Butterbeer necklace that she’s not from a wealthy family, her dad running a not-so-mainstream magazine, The Quibbler. We have another bit of evidence for that in the World Cup (see below). The other possibility -which, knowing all the books, sounds at least as true as the first one- is that she’s from a very creative family. However, at that point of the story, we don’t know about Nargles and Crumple-Horned Snorckacks. Yet. As for Luna’s Hogwarts allegiance, Wit Beyond Measure is Man’s Greatest Treasure, and The Circle Has No Beginning,  she’s in Ginny’s year, one year below Harry, and she’s a Ravenclaw.

First Mention

Luna is not mentioned by first name until Ginny introduces her in Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Ten. However, Rowling introduces the Lovegoods in Goblet of Fire, Chapter Six. They are just mentioned, en passant, by Amos Diggory, while he and Cedric and the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione are waiting for their Portkey on Stoatshead Hill (seven past five, and old wellington boot) to get them to the Quidditch World Cup. Amos says the Lovegoods aren’t using the Portkey because they’ve been on the World Cup Site for a week since they couldn’t afford it another way. They live near the Weasleys, the Diggorys and the Fawcetts, somewhere near Ottery St Catchpole (Deathly Hallows, Chapter Twenty).

First Meeting

‘There’s only Loony Lovegood in there.’ This statement by Ginny is the first mention of Luna in the whole series. She’s met Neville who is looking for a compartment on the Hogwarts Express and can’t find one because ‘everywhere’s full’. ‘Don’t be silly, she’s all right’, answers Ginny. (OoP, Chapter Ten).

Straight in: ‘Loony’ is ‘all right’. Contradiction, but also completely true. Luna is a loony if you look at her with the eyes of conventional society and the norms it has set. She is all right, which means Ginny has taken trouble to get acquainted and knows she’s no loony, and at least never uses her ‘nickname’ straight in her face (contrary to Hermione’s line in the film…. which I hate, so much not in character. Is that the girl who started SPEW?). Ginny puts things straight from the beginning, yet she’s struggling to repress her fit of the giggles in the compartment, later, when Luna states Ravenclaw’s motto in a sing-song voice. Luna doesn’t seem to care what people think, and she’s pretty straightforward in her statements, though not in a mean way. For instance, when she tells Harry, still in the same scene in the Hogwarts Express compartment, that Parvati didn’t enjoy the Yule Ball with him because he hadn’t cared to dance with her, it’s just a statement, not a judgement. Luna doesn’t do judgement. I must admit that the feelings, at reading this train scene for the first time, are mixed. You perceive that Luna is someone special who is rather unbothered by others’ opinion because she knows herself and is in a way more mature than her fellow classmates. You basically wonder if she’s got some autistic traits. On the other hand, the series of articles in the magazine she’s reading - and obviously taking seriously - show an openness of mind and fantasy that are quite unusual. How Far Would Fudge Go to Gain Gringotts? or Sirius Black - Villain or Victim? Notorious Mass Murderer or Innocent Singing Sensation? are just two of the titles in the issue of The Quibbler that Luna is reading (see picture below). 

The first impressions are tested further because once the lot get off the train, there’s the Thestrals. Harry has never been able to see them before, because he had never understood death before seeing Cedric murdered during the Third Task. He’s completely stunned by those skeletal winged horses. Luna isn’t, and simply explains they’ve always been there. Not at all reassured and still thinking he’s having hallucinations, Harry climbs up behind Luna into the carriage, not sure if he wants to disclose this to his best mates.

This is the first meeting with Luna. You cannot deny the impression is strong. Personally I did like her from the start. She then just grew on me.

Reality? Berkeley? Aristotle? 

Believing in things that nobody can see… mental, Luna? Or just aware of the world in a way few modern people are able to? Just more open to nature and unusually perceptive or living on another planet? I reckon anything but mental. Luna is a character who questions our perception and definition of reality throughout the three books she appears in.

Traditionally, if we follow Aristotle (On Interpretation), a statement can be true if both the sentence and the reality it aims at describing match. There must be no contradiction and the statement must be in adequation with reality. Like saying, while standing in front of the Hogwarts Express, ‘the steam engine is scarlet’. It’s the, say, rational way. And it is the way it works in the wizarding world, yet the roots are different from the Muggle one. Magic is the scientific framework in which the wizarding world evolves, and in that world magic is a science in the Muggle sense: it can be studied, divided into subjects, tested (Nadal, 2014).

However, on the other end of the spectrum, there’s another way of seeing things that are less black or white, and it was explained by Irish philosopher George Berkeley (1685 - 1753). Berkeley, to put it shortly, states that what one sees is, from the moment it’s apprehended by anything connected with the brain, an interpretation of reality. He says that reality per se doesn’t exist and that the things we see, as a dimension of reality conceived out of the mind, is a mere illusion (Chaillan, 2016; Granger & Bassham, 2016). Seen in that light, Harry’s meeting with Dumbledore at the end of Deathly Hallows is full of sense. So is Luna’s relationship with the world around her. The case of Nargles, Wrackspurts and Crumple-Horned Snorckacks are proof enough. Luna questions our relationship with the norms the world has built around what is considered real and what is not. Can you believe something exists while you’ve never seen it? Well… just ask everyone who believes in any kind of god, magic or whatever. They’ve never seen the source, have they. Still, they do believe it exists. The difference with Luna is that while religion is something built by, and therefore admitted as real, by society (the norm, or one of the possible norms), Nargles and Wrackspurts are not. 

If we look at the zoological side of things, the Muggle world has Science (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning), and Cryptozoology. Science proves, tests, confronts, questions. Cryptozoology is the branch of zoology that deals with imaginary species. So there is a society-approved branch of Natural History that deals with what legends and history have given us. Those two sides, in Luna’s world, are, for the ‘official part’, the Ministry Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Scamander’s book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (notice that the title holds the word ‘fantastic’? What irony…) and Hagrid and Grubbly-Plank as Care of Magical Creatures Teachers. Oh and we could add Charlie Weasley as a Dragon Keeper. The other side of this is The Quibbler and Xenophilius Lovegood (and Luna). So while both worlds have two instances to deal with two parts of the natural world, and while the Muggle world has both sides coexisting rather peacefully because society-approved, the wizarding world is in tension because no official body has ever given any credit to The Quibbler or Xenophilius’s weird ideas. I’ll discuss Magical Natural Sciences later in a bit more depth. What I wanted to showcase here is that this comparison about how Natural Sciences and CryptoSciences are dealt with in both worlds further supports the distinction between Aristotelian and Berkeleyan ways of seeing reality, and supports the idea that the Lovegoods are more Berkeleyan, but therefore also the fact that the Wizarding world is even more normative that the Muggle one, and that’s saying something (for instance there’s only one school and one teacher for each subject for the whole of the UK and Ireland; if that is not normative, I don’t know what is).

Luna openly states stuff that is completely bonkers, which makes her sort of -pardon me- unbelievable. Though it fits with Berkeley. I mean who knows if Rufus Scrimgeour is really a vampire or not? Or who knows if Fudge really has an army of Heliopaths? On the other hand, she was raised by An Eccentric if there ever was one. I mean old Xenophilius (incidentally, ‘xenophilius’ means ‘love of the strange’). We first meet him at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, at the start of Deathly Hallows. ‘Slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white hair the texture of candyfloss, he wore a cap whose tassel dangled in front of his nose and robes of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow. An odd symbol, rather like a triangular eye, glistened from a golden chain around his neck.’ (DH, Chapter Eight) Xenophilius goes one praising the gnome infestation in the Weasleys’ garden, and the wisdom of those creatures. Not exactly your conventional wizard. He looks even stranger than that wizard wearing a lady’s dressing-gown at the Quidditch World Cup.  Thing is, the Lovegoods are taking a step back looking at the conventional world they were made to live in. They don’t fit in because their reality is unproven and therefore not believable in an Aristotelian world. However, Luna has her own boundaries of truth. Somehow they meet Dumbledore’s. He believed the Deathly Hallows existed, as did Xenophilius, and finally Harry. For most witches and wizards, including Ron and Hermione until the last moment, the Hallows are only an artefact in a children’s story, The Tale of the Three Brothers.

Luna’s mum died when Luna was nine; a spell Pandora was experimenting on backfired. Luna witnessed that and has since been able to see Thestrals. Luna’s mum was probably the one who was more perceptive and passed that to Luna (reminds me of Fiver in Watership Down passing his own sixth sense on to the next generation). Luna stays as she is, but eventually, according to Rowling, gives up on Snorkacks as her dad’s inventions (Bloomsbury Chat, 30.7.2007).

I reckon Luna would fit more in a Berkeleyan world than in the normative world our ‘civilized’ societies have built, be they magical or Muggle. Of course every society has norms. Thing is, how much constraint they set upon members makes all the difference. Luna is not a Loony (even etymologically, in my opinion, because loony is short for lunatic, which means mentally ill, from the moon - see all the tales and beliefs surrounding full moon for instance, mostly negative in a normative Aristotelian world). Luna is the positive form of Loony, I’d say. She’s seen as a loony by people whose norms are those of the society they grew up in. With a wee bit of openness of mind, Luna is a great character, a philosophical free-lancer, a mirror in which we can question our society and beliefs about reality.

PS: I want to explore friendship and loyalty in Luna briefly too. Soon... confinement helps the writer :P The wizarding community is at risk too! Stay at home!

Sources:

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-original-forty  

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/thestrals

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html 

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-resiliency-of-luna-lovegood

Aristotle, De Interpretatione (English translation), retrieved from http://www.bocc.ubi.pt/pag/Aristotle-interpretation.pdf

Adams, R. (1972). Watership Down. Penguin.

Chaillan, M. (2016). Harry Potter et Berkeley. In Harry Potter à l’école des philosophes, Philosophie Magazine, Hors série n°31, novembre - décembre 2016. 70-71.

Granger, J. & Bassham, G. (2016). Just in Your Head? J.K. Rowling on Separating Reality from Illusion. In Bassham, G. (2016, Eds.). The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy, Hogwarts for Muggles. Wiley Eds. 185-197

Nadal, C. (2014). Magical Science: Luna Lovegood’s Beliefs, Discoveries and Truth. In Martín Alegre, S., Arms, C., Blasco Solís, L., Calvo Zafra, L., Campos, R., Canals Sánchez, M., ... & García Jordà, L. (2014). Charming and bewitching: considering the Harry Potter series. 148-153.

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Bloomsbury, London.

Scamander, N. (1927; 2001; 2018; [J.K. Rowling]). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Bloomsbury, London, in association with Obscurus Books, 18a Diagon Alley, London.

[punk-in-docs]

Loving The Handsome Duke of Chatsworth, Chapter 8

TITLE: Loving The Handsome Duke of Chatsworth. 
CHAPTER NO: Chapter Eight SYNOPSIS: Tom Hiddleston AU Love story - Set in the Victorian Era… Circa 1858 to be precise… AUTHOR:@punk-in-docs 
AO3 LINK: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4108306?view_full_work=true

~ “It was most strange, Violet, I grant you. The most unsavoury display of ettiquette I have ever beheld, and, to top it off, Mrs Sharpe was postively frothing at the mouth because of it…”

Elizabeth informed her close friend, Miss Violet Eliza Burchrowe, as they walked side by side, happily wandering under the cool sunshine, and still air of Russell Square.

Violet had joined the three ladies Farrow, Elizabeth, Felicity and Araminta, on their jaunt into the Milliners – Felicity insisted she needed new laced gloves for the ball, and Elizabeth needed a mask to go with her costume. And as Araminta had been bristled into a most uncouth state by the happenings of yesterday, she had also decided that Elizabeth must have new pretty things to wear to the masquerade ball Friday night.

And she had been moved as such into a state of irritation and affrontery, because Marcus Burke did not call upon Elizabeth yesterday, as he had promised to do so.

There had been outcry in the Farrow household. Mrs Sharpe had been raging and snarling, storming about the place rattling off that it was the height of impolite ignorance, how could he have snubbed the woman he was wishing to court in such a manner? And if she had it her way she’d have him flogged for such disrepectful insolence. Elizabeth, however, listened politely with her genteel look on her face, It wouldn’t do any good to let Mrs Sharpe know that, on the inside, she was still tingling with the indulgence of Sir Thomas’s kisses.

Mrs Sharpe then felt moved to declare that Elizabeth had full entitlement to dismiss and reject Marcus Burke next time, if he dared or bothered to call on her. And that when he saw her at Lady Hartwright’s ballt his Friday, then he was going to kick himself for how lovely she looked. Especially with one handsome Duke at her side. Whose attentions, Elizabeth was warned, she would receive most wholly.

She had smiled til she looked like a looney at that. Gladly, she thought to herself. She remembered laughing as her father interjected himself on the words Araminta was rattling off to her, peering down over his paper from across the room, eyes beading with mirth and pride behind his spectacles as he smiled to his eldest.

“I told you he was odious, my dear Libby.” Sir Richard added. “But now, I have a feeling that you are not the least bit downhearted about Mr Burkes snubbing you..?” He asked.

Elizabeth burst into a smile, laughing through her words.

“I dare say not at all, Sir.” She beamed, chortling through her words, conveying how little she truly did care for the man now she had Sir Thomas.

Mr Farrow smiled widely, before his paper was up across his eyes again. But not before he could usher a look across to Mrs Sharpe, who stood floundering in ire and wrath at being disparaged by Marcus Burke. It was a look that vexed her greatly, and unsettled her nerves, it seemed to say in a manner most smug, I-Told-You-So-My-Dear’

Elizabeth Farrow, then stood. Clutching onto her new favourite book. ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell’. Kissed Mrs Sharpe on the cheek, and flounced away upstairs to the second Library.

“Have no heavy heart over the matter, Mrs Sharpe. I would not wish Mr Burke back again in such fervent haste. Sir Thomas is quite plentiful enough of a suitor for me.” She beamed, lifting her blue skirts up, and sweeping out of the room. Grinning like a medicated fool.

Mrs Sharpe turned to see her husband clutching the paper across his face. And she stood there, her mouth gaping like a guppy fish, before she shut it, flittering about as she tried to right herself. Not able to believe it all.

“Don’t worry dear.” Richard Farrow spoke, not having lowered the Times.

“A Duke is the only man wanting to court her now, Is he not? I wagered you’d be over the moon about that? It was most lucky I sent for him to dine with us, was it not?”

He spoke. Araminta just knew he was smiling with fanatical glee that his match making attempts had outbid hers. He had seeked to outdo her attempts as soon as he had come to know Sir Thomas’s amiable character. Plotting all along to invite him to dinner so that he could start the easy process of falling madly in love with his daughter. It had been a strategy of his all along.

“Pray, do not vex me, Sir.”

She had gritted back lowly through clenched teeth. Before sweeping out of the room. She was in dire need of a tonic now. Her head was starting to pain her also with the strain of all the incident.

Sir Richard was left chuckling to himself…

Subsequently, as to Mrs Sharpes wishes to see Elizabeth most beautifully attired for Friday, next morning, by twelve o’clock, they had all been in the hall, ready to leave, coats, gloves and hats on. They were also taking Aristotle for a walk through Russell park on their way to the Milliners for Felicity and the Dress makers for Elizabeth.

They were all gathered to leave when Violet Eliza Burchrowe, Elizabeth’s eldest and dearest friend, called over to see how she was faring with her suitors.

It was not uncomon for the two girls to call upon each other most frequently, they often took tea at each others houses two or three times a week. They were as thick as thieves, and to their supreme delight, they lived down opposite ends of Montague Street, so they were overjoyed as little girls, to find they were neighbours too. At balls, the two could always be seen gabbling away to one another eagerly, smiling and grinning away. Violet was a supremely sweet girl, and a Elizabeth’s best friend. They oft joked that they were secretly twins, swapped at Birth. As Elizabeth’ s middle name was Violet, and Violet’s was Eliza, that they were indeed, twins seperated at their birth.

The only downfall to that plan, was that they didn’t much look alike. Violet had terribly long tumbling locks of rich brown hair, coiled tight into walnut coloured curls. Her eyes were a green to look at, but they shifted into tones of hazel in the sun. Her skin was not as pale as she often remarked she’d like it to be. And she always moaned that her beauty paled in comparison to that of Elizabeth’s.

Violet would always slump down in her seat and remarked with distain that her looks were terribly bland. Most definitely not helped by Elizabeth’s outstanding virility and beauty, and the flare of Miss Farrow’s hips were remarked throughout Bachelor’s in London to make birds sing when she drew near. Whereas, Violet, herself, she often grumped morosely, would be lucky enough if a bird did it’s buisness on her bonnet when she drew close.

She was admired by no such gaggle of men throughout London. She, much like her friend, enjoyed her life as a maiden, she too read books with vigour, enjoyed taking tea with Elizabeth, and long walks through hyde park with her own dog, Brunel. Whom, it had to be said, was not a dignified canine. He was a wide lumbering Corgi, who waddled everywhere and had a spoilt diet of leftovers and too much love. Subsequently, Elizabeth could see the little toddling wobble of her friends, plump, dog strain on it’s lead to get to Aristotle. Whose own tail wagged furiously at seeing the butter coloured wobbly mass of fur that made up Brunel. He was a sweet animal really, Elizabeth supposed, beady little brown eyes, wet soot black coloured nose, and a lollopy tongue that flapped about when he tried – hilariously – to run.

“Violet.” Elizabeth had greeted, beaming with delight on seeing her, crossing to place a kiss on her acquaintances cheek.

“Excellent timing, We were just off to the Milliner’s for Felicity, and were going to take Aristotle through Russell square, oh, won’t you join us?” Elizabeth asked.

“I’d adore it. And I pray, you simply, MUST tell me of this Duke, Sir Thomas… Lady Jane Prideblight’s gossip column speaks of little else….”

Violet smiled, linking her arm through Elizabeth’s as they started off out the house down the steps. Aristotle straining on the lead Felicity held in her hands.

Aristotle, was, perhaps a polar opposite of Brunel. He was a terrior – a terror more like – whose legs were long and gangly, and his body small, covered in wiry bristled fur. His snout was long, as was his beard and eyebrows. He too had a coal black nose and beady mischevous little eyes, his fur was a silvery white, dotted with streaks of beige and grey spots on his saddle and legs. His ears too of a musky sienna colour. And often the dog would cause such mischief about the house, Elizabeth didn’t half wonder if he had the spirit of the devil in him. He buried twigs behind the sofa cushions, tried to steal scraps from cooks bins, and just generally grated so upon Mrs Sharpes nerves most greatly…

Elizabeth adored the cheeky mongrel down to the last wisp of fur on his head.

As Elizabeth and Violet got down to the street, with Araminta and Felicity following them, they all three, apart from Elizabeth, were gabbling eagerly over the Duke. Elizabeth held back, smiling, as her three accomplices gaggled about her.

“Did you know, he is most enamoured with her? and he brought gifts enough for all of us…” Mrs Sharpe smiled.

“Not to mention he kissed her most madly when Mrs Sharpe and I left the room..” Felicity grinned, eyes malicious and cheeky.

“Felicity!”

Elizabeth chided, her cheeks growing quite hot.

Violet’s mouth hung open in a smile.

“What?” The youngest Farrow gaped.

“He Did! And you can’t deny. Because when we came back with the tea his lips were much redder before, as were yours. And your hair had been mussed at the back…” Felicity cooed. Seeing her sister redden.

“Well. Miss Farrow, it seems he is most taken with you.” Violet grinned, waggling her brown brows at her friend, who patted her softly with her hand. Trust Elizabeth, she could never harm a flea.

“Brunel. Leave!” Violet barked out as the dog dived for a steaming lump of horse droppings on the road.

Elizabeth smiled.

“So, do you think Marcus Burke will receive you again after his rude refusal of you?” Violet asked. Her eyes looking over to her friend, who looked back, and had quite the widest grin on her lips she had ever seen.

“I am in no hurry to wish him back again. As far as I am concerned, the drunken lout can go away, and stay away..” She beamed.

“Such words..” Violet gasped.

“How so?” Elizabeth asked, tone searching.

Violet stuttered and tried to gather her words in her head for a moment.

“I’ve, I don’t, come to think of it I do not think I have ever heard you talk down to someone, not in al the one and twenty years I have known you…” She described.

“Well..” Elizabeth held out.

“Mr Burke is, I grant the man, a handsome fellow. But, his manners and words are about as friendly and polite as they are obliging.” Elizabeth explained, as the two ladies waited a moment to cross the street.

“Which is?” Violet asked.

“Not the least bit so. Not one jot.” She cut off.

“I think you love the Duke a great deal, Elizabeth, especially if you allow him to kiss you, on the mouth, in broad daylight in the front parlour…” Violet hushed softly. Watching her friend blush again, she was doing that a lot this morning…

“He is so very amiable…” Elizabeth sighed with a smile, looking down at her skirts with a dreamy not-quite-here look on her face.

“And rich…”

Felicity added with cheek as they got to the park, and she steamed ahead of them, running as she held up her skirts, aristotles lead in the other hand as she found a stick and threw it for the canine.

“And hugely generous…” Mrs Sharpe grinned. Before she chided Felicity that it was not becoming for young ladies to run, as such. And she ought be careful how high one hitches ones skirt, in public, no less…

“Did you know he brought me this very fine brooch…” Mrs Sharpe supplemented. Making her chest prominent so Violet could see the dark black jewel on a silver oval that glinted in the sunlight, winking at her.

“He gave Felicity some sweets, and to Elizabeth, a book of poetry no less..” Mrs Sharpe beamed, back was the –I’ve-got-the-world-on-a-platter hint of pride in her eyes.

“I fear, Elizabeth, that I may need find some new female acquaintance very shortly, less you make my life look evermore deploably boring.” Violet grinned, watching as Elizabeth rubbed her friends hand soothingly.

“Violet. You will fall head over heels for a man one day soon, and when you do, I pray you will have kept me as a friend to tell me every last sordid detail..” Libby smiled.

Violet looked her friend in the eyes and gave her a wry smile and a look of disbelief crossed her deep brown eyes.

“Maybe your Duke has a rich handsome cousin?” Violet asked. This caused Elizabeth to throw her head back and laugh.

“Oh Violet..” She spoke through a half laugh. “I am quite confident you’ll not need any help from me. You have the most stubborn manner and a beautiful disposition. I wouldn’t be surprised if a secretive shy man somewhere, isn’t half in love with you already…” Elizabeth smiled and winked.

“You’re a very kind Liar, Elizabeth. Always have been.” Violet smiled out.

“There goes that stubborn flare..” Elizabeth counteracted.

They all walked in silence for a moment, watching as Brunel huffed and puffed, belly dragging on the dewy grass below as he wobbled to keep up. Sniffing idly at this and that. In the meantime, she had quite lost sight of Felicity and Aristotle. She suspected Felicity was most probably flirting with the nearest ten and six old boy, not paying her dog any heed. The damn dog was probably off his lead and terrorizing squirells somewhere…

“Oh, I read the most disgraceful shred of gossip in Lady Jane’s column today, I forgot to tell you. You were in it…” Violet spoke up after a minute or two. Grinning inanely.

If there was one thing about Violet that vexed Elizabeth greatly, it was that she adored reading gossip columns. Lined with every nitty gritty detail of what people of London society got up to that would incite scandal. This caused Libby to roll her eyes and rather lean towards the notion that the bin, would be a better place for gossip cloumns to line.

The two girls were walking quite briskly now, ahead of Mrs Sharpe who had stopped to speak to Lady Mottram. Elizabeth and Violet gained speed ahead, but gave the elder women a graceful curtsey as they walked on. Felicity also caught up with them, going to Mrs Sharpes side with Aristotle straining on his lead. Her sister’s cheeks were quite red, her hat sat askew on her head, as if it had come off when she ran. Probably after Aristotle in attempts to rescue some poor animal from the beastly canine, Libby thought.

“You know I care not one spec for society gossip authors..” Elizabeth bristled.

“Well, actually…” Violet hushed, looking over her shoulder to make sure that Mrs Sharpe was definitely occupied.

“…It reported that at noon, yesterday, Mr Burke was seen, drunk, stumbling into the Gaiety with some friends, all of whom bachelors, and then he was seen leaving to return to his house with none other than Mabel Loxley, the infamous chorus and stage girl!” Violet shushed to her friend, leaning close to her ear.

Elizabeth felt sullied. That she had let such a man as that into her home, listened to his tales. Served him tea. Possibly even had inclinations – before the Duke came along – to marrying him. What kind of sordid affair would that be? That she would be married off to someone who would most probably find comfort outside her house, as her husband. She swallowed, she felt sick to her stomach. Her blue gloved hand going to press there as if to quell it. Violet noticed her friend had gone a little green looking..

Violet’s face dropped.

“Oh, my Libby! I‘m so sorry, I didn’t think..” She admonished herself.

“No, heaven’s, Violet, I’m fine.” She rasped. “I just, It’s a shocking thing to admit that piece of information is of little next to atonishment to me, Marcus Burke is, he’s. He’s not kind.” She added.

Violets perfectly lovely face creased down, brows pulled too as she listened.

“He warned me, horrible things, awful words, I shan’t repeat them. But, he told me he would not take kindly to me if I took the Duke for a husband.” Libby admitted, getting the secret off her chest.

Violet didn’t like one bit, the hint of worry she saw in her kind friends eyes.

“Well. He better watch his back, saying such things, now you have a titled gentleman to protect your interests.” Violet spoke forcefully.

“He’s not my titled gentleman.” Libby insisted, fiddling nervously with her glove in a way that made Violet know she wished he was. That flush decorating her cheeks. He eyes on the floor again.

“You’ve kissed the man, Elizabeth Farrow. He’s as good as. And totally smitten with you, I’m sure of it.” Violet spoke gently with a wide smile.

“Maybe..” Libby smiled, still gazing down at her folded hands.

“I say, why is that gentleman pointing at you..” Violet asked.

“What gentleman?” Libby asked, throwing her head up and looking around, they were in the centre of the park. And many figures were taking strolls on the pleasant sunshine of the afternoon.

“Over there, look…” Violet encouraged, tilting her head over to the North east corer of the park, intersecting right their path. As they were coming from the southwest.

“Who is it?” Elizabeth asked, straining her eyes to try and see.

“I can’t tell myself.” Violet winced, also squinting to try and see.

“Well, we may want to stop examining him as if we are squinting old biddies..” Elizabeth added.

“Shush.” Violet added. “He’s moving closer now, and I think I can make out that another gentleman is with him…”

“Wake me when this get’s interesting…” Elizabeth added drily.

“Oh, OH. Oh, Elizabeth, It’s Benedict Carlton! And the gentleman beside him is, well, I’d say next to Mr Carlton he is quite the handsomest gentleman I’ve ever seen. That long hair looks divine, and those eyes, their like diamonds..” Violet dreamt aloud.

Elizabeth head whipped around faster than a heartbeat. Her eyes looking across to see a handsome, black haired gentleman, clad in dark colours, walking next to Mr Carlton, smiling like the devil.

“Elizabeth, do you know him?” Violet asked in a hot whisper,

“Could you introduce us?” She added as the two men drew closer.

Violet watched as her friend could not take her eyes off of the handsome black haired god of good looks.

Her smile grew, intensifying all the while.

“Violet Burchrowe, meet Sir Thomas Kenworthy, The Duke of Chatsworth.”

Elizabeth smiled, her eyes not having left the approaching man for a second…

The resulting look of horror on Violet’s face was priceless…

~

It was a pleasant day in London. And much to Sir Thomas’s surprise, Benedict had even been so good as to join his house guest for breakfast, at the shockingly early time of ten past eight. Benedict had damn near stuck his dinner knife into Sir Thomas’s thigh, as the gentleman’s first response at seeing the lethargic man – who oft it had to be said, laid abed til noon – stride downstairs to take breakfast, surfaced bathed, washed, shaven and dressed all before ten o’clock, Was to lean across and clap his palm to his friend’s forehead, asking him if he bore a fever.

Nonetheless, Thomas had smiled his wide charming smile, ignored Benedict’s scowl, and miraculously managed to survive breakfast with his friend without the hindrance of a knife being daggered into his leg. And, afterwards after Thomas wrote more of his correspondance, both to Iris, and to settle some tenant problems back in Derbyshire, Benedict had read idly, and swanned about being most irritating to his friend, insisting that he was quite, bored.

As Benedict looked out of doors and declared it to be a most pleasing day, He suggested they take a walk through Russell Square. Sir Thomas didn’t mind this at all, but that he had to answer some letters first if they were going to make it to Chatsworth by weeks end. But after half an hour of Benedict being the most annoying man in christendom, Sir Thomas then vowed he would do anything to get the damned man to stop annoying him most greatly.

He had been amusing himself for the past half hour by flicking little pieces of balled up paper at Tom’s back, seeing how fair his aim was. Sir Thomas, who had been sat facing away from the infantile chump at the small writing desk in the front room, had to put up with tiny globes of writing paper hitting his back in rapid sucession, circumvented across the room from the futon where his friend reclined, oft with a hissed curse following the assualt, curses such as;

‘damn!’ or ‘blast!’, or ‘botherations!.’

Or, if his aim was astonishingly respectable, and managed to hit the back of his head, or his upper ear, He would then hear a jovial celebratory whisper of ‘Bullseye’

Sir Thomas, as a consequence to his acquantainces newfound little game, had leapt from his chair like a shot after approximately what felt like the 10,000th ‘Bullseye’ and daggered a glare that could have intimatidated Napolean Bonaparte and all of his French Armed Forces. Looking back to see his nuisance of a companion giving him a ridiculously outlandish and annoying grin. Sat with his long legs folded over the arm of the sofa as he grinned like he had quite gone stupid.

Sir Thomas then remembered smiling wryly to himself and thinking… Gone Stupid? Why, Heavens no. That bothersome menace was already there… Reigning Title of Stupid.

Prince of all that is royally stupid

King and grand surveyor of all stupidity.

Emperor of stupidness.

His friend answered the glare with an infuriatingly cheeky grin, swinging his legs over the arm of the futon, and asking in akin to manner that made him seem like a despondent toddler;

“Can we go for a walk now? I’m jolly bored…” He bleated.

Thomas grit his jaw.

“Before I quite find a way to somehow kill you using only my ink pen, yes, I suggest walk for the sake of your impermanence.” He snarled in terse temper.

“You narking sod.” He had added under his breath.

Benedict grinned all the more. Throwing a ball of paper over his shoulder as he swaggered out of the room with cocky confidence. Seeing that his credulous and enraging actions had got the better of his friend.

So, Both gentleman pulled on their coats and hats, Benedict grabbed his cane, Wheras Thomas decided to leave this. The sun was shining merrily down upon London, so it would be of little use to him. And they had set off…

They talked idly about Politics until Benedict decided it too dull and mundane, In a way only Benedict could.

They instead moved onto discussing other, more personal matters, relating to Sir Thomas’s buisness about town, and about matters relating to one certain Miss Elizabeth Farrow.

“So, you quite like this woman then?”

Benedict asked as they came to the North East corner of Russell square. Seeing that many other titled ladies and gentleman had chosen to take a stroll about London aswell. Well, mostly Mama’s and their frilly silly girls, as Benedict likes to refer to them. Already they had passed three young Miss’s whom they had made the pleasure of meeting once before. And Benedict had given each of them that melting debonair smile of his until they went quite pink and damn near tripped over their own feet. Their Mama’s – who did obviously not approve of such attentions – dragged their daughters out of the path almost by thwir ears, out of the way of who was reputed to be the most dangerous Rake in all of London. The danger being, that Benedict knew he was the worst sort of Rake, he knew the true limits of his dangerous smile and his deadly charms, This – to society mama’s – meant that just being within walking distance of the man was throroughly ill-advised.

Especially with swayable young ladies present. They were a rakes veritable prey.

“I dare say so, yes.” Thomas smiled.

“I was afraid of that. You know she will not be easy to obtain…”

“Afraid of it?” Sir Thomas asked.

“You’ve fallen head over heels for one of the most desirable and well known women in London. It will not be a quiet, or bothersome free chase for her hand..” Benedict warned.

“Of all the things you warn me about, you chose this? You, the man who can go from none to three mistresses in one week…” Sir Thomas stated.

Benedict levelled his friend a shrewd look, that made him look like he knew what he was talking about.

“She must be mentioned in gossip columns every damn day. Which means when you begin to court her, so, by extension, shall you” Benedict added.

“Of this I am aware…” Sir Thomas pointed out.

“But I fear sir, that as you are a gently bred gentleman, It is my duty as an avid attendee of silly balls and social norm, that this fact shall mean you will not be easily led to her, nor she to you. The whole of London knows Marcus Burke is seeing her too, and they will go to great lengths to remind you of that. Furthermore, every Mama with a girl aged ten and six or over will want to steer you away if they find you are the least little bitty bit disinclined from her.” He notified

“What am I? A Galleon? No Mama nor her silly frilly girls, as you say, shall succed in steering me from Elizabeth. I am courting her. Aswell as, other, things..”

Sir Thomas grinned. It wasn’t often that the man let his charm seep into his handsome smile, but now was such an occasion, and Benedict noticed this with prying interest.

“Something you have not told me?” He asked.

“Yes.” Sir Thomas grinned.

Benedict raised a brow.

Sir Thomas stood firm.

“Well?” Benedict pushed.

“Well what?”

“Don’t be endearing. Tell me at once…”

“I may not want to tell the vexation who flicks paper at me what happened when I called upon her yesterday…” Thomas eluded.

Benedict wanted to hit him.

“For gods sake, man. Out with it!” He demanded

“You petty gossip mongerer..” Sir Thomas accused.

“… and yet I thought you so unflappable and distanced from shreds of paltry natterings.”

Benedict glared at his friend like he was imagining bringing down the tip of his cane sharply onto his foot.

“Before I appease the wishes in my head, and throw you under a carriage. Tell. Me.” He demanded through gritted teeth.

“She certainly returns my affections. I could tell that much from when I kissed her.”

Sir Thomas beamed. Remembering the sheer wonder of the embrace he shared with her. It had left him in the clouds all evening.

“You’ve kissed her?”

Benedict asked, surprisingly shocked for a man as acclimated to passion as he.

“Pray tell, how on earth did you manage that with Minty Sharpe hovering over you like a match making vulture?” He asked.

“She was out of the room at this point. I would never embrace a woman anywhere on her persons with her chaperone sitting two chairs away. You mistake me for a man of lesser respect and dignity.”

Benedict leered at him.

“So. Miss Farrow has succumbed to your lust, then, has she?”

He asked with a grin that was all fox, and no hint of the man behind it.

“She would make a very fine Duchess. I’d swap just one of her kisses for everything I own. Or hold most dear.”

Sir Thomas dreamed. Thinking of how soft her pink lips were, and how she had arched unto him.

“Well, that’s foolish. She’s only a woman. And an innocent to boot, her kisses can’t be that magnificent, she is not yet well trained” Benedict supposed.

“You make her sound alarmingly like a dog. And, You haven’t kissed her.” Sir Thomas beheld.

“Not yet I haven’t”

Benedict grinned. His blue eyes sparkling like two polished windows catching the sun on a bright summers afternoon.

The smile instantly faded from Sir Thomas’s face.

“I say, Is your sister still as handsome as ever?” Benedict asked suddenly. Inclining his favour to the lovely Iris Thatcher-Kenworthy

“Right. I’m going to hit you now. Once for that comment about Iris, and second for stating your wishes to kiss Elizabeth. Where would you like me to aim first?” Sir Thomas growled, flexing his hand.

Benedict’s eyes roved across to ahead of their path, before they went quite brilliantly charming in the way they lit up. And his smile increased ten fold.

Miss Elizabeth Farrow was gliding straight in their direction, followed by a gaggle of ladies. That Violet Burchrowe girl by her side, talking away to her friend.

“Pray. Sir Thomas, You wouldn’t wish violence upon me with such a gently bred lady making haste in our direction, would you? Because that to me, and indeed, to her, would manifest that you are of a vicious tempered man to your future Duchess…” Benedict grinned

Sir Thomas snapped into alertness like a dog who’d just spied a squirell running up a tree. His head whipped round so far Benedict feared he’d do himself an injury. And his icehip coloured eyes scanned across every figure he could happen across.

“Miss Elizabeth?” He asked, searching for her.

Benedict pointed.

And sure enough, there she was, walking along at a slow pace, with an unknown companion on her arm. Both ladies dressed fetchingly in striking hues of blue. Elizabeth wore a blue bowler hat covering her wild red hair, maybe that’s why Sir Thomas hadn’t spotted her straightaway, his eyes were trained to look for the beautiful red hues of her untameable tresses. The girl she was walking with, and talking too was also uncommonly pretty. He hadn’t met her before, long curly brown hair, and eyes the colour of melted choclate, and just as warm, he thought. She too, a most handsome girl. Eyes and fair skin brought out by the striking sapphire blue of her dress. Whereas Miss Elizabeth looked heavenly in her powder blue striped gown, adorned with orange shades of floral pattern that quite matched her hair.

They drew ever, closer, neither men nor women speaking to their friends. And Sir Thomas watched as Miss Elizabeth’s companion looked as if she’d just been told cheese was harvested from the moon, her cheeks tinted a pretty – embarassed – shade of pink. Elizabeth However, was smiling at him, for him, and her smile directed to him alone, as he approached her.

“Good Afternoon Miss Farrow.”

Sir Thomas smiled, looking at her face and knowing that her beautiful features were always fairer in person when compared to the jaded conjourings of his memory.

And then she smiled wider, her lips tipping up at the corners, making dimples crease in her cheeks. And Sir Thomas got so very lost as to where he was. His heart was beating like a caged animal and he wanted to kiss her again. Right there. On the very spot she stood. In public, and out of doors no less.

So lost was he, that it took a nudge from Benedict’s elbow into his back to tug him back down to reality.

It was damned inconvenient that. Nonetheless, he remembered where, and who he was.

Benedict watched as the reliable, and passive man who had once been his friend now turned into a stumbling, blubbering mush of a boy in the presence of Miss Farrow.

And he quite agreed what Sir Thomas had said earlier. She would make a fine Duchess…

But, Sir, Carlton thinks, if you should favour a most contented and blissful marriage. It would do you well to not have to pick your jaw up from the floor every time you, look, at your wife.

~

@wolfsmom1 @inkededucatednnerdy @damageditem @echantedbytwh

[lonita]

Rhythm

Finally, we've worked out what the problem with my chiburi was - and it's been an ongoing issue with me in one way or another - breaking the wrist. In chiburi I was doing it either during the downward swing, or right at the end of it. It was causing me to slap the blade down, and that's sure not what the samurai intended. 

I am coming up on my second Iaidoversary next month, and although I'm not always one to celebrate anniversaries, I do use them as a time of reflection. I think about who I was and what I was doing when I started, about how far I've come, about the people I know, the people I keep meeting, the sense of community that I've felt sometimes, the way in which this art has become so much a part of my life that I could not imagine it not being there. I remember saying that the first time I picked up an iaito, it was like picking up a paintbrush - I had this "why hasn't this been in my hand my entire life" feeling. It has long since ceased to be merely a thing at the end of my arm that I wave around separate from me. Am I good at it? Not really - not yet. Sure, I passed Ikkyu, but that's not hard - do the waza in order, don't drop your sword, don't make a face. I suspect that when I test for shodan at some point in the future, it'll be a whole different story. I'm hoping that I'll at least find the tape this time around; I lost it during Ikkyu testing. I was never good at nine ball either; but that never stopped me from playing. I'm better than I was. Things get a little better each week. Honestly, though, with some things I'm just not capable of assessing myself. I wouldn't know if I was good at it unless someone else told me. I have never really belonged to a "club" before. I was in Girl Guides, but I never truly felt at home there. Feeling like a stranger in my own house is not an uncommon thing for me though. But in the dojo, I forget what separates me from other people. I forget about separation entirely. Being there has given me this art, given me a concept of dedication that I'd never experienced before, given me friends, given me a thread that runs through my life - like my art does, given me something to be proud of and look forward to. I remember reading something somewhere - Aristotle or Socrates, I can't remember which - about lives that are too busy are barren. I think it's because you never truly stay in one place long enough to find what is truly important to you. I used to worry about that, about not being 'busy' enough. I thought that if I wasn't doing 'enough', or 'more', that meant I was wasting my life. I realised a long time ago that a quiet life was just as valid a thing as any other, and I recently realised - when I encountered the idea of the barren busy life - that picking a few things that complete or augment you, that you love, that bring you peace, joy, or contentment, was more important. Being too busy is just noise - you won't be able to hear the music. And speaking of music, my complete and utter lack of jo-ha-kyu is like a melody with no rhythm; or, rather, an unchanging one. (Rather than moving in 4:4 time, move in 3:4 time; like a waltz, only with somewhat different emphasis - slow, quicker, quick-stop - slow, quicker, quick-stop - slow, quicker, quick-stop. All actions should begin slowly, speed up, then end swiftly.) I'd never thought about that until my sensei said something to me about my lack of rhythm in class today - he made that analogy, about a melody that doesn't move; and much like not breaking my wrist, jo-ha-kyu came together better than it normally does. One of the things that my sensei has us do, is demonstrate for the class whatever it is he's teaching us. We learn a waza, do it a few times together, then each of us in turn will demonstrate it for the rest. Most of the time we do this with the specific intent of having the rest of the class point out things that could be improved or things that were done particularly well. He's teaching us to evaluate. This is as important to your own work as it is to the person you are critiquing. Today, though, he switched that habit up a little. He'd give us each a koryu waza to do, and along with that, we had to give two main points - things that are different from seitei, things that are significant to the waza, things that would be important to know were you teaching or explaining the waza to someone else. I used to loathe this sort of thing with a firey hot passion. I hate being the centre of attention in that way; hate being under scrutiny by so many eyes at once. I hate being stared at. It's why I don't sing in public. Today he explained why he has us do this, has us explain points and try to teach - part of it is because at some point in our lives - either at work, or volunteering, or something - someone's going to need us to do something, ask us to do something, and we'll be able to just do it. It's to help strip away performance anxiety, to teach us to learn how to teach. Knowing something is one thing, but knowing how to explain it to someone else is a completely different matter. In the dojo, at least, I've long since lost my distaste for demonstration. Maybe one day it'll carry over into the rest of my life.

[jamesdazell]

A Brief History of the Life and Death of God

“Fear created the first gods in the world” said Statius a 1st Century AD Roman poet. "God is a superstition" from film There Will Be Blood. “God is dead” said Nietzsche “I count religion but a childish toy” wrote Christopher Marlowe We have all had that sensation of an overwhelming tremendous feeling that we quite know not want to do with. It feels like too much to handle, it feels to be so much more than what we are that we must be a recipient of it, not the author of it. There must be someone to credit for it. And so we psychologically project it outwards, we empty it into what seems like a vessel, something that can contain it, and we try to give it explanation in order to give it accountability. In so much as to ease the sensation, but also to manifest that sensation in to some kind of phenomenon. Seemingly at all costs not to attribute it to ourselves. But why should we not be the author of it? * We can often see bursts of projected overwhelming feelings whenever love is too much to bare. Whether the love for another person or love received by another. We are suspicious of a strong and powerful love. We want it subdued. Containable. Playful. Too much makes it heavy and serious, and only ends up giving us the blues. And yet we say “he/she loves me too much” as though it were a bad thing to love. And yet we cannot hate enough. People commonly cant deal with overwhelming feelings. Or say you’ve been hurt in a relationship and are distrusting of love. If you hated love, you'll never find it and you never enjoy it. If you said to yourself I'll never let myself get hurt again, you'd never fall in love again. Falling in love involves hurting. Bob Marley said everyone's gonna hurt you, you just gotta find the one's worth the pain. Similarly with life, if you tell yourself you're never gonna get hurt by life, then you're never gonna live. It's just part of it but how you deal with it is a whole other matter.  * Science likes to demean the past by suggesting that the ancient people were naive about the world that they live in, and that all the world was understood as magic and superstition. It wasn’t that ancient people thought floods, hurricanes, lightning storms, death of loved ones, insane victories in battle, were so inexplicable that they must be attributed to gods. It’s that the feelings they caused were so tremendous, whether fear, grief, or awe, that it was cast off and projected in to the attribution of something which could retain authorship. It was too much for them. Psychologically speaking, it is rational psychology. We still do this today. In the beginning of cognitive thought, what else would man do with his understanding of the sun that gives life to all things? Was he supposed to assume the systems of the cosmos, a helio-centric solar system, the universe? The very misunderstanding of it would cause enough awe to overwhelm him. Science is overtuning itself all the time. We are still to be seen as naive to some distant future. Even our smartest thoughts might to some future seem stupid. It may be that man’s stupidity, his non-intellectual primal characteristics, even his barbarism, might seem more interesting to a future that has forgotten them by its ever elevated esteem for intellectualism. That man’s irrationality might be also his primal nature. * God is not so much a matter of belief but of psychology. It’s the incapacity to retain authorship of those overwhelming feelings in the face of events that create gods. God is just a psychological discharge when experiencing powerful and overwhelming feelings that one feels incapable to absorb and attribute to oneself. The crudely term it “a mental ejaculation.” And it’s completely rational. Anyone is capable of doing this. This is done in the same sense with miracles, ghosts, and energy and other supernatural phenomena. When someone feels afraid and that fear becomes heightened, one can create all kinds of things, aliens at the window, bogeymen in the house, ghosts appearing, and all manner of creations that stem from the feeling that inspired them. Sensations which are projected, emptied, and attributed to ‘a cause.’  God is just the psychology of that psychological resignation, that self-denial, casting off the authorship of oneself to project on to something else, something larger, more inexplicable. Whatever was too great to comprehend and hold on to was thrown out in to whatever could hold on to it, as nevertheless the overwhelming feeling was present. One believes in God because one believes in the sensation. Because one is real, so he assumes is the other. * So baring in mind those two psychological traits: an incapacity to attribute overwhelming feelings to oneself, and a disposition towards life that one doesn't want to experience hurt. 

What is your psychological disposition towards life? That is the question. How much can you draw those sensations back in to yourself, and affirmatively attribute them to yourself? What does your character say about your relation to life and your value of the meaning of life. How affirmative are you with life? How much is life valued and venerated to you? How much capacity for life do you actually have? How in love with it, under all its terribleness, its profoundness, its awe, can you be? And how close to that scale can you measure yourself to be? In short, now that you are born and alive, how up to life are you? Truth, whatever it may be, denotes a character. Truth is relative to the character that would possess the appropriate motive for the truth to be discovered and valued in the first place. Nothing is absolutely true, everything true is makeup for a variety of psychological archetypes. Because behind any truth there is always motive. Not so much our relationship to truth, but a relationship with a goal that needs a whole string of truths, because they are the as the atoms that make up its ideal. There are some people, we have all met them, when you remove a truth they held so dear, it’s as if you’ve removed a piece of the Jenga block from the tower and its all about to fall down. They refute you because the system of truths would be otherwise broken down. That thing has to remain true for them. That is conviction. That is faith. - Always allow the freedom for truths to be overturns, never nail a truth down. Aristotle said that if two people value wholly different things they would never be friends because they would be the sum of wholly different values. Variety is more important than perfection. Everyone has their place. * This isn’t an actual history, but a swift overview of how things come to be. I’ll begin where what matters to us most: the God we’re most familiar with. In the ancient world gods were generally exchanged between cultures the more they interacted with each other. There are parallels from Europe to India and even to China in some respects regarding parallel gods. Certain gods were more popular than others. Usually some rites associated with the gods were more favourable than other gods because they represented some vitality in the culture. And by way of myth, word of mouth, ritual, and conquering other regions of the world, gods kind of of frequently got chewed up and exchanged, metamorphosing from one place to another under different names, epithets and symbols. One such parallel being the Egyptian god Osiris, the Greek Dionysus, the Indian Shiva, and to some degree certain devas in Buddhism because of its Hindu influence. (I mention Dionysos because it’s related to Christianity later on.) These secret Dionysian cult rituals (called Dionysus Mysteries) are traced back long before Archiac Greece and the name Dionysus has been found on tablets from regions outside of Greece at earlier periods. But in archiac times (10th-6th Century BCE) these rituals were only participated in by invitation and then initiation ceremonies (think somewhere between an illegal word of mouth rave party and the infamous scenes in the film Eyes Wide Shut) consisting of wine drinking, psychedelic drugs, sexual orgies, dancing, as well as eating meal from sacrificed animals such as rams as well as flagellation. The purpose of it being to return back to the primal version of ourselves, outside/beyond the contrained systematic formalities of civilized culture and society. In a sense to lose formal character by civilization and return to a kind of primal vitality, free of civlized code and rationality, and affirmative an animalistic nature that was deeply instinctive and the basis of vitality. Yet despite all this seemingly barbaric primitivism, if you tennis ball that back and forth between civilized society, it only ends up revitalising your intellectual formal character too. We have a smaller version of this when we break up the working work with the weekend fun. The pinnacle of this found its place in the invention of formal Western theatre by the Archaic Greeks in honour of Dionysus born out of ecstasy of the rituals. Greek Theatre, it doesn’t feel right to call these plays, were essentially equally music-poetry-spectacle performances where poetry, music, spectacle came together. It was affirming both the wild ecstatic state in its musical singing dancing choruses and its formalised character in its speaking characters. But more than that it was simultaneously showing the truth behind life that is hard to bare, masked and beautified by art of beautiful poetic speech, costume, theatre in order to handle experiencing it. I don’t think theatre is art, but a communicating medium for pure art: poetry, music, dance. The elements of theatre are technical crafts (acting, set design, costume, lighting, camera etc). Dionysus was the patron god of theatre because he was a transformative god, he would appear as different creatures, which paralleled the idea of becoming actors, and the ecstasy of dance and music. The creative spirit of art paralleled with the wild ecstatic state of the rituals. Dionysus essentially was a god of the intoxicated creative spirit. The audience would be given cups of wine and ivy leaves. The event would be more like a pop concert than the opera. * It’s that same creative spirit that created the entire pantheon of Greek gods.  God is not so much a matter of belief but psychology. Polytheistic religions should be understood differently than monotheistic religions. The pluralism of polytheism does not censor new gods, in fact it adopts them if it can enjoy them. Polytheism is self-affirmative, throwing created projections out on to the world again and again. It’s psychologically a more artistic spirit. And adversely to a monotheistic God, driven by fear. Polytheism is driven by gratitude. The Greek gods were created out of veneration of life. They had a god for every aspect of life. They venerated life so much they deified every aspect of it. * Running underneath these religions (perpetuated by nobility) there was a subterranean religion known as Judaism, this was a religion of the people, conversely to the religion of the nobles. Unlike the other mentioned religions, it was monotheistic - one God. Nevertheless, the artistic spirit is still there. The mythology of the Old Testament is full of so much grandeur that it rivals are the literary epics of the same era. Its full of profoundness. Not so much in its teaching but in its imagery. The imagery of the Genesis, Great Floods, Goliath, these stories only have the great ancient literary epics to compare with. Yet they were completely in the same literary fashion as the time. It’s not so much a distinction of religion but of the times. And if anyone has heard a Jewish shofar before, it’s one of the most beautiful sounds there is. * Towards the period of the Roman Republic (1BC) Rome was becoming unstable and and from the assassination of Julius Caesar fell in to civil wars. This ended with Rome’s first emperor Augustus. In this period there was a Jewish man named Jesus. Jesus lived his entire life in the Roman Empire under the reign of Augustus and later under Tiberius, between Galilee and Caparnaum until he was crucified in Jerusalem. Jesus’ ethical teaching was a continuation of the people’s religion values, basically both a more honest form of Judaism and criticism of the Roman values, which were his greatest oppression, and created an ethical teaching which subverted its values. Naturally he was crucified by Romans which was a typical form of punishment and wouldn’t have been done so in a manner which was particularly ceremonious. The myth of Jesus Christ is interesting though. Alhough I believe Jesus was a real person, the myth surrounding him is very similar to Dionysus of Greek myth. Note that depictions of the Devil are somewhat similar to the goat-hoofed tailed horn-head faun, satyr, followers of Dionysus. This probably came by way of two things. The cult of Dionysus developed and separated off in to the cult of Orpheus which was influences Pythagorism, which in turn influenced Plato, which in turn influenced Christianity. And Dionysus’ cults have flourished on and off in Roman culture under their equivalent god Bacchus. And with Dionysos being an antithesis of Christian values bodily acestism could ward off preference by the pagan Dionysus by having his image like the Devil and his myth narrative like Jesus Christ. So if anyone gravitated toward him they would be swerved to Christianity. But it also shows how powerfully significant Dionysus had been throughout archiac greek, roman, and christian society. The Romans borrowed their religion from the The Greeks and the Etruscans. The Greeks were much more positivistic, affirmative, celebratory, happier, gratuitous, and pluralistic in their religion. They were, simply in themselves, a description of a pleasure of life and a strong disposition towards it.  When we come to Christianity, this turns around into the subduing of all powerful feelings, whether sexual, egotistical, power, etc. Things which belonged quite naturally to an archaic Greek in general or Roman of nobility. The best of the Greeks and Romans were far too free in how they handled their gods to legitimately believe in them, but they clearly saw a useful for them, both personal and political, and they loved making new ones - as did the Egyptians. Not fear, but the use of festivities, that would unite the people and momentarily make their social place ambiguous. The Roman equivalent of Dionysos was Bacchus. The festivals to him were outlawed and reinstated on and off. Julius Caesar has reinstated them with support of Marc Anthony. The world had two people of a J.C. initials that would make or break history: Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar. Everything that Julius Caesar represents is sinful in Christianity. Everything Christianity represents is symbolises by the dead man on the cross. As people they are antithesis of each other. The very Roman spirit was antagonistic to it. And yet it was Rome that gave us Christianity. During the 1st Century BC Rome had several philosophical schools that would make it ripe for Christian seduction: Epicurianism, Neo-Platonism, and Stoicism. As the Roman Empire spread far and wide it was under rule of a triumvirate, (three rulers, divided up regionally) each wanted total control. Due to this amongst other instabilities the Roman Empire was falling apart. Emperor Constantine (3rd Century AD) was the one to discover a means. He was ruling over Britannica (now Britain) which although the Romans somewhat admired its former Druids (as the notebooks of Julius Caesar show), they considered Britannica a land of masses by comparison to Rome. And therefore more given to the people’s religion of Christianity. Constantine therefore knew that if he had the people he had the empire. He declared that he would unite the Roman Empire under Christianity and make it the official religion. He thereby managed to sway all the people under the Roman Empire on his side, taking control of the empire in all regions. Now Christianity was the religion of the Roman Empire and thereby the religion of Europe - because it was a means for imperial power. The Roman Empire had collapsed by the 6th Century AD. And the majority of Europe consisted of bloody wars, mostly in the name of Christianity supremacy and executing paganism. Although Europe had collected many Greek and Roman books ordered by such rulers like French ruler Charlamagne, King of the Franks (8th Century AD) as a desire to preserve educated society. In the 8th Century when Mohammed had founded Islam, Arabia had several religions such as Roman, Christianity, Judaism, and smaller tribal communities. It’s likely that Mohammed was a scholar and reformer of the Judeo-Christian teachings. The Qu'ran is certainly the best writing of the three Abrahamic Holy Books, and unless God was taking serious writing classes between his serial publications, then it’s the penmanship of a well read scholar/s. It was the Muslim scholars who still had most important ancient books - the philosophers, mathematicians, grammarians, histories, etc. In the 9th century the Arab empire expanded and came to North Africa and Southern Europe. They arrived to dried desert like southern Spain, and since their scientific achievements had flourished beyond Christian Europe, and they were familiar with that terrain they used irrigation to extract water from deep beneath the dried surface make it useful to build settlements. There were Jews and Christians there and they formed a kind of religious hierarchy where Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together. But it was their Persian culture, still Indian influenced and retaining some of its Roman culture to Europe in the form of energetic music, erotic poetry, and glorious architecture, that injected a revived European spirit. Even Italian Christian clergy commissioned Muslim architects to design Christian Churches. It was this technological interest that revived their interest in their own classical Roman architecture. It was he erotic poetry that gave Europe its love sonnets. And its music that gave Europe the Goliards, Troubadours, Trovere, and Trecento - possibly the greatest period of music Europe has ever had still to this date. The European Renaissance (French for rebirth) 12th Century to 16th Century AD was a re-discovered enthusiasm for not only the literature of the ancient world which in truth had never so much fallen out of fashion during the medieval dark ages, but the resurgance for its ancient values and spirit. The medieval period had to deal with constant brutal wars and the black death which swept Europe. Christianity was inevitably not sufficient enough a disposition towards life for these people. They needed more strength towards life as individuals. Something more resilient and less resigned, something more empowering of the self, which felt isolated and vulnerable against the calamities it faced. This would make the values re-discovered in ancient literature mean more than just the enjoyment of stories. But an affinity with its spirit and attitudes. But the Renaissance was not to be a long rebirth of ancient values. This was undone by firstly the Protestant Reformation that felt the Catholic Church had become corrupt by this new “paganism.” And the final nail in the coffin by Calvinism in the 17th Century AD - which essentially is the basis of the world we live in today. Our law, politics, economy, social morals, culture, etc The ancient people’s values versus ancient royal values. And that no matter what you want to believe about God does not change that we still live in God's world. 

Atheism has none of this creative energy. It doesn’t tackle the matter at all. Atheism isn’t affirmative, its negative.  Atheism is neither positivistic nor affirmative. Formal atheism is more denying than Christianity. Atheism is just Christianity without God. It’s the same subduing and reductive mode of thought but turned in on itself. Catholicism, to Protestantism, to Calvinism, to Atheism. If you’re going to be Atheistic you may as well be a Buddhist; it has no god but at least it’s positivistic. Buddhism aims to ward off suffering, doesn't account it as sin, but seeks to purge it as a kind of hygiene of life. As a cleanliness and contentedness. Nevertheless, its disposition towards life is positive, unlike the Abrahamic which put under the microscope is negativistic towards life. With Atheism it’s that same negation that Protestants removed the Pope that takes out God as mere denial of belief - the construct of what is Christianity in its spiritual and moral sense still remains. Christians believe in the same God as Jews and Muslims - and this framework that Atheists deny. It’s morality that belongs to Christians, and I don’t see Atheists having done much to overcome that. Athetism to me is only a new version of Christianity.  Catholicism, to Protestantism, to Calvinism, to Atheism.

Consequently Christianity has attempted on multiple occasions throughout history at pivotal moments to collapse the positive artistic spirit - as secular Christianity in the form of Romanticism, Decadent Art, Nihilistic Art - a creative spirit that is wholly unartistic, who only attempts to dramatise and express the suffering they experience but is wholly incapable of overcoming it and mastering or venerating it as real artists do, and thereby glorifying life - instead they use their suffering to create an art which throws disgust at life and praises weakness, dysfunction, and exhaustion. Jesus was never a Christian; only those who followed him. Or if he was then he was the only Christian. Christ is a man superior to Christianity and cannot belong to it. Out of his artistic-creative spirit he overturned every positive element of man and turned it in to a sin, and toppled every good and great statement of life ever spoken, thought or felt, to the degree that we don’t even associate ourselves with Greeks, Romans or Renaissance men.  I.e, a people who would be brave and confident in the face of life for its terrors and love life for its pleasures. As opposed to the lower class who would fear and despise its oppressive rulers for their lot in life (both noble and life would also mean bad) and find themselves no equivalent pleasures which the nobles enjoyed, thereby despising pleasures which were exclusive to nobles. Life would be weighed and valued with veneration by the ancient upper class whilst being weighed and valued with resentment by the ancient lower class. Why then didn’t the nobles later overthrow it is because, ancient noble literature and religion, as full of wisdom about the nature of life and values of action, prudence, heroic codes and all that that it was, it didn’t have the psychological internalisation of a human being that Christianity had, profoundly deep speculations of conscience and how they think and feel. The noble religions consisted of more action than thought, they just got on and did things; it was more codes of conduct, more outwardly looking at life. And they didn't have a noble internalisation until perhaps Renaissance Humanism. Principally in Machiavelli, Montaigne, and Shakespeare. And nowhere more so than France. The whole modern period in French philosophy (and theatre too) has been both a scepticism of Christianity and a kind of noble internalisation that the both Europe of their day and the ancient world lacked. Until then the western world lacked equivalent books of Royal perspective, world interpretation, heart and conscience. Why it's important was because it detailed all the affirmative qualities within us all. Things which are natural to life. It existed in nobles because they had to both fight and lead men in war, lead nations, and had the luxury and pleasures in life. In a sense they had the worst and the best of it. If it took a person of noble class to make it so be it. It's the mentality and disposition towards life that matters. That it was achieved at all is what matters. Religion denotes a psychological construct of character. * The Egyptians, Greeks, Etruscans, Hindus, Shinto, ans Romans were hugely artistic in creating gods and by their pluralistic religions everyone was given the door to be able to have an artistic spirit. Monotheism is censorship like a locked door. There is no room for self-assertion, it is in itself denying a self-assertiveness before God. The polytheistic door was always open to new gods. Theirs was a positivistic affirming self-assertive culture. And so gave everyone the self-assertive right over his own world to contribute to it. In fact it was this very liberty that brought the end to them: it was liberal enough to let Christianity in. How dull we are in comparison. Two thousand years and no new gods. How unartistic of us! What is higher than any religion we have ever had is simply that positivitic affirmative artistic spirit that went in to creating them in the first place.   In both the mythology of religion and the values of its morality, that artistic act of creativity of religions is superior to the religion itself. To create a religion requires huge creativity of creating values, perspectives on life, stories which hold them. All religions have built on the creative spirit, whether positive or negative, whether affirmative or nihilistic, and all have principally been born from a relationship towards pain, suffering, and death. Pain and suffering are intrinsic aspects of life. They are inevitable aspects of life. They are causes of overcoming, they are signs of it too, they are the very seeds of the future. Pain and suffering is the creative aspect of life. A sign of our growth. The it the artist overcomes it and creates the beautiful music, image, words, or dance. The artistic spirit venerates pain and suffering therefore they venerate life. The artistic spirit requires it. It’s these antagonisms which make it. Every Holy book on Earth has misunderstood this. Whoever worries and complains focuses on what is wrong, but a person who believes everything is right does neither and is content. Any future good owes itself to the day we meet bad things head on, therefore there is necessity in bad things that they justified the moment we strive to overcome them and make things better. It is antagonisms that make us. Bad things are justified by that it makes stronger and that we have cause to correct them. Everything bad is necessary. Everything that succeeds does so because it excels in some good in some way. *

Fear creates gods said Statius - fear created many things it seems. Fear of life, fear of pain, fear of suffering, fear of death - Fear is the very foundation of our religions. Fear in the face of life. In contrast, the artistic creative spirit of those antique artists (Greeks, Romans) more artists than religion was the cornerstone for a quintessential mentality of confidence in the face of all things and veneration of life as it is. The artistic psychology is superior to every religion ever conceived. Culture, if its artistic, is higher than religion and a better answer to the same problem. If i were to rank religions and culture i would like this: 2. Archaic Greek and Late Republican Roman culture 3. The culture of France and Japan 4. Venetian Italian in the time of Renaissance Humanism 5. Buddhism and Hinduism 6. Judaism (i put it higher cos it existed alongside the above religions and cultures without ever destroying them whereas the below didnt. And Jewish people always have a self-assertive ballsy audacious out-spoken temperament which Ive always liked) 7. Islam and Christianity 1 being some future leader culture that would show tolerance for them all and allow them a proper place without persecution within one society but according to its psychological rank. Believing that variety is more important than perfection. You may somehow get rid of religion but you can never get rid of the person it constitutes; they will always exist within society. Its more a matter of understanding it and finding its proper place. To take out that block from the Jenga tower. To remove God. What then? For the longest period of time people have pursued spiritual and moral goals, with religious founders as being their pinnacle of representation. If God is removed, then the whole spiritual and metaphysical mythology is removed? What then? If people have no need to purpose a moral ideal for the judgement of the next world? Genius is the only character throughout history that has every time being beneficial to themselves and everyone. They're not only fundamentally good, they are the best of men. I believe that genius, whether a Leonardo da Vinci, or an Albert Einstein whatever is the only example without exception of a person who is fundamentally beneficial for both themselves and for everybody. That looks to this life and this actual world for its goals and endeavours. And in its creation affirms its inner vitality. Taps in to some personal vitality peculiar to itself that it has developed as a resource from protracted struggle. A heightened faculty which it has nourished on in order to thrive. The deepest self-assertive affirmation. A true being what one is. And that perhaps genius is the only time when the human race is really on target to actual goals. They can seemingly create new order out of such a chaos. For them, the whole Jenga puzzle can fall down, because they’d just build something else. Like a kind of noble genius Dionysus.